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Shredderbeam
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Since we don’t know everything about reality, I would hesitate to declare something permanently out of the reach of science by fiat. Perhaps there is a way that science could investigate the subject that has not yet occurred to anybody.
I’m not trying to accuse you of anything - mind-body dualism was a convenient example.
I’m not trying to use “fighting talk”, or trying to convince you that you’re immature, or pretending to be superior in knowledge.
I feel that a debate should be a constructive exchange of ideas, with positive back-and-forth, helpful criticism, etc., as opposed to the usual “me versus you” style. That’s how I try to argue all of the time.
Incidentally, are you deciding that you will not be swayed by any of my arguments, even before you hear them?
It establishes the method by which we can know reality.
Deduction works well.
Direct observation of what I experience.
I don’t know that it’s truly objective.
I’m not claiming that empiricism has a claim to objective truth, just the truth of the reality that I experience. Sure, maybe it’s an illusion, maybe I’m a brain in a vat, but I probably won’t get anywhere by second-guessing the world, so I might as well make the best of what’s around me.
So yes, I guess you could call it a reasonable belief.
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tzmike
Guest
Being alive is proof that there’s a soul. There’s no difference between a “freshly” dead body and a body that still has life. The chemical composition and the structural composition are the same. Put any two like parts under a microscope and there is no difference. The only explanation can be an intangible soul.
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liquidpele
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Shredderbeam
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The difference between them is that certain organs are not functioning.
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PioYapJr
Guest
May I contribute a page from a five-page article that I wrote about this topic. This may appear outlandish to most if not all of you but I hope you will be kind enough to give it your thoughtful attention.
MAKING SENSE OF THE CONCEPT OF THE HUMAN SOUL
A Lay Person’s Speculation
by
Pio G. Yap, Jr.
Some Axioms
It is a fact that most people believe in God. And it is not an exaggeration to say that many thinkers are theists. For sure, thinkers have their own notion about God which may vary with each individual. It is safe to say that many men of science are Christians and therefore we can assume that they hold about the same set of views of the idea of God as most Christians do. Two of these views which are the centerpiece of this thesis are that God exists for all eternity and that God is omniscient or All-Knowing.
Explanation: Consider a particular pencil. What information does it contain? It has its length, color, the amount and kind of wood it has, the amount and kind of lead in it, where the wood and its other entire component come from, and all the enumerable information contained in it. In other words, it contains all the information of what it is; and it alone has this complete in-formation Hence it contains its own software.
As software, it can be stored in a memory bank. For the complete software of an object as simple as a pencil, it may not be humanly possible to gather all its information and store it in even the most sophisticated memory bank.
But there is a memory bank that is perfect and inherently stores all the software of all that can be found in the universe. This is the memory of an omniscient God.
The key idea here is that God is omniscient. That is, God knows everything and for-gets nothing. In the language of science we can state that the idea that God is omniscient implies that information is conserved.
It may completely boggle the human imagination that in attributing to God the omnis-cient nature, we accept the notion that this Supreme Being has perfect knowledge of all the parti-cles in the universe –from the largest to the smallest, for all time. As soon as God loses track of a single electron in the universe, He ceases to be the omniscient God that He is. He also ceases to be omnipotent in the sense that He loses control of that single electron.
Based on this concept, some of our Christian doctrines about the soul becomes much more plausible and therefore, easier to appreciate.
(To be continued…)
MAKING SENSE OF THE CONCEPT OF THE HUMAN SOUL
A Lay Person’s Speculation
by
Pio G. Yap, Jr.
Code:
Although most of us profess to believe in the existence of our soul, not being a theologian or a philosopher, we are not sure that we understand what it is at all. The dictionary tells us that it is the spiritual part of the person. But what is spirit? Why is it immortal? Or is it?
In the section SOUL in the WIKIPEDIA (which can be accessed in the Internet) one can find an array of beliefs and speculations about the existence and the nature of the soul. Going through the section as it discusses the beliefs of philosophers and various religious systems would be a good introduction to this article.
Theologians tell us a thousand times that the human soul includes his intellect and will. Not being a theologian or a philosopher I find it difficult to appreciate and much less to be excited by this explanation.
Perhaps the modern lay persons, particularly Christians, may be able to appreciate what another lay person, born in this age has to say about it –for whatever it is worth.
This is an attempt to make sense of this ancient notion in the light of concepts that we are now familiar with.It is a fact that most people believe in God. And it is not an exaggeration to say that many thinkers are theists. For sure, thinkers have their own notion about God which may vary with each individual. It is safe to say that many men of science are Christians and therefore we can assume that they hold about the same set of views of the idea of God as most Christians do. Two of these views which are the centerpiece of this thesis are that God exists for all eternity and that God is omniscient or All-Knowing.
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It would not be unreasonable therefore to use these tenets as the basic axioms to serve as the starting points of this thesis: That an eternal God exists and that He is omniscient. (This is Biblical. But let us start this thesis in the spirit of science.)
Before proceeding with our discussion, allow me first to present what can be considered as a self-evident axiom:
Each physical object contains the sum total of its own software.As software, it can be stored in a memory bank. For the complete software of an object as simple as a pencil, it may not be humanly possible to gather all its information and store it in even the most sophisticated memory bank.
But there is a memory bank that is perfect and inherently stores all the software of all that can be found in the universe. This is the memory of an omniscient God.
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I state now as a corollary: that a person consists of a set of information.
Then at the risk of sounding like someone having read and seen too many science fic-tions, I ask the reader’s indulgence and bear with me and decide later whether or not what follows make sense: The human soul includes all the information that makes a person who he is. In modern language therefore, we can think of the soul as software.
I find this definition to lead to some significant implications.It may completely boggle the human imagination that in attributing to God the omnis-cient nature, we accept the notion that this Supreme Being has perfect knowledge of all the parti-cles in the universe –from the largest to the smallest, for all time. As soon as God loses track of a single electron in the universe, He ceases to be the omniscient God that He is. He also ceases to be omnipotent in the sense that He loses control of that single electron.
Based on this concept, some of our Christian doctrines about the soul becomes much more plausible and therefore, easier to appreciate.
(To be continued…)
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PioYapJr
Guest
(Continuation to the previous post)
People usually ask, where does a person’s soul reside? Is it in the brain? If our thesis is correct, then it is not just in the brain, but throughout his entire body because it is in the entire body that the information about the whole person is found.
This resonates uncannily with what the Catholic Church teaches about the soul: “The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the ‘form’ of the body.” (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Sect. 365).
The soul as software resides in a memory bank. This memory bank is no less than God’s memory. This is not to relegate the soul (especially when the body dies) to some far-way inac-cessible vault. For God is present everywhere and at all time. Therefore, to say that the soul as software is in God’s memory bank is to say that the soul exists.
- The soul is immortal
In the same manner that we can say that an object contains its own software, so does a human person’s body. This software we identify earlier as the human soul.
People usually ask, where does a person’s soul reside? Is it in the brain? If our thesis is correct, then it is not just in the brain, but throughout his entire body because it is in the entire body that the information about the whole person is found.
This resonates uncannily with what the Catholic Church teaches about the soul: “The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the ‘form’ of the body.” (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Sect. 365).
The soul as software resides in a memory bank. This memory bank is no less than God’s memory. This is not to relegate the soul (especially when the body dies) to some far-way inac-cessible vault. For God is present everywhere and at all time. Therefore, to say that the soul as software is in God’s memory bank is to say that the soul exists.
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From this, it follows that since God never forgets, then the soul must be immortal. When the body dies, the entire human software or soul remains in God’s memory. As Christians, we believe that even in this state, the soul retains its self-awareness.- The doctrine of hell
This concept answers for us the hard doctrine of the eternal damnation of the unjust. For some people, the idea of hell contradicts the tenet that God is merciful. Admittedly, it is difficult to reconcile this idea with the teaching that God punishes an evil person to eternal suffering. Is it not more merciful to wipe a person’s soul out of existence?
- The resurrection of the body
As software, the soul includes the information of a person’s memories, emotions and his-tory. But more than this, the soul includes the information of the complete design of the person’s body as encoded in its DNA.
All these are not only stored but are also completely understood by the all-knowing Crea-tor. It would be quaint therefore, for a person to exist for all eternity as a soul only, all the time carrying within, all the information pertaining to his/her body. He or she would only be half the creature he was created to be. It is reasonable to believe therefore, that the Master Engineer will rebuild our body on the basis of the complete blueprint that our soul provides. This time, the er-rors in the blue print, which are the causes of imperfections of some people’s bodies here on earth, will be corrected. (Even human engineers correct errors and bugs as they find them in the process of constructing any gadget.)
Where would God get the material to rebuild a person’s body during the Last Judgement? This question is easily answered by considering that, given its blueprint, even a human engineer can easily build up a computer or any gadget for that matter. We must remember that the uni-verse is an overwhelming source of matter –the stuff our bodies are made of.
What is difficult to answer is: given that our resurrected bodies are made up of matter, how would it be prevented from deteriorating again? Would the Law of Entropy be abolished by the Creator? In other word, why would it be immortal? How would it be prevented from perish-ing in an accidental catastrophe? How could it survive the violent end of the solar system as pro-jected by scientists?
Let us consider the data of our human existence as present science reveals to us. We are told that we are using only a small percentage of our human capacity as we live our earthly lives. And this is true even of the most intelligent and active of human beings on earth. We see a glimpse of this potential when we consider our subconscious mind where all our experiences (e.g. what we see, feel, hear, taste and smell, including what we emotionally feel) are buried. We also see a glimpse of our capability when we consider some well-documented paranormal phe-nomena. The well known case of Padre Pio’s prodigies is one of these. Think of our power to ‘see’ when we are able to exercise our intuition. Even some autistic people are able to demonstrate wondrous ability to make arithmetical computations or memorization. While we consider these as aberration, are they not indications of our mind’s hidden capability?
It is reasonable to expect that a person’s resurrected body would completely be able to access these buried talents. Otherwise, why would God put them there?
Even in the physical sphere, given the earth being populated by god-like resurrected people, it is not difficult to imagine the capability of surviving any catastrophe that may happen to the planet a billion years hence.
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geekborj
Guest
Soul is an immaterial idea. Hence, outside the scope of any physical science and philosophy.
I believe that somehow, every individual “knows” that he has a soul. Look at the non-Christian faiths/religions around the globe and examine how they “approximate” the idea of Christian soul…
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TheWhim
Guest
I think you have not quite come to terms yet with what MindOverMatter tries to express. – In fact, consciousness is primary. Subjectivity is primordial, the surrounding world comes next. How do you know about the existence of the external world? You know about it through your conscious experiences, your consciousness, your self-awareness. In fact, a world that wouldn’t contain any conscious entities could hardly be called a world at all, since no one would be aware that there was a world, that there was a world to be known. Think of a world only consisting of grass and its unconsciousness – it’s a world in total oblivion of everything, even of itself.
In other words, empirical science relies on subjective experiences; it cannot be otherwise. However, the defining moment about subjective experiences is that they are not objective, not measurable via empirical investigation. I like to employ the example here of a proband tasting the delicious depths of his favourite brand of chocolate while a neuroscientist watches the proband’s brain patterns; the scientist may see a lot of firing in different brain areas but however close he may get, even if he starts to lick his proband’s brain, he will never be able to tell that the proband’s experiences could be his own, that he could experience by now what the proband experiences. That’s the inscrutability of subjectivity. It’s not accessible to empirical science, and it never will be, by definition.
Again, with his subjectivity the scientist has access to the empirical, to objectivity. It’s not the other way around. In other words, its far more easy to prove the existence of consciousness than to prove the existence of an external world. Descartes showed this in his famous thought-play and I won’t repeat it here – a little research on Google will lead you there – cogito ergo sum etc.
Consciousness transcends the empirical. The scientist will never find any such thing as consciousness. What he finds are neurons firing in different places at slightly different times in the brain. The miracle of consciousness is that these neuronal activity patterns which are temporally and spatially seperated are united, in consciousness, into one global psychic entity or experience – which defies all empiricism, and is, indeed, inasmuch as the laws of physics are done away with, a miracle. – I’ve always thought it a wonderful joke when scientists tell us there are no miracles while they themselves, as conscious beings, already make up a tremendous miracle.
That’s the whole point. It’s no candidate for empirical investigation. Subjectivity cannot be a candidate for empirical investigation. Subjectivity is even the precondition for any empirical investigation taking place. You cannot place yourself aside of subjectivity, aside of consciousness and try to examine it – you cannot make a step out of your own self.
Perhaps the confusion in this everlasting mind-soul debate is largely due to an overly great appeal to substantial instead of dynamic conceptions. – I think the substantial ideas serve rather as an aid here to get a better hold on the dynamic ones. “Subjectivity” is quite a hazy term and we are instantly tempted to ground it with some substantial basis, that is, the concept of the soul. It should not be forgotten, however, that the soul is not meant to be a material object that could ever come into the focos of empirical investigation. It’s just another, more convenient term for the strictly immaterial experience of subjectivity.
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Shredderbeam
Guest
When I say that consciousness is not primary, I mean that reality is not a product of our consciousness.
I understand that empirical science relies on subjective experiences.
If consciousness is a product of physical processes in the brain, and we understand exactly how those processes work to produce consciousness, then it might be possible to experience another’s subjective experiences.
Research into consciousness is ongoing, and not quite fruitless. At some point, an explanation as to just how the various parts of the brain produce one unified experience will probably be produced.
Also, argument from ignorance.
If consciousness has a basis in the brain, then it’s certainly investigatable. We can rely on testimony from experiment subjects, perform the experiments on ourselves, etc.
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mstone
Guest
I believe a better explanation for your personal nature would be the theory of evolution, genetics, your environment as a child, your diet, and all other external influences that have been acting upon you since you were conceived.
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Gabriella_San_S
Guest
I would say the best way to explore this profound human mystery-whether one likes to call it that or not, is working with the dying in a hospital or hospice. If you’ve ever been present at a person’s death, you’ll see the evidence of a “soul” no longer present. If you’re a believer in eternity, than that is a** transitory** action, or a passage.
If you don’t believe in life for the soul after death, than another example would be to watch a beloved pet die. Soul(not immortal) and body one moment,** soley** body the next. This is the** reliable** evidence of a soul, faith is the conviction on which reality is based.
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liquidpele
Guest
What about people in a coma? What about people with horrible brain injury like Terry Schiavo? It occurs to me that there is not a fine line between death and life like what you have described… I think any evidence of a “soul” making a transition is entirely in our minds and how we interpret the situation. If there is a soul, I doubt it’s something we can see, experiment on, or understand.
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Gabriella_San_S
Guest
People in a coma or people severely brain damaged still have a** beating heart**, yes? They often** respond very tenderly to loved ones with tears and smiles and blinks and hand squeezes. They are still human beings that are animated by souls that have an inherent dignity** as** persons** rather than objects to be disposed of.
Terri Schiavo is a wonderful example of this. I’m so glad you brought her up.
It was the cruel and deliberate withdrawal of** life sustaining** fluids that snuffed the life out of her.And believe me, she suffered and** died** mercilessly at the hands of a civil judge-based on his own** definition of life**. We’re on a very slippery slope, my friend. Many are** cascading** down already, in this culture of death.
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liquidpele
Guest
I respectfully disagree. If you take out the brain entirely, the heart still beats, the body is “alive” but the person is not there in any meaningful use of the word. Responses by those in a coma are generally reactions… you can even see them in paralyzed limbs…
serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro99/web1/Lord.html
I think letting Terry’s body go was the right decision, because her mind was already gone. From the video that I saw of her, it appeared that any affections she displayed was in the mind and hopes of those who loved her, but not the reality of the situation.
In short, I think that it’s a touchy subject, because it’s rarely black and white. Having certain parts of the body no longer function does not mean we are gone, but certain ones are much more vital than others… even the heart beating is not a good indication. During heart surgery, we keep people without a beating heard for several minutes, and then start up an entirely different one.
You call it a culture of death… what is so bad about Death? It’s part of life after all. Would it not be selfish (although understandable to want) to hold someone back from passing on because you love them or want more time with them?
PS: Your use of bold is a bit distracting…
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MindOverMatter
Guest
What do you mean by the right decision?
What do you mean by she was already gone? Are you saying that the value of a person is defined by how well the brain works?
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liquidpele
Guest
The right decision in my opinion.
I mean, her mind was gone… like if someone shot her in the head but she was on life support.
I think the worth of a person does depends on their abilities and potential. Terry had no more abilities, and according to the doctors had no potential for recovery. To me, she was like a living doll her parents wanted to keep around because they couldn’t let go. I personally associate the notion of “self” with the brain, since that is the organ that gives us conscious thought… so with Terry, since that organ had been (for all intensive purposes) destroyed, I feel she as a person was already dead. Again, just my opinion on the subject.
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Gabriella_San_S
Guest
Then it is, unfortunately, a** futile conversation to have with you , my friend. (in my opinion, bold** has it’s place)
Your personal opinion is in such direct opposition to the existence of a Loving God who created us in His image and likeness, that I see now, how fatalism has become your god.
I pray for you to experience love enough to lift you out of your despair. God bless you.
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MindOverMatter
Guest
I hope you don’t mind me interrogating you. Its nothing personal, its just a philosophical exercise.
So, now that the court is settled, we may begin.
So… according to you, the “right” decision is dictated according to mere opinion?
What is her mind? If your talking about human beings, All i see is complex objects walking around; why should i value them as people? Its the same object whether its moving or not, correct?
So you’re okay if somebody judges your life’s worth on some arbitrary invented set of principles that suits them. I feel sorry for you if somebody decides that you shouldn’t exist because they believe as a result of some naturalistic philosophy that your life isn’t worth anything.
In the history of medicine, has that always been true? Is it not the case that they could not be a hundred percent sure that recovery is impossible, epistemologically speaking?
You just said that her mind was gone… so why are you referring to her and attributing to her the value of a person? It seems that what you are really saying is that some other peoples fallible desires and beliefs about reality is more valuable to you then the desires and beliefs of the parents that gave birth to the person in Question. How is this not a prejudice against the parents?
Is it? Is this a belief? If so, what really makes a person a person, to you, is based on what people believe, rather then what is objectively truth. And you are happy to agree with her being shut down based on no knowledge other then what appears to be true to you or what a number of people agree upon according to your belief in naturalism; correct?
So you accept that she was shut down according to peoples opinions and assumptions?
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liquidpele
Guest
I don’t have a God that I know of, and you believing in one doesn’t make you right, it just means you believe in God.
I have a wonderful wife, wonderful family, and enough love, but thank you for your concern.
Anyway, I don’t see why it was futile… you asked and I told you my position on the matter. I understand yours, I just hope that you understand mine.
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