The human soul - it's time to get to the bottom of this

[semaphore]

Does control (free will, consciousness, etc) even exist?

Well, one can say we have an illusion of free will.

If No: Then it is safe to assume that we can't effect change on the world around us to the degree that would be required to perform scientific scrutiny.

That is not true. A nuke has no free will, detonate it in a city and it will certainly change the world. We are bound to act as our biology dictates, but we can still cause changes.

That is to say that in order for our science to be valid, we must accept reality as it seems to be. We seem to have free will, which would mean that science must be done under the assumption that everything we observe is through the work of a freely operating and conscious mind.

Now I'm just lost. My original point is that souls have not been scientifically observed. You seem to be talking about just consciousness. I'm fine with calling that your soul, but it's not really what is normally meant.

[vinnyboombat]

Pretty sure you're not going to get to the bottom of the existence of a soul by posting a gaming fan forum.

[Deleted]

Not everyone is born with reason, since it's a process of education.
Reason and logic are great tools to evaluate your judgment.
But so is our soul.
Our soul is what grabs our guts when you see a little kitty in pain so that we feel the urge to save it.
What makes you dream about something you want to achieve in life.

Saying "the soul doesn't exist prove me wrong" is yet another stupid expression of this "fundamentalist securalism" we found ourselves in now.

[Deleted]

Then what is the mechanism for contentment, or satisfaction, or pride, or the myriad other varieties of feelings?

A myriad of different hormones and neurological activities. Go study neurology if you want to learn how your brain works on the molecular level.

The fact is neurologists can use brain imaging to distinguish between different emotions a person experiences. Which proves emotions are material.

There are some that suggest the soul is the part of the brain that is at the quantum level.

People suggest all kinds of silly things.

Especially about quantum mechanics, since it's conceptually so complicated, it presents a fertile ground for fantasy.

Without evidence such suggestions are meaningless.

---------- Post added 2012-08-17 at 05:27 PM ----------

Pretty sure you're not going to get to the bottom of the existence of a soul by posting a gaming fan forum.

Gonna get exactly as far as anywhere else, though - nowhere.

[Dendrek]

So then if space is expanding, reason stands that time is moving backwards

o.O
-.-
>.>

[Mugafo]

show me one piece of evidence that they don't exist then.

if i say "elephants don't exist" i'm expected to prove that.

Do flying pink unicorns exist? No? Well, prove they don't... Argument from ignorance fallacies are bad...mmmkay?

I see the term soul as nothing more than a creation of man to comfort the dying. I guess some people find comfort in thinking that after they die, they will continue on forever.

[Albert the fish]

A myriad of different hormones and neurological activities. Go study neurology if you want to learn how your brain works on the molecular level.

The fact is neurologists can use brain imaging to distinguish between different emotions a person experiences. Which proves emotions are material.

neuropsychology technically, but yes.
they are even starting to find evidence that neuropsychology can pull images from the brain suggesting that imagination is chemical in origin as well.
neuropsychology is still sort of in its infancy as a science though, neat stuff however.

although to be fair this doesn't necessarily mean that emotions don't exist as we've always thought them to, just that there is a distinct biochemical aspect that appears to be at least partially(if not fully) responsible for the experience of emotion. maybe something more esoteric causes those biochemical reactions, it's not terribly likely, but it's possible and that's science.

[Ferg]

No, it's based on the fact that there is absolutely no proof of anything like a soul, and plenty against it. Swing and a miss, friend.

If that wasn't an assumption, Atheism would be seen as factual, and organized religion would be universally viewed as false.

Seeing as that isn't the case, I don't think you hit the ball either, friend.

[Albert the fish]

Do flying pink unicorns exist? No? Well, prove they don't... Argument from ignorance fallacies are bad...mmmkay?

I see the term soul as nothing more than a creation of man to comfort the dying. I guess some people find comfort in thinking that after they die, they will continue on forever.

we're long long past that comment. read the thread.

[Deadvolcanoes]

Belief vs. Knowledge.

There is absolutely no evidence for the existence of defined soul, so there is absolutely no reason we should believe one exists.

Do we know with 100% certainty. No.

I guess we also have to accept the possibility that an invisible troll lives on my shoulder, since we dont know for certain that one doesnt.

[ptwonline]

The "soul" is simply an unscientific placeholder we use because we do not understand the concepts of consciousness and self-awareness, and because we are afraid of death. Very much like how gods and spirits have always been placeholders for things we do not understand in the universe around us.

[cFortyfive]

Good entertainment here but the only thing substantial was about cheese.

[schwarzkopf]

Emotions is real because it is observable. Show me an observation of the soul.

Emotions are not material - and not entirely explainable. That is the problem with your question.

I think the problem here is that the word 'soul' and been tainted with meanings beyond what the OP's question is asking.

As such, it becomes very difficult to talk rationally about it given the two extreme views on either side of what is in reality a very interesting philosophical and meta-physical discussion.

[semaphore]

This is The Cosmological Argument http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument or First Cause argument.

It's an utterly retarded argument. What caused the first cause?

---------- Post added 2012-08-17 at 03:50 PM ----------

Emotions are not material - and not entirely explainable. That is the problem with your question.

Emotions are the result of biochemistry. We can see material effects of it, in scans of the brain for instance. Even if we don't entirely understand it, to appeal to that is no more than an argument from ignorance.

The soul, on the other hand, has zero evidence substantiating it.

[caninepawprints]

Science proved there is a soul by measuring the weight of it. The soul weighs 3/4 of an ounce. I'm surprised people don't know about this and then claim there isn't such a thing as a soul. The soul was weighed by Dr. Michael MacDougall in 1907.

According to Sylvia Brown, a well-known psychic, the soul enters the body shortly before birth. So no, an embryo doesn't have a soul, and the fetus doesn't have a soul either until it's about a month away from being born.

In short, yes, I believe everyone has a soul. I believe animals have souls. I don't need to prove it because it doesn't matter if you believe in it or not.

For further reading: http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp

[schwarzkopf]

Without evidence such suggestions are meaningless.

Without evidence is how most of our science started, some fool suggested we moved around the sun, then proceeded to investigate.

Back then it was the church saying such suggestions are meaningless, now it is scientists.

Talking about something should be welcome, not dismissed by any open minded person.

The soul, the essence of our humanity - can and should be discussed, and discussed separately from religion or atheism or those divisive topics.

[Larynx]

There's not a single bit of evidence for it's existence, therefore this thread is equivalent to the "Have you been abducted?" or "is the Loch Ness Monster real?" threads.

There's nothing to get to the bottom of, sadly.

[Deleted]

The soul, on the other hand, has zero evidence substantiating it.

Show me that soul DOESN'T exist and I believe you.

[Larynx]

Without evidence is how most of our science started, some fool suggested we moved around the sun, then proceeded to investigate.

Back then it was the church saying such suggestions are meaningless, now it is scientists.

Talking about something should be welcome, not dismissed by any open minded person.

The soul, the essence of our humanity - can and should be discussed, and discussed separately from religion or atheism or those divisive topics.

If you want to discuss it, an internet board isn't how you should be going about it. Just saying.

[semaphore]

Science proved there is a soul by measuring the weight of it.

No it didn't. Read your own source.

It would take a great deal of credulity to conclude that MacDougall's experiments demonstrated anything about post-mortem weight loss, much less the quantifiable existence of the human soul. For one thing, his results were far from consistent, varying widely across his half-dozen test cases:

"[S]uddenly coincident with death . . . the loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of an ounce."

"The weight lost was found to be half an ounce. Then my colleague auscultated the heart and found it stopped. I tried again and the loss was one ounce and a half and fifty grains."

"My third case showed a weight of half an ounce lost, coincident with death, and an additional loss of one ounce a few minutes later."

"In the fourth case unfortunately our scales were not finely adjusted and there was a good deal of interference by people opposed to our work . . . I regard this test as of no value."

"My fifth case showed a distinct drop in the beam requiring about three-eighths of an ounce which could not be accounted for. This occurred exactly simultaneously with death but peculiarly on bringing the beam up again with weights and later removing them, the beam did not sink back to stay for fully fifteen minutes."

"My sixth and last case was not a fair test. The patient died almost within five minutes after being placed upon the bed and died while I was adjusting the beam."

So, out of six tests, two had to be discarded, one showed an immediate drop in weight (and nothing more), two showed an immediate drop in weight which increased with the passage of time, and one showed an immediate drop in weight which reversed itself but later recurred. And even these results cannot be accepted at face value as the potential for experimental error was extremely high, especially since MacDougall and his colleagues often had difficulty in determining the precise moment of death, one of the key factors in their experiments. (MacDougall later attempted to explain away the timing discrepancies by concluding that "the soul's weight is removed from the body virtually at the instant of last breath, though in persons of sluggish temperament it may remain in the body for a full minute.")

Dr. MacDougall admitted in his journal article that his experiments would have to repeated many times with similar results before any conclusions could be drawn from them