(September 5, 2022 at 3:51 am)Fidel_Castronaut Wrote:

(September 5, 2022 at 3:47 am)Ahriman Wrote: Ok then what's the point of being an atheist if you believe in all sorts of silly stuff? Wouldn't believing in gods just be one more silly thing? Why make an exception for that one thing?

Are you being disingenuous or do you really not know?

I do not know why atheists make an exception for that one thing. Explain why.

Nah you're alright. I'll leave you to work it out. Like I said, plenty of threads on here explaining why.

Enjoy your day.

(September 5, 2022 at 3:51 am)Fidel_Castronaut Wrote:

(September 5, 2022 at 3:47 am)Ahriman Wrote: Ok then what's the point of being an atheist if you believe in all sorts of silly stuff? Wouldn't believing in gods just be one more silly thing? Why make an exception for that one thing?

Are you being disingenuous or do you really not know?

Is this a rhetorical question?

(August 27, 2022 at 1:59 pm)Eclectic Wrote: If we liken the soul to the software in the hardware, when the software dies, it leaves the hardware but is not destroyed.

What are the particles that make a soul, and what are the particles that mediate interactions between those particles and the particles that make a body. The Standard Model is filling up fast.

(November 13, 2022 at 11:05 pm)LinuxGal Wrote:

(August 27, 2022 at 1:59 pm)Eclectic Wrote: If we liken the soul to the software in the hardware, when the software dies, it leaves the hardware but is not destroyed.

What are the particles that make a soul, and what are the particles that mediate interactions between those particles and the particles that make a body. The Standard Model is filling up fast.

Is software made of special particles? Or is it more of a form or system which determines the operation of the material?

Because most people since Aristotle have spoken of the soul as the form which determines what a particular bit of matter is and does. The soul is not itself matter (e.g. particles).

(November 14, 2022 at 1:12 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(November 13, 2022 at 11:05 pm)LinuxGal Wrote: What are the particles that make a soul, and what are the particles that mediate interactions between those particles and the particles that make a body. The Standard Model is filling up fast.

Is software made of special particles? Or is more of a form or system which determines the operation of the material?

The software does not survive the death of the computer and then wanders around before it goes to some imaginary place as the soul is supposedly doing.

‘Consciousness is no more likely to survive the wreck of the brain than 70mph is likely to survive the wreck of the car.’ - Boru Forgets Who Said That

Boru

(November 14, 2022 at 1:12 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(November 13, 2022 at 11:05 pm)LinuxGal Wrote: What are the particles that make a soul, and what are the particles that mediate interactions between those particles and the particles that make a body. The Standard Model is filling up fast.

Is software made of special particles? Or is it more of a form or system which determines the operation of the material?

Because most people since Aristotle have spoken of the soul as the form which determines what a particular bit of matter is and does. The soul is not itself matter (e.g. particles).

Software manipulates the physical state of hardware so that useful effects can be produced by their interaction.  Special Particles™ may also be able to do the same job, whatever those are, but that's not how software is doing it.  The Regular Old Particles™ are up to the task.  Further, unlike this soul business, the software will itself reduce to some physical state of some piece of hardware.  There is nothing that isn't explicitly material in how computers or software work.  

Even deeper down the well, people might hold out hope that the now failed analogy can be reasserted, in that some thought made the program - but this is irrelevant - as a kogge-stone adder would behave the way it does whether some thought intentionally or coincidentally shaped it's "form", or it happened to fall together completely at random...and I'd be tickled pink to hear anyone say that an adder had a soul of any kind right on the face of it.

Whatever it is people are talking about when they talk about a soul, it isn't software. Not aristotle, and not a contemporary believer either. Souls are a very poor attempt to explain a range of only marginally related effects by way of rank superstition (respiration, metabolism, cognition, behavior, permanence...). Always have been - always will be.

Many years ago I was designing exhibits for a new science museum, and we got in a bunch of brand new Apple IIe computers.

I asked the computer guy if computers get a little bit heavier when you load software into them. Understandably, he laughed at me.

Asking what particles a soul is made of is pretty much the same.

‘Supernatural’ is just regular natural that’s been bitten by a radioactive spider, metaphorically speaking.

Boru