The (semi)Philosophical Thread

[VikingBoyBilly]

Maybe there are little bits of our consciousness in the cells of our body so when we decompose our 'souls' scatter to wherever those cells end up. Like in Speaker of the Dead there was a planet where all higher lifeforms start out as animals but when they die and decompose their cells start growing into a plant, and each animal is tied to a specific plant. The 'male' plants create sperm to impregnate infant animal females, and during pregnancy their babies eat their way through the womb and then they live inside a female plant who never reproduced but provides the babies with nourishment and shelter until they're old enough to leave.

Of course, all the cells in our body are being constantly replaced so the theory about them containing our consciousness is disproven right there if we still think and feel and remember the same things we did before our physical body recreated itself. But then theres a genetic map to reconstruct our bodies based on our genes, maybe our consciousness gets remade the same way.

tl;dr: You really ARE what you eat

[Ceilick]

[quote="RoboBlue]My personal problem with the concept of "more to existence" is that a lot of people seem very eager to come out and say things like "I know the truth! There's an afterlife and it's full of angels and I've got concept drawings and everything!" without questioning how or why they've come to this conclusion.[/quote]

This is less a problem with the concept of 'more to existence' and more of a problem with how some people react to the idea of there being more to existence.

If there's no proof, there's no credible reason to believe in anything concrete.

How you define proof is important. Subjective experience might be proof for an individual but it probably won't count as proof for others. Reproducible, physical proof (science) is our means of proving things to other people.

If I had some kind of mental experience which gave me some knowledge, I probably couldn't reproduce or prove this to anyone else, but my experience might count as proof of something to myself (I use might because obviously the experience might not be real or just not prove anything).

In any case, I agree, without reasons for belief, belief starts looking silly. What constitutes as a 'good' reason for a belief might be broader than what is scientifically available. That's a big might. I'd certainly be skeptical but I'm personally unprepared to believe such reasons can't exist.

If it doesn't conform to science, how can it be proven and replicated?

It doesn't need to be. A thing doesn't need to be proven by human means to be true. However, if a truth isn't provable by human means, one has to wonder if that truth has any bearing on human beings.

Maybe there are little bits of our consciousness in the cells of our body so when we decompose our 'souls' scatter to wherever those cells end up.

Read about a theory like this in college; pretty neat to think that even the most mundane forms of matter might have some minute form of consciousness. The example used in class was an atom that only had a conscious, infinite experience of yellow.

[Commander Spleen]

My current preferred belief system is something to the effect of this: Everything physical is a projection of a deeper reality, and this includes consciousness. Affect this deeper reality and it filters into the physical. For example, in order for these words to appear, they first form in my mind as thoughts. My view is that there is a deeper source even than this, from which the inspiration for the thoughts themselves originates. Also at this point, freewill mindfucl.

However, this is not necessarily what I believe in the sense of 'what I think I know'. It's a way I choose to see the world partly to make it more interesting and fun, and partly to keep my mind from being restrained to a WYSIWIG deterministic point of view. Essentially, it's my implementation of "all I know is that I know nothing."

My personal problem with the concept of "more to existence" is that a lot of people seem very eager to come out and say things like "I know the truth! There's an afterlife and it's full of angels and I've got concept drawings and everything!" without questioning how or why they've come to this conclusion.

My personal problem with the concept of the personal problem with the concept of "more to existence" is that a lot of people seem very eager to come out and say thing like "I know the truth! There's no afterlife and anyone who thinks there is is a crackpot and should be ignored or ridiculed. I've got citations and studies and everything!"

Topic hijack: Do you use beliefs as Brain:Modding tools or does your experience of the world directly determine them?

[KeenEmpire]

Most people shun folks who accept things on faith, but fail to realize many things in the scientific community are based on faith, such as...the shape of the universe

Uh, this is an open question, so I doubt that it's "based on faith".

While it's true that just about any model of the universe makes assumptions that just have to be based on faith, this does not mean - by a long shot - that all assumptions are equal. The assumption that our minds are somehow in tandem (or even controlled) by an external, nonphysical soul makes about as much sense as the assumption that gravity is caused by tiny angels pushing around objects of mass. There is literally an isomorphism between the two: a phenomenon (consciousness, resp. gravity) is being explained by appealing to some nonphysical thing (soul, resp. tiny angels). In both cases, also, we have to admit that the model is possible.

So why is it that we (by and large) consider the tiny angels not worth giving credence to, while the souls are believed in (with about as much evidence) by so many people? The only conclusion I can reasonably draw is that we only believe in souls because it feels like our consciousness is in control of our bodies. You know, the same way it feels like we're on a lucky streak, or it feels like we're going to be much worse off if we don't perform some ritual. That is not only a weak argument; it is an absolute disaster as far as our methodology is concerned.

TLDR: The problem with belief in souls is not that it is a belief, but that it just happens to be an exceptionally terrible and unfounded one.

P.S. The Bible says absolutely nothing about souls.

[shikadi]

the bibble is written (and copied)by humans, not by god.

[KeenEmpire]

That's beside the point; the point is that, in the actual Christian holy book, there is nothing that suggests a soul as a source of consciousness, or for that matter, as a thing that leaves the body and flies off to Heaven or Hell. As such, the soul is not even a Christian idea, though it is of course an idea of some other religions, such as those that postulate reincarnation. Its presence in Christianity nowadays is little different from the way pagan holidays are celebrated in Christianity.

[tulip]

Interesting points I noticed:

1. Discussions of this kind always end up in christians feeling attacked and trying to justify their religion and saying something among the lines of "scientists are unfair, ridiculous or narrow-minded". There's always this division coming up, where you have to choose one side science or christianity (Yes it is ALWAYS Christianity, there is never any other religion brought up except some rather crude examples like "in such religion they have the same ideas"). So what's up with all those scientists that are/were faithful? Einstein believed in God very much, and therefore wasn't happy with some of his discoveries, but that doesn't mean you can't be faithful while wanting proof or an explanation for things.

2. I'm unsure how the term 'physical' was used here, physical as 'material' or physical as 'by the rules of Physics'. It's obvious that immaterial stuff exists and can be proven. But things that are suposed to be devoid of any laws of nature are a bit hard to believe for me, and mostly sound like an excuse for not asking to me. I agree that there are enough things that can't be proven today by human means, but we are not standing still. We are working on finding out more about our environment, so some things that can't be proven now, might be in the future. But to start with the idea of something that can't possibly be proven and therefore has to exist goes against my logic.

3. Ceilick has brought up a good point as for how much does something that has no effect in a physical ('laws of nature') sense have any effect on human lifes. Difficult thing to determine though because obvious examples like Crusades and other holy wars were NOT caused by (a) God but by the Idea of a God that very well exists, but for those people actually participating in said wars might have felt it was (a) God that caused them to go to war. So in effect I'd say even if something doesn't necessarily exist it can have mark effect on our lifes because it can manifest in an idea.

[KeenRush]

What good is any proof or explanation (which all keep changing completely as the time goes on) for anything? What good is to be a philosopher or a scientist and think these things and then suddenly run into a crowd of people, bound with homemade explosives and try to kill as many as possible because of an internal void that can't be cured. I think most, if all, knowledge (which I doubt we can have) is useless in the end. I bet the excuse/reason for the pursuit of knowledge is at the end of the day "it's fun!" or "hmmm, it's interesting..." edit: or "chicks dig smart guys"

[KeenEmpire]

Einstein believed in God very much, and therefore wasn't happy with some of his discoveries

Bad tulip. No. Very much no. He believed in Spinoza's God, which is not really a God at all, and certainly not a Christian God. See here and here.

It's obvious that immaterial stuff exists and can be proven.

This is actually an interesting thought because, even though I'm sure some interesting "proofs" are out there, they essentially have to imply a certain definition of the word "exists", that is different from the basic "it physically exists" that the word starts out from. (Obviously immaterial stuff can't physically exist.) Once there, the problem is that there aren't really good criteria for judging what definitions of "exist" are good or bad, so to speak. For instance, even in some sophisticated ontological arguments, existence is being used as little more than a predicate.

I think most, if all, knowledge (which I doubt we can have) is useless in the end. I bet the excuse/reason for the pursuit of knowledge is at the end of the day "it's fun!" or "hmmm, it's interesting..." edit: or "chicks dig smart guys"

Some people do pursue knowledge just because they find it fun, because it makes them attractive, or because they are obsessed beyond reason. Others pursue knowledge because it has the potential to come up with new technologies that would benefit humankind, because it makes money, because it could save lives, for patriotic reasons, for destructive reasons, for spiritual reasons, for stupid reasons. For example, a thorough study of souls may lead to the ability to bind one to objects other than the original brain. This could have applications in longevity, resurrection, mind control, or weaponized ghosting. I mean, your original assertion was a bit too general; I'm sure some use would be found of it.

[tulip]

and certainly not a Christian God.

There it is again, Christianity. I didn't say nothing about Christian God. But thanks for linking to those anyway

Obviously immaterial stuff can't physically exist.

Ever heard of the word 'energy'?

I think most, if all, knowledge (which I doubt we can have) is useless in the end.

That's a dangerous, 'they don't learn right away, when we told them once, so let's not try again' attitude.

[KeenEmpire]

There it is again, Christianity. I didn't say nothing about Christian God. But thanks for linking to those anyway

You did, actually. You said, "it's always Christianity", and then appealed to Einstein as an exception.

Ever heard of the word 'energy'?

Energy is no exception; just because it arises in physics models does not mean it physically exists. In parallel to energy being an ability of a physical system to do work, you might as well define a "glurbough" as the state of "being two feet away from a computer" and claim that glurboughs exist. In some sense, I suppose glurboughs are realized by people sitting in front of their computers, but is that the same thing as saying gluboughs physically exist? The glurbough itself appears to be more of an idea.

[Lava89]

1. Discussions of this kind always end up in christians feeling attacked and trying to justify their religion and saying something among the lines of "scientists are unfair, ridiculous or narrow-minded". There's always this division coming up, where you have to choose one side science or christianity (Yes it is ALWAYS Christianity, there is never any other religion brought up except some rather crude examples like "in such religion they have the same ideas"). So what's up with all those scientists that are/were faithful? Einstein believed in God very much, and therefore wasn't happy with some of his discoveries, but that doesn't mean you can't be faithful while wanting proof or an explanation for things.

There's also the flipside of the same coin. I've heard many atheists denounce religion as a whole because "you can't prove it". Again bringing us back to the religion vs. science debate.

My take on it, as a Christian, is that science is not meant to prove or disprove religion. Its only to describe the phenomenon of the here and now. So I don't see why people have to make a choice between faith or science; especially since it takes just as much faith to have a lack of belief as there is to believe.

And as someone who believes that the Bible was divinely inspired, I believe that anything it has to say of scientific importance will be eventually proven by man's knowledge of the universe (which is currently very small), if we are allowed so by our creator.

And yes, you're absolutely correct. There's been lots of religious scientists; like Newton or Galileo, Einstein (like you mentioned). Let's also not forget the Greeks, the pioneers in both science and math, were also the tellers of very elaborate myths of their religion. I believe religion fuels science in a very interesting way; when a Christian goes into science they explore Jesus' creation.

[Ceilick]

[Paramultart]

Wow, I foresee this spiraling into a religious debate quickly.

Anyway, since we're on the topic...
Something a lot of people don't notice is that the Bible actually mentions the human SOUL and SPIRIT being two entirely different things, as well as acknowledging the MIND and HEART all as separate entities.

I would imagine the "heart" to be a symbol of something, obviously it's not referring to the actual organ.

The reason I bring this up is to clarify that the Bible does not confuse the human mind with the soul or anything like that or whatever.

[Eros]

the soul does NOT retain previous experiences, or else babies would be able to create time machines, if Albert Einstein ascended.

about the bible; the bible is a massive swirling void of contradiction.
jeez, i hope i got the point of this thread right...

smited.