The superfluousness of souls

[gaara4158]

Religious language just like scientific language is a primitive abstraction of rather complex reality. What religion would label soul is the functional aspect of human being. In Biblical narrative "soul" means "breath" or some animating force that moves the body and makes it coherent living organism.

Likewise, you seem to axiomatically assert that all what we label as brain function is originating in the brain, and seem to reject that brain may be a conduit container in which what some would call as a "soul" interfaces with the body. On which bases do axiomatically assume the former and reject the latter?

It does seem presumptive to assume axiomatically that all experience is caused by brain function, but I hope that’s not what I’m actually doing. I’m trying to assume a more skeptical position, one which finds no reason to believe that which is not demonstrated. This makes it difficult to believe in an (indemonstrable) immaterial soul, whereas because we can at least correlate certain brain states with cognitive function/experience, there is some indication of a plausible causal relationship.

I know causality is its own metaphysical can of worms, and I don’t think I can defend the hard position that all experience is caused only by brain activity, but what I’m looking for is any reason the inconclusivity of brain research (or anything else) should suggest the presence of an immaterial soul.

That's like asking "What would a gamer do if a gaming console breaks down?" The answer is... you'll find out when it does. People on DMT trips swear that this reality is merely a subset and they travel to other dimensions. Are they right? We don't know. We can make bets and structure axiomatic frameworks. But it's your personal experience that drives your adoption of these frameworks as something that's coherent with your experience of reality.

That’s a fair answer. The reason I asked is because the most common reason I see cited to believe in a soul is our limited knowledge of what actually causes subjective experience. If we were able, hypothetically, to trace it all back to the brain, it would make the soul, as the title suggests, superfluous. But in the hypothetical situation in which souls exist despite said causal relationship, I suppose there’s no telling what it would or wouldn’t be able to do without the brain.

That's probably more consistent with Biblical narrative, since it's more consistent with Jewish paradigm and understanding of human metaphysics. Christianity is a layer on top of Judaism, but even in Christianity there are rare and scant references to dualism.

It doesn't however mean that it's the correct perspective on reality. Again, we don't really know. I think the most arrogant assumption would be to say with some certainty either way.

Agreed.

It may not be the same concept as you understand it, but soul is merely a collective continuum of "information" structure that gives rise to human identity. And as such there's a continuum that spans various human lineages that each inherit it in genetic and memetic form. As such, you can't label it as a physical concept, but something that "in-forms structure" and thus provides attributes to that structure.

I think soul is a viable concept in that context, even if we are talking about it in context of Jewish / SDA theology.

It almost sounds like you’re describing souls as a social/human construct. Is that too far off?

 

[gaara4158]

Hopefully I am not engaging in more than I can presently maintain but I didn't want this opportunity to slip away, even if I can only make a single post.

I think we have no choice but to divide brain from mind, and that seems to be where the issue has headed. The law of identity states that two things are identical when everything true of A is also true of B. But there are things true of mind that are not true of my brain, so they can't be the same thing. That doesn't prove substance dualism, but it should prove a type of dualism, including epiphenomenalism, or mind emergent from matter.

So we can get to dualism pretty easily, but I think we can go further. In this thread we hope to acquire or make true claims about the nature of our mind. So if we assume that is possible we can scratch epiphenomenalism out because while that includes an experiential mind that mind does not act as a cause, but rather is itself an effect. So under epiphenomenalism we aren't rationally concluding a statement about a mind, we just have the experience that we are. An emergent mind has a similar problem. Why should the values described by physics and chemistry be such that a mind should result capable of rational thought. What description can be given to how deterministic matter gives rise to free willed, rationally equipped consciousness? Those two possibilities don't allow us to arrive at our goal with much or any confidence. Where substance dualism fails to submit itself to inquiry, it allows us to validly make the inquiry in the first place.

Well, that’s interesting. It seems you’re taking the position of substance dualism for pragmatic reasons rather than evidential ones. You want to make truth claims about the mind, but you find that difficult to justify under epiphenomenalism so in the interest of making truth claims you assume axiomatically that dualism is true. But if you’re open to taking positions for pragmatic reasons, why not instead take the position that we can make truth claims about the mind axiomatically and be agnostic about substance dualism?

 

[Sanoy]

Well, that’s interesting. It seems you’re taking the position of substance dualism for pragmatic reasons rather than evidential ones. You want to make truth claims about the mind, but you find that difficult to justify under epiphenomenalism so in the interest of making truth claims you assume axiomatically that dualism is true. But if you’re open to taking positions for pragmatic reasons, why not instead take the position that we can make truth claims about the mind axiomatically and be agnostic about substance dualism?

You have it backwards. What I am assuming true, which is also what the thread inquiry is assuming true, is that we are capable of knowing whether we are a mind or a brain. With that assumption I am abductively surveying what theories can allow us to know truth about our mind and body. The other theories leave us with a dialectical loop and so can't allow that.

I think there are evidential reasons for substance dualism but I chose this method instead. Namely, it is our intuition that our mind is causing what we do, it is our intuition that we are something that will survive the loss of our matter. That intuition, and accounts such as NDE's and OOBE has provided the basis for the religious beliefs about the afterlife. I think we should believe our intuitions unless we have a reason not too, and we don't have a reason not too. Per the principle of credulity we should not doubt our experiences unless we have a reason to. So even though those intuitions may be curbed by modern claims we should still believe them unless we have a reason not to, which we don't.

 

[gaara4158]

You have it backwards. What I am assuming true, which is also what the thread inquiry is assuming true, is that we are capable of knowing whether we are a mind or a brain. With that assumption I am abductively surveying what theories can allow us to know truth about our mind and body. The other theories leave us with a dialectical loop and so can't allow that.

I’m not sure that’s the case. The thread inquiry doesn’t necessarily assume we can know whether there is a soul or not. I’d like to know why people positively assume that a) we can and b) there is, especially in the face of apparent brain-mind correlations that might eliminate the need for a soul in the first place. I don’t have to assume either way on either point just to ask.

Further, there is no discernible difference between a reality in which we cannot apprehend truth but our mind behaves as though we can, and a reality in which we can apprehend truth but cannot detect the mechanism that makes it possible. In either case we operate the same, and we are not justified in concluding that either is true. It seems to me that the former is the more conservative guess, since we could account for both our mind’s truth-seeking behavior and its fallibility with an evolutionary explanation while the latter would require us to import further indemonstrable claims.

 

[Sanoy]

I’m not sure that’s the case. The thread inquiry doesn’t necessarily assume we can know whether there is a soul or not. I’d like to know why people positively assume that a) we can and b) there is, especially in the face of apparent brain-mind correlations that might eliminate the need for a soul in the first place. I don’t have to assume either way on either point just to ask.

Further, there is no discernible difference between a reality in which we cannot apprehend truth but our mind behaves as though we can, and a reality in which we can apprehend truth but cannot detect the mechanism that makes it possible. In either case we operate the same, and we are not justified in concluding that either is true. It seems to me that the former is the more conservative guess, since we could account for both our mind’s truth-seeking behavior and its fallibility with an evolutionary explanation while the latter would require us to import further indemonstrable claims.

But there must be some reason to ask right? Don't you have to assume it's at least possible to know the truth before asking? If you don't assume that, you are asking an impossible question....well no, not even that since that would suggest you know it's impossible..ugh see where this goes when you don't assume it? You get get caught in a dialectical loop. I don't even know how to parse an inquiry that does not first assume reliable noetic faculties.

The difference between a reality(A) in which we cannot apprehend truth but our mind behaves as though we can, and a reality(B) in which we can apprehend truth but cannot detect the mechanism that makes it possible is that on A we never have the truth, not even the truth of the statement A and the conjoined statement AB, whereas on B we can acquire the truth, even the truth of statement AB. That is a big difference to me. The statement is self refuting on A, because the statement must assume B to make the dilemma in the first place. If it assumes A the statement is merely a thought excerpt from an infinite set of dialectical loops and so is not actually a statement but a snap shot of an infinite dialectical loop, essentially an infinite self refutation.

To get out of the dialectical loop you have to assume B, and if you assume B, B must follow from the hypothesis for B. Those I listed do not acquire B.

 

[gaara4158]

But there must be some reason to ask right? Don't you have to assume it's at least possible to know the truth before asking? If you don't assume that, you are asking an impossible question....well no, not even that since that would suggest you know it's impossible..ugh see where this goes when you don't assume it? You get get caught in a dialectical loop. I don't even know how to parse an inquiry that does first assume reliable noetic faculties.

I would have to assume there is some usefulness to sorting positive statements into “true” and “false,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean I think we can obtain truth in a metaphysical sense.

The difference between a reality(A) in which we cannot apprehend truth but our mind behaves as though we can, and a reality(B) in which we can apprehend truth but cannot detect the mechanism that makes it possible is that on A we never have the truth, not even the truth of the statement A and the conjoined statement AB, whereas on B we can acquire the truth, even the truth of statement B. That is a big difference to me.

To get out of the dialectical loop you have to assume B, and if you assume B, B must follow from the hypothesis for B.

It’s a difference in principle, but not in practice. There’s no reason under either hypothesis to doubt the usefulness of your truth-beliefs. Their metaphysical “truthiness” is secondary and ultimately unknowable.

 

[RDKirk]

The word "soul" seems to at times mean a living being. I personally understand we have a spirit, which is our non-material part of us. And we have our material body. Our soul is our living self, which can experience what is happening spiritually and what we can experience in our bodies. But our soul itself is part of our spirit. But there are things our bodies do, without our feeling them, like squishing food around in our stomachs, or our hearts pumping blood. Likewise, I would say our spirit can have areas which we are not experiencing, with or without activity.

My reading of scripture suggests that "soul" is indicative of mind and body operating without the effective operation of the spirit--the spirit is effectively comatose in the natural man. To be "born again," then, is the quickening of the spirit as an effective third part of a whole human being.

 

[Sanoy]

I would have to assume there is some usefulness to sorting positive statements into “true” and “false,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean I think we can obtain truth in a metaphysical sense.


It’s a difference in principle, but not in practice. There’s no reason under either hypothesis to doubt the usefulness of your truth-beliefs. Their metaphysical “truthiness” is secondary and ultimately unknowable.

But the assumption of usefulness presupposes a true proposition regarding what is truly useful. Any defense against that will then presuppose another true proposition. It's infinitely progressive toward a truth goal it can never reach because it will defeat itself as soon as it does. Simply put, and unsurprisingly, there is no proposition you can put forward without presupposing the ability to know true propositions. Under this degree of solipsism, making the assumption of usefulness, is neither better or worse than assuming non usefulness, because either would require a true proposition to be preferred over another.

There is no reason on A to have knowledge about propositions regarding usefulness.

 

[gaara4158]

But the assumption of usefulness presupposes a true proposition regarding what is truly useful. Any defense against that will then presuppose another true proposition. It's infinitely progressive toward a truth goal it can never reach because it will defeat itself as soon as it does. Simply put, and unsurprisingly, there is no proposition you can put forward without presupposing the ability to know true propositions. Under this degree of solipsism, making the assumption of usefulness, is neither better or worse than assuming non usefulness, because either would require a true proposition to be preferred over another.

There is no reason on A to have knowledge about propositions regarding usefulness.

On A, we would have to measure usefulness against something incorrigible, and the only thing we have that’s incorrigible is our subjective experience. If we experience X, it is incontrovertibly *true* that we are experiencing X, whether or not the presence of X in reality is “true” or not. From this we can make inferences about the external world that will either prove useful in predicting future experiences or they won’t, and that can be measured objectively.

This has elements of solipsism, but it’s not a positive declaration of it. It’s a pragmatic operation within it.

 

[Sanoy]

On A, we would have to measure usefulness against something incorrigible, and the only thing we have that’s incorrigible is our subjective experience. If we experience X, it is incontrovertibly *true* that we are experiencing X, whether or not the presence of X in reality is “true” or not. From this we can make inferences about the external world that will either prove useful in predicting future experiences or they won’t, and that can be measured objectively.

This has elements of solipsism, but it’s not a positive declaration of it. It’s a pragmatic operation within it.

We would need to measure usefulness against uselessness to determine whether we should assume usefulness or uselessness. Measuring usefulness against incorrigiblness doesn't say anything about whether usefulness should be used instead of uselessness. And how would we measure it? Measuring it would require a true proposition.

I agree more deeply with your statement that If we experience X, it is incontrovertibly true that we are experiencing X, whether or not the presence of X in reality is true or not. But that says nothing about how you know that's "true", or that the statement itself is "true". As I said there is no proposition you can put forward without presupposing the ability to know true propositions.

Here is another dialectical loop to consider. If true belief is merely those beliefs that correspond to usefulness. Then isn't the belief that true belief is that which corresponds to reality more useful since that belief entails the first belief and would permit the first belief to be a belief corresponding to reality? In other words the definition is self refuting as the belief itself fails to be the more useful belief.

 

[gaara4158]

We would need to measure usefulness against uselessness to determine whether we should assume usefulness or uselessness. Measuring usefulness against incorrigiblness doesn't say anything about whether usefulness should be used instead of uselessness. And how would we measure it? Measuring it would require a true proposition.

Usefulness is determined by taking actions with the expectation of specific results based on the premise that X is true that would not be expected if X is not true. Because the actions and results are taking place in your incorrigible world of subjective experience, you can evaluate the usefulness of hypothesis X based on the results of your actions without making any assumptions about external reality (or as you suggested, a "true proposition"). The inferences about reality that follow come from the assumption that your subjective experiences correlate with objective reality, but if that weren't the case we would still be stuck operating within the subjective reality we experience.

I agree more deeply with your statement that If we experience X, it is incontrovertibly true that we are experiencing X, whether or not the presence of X in reality is true or not. But that says nothing about how you know that's "true", or that the statement itself is "true". As I said there is no proposition you can put forward without presupposing the ability to know true propositions.

Yes, but that's not a problem on Hypothesis A. The true propositions we presuppose the ability to know on A are what unavoidably follow from logic and the presence of subjective experience. The propositions justify themselves. Truths about the external world are inferred without the same certainty, but ultimately it's a functional worldview. On Hypothesis B, we presuppose the ability to apprehend truths about external reality, but we base that assumption on a proposition whose truth we can't apprehend in the same way. B is also a functional worldview. Choosing between the two may ultimately be an aesthetic or intuitive choice for the individual. I tend to think A is a better bet simply because it focuses on experience rather than unreachable truths, but you may disagree.

 

[Sanoy]

Usefulness is determined by taking actions with the expectation of specific results based on the premise that X is true that would not be expected if X is not true. Because the actions and results are taking place in your incorrigible world of subjective experience, you can evaluate the usefulness of hypothesis X based on the results of your actions without making any assumptions about external reality (or as you suggested, a "true proposition"). The inferences about reality that follow come from the assumption that your subjective experiences correlate with objective reality, but if that weren't the case we would still be stuck operating within the subjective reality we experience.


Yes, but that's not a problem on Hypothesis A. The true propositions we presuppose the ability to know on A are what unavoidably follow from logic and the presence of subjective experience. The propositions justify themselves. Truths about the external world are inferred without the same certainty, but ultimately it's a functional worldview. On Hypothesis B, we presuppose the ability to apprehend truths about external reality, but we base that assumption on a proposition whose truth we can't apprehend in the same way. B is also a functional worldview. Choosing between the two may ultimately be an aesthetic or intuitive choice for the individual. I tend to think A is a better bet simply because it focuses on experience rather than unreachable truths, but you may disagree.

It doesn't mean anything to say that usefulness is determined by taking actions with the expectation of specific results based on the premise that X is true that would not be expected if X is not true. Under that definition cutting my leggs off with the expectation that it would make me shorter is useful. It's so intentionally vague that it's meaningless.

But what unavoidably follows from logic and the presence of subjective experience is itself a series of proposition claims. So is the claim that the propositions justify themselves. Any claim will be bracketed requiring a truth proposition ahead of it. Proposition{pragmatism}. There is no {pragmatism+pragmatism}. Only proposition{pragmatism+pragmatism}. There is simply no avoiding that no matter how vague things are made. They are either too vague to mean anything, or require sequences of true proposition claims.

There is also the issue of self refutation I mentioned. The paradigm itself fails to be the most useful paradigm.

 

[com7fy8]

So, if you believe in an immaterial soul, why?

My reading of scripture suggests that "soul" is indicative of mind and body operating without the effective operation of the spirit

Ok, I think you are clear about what you mean.

But there is "the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience" > in Ephesians 2:2. And I understand there are various emotions and drives and ways of reacting which are in Satan's evil spirit of selfishness. And it appears that humans without Jesus do experience these nasty and negative driving desires and ways of reacting to not getting their own way.

And these things seem to effect people's minds and mess people's minds up, and their personalities which include their hearts which are spiritual in depth, not only physical, with their desires and preferences.

So, even if an unbeliever's spirit is love-dead, it can be conscious, I would say, so a person's spiritual heart can experience desires and bad ways of reacting to not getting his or her own way.

And . . . @gaara4158 > about your question, then, I would say humans do have a nonmaterial level of consciousness. And what might help confirm it is at a spiritual level is how humans can have such high-level brain development, yet be so poor at dealing with even reality right in our faces; because there is an evil spiritual being driving us and wasting us for pleasure, so we can fail to be sensitive and objective as well as our brain's development could function with us.

Also, there is word that material medications can not cure a personality disorder. This can match with there being a spiritual depth to personality, which can not be changed in its nature by physical things.

But God is able, by the way, to change our nature, at the spiritual depth of our personality. And the Bible has plenty related to this.

 

[devolved]

It does seem presumptive to assume axiomatically that all experience is caused by brain function, but I hope that’s not what I’m actually doing. I’m trying to assume a more skeptical position, one which finds no reason to believe that which is not demonstrated.

It's more of a positivist approach rather than a skeptical one. And positivism and skepticism can't reside in the same conceptual continuum. Positivism claims certainty, while skepticism denies it. But, I'm not sure why you would think that one is superior to another in this context? Metaphysics is a realm of philosophical coherence. If you are going to let positivism drive you, then of course you have to cut off virtually everything that doesn't fall into the bucket of your "readily available and repeatable experience".

But you experience self, right? Or you are aware of that conscious observer that you are associate with self. Yet, you can't demonstrate that to me. You can't really demonstrate that you are not merely a reflexive zombie that merely mimics human conscious response.

So, a more skeptical position IMO would be the opposite of what you promote as skepticism.

This makes it difficult to believe in an (indemonstrable) immaterial soul, whereas because we can at least correlate certain brain states with cognitive function/experience, there is some indication of a plausible causal relationship.

I think you get lost in the scientific semantics, and you miss that it's contextualized in subjective and aggregate perception that you get to chunk up into various abstracts and label and correlate these into some coherent manner.

In reality we never "see" or "observe" the models that are painted by science. Science describes regularity through word-pictures. And regularity is useful to us, but these conceptual models are not real in a sense that these are abstract models that correlate expected ratios of something in some specific context.

When context is unspecified and conceptual, there's nothing you can reference, except for some intuitive axioms that we get to make before we even get to do science.

The concept of the soul is intuitive largely due to inner-subjective experience, which shouldn't be there, given materialistic assumptions, yet there it is. That conscious experience seems to be excessive in materialistic model in which thing follow rules and trajectories, and where there's simply no place for subjective observer.

And the problem is that we can't really replicate it, because we can't know that we've succeeded. If a robot claims to have a conscious experience, there no way to validate that. It may merely reflexively recite programmatic parameters and have no "Cartesian theater" experience that we do, which would be my personal expectation if materialism is a viable assumption.

So, the conscious experience intuitively necessitates "soul" or something equivalent to fuel it.

I know causality is its own metaphysical can of worms, and I don’t think I can defend the hard position that all experience is caused only by brain activity, but what I’m looking for is any reason the inconclusivity of brain research (or anything else) should suggest the presence of an immaterial soul.

Again, immaterial label is irrelevant, because you can't define "material" other through axiomatic assumption about reality as it relates to your perception.

Again, the main setting for the soul is that observer that gets to "play the game", or at least "watch a movie". Again, it's very difficult to find a place for that in strictly bio-mechanical reality.

If we were able, hypothetically, to trace it all back to the brain, it would make the soul, as the title suggests, superfluous. But in the hypothetical situation in which souls exist despite said causal relationship, I suppose there’s no telling what it would or wouldn’t be able to do without the brain.

I agree that it seems superfluous, given materialistic assumptions about who we are. But, until you can explain conscious experience by means of materialistic mechanics, the concept for our body, including the brain, being merely a conduit for conscious experience of aggregate reality by something that may transcend it .... remains both rational and viable assumption.

 

[gaara4158]

It doesn't mean anything to say that usefulness is determined by taking actions with the expectation of specific results based on the premise that X is true that would not be expected if X is not true. Under that definition cutting my leggs off with the expectation that it would make me shorter is useful. It's so intentionally vague that it's meaningless.

I am defining usefulness as predictive reliability. The predictive reliability of any synthetic proposition can be apprehended as long as the proposition has detectable and opposing consequences if true or false. We can test for those consequences from within our skeptical-solipsistic bubble to determine the usefulness of these propositions. That doesn't mean that every predictively reliable proposition has a practical or wise application in everyday life, nor that any single useful belief is sufficient on which to base an important decision. I'm not being intentionally vague, I'm demonstrating a principle that allows us to make inquiries without assuming substance dualism, which you had claimed was impossible.

But what unavoidably follows from logic and the presence of subjective experience is itself a series of proposition claims. So is the claim that the propositions justify themselves. Any claim will be bracketed requiring a truth proposition ahead of it. Proposition{pragmatism}. There is no {pragmatism+pragmatism}. Only proposition{pragmatism+pragmatism}. There is simply no avoiding that no matter how vague things are made. They are either too vague to mean anything, or require sequences of true proposition claims.

Yes, and that's fine, because this paradigm does not prohibit the direct examination of all proposition claims. Only those specifically about external reality. Logical necessities and incorrigible subjective experiences are embraced as true. What follows from them, then, can also be embraced as true. This is how we can secure truths about what is "useful" to believe and what is not without needing or claiming to have the same "truth" apprehension on external reality that we have on our incorrigible experiences.

If, after reading this, you still feel there is some sort of self-refutation inherent to my position, please make it clear exactly why you think so and why it is not also inherent to yours.

 

[devolved]

It almost sounds like you’re describing souls as a social/human construct. Is that too far off?

All labeled experience is a human/social construct. What we call a "soul" is first and foremost a subjective experience of self that we tend to delineate from experiencing body or external reality.

 

[Sanoy]

I am defining usefulness as predictive reliability. The predictive reliability of any synthetic proposition can be apprehended as long as the proposition has detectable and opposing consequences if true or false. We can test for those consequences from within our skeptical-solipsistic bubble to determine the usefulness of these propositions. That doesn't mean that every predictively reliable proposition has a practical or wise application in everyday life, nor that any single useful belief is sufficient on which to base an important decision. I'm not being intentionally vague, I'm demonstrating a principle that allows us to make inquiries without assuming substance dualism, which you had claimed was impossible.


Yes, and that's fine, because this paradigm does not prohibit the direct examination of all proposition claims. Only those specifically about external reality. Logical necessities and incorrigible subjective experiences are embraced as true. What follows from them, then, can also be embraced as true. This is how we can secure truths about what is "useful" to believe and what is not without needing or claiming to have the same "truth" apprehension on external reality that we have on our incorrigible experiences.

If, after reading this, you still feel there is some sort of self-refutation inherent to my position, please make it clear exactly why you think so and why it is not also inherent to yours.

There are no synthetic propositions under pragmatism, only analytic propositions. Synthetic propositions refer to truth statements about the way the world really is.

If "what follows from our subjective experience is to be embraced as true," then the external world is embraced as true because our experience of it is one where we feel it is true. You already have correspondence with no need for the vague and time consuming metric of usefulness.

I still think that a belief that "true belief is that which corresponds to reality" is more useful than the belief in pragmatism. If "true" belief is merely those beliefs that correspond to usefulness, then the belief that true belief is that which corresponds to reality is more useful since that belief entails the first belief, it entails the largest set of relevant facts, and would permit a belief that corresponds to reality. In other words the definition is self refuting as the belief itself fails to be the more useful belief.

We are talking about this because of it's effect on the abductive case. If we are talking about usefulness, then epiphenominalism is gone. Something has to do something to be useful, and epiphenominalism does nothing. Emergent materialism is not demonstrated, nor does it appear to be in any position to be demonstrated. That leaves substance dualism which has followed from our intuitions for millennia. And since 'what follows from our subjective experience is to be embraced as true' we should also embrace substance dualism as true.

 

[gaara4158]

It's more of a positivist approach rather than a skeptical one. And positivism and skepticism can't reside in the same conceptual continuum. Positivism claims certainty, while skepticism denies it. But, I'm not sure why you would think that one is superior to another in this context? Metaphysics is a realm of philosophical coherence. If you are going to let positivism drive you, then of course you have to cut off virtually everything that doesn't fall into the bucket of your "readily available and repeatable experience".

It may be that I’m mislabeling things. I’m undereducated in philosophy so I am sometimes apt to use the colloquial meaning of something in a technical context unintentionally, and I know what havoc that causes in discussions of science so I apologize for that. What I can tell you with a little more confidence is that I’ve been running with pragmatism as a primary epistemology. I don’t claim certainty in anything but that which can be considered “privileged” or incorrigible information about my present personal experience and logical necessities. I draw inferences from there with a reduced degree of certainty. So when I say something is “demonstrated,” to me that means I’ve been shown a logical proof or a sufficient degree of empirical evidence to infer that it’s true.

I like this better because I don’t have to make a priori assumptions that aren’t already self-evident. At least that’s how it looks to me. Feel free to tear it apart.

But you experience self, right? Or you are aware of that conscious observer that you are associate with self. Yet, you can't demonstrate that to me. You can't really demonstrate that you are not merely a reflexive zombie that merely mimics human conscious response.

I couldn’t demonstrate it to you, no. As far as I know there’s no way for anyone under any paradigm to demonstrate the existence of their own experience to another. But my experience is self-evident to me, and that’s what I’m concerned with. Demonstrating things to myself.

The concept of the soul is intuitive largely due to inner-subjective experience, which shouldn't be there, given materialistic assumptions, yet there it is. That conscious experience seems to be excessive in materialistic model in which thing follow rules and trajectories, and where there's simply no place for subjective observer.

And the problem is that we can't really replicate it, because we can't know that we've succeeded. If a robot claims to have a conscious experience, there no way to validate that. It may merely reflexively recite programmatic parameters and have no "Cartesian theater" experience that we do, which would be my personal expectation if materialism is a viable assumption.

So, the conscious experience intuitively necessitates "soul" or something equivalent to fuel it.

I’m ok with accepting the existence of the soul as “self” or “ego,” but the main concern of the OP is whether that self continues on in some sense without the hardware. I don’t see how materialism (especially non-reductive materialism), necessarily prohibits an emergent self, but I’m sure you can enlighten me.

 

[devolved]

What I can tell you with a little more confidence is that I’ve been running with pragmatism as a primary epistemology. I don’t claim certainty in anything but that which can be considered “privileged” or incorrigible information about my present personal experience and logical necessities. I draw inferences from there with a reduced degree of certainty.

Well, I can't really comment on your preferences. It's a free country . All I can say is that both logic and whatever epistemological framework you adopt will be built on intuitive foundation, and these are not superior to that foundation in some settings that are dealing with foundational concepts.

A lot of times I see these conversations happening at the level way "down the assumption chain" with all of the pre-formulated rules and axioms and what one can and can't do, and it can be counter-productive to constantly tell people that we are discussing foundational concepts and assumptions that these rules don't apply to. You can't prove logic with logic, just like you can't logically distill God. God is largely an intuitive concept that one frames as foundational, and then moves on to build a framework for experience that's derived from that foundation.

Religion, in a sense, isn't less pragmatic than science. It's actually more pragmatic. It's dealing with different facet of human experience, hence it's more foundational than it is "logical". It structures its own version of logic, and you see a bunch of people in different threads argue to no end utilizing it and re-framing it. So, you can't really make appeals to logic as the sole means of arriving at viable truths, because you have to get to logic somehow without logic being present. And that's the sort of pragmatic and intuitive foundations hat we rely on.

So when I say something is “demonstrated,” to me that means I’ve been shown a logical proof or a sufficient degree of empirical evidence to infer that it’s true.

Overwhelming majority of your knowledge framework is not driven by demonstration, but rather by provisional trust in the system that you inherit and the intuitive coherence that you get from one claim or another. Some claims may sound viable and logical, and even seemingly demonstrable until these are shown to be false. And some valid claims can't be readily repeatable or demonstrable.

Hence, you can't really pin epistemology on logic and empiricism. It's viable and helpful in certain setting, but it's not anyway superior in all settings where we have to make educated guesses about the nature reality.

I’m ok with accepting the existence of the soul as “self” or “ego,” but the main concern of the OP is whether that self continues on in some sense without the hardware. I don’t see how materialism (especially non-reductive materialism), necessarily prohibits an emergent self, but I’m sure you can enlighten me.

I see Ego as a persona that's constructed overtime by a wide variety of cultural layers that solidify in "functional identity". And we can model that ego in various ways, but that's not the "self" that I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the conscious observer that gets to identify with memories, but who doesn't need memories to be there and experience reality. Hence, it's not really the concept of ego at it relates to the brain functions.

We can paint various models, both monistic and dualistic, but the moment you separate observer from observed... you are already in a conceptual dualism territory. The philosophical dualism isn't that far off.

As far as the "immortality" concept of the soul, I think we can couple that and throw it into the category of the immortality of humanity in general. I know it's a weird way to thinking about it, but you can have a range from Souls survive death with all of the memories, which most of the Evangelical and Catholic, and even Islamic world holds to, with exceptions like Adventism and its kinds that propose "soul sleep" with your "state" being "saved" in God's memory and then recalled at the resurrection (which actually runs along the lines of simulation hypothesis).

My view is a bit closer to our experience, but I do think that there is a guiding mechanism in our reality that both arranges the matter based on viable attributes, and that manages complexity of reality, and likewise observes and experiences that reality at various "fractal levels" of that experience. It's difficult to summarize in a paragraph, but I don't have a lot of time these days for extremely long posts.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Alright, we have some very thoughtful responses here that have brought to my attention how very simplistic and limited my initial conception of souls as ghost-things that leave the body and continue to experience things after death has been. Thank you all for the time and attention you have afforded my thesis, I will be taking some time to digest it all and adjust accordingly.

No matter how much they spin it, Christians believe that they will be reincarnated (1 Corinthians 15:35-38) on another planet (Revelation 21:1). This requires that their essence of self is immortal and immaterial. So we're talking about a soul in the colloquial sense. What did you read that made you rethink that?