"Reflex limit" proves soul and God

[empther]

( mindovermatter2,
You should love this one! )

1. Of course, if all human knowledge started from sensory (name removed by moderator)ut,
   then all knowledge and behavior would be nothing more than reflex.
2. Put in the right sensory (name removed by moderator)ut and the corresponding thought and behaviors result.
3. But while this is true of the animals, it’s not true of humans who can think and behave in an “infinite” number of ways unconnected to the environment, ( or pro-actively self-initiated in the case of seeking something like an art musuem. ) Because there is a “reflex limit”, a limit to what reflexes can do, but no limit to what human intelligence can do.
4. Therefore, humans have something above the physical animal world. We call it soul.
5. But the physical world cannot produce a soul. Therefore, God exists.

 

[Sacred_Heart_1]

( mindovermatter2,
You should love this one! )

1. Of course, if all human knowledge started from sensory (name removed by moderator)ut,
   then all knowledge and behavior would be nothing more than reflex.
2. Put in the right sensory (name removed by moderator)ut and the corresponding thought and behaviors result.
3. But while this is true of the animals, it’s not true of humans who can think and behave in an “infinite” number of ways unconnected to the environment, ( or pro-actively self-initiated in the case of seeking something like an art musuem. ) Because there is a “reflex limit”, a limit to what reflexes can do, but no limit to what human intelligence can do.
4. Therefore, humans have something above the physical animal world. We call it soul.
5. But the physical world cannot produce a soul. Therefore, God exists.

Human beings are limited in their intelligence. We’re in no way Omniscient. And who are you to say that an animal doesn’t have a soul. An animal has the same Spirit of Life as we do, just in different form. It is the Spirit that gives life to a soul not some “reflex limit”. Just because one animal doesn’t possess the same ability as another does not diminish the Spirit of Life within it. It’s ignorance and disrespect towards life to say that you are the only one that possesses a soul.

 

[empther]

Human beings are limited in their intelligence. We’re in no way Omniscient. And who are you to say that an animal doesn’t have a soul. An animal has the same Spirit of Life as we do, just in different form. It is the Spirit that gives life to a soul not some “reflex limit”. Just because one animal doesn’t possess the same ability as another does not diminish the Spirit of Life within it. It’s ignorance and disrespect towards life to say that you are the only one that possesses a soul.

We have a dog. He’s laying on the floor just eight feet from my feet this very minute. I told him he has no soul and he wagged his tail expecting a treat or something. No offense taken it seems…

 

[ThinkingSapien]

1. Of course, if all human knowledge started from sensory (name removed by moderator)ut, then all knowledge and behavior would be nothing more than reflex.

I’m not quite sure that I follow this. It may sound like a silly question, but which definition of “reflex” are you using here?

1. Put in the right sensory (name removed by moderator)ut and the corresponding thought and behaviors result.

I could see some one working in marketing or in training agreeing with this one.

1. But while this is true of the animals, it’s not true of humans who can think and behave in an “infinite” number of ways unconnected to the environment

I understand this to mean that (2) isn’t applicable to humans. But I don’t think (2) is completely inapplicable to humans. Do not the behavioural sciences take past experiences into consideration for explaining present behaviour or setting expectations for future behaviour?

We have a dog. He’s laying on the floor just eight feet from my feet this very minute. I told him he has no soul and he wagged his tail expecting a treat or something. No offense taken it seems…

…not quite sure I follow you here either. I could easily go and call 100 people in my local mall 愚か and they wouldn’t take offense to that either. But calling them 愚か is not likely to communicate anything that they find meaningful so I wouldn’t expect them to act in accordance with what the word means to me. I don’t think that telling your dog that he has no soul communicates anything to him. So I don’t expect him to act in accordance with what that means to you.

On a side note, it would be easy to engineer a situation in which a person would be able to use contextual ques to infer what the word means. Would that not be compatible with statement (2)?

 

[empther]

My remark about the dog laying on the floor is not to be taken seriously.
It was made in response to somebody who said how did I know animals didn’t have souls and I was being disrespectful to “life” to think only I had a soul etc etc etc.
Oh brother!

 

[empther]

Quote:
Originally Posted by empther

forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif
1. Of course, if all human knowledge started from sensory (name removed by moderator)ut, then all knowledge and behavior would be nothing more than reflex.

I’m not quite sure that I follow this. It may sound like a silly question, but which definition of “reflex” are you using here?

A learned or “conditioned” reflex, such as Pavlov’s dogs salivating at the sound of a bell,
not an inborn or hardwited reflex like the leg jerking when you hit the knee tendon with a little hammer.

Quote:
Originally Posted by empther

forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif
2. Put in the right sensory (name removed by moderator)ut and the corresponding thought and behaviors result.

I could see some one working in marketing or in training agreeing with this one.

If a human being is nothing more than a materialistic animal as atheists say, then all human thought and behavior can only be reflex.

Quote:
Originally Posted by empther

forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif
3. But while this is true of the animals, it’s not true of humans who can think and behave in an “infinite” number of ways unconnected to the environment

I understand this to mean that (2) isn’t applicable to humans. But I don’t think (2) is completely inapplicable to humans. Do not the behavioural sciences take past experiences into consideration for explaining present behaviour or setting expectations for future behaviour?

Certainly human behavior is partly reflex. ( Perhaps we could also use the word “habit”, although that implies the involvement of a soul in charge of the body, which is what my argument is trying to get to. ) When a quarterback throws a long pass, he doesn’t throw the ball at the receiver who won’t be there by the time the ball arrives. He throws the ball ahead of the receiver, depending on his long training to throw the ball to the right place by reflex.

However, I’m contending that some human behaviors are not learned reflexes, or a complicated interplay of reflexes, but is the action of an agent in humans that acts without dependence on the physical brain and nervous system alone.

 

[prodigalson2011]

( mindovermatter2,
You should love this one! )

1. Of course, if all human knowledge started from sensory (name removed by moderator)ut,
   then all knowledge and behavior would be nothing more than reflex.
2. Put in the right sensory (name removed by moderator)ut and the corresponding thought and behaviors result.
3. But while this is true of the animals, it’s not true of humans who can think and behave in an “infinite” number of ways unconnected to the environment, ( or pro-actively self-initiated in the case of seeking something like an art musuem. ) Because there is a “reflex limit”, a limit to what reflexes can do, but no limit to what human intelligence can do.
4. Therefore, humans have something above the physical animal world. We call it soul.
5. But the physical world cannot produce a soul. Therefore, God exists.

I don’t disagree with you personally, but I think to make this argument logically solid, you would need to substantiate this claim with some sub-arguments.

 

[vera_dicere]

We have a dog. He’s laying on the floor just eight feet from my feet this very minute. I told him he has no soul and he wagged his tail expecting a treat or something. No offense taken it seems…

The other day I said to my cat, jokingly, “yeah, well, you only have a mortal soul” and she hissed at me rather nasty like. And she’s a nice cat, but she seemed rather offended.

It was like the time I told her she was going on a diet cos she was getting a bit pudgey, she hissed at me, I said “well, too bad, if you want something else to eat go and catch a bird or something”.

Two minutes later she came back into the house with a bird in her mouth. A live one.

Just because an animals can’t tell you they don’t have a soul, or dont’ act offended doesn’t mean they don’t have a soul - mortal or otherwise. I mean, if you said that to a three day old baby, and all they did was poop, would that mean they’re souless?

 

[ThinkingSapien]

If a human being is nothing more than a materialistic animal as atheists say, then all human thought and behavior can only be reflex… However, I’m contending that some human behaviors are not learned reflexes, or a complicated interplay of reflexes, but is the action of an agent in humans that acts without dependence on the physical brain and nervous system alone.

I don’t think that assuming the presence or absence of a soul gets us any closer explaining human behaviour. While not explicitly stated I get the feeling that it is assumed that a soul doesn’t have any reflexes as defined above. I think that before the soul can be presented as -]proof /-] evidence of a god we need to first identify -]proof /-]evidence of a soul in an unambiguous manner. Some assert that animals have no souls, others assert they do. Some people assert that certain other people have no souls. Some people assert that their souls inhabited bodies of people (or animals) that lived in the past. How would resolve these disagreements?

The provisional knowledge of human behaviour includes knowledge of the influence of some chemicals, the influence of some physical factors (including physical alteration/injury of parts of the nervous system), social influence, and other factors. But human behaviour is fertile ground for finding unknowns. Using a soul as an explanation for the unknowns of human behaviours seems like something more akin to a god-of-the-gaps type argument.

Certainly human behavior is partly reflex. ( Perhaps we could also use the word “habit”, although that implies the involvement of a soul in charge of the body, which is what my argument is trying to get to. )

How does “habit” imply the involvement of a soul?

 

[wanstronian]

( mindovermatter2,
You should love this one! )

1. Of course, if all human knowledge started from sensory (name removed by moderator)ut,
   then all knowledge and behavior would be nothing more than reflex.

Nonsense, given your definition of “reflex.”

1. Put in the right sensory (name removed by moderator)ut and the corresponding thought and behaviors result.

A huge simplification, but notionally true.

1. But while this is true of the animals, it’s not true of humans who can think and behave in an “infinite” number of ways unconnected to the environment, ( or pro-actively self-initiated in the case of seeking something like an art musuem. ) Because there is a “reflex limit”, a limit to what reflexes can do, but no limit to what human intelligence can do.

More nonsense. Humans ARE animals. This is a scientific fact; ignoring it won’t make it go away.

It’s manifestly and observably obvious that non-human animals can also think outside the bounds of “reflex” (although evidentially not as abstractly as human animals…

1. Therefore, humans have something above the physical animal world. We call it soul.

The established fact that humans are animals makes this sentence meaningless.

1. But the physical world cannot produce a soul. Therefore, God exists.

An invalid and unsound argument. You’re right, MoM2 would love it!

 

[empther]

I don’t disagree with you personally, but I think to make this argument logically solid, you would need to substantiate this claim with some sub-arguments.

And I will !

I’ll talk about how the brain would have to maintain control of its thought processes if it alone was responsible for thought, and that that’s impossible at the level at which humans think.

But first, post #1 was necessary to present the basic idea of the argument. More explanations come later.

I can’t get bogged down with all the sideissues being raised. We’d never get anywhere, which is what happens to most threads.
After I’ve said all I can say about the idea of post #1, people will be back with the sideissues. This is only the beginning of the beginning.

 

[empther]

The following quote stolen from Nihil est in intellectu… thread
and moved here where it belongs.

Quote:
Originally Posted by empther

forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_khaki/viewpost.gif
By whatever mechanism you choose to assign the brain sole responsibility for thinking, you will always have three problems:

1. you need a Selector mechanism. If the brain produces many ideas, which one is the correct one? You need a Selector to select the right thing to say, the right answer to a question etc.

2. you need a Decidor. Any information processing system needs a decision making mechanism.

3. you need a Controller mechanism. If the brain moves information around on electric circuits, you need a Controller to contol the circuitry impulses, the sequence in which they’re used, and to stop the whole process once the answer has been found ( by the Selector ).

Having been a computer programmer in the IBM mainframe environment, and using machine instructions at that, not just high level languages like COBOL, I know something about how information is used and processed.
There cannot be a Selector, Decidor and Controller in the brain. It would have to be designed by some intelligent agent. Also, they could not handle the potentially infinite number of situations humans deal with but only those for which they were wired. Also, all the brain cells would have to be connected to them directly or indirectly, which is impossible.

Human intelligence is higher than the natural world.

Interesting

Thank you, mom2

That post was a preview of a longer post I’m putting together for this week.
Stay tuned.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

The following quote stolen from Nihil est in intellectu… thread
and moved here where it belongs.

Digital computers make a nice perceptual metaphor for a brain, but not a very good conceptual metaphor. Inference made from one domain (the computer) don’t necessarily have applicability to the other (mind/brain). The organization of logic units in a digital computer aren’t designed to mimic the brain. Perhaps if this example had been based on artificial neural networks (which to some degree do try to mimic a set of neurons and their rewiring based on their “experience”) then the example would have more applicability.

 

[empther]

Perhaps if this example had been based on artificial neural networks (which to some degree do try to mimic a set of neurons and their rewiring based on their “experience”) then the example would have more applicability

Although brain neurons can increase in number and/or develop new neuronal connections, ( which takes a few days )
they also can change their electric circuits by increasing or decreasing the number of neurotransmitter vesicles in their symapses ( which takes moments ) which control activatin ( depolization ) of the next neuron.

Computers could simulate this by memory without rewiring. On/off “switches” can be saved by stored bits. Everytime you start up the computer these saved switches will be loaded to allow the computer to continue on from the “experience” of the last session. The limits of RAM memory on the computer chip are not relevant since unlimited amounts of experience/memory can be stored on disk drives and paged into and out of the CPU as needed. Think of the Internet.
In effect, the “thinking” would be done out on the disk drives in the form of constantly tweaked and improve experience/memory with the computer chip just being the traffic cop for all the activity.

Artificial intelligence greatly excited the computer community thirty years ago.

So far, there is no sign of computer intelligence.

---

mom2,
Can you see where I’m going ?
I started my own duality thread on the catholic.org forum where I wanted to prove the existence of the soul by saying the human desire for knowledge unrelated to his physical needs, his esthetics in searching out an art museum to enjoy, his empathy for family, country and the human race at large, and other things like that, go above what any physical animal could do.
However, I realized that these ideas were a little too abstract and removed from everyday experience to be widely accepted.

So I decided to concentrate on something more concrete. The brain. It the physical brain alone can’t do all the human intelligence does, then we have souls.