"Souls" do not exist.

[strega]

My oh my. There saeems to be a lot of this discussion (from all points of view) based on a measurable and mathematical/physiological model. The problem I see with this is the discussion centers around that which cannot be measured, and is observed only by inference by/in people who claim to be spiritually blessed, in any way.

To look at the physical model, anthropologists,sociologists and biologists all seem to think that man’s self awareness is what sets him apart from other animals; that this self awareness is generated by a lrge cerebral cortex and its ability to override the primitive ‘lizard brain’ or at least modulate its responses, and make more meaningful decisions. When man evolved to a point where the cerebral cortex was able to process information in an abstract way, that triggered his ability to start to think of himself as an entity with choices and an ability to wonder about the rightness of the choices. And so self awareness developed and began to evolve to the complex creation it is today.

Now, we cannot see, touch or smell this self awareness, yet we can infer a creature has it by its behavior. By the idea that , as mentioned somewhere earlier, if we were all ‘hard-wired’, we would always respond exactly the same way to exactly the same stimuli. Yet we clearly do not–what is the difference? Learning? certainly, to a point, but dogs do that, too, yet all bio/anthro/etc-pologists agree that dogs are not self aware ina human sense, so…what else is there?

There is an as yet undefined way the brain works to generate this self awareness, and it is clearly linked to the large cerebral cortex that humans have, according to the research I have seen. There is even some suggestion that dolphins may have the beginnings of this awareness, but that is still pretty edgy.

By the same token, can not the soul exist in an as yet undefined way, linked to a being that has a spiritual sense of itself? As we are aware of ourself, as we have what psychologists call a ‘watcher’ in our consciousness, and we converse with it, yet it has no specific neurotransmitter linked to it (yet), can not the soul exist in a person, interact with them, give them a sense of guidance and purpose in the world, or direct thier seeking, in ways that cannot be measured?

I say yes, we have souls, they are a better aprt of us, and good luck in finding where they reside.

[Iamthat]

begbert2

the definition “To be or become aware of, especially through careful and directed attention; notice.” would seem to include the actions of a photoelectric cell, a camera, and a human eye, because they certainly aren’t failing to notice the appropriate stimuli.

No, they don’t ‘notice’ anything. The effects that light creates to the emulsion on a film has nothing to do with the emulsion observing or noticing anything. The effects that a falling stone creates on the water when it hits a calm lake surface is not about awareness, it is merely cause and effect. The slippery slope is every cause and effect could be an observer. When you bang a nail in with a hammer the nail doesn’t notice or observer the falling hammer head and act appropriately according the the force.

You have ignored the example of the computer that plays table tennis.

We can design, machines that produce a series of cause and effects in a specified order with certain frequencies etc. with an end result such has hitting a ping pong ball, with one response following another with no awareness involved.

In the case that the human brain is as mechanical as the computer, then the definition of observer applies equally. In this case, you appear to be arging that nothing observes, not the eye, not the computer, not the brain, not the “soul”, not nothing.

That slope seems pretty slippery too. The problem is, it slides right into assuming that “observation” has no meaningful definition, which I wouldn’t think would be a popular view.

The human brain may be as mechanical as a computer with the end results of its functions being thoughts and images which are observed. Is the awareness a function of the brain? Perhaps, but since we are not aware of our own brain functions we cannot say. Experiencially, the mental world and the one reported by the sense are being observed but the observer of them, the awareness, is not. If the awareness cannot be observed then how can it be referred to as something? We are discussing the soul, and as I have said I think soul/consciousness is nothing, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Nothing observes. How can nothing observe something? If ‘nothing’ observes then there is no distance between that which observes and the observed. The observer is the observed and there is only observing, no observer, no observed. It raises the question, Does matter exist? And basically states that it does not.
“observation”; that which observes, cannot be defined and considering that consciousness is one of the biggest mysteries there is along side “does god exist?” and other questions of absolutes why would anyone be surprised.

Our perceptions may be mechanical, but so what.

Perceptions don’t even exist. You can’t observe perception.

This seems inherently contradictory. If the word “perceptions” does indeed apply to mechanical processes, which do exist, then they can be observed.

What I meant was you can’t observe observing or smell smelling etc. I can’t observe seeing or the seer but I can see…The problem is there is no “self awareness” for it involves the ‘self’ and the ‘awareness’, a dualism. The self and the awareness are one and the same. Although there is this little self that we think we are, :)…in this vast infinite universe that we think we are not.

[begbert2]

originally posted by Iamthat
and as I have said I think soul/consciousness is nothing, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Nothing observes. How can nothing observe something? If ‘nothing’ observes then there is no distance between that which observes and the observed. The observer is the observed and there is only observing, no observer, no observed. It raises the question, Does matter exist? And basically states that it does not.

Actually, I would say that ‘nothing’ cannot observe something, buy definition. The following paragraph backs me up; it tears off in a string of term undefining that I refuse to grant credence.

You are systematically trying to exclude everythign from meeting the definition of “observe” that you yourself supplied. By that definition, my examples do apply. If the brain is mechanical in operation, a possibility which you allow, then by observing brain waves we are observing operation. This contradicts your position.

Self-awareness is not a meaningless duality; it is awareness of self. This is different from awareness of turnips. Again you seem to be distorting meaning.

I maintain that your position is based on divesting words from their meanings. You can believe it if you like, but I give it no credence.
strega, if there is an extraphysical soul effecting the activity of the brain on a continuous basis, I would have expected studies of brain operation to have revealed this by now. We can know of subatomic particles by the effects they have on observable reality; if souls were having such an effect, we would expect to know them by their works. Which don’t appear to be working on brain activity.

The human body is never the same from one instant to the next. The blood is flowing and the neurons are firing. You can never ask the same question twice; there is never “the same” stimuli. There is no contradiction implied by varying responses to “the same” stimuli.

And, out of curiosity, what, other than complexity, differs our intelligence from that of chimps, dogs, and dolphins? What scientists have said this, and why?

If the soul never interferes to a detectable degree, then I would not accept that that soul is the source of my will.

[strega]

Ok, lets see if my befuddled brain can look at this in view of your reply. Yes, the soul does affect our actions, very probably not on a cellular brain level, but more on a behavioral level . If we grant an existence (or not) of a soul, we musta also grant its purpose–it is almost entirely linked to qualities of humanity, of compassion, of feeling for others, of charity , of love for others and of a sense of being responsible tfor our fellow person . Anecdotally, the person who is ‘soulless’ is akin to Hitler or Eichman or Dahmer, the people who are spoken of to have great souls are Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, and the lady down the street who gives 50% of her retirement pension to help support the local soup kitchen. As there are many ways that fables and legends have a basis in fact, so I believe the anecdotal stories speak to the truth of the souls existence.

To this end, the soul affects our behavior in making us aware of our potential to act ina positive way to help others, and to connect to that ‘thing’ which spiritually connects us all. This thing has been studied in cardiac patients at USC and (I believe) Johns Hopkins University. They had people pray for cardiac patients on the east coast (the prayers were on the west coast). Those that were prayed for had better healing rates, less depression (a common and unexplained side effect of heart problems) fewer complications. It was done as a double blind study, with neither senders nor reciervers knowing what was being done for who.

This obviously did statistically affect the targets enough to be significant, yet how that happened is still not known. The conjecture is that there was a spiritual/energy field that was tapped into and sent via the prayers. This then affected the physiological responses of the cardiac patients and sped healing. So, does a soul exist? Does any metaphysical energy exist? I think it does, and that we simply do not have the knowledge to measure or capture it Until we do, much of this must be taken on faith, as old eras took it for granted that the sun would rise, and older eras knew they had to sacrafice to make it do so.

As for dolphins and such, there is a leap of reasoning that occurs, and is seen in dolphins, chimps and man, not in dogs. One can give a dog a stick 200 times, and he will stilll chew it. Give one to a chimp or a man, and it will become a tool, without having to be taught first. They will figure it out. This is the increased complexity that we have (among others) and which can be measured primarily through behavioral studies, brain chemistry will not show this.

As you can see, my arguments are based more on the behavioral sciences than on the philosophical ones, or the biochemical ones. I think there is more to us than synapses, and this more can be called consciousness (in the sense of “I AM”), soul , self awareness, personality. None of this can be measured by brainwaves, yet it undoubtedly exists, or we would not be having this discussion with such differing perspectives. I am not argueing (or trying not to ) from a spiritual point of view, though that is hard with this topic, as it seems intrinsically joined, to me.

[begbert2]

If I am reading you correctly, strega, you are defining “soul” as the tendency to behave in a more “civilized” manner, with a determining factor being the ability to think of different ways to think of an use things.

Your perspective on soul seems more like a quality than an independent thing, which is okay; merely a different use of the word. Which is to say, it is an independent question than wether there is an eternal metaphysical entity out there pulling my strings.

I don’t agree with your statement “brain chemistry will not show this.” (This idea seems like the only place where your perspective overlaps the ‘eternal’ soul perspective.) It is true that we do not at this time have the ability to know what the activities of the brain actually “mean”, if anything. Your statements speak in absolutes regarding future discovery, though. It may be the case that someday humans will develop a process that reads the brain chemistry of an individual, and can not only tell what he is thinking, but comment on his opinions, morals, and tendencies to do things under various situations. (This would be a very unpopular process, I admit, but it is theoretically possible.) In that case, when and if that occurs, we would be able to see what the brain chemistry shows. The fact that we can’t now is not a very strong base for an argument about what “will” be shown.

The fact is, we currently have only a tenuous grasp of how the brain works. Statements about what is actually going on in there are a mite difficult to substantiate. Heck, even though by the “eternal, metaphysical soul” requires an almost continuous stream of miraculous events to occur within every brain every day, I still have to hold back from declaring that such interaction is certain to not occur. Maybe we just haven’t noticed them yet. I can only say that until such interfering events are found there is no difinitive evidence in favor of extraphysical souls, and there is a possible alternative explanation. That’s about as far as we can get when discussing any “potentially undiscovered” thing, really.

[strega]

Yes, you are right, we may someday be able to read a brain as we do a book, (or scan a CD), but we cannot currently–I guess that was what I meant to say–sometimes my brain has a brain fart. And that certainly would be an unpopular process-but you know, Big Brother IS watching, who knows what will come in futire times?

As for souls, it’s fun to debate, but until someone comes back from the dead and tells us, that will always be a matter for debate, I suppose . I can’t say that I have regretted anything to do with my soul, though, and hope everyone can say that, whether they believe they have one or not.

Question, if one does NOT have a soul, what is one’s spiritual connection ot purpose? Are we just a bunch of randomly firing neurons? Is the NOTHING out there that is bigger than all of us? Now THAT to me is a frightening thought. And mind you, I am not a christian, so I don’t use my religion to get away with stuff, I am fully responsible for my own actions, but that is within a context that suggests ways to be that are life and health enhancing, not destructive. What keeps others in a place of safety for the masses? Any thoughts?

[Iamthat]

begbert2

Actually, I would say that ‘nothing’ cannot observe something, buy definition. The following paragraph backs me up; it tears off in a string of term undefining that I refuse to grant credence.

Perhaps I was getting ahead of the current issue but I doubt it. As Krishnamurti said, “The perceived and the perceiver are one and the same.” You don’t have to go there but I might,

You are systematically trying to exclude everythign from meeting the definition of “observe” that you yourself supplied. By that definition, my examples do apply. If the brain is mechanical in operation, a possibility which you allow, then by observing brain waves we are observing operation. This contradicts your position.

If awareness is nothing it’s nothing what can one say. The point is awareness cannot be defined as an existent yet here it apparently is. Nothing can be found that is observing this screen. If we take a video camera apart and ask, “Where is the awareness?”
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Where is this observer of yours?

If I hypothetically take myself apart I will also find no observer.

If the brain is mechanical in operation, a possibility which you allow, then by observing brain waves we are observing operation. This contradicts your position.

No it does not contradict my position. Being a mechanical operation does not make it an observer. We are not aware of the functions of our own brains so if the 'waves ’ were observing we would not be observing the waves.

It’s obvious to me that what ever I am aware of is not the awareness.

Self-awareness is not a meaningless duality; it is awareness of self. This is different from awareness of turnips. Again you seem to be distorting meaning.

If you choose to take “awareness of self” for granted, and “awareness’ for granted and " self” for granted then so be it.

"distorting meaning’? Meaning has to expand to accommodate new ideas and old ones revisited.

I maintain that your position is based on divesting words from their meanings. You can believe it if you like, but I give it no credence.

I’d say your use of the word" observer" applied to a video camera etc. is a misuse of that word.