The Soul - is there proof?

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

...My daily life does not seem deterministic, I seem to be making choices.

When you make a particular choice, do you not have some reason for doing so?

It may be a complex reason that you have pondered, which has triumphed over all other reasons you've pondered, e.g. "should I have a second helping of desert despite being comfortably full? although I am trying to lose weight, on the other hand, it might seem rude to refuse, and it is very nice, and yet..." Nevertheless, it is the result of one or more causal chains of reasoning and/or emotional responses.

Is it that, with hindsight, you feel that you could have chosen differently? Ask yourself exactly why you made the choice you did, and what would have made you choose differently - is it perhaps dependent on which of the considerations involved in your deliberation had the greatest weight with you at the time? (e.g. if the conversation had been about obesity rather than books, you might have decided more pud was a bad idea). In other words, if your state of mind and/or body had been very slightly different at that time, you might have chosen differently... and that's quite reasonable, if things had been slightly different, the outcome would have been different - but still determined by what went before, by what had influenced your state of mind and body.

It doesn't (usually) feel deterministic because we don't have access to all the details of the causal chains of events that determine our feelings and motivations; most of it is subconscious. The majority of the time we're not even aware of why we hold many of the opinions we do - we worked them out, or were persuaded, at some point, but if asked later why we have them, we have to rummage through memory, or generate a convincing narrative. Numerous studies have shown we have surprisingly little conscious insight into our choices - and we will confabulate plausible reasons after the fact.

If I were to decide to go left, then went right, was this predetermined?

Predetermined, but not necessarily predictable. It's possible that something external caused you to change your mind; but assuming that wasn't the case, when we are making a deliberative choice, a number of subconscious processes will vie for conscious attention with reasons for choosing one way or another - these reasons will pop into your awareness and their importance (weighting) will sway the deliberation one way or another. At some point you'll 'call time' make the choice on the current state of your deliberation - the rough state of play. But these subconscious processes may continue in the background, popping up more incidental reasons, or retrieving stuff you'd forgotten; sometimes these are unexpectedly important enough to make you overturn the decision you'd just made. So you might decide, "Ooh, yes please, I'll have another portion...", before changing your mind, "Oh no, wait... now I remember it, last time I did this I was up all night with acid reflux".

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.

Not so.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... 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.

Indeed it's pretty rare (which is partly why the AWARE study was such a damp squib). But of the people who do report such experiences and whose reports are investigated, none (to my knowledge) for which sufficient circumstantial information was available, has turned out either to be consistent with known facts, or to be inexplicable by mundane means (e.g. see Hallucinatory NDEs).

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... 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.

Well yes, but you could make that claim about any fanciful feature you would like this reality to support. If it's going to be a realistic possibility rather than wishful thinking, you have to explain how your different model could work exactly as the current one does at all times, except for extremely rare and apparently random occasions, where all the fundamental rules work completely differently for a brief period in one specific location. Good luck with that...

 

[expos4ever]

Well yes, but you could make that claim about any fanciful feature you would like this reality to support.

No, I was careful to point out that a revised model does "as good a job" as the present model - that means it shares all the other features of a good model: simplicity, elegance, explanatory power, etc. And you really have no reason to impute motive here - I think everything I have posted is perfectly reasonable. You seem to assume that I am suggesting we bolt on clunky, awkward, needlessly complex new bits to the current model in order to accommodate a belief I have arrived at on other grounds. This is not what I am talking about at all.

If it's going to be a realistic possibility rather than wishful thinking, you have to explain how your different model could work exactly as the current one does at all times, except for extremely rare and apparently random occasions, where all the fundamental rules work completely differently for a brief period in one specific location. Good luck with that...

Strawman - I never suggested that the model would involve "rules that are broken for a brief period of time"; to characterize my position thus is to make the error of not allowing the possibility of an extension to the present model that we presently have that does not require a "breaking of the rules" to accommodate (in the example) resurrection. And you apparently simply dismiss the possibility that we cannot produce such a model. Not exactly in the spirit of the scientific enterprise.

 

[VanillaSunflowers]

You're free to think and believe what you like. There's no proof of souls, though.

You don't believe in souls.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

When you make a particular choice, do you not have some reason for doing so?

It may be a complex reason that you have pondered, which has triumphed over all other reasons you've pondered, e.g. "should I have a second helping of desert despite being comfortably full? although I am trying to lose weight, on the other hand, it might seem rude to refuse, and it is very nice, and yet..." Nevertheless, it is the result of one or more causal chains of reasoning and/or emotional responses.

Is it that, with hindsight, you feel that you could have chosen differently? Ask yourself exactly why you made the choice you did, and what would have made you choose differently - is it perhaps dependent on which of the considerations involved in your deliberation had the greatest weight with you at the time? (e.g. if the conversation had been about obesity rather than books, you might have decided more pud was a bad idea). In other words, if your state of mind and/or body had been very slightly different at that time, you might have chosen differently... and that's quite reasonable, if things had been slightly different, the outcome would have been different - but still determined by what went before, by what had influenced your state of mind and body.

It doesn't (usually) feel deterministic because we don't have access to all the details of the causal chains of events that determine our feelings and motivations; most of it is subconscious. The majority of the time we're not even aware of why we hold many of the opinions we do - we worked them out, or were persuaded, at some point, but if asked later why we have them, we have to rummage through memory, or generate a convincing narrative. Numerous studies have shown we have surprisingly little conscious insight into our choices - and we will confabulate plausible reasons after the fact.

Predetermined, but not necessarily predictable. It's possible that something external caused you to change your mind; but assuming that wasn't the case, when we are making a deliberative choice, a number of subconscious processes will vie for conscious attention with reasons for choosing one way or another - these reasons will pop into your awareness and their importance (weighting) will sway the deliberation one way or another. At some point you'll 'call time' make the choice on the current state of your deliberation - the rough state of play. But these subconscious processes may continue in the background, popping up more incidental reasons, or retrieving stuff you'd forgotten; sometimes these are unexpectedly important enough to make you overturn the decision you'd just made. So you might decide, "Ooh, yes please, I'll have another portion...", before changing your mind, "Oh no, wait... now I remember it, last time I did this I was up all night with acid reflux".

These are all specious arguments in anyway predicated upon my acceptance of Naturalistic Materialism. They are circular, for I can only accept these if I assume all my decisions are or can be based on physiological functions (which I do not). Besides, determinism is not provable by any measure of modern neuroscience, in spite of a few studies which may suggest pre-conscious action before a decision, which were neither conclusive, definite nor without flaws.

In standard human experience, no one believes their actions to be predetermined. You are treading on the same slippery slopes of Christian Science and Buddhist Sunya, which assumes universal delusion and a completely different metaphysic from the actuality of most humans. I trust this is not company you wish to keep?

Not so.

Then please supply your reasoning for saying so, keeping in mind that I was saying this in reference to my first couple of posts in this thread where the argument is laid out.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

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.

No, some people will find it necessary ideas. Just because it is stylistically not what you prefer, does not invalidate the content or lessen it.

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

I was merely using the metaphor of the poster I was responding to. If you notice, I put programmed in quotes as well. Regardless, if it was due to programming, evolution, blind chance etc. doesn't change the argument substantially. Again, stylistic disagreements does not invalidate an argument.

 

[ViaCrucis]

The concept of "the soul" is itself rather nebulous. Biblical language is itself quite vague, and while Platonic and Aristotelian notions of the soul have frequented Christian discourse over the centuries there has never been a full adoption of the Platonic model (or the Aristotelian model); indeed a full adoption of the Platonic model would amount to heresy; and so even though the doctrine of the soul's immortality can, in a sense, be traced to the Platonic model the full Platonic view of the soul as the "real" interior self merely hidden away within the body is something that cannot be accepted as that would amount to heresy--though this frequently is the view one finds in popular religious imagery and discourse today (and it is in error, contrary to the historic teachings and Creeds of the Christian Church).

Which is to say that given how vague and nebulous the concept of the soul is itself, any idea of "proving" its "existence" is--in my opinion--doomed to failure before it starts. Namely, what are we even trying to "prove"? What is "the soul" in the first place? An historic position going back to Augustine, Aquinas, etc seems to be something like "the seat of the emotions and will" but that's not so much a definition so much as it describes activity. Is "the soul" something more like activity than substance, a verb rather than a noun? In Hebrew the word translated as "soul" is nephesh, and it means "breath" as in a breathing-thing; the difference between a living creature and a corpse is that living creatures breathe; and that seems to be the essential characteristic in Hebrew thought. In Greek the word psuche (psyche) is also translated "soul" and it means the same thing--breath; the New Testament doesn't offer us much more in this regard, we don't have a definition of what "the soul" is, except that it seems characteristic of our present, mortal life; the present body is "soulish" while in the resurrection the body is raised "spiritual", a "soulish" person is contrasted with a "spiritual" person--these are not characteristics of substance but descriptive of the sort of reality or life: the present life is defined, seemingly, as mere biology, it is corruptible and mortal (corruptible, here, literally means "able to decay" or "can be destroyed") where as the future life in the resurrection of the body and its transfiguration is more than mere biology, it is incorruptible and immortal.

But do any of these things actually get us to what "the soul" is; what is "it" that survives extra-corporeally between death and resurrection in the Lord's presence (c.f. 2 Corinthians 5:8)? Is "it" "the soul"? Standard language would say yes, but biblically speaking we have no answer or explanation or definition of any of these things--and, frankly, I don't know that we can ascertain or speak particularly dogmatically or very thoroughly on these things. Scripture itself doesn't seem particularly interested on the topic of life after death, after all, the Christian hope of eternal life isn't about "going to Heaven" after we die, but to look forward to the future resurrection of the body and the life of the age to come right here on earth at the restoration and renewal of all things.

So, again, the concept of "the soul" is of such vague and nebulous shape that trying to speak of its "proof" seems flawed; what would it even mean to say the soul "exists" if we don't even have a proper conception as to what the soul is, or even if "the soul" is even a thing itself with ontology, substance, or existence proper?

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

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".

I substantially agree with you, which was why I was at pains to make plain that I was calling this something the 'soul' for lack of a better term.

That being said however, I am not one to jettison centuries of human knowledge and as such I think the chances of a conception of such a spirit or soul is quite high. If I add my religious constructions on top, I think it almost definite, but this is neither here nor there in this specific thread's argument. Besides, all western knowledge is just commentary on Plato.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

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.

I agree.

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.

I disagree. There is no reason to believe evolution would create thought systems which reflect reality, only those that would increase reproductive fitness. You may consider these the same, but that would be an assumption that would need to be proven.

In fact as can be seen in for instance the reproductive advantages in fearless males gaining more female interest but running the risk of dying earlier versus cowardly ones living but having fewer mates, Evolution need not drive a realistic conception of risk for either case. The very nature of Natural Selection makes it unlikely that the human species would have a generally accepted form of Reason, but rather a spectrum. This does not seem to be the case in practice.

 

[VanillaSunflowers]

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

University of Michigan’s Biopsychology Program would disagree with you. As would others.

 

[Ana the Ist]

University of Michigan’s Biopsychology Program would disagree with you. As would others.

Link?

 

[VanillaSunflowers]

Link?

You first.

 

[Ana the Ist]

You first.

Me first?? I'm not making claims about the University of Michigan.

 

[VanillaSunflowers]

Me first?? I'm not making claims about the University of Michigan.

No, you made a claim about the brain not being programmed.

 

[expos4ever]

I disagree. There is no reason to believe evolution would create thought systems which reflect reality, only those that would increase reproductive fitness. You may consider these the same, but that would be an assumption that would need to be proven.

Since I am not an expert, I cannot "prove" anything. Nor, I suspect, could anyone.

But consider the following example. Imagine two cavemen, Og and Ug.

As a result of the random genetic mutations that drive evolution, Og gets a brain whose chemistry:

1. Produces the belief that sabre-tooth tigers are dangerous;
2. Produces the belief that fire can be started by rubbing two dry sticks together;
3. Produces the belief that eating apples is a good thing to do.

And poor Ug gets a brain whose chemistry:

1. Produces the belief that sabre-tooth tigers are to be petted;
2. Produces the belief that fire can be started by rubbing two patties of wet mud together;
3. Produces the belief that eating rocks is a good thing to do.

Who is likely to survive to pass on his chemistry?

So, yes, I still maintain that evolutionary factors could drive our brains in the direction of being "machines" whose generated "thoughts" cohere very well with "what is really the case".

 

[Chesterton]

Since I am not an expert, I cannot "prove" anything. Nor, I suspect, could anyone.

But consider the following example. Imagine two cavemen, Og and Ug.

As a result of the random genetic mutations that drive evolution, Og gets a brain whose chemistry:

1. Produces the belief that sabre-tooth tigers are dangerous;
2. Produces the belief that fire can be started by rubbing two dry sticks together;
3. Produces the belief that eating apples is a good thing to do.

And poor Ug gets a brain whose chemistry:

1. Produces the belief that sabre-tooth tigers are to be petted;
2. Produces the belief that fire can be started by rubbing two patties of wet mud together;
3. Produces the belief that eating rocks is a good thing to do.

Who is likely to survive to pass on his chemistry?

So, yes, I still maintain that evolutionary factors could drive our brains in the direction of being "machines" whose generated "thoughts" cohere very well with "what is really the case".

As C. S. Lewis pointed out, there's a difference between making an association and making an inference, which requires reason. If I ring a bell every time I put down food for my dog, the dog can make an association between the two things which will be useful, as with your caveman Og. But that does not lead to deducing an inference that the two things are actually related in truth, which they may or may not be. Based on brain chemistry alone, neither Og nor the dog can ever become philosophers or scientists or artists or religious.

 

[Ana the Ist]

No, some people will find it necessary ideas. Just because it is stylistically not what you prefer, does not invalidate the content or lessen it.

It wasn't a stylistic problem...it's a content problem. The obvious issue is that Lewis can't read minds.

I was merely using the metaphor of the poster I was responding to. If you notice, I put programmed in quotes as well. Regardless, if it was due to programming, evolution, blind chance etc. doesn't change the argument substantially. Again, stylistic disagreements does not invalidate an argument.

"If "it" was due to programming, evolution, etc...."

What does the "it" in that sentence refer to? The brain?

 

[Ana the Ist]

No, you made a claim about the brain not being programmed.

Right....because we can think...which is pretty much the opposite of programming.

Your turn.

 

[W2L]

Right....because we can think...which is pretty much the opposite of programming.

Your turn.

Programmed to think