Evolutionary purpose of the soul?

[TheUndeadFish]

Okay, for the last time, I defined soul in my original post. TheUndeadFish, under my operating definition, the soul is what you are terming "the imagination of the concept of the soul".

Except that I didn't use that phrase. I think you got something out of my post that I wasn't trying to say. But that really doesn't matter since I think I did the same thing with your original post.

So lemme try this again... What I think you're saying is that a soul is what allows a person to recognize their own consciousness. And without a soul, a person wouldn't observe their own thinking. They would simply proceed through life essentially as a intelligent and highly complex machine. Stimulus comes in, brain processes and then orders the body to respond; but without the brain knowing that it is processing.

Now, assuming I got that right... I have a couple questions: How do you know a complex but natural system cannot give rise to a consciousness that can recognize itself? How could an external observer notice the difference between a lifeform with a soul and one without?

 

[ProbePhage]

You are correct. I am 'in denial of my own consciousness'. The self does not exist.

I will draw on Daniel Dennett to asist me here. To examine and counter the zombie argument, which is the argument you are making here, he thought up the notion of zimboes. Zombies, Dennett argues, just do not cut it. To have a Daniel Dennett zombie operate in exactly the same way as a non-zombie Daniel Dennett it would have to have the same operating tools as him. For example, it would need to have the ability to detect and recognise other people. It would also need to be able to make judgements about its own judgements. And to do that, it would need to have a detection and pattern recognition machine that was pointed at its own judgements. For this to function correctly, it would need to detect itself.

This thing would believe itself to be conscious, and would act as though it were. Yet we have not added anything called 'consciousness' to it. It is a zimboe. Dennett's argument is that something that acts exactly like us would believe itself conscious.

We are zimboes. Or in other words, we are sophisticated zombies.

I find this argument lacking. I don't see a necessary logical connection between the last sentence of your second paragraph, and the first sentence of your third. The detection of oneself, or self-awareness, is not exactly the same thing as consciousness. Dennett's zimboes could be fully aware (in a "mechanical" sense) of themselves, taking their own considerations into account when making considerations, without having to "believe itself to be conscious". Is a computer program conscious when it calls a recursive function? Does it think it is?

I understand the argument Dennett is trying to make, and it would make perfect sense if it wasn't so blatantly contradictory to my personal experience. I know that under the theory, this contradiction is to be expected. I am a machine that thinks it's conscious, and thus I am saying the things I'm saying right now. But if consciousness is an illusion, an illusion to whom? In an illusion, something is perceived consciously to be something else. If that very consciousness doing the perceiving is what is illusory, how can it be perceived consciously to begin with?

In my personal subjective experience, I don't just "think I'm conscious" because some law, concerning pattern recognition machines pointing at their own judgements, dictates that I must think so. I have personal experience, verified every single moment of my existence, that I am, in fact, a conscious entity. And I don't believe any amount of philosophical theorizing is going to nullify that experience.

That is why I said this subject is going nowhere.

 

[David Gould]

It is not a 'nullifying of the experience'. It is explaining it in a better way than we do currently. There are subjective experiences. Dennett is not saying that the experiences do not exist; he is saying that they are not what we think they are.

As to the computer argument, we have as yet built no computer with the complexity of recursive functions that exist within a human brain. We also have not built any with the amazing ability that we have for detection and pattern recognition.

However, setting aside that for the moment, how would you tell whether a computer thought itself to be conscious or not? What would be the difference between a zombie computer - one that acted as though it was conscious but was not - and a conscious computer?

 

[David Gould]

I find this argument lacking. I don't see a necessary logical connection between the last sentence of your second paragraph, and the first sentence of your third. The detection of oneself, or self-awareness, is not exactly the same thing as consciousness.

Then you will need to define consciousness for me. What is consciousness but awareness of self?

 

[ProbePhage]

Except that I didn't use that phrase. I think you got something out of my post that I wasn't trying to say. But that really doesn't matter since I think I did the same thing with your original post.

So lemme try this again... What I think you're saying is that a soul is what allows a person to recognize their own consciousness. And without a soul, a person wouldn't observe their own thinking. They would simply proceed through life essentially as a intelligent and highly complex machine. Stimulus comes in, brain processes and then orders the body to respond; but without the brain knowing that it is processing.

Close, but not quite. The brain can know that it is processing without the soul. It can take itself into account when making decisions.

The soul is the experience of it all. Nothing more.

Now, assuming I got that right... I have a couple questions: How do you know a complex but natural system cannot give rise to a consciousness that can recognize itself?

Huh? Obviously it can. Remember I am not a creationist, nor am I religious at all. I am sort of a dualist in my own way though. I'm not big into reading philosophy, so I only identify myself with them by a snap definition that I read once (therefore do not read this and say "oh, you're a dualist? well dualists are wrong because this and that and that and that" - do not assume I hold any particular beliefs except the ones I discuss here).

How could an external observer notice the difference between a lifeform with a soul and one without?

It cannot. However, a lifeform without a soul would not be engaging in a discussion like this one unless it was somehow programmed to do so. And yeah, I know, we may very well be that lifeform, see David Gould's arguments, etc. etc.

 

[ProbePhage]

Then you will need to define consciousness for me. What is consciousness but awareness of self?

Experience of self.

I know that's not satisfactory, but that's the best term I can use to describe it. I still can't understand why you seem to have no idea what I'm talking about, and I have to go in circles finding words to describe it. Note though that I do not consider this difficulty to necessarily be a problem with the concept of soul, but rather a problem with the scope of our language.

 

[Anjinsan]

Your statement appears to be circular. You have stated that conciousness is self, yes? Then your statement is self=experience of self.

 

[David Gould]

Experience of self.

I know that's not satisfactory, but that's the best term I can use to describe it. I still can't understand why you seem to have no idea what I'm talking about, and I have to go in circles finding words to describe it. Note though that I do not consider this difficulty to necessarily be a problem with the concept of soul, but rather a problem with the scope of our language.

Isn't awareness of the self the same thing as experience of the self?

 

[ProbePhage]

Isn't awareness of the self the same thing as experience of the self?

No. At least not by what I mean by experience. Like I said, I think this is a language limitation. Nonetheless, I still don't understand why you haven't gotten what I meant. Perhaps I'm just awful at trying to convey something like this. I haven't seen a single reply from anyone indicating that they understand what I'm talking about, so, unable to discuss on the same page with anyone, I think I'm just going to drop this subject, unsatisfied.



EDIT: do not judge the language of this post to be of a tone of superiority... I really do think the reason for the misunderstanding is based in my own ineptitudes at conveying ideas... as such I cannot continue this discussion