A Question...

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archistrage

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This is an idea that popped into my head the other day, and I thought it would give you guys something to think on.

Are human beings sentient because we have a soul, or did God give us a soul after we had become sentient?

I think it is the latter, because I believe in the Big Bang theory, therefore there must have been humans before Adam.

What do you guys think?

Archistrage
 
Sorry to disappoint you “Adam And Eve” were the first, a little tip, don’t go off on a tangent looking for eye candy, things that appear pleasant to the eye will put you aground and sink your ship… I’m thinking Eve did that very thing.

Able
 
The first in what way, the first humans to exist (meaning you believe in the Earth is less than 6,000 years old), or that they were the first to have a soul?

Archistrage
 
“Human” means “the hue of Man”. Ahdam was the first “Man”, not the first “human”. No Scripture says otherwise.

But I’m still working on what the Big Bang has to do with sentience and souls. 😊
 
I meant did he believe that Genesis is literal (the Earth is less than 6000 years old), or did he believe in another theory in which the Universe was older (like the Big Bang Theory).

And besides arguing semantics, that still hasn’t answered my question.

Sentience, is being self aware. Some say it means having the ability to reason. But essentially, it is recognizing that I am my own being, and all those others over there are their own beings as well, separate from mine.

So I’ll ask it again, are people sentient because we have a soul, or do we have a soul because we are sentient?

Archistrage
 
:twocents:By my definition of “soul” and “sentience”, they have nothing to do with each other.
 
(sigh) Why did they have to ban discussing Evolution. 😦

One train of thought, that I agree with, is that at the point of becoming sentient, we had the potential to come to the belief in God (through natural human reason as stated in the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation). If I remember correctly, then Adam would have been the first sentient man who recognized the existence of a single God. Remember that it was during that time that most people were pagan and very polytheistic. Adam would have been the first man to reason out that there could not have been all these different God, but one single God who made the entire Universe, and it was to this God that he prayed.

So let me reword my question. Do you think the neural networks that make up the human brain had the ability to make man sentient, or was it with God granting us a soul, that man became sentient?

Archistrage
 
Soul, sentience, intelligence, and humanness are all of the things that come in degrees and variety that people have, fore lack of understanding, drawn an arbitrary line to say that “above this line, they exist and below, they do not.” Yet they are not in an upward line from the start. They each have variety and each variety has degree. The combination of degrees and varieties makes such declarations of “have and don’t have” crude, primitive, and not relevant to Truth. “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” One was never really without the other.
 
In the hierarchy of Animals there are many that are truly sentient, (ravens, dogs, porpoise, monkeys etc ) and they do not have souls, so being sentient does not require a soul.

And to attempt to define the moment of awareness between our soul and sentience is called Early Childhood Education and it is available within any university.

And as long as you believe that God is the Creator of all things, than rest in that joy and do not trouble yourself with inane arguements of your vanity.
 
Julian0404 said:
In the hierarchy of Animals there are many that are truly sentient, (ravens, dogs, porpoise, monkeys etc ) and they do not have souls, so being sentient does not require a soul.

And to attempt to define the moment of awareness between our soul and sentience is called Early Childhood Education and it is available within any university.

And as long as you believe that God is the Creator of all things, than rest in that joy and do not trouble yourself with inane arguements of your vanity.
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Animals have souls…just not immortal souls. Just a minor point.
 
Julian0404 said:
In the hierarchy of Animals there are many that are truly sentient, (ravens, dogs, porpoise, monkeys etc ) and they do not have souls, so being sentient does not require a soul.

And to attempt to define the moment of awareness between our soul and sentience is called Early Childhood Education and it is available within any university.

And as long as you believe that God is the Creator of all things, than rest in that joy and do not trouble yourself with inane arguements of your vanity.
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Wow, great to know I’m being judged. Thanks.

I do not believe that these questions are inane. I believe in learning about the Universe. God created us all. Learning about his creation is the same to me as an art appreciator learning about a painting to explore the mind of it’s painter. So too do I seek to find and appreciate God in all of the Universe that surrounds me. That is not inane or vain, that is wanting to be wise. If you choose to remain ignorant of those things, that’s your choice, and I’ll leave that between you and God, but don’t insult me by calling me vain and silly.

Archistrage
 
archistrage said:
Wow, great to know I’m being judged. Thanks.

I do not believe that these questions are inane. I believe in learning about the Universe. God created us all. Learning about his creation is the same to me as an art appreciator learning about a painting to explore the mind of it’s painter. So too do I seek to find and appreciate God in all of the Universe that surrounds me. That is not inane or vain, that is wanting to be wise. If you choose to remain ignorant of those things, that’s your choice, and I’ll leave that between you and God, but don’t insult me by calling me vain and silly.

Archistrage
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Never be afraid to ask, just of not listening.
 
archistrage said:
This is an idea that popped into my head the other day, and I thought it would give you guys something to think on.

Are human beings sentient because we have a soul, or did God give us a soul after we had become sentient?

I think it is the latter, because I believe in the Big Bang theory, therefore there must have been humans before Adam.

What do you guys think?

Archistrage
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we are sentient because G-d gave us free will. without free will, we are not even concious, like animals we would be little deterministically driven meatbots. not aware, but functioning solely by instinctual programming. no different than a mechanical robot who is not concious but only a pile of parts, acting not from volition, but from deterministic programming.

so i thinkj they were simultaneous.
 
Thank you James, I appreciate that.

Warpspeedpetey: Okay, do you have any kind of logical reasoning to back that up, scripture verses, scientific studies of the human brain, etc… I’m not merely looking for opinions, I’m looking for the reasons behind them.

Archistrage
 
archistrage said:
Thank you James, I appreciate that.

Warpspeedpetey: Okay, do you have any kind of logical reasoning to back that up, scripture verses, scientific studies of the human brain, etc… I’m not merely looking for opinions, I’m looking for the reasons behind them.

Archistrage
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i just think they were simultaneous, i gave you the reason why i think that. i dont think another source telling you the same thing would make a difference. i doubt i could find another source who thought that. any source that i did would just be another opinion.

scientific studies wouldnt adress the issue. Scripture might, but thats territory for a theologian. just thought id throw in the view from metaphysics. might make an interesting thread

technically, im not sure sentience is the right word. even plants might be said to percieve sensations. but i dont know.
 
Sentience is defined in the dictionary as the ability to feel and perceive subjectively, meaning that you feel and perceive things knowing that they’re happening to you, and understanding that you are your own, person, or a guess a more generic term would be being. You understand the fact, that in this entire world, you are your own, unique self.

One of Rene Descartes’s most famous saying applies here, “I think, therefore I am.” Meaning that should a being be wondering whether or not he existed, that in and of itself would be proof he existed. I think that might be a better way of understanding it, being able to recognize your own existence.

No warpspeedpetey, you didn’t really give a logical precession of reasons. I’m still trying to understand how you are linking free will and conscious. I know how I believe it, but I don’t follow how you do.

I feel that I should also point out, that there are very few creatures on this Earth, that live only on instincts, only on what was pre-programmed by their DNA. Otherwise we would not be able to train animals. After several years, your dog will probably no longer bark at someone who knocks at the door, despite the fact that they did when they were a pup. Over time, they have come to associate, and therefore learn that whenever they bark at the door, they are scolded, or punished in some way, or rewarded whenever they don’t do it. That is not instinctual behavior. This happens for almost all forms of life. Dogs, cats, birds, circus animals. Even down to some microscopic organisms. Scientist have shown it is possible to train a nematode to avoid an electric shock, proving that even the simple neural network within it is capable of learning something new.

Archistrage
 
archistrage said:
Sentience is defined in the dictionary as the ability to feel and perceive subjectively, meaning that you feel and perceive things knowing that they’re happening to you, and understanding that you are your own, person, or a guess a more generic term would be being. You understand the fact, that in this entire world, you are your own, unique self.

One of Rene Descartes’s most famous saying applies here, “I think, therefore I am.” Meaning that should a being be wondering whether or not he existed, that in and of itself would be proof he existed. I think that might be a better way of understanding it, being able to recognize your own existence.
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ok
No warpspeedpetey, you didn’t really give a logical precession of reasons. I’m still trying to understand how you are linking free will and conscious. I know how I believe it, but I don’t follow how you do.
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a robot has no free will and no conciousness. no self awareness. there is no “I” to be aware of the thinking. its all deterministic programminng, like an animal.
I feel that I should also point out, that there are very few creatures on this Earth, that live only on instincts, only on what was pre-programmed by their DNA. Otherwise we would not be able to train animals. After several years, your dog will probably no longer bark at someone who knocks at the door, despite the fact that they did when they were a pup. Over time, they have come to associate, and therefore learn that whenever they bark at the door, they are scolded, or punished in some way, or rewarded whenever they don’t do it. That is not instinctual behavior. This happens for almost all forms of life. Dogs, cats, birds, circus animals. Even down to some microscopic organisms. Scientist have shown it is possible to train a nematode to avoid an electric shock, proving that even the simple neural network within it is capable of learning something new.
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Archistrage
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there is no creature on earth, other than us, that operates outside evolutionary programming. training is simply altering that programming. i trained my cat, opie, to play fetch with a little ball that makes noises.

he was playing with the ball, behavior already a part if his instictive behavior, hard coded into all felines. when he came close to me with the ball i would pick it up, praise him, scratch his ear, shake the ball to make noise and throw it so it would bounce and make a lot of noise. this was to stimulate his nervous system. with consistent application, a year later, he brings the ball to me and sets it down. amazing my rather gullible friends who associate emotions with animals, as though opie has a preference. im not sure which i find more entertaining.😛
 
Do you understand how a Neural Network works? Behavior can be encoded from birth, and remain unchanged (instincts), but a dog isn’t born with knowing the different smells of animals. It must learn these during its life. If it lives in a pack, then it learns the different smells of the animals it can kill and eat while living and hunting with them.

That’s ‘altering’ your talking about, that’s what that is. It isn’t altering the basic instincts of that animal, it learns new patterns of behavior based on certain conditions and circumstances, but all of that must be built on top of what instincts it was born with. That’s one of the reasons why a dog could never be sentient, is because those basic instincts can never be changed.

It’s also the very reason why humans can be. Humans are born with literally, the bare essentials for survival. And in many cases not even that. Human evolution came to be built on the fact that we would live in a society, one in which we could care for our children, and teach them those things that they weren’t born with instinctively. And it is because of that, that we must be taught, that I think let’s us be sentient, because we can question everything we know (and we should question everything we know, how else are we to learn if it’s true), we can seek to learn and to understand, until that day finally comes when you’re subconscious asks itself, “do I exist?”

Archistrage
 
archistrage said:
It isn’t altering the basic instincts of that animal, it learns new patterns of behavior based on certain conditions and circumstances, but all of that must be built on top of what instincts it was born with.
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hence, my description of training opie.
That’s one of the reasons why a dog could never be sentient, is because those basic instincts can never be changed.
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thats right.
It’s also the very reason why humans can be. Humans are born with literally, the bare essentials for survival. And in many cases not even that. Human evolution came to be built on the fact that we would live in a society, one in which we could care for our children, and teach them those things that they weren’t born with instinctively. And it is because of that, that we must be taught, that I think let’s us be sentient, because we can question everything we know (and we should question everything we know, how else are we to learn if it’s true), we can seek to learn and to understand,
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thats right. youre making the case for free will and self awareness by the route of “learning”.
not my prefered method, but very astute. interesting.

a robot isnt self aware because like an animal it can only react to stimuli according to its programming. it has no free will. there is no “I” making decisions. its an entirely automatic process.

we can choose to perform an infinite number of reactions to any stimuli. the “I” that makes decisions for us then , must be independent of the physical self. otherwise we couldnt choose our responses, we would be limited to what is hard coded in our neural networks.
until that day finally comes when you’re subconscious asks itself, “do I exist?”
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luckily i heard ‘cogito ergo sum’ before i thought to question my own existence. headed it off at the pass so to speak.

Archistrage
 
I’m glad we agree on those parts.

What do you mean though, that ‘learning’ is not your preferred method? I understand that you believe that there we are sentient because God gave us a soul. Fine. But then, how does the sentient soul integrate with the nonsentient mind? Show me the bridge between the spiritual and the physical.

Archistrage
 
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