The Soul - is there proof?

[Eudaimonist]

Semantics - we really mean the same thing.

Then miraculous simply means "amazing" to you? You don't mean "caused by some supernatural power"?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[expos4ever]

Then miraculous simply means "amazing" to you? You don't mean "caused by some supernatural power"?


eudaimonia,

Mark

No, miraculous for me means "caused by some supernatural power", but I thought I was careful to say "seems miraculous". I think we are on the same page and are almost certainly arguing the definition of words. To be clear: I believe that evolution is a plausible mechanism to explain the totality of human mental activity.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

That's not what I was talking about. Remember that my question was how you identify true reasoning or understanding from the appearance of it.

You can't under the aegis of Naturalistic Materialism. Otherwise through reason down to base axioms.

Nope.

Yes, because you said in my train analogy 'when the tracks disappear so does the train'.

Not in any way you can actually demonstrate.

You are assuming subjective reports of levels of brain activity are not reliable, going so far as stating it is a 'fact'. This would only be a fact if thought was merely a function of physiology, so your statement to support it requires it, ie Begging the Question.

Are you saying there's a supernatural component to science?

No, unless you consider Reason an important component of Science?

OK. So if a brain produced strictly by evolution generates the correct answer to 1+1=2, exactly which axiom is it that is irrational. Remember that you're not saying evolution is an axiom so there has to be something else.

There is no way to tell what the correct answer of 1 + 1 = 2 is in that case.

What specifically is irrational about them? Or are you confusing arational with irrational?

No, you are getting confused. Rational means derived from reasoning and logic.
The theory of Evolution is Rational. The description of how Photosynthesis occurs is rational.
The actual event, the interactions of molecules and chemicals to do these things, are independant of thought or logic or our descriptions of how they occur, therefore irrational.

These are philosophic terms, not the usual 'popular' use of irrational, when someone is dismissing something.

Arationality again is thought not derived from logic or reason, but is an unnecessary neologism because people can't keep their terms straight. From your perspective though, you can consider it "arational" if you so wish, but that grates on my psyche and makes me feel uneducated, so I'll never use it.

Nope again. The definition of "begging the question" is not "a point I want to run away from addressing".

Pain doesn't exist in and of itself. It is a function of nociceptive pathways receiving stimuli. When you burn your hand, no pain occurs - impulses depolarisise nerves which the brain then picks up and perceive as pain. It is highly subjective from some reporting excruciating pain from innocuous wounds and others not having any to speak of. Pain often is not correlated with reality at all, such as phantom pain, referred pain, psychosomatic pain etc. or might be absent in entirety, like in DM foot or certain congenital abnormalities.
So to try and prove that our brains perceive reality correctly by referring to pain makes no sense as well as assuming that the impulses we receive and perceive are somehow proving reality, ie that we perceive reality correctly. Therefore begging the question and a frankly ridiculous argument if you know the basics of nerve function.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

If you are going to introduce this concept of rationality, and define it as you appear to define it, then, yes, evolution cannot produce "rational" thought in humans. But so what? From my perspective you appear to arguing a different point than the one that others are arguing:

1. You are, correctly in my view, arguing that evolutionary process alone cannot endow us with an ability to determine "necessary truths" or to "reason" in the abstract sense we normally intend when we talk about reason. In this regard most of us have this gut feeling that "logical reasoning" floats free of "experience" and enables us to grasp what "must be true". Fair enough - I agree that we are denied this kind of reasoning capability if evolution is the only force that has shaped our minds.

Therefore though, we cannot be sure that our Reason reflects reality if you accept Naturalistic Materialism, in my opinion.

2. Others are arguing that evolution can indeed give us minds that correctly model the real world "out there" in a useful way. Thus, when an image of a saber tooth tiger appears on the retina, we run. And I agree with these people too - I see no reason to assume that evolution cannot produce minds that are good at "getting by" in the world. And while we think we have access to that form of reasoning that enables us to grasp necessary truths, this is an illusion.

In short, I think a lot of us are talking "past" each other.

Yes, I agree it can model in a useful way. This does not mean that it is 'true' however. So therefore to use it to make grand claims for reality is not reasonable. We cannot use such a derived Reason to make models of reality or grand constructs as my CS Lewis quote earlier explained at length. This therefore invalidates the assumption that our Reason is solely derived from evolutionary process as this is in and of itself a grand claim to knowledge which cannot be therefore made.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

This applies whatever interpretation you choose, but is not necessarily a rejection of causality. That the arrangement of the experiment affects the results obtained is an explicit example of causality.

A couple of points - an observation in QM is any interaction with the system (e.g. a particle interacting). That a conscious observer enters a superposition with the quantum system they interact with has no more effect on reason than on any other aspect of their being.

If you define reason in such a way that it can't exist in a quantum mechanical universe without some undefined 'additional component' to maintain it, I suggest your definition is awry. YMMV.

But as Feynman said: "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics" - so who knows if anything is valid once we enter that murky world.

Causality is where one process causes a second process, where A is responsible for B or B derived from A. Quantum Mechanics posits that A and B are interdependant, that B impacts A, that if the state of A changes or B changes, then both are altered.
This is not normal causality. Einstein and Bohr debated this at length and everyone agrees the Philosophic implication of Quantum Mechanics is the extinction of causality as conventionally understood. Another thing to look into is the EPR paradox.
Ideas like superposition and Entanglement were created to get around this.
Now if my conclusion alters the process by which I reach it, then it is not a rationally derived conclusion. A therefore B because B is derived from A is not the same as A therefore B or B derived from A. So a conscious observer in a superposition with the quantum system actually alters his reason and affects him a great deal.

But I'll be the first to admit I don't understand quantum mechanics, but philosophically it deals a deathblow to many intuitive ideas, like cause and effect.

 

[Kenny'sID]

Gosh, I've got into some heated arguments over this subject. I believe that our conscience represents the soul, but others say otherwise. I think its all a cop out to keep assuming that there isn't life after death. I say thats ludicrous.

I never saw soul as being much, if anything more than our conscienceless, our being, or more basically, our thoughts, what's in our mind, as that is what we are. If someone was able to, and made a recording of all our thoughts from birth to death, they would absolutely have the full record of our soul.. God has that record and the power to do what he will with it.

It never was anymore complicated than that to me.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

That is not how scepticism works. It isn't a golden mean thing. Either we are skeptical of everything until it is proven conclusively or scepticism has no value as a principle, but merely becomes a form of self-justification of your set positions.

Prove it, conclusively.

Scepticism, like any tool for thinking, should be used sensibly.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Prove it, conclusively.

Scepticism, like any tool for thinking, should be used sensibly.

I agree, Scepticism should be used sensibly. But to not be sceptical of your own assumptions of reality makes it merely a tool to reinforce your own view. If I am not sceptical of everything then I would never realise when I myself am being delusional, for of course my own beliefs being my own, would never seem beyond the pale to me.

 

[KCfromNC]

You can't under the aegis of Naturalistic Materialism. Otherwise through reason down to base axioms.

Which axioms are those, specifically?

Yes, because you said in my train analogy 'when the tracks disappear so does the train'.

They do if your analogy followed how brain function were related to consciousness. The fact that the two don't mean that you should rethink what your analogy is supposed to be telling us.

You are assuming subjective reports of levels of brain activity are not reliable

No, I'm going by the research which shows that self-reports of brain activity don't really line up with objective observations of the same. If you choose to believe objective reality is wrong in that case be my guest, but in that case I can say that I know for a fact that there's no soul because that's where my subjective feelings lie.

No, unless you consider Reason an important component of Science?

I have no idea what this has to do with anything. Are you asserting that reason is supernatural?

There is no way to tell what the correct answer of 1 + 1 = 2 is in that case.

Assertions are great in that anyone can make them about anything. The bad part is there's no reason to think they have much to do with reality. That's my problem here with your assertions.

The actual event, the interactions of molecules and chemicals to do these things, are independant of thought or logic or our descriptions of how they occur, therefore irrational.

Great, so we've laid the framework for showing that anything produced by a computer is irrational, even if it matches exactly the "rational" results produced by a human brain doing the same steps. After all, the former is the "irrational" interactions of molecules, and you've told us that the irrational can't lead to rationality.

So if I say 1+1 = 2, you can't tell me if that is rational or not until I let you know if it came from my brain or if I'm blindly repeating what a calculator shows. That seems to be a bit of an issue with your whole idea.

Pain doesn't exist in and of itself. It is a function of nociceptive pathways receiving stimuli. When you burn your hand, no pain occurs - impulses depolarisise nerves which the brain then picks up and perceive as pain. It is highly subjective from some reporting excruciating pain from innocuous wounds and others not having any to speak of. Pain often is not correlated with reality at all, such as phantom pain, referred pain, psychosomatic pain etc. or might be absent in entirety, like in DM foot or certain congenital abnormalities.

Does any of this change the fact that a species which wasn't averse to falling off cliffs would be at a selective disadvantage?

 

[KCfromNC]

Therefore though, we cannot be sure that our Reason reflects reality if you accept Naturalistic Materialism, in my opinion.

Just like in every other epistemological approach. But unlike other approaches, it actually gives useful results - agriculture, modern medicine, cat pictures on the internet - so what are you gonna do?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Causality is where one process causes a second process, where A is responsible for B or B derived from A. Quantum Mechanics posits that A and B are interdependant, that B impacts A, that if the state of A changes or B changes, then both are altered.
This is not normal causality.

It turns out that 'normal' causality is emergent from the underlying QM behaviour, which can be interpreted variously. The current consensus is that entanglement makes a QM system non-local, so that measurement resolves its properties without regard to spatial separation, so there is no implication for causality. A useful interpretation is to think of an entangled pair as a superposition of two possible pairs, for example, A with spin up, B with spin down, and A with spin down, B with spin up. When you make a measurement of A (or B), you simply determine which pair you're dealing with.

Another thing to look into is the EPR paradox.

It only appears paradoxical from classical viewpoints. 'Spooky action at a distance' doesn't allow the instantaneous transfer of information, so doesn't violate classical causality, although it does have implications for locality.

Ideas like superposition and Entanglement were created to get around this.

Superposition just expresses the stochastic nature of a system's wave function. Entanglement is as above.

Now if my conclusion alters the process by which I reach it, then it is not a rationally derived conclusion.

Don't worry, it doesn't.

.. philosophically it deals a deathblow to many intuitive ideas, like cause and effect.

Not really. It is certainly unintuitive, but it only challenges the classical view of causality in specific circumstances, and then as a QM version, i.e. superposition of causal sequences, A->B superposed with B->A. For a particular observer, it resolves to either one or the other.

These issues are not problematic if the wave function is taken to reflect reality, as in the Everettian 'Many Worlds' interpretation, which is widely misunderstood. We know superposition is real, and we know interaction with a superposed system entangles the interacting system with the superposed system, so widening the superposition. Once this spreads into the wider environment, the two superpositions are effectively isolated from each other and no further interaction between them is possible (this is 'decoherence'), they become like two separate worlds. That's it. The unitary wave function of the combined systems continues to evolve deterministically. In the greater scheme of things, this is just part of the wave function of the universe itself.

It's worth remembering that these are interpretations based on how the world is observed to behave; this is the only relation they have to whatever the underlying 'reality' is.

 

[KCfromNC]

But I'll be the first to admit I don't understand quantum mechanics, but philosophically it deals a deathblow to many intuitive ideas, like cause and effect.

Has philosophy ever delivered a "deathblow" to anything? Isn't that overstating the importance of Philosophy just a little bit?

 

[expos4ever]

Therefore though, we cannot be sure that our Reason reflects reality if you accept Naturalistic Materialism, in my opinion.

Yes, but that does not seem like a show-stopper objection. So what if we cannot be "sure" that our reason reflects reality? It clearly does reflect it well enough for us to "get by". I see no powerful argument in this thread for the existence of a "soul" as this concept is typically conceived.

Yes, I agree it can model in a useful way. This does not mean that it is 'true' however. So therefore to use it to make grand claims for reality is not reasonable. We cannot use such a derived Reason to make models of reality or grand constructs as my CS Lewis quote earlier explained at length. This therefore invalidates the assumption that our Reason is solely derived from evolutionary process as this is in and of itself a grand claim to knowledge which cannot be therefore made.

I have not carefully read the whole thread yet, but I would be surprised if anyone is making such a "grand claim to knowledge". My gut tells me that, despite his respected status, there is something wrong about this CS Lewis claim that "if reason is solely derived from evolutionary process, this is in and of itself a grand claim to knowledge which cannot be therefore made". I think he is assuming that his opponents in this debate are making claims to absolute knowledge. And I suspect they are not.

 

[expos4ever]

Hence, whether miracles have really ceased or not, they would certainly appear to cease in Western Europe as materialism became the popular creed.

If I may deign to challenge Mr. Lewis, I think this is a real reach. Yes, in the case of certain classes of events, the materialist would uncritically interpret the event within the standard materialist framework and dismiss the possibility of a "real" miracle. But if "miracles" really do happen today, I believe many of them would not be similarly dismissed. It depends on the "miracle". If I claim that God healed me of pain for which the doctors find no cause, it is understandable that a claim of "miracle" would be met with skepticism. On the other hand, if a person with no leg suddenly grew a leg overnight, and many people observed the person with the new leg (and knew that s/he person did not have the leg the day before), I doubt very much, this would be interpreted within the "materialist" framework - most people, I am quite confident, would indeed deem it to be a true miracle.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Which axioms are those, specifically?

The base axiom of any logical argument.

They do if your analogy followed how brain function were related to consciousness. The fact that the two don't mean that you should rethink what your analogy is supposed to be telling us.

Only true if you disavow the existence of the soul, hence begging the question.

No, I'm going by the research which shows that self-reports of brain activity don't really line up with objective observations of the same. If you choose to believe objective reality is wrong in that case be my guest, but in that case I can say that I know for a fact that there's no soul because that's where my subjective feelings lie.

Again begging the question, for those studies showed less activity which would be expected if brain physiology wasn't solely responsible. So to assume self-reports don't line up with data and is therefore inaccurate is a fallacy unless you accept Naturalistic Materialism, so therefore they cannot be used to prove Naturalistic Materialism.

I have no idea what this has to do with anything. Are you asserting that reason is supernatural?

I have been consistently saying that either Reason has an extra-material component or it doesn't actually exist.

Assertions are great in that anyone can make them about anything. The bad part is there's no reason to think they have much to do with reality. That's my problem here with your assertions.



Great, so we've laid the framework for showing that anything produced by a computer is irrational, even if it matches exactly the "rational" results produced by a human brain doing the same steps. After all, the former is the "irrational" interactions of molecules, and you've told us that the irrational can't lead to rationality.

So if I say 1+1 = 2, you can't tell me if that is rational or not until I let you know if it came from my brain or if I'm blindly repeating what a calculator shows. That seems to be a bit of an issue with your whole idea.

You just don't seem to get it. If we assume the origin of rational thought rests in nerve depolarisation then we cannot assert 1+1=2 in this case as necessarily true, so whether a calculator gets this answer or not is irrelevant. Besides, we would have created the calculator so it would give the answer we decided was correct as it would be made in that manner.

The whole point here is that we will have no reason to consider our assertions on anything to be valid.

Does any of this change the fact that a species which wasn't averse to falling off cliffs would be at a selective disadvantage?

It doesn't prove our input represents reality. So your statement here is irrelevant obfuscation.

Just like in every other epistemological approach. But unlike other approaches, it actually gives useful results - agriculture, modern medicine, cat pictures on the internet - so what are you gonna do?

Naturalistic Materialism has not given us any of those things. Scientific method has. They are not the same.

Has philosophy ever delivered a "deathblow" to anything? Isn't that overstating the importance of Philosophy just a little bit?

Scientific Method is a form of philosophy, so you're saying science is unimportant?

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

It turns out that 'normal' causality is emergent from the underlying QM behaviour, which can be interpreted variously. The current consensus is that entanglement makes a QM system non-local, so that measurement resolves its properties without regard to spatial separation, so there is no implication for causality. A useful interpretation is to think of an entangled pair as a superposition of two possible pairs, for example, A with spin up, B with spin down, and A with spin down, B with spin up. When you make a measurement of A (or B), you simply determine which pair you're dealing with.

It only appears paradoxical from classical viewpoints. 'Spooky action at a distance' doesn't allow the instantaneous transfer of information, so doesn't violate classical causality, although it does have implications for locality.

Superposition just expresses the stochastic nature of a system's wave function. Entanglement is as above.

Don't worry, it doesn't.

Not really. It is certainly unintuitive, but it only challenges the classical view of causality in specific circumstances, and then as a QM version, i.e. superposition of causal sequences, A->B superposed with B->A. For a particular observer, it resolves to either one or the other.

These issues are not problematic if the wave function is taken to reflect reality, as in the Everettian 'Many Worlds' interpretation, which is widely misunderstood. We know superposition is real, and we know interaction with a superposed system entangles the interacting system with the superposed system, so widening the superposition. Once this spreads into the wider environment, the two superpositions are effectively isolated from each other and no further interaction between them is possible (this is 'decoherence'), they become like two separate worlds. That's it. The unitary wave function of the combined systems continues to evolve deterministically. In the greater scheme of things, this is just part of the wave function of the universe itself.

It's worth remembering that these are interpretations based on how the world is observed to behave; this is the only relation they have to whatever the underlying 'reality' is.

This is not how I understand it and you have failed to explain how it maintains causality, merely stated it does.
But Quantum Mechanics is not my forté, so I shall have to investigate this more when I have time.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Yes, but that does not seem like a show-stopper objection. So what if we cannot be "sure" that our reason reflects reality? It clearly does reflect it well enough for us to "get by". I see no powerful argument in this thread for the existence of a "soul" as this concept is typically conceived.

I agree, hence I originally said that an additional component is required to maintain reason and that that role was traditionally done by the soul, so I consider it the best candidate at this time.

I have not carefully read the whole thread yet, but I would be surprised if anyone is making such a "grand claim to knowledge". My gut tells me that, despite his respected status, there is something wrong about this CS Lewis claim that "if reason is solely derived from evolutionary process, this is in and of itself a grand claim to knowledge which cannot be therefore made". I think he is assuming that his opponents in this debate are making claims to absolute knowledge. And I suspect they are not.

You are wrong. People have stated the soul does not exist. They have stated that only matter exists and strongly asserted Naturalistic Materialism. They have asserted that Reason is solely a function of brain physiology.
These are all grand claims to knowledge that easily fall in Lewis' purview.

If I may deign to challenge Mr. Lewis, I think this is a real reach. Yes, in the case of certain classes of events, the materialist would uncritically interpret the event within the standard materialist framework and dismiss the possibility of a "real" miracle. But if "miracles" really do happen today, I believe many of them would not be similarly dismissed. It depends on the "miracle". If I claim that God healed me of pain for which the doctors find no cause, it is understandable that a claim of "miracle" would be met with skepticism. On the other hand, if a person with no leg suddenly grew a leg overnight, and many people observed the person with the new leg (and knew that s/he person did not have the leg the day before), I doubt very much, this would be interpreted within the "materialist" framework - most people, I am quite confident, would indeed deem it to be a true miracle.

I disagree. If a person miraculously grew a leg, then people would assume it was a con and that he had always had a leg or they would assume that it was a mistaken identity for a twin or a collective hallucination that he originally did not have one.
Besides, historical 'miracles' were never so abrupt, so this is a specious example.

We can see though in things like the Angels of Mons or Dancing frenzies or such that people are very much willing to adopt collective hallucination when other methods of scepticism fail to dismiss something.

 

[KCfromNC]

The base axiom of any logical argument.

Which specific ones did you want to discuss?

Only true if you disavow the existence of the soul, hence begging the question.

The simple fact is that no one's been able to show a working mind without a physical brain driving it. That's not begging the question - that's simply looking at what reality tell us.

Again begging the question

Same problem as above - pointing out evidence that contradicts your assertions isn't what begging the question means.

I have been consistently saying that either Reason has an extra-material component or it doesn't actually exist.

Good for you. Any reason to think your claims have anything to do with reality?

You just don't seem to get it. If we assume the origin of rational thought rests in nerve depolarisation then we cannot assert 1+1=2 in this case as necessarily true

Who in the world would do that? 1+1=2 is just part of a language we made up. Necessarily true? What in the world?

The whole point here is that we will have no reason to consider our assertions on anything to be valid.

Speak for yourself.

It doesn't prove our input represents reality.

Maybe not, but it disposes of notions that natural processes wouldn't favor individuals who are best able to model reality.

Naturalistic Materialism has not given us any of those things. Scientific method has. They are not the same.

Please explain the supernatural component you think is vital to the success of science.

Scientific Method is a form of philosophy

No it isn't.

 

[Quid est Veritas?]

Which specific ones did you want to discuss?

I didn't want to discuss any specific ones, you're the one asking. It does however apply to any and all axioms.

The simple fact is that no one's been able to show a working mind without a physical brain driving it. That's not begging the question - that's simply looking at what reality tell us.

No, that's begging the question as you assume Materialism.

Same problem as above - pointing out evidence that contradicts your assertions isn't what begging the question means.

No, pointing out evidence which only applies if you assume what you want to prove is begging the question, which is what you are doing.

Good for you. Any reason to think your claims have anything to do with reality?

Not if Naturalistic Materialism is true, but then neither is the claim that Naturalistic Materialism is true, so...

Who in the world would do that? 1+1=2 is just part of a language we made up. Necessarily true? What in the world?

Do you understand what an axiom means?

Maybe not, but it disposes of notions that natural processes wouldn't favor individuals who are best able to model reality.

Not really as pain is not actually strongly correlated with reality, according to Medicine.
Besides I already discussed why natural processes might not necessarily favour realistic conceptions earlier in the thread, please read those posts.

Please explain the supernatural component you think is vital to the success of science.

Reason

No it isn't.

Yes it is. It is a form of Empiricism, a school of Realist Philosophy, but nowadays more and more post-empiricist. Please go look up what philosophy means.

 

[expos4ever]

I disagree. If a person miraculously grew a leg, then people would assume it was a con and that he had always had a leg or they would assume that it was a mistaken identity for a twin or a collective hallucination that he originally did not have one.

In my example, the person was widely known to have previously not had a leg. And the "twin" possibility is easily resolvable. As for collective hallucination, that explanation can be discounted over time with appropriate tests.

Either way, I suggest it is self-evidently true that given a sufficiently bizarre turn of events, people would indeed abandon materialism. I politely suggest that you need this to not be the case in order for your position to have traction.

Imagine, for example, if every time Donald Trump told a lie, his nose actually grew in front of tens of millions of TV viewers and as confirmable by video. Could this be a collective hallunication? Of course - you could claim that we hallucinate even on video replay. But with the appropriate procedures, this possibility becomes wildly implausible. Of course, you will always be able to manufacture a possible explanation re how people could preserve naturalism given any possible event. I suggest it is simply self-evident that this is not what would happen.

You appear to be saying that people will hold onto their naturalistic world-view no matter what. Where is the support for such skepticism? People abandoned Newtonian physics after all, they did not claim that quantum phenomena were an "illusion".

Yes, people hold onto untenable positions with great vigour, but that can only be pushed so far.