(September 23, 2019 at 8:50 pm)Belaqua Wrote: Like Jehanne, you declare victory by begging the question. You assert, without proof, that a soul is made of measurable energy, and then say it hasn't been measured.

Except that everything we as material beings with material senses can profit from bothering to discuss, IS made of measurable energy. If it's supernatural (above or outside of nature) then nothing can possibly be known or experienced or discussed about it. One can only speculate, and not even do that very well.

Of course while in some theoretical sense there could be subtle energies we have not yet observed or detected, that is just a pseudo-scientific way of saying it's supernatural, when you unpack it. Unless and until we can observe or detect a thing, we shouldn't make things up concerning it.

I also think that sometimes out of fear of seeming like we're overreaching -- a noble impulse to epistemological humility -- we are reluctant to say that if a thing exists we should be able to demonstrate that it does, because, heck, there might be some force hiding in plain sight that we're missing. But the truth is that we can with the aid of instruments "see" the entire EM spectrum and detect very subtle indirect effects of various forces, so while we can never be sure we aren't missing SOMETHING, in practice, it's unlikely we're missing anything of significance and consequence at this point. An energy so weak or subtle that we haven't identified it yet probably can't DO much, after all, or conceal a whole invisible realm or something.

Things like souls reflect more our hopes and dreams and imagination than anything else.

I suspect the soul is a conceptual repository for everything about what it feels like to be human that we aren't quite capable of fully grasping intellectually. It is all our unanswered questions and longing. It is all our fear of dissolution and impermanence, our need for belonging and meaning. It is our attempt to explain how we're different from sociopaths or why a dead body looks like an obscene empty husk of the person we knew. We invent these concepts to distance ourselves from full awareness of how little we understand about the human condition, and in fact, about how much we probably never WILL understand. We literally make up answers we don't have, and tell ourselves soothing stories, rather than sit with the reality of our own ignorance and the fact that some things are simply beyond our ken.

I think it's more honest to just say that people known to us seem almost as if they have an ethereal, timeless quality that feels, but isn't, magical. Some je ne sais quoi that makes them seem special in hard to quantify ways. Something that makes it unutterably sad when we lose them to death or madness. Some mechanism that makes each person seem like more than the sum of their parts. We can acknowledge what it looks and feels like to us to experience each other, and acknowledge the mystery, the intense emotions and attachments and the grief and loss. But to start ascribing properties without basis and even against all evidence -- to say that consciousness can in any way be discarnate, or immortal -- that is not helpful or justifiable.

(September 23, 2019 at 9:58 pm)Belaqua Wrote:

(September 23, 2019 at 9:47 pm)Jehanne Wrote: From your so-called immaterial soul to your brain to your finger to the middle C chord on the piano, please explain why the piano resonated with a middle C frequency, but, as modern Science has explained the brain to piano resonating part, just do the immaterial soul to brain part.  That's what I am really after here.

I understand that mind is at the beginning of the chain of events that make the piano note. I understand that mind exists in the presence of electrochemical events in the brain. 

I can't explain how the immaterial soul caused the piano to play, according to your definition of "soul," because I don't think you have defined "soul" at all yet. 

How is "soul" different from "mind"? How is it different from "spirit," if such a thing as "spirit energy" exists, as the blog post says?

Tell me how mind and soul are different, and I may be able to answer your question. Or do you assert that they are always the same? How do you know this? 

You continue to speak as if soul has a mind, or as if soul is the same as mind. Unless you clarify your definitions, you're not telling me anything about soul at all.

In the modern age, the word "soul" would, to most, imply life-after-death.  In other words, when your brain is dead, "you" will continue to live on.

But, if you want to define "soul" as simply being what the brain does then I have no problem with such a definition.

(September 23, 2019 at 8:50 pm)Belaqua Wrote:

(September 23, 2019 at 8:39 pm)Succubus Wrote: I provided a Link earlier that clearly demonstrates an immaterial soul does not, cannot, exist. 

Quote:But the blog post at the link doesn't prove that at all. 

Its definition of a soul is:

There is no "its definition of a soul", the full quote is:

'Very roughly speaking, when most people think about an immaterial soul that persists after death, they have in mind some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain, and drives around our body like a soccer mom driving an SUV.'

Regarding the highlight; why did you leave that out? It's Carroll's wild arse guess at how people commonly define the soul and you are perfectly entitled to provide your own definition and it will be just as valid or invalid as any other.

Quote:they have in mind some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain, and drives around our body like a soccer mom driving an SUV.

Quote:Since they don't (and can't) describe what "spirit energy" is, they can't tell us anything. Is spirit energy like regular energy? Is it detectable by scientific means? (This is even leaving aside whether this is a fair description of what believers talk about. Even the definition in the blog post is too ambiguous to prove anything.

There is no 'they'. Spirit energy is bollocks made up by Carrol.

Quote:At best, the post makes a persuasive case that IF souls are made of detectable and well-understood energy of the type science studies, then we would be able to study them.

Correct.

Quote:Beyond that, it says nothing.

It says everything. It says souls can not exist as there is no possible mechanism to store the massive amount of information that is required to copy a persons entire life experience. Note, I didn't say there is no plausible way, I said there is no possible way.

Quote:Like Jehanne, you declare victory by begging the question. You assert, without proof, that a soul is made of measurable energy, and then say it hasn't been measured.

There will now be a lengthy screed naming long dead philosophers. And if we are lucky you will skip the embarrassing poetic whimsy regarding coffee cans.

There is no soul and there is no life after death.

(September 23, 2019 at 10:28 pm)Jehanne Wrote: In the modern age, the word "soul" would, to most, imply life-after-death.  In other words, when your brain is dead, "you" will continue to live on.

OK, that makes sense. 

So the definition of "soul" you're using here is: that portion of a person which some people claim lives on after the body dies. 

Quote:But, if you want to define "soul" as simply being what the brain does then I have no problem with such a definition.

I don't want to define soul that way, because that would be the same as mind, and then we wouldn't need two words. By combining the two words, we make assumptions about them that haven't been demonstrated. 

Now, that portion of the person which lives on after death: how do you know that it needs electrical energy? Certainly mind does, and if you want to elide the two terms and say soul = mind, then soul does too. But if soul is not identical with mind, then how do we know that they work the same way? 

In that very fuzzy blog post, it says that soul is "spirit energy." But the blog doesn't prove that "spirit energy" is related to electricity. Maybe they're different. So if it's true that "spirit energy" is at all relevant, then it remains to be proved that soul has anything to do with electricity. 

As far as I'm concerned, either you have to say that there's no such thing as soul, there is only mind, or you have to acknowledge that we have no proof a soul needs electricity. 

(For the record, I define soul differently. I think there's no reason to think that soul, as traditionally defined, lives on after death. Though of course some people take this as an article of faith.)

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(September 23, 2019 at 10:48 pm)Succubus Wrote: Spirit energy is bollocks made up by Carrol.

Ah, well, he intentionally chose a bollocks definition, and tried to show that it's bollocks. So he's proven nothing.

(September 23, 2019 at 10:52 pm)Belaqua Wrote: ...Ah, well, he intentionally chose a bollocks definition, and tried to show that it's bollocks. So he's proven nothing.

Give me your definition of the soul. And this:

Quote:(For the record, I define soul differently. I think there's no reason to think that soul, as traditionally defined, lives on after death. Though of course some people take this as an article of faith.)

The mustard will not cut.

'I define soul differently.' Yes, get on with it.

(September 23, 2019 at 10:52 pm)Belaqua Wrote:

(September 23, 2019 at 10:28 pm)Jehanne Wrote: In the modern age, the word "soul" would, to most, imply life-after-death.  In other words, when your brain is dead, "you" will continue to live on.

OK, that makes sense. 

So the definition of "soul" you're using here is: that portion of a person which some people claim lives on after the body dies. 

Quote:But, if you want to define "soul" as simply being what the brain does then I have no problem with such a definition.

I don't want to define soul that way, because that would be the same as mind, and then we wouldn't need two words. By combining the two words, we make assumptions about them that haven't been demonstrated. 

Now, that portion of the person which lives on after death: how do you know that it needs electrical energy? Certainly mind does, and if you want to elide the two terms and say soul = mind, then soul does too. But if soul is not identical with mind, then how do we know that they work the same way? 

In that very fuzzy blog post, it says that soul is "spirit energy." But the blog doesn't prove that "spirit energy" is related to electricity. Maybe they're different. So if it's true that "spirit energy" is at all relevant, then it remains to be proved that soul has anything to do with electricity. 

As far as I'm concerned, either you have to say that there's no such thing as soul, there is only mind, or you have to acknowledge that we have no proof a soul needs electricity. 

(For the record, I define soul differently. I think there's no reason to think that soul, as traditionally defined, lives on after death. Though of course some people take this as an article of faith.)

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(September 23, 2019 at 10:48 pm)Succubus Wrote: Spirit energy is bollocks made up by Carrol.

Ah, well, he intentionally chose a bollocks definition, and tried to show that it's bollocks. So he's proven nothing.

The mind is electrochemical energy, nothing more. This fact can be established emphatically by the conservation laws and the innumerable studies on brain lesions, injury, disease, etc.

(September 23, 2019 at 11:10 pm)Succubus Wrote:

(September 23, 2019 at 10:52 pm)Belaqua Wrote: ...Ah, well, he intentionally chose a bollocks definition, and tried to show that it's bollocks. So he's proven nothing.

Give me your definition of the soul. And this:

Quote:(For the record, I define soul differently. I think there's no reason to think that soul, as traditionally defined, lives on after death. Though of course some people take this as an article of faith.)

The mustard will not cut.

'I define soul differently.' Yes, get on with it.

I've typed it out several times on this thread.

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(September 23, 2019 at 11:15 pm)Jehanne Wrote: The mind is electrochemical energy, nothing more.  This fact can be established emphatically by the conservation laws and the innumerable studies on brain lesions, injury, disease, etc.

Yes, good.

Now, please demonstrate that the mind equals the soul.

(September 23, 2019 at 11:17 pm)Belaqua Wrote: Yes, good.

Now, please demonstrate that the mind equals the soul.

Please demonstrate that the mind is not what the brain does.

(September 23, 2019 at 11:30 pm)Succubus Wrote:

(September 23, 2019 at 11:17 pm)Belaqua Wrote: Yes, good.

Now, please demonstrate that the mind equals the soul.

Please demonstrate that the mind is not what the brain does.

Why should I do that? I think that the mind is what the brain does.

(September 23, 2019 at 10:52 pm)Belaqua Wrote: Now, that portion of the person which lives on after death:

Are you proposing that a portion of a person lives on after death ? or have I misunderstood what you are saying here ?