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How can humans live without a soul/spirit?

savagewind

Veteran Member
Premium Member
As the headline say, How can humans live without a soul/spirit?

If there is no form of spirit or soul that is the true being, what is keeping us alive?

Please respect that people will have different understanding and views on this, no need for snarky or bad words toward others who may see it different than you do.
The will to live. To eat. To sleep (God has blessed you already if it is pleasure). To love. To enjoy just about anything. Air. Hope. Desire. Questions. Kids and family. Word. Loyalty. Ok...booze
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
The threshold philosophical question, though, would be that if there are souls, what on earth would they want bodies for?
The soul needs a body in order to function in this world because the soul works through the physical body while we are alive in a physical body. But after our physical body dies, our soul leaves the physical body and gets a new form to work through, a spiritual body.

In short, the soul cannot function without taking on some kind of form.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
The soul needs a body in order to function in this world because the soul works through the physical body while we are alive in a physical body. But after our physical body dies, our soul leaves the physical body and gets a new form to work through, a spiritual body.

In short, the soul cannot function without taking on some kind of form.
You just said it could, didn't you?

Why would a soul need a "spiritual body"? Neither "soul" nor "spiritual body" is material, and just as in maths there is only one null set, there is only one immateriality ─ absolute absence, indistinguishable from non-existence, no?
 

Sand Dancer

Crazy Cat Lady
As the headline say, How can humans live without a soul/spirit?

If there is no form of spirit or soul that is the true being, what is keeping us alive?

Please respect that people will have different understanding and views on this, no need for snarky or bad words toward others who may see it different than you do.

Death causes the body to die, but the soul lives on elsewhere. It's not like we die because somehow our soul leaves us.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
You just said it could, didn't you?
No, I said that the soul needs to take on some kind of 'form' in order to function, it cannot just float around in midair.
Why would a soul need a "spiritual body"? Neither "soul" nor "spiritual body" is material, and just as in maths there is only one null set, there is only one immateriality ─ absolute absence, indistinguishable from non-existence, no?
Immateriality is only absence of materiality, it is not absence of existence.
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
You just said it could, didn't you?

Why would a soul need a "spiritual body"? Neither "soul" nor "spiritual body" is material, and just as in maths there is only one null set, there is only one immateriality ─ absolute absence, indistinguishable from non-existence, no?

What about the holographic principle in physics? Information is fundamental and abstract.

Supposedly the four dimensional world is a projection from a distant two dimensional field. Information is never lost even when three dimensional reality breaks down. Space and time are not even fundamental.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
What about the holographic principle in physics? Information is fundamental and abstract.

It's a nice little mathematical trick that leads to better understanding of the predictions of certain theories. But it is also a property of any elliptic differential equation. So it really isn't as 'special' as it is made out to be in the popular press.

Supposedly the four dimensional world is a projection from a distant two dimensional field. Information is never lost even when three dimensional reality breaks down. Space and time are not even fundamental.

Eeeps. Let me guess, you got this from some popular treatment and haven't actually done the math, right?
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
It's a nice little mathematical trick that leads to better understanding of the predictions of certain theories. But it is also a property of any elliptic differential equation. So it really isn't as 'special' as it is made out to be in the popular press.



Eeeps. Let me guess, you got this from some popular treatment and haven't actually done the math, right?

Right. But the description was from a physicist.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
It's My Birthday!
What about the holographic principle in physics? Information is fundamental and abstract.

Supposedly the four dimensional world is a projection from a distant two dimensional field. Information is never lost even when three dimensional reality breaks down. Space and time are not even fundamental.
That's a theory I've heard of, and entirely speculative, and I can't say I can really understand it.
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
No, I said that the soul needs to take on some kind of 'form' in order to function, it cannot just float around in midair.
Why not? Surely there's no place the immaterial is more at home than in immateriality?
Immateriality is only absence of materiality, it is not absence of existence.
I admire your ability to perceive meaning for a real object "to lack materiality but have existence."

I see only incoherence.
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
It's My Birthday!
Why not? Surely there's no place the immaterial is more at home than in immateriality?
I admire your ability to perceive meaning for a real object "to lack materiality but have existence."

I see only incoherence.
Of course you would. You lack the imagination to see farther than the material. You live in the material world, so how could there be anything else?
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
What about the holographic principle in physics? Information is fundamental and abstract.
Information is that which informs, surely? That is, without a brain (or, perhaps, a brain-like thing which can interpret input and respond to it) to be informed, there is no informing, hence no information. The concept is entirely human, not objective at all.
Supposedly the four dimensional world is a projection from a distant two dimensional field. Information is never lost even when three dimensional reality breaks down. Space and time are not even fundamental.
How would such a projection result in eg hadrons? I've never understood the nature of the "projection" involved. Do I recall correctly that the starting point was a claim along the lines that all the information about a sphere could exist on the surface of the sphere? That would again bring up the question of what information might be when there's no one (or nothing) to be informed ─ a single universe-wide occurrence of matter and energy, no?
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Of course you would. You lack the imagination to see farther than the material. You live in the material world, so how could there be anything else?
I'm a grandfather, dear Truthseeker, and thus I have intimate acquaintance, far beyond my original intent, with the whole Harry Potter saga.

So while I can enjoy fantasy, and admire imagination, I take care to distinguish such things from reality ─ by which I mean the world external to the self, also called nature, the place where everything with objective existence is found, the realm of the physical sciences &c ─ about which we know through our senses.

I speak as a truthseeker myself. To me 'truth' is a quality of statements, and a statement is true to the extent that it corresponds with / accurately reflects objective existence. That's called the 'correspondence definition' and it has the admirable advantage of going as far as we've so far gone towards an objective test for truth.

What definition do you use?
 

Truthseeker

Non-debating member when I can help myself
It's My Birthday!
I'm a grandfather, dear Truthseeker, and thus I have intimate acquaintance, far beyond my original intent, with the whole Harry Potter saga.

So while I can enjoy fantasy, and admire imagination, I take care to distinguish such things from reality ─ by which I mean the world external to the self, also called nature, the place where everything with objective existence is found, the realm of the physical sciences &c ─ about which we know through our senses.

I speak as a truthseeker myself. To me 'truth' is a quality of statements, and a statement is true to the extent that it corresponds with / accurately reflects objective existence. That's called the 'correspondence definition' and it has the admirable advantage of going as far as we've so far gone towards an objective test for truth.

What definition do you use?
Sorry, I impugned you for lack of imagination. But I can't see your logic that "objective existence" has to be material. In my faith the spiritual world is much more real than the material world. For you, there's no room for faith. But for me it also goes beyond faith, it also goes to experience. Unfortunately, you can't experience what I've experienced. So we go on this merry-go-round.
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Information is that which informs, surely? That is, without a brain (or, perhaps, a brain-like thing which can interpret input and respond to it) to be informed, there is no informing, hence no information. The concept is entirely human, not objective at all.
How would such a projection result in eg hadrons? I've never understood the nature of the "projection" involved. Do I recall correctly that the starting point was a claim along the lines that all the information about a sphere could exist on the surface of the sphere? That would again bring up the question of what information might be when there's no one (or nothing) to be informed ─ a single universe-wide occurrence of matter and energy, no?
Information in the Holographic Universe

What is information?


This is where I get my information from on that.
It's 30 minutes of stuff on it.


My question is that isn't the abstractions carrying predictive power? And wouldn't that make the abstractions to be very real?
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Sorry, I impugned you for lack of imagination. But I can't see your logic that "objective existence" has to be material. In my faith the spiritual world is much more real than the material world. For you, there's no room for faith. But for me it also goes beyond faith, it also goes to experience. Unfortunately, you can't experience what I've experienced. So we go on this merry-go-round.
For my part, it seems just as plain that there are only two ways things can exist ─ as things with objective existence in reality as I defined it, or as concepts / things imagined in an individual living brain.

For example, I'm not aware of any objective test that could distinguish the 'spiritual', the 'supernatural', the 'immaterial', from the purely conceptual / imaginary.

It may be that there's not much you and I can do about influencing the other's view. Instead, let me wish you all the best.
 
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