Ron_Tomkins
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Does the soul exist?
- Thread starter Perpetual Seeker
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JoeEllison
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Ahhh, yes... the massive stupidity of the ancient Hebrews, and the idiot Christians who followed them. We can dismiss their writings as the product of ignorance and superstition. Do you have anything real to add to the thread, beyond the imaginings of ancient ignorant and superstitious people?
My rejection of the soul came from the study of science, and relates to the question of life
The first shock came with the study of bacteria, when I learned about lyophilization. Take a bacterial culture, add 10% glycerol, freeze it in liquid nitrogen, and then sublime the water. You're left with a dry powder that you can store at room temperature indefinitely. It doesn't metabolize, reproduce, move. It just sits there, for all intents and purposes dead. Add water, and it becomes living bacteria again, just like before you froze it.
Then there are viruses. The simplest are little pieces of DNA or RNA in a protein coat. No machinery to reproduce, respire, move. Bind them to a receptor in a cell, they get internalized, take over the cell's machinery, and start cranking out copies. Are they live? are they dead? If they aren't dead, how do we "kill" viruses to make vaccines?
Then I learned about all the stuff in between. The obligate intracellular parasites, that look like cells but lack the ability to grow on their own: sort of like a half-cell, half virus. Or the defective viruses like Hepatitis D. It's not even a complete virus: it can only reproduce if coinfected with hepatitis B. Or transposable elements, which act sort of like viruses inside a cell, and can "jump" from one site on the DNA to another, but couldn't independently transfer between cells. Or plasmids, little mini-chromosomes, some of which can code for their own transfer and some of which just hitch along with the cell's machinery. Just about any way there was for a piece of genetic material to reproduce and disseminate itself, it existed somewhere in nature. Life and death, it seems, was not a black and white thing.
So what does that have to do with the soul? Well, the second shock to my beliefs came when I started to think about embryology, in particular IVF and the quintessential question in the abortion debate: when does human life begin?
Take an fertilized cell. grow it up to the 64 cell stage. Is it alive? certainly. Now split it into 4 embryos. Each can now grow into a complete organism. Or remove a few cells. You could grow them into a new embryo, or destroy them for genetic testing. You probably see where this is going: does the first embryo have a soul? if so, did I create new souls when I split it, and destroy one when I did the genetic testing?
We can go one step further. After the embryos have split, we can fuse 2 back together. They will grow up into a single organism, a mosaic of the two original embryos. Did I destroy one of the souls? Did I create a hybrid soul, half of each?
And just to bring everything full circle (almost). I can now take those embryos, mix them with glycerol, and freeze them in liquid nitrogen. I can't suck out the water and bring them back to life like I can with bacteria, but I can keep them suspended, frozen, inert, not metabolizing, not dividing, for years. For all intents and purposes dead. And then thaw them out and bring them back to life.
One final set of experiments. We certainly have the technology to synthesize a virus. We could synthesize a piece of DNA in the laboratory, synthesize the protein capsule in the laboratory, mix them together in the right conditions, and I have no doubt that the virus we created would be just as functional as the "natural" virus that we copied. Clearly, doing the same with the much more complex bacterial cell would be a technically much more difficult task, but I have little doubt that if we could get the DNA, protein, lipids, ATP, etc. all assembled correctly that our cell would be just a viable as any bacteria. I don't think we need any good fairy to wave a wand to bring it to life. And although a human cell would be another order of magnitude or two more difficult than a bacteria, I have no doubt that if we could get all the molecules in the right places we could create a living human cell as well.
So where is the soul supposed to live? If humans are supposed to have them from the time that the cell is fertilized, as the pro-life advocates would like us to believe, then don't I have to believe that dog embryos have souls as well, and then why not bacteria? What is special about a set of chemical reactions that it spontaneously creates a metaphysical soul, especially one that lives on after the chemical processes that created it have ceased?
I couldn't think of a good answer, and was thus forced to discard the concept entirely.
Sorry, that's the best I can do at 2 AM. I hope it makes sense in the morning.
The first shock came with the study of bacteria, when I learned about lyophilization. Take a bacterial culture, add 10% glycerol, freeze it in liquid nitrogen, and then sublime the water. You're left with a dry powder that you can store at room temperature indefinitely. It doesn't metabolize, reproduce, move. It just sits there, for all intents and purposes dead. Add water, and it becomes living bacteria again, just like before you froze it.
Then there are viruses. The simplest are little pieces of DNA or RNA in a protein coat. No machinery to reproduce, respire, move. Bind them to a receptor in a cell, they get internalized, take over the cell's machinery, and start cranking out copies. Are they live? are they dead? If they aren't dead, how do we "kill" viruses to make vaccines?
Then I learned about all the stuff in between. The obligate intracellular parasites, that look like cells but lack the ability to grow on their own: sort of like a half-cell, half virus. Or the defective viruses like Hepatitis D. It's not even a complete virus: it can only reproduce if coinfected with hepatitis B. Or transposable elements, which act sort of like viruses inside a cell, and can "jump" from one site on the DNA to another, but couldn't independently transfer between cells. Or plasmids, little mini-chromosomes, some of which can code for their own transfer and some of which just hitch along with the cell's machinery. Just about any way there was for a piece of genetic material to reproduce and disseminate itself, it existed somewhere in nature. Life and death, it seems, was not a black and white thing.
So what does that have to do with the soul? Well, the second shock to my beliefs came when I started to think about embryology, in particular IVF and the quintessential question in the abortion debate: when does human life begin?
Take an fertilized cell. grow it up to the 64 cell stage. Is it alive? certainly. Now split it into 4 embryos. Each can now grow into a complete organism. Or remove a few cells. You could grow them into a new embryo, or destroy them for genetic testing. You probably see where this is going: does the first embryo have a soul? if so, did I create new souls when I split it, and destroy one when I did the genetic testing?
We can go one step further. After the embryos have split, we can fuse 2 back together. They will grow up into a single organism, a mosaic of the two original embryos. Did I destroy one of the souls? Did I create a hybrid soul, half of each?
And just to bring everything full circle (almost). I can now take those embryos, mix them with glycerol, and freeze them in liquid nitrogen. I can't suck out the water and bring them back to life like I can with bacteria, but I can keep them suspended, frozen, inert, not metabolizing, not dividing, for years. For all intents and purposes dead. And then thaw them out and bring them back to life.
One final set of experiments. We certainly have the technology to synthesize a virus. We could synthesize a piece of DNA in the laboratory, synthesize the protein capsule in the laboratory, mix them together in the right conditions, and I have no doubt that the virus we created would be just as functional as the "natural" virus that we copied. Clearly, doing the same with the much more complex bacterial cell would be a technically much more difficult task, but I have little doubt that if we could get the DNA, protein, lipids, ATP, etc. all assembled correctly that our cell would be just a viable as any bacteria. I don't think we need any good fairy to wave a wand to bring it to life. And although a human cell would be another order of magnitude or two more difficult than a bacteria, I have no doubt that if we could get all the molecules in the right places we could create a living human cell as well.
So where is the soul supposed to live? If humans are supposed to have them from the time that the cell is fertilized, as the pro-life advocates would like us to believe, then don't I have to believe that dog embryos have souls as well, and then why not bacteria? What is special about a set of chemical reactions that it spontaneously creates a metaphysical soul, especially one that lives on after the chemical processes that created it have ceased?
I couldn't think of a good answer, and was thus forced to discard the concept entirely.
Sorry, that's the best I can do at 2 AM. I hope it makes sense in the morning.
Perpetual Seeker
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gdnp, that's a wonderful explanation, and makes a lot of sense. I'm not well-versed in biology, so am not familiar with such things.
SusanB-M1
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John Freestone #6
Very interesting post. Have you had a glance at, for instance, the British Humanist Association's web site?
I think I'll come back to this topic later.
ETA As so often happens with JREF, I find that, having read through the thread, I admire very much the way everyone else has said it all so much better
Very interesting post. Have you had a glance at, for instance, the British Humanist Association's web site?
I think I'll come back to this topic later.
ETA As so often happens with JREF, I find that, having read through the thread, I admire very much the way everyone else has said it all so much better
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SusanB-M1
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Most definitely agree.
Prometheus
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Perpetual Seeker
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Beautifully poetic, but what is this supposed to mean? Do you mean literally in the heart, or some poetic or spiritual definition of the heart? What makes you think this, anyway?
Frozenwolf150
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I also find it funny that he takes every opportunity to treat other forum members with such venomous contempt, but then turns right around and whines about persecution whenever someone expresses a sentiment of skepticism towards biblical literalism. (On a side note, the ancient Hebrews wrote separate historical documents, some of which are even mentioned in the OT itself for further reading. The scripture itself was primarily concerned with religious laws and stories, and how they related to certain figures, historical or fictional.) His point is still moot, because you can define the soul however you like in order to exempt it from the logical constraints of the original question, regardless of the definition being addressed. Strange that someone who believes that execution and genocide are no worse than "suspended animation" because the people could just be "resurrected" later would argue against the type of soul that survives death.
Strange that someone who believes that execution and genocide are no worse than "suspended animation" because the people could just be "resurrected" later would argue against the type of soul that survives death.
Well, one can never accuse them of being bad at contradicting themselves
Perpetual Seeker
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The thing I wonder is why so many religions or otherwise spiritual belief systems have had the idea of a soul. It obviously predates christianity, because I am well aware that at least the Egyptians believed in it. Today, I know of few religions that don't have some concept of an eternal soul.
That doesn't mean, of course, that it is true, it is simply an interesting phenomenon. I suppose that people don't want to think about their consciousness blinking out of existence, so they all invariably formulate some idea of an eternal aspect that moves on afterwards.
I've been reading the hpc thread, but have only finished 5 pages so far. It's unfortunate that those who say there is a hard problem of consciousness seem to be attacked by those who don't, accused of clinging onto some wishful thinking about a soul, etc, while it seems to me a perfectly valid question. I'm certainly pretty sure my computer doesn't think, or doesn't have conscious experience or a sense of self, as I do, so the question arises what exactly creates these phenomena. It may be, though, that some specific organization of molecules creates consciousness, and that other molecules build on top of that to build more complex consciousness, such as that in humans. I would argue then that there must be some common denominator in all life, that can be found to at least create some awareness.
The problem is that some say that we can model consciousness with AI, etc, but there's a huge difference between acting like you have consciousness, and actually having it. AI chess programs certainly act convincingly like a conscious chess player, but I don't know if anyone would argue that they are actually conscious. Someone said that we would still be arguing this when robots are fighting for their rights, which is amusing to think about, but what's the difference between them being conscious of such and coming to a conscious decision they should do so, or just doing so because they compute it to be something they could do, due to their programming?
Anyway, I'd be curious if there indeed is a common denominator among all life that is said to have at least the most basic form of awareness. The question is where the line is drawn as to what actually has awareness, and I don't quite know. We could say it is anything that reacts to its environment in any significant way.
I'm not saying any of the above means there is a soul. These are just interesting questions regarding consciousness, that beg answering when one realizes there indeed probably is not a soul.
That doesn't mean, of course, that it is true, it is simply an interesting phenomenon. I suppose that people don't want to think about their consciousness blinking out of existence, so they all invariably formulate some idea of an eternal aspect that moves on afterwards.
I've been reading the hpc thread, but have only finished 5 pages so far. It's unfortunate that those who say there is a hard problem of consciousness seem to be attacked by those who don't, accused of clinging onto some wishful thinking about a soul, etc, while it seems to me a perfectly valid question. I'm certainly pretty sure my computer doesn't think, or doesn't have conscious experience or a sense of self, as I do, so the question arises what exactly creates these phenomena. It may be, though, that some specific organization of molecules creates consciousness, and that other molecules build on top of that to build more complex consciousness, such as that in humans. I would argue then that there must be some common denominator in all life, that can be found to at least create some awareness.
The problem is that some say that we can model consciousness with AI, etc, but there's a huge difference between acting like you have consciousness, and actually having it. AI chess programs certainly act convincingly like a conscious chess player, but I don't know if anyone would argue that they are actually conscious. Someone said that we would still be arguing this when robots are fighting for their rights, which is amusing to think about, but what's the difference between them being conscious of such and coming to a conscious decision they should do so, or just doing so because they compute it to be something they could do, due to their programming?
Anyway, I'd be curious if there indeed is a common denominator among all life that is said to have at least the most basic form of awareness. The question is where the line is drawn as to what actually has awareness, and I don't quite know. We could say it is anything that reacts to its environment in any significant way.
I'm not saying any of the above means there is a soul. These are just interesting questions regarding consciousness, that beg answering when one realizes there indeed probably is not a soul.
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Prometheus
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Is there? What exactly is this difference, if it exists? How is it measured?
Perpetual Seeker
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Would you say that your computer is conscious?
I would argue that it is not.
Does it have a sense of self? I'm pretty sure it doesn't. Does it know it is experiencing? I can't imagine how it does.
I don't know, to me it's a little like calling the model of something the real thing.
Prometheus
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It doesn't really matter whether I would say it or not. My say so has got nothing to do with what may or may not be going on inside the computer. This is an argument from incredulity.
I doubt my computer is conscious, mainly because I don't see any evidence of it behaving as if it were. If you think about it for a little while, it's really not hard to see that a computer is really nothing like a human being so it's not really odd that it doesn't act like one. But not being or acting human is not necessarily part or parcel of being conscious. I'm pretty sure my parakeet is conscious, in some limited way. He's sure not as smart as I am (I hope), but what's that got to do with it? If I'm right, then consciousness must be some sort of continuum rather than an either/or possibility. Perhaps my computer is just a lot less conscious than my bird.
But the main point of all this is that, as far as we know, there isn't any way to tell for sure. I can never even know for sure if another human is conscious (Terry Schiavo, for instance). And I don't need to know. Other people tend to behave within a certain, highly complex, but predictable set of behaviours (this does not mean that any one action can be predicted, necessarily, but that, for instance I can be reasonably certain my wife will not behave like a table). I term this set of possible behaviours "human consciousness", and I say that anyone acting in this way is acting as though he were conscious.
Perpetual Seeker
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True enough.
I agree. The question then becomes what exactly is acting like one is conscious? I still propose that it at least includes reacting to one's environment.
True, as well. I don't know where the line can be drawn, though. If we don't even have a baseline of consciousness, then it's nearly impossible to find what actually causes consciousness. Are bacteria conscious?
True. But if someone creates something that acts in this way, does it necessarily mean it is conscious? I don't think so. I don't think it is possible to know whether it is conscious or not. Of course, if one asks it, it will respond that it is conscious, but that could either mean it actually is, or it was programmed to say so.
Brian-M
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I'm just saying that I regard the idea of the 'soul' as synonymous to that of 'mind', with superstitions attached. Do you really need an explanation of mind? If so, I regard the mind as a type of complex informational process. For a full explanation, I'm sure there's lots of people who can do a better job of that than I ever could.
By mollusks, I meant bivalves, not cephalopods. Cephalopods are most likely conscious.
godless dave
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What's scary about it?
Looks like you answered your own question there.