So what is the soul?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Scribbler60
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Re: So what is the soul?

Post by Scribbler60 »

Recently I saw a discussion which contained, among other things, an exchange between the dualist Rene Descartes and Queen Elisabeth of Bohemia. (I can't post a link here but if you do a Google search for Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Descartes and Elisabeth, Princess of Bohemia, the link should appear near the top.)

Essentially, the question arose like this: How can an immaterial soul physically effect mind-body interaction? (See 3.2 Mind-Body Interaction and the Nature of Mind on the page in question.)

Descartes, alas, could not answer. That's not surprising, since there is no immaterial soul. It's just not there; at least, there's no evidence for it, in thousands of years of looking.

Even if there was, there would be no way for it to interact with the material world.

The soul is a neat idea, but that's as far as it goes. It's just not real.
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Alec Smart
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Re: So what is the soul?

Post by Alec Smart »

Scribbler60 wrote: The soul is a neat idea, but that's as far as it goes. It's just not real.
That's a thoroughly blasphemous assertion and, when your time on earth is up, your soul, which you deny the existence of, will suffer the consequences.
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Sy Borg
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Re: So what is the soul?

Post by Sy Borg »

Alec Smart wrote:
Scribbler60 wrote: The soul is a neat idea, but that's as far as it goes. It's just not real.
That's a thoroughly blasphemous assertion and, when your time on earth is up, your soul, which you deny the existence of, will suffer the consequences.
You're serving it up dry these days Alfie :) A spirited response, but maybe the ... soul voice of opposition ... ahem

But seriously ... information and system theories may yet have something to say on the idea of a soul. I don't rule it out.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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Alec Smart
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Re: So what is the soul?

Post by Alec Smart »

Happy Christmas, Greta.
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Scribbler60
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Re: So what is the soul?

Post by Scribbler60 »

Alec Smart wrote:That's a thoroughly blasphemous assertion and, when your time on earth is up, your soul, which you deny the existence of, will suffer the consequences.
Ah, yes, blasphemy. It's a bit like blind patriotism, though in the so-called celestial realm, rather than the political one; the last resort of those who have lost the argument. Your comment is perilously close to the rusty old, and thoroughly discredited, Pascal's Wager. I'm sure you'll see that when you examine it closely.
Greta wrote:... information and system theories may yet have something to say on the idea of a soul. I don't rule it out.
In order for an immaterial soul to exist, one would have to entirely re-write physics. Physicist Sean Carroll does an excellent job of showing why that is. There are a number of Youtube presentations about it, one of which is entitled Sean Carroll on Death and the Afterlife, in which he thoroughly and devastatingly destroys the idea of an eternal soul. He also presents in an IntelligenceSquared debate entitled Death Is Not Final, also available on Youtube, in which he and his neuroscientist friend leave their opposition for dead... so to speak... (Someday soon I'll be able to post links...)
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Sy Borg
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Re: So what is the soul?

Post by Sy Borg »

Scribbler60 wrote:Your comment is perilously close to the rusty old, and thoroughly discredited, Pascal's Wager. I'm sure you'll see that when you examine it closely.
Alec is taking the p1ss, Scribbler. Earlier this year there were some animated [euphemism] discussions about religion, and Alec is just being smart :)
Greta wrote:... information and system theories may yet have something to say on the idea of a soul. I don't rule it out.
Scribbler60 wrote:In order for an immaterial soul to exist, one would have to entirely re-write physics. Physicist Sean Carroll does an excellent job of showing why that is. There are a number of Youtube presentations about it, one of which is entitled Sean Carroll on Death and the Afterlife, in which he thoroughly and devastatingly destroys the idea of an eternal soul. He also presents in an IntelligenceSquared debate entitled Death Is Not Final, also available on Youtube, in which he and his neuroscientist friend leave their opposition for dead... so to speak... (Someday soon I'll be able to post links...)
Basically Sean Carroll's argument is that for an afterlife to be real there has to be some way for the information to be held together outside of the physical body, and there are no known particles or mechanisms that can conceivably achieve this.

Yet we not only don't understand the "dark" portions of the universe - 96% of our reality - and we have only a mechanistic understanding of the remaining 4%. We are unsure about how the energy of the big bang came about or where it came from, and we have no idea why there is something rather than nothing. We don't yet understand the Planck scale. We don't have a verified TOE.

So I would leave the question of the soul open simply based on the above. It's true that physics and biology suggest that souls/"bundles of tendencies" are unlikely to survive death, that such a phenomenon would operate contrary to all currently observed natural phenomena. However, that is exactly what happened with discoveries in the quantum realm - it was found to operate contrary to commonsense Newtonian and Einsteinian expectations and forced radical rethinking about the nature of reality.

So I'm open to the possibility that Planck scale and other research might also yield strange results that force us to question our assumptions.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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Alec Smart
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Re: So what is the soul?

Post by Alec Smart »

Scribbler60 wrote:Sean Carroll on Death and the Afterlife, in which he thoroughly and devastatingly destroys the idea of an eternal soul.
Thanks a lot. You and your friend, Sean Carroll, have shot down my plans for the rest of eternity, I hope you are damn well pleased with yourselves.
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Sy Borg
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Re: So what is the soul?

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Alec, did I fail to keep the flame of hope alive in you with my last post?
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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Alec Smart
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Re: So what is the soul?

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Greta wrote:Alec, did I fail to keep the flame of hope alive in you with my last post?
I don't know what to believe any more, Greta. Yesterday I had a soul, today I am just an empty shell.
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Sy Borg
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Re: So what is the soul?

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Alec Smart wrote:
Greta wrote:Alec, did I fail to keep the flame of hope alive in you with my last post?
I don't know what to believe any more, Greta. Yesterday I had a soul, today I am just an empty shell.
I'll take that as "yes". I would have thought there was enough doubt to allow for hope.

BTW it was more likely to be all the food you ate at Christmastime working through your system leaving you an empty shell than the exit of your soul.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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Alec Smart
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Re: So what is the soul?

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Greta wrote: BTW it was more likely to be all the food you ate at Christmastime working through your system leaving you an empty shell than the exit of your soul.
The trouble with you, Greta, is you seem to have difficulty taking things seriously.
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Scribbler60
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Re: So what is the soul?

Post by Scribbler60 »

Greta wrote:Alec is taking the p1ss, Scribbler. Earlier this year there were some animated [euphemism] discussions about religion, and Alec is just being smart :)
Ach! I didn't have that background. The InterWebs and irony don't often mix well.
Greta wrote:Basically Sean Carroll's argument is that for an afterlife to be real there has to be some way for the information to be held together outside of the physical body, and there are no known particles or mechanisms that can conceivably achieve this.

Yet we not only don't understand the "dark" portions of the universe - 96% of our reality - and we have only a mechanistic understanding of the remaining 4%. We are unsure about how the energy of the big bang came about or where it came from, and we have no idea why there is something rather than nothing. We don't yet understand the Planck scale. We don't have a verified TOE.

So I would leave the question of the soul open simply based on the above. It's true that physics and biology suggest that souls/"bundles of tendencies" are unlikely to survive death, that such a phenomenon would operate contrary to all currently observed natural phenomena. However, that is exactly what happened with discoveries in the quantum realm - it was found to operate contrary to commonsense Newtonian and Einsteinian expectations and forced radical rethinking about the nature of reality.

So I'm open to the possibility that Planck scale and other research might also yield strange results that force us to question our assumptions.
You're right, of course, that we have an incomplete understanding of the nature of the universe. And previous experience is not always indicative of future outcomes; just because we haven't found something yet doesn't necessarily mean that we won't find something in the future. (Just look at investing... "historical performance does not guarantee future return"... ya, no shat!)

But - and I think this is an important caveat here - every single attempt to find or quantify a soul, or prove some other metaphysical phenomena, has met with failure. The track record is so poor - it's 100% - that I frankly think it's a pretty safe bet to assume that there isn't one, and we can now move on to study interesting things, rather than chase unicorn farts.

As for equating the existence of a soul with quantum field theory, QFT is now pretty well understood (I don't understand it, frankly, the math is way beyond me) but as far as I am aware there's no connecting tissue between QFT and an immaterial soul.

Could I be wrong? Yep, could be.

Did I just hear a unicorn fart?
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The Beast
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Re: So what is the soul?

Post by The Beast »

The truth is a cold remedy as is the laughter of humans. Why laugh? Is it because the ironic is less absurd than the passionate ridiculous argument that we as imperfect beings could know the whole truth. Is there a rebuttal to the principle: “We can only know the half of it”?
So we follow ‘the who knows what’ in the “belief” that we know everything or that we know nothing. Are we still assigning values to x’s and Y’s? if x is what I know then y is what I believe and if my x is bigger, my belief is also bigger with the knowledge that it is only good for the half of it. That is top knowledge. The other half is provided by the unknown as I live my life. Just by living my y got bigger and I do not wonder what I know or don’t know. Why getting all upset about me thinking that I have the whole truth and therefore whatever you think you know is only the half of it. What is it in what you know that gives you the belief that what others know makes y any bigger?
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Sy Borg
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Re: So what is the soul?

Post by Sy Borg »

Scribbler60 wrote:... I think this is an important caveat here - every single attempt to find or quantify a soul, or prove some other metaphysical phenomena, has met with failure. The track record is so poor - it's 100% - that I frankly think it's a pretty safe bet to assume that there isn't one, and we can now move on to study interesting things, rather than chase unicorn farts.

As for equating the existence of a soul with quantum field theory, QFT is now pretty well understood (I don't understand it, frankly, the math is way beyond me) but as far as I am aware there's no connecting tissue between QFT and an immaterial soul.
Check my post again, Scrib. I did not connect QM with an "immaterial soul", but noted that as we further explore the very small (and very large) QM tells us that robust experimental results that go against everything we thought was true are possible. In short, I'm saying that the fat lady hasn't sung.

Actually, the issue of the soul was decided in the negative as you describe above by the scientific establishment perhaps a century ago, hence the complete lack of interest or effort in attempting to understand what makes us tick at the very deepest level. What attempts have been made to find or quantify a soul? Have there been research grants provided (not associated with lightweight religious "educational" institutions)?

No one agrees on a definition of the soul and it's a high risk venture so why wouldn't scientists focus on non-controversial areas where results are easier to come by rather than risk all on projects that attract derision? If I was a scientist, I'd just study an interesting part of nature without putting my career on the line too, no matter how interested in existentialism I may be. My point is that the lack of results means little and I'd not be so hasty to put the issue to bed.

There IS something going on between objective and subjective reality that we have always found difficult to grasp, a disconnect stemming from the problem of other minds. As has increasingly been found, what goes on "in here" is shockingly unlike what is actually occurring "out there" in the environment - a pale imitation, filtered and stripped to the essentials. Our senses and brain provide relatively weak impressions of reality augmented by related conceptual reasoning along with time distortions (the latter most obviously evidenced in sleep).

Reality is actually more akin to Jill Bolte Taylor's description of her stroke experience - where she saw and felt a sea of energies swirling around everywhere, far more connected and less separate than seems apparent to us - https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_ta ... n#t-491185 (note that she was and continues to be an atheist).

Perceiving the subtle play of invisible energies is of little help to those hunting prey animals or digging up food plants, so our very energetically expensive brain evolved to focus on resources and threats, not phenomenology. Our very expensive science programs do exactly the same thing - it's all about getting maximum "bang for the buck". Chasing ghosts doesn't pay the bills.

I say this as a science fan. The scientific method is responsible for our safety, security and incredible lifestyles, and space research is the key to humanity's possible long term survival. However, there are severe limits to the scientific establishment's capacity to investigate speculative ontological questions due to resource limitations and priorities, hence the almost complete lack of formal inquiry in this area. So I wouldn't take the lack of experimental results too seriously.
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated—Gandhi.
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Art Of Mentalism
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Re: So what is the soul?

Post by Art Of Mentalism »

In what sense does something immaterial exist? And what it means for an immaterial thing to be or do something?I just can't wrap my mind around it.
(These are genuine questions)
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