Do we have a soul? - General

It all really depends on what you are willing to believe. For instance, I believe that life can arise in any medium. If life could arise in matter, why not in energy? If energy is a medium capable of supporting life, then something like a soul could arise in an ordered universe. As for human beings having souls, it would make sense for an energy organism to attach to our cardiac and nervous systems. What with all the electrical impulses running through them, an energy organism could have adapted to feed off of that energy. What I'm saying is, Souls could exist. It is flagrantly ignorant to assume anything you cannot see is imaginary.

I've come up with this idea that is more about energy than souls, and I mean energy as described in science, but not quite. I like to think it's a scientific way of looking at things, but I'm no scientist, so a lot of this may be a flawed way of viewing things. It's also a pretty basic way of looking at it. [b]DISCLAIMER[/b]: I'm not saying this is what I believe, even though I will be saying "[I]I believe this...I believe that...[/I]" I do, however, think that it's an interesting idea. So first off, we need to discuss consciousness. What creates it? Well I believe its all created in the brain. From what I've heard, people who believe in souls generally believe that their consciousness comes from their soul, and that after death their soul will provide them consciousness in an afterlife. I don't believe that, mostly because there's no solid proof pointing towards it, or any consciousness after death for that matter. Consciousness is created in the brain, and when the brain dies, so does your consciousness. We can't comprehend what it's like to not be conscious for obvious reasons; we can, however, observe what happens to someone who has died and lost their consciousness. So what happens to a human body after it dies? It decomposes, providing fuel in the form of energy to surrounding soil, which is then absorbed by trees, plants, etc. The plants are eaten by other creatures, which are eaten by other creatures, so on and so on. The only real way to be conscious at this point, the way I see it, is if that energy you provided to these creatures somehow gives you consciousness through those creatures' brains. So in a way it's like reincarnation, but not quite. You can become conscious in an animal, plant, tree, or even a person at any point in its life. You don't start at the beginning unless your energy feeds a newborn creature. Once they die, the cycle repeats. As I said, I'm not saying this is what I believe, but I do think it is a very convincing idea.

no because thermodynamics prohibits that

what is up with everybody just making shit up?

Because they are too lazy to make long posts about their opinions or because they don't know too many advanced words, so they just make them up. Why you would make a theory like souls and ghosts and stuff exist is almost beyond me, but I guess it is because they want to believe in something to replace thoughts like that you are permanently gone when you are dead.

The truth is actually stranger than fact here, and when you do find out the truth it'll make you go mad. But it goes something along the following lines... When 'you' die you are not 'you' any more... however all is not lost, you are.... hows the best way to put this, 'put' into a new born, and the cycle continues, you are in fact and have been (and will be) every human on this planet. Time also does not exist the way you think it does, so the people that you haven't been yet you have as there is no yet, you are simultaniously everyone on the planet at the same... err... time. but you live each life as a seperate.. err... experience, you will experience the next one once you have completed the current one, but not in a timely fashion, yeh It probably doesn't make much sense because it is infact impossible to easily explain. There's nothing magical or mythical about it it just is, just like the sun

[QUOTE=Chaoss86;35163762]The truth is actually stranger than fact here, and when you do find out the truth it'll make you go mad. But it goes something along the following lines... When 'you' die you are not 'you' any more... however all is not lost, you are.... hows the best way to put this, 'put' into a new born, and the cycle continues, you are in fact and have been (and will be) every human on this planet. Time also does not exist the way you think it does, so the people that you haven't been yet you have as there is no yet, you are simultaniously everyone on the planet at the same... err... time. but you live each life as a seperate.. err... experience, you will experience the next one once you have completed the current one, but not in a timely fashion, yeh It probably doesn't make much sense because it is infact impossible to easily explain. There's nothing magical or mythical about it it just is, just like the sun[/QUOTE] Ahaha Ive read thaf creepy pasta before

soul is mit. just like the god.

[QUOTE=tommyc225;35164648]Ahaha Ive read thaf creepy pasta before[/QUOTE] Oh link please I love creepy pasta's but never seen the one your referring to

Nope, no soul. For one you ARE your brain. It bothers me when people think there's their 'body' and 'mind', Bitch it's the same damn thing. The brain uses sensory organs to detect the world around it (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and your whole body to feel). Death is simply the loss of all those senses because the brain (you) is dying, since you can no longer feel, taste, see, smell, etc. so you won't even know. I like to compare it to before you were born, you didn't exist then and you had no problem with it because well, there was nothing to nkow about it, death is just going back to that.

You forgot thoughts, personality and memories, but I agree, that argument is being used a lot through for some reason.

I do. I mean, why not? I like the idea. I'm not forcing it on anyone. I just like to think we do.

[QUOTE=DrasarSalman;35166661]You forgot thoughts, personality and memories, but I agree, that argument is being used a lot through for some reason.[/QUOTE] All 3 of those are just products of the brain. Just look at people with head trauma, all of those can change them into a completley different person! There is no "you" in that you are some sort of unique 'metaphysical' floaty whatever-the-fuck, you are the direct product of the brain. Like I said before 'you' and the brain are the same thing, there is no seperating it.

[QUOTE=Red Katana;35171626]All 3 of those are just products of the brain. Just look at people with head trauma, all of those can change them into a completley different person! There is no "you" in that you are some sort of unique 'metaphysical' floaty whatever-the-fuck, you are the direct product of the brain. Like I said before 'you' and the brain are the same thing, there is no seperating it.[/QUOTE]Phineas Gage is probably the most well-known example of how severely a person can change when they've suffered brain damage. [editline]17th March 2012[/editline] I do have to stress, though, that information on how his personality changed, and whether or not there was any recovery of it, has been lost to time; the rest has been distorted. Not enough first-hand data exists. His personality did change, that's all that's known for certain; and there's of course more recent cases of this phenomenon with better information. Can't remember any off the top of my head, been a while since my last psychology classes.

I hope we have a soul. I don't want to fade into nothingness.

[QUOTE=EvilMattress;35187177]I hope we have a soul. I don't want to fade into nothingness.[/QUOTE] But you will, you will only live on in the memorys of you loved ones. Until they die that is :v:

[QUOTE=eternalflamez;35033618]Question will be answered at the same time when we answer the question "Is heaven real?", or "Does God exist?", so, it won't be answered. People believe they do, because they think they are right. I believe we don't have souls. We die, we die.[/QUOTE] I think Heaven is our subconsciousness, its where we go when we dream. I also belive that i am my own god, and through this i have full resposnsability over my life. Spirit and soul are one of the same, it is the universal energy that resides in everything. energy cannot be destroyed, only passed on through an infinte cycle. DMT is the tool that opens the door into the subconsciousness, allows you to consciously see "heaven" Pink floyd wrote, I am you and what i see is me. like the trillions of individual cells that all work in unision for the whole (me) human kind is nothing more than a macrocosm of people working in unison for the "hive-mind" which is the universe itself.

I wouldn't go as far as to say I believe in a soul, but I see how some people are convinced. I believe you can create a machine just as complex as the human body, which can act in the exact same way a human does, but it will not achieve awareness, because I can't imagine a line, that if crossed, will wake a machine up. If we were to have a "soul" it wouldn't be something that makes decisions and it wouldn't be something that holds all our thoughts and feelings. It wouldn't be able to exist without inputs, so the "soul" would be the thing that allows us to be aware of the choices made by our brains.

[QUOTE=PederPauline;35189499]I wouldn't go as far as to say I believe in a soul, but I see how some people are convinced. I believe you can create a machine just as complex as the human body, which can act in the exact same way a human does, but it will not achieve awareness, because I can't imagine a line, that if crossed, will wake a machine up. If we were to have a "soul" it wouldn't be something that makes decisions and it wouldn't be something that holds all our thoughts and feelings. It wouldn't be able to exist without inputs, so the "soul" would be the thing that allows us to be aware of the choices made by our brains.[/QUOTE] but we are machines already it doesn't matter if the substrate is silicon or carbon

[QUOTE=fate92;35189495]I think Heaven is our subconsciousness, its where we go when we dream. I also belive that i am my own god, and through this i have full resposnsability over my life. Spirit and soul are one of the same, it is the universal energy that resides in everything. energy cannot be destroyed, only passed on through an infinte cycle. DMT is the tool that opens the door into the subconsciousness, allows you to consciously see "heaven" Pink floyd wrote, I am you and what i see is me. like the trillions of individual cells that all work in unision for the whole (me) human kind is nothing more than a macrocosm of people working in unison for the "hive-mind" which is the universe itself.[/QUOTE] Your subconcious is part of your brain bro, so are dreams. DMT is just a chemical that messes with how the brain interprets input from sensory organs, so you trip balls and see/hear/feel shit that isn't there because the brain isn't functioning properly/normally at the time. Also wtf are you on about with "hive-minds" n shit, since when was the universe a hive mind?

First off, I recommend you all read this article: [url]http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/12/is-god-an-accident/4425/[/url] I didn't take the time to go through the whole thread, but I am sure many others have said "There is no such things as a soul, only the brain." This statement is true as far as science is concerned. The whole reason this thread even exists in the first place is because human beings are innately curious about our existence. I for one do not believe in dualism, but in a sense we are all naturally dualistic; we innately have the ability to tell that the mind and the body are two separate entities (The separation of the mental and physical). We possess our bodies, but we live in our minds. Since we possess this knowledge, it seems impossible to think of the mind ever disappearing or ceasing to be; the body can wither and die, but we want to think the mind or [i]soul[/i] lives on. Unfortunately, this is not the case. It sucks, but hey, at least you can decompose into the earth and restart the cycle all over again at some point.

[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;35190015]but we are machines already it doesn't matter if the substrate is silicon or carbon[/QUOTE] I understand that humans are just very complex organic machines, but why are we able to be conscious? You could program consciousness, but it would only look like consciousness to the observer, there's no real consciousness there.

The brain doesn't work like any computer program, we are coded to have consciousness because how complex the brain is. It may not be possible with a computer, but it is possible for an organic computer like the brain.

Let me put it this way. I can (simply) explain how I am able to see things, I get inputs from the light around me through my eyes, the electromagnetic signals then go through my optical nerve to my visual cortex where they are processed. So far so good, but then I ask, who is seeing these images? How is my brain, a blob of organic molecules, able to experience the act of seeing? [editline]19th March 2012[/editline] Questions like these are really bothering me lately, because I used to be a really skeptic atheist, but lately I've been thinking more freely.

Imagine that your brain is a computer that reads information, then translates it to a language you understand and store it in a center where your consciousness is stored. It is kind of hard to explain this because we haven't come to the point where we know how this works. Still, when you think about it, your brain works kind of like a computer. I mean, you can suddenly think about a thought (like a memory), then direct your attention to something else, for example, and object moving in the corner of your peripheral vision, which kind of is a program when you think about it: Your eye send signals to your brain through your nerves that something is observed moving, then the brain will run a command to interrupt your thinking and turn your attention to the object where it does a whole lot of calculations in your brain to make your eyes following the target with slight, but precise movements, all this while trying to identify the object.

[QUOTE=DrasarSalman;35203987]Imagine that your brain is a computer that reads information, then translates it to a language you understand [B]and store it in a center and store it in a center where your consciousness is stored.[/B][/QUOTE] That's the only thing I have a hard time imagining, but I'm sure they'll be able to explain it in the future. It's just childish of me to replace something unnatural with something supernatural. But when a normal computer translates information into a language we can understand, it outputs it through the screen and in the form of sound. There has to be a conscious being for it to be experienced.

Your consciousness isn't "stored" anywhere in your brain, it's the sum total of the interactions between the neurons in your head. It feels different because you can only look to a single part of yourself at a time (say, your skills, or your emotions or whatever), and see that your consciousness isn't there. Then you conclude that, since it isn't in any brain region specifically, it can't arise from the matter at all. The problem comes from not being able to understand, on a truly intuitive gut level, that the feeling of "uniqueness" or "specialness" of consciousness is so because the brain isn't capable of emulating itself. [quote]So far so good, but then I ask, who is seeing these images?[/quote] There isn't a little homunculus sitting in front of a giant TV screen inside your head, watching the visual feed. That just leads to a neverending recursion because you'd have to ask "who is looking inside the looker?" [editline]19th March 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=PederPauline;35203807]You could program consciousness, but it would only look like consciousness to the observer, there's no real consciousness there.[/QUOTE] I really don't follow this line of reasoning. Why on Earth wouldn't it be conscious? Why can't you make this argument for just any other human being? What differentiates a human (who was programmed to be conscious by their genes and the sum total of their sensory experiences) and a machine (who was programmed to be conscious by its programmer and perhaps the sum total of its sensory experiences, though that last part isn't strictly needed) in this question?

Fuck no!

[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;35205380]The problem comes from not being able to understand, on a truly intuitive gut level, that the feeling of "uniqueness" or "specialness" of consciousness is so because the brain isn't capable of emulating itself.[/QUOTE] I wasn't aware of this. Everything I can say in my defense can probably be negated with this. [QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;35205380]I really don't follow this line of reasoning. Why on Earth wouldn't it be conscious? Why can't you make this argument for just any other human being? What differentiates a human (who was programmed to be conscious by their genes and the sum total of their sensory experiences) and a machine (who was programmed to be conscious by its programmer and perhaps the sum total of its sensory experiences, though that last part isn't strictly needed) in this question?[/QUOTE] Are you familiar with the Chinese room though experiment? It might explain my reasoning. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room[/url]

[QUOTE=ironman17;35033719]Y'know, a spin on this question could be "Will we ever invent the soul?", by which I mean will we ever invent something that keeps our minds alive after the flesh fails us, something that divides mind and matter permitting the former to act independantly of the latter? I doubt that organic life in it's current state has a soul in that regard; currently we're probably just machines of flesh and bone. But if we can build it, it will come, and if it comes, things would definitely change. For me, however, it's not necessarily a matter of "Will we ever invent the soul?", instead more like "When will we invent the soul?". If we can find a way to make the mind seperate from the flesh, and ensure the mind survives after our bodies have died, then perhaps the concept of eternal life wouldn't be so abstract. Then again, it probably wouldn't be life as we know it; more like a state of continued mental existence, like a computer that is never turned off but instead always goes to standby, similar to how the flesh must sleep in order to be revitalised.[/QUOTE] You've lost my vote for immortality.