The Soul

[Super Universe]

So I asume you also see the humans as a dominant lifeform now that we've been 'upgraded'

We became able to host after the first moral descision. so that first decision was made soulless?

I've been wondering some time whether all life has a spirit, like a spark of a soul that is waiting to evolve but this spark cannot evolve in a simple tree.

The spark needs thought. And this thought has to be more than instinctual response.

It has to want rather than need.

 

[mr.guy]

The spark needs thought.

Why?

And this thought has to be more than instinctual response.

Why?

It has to want rather than need.

How do you distiguish between "wanting" and "needing"?

 

[Æsahættr]

I have just as much evidence for the existence of the soul as you have against it.

Evidence against the soul is the evidence that supports any idea that contradicts the idea of the soul. That would mean the evidence for entropy (constant increase in entropy means the idea of anything existing forever unchanging is impossible), the evidence for conservation (as more and more humans come into being, more and more souls are being created, which means the amount of stuff in existance is increasing), the evidence for consciousness having links with the brain...
So, there is the evidence against the existance of the soul. Now, please list the evidence for it.

Still angels have a source, they are created, and there are physical rules of the universe that they must abide by, although the speed of light is not one of them.

Since when are the laws of the Universe pick and choose?

 

[Super Universe]

You've provided no evidence whatsoever.

Prove that souls are unchanging?

Provide the physical law that prohibits God from creating new energy?

Again I ask you, what do you know of the laws that apply to another dimension?

 

[Æsahættr]

You've provided no evidence whatsoever.

Ok, if you want more detail: The fact that every single test that has ever been performed has shown the law of conservation energy is consistant. In not a single test has there ever been any sign that this law can be violated. That is evidence against the existance of the soul, because if more and more humans are being born, and each of these has a soul, which must be a form of energy, then energy must be increasing.
Complete loss of consciousness is evidence against the existance of the soul. If someone's blood pressure drops and the suppply of oxygen to the brain is decreased, then they faint and are completly unconcious. That suggests that consciousness is reliant on the physical brain, and is not a result of some soul that can survive death. If consciousness can survive the complete halting of all brain activity, then how come it can be lost from a reasonably small drop in oxygen supply?
Also, the second law of thermodynamics is evidence against the existance of the soul. Unless you intend to show how consciousness could exist without any work being carried out, then there is a definite limit to how long consciousness could continue. Eventually, even a soul that could survive death would have its energy wasted away into useful energy.

Prove that souls are unchanging?

Well, if you claim that consciousness exists for eternity, then that means that some part of the soul must be unchaning, namely whatever it is about the soul that makes consciousness.

Provide the physical law that prohibits God from creating new energy?

The law of conservation energy. Thought that would be an easy one. You could of course say that God is not subject to the laws of physics, but of course that means first of all that science cannot in fact give any evidence for God, and secondly, why would God create laws that He intended to break? Why not just make a Universe where there was no law of conservation energy?

Again I ask you, what do you know of the laws that apply to another dimension?

Well how many dimensions do you want? String theory can give you equations up to 11 dimensions.

 

[Super Universe]

So, more and more humans are being born each day yet you do not see that in itself as violating your law of conservation?

Also, where is your proof of the amount of energy in the universe? Maybe there is an extremely large energy store at the center of the universe from which all souls come from?

Sigh...

Consciousness has nothing to do with the soul. If it did then when we sleep our soul would leave us and we would surely die. Soul = conscience, not consciousness.

You continue to apply your physical laws to a type of energy that our science hasn't discovered yet.

You accept that matter/energy came into this universe from somewhere, correct?

That violates your law of conservation. According to your laws, there should be nothing.

The proof of God's existance is all around you. It's the universe itself.

Seven universes, eleven dimensions, yep that's right.

 

[mr.guy]

Guess i shouldn't hold my breath for a response....

 

[Super Universe]

Guess i shouldn't hold my breath for a response....

Why??

 

[mr.guy]

Why??

Exactly.

 

[Æsahættr]

So, more and more humans are being born each day yet you do not see that in itself as violating your law of conservation?
Also, where is your proof of the amount of energy in the universe? Maybe there is an extremely large energy store at the center of the universe from which all souls come from?

The Earth's biomass is fuelled by the Sun, so no, the birth of more and more humans doesn't violate that law. You're right, a store of energy would allow for souls. So, let's try and develop your idea a bit. By what process does this energy get into the form of souls? Or is it all souls before it enters human bodies? Do our memories survive death? If they do, then if our souls existed as part of this energy store before our birth, why do we have no memories from then?

Consciousness has nothing to do with the soul. If it did then when we sleep our soul would leave us and we would surely die. Soul = conscience, not consciousness.

If souls do not cause consciousness then we would have no consciousness after death. That is a position that is identical to mine. Without consciousness, we would not be people or even beings at all. We would not experience anything, we would not have any thoughts, at most we could be like computers. Unless you are using a different definition to the word conscience than the conventional, then we would in fact be like computers calculating morality. I hardly see that you can claim that the part of us that is "really is" has nothing to do with our experiences, feelings and thoughts, none of which would exist without consciousness.

You continue to apply your physical laws to a type of energy that our science hasn't discovered yet.

This is the whole point of evidence SuperUniverse. Evidence suggests that certain physical laws apply to the Universe. True, we cannot say for certain that these laws apply to everything in the Universe, because there are some things that do not exist yet. However, we can use these laws to work out whether our current understanding of the Universe supports certain things or not. If we discover a new type of energy that is not governed by our laws, then we need to change those laws. This is what I mean when I say that the evidence you need to provide needs to be greater than the evidence for these laws.
The basic assumption is that the laws we have apply to everything in the Universe, but that we admit that we can't say that for sure. If our theoretical understanding comes to disagree with our observations significantly, then we need new theories. Observational evidence overrules theorectical evidence, but without any observational evidence, theoretical evidence must determine our opinions on a matter. And the theoretical evidence is against the existance of the soul, and is against the creation of matter and energy, and until we have observation evidence to the contrary, or a theory that makes better predictions, we have to assume that science is against the idea of a soul, and against the idea of spontaneous creation from nothing.

You accept that matter/energy came into this universe from somewhere, correct?

No I don't. Incorrect. Matter/energy could travel between our Universe and other places, if those places exist, or it could be confined to this Universe. I see no reason to assume at present that either one of those statements has to be correct.

The proof of God's existance is all around you. It's the universe itself.

You complain of going in circles, yet you repeat an argument that I answered before. The Universe itself is only evidence for God's existance if you can show that it could not possibly have come about without God.

Seven universes, eleven dimensions, yep that's right.

Sorry, where did 7 universes come from, and how do you know that 11 dimensions is right?

 

[Super Universe]

I don't know the process by which God forms a soul. Maybe some day someone will theorize a form of sentient energy that is not EMR but I don't expect it soon.

Our memories survive death? If a human personality chooses to live a moral life then that evolved personality fuses with the soul.

Think of your computer, do you ever save pictures, music, stories, data on it? The soul (the real you) takes what it wants, what it needs, and what helps it evolve just as your memory makes you a mature person compared to someone who has none of your life experiences.

Memories of before our human birth? I like to say that we can remember these memories but that is not a correct explanation. What we are doing is simply listening in to our soul as it experiences many other life experiences all at once.

Soul energy is non-time. This is why some people believe they were a famous dead person. They have visions that they think are memories when they are simply visions bleeding over from the soul's other life experiences.

There are techniques that one can develop that may help people 'remember' or increase these visions.

People refuse to accept this idea since it means the loss of their human individuality but you are not really this human form anyway. This is just temporary. What human lives forever?

Human consciousness has nothing to do with the soul. It is independant. The soul never shuts down unless the area of the brain that it connects with dies, then the soul leaves. When we are awake our human evolved personality/consciousness is in charge. When we sleep our human personality/consciousness sleeps too and our soul conscience takes over.

Certain physical laws do apply to the universe but there are seven universes. Also sentient energy may be pure energy, no particle attributes whatsoever. So the laws that affect physical matter, even EMR energy that seems to be both energy and particle, may not apply to something that is not a particle at all. What does Einstein say the speed limit is for something that is pure energy with no mass whatsoever?

The evidence for such things is far in the future.

The next great twist in scientific theory is going to come when we look twice as far into space and see that there are still more galaxies out there.

So matter just always was? But then doesn't that violate your theories?

The seven universes came from God, the eleven dimensions as well.