Does 'the soul' exist?

Great Debates
41

I never said science was evil, merely that it’s fallible. It’s a human construct of understanding, constantly being revised. However faith in science is not an oxymoron - I can tell you that from my husband’s work. I mentioned he’s a real scientist, right? Ph.D. and all that, he’s published a couple dozen papers in peer-reviewed journals, whole shebang. I know that he has to trust himself, his intuition, his conclusions - those “experimental observations” don’t necessarily provide clear answers. And he has to have faith that the methods he’s using are taking him where he believes he’s going - doing real science means proving something that wasn’t already known, so how do you know you’re doing it right? Look at how often people turn out to be wrong.

And yeah, I’d rather use an empirical approach when engineering a pyramid - or crossing the street, for that matter. My point isn’t that science/knowledge, the empirical world, etc., isn’t bad; merely that it’s not all there is.

I find it interesting that you’re far more threatened by the soul than I am by science. Is that because it represents an element over which you might not have control? That there might be some mysteries in life? Is it really so much better to have faith in yourself vs. faith in a Higher Power (however you choose to conceive of it)?

As to faith never serving purposes beyond acts by a few saints, puhleeze - take an anthropology course, learn something about how other people are sustained by their faith. The information is out there.

Really it’s fine by me if you want to stay in the empirical room your whole life, I believe you that it works for you. I’m merely insisting that there are other rooms in the house.

I did consult with my favorite Chaplain, the M. Divinity graduate (not sure how that’s appropriately abbreviated) and she recommends “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” as an excellent resource for left-brainers who’d like to learn about spiritual issues in a scientific manner.

I also found this little nugget in The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People by David Niven, Ph.D. “Research on the effect of religion on life satisfaction found that regardless of what religion people affiliated themselves with, those who had strongly held spiritual beliefs were typically satisfied with life, while those who had no spiritual beliefs typically were unsatisfied.” cite: Gerwood, J., M. LeBlanc, and N. Piazza. 1988. “The Purpose in Life Test and Religious Denomination.” Journal of Clinical Psychology 54:49.

Einstein said, and I believe these are the exact words but could be wrong, I don’t have time right now to look this up, but I believe the quote is “Religion without science is lame; science without religion is blind.”

42

Oops, should have checked my typing, the year for that article was 1998, not 1988. mea culpa.

43

And it is that very revision that makes it such a great tool of understanding. That we realise the fallibility of it, and are prepared to update our theories based on the available evidence, are precisely the reaons itis so compelling.

That still is not faith in any way, shape or form. Faith, as has been pointed out previously, will not change regardless of evidence, or the lack thereof. That is fundamentally different to the approach of good science - proof and faith are very different animals. The scientist may trust his or her methodology, but that too is evidential, they do not (or ought not) accept it blindly.

If I may interject on behalf of blowero (who is no doubt capable of doing so without my help ;)) I do not think that feeling threatened by the positing of a soul was ever mentioned. Faith in oneself vs. faith in a higher power? Well, taking the broader defintiion of faith - I have good evidence that I actually exist, none whatsoever in a higher power.

Of course it may fulfil a psychological role in some persons in times of crisis. That is undeniable. But, I suspect you mean something broader than that. Which means…cite. how impeccable are the sources? How thorough was the methodology of the research? My experience with anthropology has left me in some doubt as to the efficacy of the methods used at times.

But you are yet to describe said rooms. The materialist can easily describe the physical universe. The dualist cannot do so in any meaningful sense. It always comes down to ‘you just have to believe’. That just does not cut it.

Yes he did say something along those lines. he also said that ‘god does not play dice with the universe’, because he could not swallow quantum mechanics. Guess even geniuses can be wrong.

44

No descriptions of the spiritual universe? Hello - isn’t that one of the things the Bible does? I thought I was being asked to bring it into the lab so that it could be viewed under the microscope. My argument is that the microscope isn’t the only meaningful tool out there.

If you don’t want to know anything else, fine.

45

Well of course humans are fallible. But how is that a justification for claiming faith and empricism to be on an equal level? Your reasoning seems to be that since mistakes are possible, we may just as well believe anything, regardless of the relative evidence behind it.

Surely your husband knows that experimental results must be proven. If an experiment yields unclear results, it means you haven’t proven your hypothesis - period. You don’t get to guess at it and use wishful thinking. That’s why there are strict procedures such as double-blind studies and careful documentation of observation required. The scientific community takes a dim view of people “fudging” results. It happens, but then the study will either get torn apart when it is published, or it will simply be impossible to duplicate the study. Peer-review and duplication are the tools scientists use to guard against “fuzzy” results. It’s not a perfect system by any means, but it is vastly superior to simply believing whatever strikes ones fancy. (To the extent that one is seeking objective knowledge, of course).

How do you know you’re doing it right? Through EXPERIMENTAL OBSERVATION. If you’re “doing it right”, your hypothesis will make a prediction that will be CONFIRMED by the data. If the data do not confirm the hypothesis, then you haven’t proven anything.

Again, how is that a reason to just throw in the towel and figure that we can’t know anything objectively? That kind of philosophy is fun for movies like The Matrix, but hardly how I would want to live my life.

And now we have the argument of last resort. If someone disagrees with you, you claim they are “threatened”. You are trying to discredit my views by claiming a false motivation for them. That’s poor debating form.

You forgot to ask me if I’ve stopped beating my wife yet.:wink:

It’s interesting that you almost seem to have contempt for non-religious people. You mentioned before that it “cracks you up” that someone could lack belief in a soul. And now you invent all sorts of alleged irrational motivations that would cause me not to believe in souls, when the real reason is that there is simply no evidence for them. I don’t believe I’ve said anything to denigrate religion; why do you feel it necessary to denigrate the non-religious?

Not that your appeal to authority should make any difference, but Einstein did not believe in a “supernatural” God:

http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~lesikar/einstein/

“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”

And from a letter written by Einstein:

[emphasis added]

You seem to feel that there is some sort of dichotomy where one MUST either have faith in religion OR have faith in science. But you are overlooking a third possibility, that of having faith in neither. In other words, only believing things for which there is evidence.

46

One more thing:

I wanted to point out that we are not discussing what’s “better”; rather we are discussing what is true. I might like it better if I could fly, but the truth is that I cannot.

47

Well, blowero, I think there’s a plethora of anecdotal evidence of the validity of faith, the existence souls, of the value of religion. The cites are so numerous as to be mind-boggling. You have apparently decided it’s not the kind of evidence that’s meaningful for you, and clearly that’s your choice. I personally would not want to live without faith, but I wouldn’t presume to choose for you or anyone else.

I don’t think I’ve said anything of a derogatory nature about being non-religious. And actually what I mean by that is non-spiritual, since I’m not particularly religious myself, I consider all of them to be tools and not an end - and I don’t think any of their descriptions are 100% correct, although I’ve found many of them helpful. Someone once said “A God defined is not God”. I merely dispute the assertion that there’s no such thing as a soul. I have one, it manifests itself in my choices, it connects me with the world. God/Infinite Is speaks to me. The arguments here, as I’ve understood them, boil down to “I can’t see it with my eyes, therefore it doesn’t exist”. My argument is that a single method of viewing life is not sufficient, that the empirical view alone is not enough.

You’re the one who interpreted my post as saying that science is evil. I never said that - merely that our recent technological discoveries have given us an increased ability to destroy ourselves. Which is factually true. Yes, we did have scientific methods prior to 500 years ago, but I don’t think anyone will dispute that religion played a larger role, proportionately, in society then while science does so now.

And I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be disrespectful but it is funny that you’re willing to spend time and energy arguing against the existence of something that’s been written about millions of times over thousands of years. You want to throw all that out the window because you believe in empiricism (which is also a construct based on our perceptions of reality - and therefore fallible)? Your choice. My irony meter’s buzzing. I’m not rejecting empiricism outright, merely stating that it’s not the whole enchilada.

If spiritual issues and the like are something that interest you, which they must or you wouldn’t be posting here, then I hope you have opportunities to learn more about them. Just because I don’t know anything about quantuum mechanics doesn’t give me the right to say it doesn’t exist.

Just for the record I don’t expect to change any of your minds, I just wanted to add to the discourse. I really don’t have time & energy to hunt up cites for everything stated here - it’s much easier for you people to trash what I’ve said than to construct something yourselves.
I’ve tried to be somewhat vague in my descriptions out of respect for the fact that other people’s spiritual lives are probably quite different from mine, I wouldn’t want to speak for them.

I may be getting testy at this point because I really don’t have time for this, I’m running late as it is. I respect the intellect of all the posters here, I just don’t understand you. And since spiritual matters, for me, largely exist outside the written word, arguing in this forum is spinning my wheels. I feel like I’d have to know you personally to get my point across, but if you don’t want it, that’s fine.

Time will tell which of our views is most useful, which of our lives are sustained by the stated beliefs.

48

The problem with this concept is: can you explain how the “soul” does this? If not, then of what use is the concept of “soul” other than an abdication of ones responsibility to explain anything?

Zeus has been written about millions of times over thousands of years. So have claims about dragons. So what?

Let me re-iterate. There is NOTHING wrong with this argument. Where you go wrong is going from the truth of this argument to hte assusmption that you can just start spitting out truths without having to justify them as being true by some method which you can explain the validity of. “Microscopes” are indeed only useful for limited tasks: but the important thing about them is that their operation can be explored and explained and defended at great length. If you want to defend some alternate way of showing the truth of some claim, then you need to actually do the same sort of work that can be done in the case of microscopes: you need to justify how your method of determining truth actually in some way relates to, and is intelligibly determined BY, the actual truth in some fashion. The assumptions of empiricism are presented openly, and you can reject or accept them as need be, but then they allow for an entire system of truth determination, all of it open and exposed for critique and understanding. But in the case of spiritual matters, the assumptions seem to be the entire process, from start to end. And, even then, it STILL manages to be generally unintelligible.

What does that have to do with anything? I have no doubt that if I believed that I ate sushi for dinner every night, I’d be a lot happier. But that doesn’t make it true. Ultimately, truth is the most useful, because you can DO things with it beyond just fantasize.

49

If you don’t understand the difference between anecdotal “evidence”, and objective evidence, perhaps your husband the scientist could explain it to you. Suffice it to say that anecdotal evidence is not scientifically valid. I could explain it in a lot of detail, but I don’t want to get too much on a tangent.

Let me remind you that I never said faith was not useful, or of value to people. (You may be conflating my opinion with someone else’s). Let me re-post what I wrote earlier:
“Faith is efficacious in the sense that it may elicit positive feelings in people, and to the extent that people may carry out actions based on these positive feelings.”
So please don’t attribute a position to me that I did not take.

Again, there is a difference between “helpful” emotionally, and “helpful” in objectively understanding the real universe. I’m not denegrating the former; I’m merely pointing out that they are not the same thing.

Now you’re just reversing the burden of proof. You are cleverly suggesting that I am asserting that “there’s no such thing as a soul”, and that I must prove a negative. To make matters worse, you haven’t even successfully defined what it is that I’m required to disprove! In fact, YOU are making the assertion that souls exist, and have no objective evidence to support that assertion. It isn’t logical to have a starting point that EVERY conceivable notion is true, and only be allowed to let go of those that can be disproven.

I’m not sure what your point is. On the one hand, you argue that science is flawed, and on the other, you cite the recent preponderance of technology. Is that not evidence that science works? I think the problem is that you think science ought to be a replacement for morality, but it is not. Science is morally neutral. I don’t have to have a magic, invisible “soul” inside my body to be a moral person. And just because I don’t believe in souls does not mean I “worship” science.

You are engaging in the fallacy of argumentum ad populum, which Apos already demonstrated very convincingly.

But fallible is not equivalent to useless. I keep saying that, but you keep using the same argument.

It’s not a “choice”. As I pointed out before, I don’t simply choose what’s true and what isn’t true, I try to make a determination based on the evidence. Sadly, the evidence shows that I can’t fly, so that’s what I believe. I have no idea why you think that’s ironic. It is not.

Why assume I don’t know anything about spiritual issues? I’ve heard a lot; but the more I hear, the less substance there seems to be. It always seems to boil down to “you have to have faith”. I don’t reject the issue out-of-hand; I simply have never heard any convincing evidence. You even admitted yourself that the evidence is only anecdotal. Imagine the following exchange:

“My friend told me about these things called atoms.”
“Is there any evidence for them?”
“Well, no - but he has faith that they exist, and that makes him feel good, and gives his life meaning.”

Were that the sum total of evidence for quantum mechanics, I would have some very serious doubts about its veracity.

Well you did promise some cites regarding mysticism in science, and I don’t think you’ve posted them yet. I certainly hope you’re not counting “I talked to my husband” as a valid cite.

Why the hostility? Do we not have the right to disagree with you? I don’t think I’ve “trashed” anything you said. YOU are the one who is trying to invalide my arguments simply by intimating that I feel “threatened”. I’m trying to resist the temptation to respond in kind, but you aren’t making it easy. Let’s stick to the topic and try not to get upset, o.k.?

I think the difference here is that I’m not trying to tell you my life is better than yours; I’m just telling you what I believe regarding souls. You, on the other hand, seem to want to make a comparison as to whose life is “better”.

50

[sigh]And here we go again…[/sigh]

Would it ever be possible to hold a spiritual discussion without **blowero, Apos, etc., ** (others of nonspiritual minds) totally changing the flow of discussion, then piling on someone whom is truly interested in the discussion?

Will this behaviour never end?

fessie

I’ve enjoyed your posts very much and consider you a delightful addition to the boards. I look forward to hearing more from you. Oh, and contrary to their protests, you’re dead on. :slight_smile:

51

Hrmm. I must admit I agree with Edlyn in that I do think there is a bit of a pile-on going on here… and thus I apologize if it is me who triggered it.

Nevertheless, this is GD and the goal here is to express opposing points of view, defending one’s ideas where appropriate. And of course, it is difficult (indeed, perhaps a mistake) to try to defend belief not based on logic via logical means. I might personally doubt the validity of such beliefs, but certainly lack of evidence does not directly disprove a particular idea, and I think most of us will agree on that. Or at least we should.

So yea, fessie, don’t let this discourage you from posting.

52

Wshew, thanks Edlyn, I was beginning to feel abused.

Guys, I do get your posts/personalities somewhat confused (there’s been an awful lot of text here), and I don’t mean to be insulting or personal, or derogatory, or anything along those lines.

“Anecdotal evidence is not scientifically valid” - agreed. Scientific validity is not the only kind. If you’ve ever been in love you have to know that.

“Assusmption that you can just start spitting out truths without having to justify them as being true by some method which you can explain the validity of.” Well, how about personal anecdotes? How about personal truths, examples where people used a piece of faith knowledge to achieve their goals?

Since when are anecdotes meaningless? Have you never followed your mother’s advice?

You are right that I promised info on mysticism in science - well, I’ve got to go gather it. I’ve noticed these things over the years, but no, I don’t have a file handy. I will provide it when I’m able; I may have spoken hastily on that tangent.

As for you guys knowing the truth - oh please. Nobody’s got a handle on that.

I’m curious about one thing - I’m sure you’ll acknowledge that it took many years of education to come to your current level of knowledge re: things empirical (scientific/mathematical, whatever). Have you devoted that same time and attention to knowledge of things spiritual? If you want to experience the ride, you’ve got to get on the roller coaster.

53

But this is the problem I have with your use of language. Yes, love is “valid” in a way. But it’s not valid in the way that’s relevant to the discussion of the discovery of objective truth. It’s relevant to the discovery of subjective truth: that is, of understanding our own emotions and passions for and about each other.

The worst of this confused usage is that it leads you to subtly (or perhaps unintentionally) imply that we’ve never been in love or are somehow missing something in it. In fact, this is a depressing and common refrain from people who think they are defending a concept called “spiritual” (a concept rarely ever clearly defined): they assume that those who don’t jump up and agree with their factual claims are somehow deficient in some emotional sense, when that has nothing to do with what we’re talking about.

That’s not the same sort of truth that relevant to the existence or non-existence of an entity. I have plenty of personal truths that have no relation to any objective reality. I don’t try to claim that the fancies of my dream EXIST. What exists are the dreams, and they are themselves extremely important to me. But it’s also extremely important that I not confuse the existence of my dreams with the existence of the things in those dreams. Especially because then I’d never have cause to strive to acheive them.

I didn’t claim to know “the truth.” I said that to assert something AS a truth, you have to put some sort of effort into justifying the validity of the method you used to arrive at and prove it. There’s nothing wrong with mother’s advice. Indeed, it almost certainly contains well-established epistemological justifications, in that mothers have lots of experience in various things.

You’ll ahve to explain what you mean by spiritual. Again, if you are trying to backhandedly imply that I have never written music, mourned deeply over the deaths of true friends, stared out into the sky, deeply humbled by the mystery of everything around me, or am a deeply emotional person who loves to experience life to the fullest… well then I have to say that I find the insinuation deeply offensive and downright nasty.

But… maybe you mean something other than that meaning of “spiritual.” If so, you should explain what you mean by the “spiritual side of life” that you think I am, for some reason or another, missing out on.

54

Ya know, Edlyn - I’ve noticed that some people are all gung-ho to discuss religion, UNTIL anyone disagrees with them, at which point they become aggravated and feign persecution. How is it that religious people are allowed to spout their beliefs and opinions all day, but as soon as a non-religious person says anything, you all of a sudden think a foul has occured? If you just want to read glurge, there is site after site of that all over the internet. It very clearly says “Great Debates”, and the thread title says “Does the soul exist?”. It does not say “Great Glurge”, and the thread title does not say “Let’s all share our personal stories of faith and none shall disagree”. I would suggest to anyone who isn’t interested in hearing any opposing viewpoints that they not open threads such as this.

To be completely honest, I sometimes get annoyed at all the theists “piling-on” about how great their religion is, how warm and fuzzy it makes them feel, how they wish everyone could share the warm fuzziness with them, and how I’m apparently such a bitter, cold, unloving person just because I don’t share their particular belief; JUST LIKE you seem to be annoyed by hearing from non-religious people. But you know what? I try not to get all pissy about it, because we are here to share opposing viewpoints. I realize that there are 2 sides to every coin, and not everyone is going to agree with me on every issue.

Apparently it’s o.k. for theists to make blithe assertions about the equivalence of science and faith, and make veiled implications that other people’s beliefs are motivated by jealousy and fear, but as soon as a non-religious person contests it, it’s suddenly so unfair.:rolleyes:

If you really think I have said anything inappropriate in this thread, please let me know specifically what you think it was, and I will gladly apologize if it’s warranted.

55

Well, I’m speechless (for a change);). Apos has said everything I was going to say, and probably better than I could have said it. I quoted this one paragraph because I think the point is particularly important. And if I can add one thing; yes, love exists. It is an emotion. And it’s a wonderful thing. But I’d like anyone to explain to me why it’s not possible for emotions to simply be the result of the chemical and electrical activity of our brains. Why does explaining love necessitate the positing of an extra entity?

56

Are we using love to prove something? No? Then what’s the point of that sentence?

Great for them. Means exactly zip for the rest of us.

Yes. But if my mother told me there was a soul because she just knew there was a soul, I wouldn’t have listened.

Yeah, and if I want to know about heroin addiction, I’ve got to get addicted to heroin, right?

You see, the difference is that the empirical knowledge is there, by the very definition of “empirical”. “Spiritual” matters, whatever that is, are wholly subjective and totally unsuited for examination.

57

blowero

How do you arrive at “none shall disagree” from my statement of some totally changing the flow of discussion?

I am not displeased to hear from those who do not understand spirituality. I do, however, tire from repeated demands to prove spirituality by scientific means. It’s arrogant to assert that if science cannot prove it, it is not valid. Science as Falsification

58

I’m with you fessie, if you post about spiritual things learn to ignore the closed-mindedness of the skeptics here.

Most of all time will tell, as you said.

Love
Leroy

59

After all, that’s what Great Debates is all about isn’t it lekatt? Ignoring people who disagree with you and denigrating critical thinking as close-mindedness.

60

First of all, what flow of the discussion? Did you read the OP? Or the discussion after it? Right off the bat it’s about matters of factual dispute.

And I tire of the attempts to illicitly claim the objective validity offered by the scientific method and then then to refuse to play by its rules. If someone wants to simply express what they feel, or hope, or suspect, or believe, that’s great. There’s no problem with that. It’s when they try to assert the truth of something to prove a point that we run into problems.

No one made this assertion. The assertions were a) if you can’t properly define a concept, it’s not very useful as means to explain various phenomenon (like “awareness”) and b) the objective ASSERTION of the truth of something without proof is invalid. It’s easy to confuse the latter point (the assertion) with the actual truth of the matter, which, still being neither proven, does not necessarily rest on the validity of an assertion. That’s the key difference between the validity of an argument and the truth of an assertion.