The Soul - is there proof?

[The Cadet]

I explained it in my first post. I am sorry, I assumed you had read it.

This?

Therefore I have to believe in the 'soul'. For if all our thoughts and reasoning were merely the product of brain physiology, than there is no reason to trust that one thing is more reasonable than any other. We would consider it so, merely because my brain chemistry happened at that moment in time to be a specific way. If it were different, than something entirely different may have been reasonable. To believe I can make deductions and logical conclusions, that are truly thus, is to believe that something more than mere physiology is at play.

Seems more than a little bit silly. Yes, you consider things more or less reasonable based on your brain chemistry. Why would this invalidate the result of the logic, though? My computer's "logic" is based on electrical signals going through semiconductors; does this somehow invalidate the results when I ask it what 2+2 is?

 

[Wolfe]

Ahh I see.
Thanks for correcting me, I'll stop using it as an argument.
As for evidence of the soul, I feel that morale is the best explanation. Perhaps i should have used this instead of the death weight thing.
You do bad things, you feel bad. Do good things, and you feel good.
But I already see arguments of people who say, what of people who love to do bad?
Well I say these people, are possessed by evil. And need Christ to combat it. Because even the psychotic have been found to show sympathy to some measure, could this be their soul reaching out? This was also in a documentary, that I don't know the name of. I kind of want to say, the mind of a murderer or something along that line.

 

[Ana the Ist]

All this talk of supernatural phenomena and their lack of evidence is beside the point, for if you do not believe in the Supernatural than you would discount it regardless.

From Miracles in God in the Dock - CS Lewis

"I have known only one person in my life who claimed to have seen a ghost. It was a woman; and the interesting thing is that she disbelieved in the immortality of the soul before seeing the ghost and still disbelieves after having seen it. She thinks it was a hallucination. In other words, seeing is not believing. This is the first thing to get clear in talking about miracles. Whatever experiences we may have, we shall not regard them as miraculous if we already hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural. Any event which is claimed as a miracle is, in the last resort, an experience received from the senses; and the senses are not infallible. We can always say we have been the victims of an illusion; if we disbelieve in the supernatural this is what we always shall say. Hence, whether miracles have really ceased or not, they would certainly appear to cease in Western Europe as materialism became the popular creed. For let us make no mistake. If the end of the world appeared in all the literal trappings of the Apocalypse, if the modern materialist saw with his own eyes the heavens rolled up and the great white throne appearing, if he had the sensation of being himself hurled into the Lake of Fire, he would continue forever, in that lake itself, to regard his experience as an illusion and to find the explanation of it in psycho-analysis, or cerebral pathology. Experience by itself proves nothing. If a man doubts whether he is dreaming or waking, no experiment can solve his doubt, since every experiment may itself be part of the dream. Experience proves this, or that, or nothing, according to the preconceptions we bring to it.

This fact, that the interpretation of experiences depends on preconceptions, is often used as an argument against miracles. It is said that our ancestors, taking the supernatural for granted, and greedy of wonders, read the miraculous into events that were really not miracles. And in a sense I grant it. That is to say, I think that just as our preconceptions would prevent us from apprehending miracles if they really occurred, so their preconceptions would lead them to imagine miracles even if they did not occur. In the same way, the doting man will think his wife faithful when she is not and the suspicious man will not think her faithful when she is: the question of her actual fidelity remains, meanwhile, to be settled, if at all, on other grounds. But there is one thing often said about our ancestors which we must notsay. We must not say “They believed in miracles because they did not know the Laws of Nature.” This is nonsense. When St. Joseph discovered that his bride was pregnant, he was “minded to put her away.” He knew enough biology for that. Otherwise, of course he would not have regarded pregnancy as a proof of infidelity. When he accepted the Christian explanation, he regarded it as a miracle precisely because he knew enough of the Laws of Nature to know that this was a suspension of them. When the disciples saw Christ walking on the water they were frightened: they would not have been frightened unless they had known the laws of Nature and known that this was an exception. If a man had no conception of a regular order in Nature, then of course he could not notice departures from that order: just as the dunce who does not understand the normal metre of a poem is also unconscious of the poet’s variations from it. Nothing is wonderful except the abnormal and nothing is abnormal until we have grasped the norm. Complete ignorance of the laws of nature would preclude the perception of the miraculous just as rigidly as complete disbelief in the supernatural precludes it, perhaps even more so. For while the materialist would have at least to explain miracles away, the man wholly ignorant of Nature would simply not notice them.

The experience of a miracle in fact requires two conditions. First we must believe in a normal stability of nature, which means we must recognize that the data offered by our senses recur in regular patterns. Secondly, we must believe in some reality beyond Nature. When both beliefs are held, and not till then, we can approach with an open mind the various reports which claim that this super- or extra-natural reality has sometimes invaded and disturbed the sensuous content of space and time which makes our “natural” world. The belief in such a supernatural reality itself can neither be proved nor disproved by experience. The arguments for its existence are metaphysical, and to me conclusive. They turn on the fact that even to think and act in the natural world we have to assume something beyond it and even assume that we partly belong to that something. In order to think we must claim for our own reasoning a validity which is not credible if our own thought is merely a function of our brain, and our brains a by-product of irrational physical processes. In order to act, above the level of mere impulse, we must claim a similar validity for our judgments of good and evil. In both cases we get the same disquieting result. The concept of nature itself is one we have reached only tacitly by claiming a sort of super-natural status for ourselves.

If we frankly accept this position and then turn to the evidence, we find, of course, that accounts of the supernatural meet us on every side. History is full of them – often in the same documents which we accept wherever they do not report miracles. Respectable missionaries report them not infrequently. The whole Church of Rome claims their continued occurrence. Intimate conversation elicits from almost every acquaintance at least one episode in his life which is what he would call “queer” or “rum.” No doubt most stories of miracles are unreliable; but then, as anyone can see by reading the papers, so are most stories of all events. Each story must be taken on its merits: what one must not do is to rule out the supernatural as the one impossible explanation."

Wow...I was never a big fan of CS Lewis, even less so now. It seems to me that he tries very hard to rationalize what he already knows is irrational. As for not believing in miracles, I don't need to be in that state of mind to discount his story. Read again what he wrote at the beginning...


"I have known only one person in my life who claimed to have seen a ghost. It was a woman; and the interesting thing is that she disbelieved in the immortality of the soul before seeing the ghost and still disbelieves after having seen it. She thinks it was a hallucination."

She claimed to have seen a ghost...but said it was a hallucination. Well which is it? She obviously wouldn't be claiming to have seen a ghost if she believed it a hallucination. She would've claimed to have hallucinated.

It's a shame he wastes so much effort analyzing the thoughts of men which he seems to think he knows through clairvoyance...instead of spending some of that effort analyzing why he felt the need to lie about a woman in order to make a point.

I think if he analyzed the latter instead, he may have had the realization that his dishonesty was necessary to convince himself of what he believes.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Wow...I was never a big fan of CS Lewis, even less so now. It seems to me that he tries very hard to rationalize what he already knows is irrational. As for not believing in miracles, I don't need to be in that state of mind to discount his story. Read again what he wrote at the beginning...


"I have known only one person in my life who claimed to have seen a ghost. It was a woman; and the interesting thing is that she disbelieved in the immortality of the soul before seeing the ghost and still disbelieves after having seen it. She thinks it was a hallucination."

She claimed to have seen a ghost...but said it was a hallucination. Well which is it? She obviously wouldn't be claiming to have seen a ghost if she believed it a hallucination. She would've claimed to have hallucinated.

It's a shame he wastes so much effort analyzing the thoughts of men which he seems to think he knows through clairvoyance...instead of spending some of that effort analyzing why he felt the need to lie about a woman in order to make a point.

I think if he analyzed the latter instead, he may have had the realization that his dishonesty was necessary to convince himself of what he believes.

I do not believe CS Lewis is the dishonest one here.

This was a popular piece, not a reasoned philosophic argument - which you would find in his book Miracles: a Preliminary study.
He could have said the woman claimed to have seen something which fit the description of certain popular conceptions of a ghost which she concluded to have been a hallucination, but this would have been far too wordy for his medium.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

This?



Seems more than a little bit silly. Yes, you consider things more or less reasonable based on your brain chemistry. Why would this invalidate the result of the logic, though? My computer's "logic" is based on electrical signals going through semiconductors; does this somehow invalidate the results when I ask it what 2+2 is?

Yes. Because if a computer is programmed to say that 2 + 2 = 4, it doesn't mean it necessarily is. I can program it to say the answer is 17.
So if our brains are 'programmed' to consider certain things logical, we cannot therefore conclude that they are so.

Therefore I cannot trust any logical reasoning as absolutely true and the only reason why I can trust empiricism or science in general is based on reason, which has been shown to not be trustworthy.

So a Naturalistic Materialistic conception invalidates its own argument.

 

[Ana the Ist]

We are wonderfully made, we are far more than flesh and blood.

That can be true even without a soul.

 

[The Cadet]

So if our brains are 'programmed' to consider certain things logical, we cannot therefore conclude that they are so.

Therefore I cannot trust any logical reasoning as absolutely true and the only reason why I can trust empiricism or science in general is based on reason, which has been shown to not be trustworthy.

This is essentially an appeal to solipsism. How does the soul resolve this issue?

 

[MayMcFlurry]

There is the body, soul then spirit. The soul is human, it's our mind will and emotions. Our spirit is the immortal part of us, which I believe personally is a mystical part of God's greater Holy Spirit. How do I know this? Experience. The soul is not invincible, it can fracture, split into pieces, be invaded by ghosts/demons, but the spirit is untouchable. The spirit is literally God's breath.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

This is essentially an appeal to solipsism. How does the soul resolve this issue?

You misconstrue. This is not solipsistic as I do believe we can trust our Reasoning, we can know of more than the self.
I simply do not think that our Reason is solely based on brain chemistry and therefore there must be a Supernatural component to the Self. To call this component the 'soul', for lack of a better term, is entirely seemly.

As I stated before though, I may be wrong and our 'reason' may be derived from brain physiology, but in which case no action or thought of ours is anything but the necessary response to the previous chain of stimuli, so I fail to see how the self can even exist, let alone reason. Choice, action, thought, self are then all delusion derived from the necessary cascade of chemical and physiologic events.

Besides, our current knowledge cannot explain every facet of neurologic function, not even most aspects of it, so I think it highly premature to conclude only brain chemistry is at play. This is putting the cart before the horses.

 

[W2L]

That can be true even without a soul.

Not in my opinion. We grow old, like flowers which fade and whither. Yet they're born again through their seed. Science can observe the effect but the cause is a mystery. My soul sees beyond the veil of mortality as Gods love fills my heart with grace and love. If only I could share it with you, you would see with eyes that are forever beholding the true beauty of creation. My heart overflows and is poured out. Praise the Lord my soul, I am so wonderfully made. The best is yet to come, yet I have tasted it and my heart rejoices.

 

[The Cadet]

You misconstrue. This is not solipsistic as I do believe we can trust our Reasoning, we can know of more than the self.

Really? The way I understood it, you're arguing that we cannot trust our reasoning unless we have a soul, and I'm wondering how a soul resolves that issue. Maybe I just misunderstood.

As I stated before though, I may be wrong and our 'reason' may be derived from brain physiology, but in which case no action or thought of ours is anything but the necessary response to the previous chain of stimuli, so I fail to see how the self can even exist, let alone reason. Choice, action, thought, self are then all delusion derived from the necessary cascade of chemical and physiologic events.

Yeah, pretty much. I'm okay with that - this delusion is thoroughly enjoyable. Welcome to a deterministic universe where nothing we do matters and we're all going to die. Enjoy Arby's.

 

[W2L]

The soul is not a delusion, yet if it were it is the most delightful I have ever seen. To cry out from the darkness of obscurity and to have the light of Christ shine into it, this is amazing. Gods love is greater than mans love, just as his glory is as well. Far beyond the pitiful love we seek in the world, never have I tasted such amazing grace within the confines of human love. Better than any drug, love addicts my soul and I crave more. The love of God surpasses all understanding, it is the greatest of all things.

 

[Ana the Ist]

I do not believe CS Lewis is the dishonest one here.

This was a popular piece, not a reasoned philosophic argument - which you would find in his book Miracles: a Preliminary study.
He could have said the woman claimed to have seen something which fit the description of certain popular conceptions of a ghost which she concluded to have been a hallucination, but this would have been far too wordy for his medium.

So in other words...she didn't say she saw a ghost.

I get what you're saying though, it's meant to appeal to the masses...not something to think too hard about.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Yeah, pretty much. I'm okay with that - this delusion is thoroughly enjoyable. Welcome to a deterministic universe where nothing we do matters and we're all going to die.

Ah, but herein lies the rub.
My daily life does not seem deterministic, I seem to be making choices. So this does not seem to fit the evidence. If I were to decide to go left, then went right, was this predetermined? Was our conversation on this topic determined and outside our control? This seems far more implausible than the opposite view.
In anyway, the reason we concluded the world to be deterministic was based on our reason and the assumption of Naturalistic Materialism, which can no longer be trusted if this is a deterministic world, as I explained above. Catch-22.

 

[Albion]

Funny that you would mention those kinds of experiences....

The largest scientific study on near death experiences was done over something like 10 years and a dozen hospitals. Large symbols, words, pictures were placed in emergency rooms so that only someone who was looking down from above...like floating around the ceiling...would be able to see them. They amassed hundreds of accounts of near death experiences where people claimed to be floating around above their bodies in these rooms...and wanna guess the results lol? Not one...not a single instance of someone mentioning any of the control symbols.

I think that's a terrible flawed study for several reasons, but anyway, I don't see anything in here other than that the people who did have this experience are not routine. That's what I'd expect.

 

[expos4ever]

For if all our thoughts and reasoning were merely the product of brain physiology, than there is no reason to trust that one thing is more reasonable than any other.

Not sure what you mean by "reasonable". I certainly would agree that if our all our thoughts are solely determined by brain physiology - as physiology is presently understood at least - there appears to be no way to avoid the conclusion that we not "reason". Instead, as you say, our thoughts are merely the high-level outworking of the action of the laws of physics.

There are those who believe this is not particularly problematic - that "free will" is an illusion and that there is no evidence that definitively refutes the hypothesis that are thoughts are not simply "mechanically-generated".

I think there is a profound problem but, and this is the point of my post, I do not think one needs to posit the existence of a "soul" as specifically understood to be an immaterial consciousness-bearing "thing" that inhabits an otherwise physical body. There are other options, not least the possibility that our models of the material world are incomplete. But I see no reason why "rescuing" reason (or free will) requires a strict separation of the elements of reason and "free-will" from the domain of the "physical".

Readers will rightly need more from me on the matter of how "physical" explanations can rescue reason and free-will. Not sure I can provide anything. But let's remember - we in the west are living in the legacy of Greek Platonic thought - a way of seeing the world as carved up into the "physical" (e.g. the body) and the "non-physical" (e.g. the "soul"). I believe historians will tell us that the Jews who wrote Bible did not think that way - they viewed nature as much more "integrated" with no strict concept of the soul as an immaterial "thing".

 

[Papias]

Just because the evidence shows there isn't a soul, doesn't mean squat.

That's silly. Of course our best guess is that something doesn't exist if the evidence shows it doesn't exist. Anything else would be madness. Think of applying your exact statement to any thing else.

• Just because the evidence shows there isn't an Easter bunny, doesn't mean squat.
• Just because the evidence shows there isn't a chupacabra, doesn't mean squat.
• Just because the evidence shows there isn't a bigfoot, doesn't mean squat.
• Just because the evidence shows there isn't a god named Xenu, doesn't mean squat.
• etc.

Of course evidence "means squat". If not, then we can't know anything, and you would have to argue that we all just lay down and not move, since we can't think that the real world exists.

There's many things we don't know even though we have evidence to show we know.

(when then asked "like what", you replied:

macroevolution.

Hey, did you notice that you just said we have evidence to show we know macroevolution is true? Nice to see you come around.

This is arrogance to think we know 100% of something when all we have is evidence of the known, there is still the unknown.

whoa, watch those goalposts move! Saying that it is arrogant to draw a conclusion from evidence is claiming that we can't have any practical understanding of anything - and we are back to lying down because we don't know for 100% sure that the real world exists. This has been like a list of common creationist carnards.

There is the body, soul then spirit. The soul is human, it's our mind will and emotions. Our spirit is the immortal part of us, which I believe personally is a mystical part of God's greater Holy Spirit. How do I know this? Experience. The soul is not invincible, it can fracture, split into pieces, be invaded by ghosts/demons, but the spirit is untouchable. The spirit is literally God's breath.

But "personal experience" is arbitrary. Personal experience shows the Buddhists that there is just the soul, not even the body, and that soul can attain enlightenment and avoid karma. The personal experience of ancient Egyptians showed that we are made up of 9 things: the body, the soul, the name, the will, the kaa, the bah, etc. And so on. Simple halitosis seems to be just renaming the question without solving it.


In Christ-

Papias

 

[expos4ever]

This?

Seems more than a little bit silly. Yes, you consider things more or less reasonable based on your brain chemistry. Why would this invalidate the result of the logic, though? My computer's "logic" is based on electrical signals going through semiconductors; does this somehow invalidate the results when I ask it what 2+2 is?

I think his point is basically this: if we assume that our thoughts are exhaustively explained by "brain chemistry", it would seem really unlikely that such brain chemistry would produce thoughts that actually reflect what is the case (true) about our world. And I would agree that this does indeed seem very puzzling indeed - how could basic chemical reactions conspire together to enable us to develop a model of the world that actually works. And we clearly are capable of developing such models.

One way to solve this riddle is to appeal to evolution - evolution drives "brain machinery" to be such as to generate thoughts that are indeed "correct" in terms of their characterization of the real world.

 

[expos4ever]

That's silly. Of course our best guess is that something doesn't exist if the evidence shows it doesn't exist.

The problem is that we invariably bring pre-suppositions to our examination of "evidence". In other words, evidence is necessarily interpreted as seen "through" a matrix of assumptions. Take the resurrection as an example. I suspect that the overwhelming majority of people who disbelieve that Jesus rose from the dead disbelieve it precisely because they think such a thing is "impossible", given what our current "standard" models of reality tell us. Plus the fact that, without doubt, reports of people rising from the dead are exceedingly rare. Now I am a big fan of the standard model of reality - it clearly works very well indeed. However, I think we can allow its effectiveness to blind us to the fact that different models of reality can, in principle, equally well explain the same set of observations. I see no particular reason to assume that another model of reality, most likely an extended version of the present standard model, might do as good a job at explaining reality as the current standard model. And I see no reason to assume that such a model would "outlaw" resurrection events. Remember - models are descriptive, not prescriptive. I think it is an error of reasoning to argue "resurrection cannot occur since that would violate our present model of reality". It's an error precisely because it is quite plausible that another model could be constructed that could both explain everything the present model explains so well, yet also allows for the possibility of resurrection.

By the way, I happen to believe that there is no such thing as a "soul", at least as this concept is routinely understood.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Yes. Because if a computer is programmed to say that 2 + 2 = 4, it doesn't mean it necessarily is. I can program it to say the answer is 17.
So if our brains are 'programmed' to consider certain things logical, we cannot therefore conclude...

I cut off your post there because our brains aren't "programmed".