Question about "faith"

[Sal]

Does this count for "zombie" pig brains, John?

[John 6IX Breezy]

I haven't read the catechism or anything, but I have sometimes heard souls are only a human thing.

If that's the claim then no, zombie pigs don't count.

[possibletarian]

If we know souls are immaterial, that alone begins to give information about what they are not (material) and what they are (immaterial).

If they are said to be a component of human beings, then we know they are inconsistent with chairs and rocks, and consistent with people. We can ask what happens to people in the absence or presence of a soul (death/resurrection) and whether or not it plays out.

I'm sure religions vary with their definitions. Some are better than others. But even if they're abstract, scientists can define concepts operationally for the sake of experimentation. Operational definitions transform abstract concept into testable form. Depression, for example, can be operationally defined as a specific score on a mood test.

Descartes proposed the pineal gland as the seat of the soul, and souls were a mechanism that moved nerves in hydraulic fashion. And yet the Otto experiment I mentioned falsified that by the discovery of neurotransmitters. And pineal glands can be removed without causing death.

We don't actually know anything about souls, they have not yet proven to be anything more than like your god, an idea.

[John 6IX Breezy]

If you don't know what souls are proposed to be, how would you know when you've found one?

Conjectures come first, refutations come second. Theories come first, experiments come second. That's how science has been for a long time; it doesn't prove, it disproves. Your comment is backwards.

[Foxaèr]

[LadyForCamus]

If you don't know what souls are proposed to be, how would you know when you've found one?

Conjectures come first, refutations come second. Theories come first, experiments come second. That's how science has been for a long time; it doesn't prove, it disproves. Your comment is backwards.

No. Observation and data collection come first. Please present us your data regarding souls.

[John 6IX Breezy]

"The belief that science proceeds from observation to theory is still so widely and so firmly held that my denial of it is often met with incredulity. I have even been suspected of being insincere- of denying what nobody in his senses would doubt. But in fact the belief that we can start with pure observation alone, without anything in the nature of a theory is absurd.” -Karl Popper

Observations are theory-laden whether you know it or not. It is misguided to assume you can simply sit and observe, without any idea of what and why you are observing. An activity perhaps more useful in mindfulness training than science.

That is simply not the way the mind works. Every observation you make is influenced by your expectations. Consider a visual scene in which a fire hydrant is placed inside a kitchen: a scene in which the object and it's environment don't match. When researchers show these types of scene to participants, they are slower at recognizing the fire hydrant in the kitchen than when it is on a street corner (Fenske, et al., 2006). Why? Because your brain is never simply observing and collecting data. It is actively creating and supplying predictions about your observations, interpreting information and making estimates.

Reference:

Fenske, M., Aminoff, E., Gronau, N., Bar, M. (2006). Top-down facilitation of visual object recognition: Object-based and context-based contributions. Progress in Brain Research, 155, 3-21.

[possibletarian]

If you don't know what souls are proposed to be, how would you know when you've found one?

Exactly, they are nothing more than words so far as we can tell.  They should never be proposed in the first place, hence your 'prove souls are real to disprove my god' is beyond silly.

Now we have that out of the way, what is your god , why despite the claim it's the ultimate reality is it still conjecture ?

[possibletarian]

"The belief that science proceeds from observation to theory is still so widely and so firmly held that my denial of it is often met with incredulity. I have even been suspected of being insincere- of denying what nobody in his senses would doubt. But in fact the belief that we can start with pure observation alone, without anything in the nature of a theory is absurd.” -Karl Popper

Observations are theory-laden whether you know it or not. It is misguided to assume you can simply sit and observe, without any idea of what and why you are observing. An activity perhaps more useful in mindfulness training than science.

That is simply not the way the mind works. Every observation you make is influenced by your expectations. Consider a visual scene in which a fire hydrant is placed inside a kitchen: a scene in which the object and it's environment don't match. When researchers show these types of scene to participants, they are slower at recognizing the fire hydrant in the kitchen than when it is on a street corner (Fenske, et al., 2006). Why? Because your brain is never simply observing and collecting data. It is actively creating and supplying predictions about your observations, interpreting information and making estimates.

Reference:

Fenske, M., Aminoff, E., Gronau, N., Bar, M. (2006). Top-down facilitation of visual object recognition: Object-based and context-based contributions. Progress in Brain Research, 155, 3-21.

And ? I'm not sure that says what you have imagined it to.

[Gwaithmir]

"The belief that science proceeds from observation to theory is still so widely and so firmly held that my denial of it is often met with incredulity. I have even been suspected of being insincere- of denying what nobody in his senses would doubt. But in fact the belief that we can start with pure observation alone, without anything in the nature of a theory is absurd.” -Karl Popper

Observations are theory-laden whether you know it or not. It is misguided to assume you can simply sit and observe, without any idea of what and why you are observing. An activity perhaps more useful in mindfulness training than science.

That is simply not the way the mind works. Every observation you make is influenced by your expectations. Consider a visual scene in which a fire hydrant is placed inside a kitchen: a scene in which the object and it's environment don't match. When researchers show these types of scene to participants, they are slower at recognizing the fire hydrant in the kitchen than when it is on a street corner (Fenske, et al., 2006). Why? Because your brain is never simply observing and collecting data. It is actively creating and supplying predictions about your observations, interpreting information and making estimates.

Reference:

Fenske, M., Aminoff, E., Gronau, N., Bar, M. (2006). Top-down facilitation of visual object recognition: Object-based and context-based contributions. Progress in Brain Research, 155, 3-21.

And ? I'm not sure that says what you have imagined it to.

The fact that there are only two sentences instead of a paragraph causes me to suspect quote mining.