Arguments against Soul

[The Grand Nudger]

And I greatly appreciate your sounding board for my ideas Gae. It wasn't a predicate for belief, but a path of discussion for said belief. To clarify I don't believe you can find the soul in mind or morality. But in the absence of mind, where there is cognition there is soul. If mind is all there is then 0 instances of knowledge or experience outside of mind can exist.

Being fair, knowledge is probably easier to accomplish sans mind than experience...though it's not really certain that both are the sole possession of a mind.  Sure, it's something that minds, we think, can do...but you can stab a person with a pencil or a knife, too.  

I simply don't believe that statement is true and allow for the possibility that there is something beyond mind, which could be soul as a best answer. The same applies to objective morality. Any morality that isn't individual morality or identifiable societal moral pressure would be other, and in that space fits objective morality and soul.

What does morality have to do with a soul.  What would a soul have to do with morality? Put some meat on that.  Also, if you could, explain why personal and social moralities are somehow incompatible with or not part of the soul set? It seems to me that you're just lumping things you like and and don't like into two categories with no other metric to justify their inclusion in either.

This is especially hilarious to me, because you're going to be hard-pressed to point to any soul based claim to morality, none of which are objective, that wasn't explicitly an example of social pressure and leverage.

Thus I believe for a few quick points,
1. while I was blacked out, I remember nothing, but time passed and I was still me from all accounts, indicates i am not my memories.
2. There is a force that affects my will and focus, not related to mind or brain, indicating I am not all that focuses my will to act
3. There are complex circumstances that I have no control over, that seem orchestrated, indicating that I do not direct my life entirely


I fully get your point, that even if all this were true it still doesn't prove a soul exists, and you're right. But in the absence of a better answer, souls, for me, answers these questions.

How, is what I've been trying to get you to explain.  I've always been specificaly focused on how soul is even -an- explanation for morality, let alone the best explanation.  This is what you said.  What do you mean by the absence of a better explanation? The only explanation required for objective morality, is that facts exist.

My point, was that soul not being an or the best explanation for morality wouldn't mean that souls don't exist. I spent a whole paragraph de-escalating and preemptively doing away with any possible consequence for you having gotten this thing about souls and morality wrong. It had nothing to do with any of that not proving that a soul exists, and everything to do with you being wrong about souls and morality -not- proving that souls don't exist. Souls, if they exist, will be completely unharmed by your being wildly offmark with regards to moral objectivism.

The point was to prove that an honest and rational exploration of a topic could be had, even with shakey definitions. I understand that most people on here are materialists and find it quite pointless to discuss anything non natural at all, much less non-scientifically. I just hope that opening myself up to the conversation and exploration proved that point. Gae, I don't believe you and I aren't very far apart on a lot of things (contrary to how it seems sometimes), but those little difference are important and I can respect those differences.

I don't think that we are having that conversation, though.  You're typing..sure, but not about the only thing I've attempted to have a discussion with you about.   Can you tell me what little difference between you and I amounts to you thinking that soul is an explanation, and the best explanation, for morality?  I'm not asking you to prove soul.  I know you can't.  I had and still have a more mundane question.

Why you believe that soul is an, and the best, explanation for morality.

Full disclosure, I think that this is pious prattle. It's something you've been taught to say, but can't competently articulate when asked because you don't understand it and probably don't even believe it. Fun aside...one of the most widely cited positions in moral realism is non natural realism. There won't be any problem discussing the meaningfully non-natural in morality..it's just that no realist system requires or needs reference to any soul.