The simplest explanation is best. --The case against the immortal soul--

[Walkntune]

And that's all well and good. Power to you.

I don't know why imagination has to be so maligned, though. Do you?

I see thoughts and feelings as a resistance to what is pure consciousness and mans way to control instead of humbling himself to the awsome reality that is but I am not sure if imagination has to be seen as maligned in this process.conscious awareness contract around thoughts and feelings and only opens as he is willing to allow them to pass through without grabbing on consciously.Through quieting the mind my imagination and intuition seem to come alive and be part of the creative process as I believe the force of creation is on going. I don't have deep understanding of this yet but this is what I experience.

 

[PolyHedral]

I'd like to point out that it is possible to magnetically induce feelings of God being present. Your mind can get up to more tricks than you realize.

 

[Jeremiah]

And that's all well and good. Power to you.

I don't know why imagination has to be so maligned, though. Do you?

I never said anything about it being evil. Simply inferior in quality, and if someone wants to settle for less, then that is their choice. But indulging in fantasy still won't carry a soul beyond the grave.

 

[Madhuri]

It is better to accept ourselves as we truly are, limited; it is only by doing this can we truly began to know ourselves and the reality around us.

I don't think it is about imagining ourselves as limited or unlimited...
It's about contemplating our existence. How can we not when it is so incredible? Are you saying that we should close ourselves off to that? To not try to explore further? The whole point of science is to understand who we are and how we are.

My point is that science has not gone far enough. It doesn't answer all my questions satisfactorily. It doesn't explain how I, this perceiving consciousness, exists as an individual. It's too incredible. Not like a computer that is intelligent but lacking an individual consciousness. But an real individuality. A real perception. I'm sorry, but science doesn't explain this satisfactorily.

 

[Reptillian]

Energy -- as we use the term in physics, to describe such things as the flow of electrons or the chemoelectric properties that allow us to think or move our muscles or to move anything with any force over any distance -- is a property, and will never be found existing on its own any more than we'll find a lump of "red" or a lump of "softness" existing on its own.

You look up at night and see "black". Is there any particular thing which is "black"? Or suppose you could see the background radiation left over from the big bang and you look up and see "ultrapink" at night. Does "ultrapink" exist independently?

I'd like to point out that it is possible to magnetically induce feelings of God being present. Your mind can get up to more tricks than you realize.

Those experiments always scare me a little bit. If they can induce feelings of God, what other kinds of thoughts and emotions might they be capable of inducing. This sort of research would make mind control a very real technology in the future. Forget prison, we can just hook the prisoners into our machine and change their thinking using magnets. Don't agree with The Leader, we'll fix that. Frightening stuff.

 

[LuisDantas]

On that note:

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/movies/91827-has-anyone-seen-any-adam-curtis.html

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/international-politics/97097-century-self.html

 

[Jeremiah]

I don't think it is about imagining ourselves as limited or unlimited...
It's about contemplating our existence. How can we not when it is so incredible? Are you saying that we should close ourselves off to that? To not try to explore further? The whole point of science is to understand who we are and how we are.

My point is that science has not gone far enough. It doesn't answer all my questions satisfactorily. It doesn't explain how I, this perceiving consciousness, exists as an individual. It's too incredible. Not like a computer that is intelligent but lacking an individual consciousness. But an real individuality. A real perception. I'm sorry, but science doesn't explain this satisfactorily.

"I'm sorry, but science doesn't explain this satisfactorily."

And exactly how does spirituality answer the questions?

 

[nrg]

Still, it must be pointed out that religious concepts rarely if ever have a scientific nature, nor do they need to. Much of the point of religion is that it is not science, that it deals with the subject matters that science is not well suited to handle.

But the thing is, if they aren't handled by the scientific method, what other method do we have to establish them as truth? Why is the concept of a soul more valid than the concept of mutant puppies living in the 8th dimension, constantly controlling our bodies not as valid? If the answer is that they're both valid, and every other idea is equally valid, than all of the sudden none of them are.

Are you sure? It seems to me that while conceptions of soul must be questioned (mainly by non-scientific approaches, because it is after all not a scientifically well-defined concept), it will be a long time, if ever, until enough of a consensus is reached about what a soul would be like (and how it could be detected in an objective way) that it makes any sense to give a scientific, or even simply objective, opinion on the matter.

Yes, I'm sure. Unless you can come up with a better way of finding out what's true (or at least propable) we'll have to stick with science. And if it cannot submit itself to science (wich is not a hard criteria to meet, if something's really true and there's reason to believe it is) it must be regarded as impropable until it can.

For the time being, we will probably have to satisfy ourselves with noticing that the concept is very subjective, not always defined in a non-contradictory way, and there are in fact disputing view of what it would be like.

Subjective? The soul is a description about how something works, and that is in no way a subjective thing. If it is true, it becomes an objective fact.

This isn't a subject like what type of TV-shows we like, this is a statement wich contests all the conflicting statements. We can't have differing opinions about how a fire truck works, unless you say it's driven by a combustion engine (with a few exceptions) you're wrong, it's not something you can hold an opinion about and I don't see how the soul doesn't fall under the same criteria.

 

[nrg]

I didn't say that something is probable because it is acceptable. I would definitely argue against that!

So what are you saying? What do you mean when you say many people find it acceptable, and how is it relevant to the discussion (the discussion being, the simplest explanation is that all these concepts of spirituality are products of our minds and therefore it's more propable)?

I used the example of Carl Sagan, not because he is Hindu, but because he gives a lot of credit to Vedic explanations of the universe.

I've never heard that. He was very passionate in debunking astrology for example, and many other spiritual beliefs.

But even if he did, so what? Just because a large number of people gives alot of credit to Vedic explanations of the universe, or heck even the majority of people, it doesn't change how propable they are. Propability is established through real science, through logic and mathematics (and the branch is called "propability theory").

The scientific method is great, and the knowledge we can acquire through science is fabulous. But we need to understand that our knowledge and skills today are still limited, very biased, sometimes flawed and very much lacking.

I know this, and I've not stated anything else. I've simply stated science is the best way to determine what's true. "The best way to establish truth" is not the same as "the perfect way to etsablish truth", there are always the chance that we arrive at the wrong answer and there's always a chance that we cannot answer some questions either. However, this doesn't change the fact that it is the best way, as in every other way of finding out what's true is more likely to be wrong.

So the conclusions we make now are based on the knowledge we have now just as the knowledge of the ancients dictated the conclusions they arrived at. This doesn't mean we know everything. It also means (I believe), that simply because something is probability now does not mean it is a reality because that probability is based on the knowledge we have now.

Yep, but there's no other way that's equally good at establishing propability. In other words, if you use some other method to establish the truth about spirituality, and that method confirms spirituality, you have not done the best you could do and therefore you have not been reasonable.

Let's use this as an example. Let's say you're an engineer on a plane, and the pilot says there's something wrong with the planes engines mid air. If you do not use your scientific skills as an engineer (math, physics, maybe some chemistry or read of the monitors of the plane) to calculate what could be wrong with the plane, you are not using the best method and I will always say that in that scenario, you're doing something wrong since you're not using the best tools for the situation. I think the same criticism is applicable for this situation, you're not using the best tools for asserting what you should believe.

I think it is wrong to assume that a religious person is not using reason. We always like to make assumptions about why people believe what they do- but these assumptions are generally unfair and based in arrogance (and ignorance). A lot of people are blind believers, but a lot of people are also intelligent, reasoning individuals who have had certain experiences that make believing in the divine (or something other) hard to ignore. Some people like to categorise these individuals as delusional, but in my opinion, that is very arrogant too.

Your own experiences are, sadly, really unreliable and are easily tampered with, and therefore drawing conclusions from them and nothing but them is anything but reasonable. Magicians tamper with it all the time and psychiatry is a science studying exactly how your subconcious interprets your experiences (and how it, mor often than we think, completely alters it). Basically, the brain is lazy, easily manipulated and imagines things and patterna all the time wich aren't there, and this is why we have the scientific method, so that we all through logical models can draw the exact same conclusions, whomever will be going through it.

 

[NeoSeeker]

Haven't I explained this before? Hindu belief is soul=Consciousness.
Consciousness includes none of the above mentioned. It is a simple state of Being. And it is life itself.

Do scientists know what process and function in the brain gives us or any creature consciousness? There are studies being done to record the memories of the brain. There are people who seem to think that if an electronic imprint of someone's brain could be made and transplanted to a robot brain of equal computational power, then that person would continue to exist. I have a problem with this. Recording memories does not account for consciousness and how individual brains function. I think you'd have a robot who might think it was someone (whose memories it received). But there is a huge difference between memories and consciousness.

The tricky part is differentiating between consciousness and self awareness. I think if and when computers get advanced enough and given sensory equipment, they could be come self aware or act in such a manner displaying characteristics such as self preservation.

 

[PolyHedral]

How would a machine that is not conscious, but is self-aware behave? How would it be differentiable from a machine that is both?

 

[NeoSeeker]

How would a machine that is not conscious, but is self-aware behave? How would it be differentiable from a machine that is both?

From an observational standpoint, I think it would be hard to tell what is motivating a computer to act in any particular way. Most of this comes from science fiction so I am free thinking. Maybe someone with more knowledge of computer sciences could jump in.

For self awareness or at least the appearance of self awareness, my guess it would start with a mobile robot with a cpu of equal computational power as the human brain, then you would add learning software with basic survival motivations even procreation motivations, and most important, the ability to self program (learn) to advance itself. A situation could develop similar where people assign human qualities to animals. You could observe this robot and if it's programing is good enough, it would appear to be self aware. I don't know how you could distinguish self awareness from consciousness.

Think about the difference between a human and a machine. You have a brain that thinks, sensors to evaluate the environment. For most people this is seeing and hearing what is going on around you while your brain thinks of actions to take. We either are thinking using our inner voice or feeling an urge to take some kind of action. There are also emotions that are triggered by different events that meet specific criteria. What makes us individuals are the choices we make, but this could be accomplished with programming and learning software.

So the real question: Is consciousness simply all of these functions smoothly flowing together at the same time? Is it possible this awareness could be programmed? If we have a soul, I would propose that it is something extra that makes us more than a computational machine.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

'If we have a soul"...

Adam did Not have a soul.
According to Gen 2v7 after Adam received the breath of life Adam became a living soul.
No where does it say Adam came to have a soul or came to possess a soul, rather Adam was a soul or a living soul.
At death Adam became a dead soul or dead person.
Adam was a sinner, and as a sinner Ezekiel [18vs4,20] says the soul that sins dies.
If we could stop sinning we would not die and continue to be a living soul.
Since we can not stop sinning we need someone to help us.
Jesus can and he will.