is there a soul?

If you do believe in a soul, at what point does it actually occur? Does the soul enter a being when the sperm meets the egg, or when the baby is born, or when?

formy said:

How come scientists can't return someone back to life? ofc hearts can stop sometimes for few seconds but can they return someone to life if he died few minutes ago?

Can they in the future, and are they trying or they can't?

but what is the explanation by the atheists?

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I do not believe in a soul, it's my opinion that all those traits we associate with higher cognition are the product of our brains acting as very advanced pattern and relationship agents. Indeed, in studying artificial neural networks my first reaction to training a hopfield neural network was 'woah, it's like a protobrain.' The neural networks I run on my computer are capable of recognizing pieces of images and recreating a whole image from memory, and capable of taking a piece of an image it's never been shown and exctracting from that image relationships to previous images I have shown it. So my research has proven to me that the soul is unnecessary for explaining what it is to be 'human' or 'cognizant'.

As per your question specifically about brain death, the first thing to note is that the brain cannot store oxygen or glucose and neurons cannot replicate. This means that 6 minutes after the heart stops beating or the flow of blood to the brain ceases your brain will have used up the glucose and oxygen in the stagnant blood, after which massive cell-death will occur and shortly thereafter there will not be any functional brain matter left. Indeed, before that 6 minute mark has hit, it's likely that certain areas of your brain may already be in the process of necrotizing and so even if you are brought back you may suffer brain damage which will result in loss of physical or mental function or personality change. If someone has suffered brain damage but blood is once again bringing fresh nutrients and oxygen to the brain, no neurons will regenerate. Any pathways that were destroyed will not be recovered, instead overtime the brain *may* rewire itself to restore some or all lost functionality. In cases of stroke victims, the loss of control of one side of the body, loss of speech, or loss of various other abilities can be relearned and neighboring portions to damaged areas will change to take over the abilities lost.

There is research taking place right now in developing different methods of repairing brain damage. The level of success this can have is finite, however, since those things that make you you, such as your personality, your memories, your specific behavior patterns, are usually not genetic. This means we can't regrow your memories of your mother in a lab like we can regrow ears or someday regrow hearts. What we will be able to do is either culture neurons that can be injected into the skull cavity, and have them replace lost ones so that some functions can be regained, or develop implants that can replicate lost capacity. A large part of the research I hope to someday conduct deals specifically with this- neural implants to repair or enhance functionality, but unless we can someday scan the brain and map it, we will enver be able to recreate your piano lessons, or the memory of your mother.

The concept of a soul arises because of the (subjective) experience of the mind.

Is the mind separate from the body? It clearly cannot function without the brain, yet it seems to exist in some way that is entirely different to it.

Empiricists will argue that mind is just an 'emergent property' of the brain, like flight is an emergent property of birds - ie flight is not a thing, as such.

I don't find that at all satisfying, and suspect that there are things about 'life' that will always be beyond our understanding.

'Soul' is really an extension of mind, arising from the hope of life after death.

From what we know about space and time, it seems as if there is no such thing as a 'flow of time' beyond consciousness, anyway.

Perhaps when we die, we merge back into the universal consciousness, and experience all time at once in an 'eternal' moment.

Just thinking out loud.

paug said:

If you do believe in a soul, at what point does it actually occur? Does the soul enter a being when the sperm meets the egg, or when the baby is born, or when?

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That is a good question, I don't know (God did not tell me) If i had to draw a line, I would say conception, for no other reason other than there seems to be no other practical point to draw it.

For what it's worth the Christian makes a distinction between the soul and the spirit. Two different things and I can never explain it well enough to even try

marktheblake said:

That is a good question, I don't know (God did not tell me) If i had to draw a line, I would say conception, for no other reason other than there seems to be no other practical point to draw it.

For what it's worth the Christian makes a distinction between the soul and the spirit. Two different things and I can never explain it well enough to even try

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Ok... So do you think a baby destined to be stillborn resulting from e.g. trauma to the pregnant mother still has a soul? If they had a soul at conception, did the soul leave them at some point, or does the soul still inhabit the dead body upon birth?

marktheblake said:

For what it's worth the Christian makes a distinction between the soul and the spirit. Two different things and I can never explain it well enough to even try.

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Here's the 411 on man being a tripartite:

1. Body = soma = gives us world-consciousness through empirical data
2. Soul = psyche = gives us self-consciousness through the mind, will, emotions
3. Spirit = pneuma = gives us God-consciousness through God's Word

AV here is giving probably the best description anyone who believes in soul and spirit is able to give.

So rather than 'soul', which we could tentatively agree on as a synonym for 'personality' (Christians may differ), it is 'spirit' that is the undefineable aspect. I think many people confuse 'soul' and 'spirit', or use them interchangeably.

paug said:

Ok... So do you think a baby destined to be stillborn resulting from e.g. trauma to the pregnant mother still has a soul?

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I did say I dont know.

Bombila said:

I think many people confuse 'soul' and 'spirit', or use them interchangeably.

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When i am reading this thread i am just assuming people are referring to both, even if they don't realise it.

formy said:

Why don’t they try to find a replacement for these cells?

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The cells are necessary, but it is the connections that determine personality and memory. Still, it might be done if some folks hadn't stopped embryonic stem cell research.

they made Artificial hearts, why not artificial brain cells?

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An artificial heart is just a pump. A cell is much more complex.

or some devise that transmit the electric impulses?

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The actual transfer of impulse between two nerve cells is chemical, not strictly electrical.

AV1611VET said:

Here's the 411 on man being a tripartite:

1. Body = soma = gives us world-consciousness through empirical data
2. Soul = psyche = gives us self-consciousness through the mind, will, emotions
3. Spirit = pneuma = gives us God-consciousness through God's Word

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Now the Egyptians went two better. There was the Ka, the Ba, the Akh, the Ren, and the Shewt, which composed the non-corporeal but essential parts of a human.

The body was the Khet or Iru during life, the Khat at death and the Sah when it was embalmed.

THE AFTERLIFE in Ancient Egypt

NAME & SHADOW

So I'll see your tri-part human, AV1611VET, and raise you two dead bodies, a name, and a shadow.

formy said:

A Soul is something you can't touch see or feel, something atheists don't believe in.

But if someone dies and they die because there brain died not because there soul left there body.

How come scientists can't return someone back to life? ofc hearts can stop sometimes for few seconds but can they return someone to life if he died few minutes ago?

Can they in the future, and are they trying or they can't?

What is the explanation to this, I believe that once your soul is taken you are dead and you can’t come back.

but what is the explanation by the atheists?

is there a fuse in the brain once it broke your brain is dead?

don't take the last part seriously ;p

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well first off atheism deals only with the belief in a god.
so an atheists can believe in a soul. (granted i bet most dont)

how can people be brought back from death?
simple, they fix the thing thats causing death.
Or as a a great philosopher onece said,
those people are only mostly dead.

It might help if you define what you mean by death.
If its simply not breathing and you get them breathing again then TADA!!

Serously though, it is apparent that we are defined by our brains, if its damaged thats where our (soul) changes .

Ragarth, that is some really exciting research.