The simplest explanation is best. --The case against the immortal soul--

[Smoke]

Let's say humans do have a soul: Is it an effect of physiological agents or does it come from somewhere else?

If not the brain -- the brain, which does actually exist, and does seem able to create, what we know as, the human soul-- if not the human brain: Then where does the soul come from?

Given the alternative suggestions; gods, spirits and other vague & ambiguous claims of a transcendental nature. None of which have any actual hard evidence to support their existence : Is not brain the most obvious and simplest explanation for the origins of the human soul?

And if the brain is the most suited explanation for the origin of the human soul, then does it not also follow that when the brain ends the soul ends?

I don't believe in the existence of the soul at all, but if I did I would not think of it as something that was merely the result of brain activity. What you're doing is defining the soul out of existence, and I don't think that's acceptable to people who believe in the soul.

However as far as an immortal soul goes, I take it as axiomatic that anything that has a beginning must have an end, so I can't quite understand how one could believe in an individual soul and believe that it will live forever.

 

[Jeremiah]

I don't believe in the existence of the soul at all, but if I did I would not think of it as something that was merely the result of brain activity. What you're doing is defining the soul out of existence, and I don't think that's acceptable to people who believe in the soul.

However as far as an immortal soul goes, I take it as axiomatic that anything that has a beginning must have an end, so I can't quite understand how one could believe in an individual soul and believe that it will live forever.

"and I don't think that's acceptable to people who believe in the soul."

That is my point, Smoke. That they are multiplying entities beyond necessity; that the immortal soul is just a myth.

 

[Smoke]

"and I don't think that's acceptable to people who believe in the soul."

That is my point, Smoke. That they are multiplying entities beyond necessity; that the immortal soul is just a myth.

Oh, I agree with you. I just don't think it's going to convince anybody who believes that he has -- or is -- a soul. It's not a rational belief, and it's very difficult to reason somebody out of an irrational belief.

 

[Jeremiah]

The biggest tend to be:
Who am I? What am I? How do I exist? How does anything exist?
Science only goes so far in answering these. In fact so many things are still a mystery to scientists. Spirituality offers the means to finding that out. Of course when I am talking about Spirituality, I do not mean the religious institution or religious doctrine.

"Who am I?"

Jeremiah

"What am I?"

I am a human

" How do I exist? "

I was birthed by my mother and father.

"How does anything exist? "

Which anythings? There are so many of them. Here this is a good place to start on that one: Google

" Spirituality offers the means to finding that out."

And how does spirituality answer those question?


You people like to pretend that you have more then what non-spiritual/religious peeps have to offer; but the fact of the matter is, that you don't.

 

[Penumbra]

I don't think so. All souls are equal but they evolve individually. We are different in each life because of how our consciousness has developed through past experiences. Our state of consciousness at the time of death is the consciousness that we are born with in the next life. These states relate to the modes of nature: goodness, passion and ignorance. These states of consciousness influence the choices we make and our perception of life. However the nature of this process leads to the eventual state of Enlightenment, which is liberation from this cycle of birth and death.

It is said that the souls in the material world are God's way of exploring Himself. But many things mentioned are poetic or metaphoric and I am not scholarly enough to truly understand this. What I do understand is that the souls are part of God (the whole). Material nature is an energy of God. The souls, perhaps, are the aspect of the divine that desire to experience material life. But as the Marginal Potency, we're torn between desire for the material and for the spiritual.

According to this, then, the soul is not pure consciousness. It's consciousness with personal differences attached.

From the Advaita point of view the soul reincarnating goes away with the direct experince of Brahman. Just like all pain and suffering. If there is no individuality who is there to reincarnate?

To the soul it matters not. Bad behavior takes us away from seeing our true nature. Good behavior takes us toward better understanding our true nature and will make us free. The soul is untouched by all of this. It is pure consciousness.

If the soul is untouched by this, then why do actions determine where this soul is reincarnated?

 

[Zadok]

Let's say humans do have a soul: Is it an effect of physiological agents or does it come from somewhere else?

If not the brain -- the brain, which does actually exist, and does seem able to create, what we know as, the human soul-- if not the human brain: Then where does the soul come from?

Given the alternative suggestions; gods, spirits and other vague & ambiguous claims of a transcendental nature. None of which have any actual hard evidence to support their existence : Is not brain the most obvious and simplest explanation for the origins of the human soul?

And if the brain is the most suited explanation for the origin of the human soul, then does it not also follow that when the brain ends the soul ends?

I find it so interesting that one of the favorite scientific theories to explain the Hot Big Bang is a collapse of a universe of 11 dimensional space. But I do not hear atheists denouncing such as dribble without hard evidence.

We all begin somewhere making assumptions without hard evidence. If the human soul is in part a product of another dimension there is nothing to compel scientist to believe in the Hot Big Bang as a product of other dimensions any more than G-d, spirits and the like as products of other dimensions.

Zadok

 

[Zadok]

Oh, I agree with you. I just don't think it's going to convince anybody who believes that he has -- or is -- a soul. It's not a rational belief, and it's very difficult to reason somebody out of an irrational belief.

What rational is there of a brain incapable of being controlled by individual soul? Without a soul there can be no independent determination or responsibility by an individual. We are subjects of pre-set conditions and parameters over which we have no input. You can have that rational. Thank you

Zadok

 

[Meow Mix]

I find it so interesting that one of the favorite scientific theories to explain the Hot Big Bang is a collapse of a universe of 11 dimensional space. But I do not hear atheists denouncing such as dribble without hard evidence.

We all begin somewhere making assumptions without hard evidence. If the human soul is in part a product of another dimension there is nothing to compel scientist to believe in the Hot Big Bang as a product of other dimensions any more than G-d, spirits and the like as products of other dimensions.

Zadok

<-- atheist, and furthermore theoretical cosmology student, who denounces M-theory and brane theory as unsupported at this point

 

[Meow Mix]

What rational is there of a brain incapable of being controlled by individual soul? Without a soul there can be no independent determination or responsibility by an individual. We are subjects of pre-set conditions and parameters over which we have no input. You can have that rational. Thank you

Zadok

That's not true, we can have input and make decisions even though the mind is a holism of the brain.

For instance, chess programs make de facto decisions, though they aren't sentient decisions. There are more possible games of chess than there are atoms in the visible universe -- chess programs must decide in a situation what to do rather than simply drawing from a database of correct or plausible moves to make. Nothing about being a holism of a structure vindicates fatalism or determinism.

 

[Smoke]

What rational is there of a brain incapable of being controlled by individual soul? Without a soul there can be no independent determination or responsibility by an individual. We are subjects of pre-set conditions and parameters over which we have no input. You can have that rational.

When I say it's not a rational belief, I don't mean that people who hold that belief are utterly irrational. I mean that it is not a belief that is rationally arrived at, or held for rational reasons. No one examines the evidence and deduces the existence of a soul, as you demonstrate yourself. You think the existence of the soul to be necessary within the framework of other beliefs you hold dear -- beliefs that are also not deductions from the evidence. You wish to maintain these beliefs and your understanding of them, so you hold the existence of a soul to be necessary. While this is a rational process within the context of your beliefs, that context itself is arbitrarily chosen, and not rationally arrived at.

It's just like the Orthodox and Catholic views of the Immaculate Conception. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is reasonable deduction if you start by accepting the Roman Catholic doctrines regarding Original Sin and those regarding the Mother of God. The Orthodox do not hold the same beliefs about Original Sin, so in the context of Orthodoxy the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is unnecessary and irrelevant. So the Orthodox do not accept that doctrine. Both sides are using a rational process, but they start not from evidence but from a priori assumptions that are also not based on evidence.

That's what I mean when I say it's not a rational belief -- it is ultimately something that is accepted on the basis of authority or tradition. It is not based on fact or evidence.

 

[Smoke]

That's not true, we can have input and make decisions even though the mind is a holism of the brain.

For instance, chess programs make de facto decisions, though they aren't sentient decisions. There are more possible games of chess than there are atoms in the visible universe -- chess programs must decide in a situation what to do rather than simply drawing from a database of correct or plausible moves to make. Nothing about being a holism of a structure vindicates fatalism or determinism.

That's what I thought, but I knew somebody else would say it better.

 

[YmirGF]

That's what I thought, but I knew somebody else would say it better.

In my view, Bill, that simply illustrates the beauty of what some call the "soul". The fact is no one has to believe in it. It doesn't really matter. I still find it worthy of a chuckle when folks tell me that science has so much of this figured out already... Kidz....

 

[Smoke]

In my view, Bill, that simply illustrates the beauty of what some call the "soul". The fact is no one has to believe in it. It doesn't really matter. I still find it worthy of a chuckle when folks tell me that science has so much of this figured out already... Kidz....

That's not really what she said. She said his argument was flawed, and showed why.

 

[Jeremiah]

In my view, Bill, that simply illustrates the beauty of what some call the "soul". The fact is no one has to believe in it. It doesn't really matter. I still find it worthy of a chuckle when folks tell me that science has so much of this figured out already... Kidz....

This is not really about science; it is philosophy. Occam's razor has been used as a guide by many scientists, but it is not required of a scientific theory. Occam's razor is philosophical.

 

[YmirGF]

When I say it's not a rational belief, I don't mean that people who hold that belief are utterly irrational. I mean that it is not a belief that is rationally arrived at, or held for rational reasons.

I can agree with this. Until I experienced this phenomena, first hand, I didn't believe in it either. However, once you find yourself at the center of a brilliant star, looking outwards... in all directions, simultaneously... it does tend to make you go, "Hmmm." One of ones first thoughts is, "This can't be real." At the very least, such an experience effectively bends ones idea of what constitutes reality.

No one examines the evidence and deduces the existence of a soul, as you demonstrate yourself.

Indeed. Until I saw it "up close and personal", the "soul" was a fairly amorphous construct in my young mind.

You think the existence of the soul to be necessary within the framework of other beliefs you hold dear -- beliefs that are also not deductions from the evidence. You wish to maintain these beliefs and your understanding of them, so you hold the existence of a soul to be necessary. While this is a rational process within the context of your beliefs, that context itself is arbitrarily chosen, and not rationally arrived at.

Speaking for myself, it wasn't like that at all. The experience literally blew my concept of reality to tiny smithereens. If the truth be told, I realized that what we regard as "real", wasn't as real as it appears to be. Likewise, I also understood that what is regarded as "unreal" was considerably more realistic than I had ever dared imagine. Happily, I was able to mesh the two together by rationalizing that things are, simply put, not what they seem.

That said, I do agree that someone simply deciding to believe in the soul is a bit more than absurd. At best it is an emotional reaction to perceived reality with a dollop of your proverbial wing on a prayer. Sadly, I never equated any religious identifications with my personal view of "soul". Not even slightly. We may as well be describing two separate beasts. Though the experience did give me a few glimpses into the nature of "god", it also simultaneously evaporated any notions held to be true by your garden variety theist in regards to the "soul".

That's what I mean when I say it's not a rational belief -- it is ultimately something that is accepted on the basis of authority or tradition. It is not based on fact or evidence.

Again, I agree. Without the experience, it is all for not, as they cannot, stress on CANNOT, imagine what they are dealing with nor the inherent implications.

That said, I never rule out the possibility that what I have experienced, on hundreds of occasions, is little more than a bizarre delusion - an odd quirk of my psyche. Part of me believes that I MUST maintain the possibility that this is all an illusion - as the day I decide otherwise is the day I really will go off the deep end.

However... it is such a delicious illusion - if, indeed, that is what it truly is.

 

[Madhuri]

"Who am I?"

Jeremiah

"What am I?"

I am a human

" How do I exist? "

I was birthed by my mother and father.

"How does anything exist? "

Which anythings? There are so many of them. Here this is a good place to start on that one: Google

" Spirituality offers the means to finding that out."

And how does spirituality answer those question?


You people like to pretend that you have more then what non-spiritual/religious peeps have to offer; but the fact of the matter is, that you don't.

I find it interesting that people choose to think only that far. Don't you wonder about how anything can exist at all? Don't you wonder about how incredible it is that your individual consciousness exists? You don't have to believe in God to marvel over the mystery of our very (conscious) existence.

Who am I? I am an aware entity. I could have been born in a different situation and be a completely different kind of person, but this thing that perceives is the individual me. How could I exist? How is any of this possible?

Yes, I wonder about these things.

And there you go making absolute statements. At least I, the spiritual person, do not make absolutes.

Yes, spiritual practice can bring the answers. That is what the ancient techniques of Yoga are for. I can't tell you that it works, it's something you have to try for yourself.

 

[Madhuri]

According to this, then, the soul is not pure consciousness. It's consciousness with personal differences attached.

Everything is pure consciousness.
Every soul is of the same quality but every aspect of reality is unique.

 

[Meow Mix]

Everything is pure consciousness.

I find this difficult to comprehend cognitively. What does this mean? Everything is composed of consciousness, like a castle can be composed of lego blocks?

 

[YmirGF]

I find this difficult to comprehend cognitively. What does this mean? Everything is composed of consciousness, like a castle can be composed of lego blocks?

Energy forms matter.

 

[Walkntune]

Everything is pure consciousness.
Every soul is of the same quality but every aspect of reality is unique.

The sad thing is most people go around believing they are their thoughts and feelings which creates a world of delusions.