The Foundation of Religion

[Copernicus]

That depends entirely upon how you count. If you want to go by populations of religious followers an immaterial soul is certainly a common religious belief. If you simply want to go by numbers of religions, though, there are quite a few (Buddhism, Taoism, Falun Gong, Thelema, various forms of modern Satanism, various non-theistic/ pantheist NeoPagan traditions, Unitarian Universalism, etc.) religions that explicitly reject and/or accept non-belief in immaterial souls/ gods. I agree that it's very common in religion, but I'm extraordinarily hesitant to turn that into a characteristic of religion.

You lead off with Buddhism, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Buddhists believe in gods and the reincarnation of "brainless minds". I think you'll find that most of the other cults, sects, and religious groups you mention, some of which have relatively tiny numbers of adherents, also promote belief in immaterial "souls". I do not believe that it is valid to try to count the number of different religious sects and fringe groups out there as equal to religions with hundreds of millions of followers. Nevertheless, any way you count the numbers, I still think that you'll come up with the generalization that those who adhere to a religious doctrine believe in immaterial minds that can exist independently of functioning brains. As Dawkins pointed out, people are deeply invested in dualism, and it is a small leap of the imagination to think that minds can exist independently of functional brains, despite the evidence that human minds, at least, cannot.

 

[jmvizanko]

All you have to do is observe the behavior of a drunk person and to think about how that person's behavior differs from a sober person's behavior.

Good example. Of course, to play devil's advocate, perhaps if there is interplay between the physical brain and the mind/soul, things like alcohol actually affect the soul. Definitely devil's advocate though, as that sounds pretty insane, given Occam's Razor.

It is possible to have an opinion on the nature of reality without committing yourself to an irreversible position. You can take a stand and still remain open to changing your opinion.

Well I wasn't trying to say I don't have an opinion. My default assumption is based in naturalism of course. But I am quite curious to see what we will learn about the brain within my lifetime.

Eliza had nothing to do with real natural language processing. It was the computational equivalent of a parlor trick. You can program computers to simulate behavior that humans will mistake for intelligent behavior. That doesn't mean that the program actually is intelligent, Turing notwithstanding.

Well as much as it is a parlor trick, perhaps it is possible to take it to the level of being able to pass a Turing test a vast majority of the time, and with a system that is obviously not conscious. Perhaps the Turing test is not really a good test for AI at all.

I believe that it is possible to create self-aware, conscious machines, but I do not believe that it is a realistic goal for the near future. There is still too much that we do not know about how human brains and human minds work.

I don't believe with absolution that it is possible, but if human consciousness is nothing but the physical interactions in the brain, that seems to make it seem a lot more possible. And who knows if it will be that hard to create? Given the right system, say something capable of learning much faster than neural networks, who is to say something exponential and unexpected couldn't happen, especially with extremely powerful computers, especially networked together.

 

[Falvlun]

I think that you're greatly overgeneralizing religion, which frequently does manifest itself without any beliefs in disembodied minds, though I would agree that the possibility of a mind without a body as we understand them is a necessary axiom for many forms of theism. When we are discussing a hypothetical deity that transcends our reality, as is the case with many articulations of theism, I also wonder just how undermining any example of "this is necessary in our incredibly limited experience" is.

Copernicus' "brainless minds" don't just encompass the concept of god, though. It also encompasses the idea of a soul or spirit. This is what many religions claim is our "essence" and is what lives on in the afterlife, or is transferred in reincarnation.

I don't think there are many religions that don't believe in spirits or souls at all.

EDIT: Sorry. I somehow missed the 2nd and 3rd page before I posted this.

 

[linwood]

Of course we can only speaking generally and there would always be exceptions. But you don't find many people who believe this is the only life, yet still have a positive theistic view of "God".

Interesting.
I agree with you.

The implications of your statement speak volumes to me.

 

[PolyHedral]

Well as much as it is a parlor trick, perhaps it is possible to take it to the level of being able to pass a Turing test a vast majority of the time, and with a system that is obviously not conscious. Perhaps the Turing test is not really a good test for AI at all.

Since the Turing test involves carrying on a conversation, how could you tell whether it was conscious or not?

 

[Man of Faith]

That's interesting an Atheist calling theists brainless, how original. On to the next thread, I'm two for two in waisting my time today.

 

[PolyHedral]

Uh... Who are you responding to? Because that looked like a total non-sequitor.

 

[linwood]

That's interesting an Atheist calling theists brainless, how original. On to the next thread, I'm two for two in waisting my time today.

Maybe actually y`know "reading" the OP would help you avoid gaffs such as this post.

 

[Erebus]

Got to admit, when I first saw the title, I thought, "here we go again"

But your OP raises an interesting point. I would assume that if there is a part of us that survives death, then without the input from our brain it would be a very different entity to what we are in life. For one it would possess none of our memories and would be utterly unemotional. A spiritual afterlife in such a state would not be so different from oblivion.
I suppose the concept of reincarnation makes most sense as a form of afterlife considering this. After all, most people who accept reincarnation believe that we can be completely different in terms of our personality from one life to the next, thereby eliminating the need for influence from a previous brain.

That's interesting an Atheist calling theists brainless, how original. On to the next thread, I'm two for two in waisting my time today.

Read the OP. While I assumed this was what the title was suggesting, the OP does not state this at all.

 

[Man of Faith]

Maybe actually y`know "reading" the OP would help you avoid gaffs such as this post.

You mean it would help me to read a post about an Atheist calling me brainless? :help:

 

[linwood]

You mean it would help me to read a post about an Atheist calling me brainless? :help:

I didn`t advise you to do any such thing.

You can continue making a fool of yourself however you want though.
It`s ok by me.

 

[Copernicus]

Since the Turing test involves carrying on a conversation, how could you tell whether it was conscious or not?

Eliza programs are extremely simple. They just use pattern matching to create responses. For example, if the user types in a sentence with words like "mother" or "sister" in it, you can get the program to respond with something like "Tell me more about your family" or "Do you get along well with other relatives?" You can create some pretty clever interactions with that kind of program, but it doesn't do any real language analysis. The "conversation" is an illusion. In the days when I taught courses in Natural Language Processing, this was the first program we looked at precisely because it was not real NLP.

You mean it would help me to read a post about an Atheist calling me brainless? :help:

If you had read the OP, you might have understood that I accused you of having an actual brain. I can withdraw that accusation, if you like.

 

[Copernicus]

But your OP raises an interesting point. I would assume that if there is a part of us that survives death, then without the input from our brain it would be a very different entity to what we are in life. For one it would possess none of our memories and would be utterly unemotional. A spiritual afterlife in such a state would not be so different from oblivion.

In fact, memory is a big component of self-identity. I don't believe that cognition--consciousness and self-awareness--can exist without it. One of the things I find fascinating about the dharmic tradition is the way people have tried to conceive of reincarnation as preserving identity without memory. I don't think that that makes any sense at all, but the Tibetan tradition does have rituals for designating reincarnation on the basis of a child's affinity for the belongings of a deceased religious leader. The child is not expected to have the actual memories of the deceased leader, but he has enough memory to recognize former possessions. Also, there are reports of people remembering past lives under hypnosis, etc., as if those memories were stored somewhere and still accessible (but not easily accessible to the living individual).

I suppose the concept of reincarnation makes most sense as a form of afterlife considering this. After all, most people who accept reincarnation believe that we can be completely different in terms of our personality from one life to the next, thereby eliminating the need for influence from a previous brain.

If you start out with a belief in reincarnation, then you have to explain the fact that people do not remember past lives. So the belief will not survive unless you can find ways to rationalize it. Loss of memory has to be part of the explanation. Nevertheless, those who profess belief in reincarnation try to make it credible by providing anecdotal evidence of memory leakage from past lives. You have to have memory loss, but you still need some kind of incentive to believe.

 

[sandandfoam]

I'd be interested to know how the self was thought of in Europe before Descartes.
Could anyone give a brief run down of such a concept?

 

[Erebus]

I've always been highly skeptical of "past life regression", not least because under hypnosis, false memories can easily be planted by an unscrupulous or careless hypnotist.
If we do in fact reincarnate, I would imagine we would be a completely different person with a completely different brain. Of course this is all speculation, nobody truly knows what happens after death other than our physical bodies rot.

 

[sandandfoam]

Letting religion entirely aside I think a conception of mind=brain is misguided and I agree with those who consider such a view degenerate Cartesianism.

I think (the atheist) Merleau-Ponty has a lot going for his conception of experience as something that happens between people

 

[Copernicus]

Letting religion entirely aside I think a conception of mind=brain is misguided and I agree with those who consider such a view degenerate Cartesianism.

Notice that I was careful in the OP not to endorse an equation between the mind and the brain. What I said was that the mind depends on the physical brain for its existence. It is an emergent effect of a brain, not the brain itself. Hence, my position is compatible with dualism. It just does not allow for the existence of brain-independent minds.

 

[dogsgod]

I don't read other people's posts so forgive me if I'm repeating whats' been said. Humans have the ability to consider what someone else is thinking and how they might respond to a given circumstance, so it's not a stretch to consider a god or the possibility of a god and how it might react to our actions.

OK, never mind, I see now that this sort of idea was stated in the OP, It is a small leap of imagination to conceive of minds that have no physical bodies and can manipulate reality as we manipulate our bodies.

I totally agree with the OP, minds are not independent of the brain.

 

[Rhizomatic]

You lead off with Buddhism, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Buddhists believe in gods and the reincarnation of "brainless minds". I think you'll find that most of the other cults, sects, and religious groups you mention, some of which have relatively tiny numbers of adherents, also promote belief in immaterial "souls". I do not believe that it is valid to try to count the number of different religious sects and fringe groups out there as equal to religions with hundreds of millions of followers. Nevertheless, any way you count the numbers, I still think that you'll come up with the generalization that those who adhere to a religious doctrine believe in immaterial minds that can exist independently of functioning brains. As Dawkins pointed out, people are deeply invested in dualism, and it is a small leap of the imagination to think that minds can exist independently of functional brains, despite the evidence that human minds, at least, cannot.

Sorry for the slow response; I keep forgetting about this site.

I'm don't think that I would agree that the "overwhelming majority of Buddhists" believe in gods or in reincarnation of brainless minds. Many areas that Buddhism spread to maintain indigenous belief in gods, and it might be fair to say that the majority of Buddhists believe in gods, but atheist Buddhism is far from some fringe minority. In my experience it's not very common for Buddhist conceptions of reincarnation to involve the passing on of a brainless mind, but I will grant that some manifestations of Buddhism articulate a form of reincarnation that involves some portion of one's mind being passed on in a manner other than the impact one's actions have upon the world. That hardly makes it any less valid of an example, particularly given Buddhism's tendencies to amend itself to change with societies and new information.

Of the religions I listed, I know some Thelemites, NeoPagans, and Unitarian Universalists who believe in souls, but I couldn't sincerely argue that even those three actually promote that belief.

Can you generalize based on a large religious population with belief in immaterial souls and minds? Sure. Is it an intellectually honest move that tells us more about religion than it obscures and distorts? Meh.

 

[Copernicus]

I'm don't think that I would agree that the "overwhelming majority of Buddhists" believe in gods or in reincarnation of brainless minds...

Well, we just disagree on that one. The most popular form of Buddhism is Mahayana Buddhism, which tends to promote belief in both traditional gods and Bodhisattvas, whom many worship as equivalent to gods. The so-called "atheistic" version of Buddhism is popular in the West, which leads many Westerners to exaggerate its popularity elsewhere.

Can you generalize based on a large religious population with belief in immaterial souls and minds? Sure. Is it an intellectually honest move that tells us more about religion than it obscures and distorts? Meh.

It is the purpose of this thread to make that generalization. You may disagree with my opinion, and I'm happy to get your opinions on the matter. I do not think that that warrants calling me intellectually dishonest.

My position is that belief in brain-independent minds is completely unwarranted by anything we observe in ourselves or other phenomena in nature. It is a foundational belief for most systems of religious belief. I won't go so far as to say that there are no exceptions to the generalization, but I would argue that most religious belief systems would collapse without belief in immaterial, brainless minds.