The soul can never be disproven because there is so much experiential "proof". The soul can also never be proven because there is a lack of physical "proof". Why argue about it at all? They are just two ways of looking at things, thats all. Athiests will go into a long-winded explanation about why the soul doesn't exist using science as the lynchpin. Theists will do the same using witness accounts and faith. They simply don't speak the same language and it creates an unsolvable loop.
Those two people would not be identical because the second one would have brain chemistry that is different, thus causing a different view of the same reality.
This is a bit old argument. Consciousness is an emergent property of all the biochemical properties of the brain, just as a video game is an emergent property of thousands of lines of computer code.
This is a bit old argument. Consciousness is an emergent property of all the biochemical properties of the brain, just as a video game is an emergent property of thousands of lines of computer code.
ALL BORN IN SIN WARNINGS FOR THE ONES NOT SAVED YET JUDGMENTDAY SHALL COME UPON THE EARTH ON THE WICKEDNESS AND DISOBEDIENCE AGAINST GOD AND THAN YOU WIL KNOW THERE IS A GOD FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT SAVED IN CHRIST JESUS IT WILL BE NOT A HAPPY DAY - BELIEVE - REPENT . Tips ; for his sheeps that hear his voice and follow
Listen To Paul washer here on You Tube
and Monica dennington on the last days and the outpooring of the antichrist biblical warnings
Any evidence of the "soul" is tautological in nature, however, as existence of the metaphysical is not testable. When in doubt, refer to Sir William of Occam; the simplest explanation supported by evidence is probably right. In this case, since the human experience can be accounted for by interactions of neurotransmitters and amino acid sequences in proteins, it is more probable that the soul does not exist. As a final question, I must ask: what is this "conscious experience" you speak of?
For example, it was mentioned in an earlier comment the concept of "love;" most people experience some form of this emotion, but the experience for each of this individuals is inherently different. In each instance of this emotional experience, however, is governed by both oxytocin, which regulates attraction (it is found in high levels in new mothers when around their newborns) and phenylethanolamine, which regulates dopamine and serotonin release, creating the euphoric "high" common to love.
I am curious what is meant by the subjective terms "experience" or "feeling;" first of all, the only feelings or experiences you can actually account for are your own. There is no physical way to "feel" someone else's feelings; empathy itself is the closest we have, whereby we assume to know what a person is feeling. Either way, every feeling, thought, or experience we have, can be reduced to simple neuroscience. Brain chemical interactions dictate what we feel, despite anthing metaphysical.
You are simply equating consciousness to the soul, which does not fit with your definition. Because you are equating the two, what do you have to say about sleepwalkers? When people sleepwalk, they walk, talk, eat, drive, yet they are not conscious. Did they lose their soul for an hour or so?
Your analogy is hard to understand...are you trying to argue that since beings are conscience they have souls? How do you jump from conscienceness equalling souls? Sounds like you are just begging the question by redefining conscienceness as a soul. Why is this necessary? Furthermore, if you could define a soul, how does having a soul correlate to the existance of a god, which I assume is your ultimate objective?
I myself am a mind/body dualist, but I think your argument was circular. For one, you assumed that there is such a thing as a "person", you assumed substance dualism over nominalism.
do you believe in love?......if there is nothing out there, then love is just an illusion to keep the male with the female in order to protect her and keep the circle of life moving
vid doesnt really support the existance of a soul, just a bunc of big words thrown together about how its all not physical and what not, souls dont exist, its how the person thinks, ones self lies in ones mind, in there bring, not in this so called "SOUL" people speak of.
if you believe in evolution then obviously you don't believe in souls. if you want to know where the soul comes from then you'll have to believe that invisible, yet real entities do exist.
(opinion/theory!) god said he created the earth in 7 days....7 days to an immortal could be longer than 7 days in our eyes...so in a sense evolution could be real and the first man could be created after millions of years of life on earth..just a thought tho
i agree with you on the seven days part infact i was thinking about that a few days back.
however i must disagree with you on the evolution part. i'm not saying those homo-erectuses, and homo-habilis' guys didn't exist...i agree with you there....but where most religious people and evolutionist disagree is their relationship, and i believe we're not related, in the sense that we "evloved from them", but we are closely related, seeing as we're both made by the same GOD. but it's a good thought
Correction for the title: "Argument against physicalism/materialism/for property dualism". I'm not sure how the zombie argument gives any credence to the idea of an ethereal, immutable "soul". What it does do is lend weight to arguments of how purely physical material can give rise to both physical properties and mental properties.
So its no physical, you are not going to actually define what it is yet you expect to convince people it exists?
The way I see it, if you lose your memory, you forget who you are. If the soul does not have memory (since we all agree memory is a brain function) then how can you possibly recognize any thing upon death?
the brain is something the soul uses to make sense of things and to survive in the world it lives in.....the physical body is just something that houses the soul.
lets get back to the question, through, what can and what does the soul do outside of the body? which of your experiences and activities (do you think) are attributes of your soul and which are those of the body that houses it?
no....let me ask you this: if we tied a criminal who did horrible things to you and your family to a chair, and i handed you a gun, and told you to kill him, would you do it without thinking twice? no, you won't get arrested as punishment....would you do it? if not why?
you dodge mine, but insist that I answer yours. OK.
The honest answer is OBVIOUSLY that I don't know. I'd like to think that I won't succumb to mere need for retribution and let society follow the law in reprehending the offender.
But I don't know what my state of mind would be - there hasn't been a chance to test this. It would depend on the exact nature of the crime, how angry I'd be, how hurt, how mad, etc.
Theory and practice are the same in theory - they are just different in practice :)
sorry i wasn't "dodging" i thought this it would be a little easier understand i this.
i think why someone would not do it is because of the soul. naturally we're not violent creatures, it's not "natural", but i think it's more supernatural.
and also if one believes in a soul then obviously they must believe in an afterlife. i don't think us humans are born on this earth to go through a "hell", only to die and become nothing. i think there is a better place afterwards, where we can rest.
OK, You are mixing up morality and consciousness and doing so solely on the basis of your personal religious beliefs. I don't see how this is relevant or fruitful to our discussion.
Anyway, I have answered your question (about retribution). You aren't going anywhere with it.
If you don't intend to dodge my question, I will repeat it:
which of your experiences and activities (do you think) are attributes of your soul and which are those of the body that houses it?
neotropic, your argument is interesting, but somewhat circular. You are in essence saying
"Imagine a normal person without a soul - what makes him different? - he has no soul (that's what normal people have). So, since he is different, than soul, that is the difference, must exist".
Right?
Its like saying to prove that X exists for all A, imagine an A that has no X. Since A is different, X must exist.
Its circular. You have assumed the existence of that which you are proving.
When asking a question "do we have a soul?" you sort of assume it exists. Because a possible answer is that "we ARE a soul". Its not that the soul experiences the world, but that the experience of the world MAKES up that soul.
Any person, walking and talking and exhibiting emotions cannot lack the subjective experience. A functioning brain is enough.
I mean where does your soul go during your deep sleep?
it doesn't go anywhere when you sleep. you are the soul......your physical body is just something that houses your soul.
and the brain is something the soul can use to communicate with other souls/people, and also use it to learn new things in the world it lives in, and live long enough to fullfill it's mission here on earth. pretty simple.
but in the gap between falling asleep and dreaming or waking up, where are you? If you say that the soul uses the brain, then i presume you mean that it can exist and experience the world without it. The problem is that when the brain is resting, there is no consciousness to account for. If nonexistence is the authentic experience of the soul when the brain is turned off than that's not much of an experience.
The problem with this argument is that you are assuming it is possible for an exact duplicate of a human to exist which does not have conscious experience. There is at least equal possibility that a human without consciousness could NOT exist.
The fact that you can imagine something does not mean it is based in reality. You are simply asserting that the soul is nonphysical.
I have to disagree. It is our conscious experience that gives us the ability to walk and talk. I dont understand what you mean by "casually insignificant". There is no precedent for a being identical to humans, or any other animal for that matter, to exist without consciousness. Every aspect of human experience is physical. There is no such thing as nonphysical. I think you and blueadept111 would be good friends.
No, our ability to walk is constituted by our mechanical construction (limbs, muscles, bones) and our neurological hardware. A scientist can tell you exactly how a person walks, and even model it to precise detail in a simulation, but in so doing does not need to invoke "consciousness" or "experience". It seems, therefore, that these aspects are unnecessary for walking. The onus is on you to explain why this is not the case.
[continued] I should also mention that I am a physicalist. I am merely presenting an argument. This doesn't mean I believe the argument is correct. Careful with your assumptions. btw, here is a precedent for walking without consciousness -sleep walking.
If you make an arguement for something then you should at least believe in it. But whether you do or dont is besides the point of the nonphysical being nonexistent. There is nothing nonphysical. period. I believe the "soul" that everyone believes humans have is simply the scientific nature of humans its what seperates us form the other animals. We as humans can understand the why of almost eveything on our planet or at least postulate a conclusion for things we cannot test.
Have you heard of playing the devil's advocate? For people who are interested in intellectual discussion, it is not unusual to forward an argument that they don't agree with. By the way, just stating "there is nothing nonphysical. period." is not a rebuttal -it avoids the argument I presented entirely.
Having the mechanical ability does not mean we can do something. It is experience that teaches us everything we know. Riding a bike requires basicly the same mechanics as running but you have to learn to run just as you learn to bike. When your asleep is when your "sub"conscious mind is dominate you are not unconscious while sleeping. The pre- and subconcsious are different from unconscious. The soul is used to explain the afterlife. Without the soul life after death makes no sense at all.
ability: "power or capacity to do or act" yes, having the ability DOES mean we can do something -that is the definition of having an ability. The argument is this, everything that a human does can be described in entirely physical terms (neuron firings, muscle fiber twitch, etc) without conscious experience ever entering into the picture. A physically identical duplicate without consciousness thus seems logically possible, and so then consciousness must be nonphysical.
The "physically" similar being you discribe is impossible. How can a being walk and talk without experiencing anything? Speech and mobility are learned behaviors therefore they classify as experintial. Its sounds to me like you're equating the soul to emotion. And I've yet to witness one animal on earth without emotion.
Well, our abilities to walk and talk can be described entirely in causal terms, without our conscious experience ever entering into the picture. It seems then, that consciousness is causally insignificant, and therefore it is possible that a physically identical being without consciousness could exist. If this is the case, then our experience of the world (our conscious life) is non physical, and this is what is meant by the term 'soul'
1) Properties of a soul: nonphysical, immutable. How do we 'know' this?
2) If there were someone identical to me they *would* have the same conscious experience- it is a result of physical processes. Imagining there is a 'soul' adds nothing to our understanding how humans function. Nor does phlogiston add anything to the understanding of fire.
1) we don't know. I was just guessing properties we might also want to ascribe to the soul. A lot of conceptions of soul presume immutability. It's not necessary for this argument though.
2) You are suggesting it is not logically possible to divorce consciousness from the physical, causal, account of our neural machinery. Others have a different intuition. This question -because it is central to the issue- seems to require adjudication.
i suppose the biggest criticism of this argument from your point of view is that it also 'proves' the existence of a non physical soul in animals, something which i assume you deny.
If you presume that animals have conscious experience (I do, some people don't, and it used to be the case that virtually no one did) then the same reasoning would suggest animals have souls. That might be a problem for some religious folks, but not everyone.
Well there ARE brain dead people like the Schiavo woman. Who apparently was able to breathe and appear to be have a conscience even though she no longer had a brain. But I don't know what slim clue your really picking seeking here. The programing in your computer is real but not physically material in that you cannot see or feel it. Therefore does your computer have a soul called a Bios?
Just trying to clear this up. It is possible that there can be a person who hasn't had any experiences but looks like a human. Since this person is identical to humans it must be immaterial and that is the soul. Is this correct? Cause your vid is very confusing.
What neotropic is describing is NOT a "soul" but consciousness, or the ability to be self aware.
this is NOT cuased by some invisible soul, its cuased by receptors in our brain and how they process information.
PsychoSymantic 1 year ago
What neotropic is describing is NOT a "soul" but consciousness, or the ability to be self aware.
this is NOT cuased by some invisible soul, its cuased by receptors in our brain and how they process information.
PsychoSymantic 1 year ago
The soul can never be disproven because there is so much experiential "proof". The soul can also never be proven because there is a lack of physical "proof". Why argue about it at all? They are just two ways of looking at things, thats all. Athiests will go into a long-winded explanation about why the soul doesn't exist using science as the lynchpin. Theists will do the same using witness accounts and faith. They simply don't speak the same language and it creates an unsolvable loop.
Damienf77 1 year ago
Those two people would not be identical because the second one would have brain chemistry that is different, thus causing a different view of the same reality.
paineacalda 1 year ago
i would love to stab your face
Crunkmastaflexx 2 years ago
your definition for a soul was pretty weak... "everyone has got one" - right... but what are they?
"they travel with you all your life" - right... but what is it?
"Its not physical" - right.. so what is it?
"Coinciousness means a soul" - right... so your saying a soul is coinciousness... we already have a word for that, its coinciousness.
LewisPearson 2 years ago
that was a piss-poor job and i believe in the soul
yadayada420 2 years ago
This has been flagged as spam show
This is a bit old argument. Consciousness is an emergent property of all the biochemical properties of the brain, just as a video game is an emergent property of thousands of lines of computer code.
Ramshobraja 2 years ago
This is a bit old argument. Consciousness is an emergent property of all the biochemical properties of the brain, just as a video game is an emergent property of thousands of lines of computer code.
Ramshobraja 2 years ago
ALL BORN IN SIN WARNINGS FOR THE ONES NOT SAVED YET JUDGMENTDAY SHALL COME UPON THE EARTH ON THE WICKEDNESS AND DISOBEDIENCE AGAINST GOD AND THAN YOU WIL KNOW THERE IS A GOD FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT SAVED IN CHRIST JESUS IT WILL BE NOT A HAPPY DAY - BELIEVE - REPENT . Tips ; for his sheeps that hear his voice and follow
Listen To Paul washer here on You Tube
and Monica dennington on the last days and the outpooring of the antichrist biblical warnings
naomidavelaar 2 years ago
Any evidence of the "soul" is tautological in nature, however, as existence of the metaphysical is not testable. When in doubt, refer to Sir William of Occam; the simplest explanation supported by evidence is probably right. In this case, since the human experience can be accounted for by interactions of neurotransmitters and amino acid sequences in proteins, it is more probable that the soul does not exist. As a final question, I must ask: what is this "conscious experience" you speak of?
hcgtrplaya92986 2 years ago
For example, it was mentioned in an earlier comment the concept of "love;" most people experience some form of this emotion, but the experience for each of this individuals is inherently different. In each instance of this emotional experience, however, is governed by both oxytocin, which regulates attraction (it is found in high levels in new mothers when around their newborns) and phenylethanolamine, which regulates dopamine and serotonin release, creating the euphoric "high" common to love.
hcgtrplaya92986 2 years ago
I am curious what is meant by the subjective terms "experience" or "feeling;" first of all, the only feelings or experiences you can actually account for are your own. There is no physical way to "feel" someone else's feelings; empathy itself is the closest we have, whereby we assume to know what a person is feeling. Either way, every feeling, thought, or experience we have, can be reduced to simple neuroscience. Brain chemical interactions dictate what we feel, despite anthing metaphysical.
hcgtrplaya92986 2 years ago
I have to ask: If you stubbed your toe and it WAS just the neural signal for "Pain" , what would THAT feel like?
LordOmberus 3 years ago
You are simply equating consciousness to the soul, which does not fit with your definition. Because you are equating the two, what do you have to say about sleepwalkers? When people sleepwalk, they walk, talk, eat, drive, yet they are not conscious. Did they lose their soul for an hour or so?
TBucker 3 years ago
Your analogy is hard to understand...are you trying to argue that since beings are conscience they have souls? How do you jump from conscienceness equalling souls? Sounds like you are just begging the question by redefining conscienceness as a soul. Why is this necessary? Furthermore, if you could define a soul, how does having a soul correlate to the existance of a god, which I assume is your ultimate objective?
jirace 3 years ago
I myself am a mind/body dualist, but I think your argument was circular. For one, you assumed that there is such a thing as a "person", you assumed substance dualism over nominalism.
migkillertwo 3 years ago
let me get this straight,
your argument is that the sensory stimulus of pain (body) is different from the FEELING of pain (soul). How are these not the same thing?
rockle18 3 years ago
do you believe in love?......if there is nothing out there, then love is just an illusion to keep the male with the female in order to protect her and keep the circle of life moving
sevar157 3 years ago
dont mind typing errors in previous comment :P, a lil early in the morning to worry about grammar
Nethaniel15 3 years ago
vid doesnt really support the existance of a soul, just a bunc of big words thrown together about how its all not physical and what not, souls dont exist, its how the person thinks, ones self lies in ones mind, in there bring, not in this so called "SOUL" people speak of.
Nethaniel15 3 years ago
Do you believe animals have souls?
Do you believe in evolution?
Becuase at what point in history did homo sapiens acquire their souls?
hellojacob 3 years ago
if you believe in evolution then obviously you don't believe in souls. if you want to know where the soul comes from then you'll have to believe that invisible, yet real entities do exist.
diuryl 3 years ago
(opinion/theory!) god said he created the earth in 7 days....7 days to an immortal could be longer than 7 days in our eyes...so in a sense evolution could be real and the first man could be created after millions of years of life on earth..just a thought tho
sevar157 3 years ago
i agree with you on the seven days part infact i was thinking about that a few days back.
however i must disagree with you on the evolution part. i'm not saying those homo-erectuses, and homo-habilis' guys didn't exist...i agree with you there....but where most religious people and evolutionist disagree is their relationship, and i believe we're not related, in the sense that we "evloved from them", but we are closely related, seeing as we're both made by the same GOD. but it's a good thought
diuryl 3 years ago
A god of the gap
SlaughterAnimal 3 years ago
Correction for the title: "Argument against physicalism/materialism/for property dualism". I'm not sure how the zombie argument gives any credence to the idea of an ethereal, immutable "soul". What it does do is lend weight to arguments of how purely physical material can give rise to both physical properties and mental properties.
Panserborne 3 years ago
So its no physical, you are not going to actually define what it is yet you expect to convince people it exists?
The way I see it, if you lose your memory, you forget who you are. If the soul does not have memory (since we all agree memory is a brain function) then how can you possibly recognize any thing upon death?
kiwibinger 4 years ago
the brain is something the soul uses to make sense of things and to survive in the world it lives in.....the physical body is just something that houses the soul.
diuryl 3 years ago
lets get back to the question, through, what can and what does the soul do outside of the body? which of your experiences and activities (do you think) are attributes of your soul and which are those of the body that houses it?
vdizhoor 3 years ago
no....let me ask you this: if we tied a criminal who did horrible things to you and your family to a chair, and i handed you a gun, and told you to kill him, would you do it without thinking twice? no, you won't get arrested as punishment....would you do it? if not why?
bare with me...just answer the question.
diuryl 3 years ago
you dodge mine, but insist that I answer yours. OK.
The honest answer is OBVIOUSLY that I don't know. I'd like to think that I won't succumb to mere need for retribution and let society follow the law in reprehending the offender.
But I don't know what my state of mind would be - there hasn't been a chance to test this. It would depend on the exact nature of the crime, how angry I'd be, how hurt, how mad, etc.
Theory and practice are the same in theory - they are just different in practice :)
vdizhoor 3 years ago
sorry i wasn't "dodging" i thought this it would be a little easier understand i this.
i think why someone would not do it is because of the soul. naturally we're not violent creatures, it's not "natural", but i think it's more supernatural.
and also if one believes in a soul then obviously they must believe in an afterlife. i don't think us humans are born on this earth to go through a "hell", only to die and become nothing. i think there is a better place afterwards, where we can rest.
diuryl 3 years ago
OK, You are mixing up morality and consciousness and doing so solely on the basis of your personal religious beliefs. I don't see how this is relevant or fruitful to our discussion.
Anyway, I have answered your question (about retribution). You aren't going anywhere with it.
If you don't intend to dodge my question, I will repeat it:
which of your experiences and activities (do you think) are attributes of your soul and which are those of the body that houses it?
Feel free to answer it.
vdizhoor 3 years ago
neotropic, your argument is interesting, but somewhat circular. You are in essence saying
"Imagine a normal person without a soul - what makes him different? - he has no soul (that's what normal people have). So, since he is different, than soul, that is the difference, must exist".
Right?
Its like saying to prove that X exists for all A, imagine an A that has no X. Since A is different, X must exist.
Its circular. You have assumed the existence of that which you are proving.
vdizhoor 4 years ago
When asking a question "do we have a soul?" you sort of assume it exists. Because a possible answer is that "we ARE a soul". Its not that the soul experiences the world, but that the experience of the world MAKES up that soul.
Any person, walking and talking and exhibiting emotions cannot lack the subjective experience. A functioning brain is enough.
I mean where does your soul go during your deep sleep?
vdizhoor 4 years ago
it doesn't go anywhere when you sleep. you are the soul......your physical body is just something that houses your soul.
and the brain is something the soul can use to communicate with other souls/people, and also use it to learn new things in the world it lives in, and live long enough to fullfill it's mission here on earth. pretty simple.
diuryl 3 years ago
but in the gap between falling asleep and dreaming or waking up, where are you? If you say that the soul uses the brain, then i presume you mean that it can exist and experience the world without it. The problem is that when the brain is resting, there is no consciousness to account for. If nonexistence is the authentic experience of the soul when the brain is turned off than that's not much of an experience.
vdizhoor 3 years ago
Here is my argument against the existence of what you call a soul:
watch?v=pGTleaTCXq8
vdizhoor 4 years ago
The problem with this argument is that you are assuming it is possible for an exact duplicate of a human to exist which does not have conscious experience. There is at least equal possibility that a human without consciousness could NOT exist.
The fact that you can imagine something does not mean it is based in reality. You are simply asserting that the soul is nonphysical.
spawnfan101 4 years ago
I have to disagree. It is our conscious experience that gives us the ability to walk and talk. I dont understand what you mean by "casually insignificant". There is no precedent for a being identical to humans, or any other animal for that matter, to exist without consciousness. Every aspect of human experience is physical. There is no such thing as nonphysical. I think you and blueadept111 would be good friends.
TheLoadedQuestion 4 years ago
No, our ability to walk is constituted by our mechanical construction (limbs, muscles, bones) and our neurological hardware. A scientist can tell you exactly how a person walks, and even model it to precise detail in a simulation, but in so doing does not need to invoke "consciousness" or "experience". It seems, therefore, that these aspects are unnecessary for walking. The onus is on you to explain why this is not the case.
neotropic9 4 years ago
[continued] I should also mention that I am a physicalist. I am merely presenting an argument. This doesn't mean I believe the argument is correct. Careful with your assumptions. btw, here is a precedent for walking without consciousness -sleep walking.
neotropic9 4 years ago
If you make an arguement for something then you should at least believe in it. But whether you do or dont is besides the point of the nonphysical being nonexistent. There is nothing nonphysical. period. I believe the "soul" that everyone believes humans have is simply the scientific nature of humans its what seperates us form the other animals. We as humans can understand the why of almost eveything on our planet or at least postulate a conclusion for things we cannot test.
TheLoadedQuestion 4 years ago
Have you heard of playing the devil's advocate? For people who are interested in intellectual discussion, it is not unusual to forward an argument that they don't agree with. By the way, just stating "there is nothing nonphysical. period." is not a rebuttal -it avoids the argument I presented entirely.
neotropic9 4 years ago
Having the mechanical ability does not mean we can do something. It is experience that teaches us everything we know. Riding a bike requires basicly the same mechanics as running but you have to learn to run just as you learn to bike. When your asleep is when your "sub"conscious mind is dominate you are not unconscious while sleeping. The pre- and subconcsious are different from unconscious. The soul is used to explain the afterlife. Without the soul life after death makes no sense at all.
TheLoadedQuestion 4 years ago
ability: "power or capacity to do or act" yes, having the ability DOES mean we can do something -that is the definition of having an ability. The argument is this, everything that a human does can be described in entirely physical terms (neuron firings, muscle fiber twitch, etc) without conscious experience ever entering into the picture. A physically identical duplicate without consciousness thus seems logically possible, and so then consciousness must be nonphysical.
neotropic9 4 years ago
The "physically" similar being you discribe is impossible. How can a being walk and talk without experiencing anything? Speech and mobility are learned behaviors therefore they classify as experintial. Its sounds to me like you're equating the soul to emotion. And I've yet to witness one animal on earth without emotion.
TheLoadedQuestion 4 years ago
Well, our abilities to walk and talk can be described entirely in causal terms, without our conscious experience ever entering into the picture. It seems then, that consciousness is causally insignificant, and therefore it is possible that a physically identical being without consciousness could exist. If this is the case, then our experience of the world (our conscious life) is non physical, and this is what is meant by the term 'soul'
neotropic9 4 years ago
1) Properties of a soul: nonphysical, immutable. How do we 'know' this?
2) If there were someone identical to me they *would* have the same conscious experience- it is a result of physical processes. Imagining there is a 'soul' adds nothing to our understanding how humans function. Nor does phlogiston add anything to the understanding of fire.
proudfootz 4 years ago
1) we don't know. I was just guessing properties we might also want to ascribe to the soul. A lot of conceptions of soul presume immutability. It's not necessary for this argument though.
2) You are suggesting it is not logically possible to divorce consciousness from the physical, causal, account of our neural machinery. Others have a different intuition. This question -because it is central to the issue- seems to require adjudication.
neotropic9 4 years ago
i suppose the biggest criticism of this argument from your point of view is that it also 'proves' the existence of a non physical soul in animals, something which i assume you deny.
dietangel 4 years ago
If you presume that animals have conscious experience (I do, some people don't, and it used to be the case that virtually no one did) then the same reasoning would suggest animals have souls. That might be a problem for some religious folks, but not everyone.
neotropic9 4 years ago
Well there ARE brain dead people like the Schiavo woman. Who apparently was able to breathe and appear to be have a conscience even though she no longer had a brain. But I don't know what slim clue your really picking seeking here. The programing in your computer is real but not physically material in that you cannot see or feel it. Therefore does your computer have a soul called a Bios?
KasparHauser4 4 years ago
Just trying to clear this up. It is possible that there can be a person who hasn't had any experiences but looks like a human. Since this person is identical to humans it must be immaterial and that is the soul. Is this correct? Cause your vid is very confusing.
KT45 4 years ago