(August 30, 2015 at 7:05 pm)Ronkonkoma Wrote: like I said the soul is not material so you can't test it. It's bmvery silly to ask for an empiric proof for the soul. So what you're left with is to see how does it affect matter.

So you can test it, or at least test for it. Until then, what's the justification for suspecting it's even there?

(August 30, 2015 at 10:57 am)Whateverist the White Wrote: I just make this shit up.  Your welcome.

But it was the concept of "soul" which I was addressing, not personhood or personality.  So I'm firmly on speculative ground, nothing very sciency about it, no journals to quote.  However there is a nice video on youtube based on a TED talk by Ian McGilchist about the divided brain theory that informs my speculation.

https://youtu.be/dFs9WO2B8uI

yes but you said the personality forms before consciousness, but they actually form simultaneously after birth. And the soul the way we understand it different from personality, its something inherent to a person's existence from conception on, so that's why I say it determines personhood. Will see the video and comment on it.

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(August 30, 2015 at 3:29 pm)SnakeOilWarrior Wrote:

(August 29, 2015 at 2:22 am)Ronkonkoma Wrote: The term soul was first introduced by the Greek philosophers. Its the immaterial part of you, a part of the immaterial world.

The Greek philosophers realized that Mathematics is also a part of the immaterial world.

The soul, like math, has no weight or mass, you can't see it and it doesn't alter light.

Like math, you can study its effects because the soul gives human life its fundamental essence and value.

This concept became more refined after Christian teaching met the philosophies of Plato, Aristoteles, and Socrates.

The human soul houses the core of human desire, and as such is an important basis of our understanding of personhood.

This has implications on human dignity, human rights, responsibilities, and freedom. If you ignore these things, you see important implications, the culmination of which are the Gulags of the Soviet Union for instance, or the Holocaust, or the carpet bombing of Dresden and perhaps the destruction of Hiroshima.  

All these things (dignity, rights, responsibilities, freedom), like the soul, are immaterial.

Value, like the soul, is also immaterial.

Value can generate bills of money from seemingly "nothing". In material terms, a stack of bills is nothing but paper. But money can be put to use to alter material things, such as the great cathedrals and churches of Europe, which are direct expressions on the effect of the soul on matter.

Similarly, persons in material terms are seemingly nothing but DNA, or ribonucleic acids, but they can generate ideas, hopes and dreams, and put values into reality. Say for example, I value my kids, I can alter reality by reading to them at night. I made that value a reality in the irreversible past. DNA can't do that. On the other hand, our material brain is the most complex thing we know of in the entire universe. In material terms there is no way that we have any idea what a thought, or a value, or a soul is.

Good night, kids.

Evidence for all the bare assertions of the properties of souls, please.

what kind of evidence do you want? Do you want the mass of the soul? It's weight, height? Does tha smyt sound silly to you?

ok so you will say, that means the soul foes not exist
and I will say that kind of thinking is dangerous. Very dangerous, along the lines of the death of 200 000 persons a year in our country in the abortion mills for example, and the selling of their parts for profit. In a fee country where freedom is unopposed by responsibility, and human rights are just a vague term floating in the air. And people are asking for physical proofs of the soul which is ludicrous to me.

(August 29, 2015 at 11:19 pm)Ronkonkoma Wrote: My point is, there are implications on our understanding of the soul. Implications, that determine a civil and just society, just as the ancient Greek philosophers are the rogenitors of our modern democracy and western set of values.

Sure we can respect human life as long as it is convenient for us to do that, and as long as that seems like the nice thing to do... But as soon as becomes inconvenient?

So... what is it about the soul that might stop us disrespecting life when it becomes inconvenient? If this objection of yours is to carry any weight then surely there must actually be some quality of the soul or belief in it that prevents the disrespect of ensouled life... and yet throughout history we have religious people and entities performing the most horrific tortures and executions on people despite fully believing in the existence of the soul. Go read about the inquisition for a bit, and then come back and tell me that the soul prevents people from treating others poorly.

Quote:What stops us from interpreting life to begin as soon as baby is born, versus at the moment of conception?

Ooh, I know this one! Could it be... evidence one way or the other?

Seriously, why didn't you think of that?

Quote:We enter a lot of muddy and dangerous ground when we ignore the soul, the basis of human identity and dignity.

Apologies if I've just missed it elsewhere in the thread, but have you ever actually established that A: the soul is the basis of human identity and dignity, and B: that it is the only viable basis for that?

Or are you one of those who are just going to assert that and then demand that we all take you seriously, because you said so?

Quote:what kind of evidence do you want? Do you want the mass of the soul? It's weight, height? Does tha smyt sound silly to you?

ok so you will say, that means the soul foes not exist
and I will say that kind of thinking is dangerous.

How else would you propose that we detect the soul? And if you can't detect it, where do you get off demanding that we take your assertions of it seriously?

Quote: Very dangerous, along the lines of the death of 200 000 persons a year in our country in the abortion mills for example, and the selling of their parts for profit.

Wow, are you really going to bring up abortions based on an a priori assumption that the soul exists, that you refuse to demonstrate, and then expect us all to just roll with your presuppositions? On top of that, you're seriously going to go with the "thay sell da babies!" line after that was demonstrably shown to be a lie made up by ideologues with an ax to grind against Planned Parenthood?

Okay...

Quote: In a fee country where freedom is unopposed by responsibility, and human rights are just a vague term floating in the air. And people are asking for physical proofs of the soul which is ludicrous to me.

Human rights are abstract concepts. Are you then asserting that the soul is merely an abstract concept and not an objectively real entity too?

(August 30, 2015 at 7:08 pm)Stimbo Wrote:

(August 30, 2015 at 7:05 pm)Ronkonkoma Wrote: like I said the soul is not material so you can't test it. It's bmvery silly to ask for an empiric proof for the soul. So what you're left with is to see how does it affect matter.

So you can test it, or at least test for it. Until then, what's the justification for suspecting it's even there?

it affects matter through our actions. The cathedrals and churches of Europe are a direct expression of the soul over matter.

And that supports the existence of an immaterial soul?

Is the "soul" memory?

Is the "soul" personality?

If you answer no to both, which you should considering brain damage alters both, then the idea of a "soul" becomes meaningless. Without your memory and personality it would simply be a cardboard cut out that did not even resemble anything of the person you were, rendering it a moot concept.

(August 30, 2015 at 7:12 pm)Ronkonkoma Wrote: what kind of evidence do you want? Do you want the mass of the soul? It's weight, height?

How about testing how the soul interacts with matter. You claim it does. If it does, even if it is immaterial, it will leave evidence in the material that it's interacting with. If the material world is affected, at all, that's traceable.

So, c'mon. Evidence time. Put up or shut up.

(August 30, 2015 at 7:12 pm)Ronkonkoma Wrote: Does tha smyt sound silly to you?

Actually, I think every fucking claim you've made so far sounds silly.

(August 30, 2015 at 7:12 pm)Ronkonkoma Wrote: ok so you will say, that means the soul foes not exist
and I will say that kind of thinking is dangerous. Very dangerous, along the lines of the death of 200 000 persons a year in our country in the abortion mills for example, and the selling of their parts for profit. In a fee country where freedom is unopposed by responsibility, and human rights are just a vague term floating in the air.

(emphasis is mine)
Yeah, I'll thank you not to straw man my side of the argument. I mean, if you're going to argue both sides, my input's rather redundant.

(August 30, 2015 at 7:12 pm)Ronkonkoma Wrote: And people are asking for physical proofs of the soul which is ludicrous to me.

Well, you're the one positing the existence of a soul which is ludicrous to me.

(August 30, 2015 at 7:31 pm)Ronkonkoma Wrote:

(August 30, 2015 at 7:08 pm)Stimbo Wrote: So you can test it, or at least test for it. Until then, what's the justification for suspecting it's even there?

it affects matter through our actions. The cathedrals and churches of Europe are a direct expression of the soul over matter.

Bullshit. That is evidence that someone believes there are souls, not evidence of souls themselves.

Looks as if we have our replacement for Randy.  Guess we will not miss him after all.

(August 30, 2015 at 7:12 pm)Ronkonkoma Wrote:

(August 30, 2015 at 10:57 am)Whateverist the White Wrote: I just make this shit up.  Your welcome.

But it was the concept of "soul" which I was addressing, not personhood or personality.  So I'm firmly on speculative ground, nothing very sciency about it, no journals to quote.  However there is a nice video on youtube based on a TED talk by Ian McGilchist about the divided brain theory that informs my speculation.

https://youtu.be/dFs9WO2B8uI

yes but you said the personality forms before consciousness,

I don't think so. I can't imagine what personality has to do with anything.

(August 30, 2015 at 7:12 pm)Ronkonkoma Wrote: .. but they actually form simultaneously after birth. And the soul the way we understand it different from personality, its something inherent to a person's existence from conception on, so that's why I say it determines personhood. Will see the video and comment on it.

When I go to the bother of coming up with an alternative understanding of "soul" for the sake of finding common ground is not the time to come back with an unthinking blather of dogma. I reject all that on the face of it.