Existence of the Soul

[eudaimoniaisnow]

Immaterial

The Soul is spiritual not material. Can someone give a definition of immaterial without using a material description? Seriously, what does it even mean to be immaterial.
If the soul is immaterial, then how does that immaterial soul effect our brain to create ideas. Or alternatively, why do changes in our brain effect our ideas?

Phileas Gage
But how do we know that our material brains can effect our souls?
Poor Phileas Gage was a hardworking railroad worker. A good family man. But one day Mr. Gage was working and an explosion happened and an iron rod shot through his skull! Fortunately for Mr. Gage the rod did not kill him. It did however severely damages the frontal lobe of his brain. After recovering from the injury his poor family realized his entire personality had changed! He had practically no control over his emotions. He could still think and funtion, but he could not plan for the future or control his emotions. He just blew up on people, including his own family.

So what happened? Well, the frontal lobe is responsible for a great many aspects of one’s personality. But wait a minute, isn’t one’s personality just one’s soul?

Or if one’s soul is immaterial, then why would it be effected by an iron rod?

Ockham’s razor

If it makes no sense that one’s soul could be effected by material, and by logical extension, one’s material brain could not be effected by an immaterial soul, then who needs the soul? In fact, if your personality is explained by physical changes in the brain, then why do we need the soul? The simplest explanation is always the best. And that does not include a immaterial soul.

 

[john_doran]

Immaterial

The Soul is spiritual not material. Can someone give a definition of immaterial without using a material description?

maybe, maybe not. what’s your point?

can you give a definition of “inflammable” without referring to fire? or “disbelief” without referring to belief?

eudaimoniaisnow:

Seriously, what does it even mean to be immaterial.

it means having no parts that consist of matter or energy.

eudaimoniaisnow:

If the soul is immaterial, then how does that immaterial soul effect our brain to create ideas. Or alternatively, why do changes in our brain effect our ideas?

your point here being, presumably, that if someone who believes in an immaterial soul can’t explain how it works, then it actually can’t work.

ok, i’ll bite: if gravity is a force that affects all material objects, how does it interact with subatomic particles? surely you must be able to explain it to me.

and what about three hundred years ago, when all you would have received were blank stares if you asked why a bird could fly, but a piece of wood that was lighter than the bird couldn’t?

Phileas Gage
But how do we know that our material brains can effect our souls?

because they do.

eudaimoniaisnow:

Poor Phileas Gage was a hardworking railroad worker. A good family man. But one day Mr. Gage was working and an explosion happened and an iron rod shot through his skull! Fortunately for Mr. Gage the rod did not kill him. It did however severely damages the frontal lobe of his brain. After recovering from the injury his poor family realized his entire personality had changed! He had practically no control over his emotions. He could still think and funtion, but he could not plan for the future or control his emotions. He just blew up on people, including his own family.

So what happened? Well, the frontal lobe is responsible for a great many aspects of one’s personality. But wait a minute, isn’t one’s personality just one’s soul?

no, one’s personality is not just one’s soul. nor are you your soul: you are body and soul, just as a steel cube is the steel and the cubic form.

eudaimoniaisnow:

Or if one’s soul is immaterial, then why would it be effected by an iron rod?

the soul isn’t affected by the iron rod: the person’s behaviour is.

you might as well argue that just because damaging the power cord to my television affects the picture, then the picture must be in the power cord.

Ockham’s razor

If it makes no sense that one’s soul could be effected by material, and by logical extension, one’s material brain could not be effected by an immaterial soul, then who needs the soul?

everyone who wants to know how the world actually works.

eudaimoniaisnow:

In fact, if your personality is explained by physical changes in the brain, then why do we need the soul?

because there are other things not explainable by physical changes in the brain: e.g. free choice and knowledge of abstract objects.

eudaimoniaisnow:

The simplest explanation is always the best.

define “simple”.

eudaimoniaisnow:

And that does not include a immaterial soul.

unfortunately, it doesnt include a real world, either: what could be simpler than one mind (mine) of which everything else is a figment?

 

[Benedictus]

can you give a definition of “inflammable” without referring to fire?

I can try:

Combustible or easily ignited. Often mistakenly interpreted as synonymous with nonflammable.

Back on topic, perhaps the OP’s point is that if a soul is neither matter nor energy, what is a soul?

because there are other things not explainable by physical changes in the brain: e.g. free choice and knowledge of abstract objects.

There are those who would dispute that. One could argue that free will and knowledge of “abstract objects” may be explainable by material changes in the brain, even if the mechanism isn’t understood yet. On the other hand, there are many who dispute that free will or “abstract objects” are real.

 

[eudaimoniaisnow]

Maybe I was not direct enough in the overall point in my post.

My point is: There is no soul, because I only believe in things that I have a reason to believe in.

You need to ask yourself, why do believe in a soul at all?
Is it because your parents told you so?

J. D. goes through a lot of trouble to explain that he does not need to understand a thing to believe in it. But that’s besides the point.

J.D. explains that just because he does not understand the way something works does not mean that it does not work. That’s all well and good, however, I am saying that it is logically inconsistent to believe that the soul “work” in the sense that it effects my person.

J.D. says that a personality is the soul and the body. But I am saying that the personality is explained by material. Therefore, why do I need to believe in the soul at all.

Free choice and abstract concepts explain the soul? There is no such thing as free choice, but that’s not that I want to debate right now.
But what I do want to know is:
What specific abstract concepts explain demand the existence of the soul?

As a side note did you know that “spiritual experiences” can be induced through scientific processes?

 

[Nullasalus]

My point is: There is no soul, because I only believe in things that I have a reason to believe in.

You’re saying you don’t even understand what a soul is, or how it’s imagined. You don’t ‘have a reason’ to believe in plenty of things you have no familiarity with, and chances are the sciences have a lot of that to offer to you.

You need to ask yourself, why do believe in a soul at all?
Is it because your parents told you so?

For me, it’s because investigating the alternatives stretches materialism to the point of making it hardly materialism anymore. Put aside questions of qualia, or even abstracts and first person experience. I view my soul as comprising all material facts about me, my dynamic past experience, my subjective experience, and my existence.

By the way, is the past material? Can you offer me up a chunk of past to examine? Or are you going to say that the past is comprised of material events and therefore is material itself, even if it’s not a material thing that you can look at under a microscope?

J.D. says that a personality is the soul and the body. But I am saying that the personality is explained by material. Therefore, why do I need to believe in the soul at all.

Not even materialists can agree what comprises materialism nowadays. Are dark energy and dark matter material, even though we can only infer their existence, rather than directly measure? But if they exist, they are utterly unlike the sort of ‘material’ that we take for granted, and that materialism was based on. Is reductionism true? What about emergence? Nonreductive materialists say that reducing all matter to constituent particles leaves out important truth. Reductive materialists argue that ‘emergence’ and the idea that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts is almost akin to magic.

As a side note did you know that “spiritual experiences” can be induced through scientific processes?

Malt liquor is a scientific process?

 

[eudaimoniaisnow]

You’re saying you don’t even understand what a soul is, or how it’s imagined. You don’t ‘have a reason’ to believe in plenty of things you have no familiarity with, and chances are the sciences have a lot of that to offer to you.

No that’s not what I’m saying. I"m saying I don’t believe in unnecessary concepts. A concept is necessary when it explains an aspect of reality. The soul is not necessary to explain my worldview. -My worldview being informed by neuroscience.

For me, it’s because investigating the alternatives stretches materialism to the point of making it hardly materialism anymore. Put aside questions of qualia, or even abstracts and first person experience. I view my soul as comprising all material facts about me, my dynamic past experience, my subjective experience, and my existence.

So the soul is your “dynamic past” Why can’t your memory cells, and your neural connections, that has been shaped by your experiences explain your past.

By the way, is the past material? Can you offer me up a chunk of past to examine? Or are you going to say that the past is comprised of material events and therefore is material itself, even if it’s not a material thing that you can look at under a microscope?

The past is, uh, past. Sorry.

Not even materialists can agree what comprises materialism nowadays. Are dark energy and dark matter material, even though we can only infer their existence, rather than directly measure? But if they exist, they are utterly unlike the sort of ‘material’ that we take for granted, and that materialism was based on. Is reductionism true? What about emergence? Nonreductive materialists say that reducing all matter to constituent particles leaves out important truth. Reductive materialists argue that ‘emergence’ and the idea that a whole is greater than the sum of its parts is almost akin to magic.

This pretty much has nothing to do with anything. The fact that there are disputes about what reality consists of does not affect my position that the soul is not necessary to explain a rational view of reality.

 

[Nullasalus]

No that’s not what I’m saying. I"m saying I don’t believe in unnecessary concepts. A concept is necessary when it explains an aspect of reality. The soul is not necessary to explain my worldview. -My worldview being informed by neuroscience.

So is mine, and I believe in a soul.

So the soul is your “dynamic past” Why can’t your memory cells, and your neural connections, that has been shaped by your experiences explain your past.

‘Explain my past’? But it’s not an explanation that constitutes me insofar as the past goes, but the past itself. They could be any number of physical events that resulted in a given state of my brain cells, neural connections, or whatever constitutes my physical being - but only one is correct.

If you produced an exactly clone of me, right down to the neural connections, you would not have reproduced me. You would have introduced a new person who had (for a brief moment) all of my material properties, but was still numerically different, and had a different past. I need to go beyond ‘material’ to define me.

The past is, uh, past. Sorry.

Well then, you see the problem.

This pretty much has nothing to do with anything. The fact that there are disputes about what reality consists of does not affect my position that the soul is not necessary to explain a rational view of reality.

You came in here asking questions about the soul, and I’m giving you answers about how I view it all. You said that you don’t believe in the immaterial because the material explains everything - the fact that there’s so much dispute even among materialists over what is and is not ‘material’ is very relevant. “I believe everything about me is explained by the material, and by the way we’re still working out a definition of material” is an interesting position to take, but suit yourself.

If you’re trying to say that you believe a human consciousness is entirely a physical reality and that when you die you will cease to exist, well, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have a word for your concept of being: Soul.

So hey, you found another group in agreement with you, good job on that.

 

[john_doran]

I can try:

Combustible or easily ignited.

…both of which mean “to catch fire”.

i also gave a definition of “immaterial” without using the word “material”, but that’s presumably not the point.

Benedictus:

There are those who would dispute that. One could argue that free will and knowledge of “abstract objects” may be explainable by material changes in the brain, even if the mechanism isn’t understood yet. On the other hand, there are many who dispute that free will or “abstract objects” are real.

of course it’s a disputed point: there’s very little at this level of science and philosophy that isn’t disputed.

my point was simply that there is, in fact, reason to believe in an immaterial component to human persons, not that there’s a knock-down, drag-out argument for it…

 

[john_doran]

My point is: There is no soul, because I only believe in things that I have a reason to believe in.

what counts as a “reason”? do you mean something like “i believe only in things that i can prove”?

eudaimoniaisnow:

You need to ask yourself, why do believe in a soul at all?

i have both asked and answered that question.

eudaimoniaisnow:

Is it because your parents told you so?

no.

that said, why do you believe that quantum mechanics is the most successful scientific theory we have ever had?

is it because your teacher told you so? or a scientist?

eudaimoniaisnow:

J.D. explains that just because he does not understand the way something works does not mean that it does not work. That’s all well and good, however, I am saying that it is logically inconsistent to believe that the soul “work” in the sense that it effects my person.

i’m afraid you made no such claim in your original post. you simply asked a number of questions like “how does an immaterial entity have physical effects?”.

why is logically inconsistent to think that an immaterial entity can have an effect on material entities?

eudaimoniaisnow:

J.D. says that a personality is the soul and the body. But I am saying that the personality is explained by material. Therefore, why do I need to believe in the soul at all.

and i am saying that the world and everything in it can be explained by the proposition that the only thing that exists is your mind, and that everything else is the imaginings of that mind.

therefore, why do you need to believe in the real world at all? or other minds? or the past? or…

eudaimoniaisnow:

Free choice and abstract concepts explain the soul? There is no such thing as free choice, but that’s not that I want to debate right now.
But what I do want to know is:
What specific abstract concepts explain demand the existence of the soul?

propositions, properties, states of affairs, possible worlds, languages, meanings, etc., are all abstract objects, with no spatiotemporal properties.

but if the mind is entirely material, then it could not be acquainted with abstract objects, and we wouldn’t be able to have knowledge of them, or reason about them.

but we do have knowledge of abstract objects. therefore the mind is not wholly material.

 

[eudaimoniaisnow]

what counts as a “reason”? do you mean something like “i believe only in things that i can prove”?

Nope. That is not what I’m saying. You need a reason to believe in things. For instance, if I see something I may believe in it. I’m not saying I only believe in what I see, I just saying there must a causal connection my experience and that which I believe in.

that said, why do you believe that quantum mechanics is the most successful scientific theory we have ever had?

is it because your teacher told you so? or a scientist?

Is this a real argument?

why is logically inconsistent to think that an immaterial entity can have an effect on material entities?

Because the only material is ever effected is through material causes. That is everyone’s basic human experience. Moreover every single experience you ever have can be mapped out in an MRI. Every thought you have is explained by neural transmitters firing in different parts of your brain.

and i am saying that the world and everything in it can be explained by the proposition that the only thing that exists is your mind, and that everything else is the imaginings of that mind.

therefore, why do you need to believe in the real world at all? or other minds? or the past? or…

Okay sure, that does not hurt by position. I realize you think this is a reduction to the absurd, but its not. If someone says that the reason the earth is moving closer to the sun over time is due to the pull of the sun and a gigantic cucumber and they prove to you how the sun with its mass effects the earth, resulting in its motion closer to the sun, and then say the gigantic cucumber also exists because someone told them that it also helped pull in the sun. You would laugh and say, if there’s no reason to believe in the cucumber when the sun already explains the motion of the earth. The simplest theory is always the best.

propositions, properties, states of affairs, possible worlds, languages, meanings, etc., are all abstract objects, with no spatiotemporal properties.

but if the mind is entirely material, then it could not be acquainted with abstract objects, and we wouldn’t be able to have knowledge of them, or reason about them.

So you think that pretty much all mental reasoning “proves” the existence of the immaterial soul?
Your material brain fires off particular forms of neuro transmitters when engages in particular types of thinking. For instance if you are thinking about the color orange, a “property” the back part of your brain will light up as you imagine orange under an MRI. When your engaged in philosophy your frontal lobe is more active. So what does any of that mean?
Quite frankly, abstract concepts are nothing more than the stripping away of an experience which is synthesized in an area of the brain, much like a computer can categorize properties, and in fact recognize new properties that mean whatever criterion is called for. There is no reason to believe an immaterial soul is necessary to explain what is already observed in the brain’s functioning.

But this is where my second problem with the idea of a soul kicks in. Not only is the soul unnecesary, but if the soul did control our mental reasoning. Then explain Phileas Gage! His mind was completely altered by a physical event. If his SOUL was responsible for his mental processes, then an iron rod through the frontal lobe would not effect his mental processes. After the rod went through his head, he could no longer plan out the future, or control his emotions.

 

[Dameedna]

The more we learn about the human brain and the more we find out about our biology, the harder it is to justify moral judgements based on the behaviour that we observe, especially if a “brain” condition has led to that behaviour.

A person that has had brain damage, may become extremely violent, since the part of the brain that regulates aggression, emotion and impulse control may not be active anymore. What are we to do with such a person? Lock them up and throw away the key? Condem them(at least in our own minds) to hell?

Doesn’t show a lot of compassion for humanity when a choice to behave decently is taken away from us does it?

And It’s just going to get worse and worse the more we understand.

I think a lot of the time, when this is discussed people just make statements. They don’t really mean much, they aren’t “reasons” for anything, they are just proclamations. We are soul and Body. It’s a statement. Doesn’t really offer anything at all does it? The Brain affects behaviour. The soul doesn’t.

Then what IS the soul? it’s not our behaviour. It’s not our personality. It doesn’t change who and what we are.

It seems that the soul just exists…and it’s this thing, that does not interact with us or have anything to do with who we are…this soul that’s supposed to survive after death.

It’s a very strange concept isn’t it? A soul is to be condemmed for the behaviour of a brain, that has something wrong with it.

I think you’ll find that before “freud” came along, it was the “soul” that determined behaviour and it was the “soul” that was condemed. A choice was alway’s a persons decision. It had nothing to do with their material being. It had nothing to do with a neurological problem. It was something to be judged as good or bad. Science has thrown such a spanner in the works, that people no longer really know.

Having said all that, as much as we may know to a degree how the Brain affects behaviour, it doesn’t explain our conciousness. That is the last frontier!!!

 

[BlaineTog]

The simplest explanation is always the best.

Not true at all. There is an infinity of examples to disprove this. I will give you one. Pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger kills them either:

A) because it tells Death to end them, or

B) because the trigger pulls back and released a firing pin which strikes a small bit of explosive material causing it to ignite which causes a small reservoir of gunpower to ignite, which causes the chemicals composing the gunpower to break apart into gaseous form which expand rapidly, causing a slug of metal which had heretofore been blocking the only exit of the reservoir to be propelled out of the barrel at high speeds (oh, and little spiraling grooves in the barrel of the gun cause the bullet to exit with a spin around the Y axis which causes it to fly straighter) through the air. The bullet will follow a shallow arc and impart a relatively large amount of kinetic energy into a very small surface area when it impacts with a solid (or possibly liquid) object, and if that object is a human body, the bullet’s kinetic energy can cause vital organs to rupture and burst such that the person’s bodily functions are disrupted, eventually resulting in their death if the functions in question are vital enough and if medical care isn’t taken immediately to restore functioning.

B is more complicated but also more true.

Perhaps you meant “when the two explanations fit the evidence equally well.” Even then, the best you could possible hope to get is a tendency towards the simpler explanation. The light could turn on when you hit the light switch because the switch closes an electrical circuit of which the light is a part, or because a researcher is watching you with his finger on a button which turns the light on which he only pushes when you flick the switch, and while obviously the first is what happens in everyday life, there’s no reason why the second explanation couldn’t be it.

Even then, though, I see no reason for this principal to work even as a tendency. All sorts of crazy scientific hypotheses and even theories have been proposed and rejected throughout the ages which were much simpler than current models of quantum mechanics and such.

Even then, this wouldn’t be a philosophical technique for determining truth, but merely a pragmatic one, and thus would have no applicability when trying to figure out a system of metaphysics.

 

[Benedictus]

Not true at all. There is an infinity of examples to disprove this. I will give you one. Pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger kills them either:

A) because it tells Death to end them, or

B) because the trigger pulls back and released a firing pin which strikes a small bit of explosive material causing it to ignite which causes a small reservoir of gunpower to ignite, which causes the chemicals composing the gunpower to break apart into gaseous form which expand rapidly, causing a slug of metal which had heretofore been blocking the only exit of the reservoir to be propelled out of the barrel at high speeds (oh, and little spiraling grooves in the barrel of the gun cause the bullet to exit with a spin around the Y axis which causes it to fly straighter) through the air. The bullet will follow a shallow arc and impart a relatively large amount of kinetic energy into a very small surface area when it impacts with a solid (or possibly liquid) object, and if that object is a human body, the bullet’s kinetic energy can cause vital organs to rupture and burst such that the person’s bodily functions are disrupted, eventually resulting in their death if the functions in question are vital enough and if medical care isn’t taken immediately to restore functioning.

B is more complicated but also more true.

I disagree. B is the simpler explanation, you just explained in in more detail. The first explanation has a lot of unstated assumptions that make it more complicated and less likely. You assumed in A that there’s the person/entity called Death who wanders around harvesting souls, etc. You also failed to explain where this Death character came from, where he/it lives, etc.

B was spelled out in more detail, making the description longer, but it is by far the simpler explanation.

 

[BlaineTog]

You assumed in A that there’s the person/entity called Death who wanders around harvesting souls, etc. You also failed to explain where this Death character came from, where he/it lives, etc.

Death just is.

There. Still simple.

B was spelled out in more detail, making the description longer, but it is by far the simpler explanation.

I disagree. “Just because” is always simpler than “because X, Y, and Z.” The alternative is that Christianity is less complicated than Atheism since Atheism leaves things unexplained.

If you want another example, though, take the difference between the conception of atoms as indivisible little beads and quantum mechanics.

 

[john_doran]

Nope. That is not what I’m saying. You need a reason to believe in things. For instance, if I see something I may believe in it. I’m not saying I only believe in what I see, I just saying there must a causal connection my experience and that which I believe in.

ok, but what counts as a “causal connection” to your experience? when you see a picture of the earth from orbit, is that enough of a “causal connection” with your experience to allow you to form a reasonable belief that the earth does, in fact, look like that from orbit?

eudaimoniaisnow:

Is this a real argument?

it’s not an argument - it’s a question.

you suggested that believing in the existence of the soul on the basis of the testimony of one’s parents was illegitimate.

i am simply pointing out that you have many beliefs that are based solely on testimonial evidence, and wondering what makes those beliefs of yours ok.

eudaimoniaisnow:

Because the only material is ever effected is through material causes. That is everyone’s basic human experience.

you’re begging the question.

if what i say is correct, then it is everyone’s basic experience that one’s immaterial soul affects matter.

eudaimoniaisnow:

Moreover every single experience you ever have can be mapped out in an MRI. Every thought you have is explained by neural transmitters firing in different parts of your brain.

not true. for example, the experience of *what it is like for me to see red *is not reflected on the MRI.

eudaimoniaisnow:

Okay sure, that does not hurt by position. I realize you think this is a reduction to the absurd, but its not. If someone says that the reason the earth is moving closer to the sun over time is due to the pull of the sun and a gigantic cucumber and they prove to you how the sun with its mass effects the earth, resulting in its motion closer to the sun, and then say the gigantic cucumber also exists because someone told them that it also helped pull in the sun. You would laugh and say, if there’s no reason to believe in the cucumber when the sun already explains the motion of the earth. The simplest theory is always the best.

you’ve just repeated yourself here…

try it this way:

1. the simplest theory is the best;
2. the simplest theory is solipsism: only two things exists - me and my thoughts;
3. therefore solipsism is the best theory.

your cucumber argument does nothing to refute the simple logic of this syllogism.

eudaimoniaisnow:

So you think that pretty much all mental reasoning “proves” the existence of the immaterial soul?

no. just reasoning that requires acquaintance with abstract objects. and also free choices.

eudaimoniaisnow:

Your material brain fires off particular forms of neuro transmitters when engages in particular types of thinking. For instance if you are thinking about the color orange, a “property” the back part of your brain will light up as you imagine orange under an MRI. When your engaged in philosophy your frontal lobe is more active. So what does any of that mean?

it means that if i am thinking about orange and you are thinking about orange, then there needs to be something that is neither the neurons in your brain and the neurons in my brain that makes it true that we are thinking about the same color.

since, of course, the neuronal activity in your brain is totally different from the neuronal activity in my brain. and, neither series of neuroelectric firings are themselves the color orange.

so. if neither of the brain states are orange, and neither of our brain-states are the same, what makes both of those brain states 1) thoughts of the same thing, and 2) the experience of a property that is absent from those brain-states?

eudaimoniaisnow:

But this is where my second problem with the idea of a soul kicks in. Not only is the soul unnecesary, but if the soul did control our mental reasoning. Then explain Phileas Gage! His mind was completely altered by a physical event. If his SOUL was responsible for his mental processes, then an iron rod through the frontal lobe would not effect his mental processes. After the rod went through his head, he could no longer plan out the future, or control his emotions.

i’ve already pointed out the logical fallacy in this reasoning:

1. damaging the power-cord of my television damages the picture;
2. therefore the television’s picture must be in the power cord.

but this is obviously absurd…

the iron rod through gage’s brain affects the interface between body and soul - the brain-damage affects the material from which the abstract properties are derived.