Six Questions about the Soul

[amorphous_constellation]

What's your point?
When you imagine it without it existing, then it is just your imagination.

What are you objecting to?

Simply that the imagination, or the things in the imagination, possibly no matter how random, can become materially existent. So I guess then, that things once 'almost-ineffable,' or possibly totally ineffable, can become real. Starting with the human imagination. A modern city would be conceptually ineffable to a person 30,000 years ago

Influence over its existence.
Humans have influence over the existence of a hammer or town, because it's humans that create those things.

Well I think the soul is on a course, or journey, and we influence it, and the journey its on. That's part of how I think of it, I don't know where you're getting your ideas

Atoms have detectable manifestation.
They also had detectable manifestation before we had the tools to detect them.

You mean like how Epicurus was describing them?

What methodology is employed and what is the control mechanism?

I think with the tarot, it has to do with your imagination, and your ability to think through symbols. Sometimes it's hard, and you have to be creative. There are no hard rules on how to use it, like on what card spreads to use. You come up with your own. You also can also imbue the cards with your own meanings, to some extent. I think it can be used to expand on what one can think about different subjects, for starters. If you want, you can think that the card spreads are purely random. But what is truly random?

Anyway, I've been studying the tarot since about last fall. You can youtube it, it is surprising how much can be said about any one card, let alone how they interrelate. I did about 50 draws, sort of one a week, since I got my deck last fall. And I photographed them, to remember them, and thought about what kind of story they are telling. Kind of an odd thing, is how many repeat cards I get

 

[Trailblazer]

And the way to establish if that's the case, is true objective evidence.
Yes. And it takes objective evidence to establish it to be so.

Whereas that might be true for establishment, there is no objective evidence of the soul, but that does not mean it does not exist. It only means we cannot establish that it exists.

 

[Trailblazer]

Anything you dream up could be true. Like Gooblydockbloebloe. That could exist.
But this would have to be established with something other then just the mere fact that you dreamed it up.
Until you do so, it is JUST imagination.

Not necessarily, it could be just imagination or not, because establishment of existence is not what makes anything exist. e.g., Pluto existed long before it was established to exist.

Or do you usually just assume that everything you imagine to be true is actually true?

Not everything, only things for which I have some evidence of existence.

 

[Trailblazer]

So, what is the threshold?
By what objective criteria do you measure this?
From which point on does it supposedly require a "soul"?
And provide a proper explanation that isn't just arbitrary. Because I predict that here, you will attempt at drawing the bullseye around the arrow.

It can be measured by looking at the mental capacities and abilities of humans vs. other animals. Can other animals learn to read and write? Can they go to college and become doctors, lawyers and engineers? Can they build and fly airplanes. The distinguishing factor is that other animals can only act withing their own sphere so it they build things they are for their own survival. By contrast, humans can build things for other humans, animals and plants and thy can affect all the other orders of creation that are beneath them - minerals, plants, and animals. No other animal can do that. They eat plants and other animals but they cannot plant gardens and raise livestock and plant crops like humans can.

See the previous post. For beliefs / imagination to be true, it has to be established by other means then just assuming them to be true simply by the fact that you believe it / imagine it.

Of course.

It also means that your choice of words was dishonest. You said "know", while you actually should have said "believe". This means that you misrepresented it.

I changed 'know' to 'believe' in another post. I must have posted that to you because there is only one other atheist I am conversing with right now and he is on another thread.

When you said "You don't know it, if you can't show it.
So instead, you just believe it."
I said "True, but so what?"

So I admitted that if I can't show it I don't know it, in the sense if it being knowledge that everyone would accept.

As said in the previous post: anything you can believe or imagine could be true.
The way to establish if it is, requires evidence.

That's true, but the problem is that what is evidence to some people is not evidence to other people.

Aka, according to evidence based methodology.

Science only deals with the physical reality and even then science has limitations. Science has not proven everything, there is always more to be discovered.

Such as?
And perhaps more importantly, are they evidence based or gullibility based? Aka, faith based?

Revelations from God through Messengers of God are another avenue to truth. If God created humans you would think God knows how they were created and whether they have a soul or not and what its functions are. Of course this has to be 'believed' on faith, but only after we believe that the Messenger is really from God, and we can only come to believe that by looking at the evidence that supports the Messenger's claims.

There is no evidence of any other "world".
Again we come to this point where all you currently have are mere beliefs and imagination.
For those to become knowledge / facts, you require more then just the mere beliefs and imagination.

There is no proof of any other world, but there was a time in history when there was no proof that anything existed other than this world we call Earth. In fact, there was a time when everything on Earth had not yet been discovered. However, we now know what exists on Earth and we know about the solar system we are part of as well as other solar systems and galaxies.

I believe science will continue to make new discoveries and I also believe that we will discover many worlds after we die and pass to the spiritual realm of existence. Of course this belief is based upon what my religion teaches so it is only a belief, not a fact. Science deals with facts, religion deals with beliefs.

“As to thy question concerning the worlds of God. Know thou of a truth that the worlds of God are countless in their number, and infinite in their range. None can reckon or comprehend them except God, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.” Gleanings, pp. 151-152

“Verily I say, the creation of God embraceth worlds besides this world, and creatures apart from these creatures. In each of these worlds He hath ordained things which none can search except Himself, the All-Searching, the All-Wise. Do thou meditate on that which We have revealed unto thee, that thou mayest discover the purpose of God, thy Lord, and the Lord of all worlds. In these words the mysteries of Divine Wisdom have been treasured.”
Gleanings, pp. 152-153

So, as far as the actual evidence, established facts and actual knowledge goes: yes, these things are permanent.

That is true according to what we know now, but it is possible that science will make discoveries that can reverse what is now considered permanent, like the brain damage that causes Alzheimer's disease. Science is constantly evolving.

It's not. Knowledge is a subset of belief.
To use them as if they are synonyms, is intellectually dishonest.
They do not mean the same thing.

I am not using them as synonyms. I know they have different meanings, as evidenced by what I said:
"I do not need to know the process in order to believe it is actually the case."

Indeed.
But you do in order to KNOW it is actually the case.

You can believe anything.

True, but that does not mean that everything I believe is false. It could be true or false.

Right. All you have are mere beliefs. And now, you are even seemingly trying to "defend" this belief with an argument from ignorance.

The "soul of the gaps", if you will.

I am not committing the argument from ignorance because I am not claiming that my belief about the soul is true because it has not yet been proven false. If you are saying that my belief about the soul is false because it has not yet been proven true you are committing the argument from ignorance.

Argument from ignorance asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there may have been an insufficient investigation, and therefore there is insufficient information to prove the proposition be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four,

1. true
2. false
3. unknown between true or false
4. being unknowable (among the first three).[1]

Argument from ignorance - Wikipedia

It's your claim. Figure it out yourself. Don't ask me to do your homework.

As for how to go about it... The same way it works for anything else.

1. come up with a falsifiable model
2. determine the testable predictions / expectations that naturally flow from said model
3. figure out how to test those predictions / expectations against reality in such a way that they can be independently verified.

I do not think it can be proven that animals have a spirit, not anymore than it can be proven that humans have a soul, because these are religious beliefs and are not testable or verifiable.

Sounds like these spirits then fall in the same category then as undetectable extra-dimensional pink unicorns and gooblydockbloebloe.

You know what else can't be seen, measured or analysed?

Things that don't exist.

That is not logical. Just because some things that cannot be measured are nonexistent, that does not mean that everything that cannot be measured and analyzed is nonexistent. That is the fallacy of hasty generalization and the fallacy of jumping to conclusions.

There is no reason to think that everything in existence can be measured and analyzed.
There is no reason to think that everything in existence can be seen with the human eye or heard by the human ear.