How do we prove the soul exists?

[Charlemagne_III]

But if materialism is true, if the soul is only the brain, if there is no spirit, no human soul and no God, then the brain has been programmed by mere chance. All the programming our brains have received, through heredity(genetics) and environment(society), is ultimately only unintelligent, undersigned, random chance, brute facts, physical causes, not logical reasons.

The evolutionists will try to get around this by speaking of Natural Selection, as if nature has a mind with which to select. If that’s so, where in the universe is this materialistic brain they are so fond of citing?

 

[JapaneseKappa]

How can uncertainty be a fundamental property ,of something and not be able to be circumvented and then through experiment be able to be measured and have certain effects that can be accounted for and be relevant. It appears to be a contradiction. Can you give me an example?

I know the human mind can have uncertainty, it also is not omniscient. That if a thing exists it has objective reality that is what gives certainty to the human mind. When we label some things have uncertainty as a fundamental property, what things, physical things, spiritual things? If a thing didn’t exist the question of uncertainty never arises, uncertainty of what?

Consider a superhero whose special ability was random teleportation. He would, when he activated his power, teleport his whole self a random distance (up to 6 inches) in a random direction.

This superhero gets captured and chained up. He activates his power a few times until he eventually teleports himself out of the chains and escapes.

The next time he is captured, the super-villain has learned from his mistakes and built a cell with walls a foot thick. The walls are made so that if the hero should teleport himself into the walls, the walls will quickly eject him right back into his cell. The hero uses his power over and over in an attempt to escape, but since his power is random, he cannot simply make the three successive 6-inch teleports it would take for him to fully escape his cell.

Now, in that scenario, it probably would be possible for the hero to escape given enough time. How long it would take would depend on how frequently he could use his power, how thick the walls were, and how quickly the walls ejected the hero back into the cell. If the super-villain had all that information, though, he could potentially design a cell from which it was impossible for the hero to escape.

You can see, therefore, that it is quite possible to make meaningful descriptions of randomness (e.g. random distance up to 6 inches) and how those rules allow us to create situations where we are able to control the location of an entity whose location can be said to be random.

 

[Aloysium]

The evolutionists will try to get around this by speaking of Natural Selection, as if nature has a mind with which to select. If that’s so, where in the universe is this materialistic brain they are so fond of citing?

A few thoughts come to mind:

As sophisticated as post-modern(?) man may consider himself,
to believe that material forces are solely responsible for the vagaries of life, is merely another form of astrology.

There is a lot of ignorance about science. At least in the media, one frequently hears people, thinking they are being scientific, misuse the term “evolved” as signifying a “higher” form, as if there would exist an external cause, perhaps a biological force or tendency towards greater complexity of being. (Science in fact finds that mankind is getting stupider; the average IQ of people living today is about 7 points lower than when I was born.)

Imho, very few people actually buy into the idea of a purely materialistic universe as it is known empirically.
The human imagination quickly fills what is then a sterile, meaningless, mechanistic landscape with
alien life, superheros and other forms of material angels,
magical force fields, transporters, time machines and
the idea of humanity progressing forward to some eventual superior condition, in harmony with, while exploring the wonders of the cosmos.
At the other end are those dystopic worlds of killer robots and computers, and/or brutal, ignorant, even living-dead humanity, feeding on itself.

The problem is that if one does not pursue what is truly Real, as revealed by pretty much every religion in its own way, one will fall completely into the superstition and illusion.

 

[ynotzap]

Consider a superhero whose special ability was random teleportation. He would, when he activated his power, teleport his whole self a random distance (up to 6 inches) in a random direction.

This superhero gets captured and chained up. He activates his power a few times until he eventually teleports himself out of the chains and escapes.

The next time he is captured, the super-villain has learned from his mistakes and built a cell with walls a foot thick. The walls are made so that if the hero should teleport himself into the walls, the walls will quickly eject him right back into his cell. The hero uses his power over and over in an attempt to escape, but since his power is random, he cannot simply make the three successive 6-inch teleports it would take for him to fully escape his cell.

Now, in that scenario, it probably would be possible for the hero to escape given enough time. How long it would take would depend on how frequently he could use his power, how thick the walls were, and how quickly the walls ejected the hero back into the cell. If the super-villain had all that information, though, he could potentially design a cell from which it was impossible for the hero to escape.

You can see, therefore, that it is quite possible to make meaningful descriptions of randomness (e.g. random distance up to 6 inches) and how those rules allow us to create situations where we are able to control the location of an entity whose location can be said to be random.

Randomness within a six inch circle (a determination) how frequently he could use his powers (determination), how thick the walls were (determination), how quickly rejected *(determination) Your example of randomness has a lot of determination, and that’s the point. Randomness makes no sense without determination, objective reality. It becomes purely subject, and loses contact with reality, it is of the mind only. There has to be a bases that is determined even considering randomness to make sense.

 

[Amandil]

Charlemagne:

The evolutionists will try to gtet around this by speaking of Natural Selection, as if nature has a mind with which to select. If that’s so, where in the universe is this materialistic brain they are so fond of citing?

But isn’t Natural Selection necessarily connected with their Dogma of Determinism?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

But isn’t Natural Selection necessarily connected with their Dogma of Determinism?

Yes, they do have their dogmas, don’t they?

 

[inocente]

The evolutionists will try to get around this by speaking of Natural Selection, as if nature has a mind with which to select. If that’s so, where in the universe is this materialistic brain they are so fond of citing?

There are plenty of Catholics who subscribe to natural selection, but it’s nothing like the capitalized idol you describe. We can’t discuss it here, but ask a Catholic what natural selection is, it’s very simple, much more simple than gravity.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Randomness within a six inch circle (a determination) how frequently he could use his powers (determination), how thick the walls were (determination), how quickly rejected *(determination) Your example of randomness has a lot of determination, and that’s the point. Randomness makes no sense without determination, objective reality. It becomes purely subject, and loses contact with reality, it is of the mind only. There has to be a bases that is determined even considering randomness to make sense.

Are you deliberately moving your goalposts? Your original objection was:

For example: If I flip a coin it is a guess to determine which side will land face up. But if one applies the objective laws of physics, and of math one can determine which side will land face up., by calculating the number of turns of the coin, the degree of the force exerted, at what angle to the coin, the distance traveled and the speed it moves, etc. So what appears as a random guess is really a lack of knowledge on the part of the one making the guess.

This objection does not apply in the case of the randomly-teleporting-hero. There is nothing we could know about the universe that would let us predict exactly where he would end up before he activates his power. That I restricted him to a 6-inch circle is as arbitrary as your decision to flip a two sided coin. There are all sorts of possible properties his random teleportation could have, but none of them make it impossible to reason about the randomness. Even if he could potentially teleport anywhere in the universe, we could *still *reason about his location. Even if he teleported continuously, we could *still *reason about his location.

The uncertainty principle states that some things have a fundamental sort of randomness, and the properties of that randomness have been measured; just like the super-villain could study the properties of the hero’s random teleportation.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

There are plenty of Catholics who subscribe to natural selection, but it’s nothing like the capitalized idol you describe. We can’t discuss it here, but ask a Catholic what natural selection is, it’s very simple, much more simple than gravity.

I don’t need to do that. I understand what Natural Selection is. I just don’t know why they call it Selection when there is no mind at work Selecting.

Why don’t they just call it Natural Occurance?

You get the point, don’t you? Selecting implies Intelligent Design.

I am not disputing the theory of Evolution.

 

[ynotzap]

Are you deliberately moving your goalposts? Your original objection was:

This objection does not apply in the case of the randomly-teleporting-hero. There is nothing we could know about the universe that would let us predict exactly where he would end up before he activates his power. That I restricted him to a 6-inch circle is as arbitrary as your decision to flip a two sided coin. There are all sorts of possible properties his random teleportation could have, but none of them make it impossible to reason about the randomness. Even if he could potentially teleport anywhere in the universe, we could *still *reason about his location. Even if he teleported continuously, we could *still *reason about his location.

The uncertainty principle states that some things have a fundamental sort of randomness, and the properties of that randomness have been measured; just like the super-villain could study the properties of the hero’s random teleportation.

Why would I deliberately change the goalposts? I didn’t I gave you a real example of randomness which amounted to ignorance. I think I clarified that.

In quantum mechanics the principle that it is impossible to measure simultaneously and exactly two related quantities , as both position and momentum of an electron.

I can not accept the statement that uncertainty is a fundamental property of some things, and no way to circumvent it.

I believe I can understand why it would be impossible to measure simultaneously and exactly the position and momentum of an electron. Change is in the nature of things. This applies to all created realities. An electron is part of this physical reality, and so is any measuring tool of a physical nature. The are both subjected to change. When science applies math principles, they are apply universal self-evident truths that never change When designing the measuring tools, we are applying unchangeable principles to an ever changing subject, the measuring tool and the electron. Then how can one measure something accurately that constantly changing. What gives a degree of accuracy is the unchanging principles of math applied in the design of the tool. And to do this simultaneously is double jeopardy, since it can’t be done singly Change is a fundamental property of the material wold, and it is certain. To me uncertainty is not a fundamental property of things, certainty is because it exists How can you measure position and speed accurately when it is constantly changing? We can come close but that’s it. And that’s due to the applied principles of math in design which never change.

 

[inocente]

I don’t need to do that. I understand what Natural Selection is. I just don’t know why they call it Selection when there is no mind at work Selecting.

Why don’t they just call it Natural Occurance?

You get the point, don’t you? Selecting implies Intelligent Design.

I am not disputing the theory of Evolution.

Darwin coined the phrase to distinguish it from artificial selection (now called selective breeding). In that case humans decide which specimens to breed. In nature, selection is by the survival of the fittest in the habitat. An intelligent designer wouldn’t need to select unless it couldn’t get the design right first time around.

I think that’s as far as we should go, given the ban.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Darwin coined the phrase to distinguish it from artificial selection (now called selective breeding). In that case humans decide which specimens to breed. In nature, selection is by the survival of the fittest in the habitat. An intelligent designer wouldn’t need to select unless it couldn’t get the design right first time around.

I think that’s as far as we should go, given the ban.

Oh, so you want the last word, right?

 

[Aloysium]

. . . In nature, selection is by the survival of the fittest in the habitat. An intelligent designer wouldn’t need to select unless it couldn’t get the design right first time around.

I think that’s as far as we should go, given the ban.

I’m not sure if I understand you, but your view would suggest that Da Vinci wouldn’t have had to keep painting if he had got it right the first time around.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Darwin coined the phrase to distinguish it from artificial selection (now called selective breeding). In that case humans decide which specimens to breed. In nature, selection is by the survival of the fittest in the habitat. An intelligent designer wouldn’t need to select unless it couldn’t get the design right first time around.

I think that’s as far as we should go, given the ban.

God, working through evolution, would supernaturally select all the right conditions for the evolution of life on this planet. As Intelligent Designer, working through evolution, God would select those life forms most conducive to survival, and from them God would direct the breeding of increasingly complex life forms that would become dependent on each other for their existence. For example, bacteria are needed for the human body, so it is not surprising that God would design the breeding of bacteria long before designing those species that would lead to the breeding of the human. You might call this stumbling intelligent design; I call it supernatural Genius.

“I am not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the language in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books, but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.” Albert Einstein

A book doesn’t write itself. It is intelligently designed.