Arguments against Soul

[adey67]

I'm late to the party but I'll try and answer the original question.

There is absolutely zero emperical evidence that there is a mysterious invisible indestructible immortal life force or soul that houses our thoughts memories and personality, zero evidence, nil zip none nada. 

Remember that if it interacts with senses like sight hearing and smell(which it must do otherwise its pretty useless) it or its effects absolutely should be detectable.

There isn't a single argument for a soul religious or otherwise that doesn't invoke to a greater or lesser degree some forms of magical thinking, assertions without evidence, leaps of faith, belief in woo etc.

There isn't one single argument for a soul that has any form of reasonable proof that doesn't involve unfalsifiable anecdotal claims or involve confirmation bias cognative dissonance etc.

Not to put to fine a point on it positive confirmation of the existance of a soul would be the biggest news story in world history forget 9/11 WW 1 or WW2 this would be the big one and take science in exciting new directions, the discoverer would have already claimed their Nobel prize and joined the lecture circuit yet all I hear is crickets chirping.

Maybe in the future the existance of a soul might be definitively proven in which case I'll change my mind but the overwhelming probability so far is that this is incredibly unlikely to happen.

[tackattack]

I assume your definition of you is the sum of your physical parts and their functions.

No, my definition of "me" would be my thoughts and ideas, my psychological continuity. My dead body will not be me in any meaningful way. Similarly, a soul that doesn't have my thoughts and ideas (and the bible says in Ecclesiates 9:5 that souls of dead people don't remember who they were in earthly life), that soul also isn't me in any meaningful way.

Soul may have the same function of seeing just with different methods. Much like blind people being able to imagine objects or "see" with their other senses.

Which senses can an immaterial soul have that don't break the laws of physics? It can't have a sense of vision since it doesn't interact with electromagnetic radiation (it can't be seen or detected by measuring electromagnetic radiation), and being able to see without interfering the photons would break the laws of quantum mechanics. Similarly, it can't have a sense of hearing, because that requires interacting with the air, and it would thus be detectible. Obviously, a soul can't have a sense of touch, since it's immaterial...

Ecc. 9:5 does talk about the living and the dead, and the dead not knowing anything, just as they don't eat or breathe. I  don't think that's a good scripture to hang the memory wipe narrative of souls on.
As far as souls and senses I clearly stated that. Sight is a function, not a method. Eyes are one method, imagination is another, extreme hearing like sonar is another electromagnetic detection like in some fish is another. You can have sensations of touch and motion without the necessary material form as is the case with phantom limbs. All of that is very medically understood. I just posit that while a soul doesn't obviously have eyes or ears, it may still have the function of seeing or hearing in some method foreign to us blobs of flesh.

As for your psychological continuity, are you still you when you dream? OFC u are. It's part of your continuity. You have a conscious and unconscious brain that both inject to the continuity. What if there were an immaterial self that also were part of that continuity? So would you be you if you died and that immaterial essence didn't cease? That's all I'm really suggesting.

@adey67 Does your subconscious interact with your senses? How do you know that? Is it useless? How do you define conscious experience and define it by it's sensory nature and state?


@Gae Bolga I am trying to pick your lane so we're driving to the same location. I thought you were moving the definition of supernatural. I do contend that a soul is a better definition for those things then idk. I consider a soul super-natural, in the most relevant sense some force beyond scientific understanding. That doesn't mean that it will always be so. Perhaps paranormal essence would be a better definition. Just as we once attributed disease to demons quantum entanglement and computing might hold many answers for what we see today. I'm open to that.  

As for relevant additions of information, I'm not certain how to qualitatively measure/detect a soul. I feel I have a soul that is distinct from my mind and body. I infer that having a soul that is separate from the mind and body is a better explanation for out of body experiences, NDE and ghost apparitions is a better explanation than it's all fake. I infer an objective moral author separate from personal/societal morality is a better explanation than morality isn't objective. I infer that a soul explains why individual qualia while referencing, the same object, are experientially different is as good a definition as subjective perspective. The sum of these criteria and the others, as a whole, are better explained, IMO by the existence of a soul. I am attempting to honestly participate in the conversation though, I'm sorry if it's not being perceived as such.

[Rahn127]

Here are a couple of thoughts that I recently had.

There are some christians who believe that it's possible that a god made the universe as we currently know it, 6000 years ago.

An atheist might then argue, "Well then, if you want to hold that view, let's say a god made the universe as we know it, this morning when I woke up."

I'll take things a step further and say that a god creates the universe as I take my last breath, therefore I am the same as a new born baby. I haven't had the opportunity to commit any sin and any memories I have of any actions that supposedly happened in the past are simply things god put in my mind.

And if a soul of mine should exist, it cannot be judged because I haven't done anything.

Alternatively, as an atheist, I don't believe that souls or gods exist, but what if upon my death as a human being, a god then creates a soul with my memories and personality.

Brand new soul can't be judged. It hasn't done anything.

Both of these concepts, imaginary as they might be , completely side step any irrational fear of hell or being judged.

There are plenty (although probably no longer a majority) of Christians who adhere to the notion of ‘the sins of the father’, especially as expressed in the concept of original sin. So, it doesn’t much matter whether you personally have sinned - your soul is automatically pre-judged based on Adam’s disobedience.

Judging and punishing the personally innocent may not be just or logical, but it is and always has been part and parcel Christian theology.

Boru

But that's the beauty of my idea. If the universe begins today when you woke up, then that means that NONE of the religious crap ever happened to begin with.

No original sin, no Jesus, no bible, none of it.

[adey67]

@tackattack, Hi nice to make your acquaintance. Being totally honest I don't know, I think it's highly likely that the subconscious can at least be influenced by our senses, certainly our dreams can be influenced by our days experiences and all these things are linked but I'm not a neurologist or even an MD so I can make no definitive statement on that, as for the other questions we can run around in circles and tie ourselves up in knots trying to define consciousness and everyone will reach a slightly or even very different understanding of what it is but that achieves nothing and does not I think invalidate anything I've stated previously, things are pretty much as I have said and there isn't really any way round it, it's tough to see it all laid bare like that especially if you are strongly invested in a particular belief system either religious or non religious but it kind of is what it is I'm afraid. I do think however that the continuous development and increase in computer technology is the key here, as soon as we are able to sufficiently map the brain we may find answers to our questions about the mind and consciousness, one things for sure though, the answer will come from science not from philosophy or abstract thinking, of that I'm certain.

[FlatAssembler]

I don't think that's a good scripture to hang the memory wipe narrative of souls on.

Why? And it's not just the scripture, it's also the most basic common sense: if malfunctioning of the brain leads to memory loss, so does the death of the brain.

Eyes are one method, imagination is another, extreme hearing like sonar is another electromagnetic detection like in some fish is another.

What do you mean by "imagination"? Imagination doesn't provide you with the actual data.
If a soul uses extreme hearing or electromagnetic detection, such a soul would be detectible by physical instruments.

You can have sensations of touch and motion without the necessary material form as is the case with phantom limbs. All of that is very medically understood.

While it's not entirely medically understood, it's clear that you need physical nerves to feel phantom pain. Spinal cord stimulation almost always helps relieve phantom pain resulting from an amputated limb.
Sometimes pain can indeed result from not-currently-understood malfunctioning of the brain. But suggesting that, because of that, it's possible for a soul without a brain to feel pain is beyond absurd.
Do you think that plants and animals without a brain (sponges, jellyfish...) can also feel pain? If a soul without a brain can feel pain, so can anything then.

As for your psychological continuity, are you still you when you dream?

Of course. When I dream, I can still remember some things about my real life. This remembering of things is called psychological continuity.

[The Grand Nudger]

@Gae Bolga I am trying to pick your lane so we're driving to the same location. I thought you were moving the definition of supernatural. I do contend that a soul is a better definition for those things then idk. I consider a soul super-natural, in the most relevant sense some force beyond scientific understanding. That doesn't mean that it will always be so. Perhaps paranormal essence would be a better definition. Just as we once attributed disease to demons quantum entanglement and computing might hold many answers for what we see today. I'm open to that.  

As for relevant additions of information, I'm not certain how to qualitatively measure/detect a soul. I feel I have a soul that is distinct from my mind and body. I infer that having a soul that is separate from the mind and body is a better explanation for out of body experiences, NDE and ghost apparitions is a better explanation than it's all fake. I infer an objective moral author separate from personal/societal morality is a better explanation than morality isn't objective. I infer that a soul explains why individual qualia while referencing, the same object, are experientially different is as good a definition as subjective perspective. The sum of these criteria and the others, as a whole, are better explained, IMO by the existence of a soul. I am attempting to honestly participate in the conversation though, I'm sorry if it's not being perceived as such.

When do you feel you have a soul, Tack?  Are you writing religious poetry or describing a sensory experience of a soul?

We've already agreed that soul is an explanation for ghosts.  I'm wondering about the other things.  The credible things..that you're trying to use to launder ghosts.

I'm glad that you're a moral realist, but ghosts have jack shit to do with moral realism....and this is a thinly veiled argument from bad consequences on it's face.  So what if a god, and lets cut the shit with "objective moral authors"..lol, would be better?  The question at hand isn't whether one thing is better than another, but whether that thing is real in the first place.  There are a great many fantasies that are notable improvements to fact.

Similarly, a subjective perspective is a brute fact of experience that we seek to explain, and can explain, not an explanation itself.  If your "soul" is competing with brute facts for space in reality, it's DOA.

[FlatAssembler]

Are you writing religious poetry or describing a sensory experience of a soul?

My primary school teacher told us that we can sense our souls when we close our eyes and squeeze something in the palms of our hands, that then we feel that something is leaving our bodies. Never mind that, if that what was leaving our bodies were really our souls, we would not feel as if something was leaving our bodies, but that we would feel as if we ourselves were leaving the bodies.

[Rahn127]

If we had some kind of soul that could sense anything at all, then we would never have a state we refer to as unconsciousness.

[FlatAssembler]

If we had some kind of soul that could sense anything at all, then we would never have a state we refer to as unconsciousness.

Yeah, good point. I mean, it's the variation on the theme "How come brain damage prevents a person from doing what the soul is supposed to do?". Now, I guess a religious person will respond with "Well, the soul communicates with the eyes using the brain. That's why, if the back part of the brain is damaged or temporarily doesn't work (because of alcohol...), the soul can't see." (As if it didn't seem that the memories and reasoning are also products of the brain, and not just seeing or hearing).
Maybe a better formulation would be: "If the mind is not dependent on the brain, how come it is that people who have been unconscious can't tell how long they have been unconscious?". I mean, if souls were real, we would expect that, when a person wakes from being unconscious, he or she either remembers leaving their own bodies, or that he or she remembers facing silent darkness. We wouldn't expect a person who has been unconscious not to remember anything at all.

[Abaddon_ire]

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And now, we start muddling definitions. I suppose that would be dependent on what you define as "you". As a presumed materialist I assume your definition of you is the sum of your physical parts and their functions. As a dualist my definition would be the sum of the parts and their functions (physical or otherwise). Or to reference Locke "two thinking Substances may make but one Person."It's simply that we're attempting to define that other substance and how it thinks.
Your brain does store memories and thoughts. They can be lost if brain is damaged. Hence the reason for NDEs. If thoughts can form without brain activity, then perhaps it's just a HDD not the computer and the computer has a BIOS.
No, a soul being able to see doesn't break any laws. It's a function. "We" physically see (function) with physical eyes (measurable, quantifiable, sensory). An other "We" that (for this conversation) we call Soul may have the same function of seeing just with different methods. Much like blind people being able to imagine objects or "see" with their other senses.

Except that I have had an NDE and you are talking utter crap.

OK I believe I'm seeing your point. As I referenced above, the method with which a soul sees could very clearly be natural, thus making souls natural and not supernatural. As a theist, I do contend that a soul is natural being created by God. In a world where there is a soul, and where that soul is posited yet unknown, and where it goes on NDE trips that have sensory content, there might still be things that I think are soul which are in fact natural, like a brain.  As a substance dualist I de believe that the mind and body are distinct and separable. I'm not sure if a pluralist would be a better definition of my stance in that because I'm not sure how deep I can dive into Aristotle's hylomorphism in 15-30 minutes at a time. But if we can keep it cursory and simple enough for me I'd be happy to continue exploring. If you think I was double-talking, it wasn't my intent and I hope this clarifies better.

It does. It clarifies that you are attempting to define a "soul" into being even if your arguments do not agree with each other. The is pretty low, even for you.