''Ethic question''

[axlstwin]

At present there's is NOTHING that suggests our personalities, thoughts and consciousness are anything other than physical, biological processes within our brain.

The responsibility does not lie with people wishing to disprove the existence of souls or spirits to disprove them, that's absurd. The responsibility lies with those who suspect they exist to prove it.

Just because you can't prove something doesn't exist, doesn't make it any more likely that it does. Do I really have to bring up the cliche celestial teapot analogy or do you have at least some brain cells?

okay. I admit there is not one universally accepted document which declares that living things contain a spirit or soul. However, a piece of paper is not neccesarily any more reliable than hundreds of peoples' basic instinct, and deep-rooted feeling. I personally deny the existence of a soul... based not on some wild guess or random impulse, but on my acceptance of the LOGIC and SENSE behind the Buddhist laws of Anatta and Anicca. My belief in the existence of a spirit however, lies behind my personal, and admittedly unsubstantiated belief in, effectively, our defects. Our inability to see/prove/disprove spirits, accompanied with a reluctancy to denounce spirits after hearing/reading/learning of various alleged spiritual experiences, some of which are very hard to disprove, or put down to charlatanism or coincidence, makes me believe in SOMETHING more than just our five senses. 

[nemo]

I'd argue that since conventional wisdom has long held the sould to be a part of the human make-up, the onus is on science to prove that this isn't the case.  Just as Galileo had to offer proof the earth was round rather than flat, just because you say something in the name of science doesn't necessarily make your point immediately true, especially when you have no empirical proof to back up said scientific viewpoint, and a scientific viewpoint without scientific fact to back it up is nothing more than a hypothesis, surely you understand that much at least?  What I'm basically saying is that after centuries of humans believing in the soul, just because someone comes along and says "I'm a scientist and that's not right, I don't have any proof, but my opinion matters more as spiritalism's a load of crap." isn't really a basis for suddenly reversing the general belief.

By the way I should point out seeing as you're questioning my intelligence here (and as a result the validity of my opinions on this) that I'm coming at this question with 3 years of university level psychology classes in brain and behavioural patterns and functions behind me.  Also, I'm an extremely skeptical agnostic and don't follow any religious belief system that compels me to believe in the existance of a soul. 

Also I never said we have a soul, my point was that there's no proof either way and as there's no evidence to suggest that one point of view is wrong, it's unfair to ridicule it simply because you don't believe it.

[axlstwin]

I hate to make a post of such little substance, but all I have to say is...



Good post nemo. 

[PurpleHaze]

I'd argue that since conventional wisdom has long held the sould to be a part of the human make-up, the onus is on science to prove that this isn't the case.  Just as Galileo had to offer proof the earth was round rather than flat, just because you say something in the name of science doesn't necessarily make your point immediately true, especially when you have no empirical proof to back up said scientific viewpoint, and a scientific viewpoint without scientific fact to back it up is nothing more than a hypothesis, surely you understand that much at least?  What I'm basically saying is that after centuries of humans believing in the soul, just because someone comes along and says "I'm a scientist and that's not right, I don't have any proof, but my opinion matters more as spiritalism's a load of crap." isn't really a basis for suddenly reversing the general belief.

By the way I should point out seeing as you're questioning my intelligence here (and as a result the validity of my opinions on this) that I'm coming at this question with 3 years of university level psychology classes in brain and behavioural patterns and functions behind me.  Also, I'm an extremely skeptical agnostic and don't follow any religious belief system that compels me to believe in the existance of a soul. 

Also I never said we have a soul, my point was that there's no proof either way and as there's no evidence to suggest that one point of view is wrong, it's unfair to ridicule it simply because you don't believe it.

Ugh...

Point out to me where I said that the existence of a human soul is 100% impossible?

I've made it clear that there is no evidence to support the existence of a soul it is therefore fantasy to "believe" in one based on what we currently know. I also made it clear that future developments could shine a light on the subject but from what we do know now, there is no reason to believe in one.

...and to suggest it is the responsibility of science to disprove the existence of souls just because humans have traditionally believed in one is completely and utterly RETARDED.

That's like saying "Humanity has traditionally believed in a God, so it makes sense logically for us all to believe in one until somebody proves otherwise. Regardless of the fact that it had no proof in the first place."


 

[nemo]

Ugh...

Point out to me where I said that the existence of a human soul is 100% impossible?

I've made it clear that there is no evidence to support the existence of a soul it is therefore fantasy to "believe" in one based on what we currently know. I also made it clear that future developments could shine a light on the subject but from what we do know now, there is no reason to believe in one.

I never said that you did say the existance of the soul is 100% impossible, I said when there's no evidence to prove the case in either direction, it's wrong to call someone's opinion dumb (which you did do, remember?) when they take one side.

Humans, since we pulled our asses out of the dark ages have always felt that we're living in the era when we're gonna finally work it all out.  In the renaissance they thought they had the tools and technology to answer all of life's questions, until of course the enlightenment came along, disproved half of what they believed and then assumed that they were the pinnacle of human thought that would never be bettered, so on and so on.  The fact of the matter is that just because the greatest scientific minds of the time say something is so (which in this case they don't even bother to do because they know they can't explain personality differences between individuals merely through chemicals and neurotransmitters) they might be wrong and until that can be proven otherwise (and I'll say this again because apparently I didn't make it clear last time) it's unfair to write off one side of the argument as dumb (once again this isn't a claim that we have a soul, or that it's more likely we do than we don't, nor am I trying to put words into your mouth).  At the moment your argument is "his position is dumb, but there is a chance he's right" a statement which, from a purely logical position alone, completely ignoring the subject matter (the argument about the possibility of the existance of the soul) and looking at it syllogistically, makes absolutely no sense.

[PurpleHaze]

I never said that you did say the existance of the soul is 100% impossible, I said when there's no evidence to prove the case in either direction, it's wrong to call someone's opinion dumb (which you did do, remember?) when they take one side.

How the hell is it wrong to call somebody dumb if they take a position on something which has NO EVIDENCE. That's exactly what it is ... DUMB.

It seems I do have to point out the celestial tea pot analogy. FFS...

If I were to say a magical tea pot is orbiting the Sun right now and is completely undetectable you could not prove me wrong.

Likewise, if somebody were to say that they believe in a soul or spirits or anything else that has no evidence, you could not prove them wrong. That still makes belief in something without evidence utterly fucking stupid.

Technically you can take a position of agnosticism to it like you do (saying you can't prove either way). But to take an agnostic position on anything is to take an agnostic position on everything. Which means you're admitting you might not have taken a position on anything in the first place since you can't prove either way that you even exist.

Personally, I find it makes a lot more sense not to live your life in such a pointless logical fox hole and, in practice, take positions on things base on what we do know. And based on what we do know, the soul does not exist since we have no evidence for it. I may change my mind in future  BASED ON NEW EVIDENCE but you never will because you're agnostic to everything forever as long as you take an agnostic view on anything.


 

[nemo]

you forgot about the invisible spaghetti monster...

At the end of the day, you're looking at this from a rationalist perspective, I'm coming at it from an empiricists point of view and therefore we're never going to agree until someone actually proves this either way.

Although I still think it's unfair to call someone's position dumb while admitting there is a chance it may be correct

As a thought experiment, consider your brain and brain alone was transferred into someone else's body, would you feel that it was really, truly you? 

[chineseroses]

This post is going to be very basic, nothing on the level of Nemos or Axltwins posts and deviates slightly from what they are arguing about.

On the subject of souls reflecting personallities. It is my belief that we learn everything from our upbringing and personal experiences. two thirds of my personallity is made up of a mixture of my parents personallities and one third is made out of my personal experiences. The reason i don't believe in a soul is because essentially humans are just animals that are more intelligent (because of a mutation or something) and because we are more intelligent and own the world we like to think that we are some how "special" and that we have a special calling.

on the subject of life after death: I think that the reason we all like to think that we have a soul or whatever that lives on is because it is fucking scary when you think of this life being the only thing that happens to you, my reason for believing that this life is the only thing that happens are very simple, when you wake up you are completerly unaware of what happened when you were asleep. when you sleep your whole body almost shuts down, and apart from your brain firing off random bits of information you have collected that day (which creates dreams) you are unconcious because your brains not really functioning, your brain doesn't function when your dead so the same thing applies.

Just a quick summary, I believe that the reason people believe that there is some sort of soul or afterlife is because they are afraid of death (who isn't) and what happens after.

[Rocket Queen]

I don't have much to say in this any longer... Anyway, considering the fact that either one of us can prove this to be true or false, it's becommes more a like a question of beliefs.

If you belive in spirits or not.. I have always thought of the expression ''soul'' as a religious thing, but many agnostics don't, I however like to think that as chinese roses said, we are our brains, and personality, and personality is mostly based on what has happened to us in our lifes.

And I also agree on the last parts, humans keep on searching for something more, to me, all there is is what you make of it, you can't go find meaning of exsistance, you gotta make something of it.

[PurpleHaze]

you forgot about the invisible spaghetti monster...

At the end of the day, you're looking at this from a rationalist perspective, I'm coming at it from an empiricists point of view and therefore we're never going to agree until someone actually proves this either way.

Although I still think it's unfair to call someone's position dumb while admitting there is a chance it may be correct

As a thought experiment, consider your brain and brain alone was transferred into someone else's body, would you feel that it was really, truly you? 

God damn it, this crazy debate is distracting me from my work :p

I disagree that I it's unfair in principle to call somebodies position stupid even if there's a chance it may be true. Believing in what has more of a chance of being true is what isn't stupid given available facts. Even if you were wrong, you still made the intelligent choice to take the side you did given what you knew.

...and if my Brain was in another's body I would still consider myself me to a certain extent. Although then we're playing with the definition of self, which is a huge debate in itself. You could say the other person had a higher level of testosterone for example, which would alter my behavior and thus my personality as compared to the way it was.

[sunnyp]

The age old duality of philosophy versus science has always frustrated me.

I am a trained scientist and have been trained to observe a series of events and test whether there is a link with another chemical, force, species etc. All of these have quantitative values that can be tested, measured and reported. The soul has no quantitative value (SI unit etc) so therefore can not be measured. As a scientist, this would lead me to say that the soul does not exist.

I would view the soul as a series of chemicals, that are released as a result of upbringing, genetics and environment as these dictate concious thought.

The next question I would ask in my flow chart is 'is the soul a part of concious thought or a part of the subconcious?'. Only by doing ECG tests on the brain could we possibly locate the source of various decision making processes that are not voluntary; eg respiration and circulation, sweat, hunger etc. All of these parts are located in the brain stem (early brain). So is this where the soul is located?

This then goes back to the original question: Is this a suitable measure of the qualitative soul? The nearest we have to a scientific definition of the soul would involve 'an involuntary thought reaction as a result of circumstance or environment as recognised through perception within an individual'.

In summary: the existance of the soul can not be proved. 

[axlstwin]

Believing in what has more of a chance of being true is what isn't stupid given available facts.
...and if my Brain was in another's body I would still consider myself me to a certain extent. Although then we're playing with the definition of self, which is a huge debate in itself. You could say the other person had a higher level of testosterone for example, which would alter my behavior and thus my personality as compared to the way it was.

You see, I respect you for challenging my beliefs (which are young and constantly changing and hardly firmly held, militant.) I suppose my thoughts concerning this topic are more theories which appeal to me, than 'beliefs' (if that word is to be the source of much of this debating.)

I disagree with you though:
'What has more of a chance of being true'- okay, QUOTE me the odds on this one. You are so sure of yourself, and so convicted that your opinion has 'more of a chance of being true'- back this up please.
The celestial teapot thing is not as relevant an argument as you make it out to be, but I agree that I could not disprove your belief- and (more importantly) NOR WOULD I TRY TO! However, seeming as you're a man who claims to be such a 'fact-based' character, can you honestly liken the belief in an orbiting tea-pot, held by ONE hypothetical individual, to the firmly held, time-enduring faiths and philosophies, in the existence of SOMETHING, ANYTHING more than psychological and biological processes being the soul causes of our life on this planet?

You seem to be convinced that we (well, I don't know how many people share the exact same views as me, which I've not really detailed completely here anyway, so I'll use 'I' for arguments sake) I am the one with some detailed concept of something totally unrealistic as part of my explanation of our existence. This is actually not true! I totally reject the idea of a soul, based on logic , as I have mentioned; yet I vaguely believe in spirits, without having any idea of the actual specifics or form a spirit might take. All I know is that there have been an awful lot of cases, wherein strange occurences have happened, seemingly down to spirits; spiritual forces; and spiritual energy (some, admittedly hoaxes and fantasies, yet others, less likely so) and you have effectively nothing to disprove that!! I am not denying the existence of psychological and biological processes, they can be proved, and are, I am sure, a major part of our living! Yet their existence and influence is not totally incompatable with the existence of a spirit: the whole point of a spirit, is that it is not as easily seen or understood as the body or mind.

If we didn't know where or what the brain was, would you deny the existence of thoughts as well?

[PurpleHaze]

You see, I respect you for challenging my beliefs (which are young and constantly changing and hardly firmly held, militant.) I suppose my thoughts concerning this topic are more theories which appeal to me, than 'beliefs' (if that word is to be the source of much of this debating.)

I disagree with you though:
'What has more of a chance of being true'- okay, QUOTE me the odds on this one. You are so sure of yourself, and so convicted that your opinion has 'more of a chance of being true'- back this up please.
The celestial teapot thing is not as relevant an argument as you make it out to be, but I agree that I could not disprove your belief- and (more importantly) NOR WOULD I TRY TO! However, seeming as you're a man who claims to be such a 'fact-based' character, can you honestly liken the belief in an orbiting tea-pot, held by ONE hypothetical individual, to the firmly held, time-enduring faiths and philosophies, in the existence of SOMETHING, ANYTHING more than psychological and biological processes being the soul causes of our life on this planet?

You seem to be convinced that we (well, I don't know how many people share the exact same views as me, which I've not really detailed completely here anyway, so I'll use 'I' for arguments sake) I am the one with some detailed concept of something totally unrealistic as part of my explanation of our existence. This is actually not true! I totally reject the idea of a soul, based on logic , as I have mentioned; yet I vaguely believe in spirits, without having any idea of the actual specifics or form a spirit might take. All I know is that there have been an awful lot of cases, wherein strange occurences have happened, seemingly down to spirits; spiritual forces; and spiritual energy (some, admittedly hoaxes and fantasies, yet others, less likely so) and you have effectively nothing to disprove that!! I am not denying the existence of psychological and biological processes, they can be proved, and are, I am sure, a major part of our living! Yet their existence and influence is not totally incompatable with the existence of a spirit: the whole point of a spirit, is that it is not as easily seen or understood as the body or mind.

Ok we're just retreading old ground here. To me, as I've said, all of this and anything paranormal has as much validity as the tooth fairy to me. As long as nobody can provide evidence for it. (it's irrelevant that it cannot be disproved as I've established because neither can the tooth fairy or the celestial tea pot etc etc). That's my position from a logical point of view and it's infallible.

Things in the past have been believed to be paranormal have been proven to be actually real entities and processes but they were almost always not the fanciful, bizarre explanations that we're cooked up before a proper scientific explanation was given (personally, I ALWAYS find the real scientific explanations given a lot more fanciful and beautiful but that's just my opinion).

So, in essence, what I'm saying is. I'm not denying that there is an effect here. Like say a predisposed belief in something more that flesh and blood through the ages but what that means is is your kind of explanation for it is the tooth fairy here, rather than the actual effect. Personal belief in a soul is not an explanation in and of itself, but it's definitely something that is happening in the real world and in my opinion this is just another thing that will be easily swept aside by science and be completely explained. Whether it be through a symptom of our minds to believe in something more (irrelevant of what it is specifically) or a symptom of the world we grow up in.

If we didn't know where or what the brain was, would you deny the existence of thoughts as well?

No because if we didn't know what or where the brain was, we wouldn't know that our thoughts came from it in the first place. We'd know that we were thinking, obviously but not that that had any connection to a brain of any kind.

The real question that you're trying to ask here here is simply this "If we didn't know where or what the *X* was, would you deny the existence of *Y* as well?

You could replace X with an egg and Y with a chicken, X with where our thoughts came from and Y with our thoughts or X with any cause and Y with any effect.

You're left with a logic puzzle and the answer is this:

As long as X exists Y will always exist. What is in question, is what actually is X (providing you didn't know what an egg was)? That's what you need evidence for. So from a logical point of view Y exists. You're happy with their being a Y and so am I, I want to know what X is through evidence. Although I'm not denying the existence of X (a cause).

Similarly, you believe and many do in a soul or a spirit or whatever. The belief in a soul or spirit (Y) is what needs an explanation, and that may be that there is something more than flesh and blood to us but it could mean that our belief is simply a symptom of something else.

[E.T.A]

Do you belive that you have a soul? Like a sprit that lives inside you or what ever, explain what you put into it.

Yes, I have a soul!
I believe in the rebirth and my soul will live forever!

[chineseroses]

oh the teapot theory sounds exciting, explain it!