What's a soul?

A lot of stuff to address, so here it goes;

Did Aristotle have any evidence to prove his theories? Regardless, they were widely accepted as the truth. Then, way later, Did Galileo have any reason to question Aristotle's observations? No, but he did. The examination of a soul is all about philosophical thinking at Aristotle's level, seeing as it cannot yet be tested.. but you never know what the future holds.

Again, Aristotle obviously had no proof to make the claims he did, yet we are better for his observations yet.

Wow, just wow.

I agree with the statement that the Physical world and that which contains God and souls are separate, but that can't mean they don't exist as one. Fold two pieces of paper together into one airplane for example. (I don't necessarily believe this is the case; it's just a conjecture in place of knowledge.) If the soul and brain is linked, who's to say that the soul doesn't actually exist and instead help out the brain with those processes? Thoughts for instance, how are you able to conjure a picture up inside of your brain? And remember voices and pitches, and all other things? When I bring my self to tears through thinking, what's behind it? Your body is just advance mechanics.. It's capable of amazing things, but all it can do is operate, not form emotions on a human level. Look at psychopathy for example, there are nothing but theories for it's cause. A psychopath is soulless, to be blunt; an animal given an incredible body. If animals don't go to heaven, then what sets them apart from humans? A soul, for one. What mental differences? Everything that a soul constitutes in a human. These are my beliefs as of now, but I am apathetic and willing to listen to logic. It takes a discussion like this for me to develop my beliefs, and so they're definitely a little sketchy. Romperin, I'm young as well and would agree with you that life is far too complicated to comprehend, but I hardly agree that life isn't worth trying to comprehend. You find yourself in your beliefs, you learn who you are and what you want to live for.

Thank you all for your responses, I'm thrilled to have such a great philosophical discussion with so much great input!

 

Sir, a baseless claim is a baseless claim no matter who is making it. In no way am I saying anything about Aristotle or Galileo, but I fail to see how this is in any way helping your argument. In the absence of evidence, you cannot logically conclude whether or not a finding is true. In this case, we have actually located evidence to the contrary of the concept of a 'soul' (such as consciousness/other processes commonly associated with a 'soul' taking place in the brain, a physical organ) which leads me to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a soul.

 

Aristotle was wrong about plenty of things.

Are you joking? He created a telescope that he used to discover Jupiter's moons, for one thing.

 

I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you. I'm simply saying that a baseless claim is not necessarily a false claim. I, nor anyone, can prove that a soul exists, but through discussion we can all learn something and possibly come to a more logical conclusion then our own. Not as a challenge, but as curiosity, can you list an example or two of evidence that's in favor of souls being non existent, or at least the brain fulfilling the traits of a soul completely? Thanks.

Yes, he sure was, but regardless of whether a hypothesis is right or wrong, it can still prove useful to advance people's thinking. I'm not saying they should have believed Aristotle, nor am I asking you to believe what I ask. As I said, you find yourself when you realize what your beliefs are. I don't expect you to find me As for your second statement, I'm not sure what you mean? Are you referring to a specific example of Galileo finding something to disprove one of Aristotle's establishes "truths?" If so, please elaborate.

 

Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moons and the rigid surface of our own challenged Aristotle's view of the heavens as composed of an unchanging aether. In a similar manner, Newton's description of gravity (itself surpassed by Einstein's) surpassed that of Aristotle. Chemists also proved Aristotle's idea of the four elements wrong.

That's not how it works. If you make a claim about a soul, the onus is on you to justify it. Discussion can't accomplish anything if it's not grounded in reality.

 

Still not understanding how this ties into the quote you originally used. How about we say that, because of it's level of credibility, my theory of a soul being existent is equivalent to something Aristotle might propose; it's not proven, it may or may not be right, etc. Now we await Galileo's time, in which someone is able to disprove my theory and make a new one that is closer to the truth. Science is a process, and philosophy can contain quite a few if's. Don't think that everything has to be solid.

I'm afraid to tell you that I'm free of any onus; I'm sure you agree that something that can't be proven.. can't be proven?

 

Edit: didn't see the "Discussion can't accomplish anything if it's not grounded in reality."

It is grounded in reality. It's not grounded in fiction. I'm basing my proposals off of our world and what we know to be true. It is properly grounded, though it may be poorly supported. This is a discussion, thus views are free to be expressed without contempt.

Until tomorrow.

 

I've already described some of the processes of a soul that can be found in the brain and so have others throughout the course of this thread. I don't think any amount of discussion will lead me to a more "logical" conclusion about the existence of souls. As you have already said, there is absolutely no way to prove that souls do in fact exist, and I pride myself on not being easily deluded. Blind faith in a baseless claim that can not be proven/has not a single scrap of supporting evidence (on the contrary) is nothing short of ignorance, not even in my opinion - as a fact.

 

the brain creates all those emotions, perceptions and everything you speak of in specialized areas of it.

psychopaths do not "lack a soul". they just have a different system of morality.

I suggest you read up on long term potentiation in the brain and on the different areas and functions of the brain. ie myelencephalon, metencephalon mesencephalon, diencephalon, telencephalon.

do not underestimate the power of the brain.

 

I agree with this..

And I think that your soul makes you able to see, and use your brain and makes ur heart beat.. your body cant let you live and think out of it self, can it?

 

I'm honestly confused. Your brain allows you to do all of that.

 

Awesome, got it. I suppose you have no interest in continuing and posting in this thread, nor reading anything written by anyone else then? You're views have been fully justified, no one is trying to discredit them, so I hope to see you around other places? I must say that I don't recall anyone posting specific examples of the brain's processes, as you said. Thank you Blazingfasstt though for providing me something in the next post, though. "When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough. When you have realized understanding; even one word is too much." I congratulate your being obdurate, surely that's something to be prideful of.. that's just my opinion though. Ignorant is what you are, you don't care to even entertain a thought other than your own. This isn't a thread in search of the one and only possible and logical truth that us humans can surmise as of today's evidence; it's purpose is to make you think. You're more then adequate at giving people something to thing about but you refuse to participate in the thinking aspect yourself. Frankly, I'm just sick of the contempt hidden under your words.

Edit:

Where, in the human body, are morals processed? Not one of the examples you've given me indicate where emotions are processed, nor perceptions. Psycopaths are fair game, really. This is something that, even with today's modern miracles in science, we haven't figured out. Long term potentiation is great too, but it's got a few shortcomings in logic as well. You can't have long term potentiation without having short term potentiation, and who knows how short term potentiation even works? No one who cares to publish their findings, I suppose. I come to understand that long term potentiation has gaps where we're not quite sure about as well. All of that is just nit-picking though, I don't care to go in to detail to try to defend my case, because it's pointless. Even if I managed to make a great case (though not likely,) you too would probably dismiss it and try to discredit it, and that's not what I want. I want an exploration of thoughts. Whether a soul is in control of any sort of emotions or perceptions, or anything else I don't know. I don't underestimate the power of the brain though, it's a wonderful and ingenious machine. I wouldn't be surprised if the brain can take care of any and all processes, but I still like to believe that without a soul, it would all be a little pointless. If we have no soul, we could be considered extremely futuristic robots. What would set us apart from them though? We're not told what to think via advanced programming; when we're given a choice, we don't use a truly random algorithm to select a choice from a pre-programmed list. I originally wanted to remain impartial to the discussion and instead nudge people's thinking in different directions, to push themselves to think. I would like to retain that innocence and not continue debating like this, if that would be acceptable?

 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125304448

we are obviously not extremely futuristic, just incredibly not well understood


i have no idea what the hell you are talking about when you say "short term potentiation"
there does not "need" to be this.
i brought it up nowhere.
where the hell did u get the idea that this was even a theory?

jesus, just because something has "long" in its title, does not mean that there is necessarily a definition of another theory replacing it with "short"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_potentiation

also, do not declare that we have not found something out when you have not even tried to do any research on the subject.
any research you did do, i doubt you understand it due to a lack of training in areas such as research methods and statistics.


the soul is nothing but an analogy for our own individual perceptions. we need this feeling of uniqueness so that we are not left in despair after realizing that we are almost the same as the next person.

 

You're getting a little pissy aren't you? If we are given until the end of time, do you not think we can create something that mimics a human? I believe we could, very much so. That's an interesting article though, thank you for sharing that. I'm interested to see where future studies will take that, in deciphering the mysteries of the brain. Let's take a look at your link..

First paragraph: "Memories are thought to be encoded by synaptic strength, LTP is widely considered one of the major cellular mechanisms that underlies learning and memory." (formatting my own) Ok, we'll say that it's proven, just to humor you.

Unit 1 section 3: Models and theory:
"The physical and biological mechanism of LTP is still not understood, but some successful models have been developed." Ok, so we don't know how it works. We can make it work, but we still don't have any idea how the body does it.

Unit 4 section 0: Mechanisms
"Long-term potentiation occurs through a variety of mechanisms throughout the nervous system; no single mechanism unites all of LTP's many types. However, for the purposes of study, LTP is commonly divided into three phases that occur sequentially: short-term potentiation, early LTP, and late LTP." We don't even know what happens for the first part (except in rabbits, maybe [Don't worry, we drugged them first.]) so we're not even going to try and explain.

Oh, and look at me now. As you suggested, I don't know anything about any of the research I've found, and I definitely don't understand it. Silly me. It doesn't take a genius to understand that all of those sneaky "thought to's" and "widely believed's" kinda discredit it as fact.. really, when they can't even describe the first phase of LTP, it's pretty obvious that there's still a bit of theory lurking around within it's structure.



Lastly, I would like to say that your theory on the soul seems a little teetery. The first part sounds solid, but your reasoning sucks. Show me some stats on what percent of people in the world believe in souls, then tell me, on average, how alike all humans are? Tell me all about the lack of diversity the world has in it's various melting pots. Actually, forget it. I'm sick of listening to you already. Maybe wait until you wake up on the right side of the bed before posting again. Here's a cool thing to have too; http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C...gc.r_pw.&fp=b15bef119e46b42f&biw=1440&bih=732

 

good luck quoting certain lines, describing them in the most simplistic way possible and then claiming you understand the whole theory

also, having "theory" is not a bad thing if it is backed up by empirical science.

why would i need stats ont he amount of ppl that believe in souls?
on a cellular level, humans are something like 99% alike. i dont wanna dig out the argument.

also, you didnt answer my question asking where the hell you got the theory of "short term potentiation" from.
way to sidestep it.

saying we dont know how LTP works because we do not understand the totality of it is ridiculous
this is like claiming that we do not know how evolution works because we do not have every single piece of the puzzle.



also, i gave you the wikipedia article because iw anted to give you the general overview of the theory
obviously wikipedia is not a very credible source.
like i said before, you judge the theory without even doing your own research on it.
what i meant when i said you wouldnt understand the research is this: do you know how strong a correlation of .35 is? do you know what an alpha value is? how about a T-test or anova. until you understand the data that underlies the article, you can only undertsand the translation of the information that the author gives.
I feel like I am talking to a wall.


a piece of advice
being a teenager and arrogance do not mix while debating online

also, another question:
can you describe in your own words what long term potentiation is?

 

We shouldn't be trying to give overly analytical explanations for what soul is... It isn't something that's meant to be clearly defined, and that's part of what gives the soul it's beauty. Our inability to understand the soul should only add to the mystique of our existence, but instead we constantly lust to understand everything around us, until we come to something we can't comprehend, so we dilute it down to the last mundane detail in order to satisfy that need to understand.

When you take the mystery out of life, it becomes pretty bland.

 

The soul is basically the thing in your brain that keeps us human - except we don't have one, since we don't act very human at all. Just a bunch of chemicals in the right places, really. We are almost at the point where we will begin to ask where the computer's soul is, let alone our own.

 

I think of a soul as almost the etherel personification of a person's values and emotions

 

ig·no·rantAdjective/ˈignərənt/
1. Lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated.

Given that I am basing a conclusion on evidence and logic, I fail to see how I am ignorant. I am more than willing to entertain an idea other than my own as long as it has some sort of ground to stand on. None, and I repeat - none, of your claims have been founded at all. You're essentially making a baseless claim and then backing it up with "Well there is no way to prove it, but this is how I feel" (i.e. when you went on your little rant about psychopaths not having souls). That is not a debate, at least not an intelligent one. Forgive the "contempt hidden under my my words", I don't appreciate ignorance, which is what believing in something that has no supporting evidence and quite a bit of counter-evidence would qualify as.

By the way, after reading through some of your posts above I noticed you seemed to think that something being a theory makes it irrelevant. Did you know the earth revolving around the sun is a theory? Did you know gravity is a theory? The concept of a theory does not in any way discredit the idea that it is based on. I would think you of all people could understand this seeing as earlier you went on a rant about "baseless claims not always being false". So you're able to accept that any crackpot can make a claim, without any supporting evidence, but yet when a theory that has observable or testable evidence - it's only a theory and shouldn't be treated as valid? So you pick and choose which things must be right based on some sort of fucked up logic system? Honestly, saying something like a soul exists while saying a scientific theory with supporting evidence is "teetery" makes you come off as an ignorant moron.

 

I don't claim to understand any of the information you've given me. I believe that theories are great, and I'm not saying that the ones you've presented are false, nor mine true. I wasn't being sarcastic when I commented on me not understanding the article, I was using it to show you that, like I said, it doesn't take a genius to see that it's a theory (not that there's anything wrong with that!) I was simply showing you "where the hell" I had gotten "the idea that it's a theory." Read my posts rather then skim them and find things to attack me on, and you'll see the thing I "Sidestepped."

'Unit 4 section 0: Mechanisms
"Long-term potentiation occurs through a variety of mechanisms throughout the nervous system; no single mechanism unites all of LTP's many types. However, for the purposes of study, LTP is commonly divided into three phases that occur sequentially: short-term potentiation, early LTP, and late LTP." We don't even know what happens for the first part (except in rabbits, maybe [Don't worry, we drugged them first.]) so we're not even going to try and explain. '

(phase 1 = STP, as the article states.)

Your evolution analogy isn't very good either. It's more like like saying "I don't know how the cookie was saved on my hard disk, because I don't know how the website put it there."

Again, I wasn't being sarcastic.

I feel like, normally, a wall wouldn't respond back

So being an adult and arrogant on line does work? Not in every case, I suspect. We'll see in five years.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've gathered that the synapses between nerve cells are, apparently, not strong enough to retain a memory. LTP is just the strengthening of the synaptic response. Any further then that, I don't know.

So let's make something clear, so I can quit responding to your attacks and you can go impose on someone else. I don't know if souls exist. I don't know how memories work. Maybe, if souls exist, they control some aspect of it, or at least contribute. My theory is just that: a theory. Your beliefs? Theories as well, no matter how more logical then mine. the only thing I wanted to get through to you by responding like this can be summed up very tightly in what I said in one of my responses to Ivy Bridge.

""When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough. When you have realized understanding; even one word is too much."

The point of this thread isn't to find a specific answer so all of Sythe can be united under one theory as to whether or not a soul exists; it's to observe and kindly evaluate others' beliefs in a manner that points them towards another direction, to stretch them as an individual in their way of thinking. That's not to say we can just throw facts out there to discredit everyone else's beliefs and make you and your beliefs superior. You're very logical and all, but your mind is so shut off to a more spiritual view of things. Isn't it so frustrating when a Christian denies things and refuses to act logically and admit that maybe something isn't how they thought? Well you're frustrating to me, refusing to even say that "Maybe a soul exists. It's highly unlikely, but you never know." I mean really, I admit that maybe there's such thing as soul, maybe there isn't. Who freaking knows for sure? Can we agree on that, please, and leave it be?

P.s -Dingos and Dogs are very similar on a cellular level too, but one is much less likely to take your baby. Dogs obviously have souls. Just kidding, don't get upset now.

You make a fantastic debate here, and I see your reasoning. I believe you came off as ignorant because of the lack of your willingness to entertain a thought, no matter how unlikely. Having humility and taking the time to instead say "Well, that's pretty unlikely for this and this reason. I find that this solution would be much more likely because of this and this. That's not to say your thinking is wrong, just different then mine," indicates someone who is refined on more levels then just "Science says this, so until science says something else, this is what I believe." Just because it's unlikely doesn't mean you have to be a prick to the person who believes it.. I was saying that it would be logical to deduce that psychopaths don't have souls, assuming that you believed that a soul is responsible for the traits that psychopaths lack. I for one don't know if the soul is responsible for those thing or not, so I can't say I believe psychopaths don't have souls, but it's definitely somewhat reasonable. A lot of things are reasonable though, so why do we seek an answer when it's yet to be found?

Theories being theories doesn't mean that the ideas they're based on aren't true. No one said that, if I implied it then I'm pretty hypocritical. If a crackpot wants to come and tell us what he thinks, then we can be nice to him and say "Hey, that's good thinking, but it seems that it just isn't very valid of an idea. For instance, blah blah blah." Rather then "Science said this, so you're wrong! Your thing you said, it's stupid!"

I have a serious question for you. How are we to treat Blazingfasstt's theory? I believe it to be very logical, sure. What difference does it make? How am I not "treating" the theory he provided as "valid?" I'm upset that y'all are so caught up in science. Just take a break, feel instead of think, then you can think about what you felt all you want.

Blazingfasstt's theory, by the way, was great. The only thing I would disagree with was his reasoning that humans are so similar that they want to feel unique. He took that and said that they're similar on a cellular level, when his theory was pertaining to something spiritual; a soul's existence. If people have souls then it's not going to change them on a cellular level.

I'm really sick of typing so much, can we be done? You can go ahead and continue in your ways if you want, because honestly it isn't a bad choice. A few problems you might encounter, though, are talking to people on a spiritual level. Try writing a paper on evidence you've found that discredits souls completely, and it's great for you. The problem is, it won't reach out to the ones who actually believe in souls. People are stubborn, and if you aren't willing to talk to them on their level then they won't talk on yours, either. Let's please not take this much further, this wasn't about debating, this was about letting people share their opinions.