Does the Soul Exist?

[rakovsky]

I'm also kind of intrigued by the possibility, suggested as a partial converse of one of the options, that the soul is a legal concept. I only know of one type of person who believes that.

I found that this is one poll in which I can quite honestly and sincerely tick two of the categories and nevertheless also tick the "None of the above" option.

Dave

Dave,

Yes, the concept I think exists in law - a person can be said to exist as a legal person even after he dies. Maybe one example is a perpetual trust. The trust keeps collecting money for the deceased after his/her physical death, and then at some point the legal system registers that the person has died and then the money goes to his/her estate and heirs. And then there are cases of posthumous pardons or posthumous declarations of innocence, etc.

So conceptually the person or soul can exist as distinct from his/her physical body. But it seems that if one is a pure materialist, then the person does not have any real actual existence distinguishable from his body, and the other states of being are only legal and conceptual fictions.

 

[MikeG]

Mike,
The poll system does not allow.........blah...blah......

Tosh.

If you had wanted to produce a reasonable and balanced poll, you are perfectly capable doing it. It seems obvious that you produced the poll you wanted, or you wouldn't have pressed the "Submit" button.

So, I ask again.........why the opaque, dishonest and biased poll? Secondly, who did you expect to fool?

 

[Dave Rogers]

Yes, the concept I think exists in law - a person can be said to exist as a legal person even after he dies. Maybe one example is a perpetual trust. The trust keeps collecting money for the deceased after his/her physical death, and then at some point the legal system registers that the person has died and then the money goes to his/her estate and heirs.

Not a good example. If a person were legally deemed to exist after death, then there would be no reason for such trusts to exist; it's the trust that exercises the privilege of ownership.

And then there are cases of posthumous pardons or posthumous declarations of innocence, etc.

These relate to the historical fact that the person did exist, but the very fact of them being posthumous indicates that the person no longer exists.

So conceptually the person or soul can exist as distinct from his/her physical body.

This is getting as tenuous as Jabba's logic-chopping in the immortality thread; you combine two concepts as alternative descriptions of what you claim is the same thing, then suggest that the defensibility of one of those usages proves the actual existence of the other. It's a very complex and, frankly, rather clumsy implementation of the fallacy of equivocation.

But it seems that if one is a pure materialist, then the person does not have any real actual existence distinguishable from his body, and the other states of being are only legal and conceptual fictions.

And there you go again, combining definitions to try to blur the distinction between them. The soul is not a legal concept, except in the deranged imaginations of the Freeman on the Land movement and its outliers.

And your defense of the poll categories is pathetic, frankly. You chose "Does the Soul Exist?" as a thread title. How intelligent would one have to be to realise that one possible answer to this was "No, the soul does not exist," and offer it as an option in the poll?

Dave

 

[rakovsky]

I’m entirely a materialist, and I too wonder about the obvious lack of a “no” option and the positive opening statement that simply assumes the existence of a soul.

Hello, Bikewer.

The total "no" option is the last one, "none of the above". If you agree with a statement, press the dot next to it, and if you don't agree with any of the statements or object to the question, press the last button. The poll results will then tally how many people agreed with each statement. So if you don't agree with "I exist", don't check it and then hit the last button. The poll results will then count you into how many users did or did not select the first option.

You are right about the first statement, I should have said "It appears to me that...", and not just "It appears that..."

Thanks for sharing your views, like tracing the idea of spirit to ancient beliefs.

No one to my knowledge has ever bothered to describe how such a thing could exist or how it could function. Mere hand-waves to “Well...It’s spiritual...” Or, silly appeals to “energy can’t be destroyed” which implies an essential misunderstanding of that particular aspect of reality.
How does a soul, with no physical presence whatever, retain memory or accomplish thought? These are the properties of the physical brain. The body devotes some 25% of it’s resources just to maintain consciousness.
How would it continue with no physical support system whatever?

The difficulty in even describing such a thing as the soul, as well as how it could exist and function, is a challenge. Another challenge is describing the experience of first person subjectivity. It is very hard for me to describe my experience and how it differs totally from a third person one. This very sense and experience that "I" exist and that I am distinguishable from my material brain, as opposed to simply the concept that some person exists is something very hard for me to explain in physical terms.

The difficulty in explaining the soul and its existence, as well as the sense of being in the first person state, explaining how it am that "I" am in my body and brain, seems to be reflected in the sense that "I" and the soul are not physical concepts. It may not be possible to explain how such things could exist or function, if "I" don't have a physical presence apart from my body.

Actually there have been attempts to explain in physical terms how a soul could exist, but I am skeptical about those attempts because I doubt that the soul is physical. For example, one attempt located the soul in a specific organ of the body (eg. heart or brain organ), and another attempt proposed that the soul leaving the body at death left the body lighter than before. So one scientist weighed bodies immediately before and after death to find the supposed weight of the soul.

 

[rakovsky]

When you observe someone else's physical body do you consider that evidence of a soul distinct from the body?

Darat,
Based on my own experience and sense of myself as a distinct soul, if I see another person alive and acting like me, it makes me assume that they have a soul too.

However, simply the existence of physical bodies does not itself seem to me to be evidence of souls. A physical body could be dead for years, lacking life, self-animation, or consciousness.

Don't be so certain that your experience is the same for others. It's only recently that I realised there are a huge number of people in the world that can make pictures in their heads! Can you imagine that? They can "see" in their "mind's eye" an image of their loved ones. Or an image of a red apple. Astonishing and totally unlike my "internal" world.

To try this, look at this image a long time:


Then see if you can picture it or imagine what it looks like. It doesn't have to be a 100% match. I can imagine loved ones' appearances and red apples.

Anyway, it's one thing to say that someone has a different kind of experience, and another to say that someone lacks any experience at all and does not exist. If another person exists, then they are a self or observer, and an observer looks at the world in a subjective state of being. Granted, there are disassociated people who would answer "I am not talking to you right now, Bob is". The sentence shows that the person has two personalities, but it doesn't prove that there is not really any observer or self in their head.

 

[MikeG]

Turns out you've got form:

What a useless poll and analysis.

There is more contained in "none of the above" than in the bizarre 3 choices above it, and any objective analysis of the prophecies of the babble should include (at least) "writing them down after they happened", "writing them down after they didn't happen, but pretending they did", and "writing them down and getting them wrong".

Sheesh, it's almost as though the OP is all about seeking confirmation of the poster's unevidenced beliefs. Surely not. No-one would do that here, would they.......

ETA: Any OP that cites Rupert Sheldrake isn't worth reading.

 

[rakovsky]

That's what I was wondering. I could not vote.

I find it surprising that so many people who want to believe in a soul do not consider that the four letters forming a word soul are chosen by humans (different words in different languages of course) to talk about an aspect of ourselves.


Personal incredulity crops up quite a lot I think.

Dear Susan,

In case you don't agree with the statements, such as "I exist", and want to choose "No", for all of them, please select the last option, "None of the Above".

Would you like to say more what you mean by "the four letters forming a word soul are chosen by humans to talk about an aspect of ourselves"?

 

[rakovsky]

In addition to the point made about brain trauma there's drugs too. If I modify my brain function with drugs does my soul temporarily change too?

Possessing 'a soul' is an attractive idea as the idea of total non-existence after death is a little shocking. It's also impossible to visualise nothingness, at least as far as I can see.

Glenn B,
If you take drugs and modify your brain function, you can change your personality, but you don't eliminate your first person subjectivity. The only way that seems to happen is perhaps with a dreamless sleep or death. Otherwise, there is some subject undergoing your life and dreaming, even if the experience is changed by the drugs.

The phenomenon of first person subjectivity is itself curious. Why should some "self" experience anything in the first person if the only reality is physical and material? And why should "I" be that self in Rakovsky? Who am "I", as distinct from my brain? Or do "I" myself not really exist, only "Rakovsky", a physical brain and body really exists?

Is your answer that Yes, "I exist" a physical body typing, but that "I", the "Observer", am an illusion? If so, wouldn't it be only really true that Rakovsky's physical body exists, but that "I" don't really exist, since "I" am an observer?

"Can science explain why I myself am in this body at this moment, as distinct from simply a forum user, Rakovsky, recognizing that he is in his body?"

Your question presumes that you are somehow "in" your body. This requires your "you (soul)" to be a separate entity from your body. In other words the question you pose assumes the correctness of your hypothesis. What you need to test the hypothesis is evidence, not questions that can only confirm your belief.

Being "in" a body could mean that something is a component of the body, and distinguishable from it, but not necessarily separated (as in the idea of the soul separating from the body after death).

Still, I agree that the question "why I myself am in this body at this moment" presupposes that I am somehow in my body. I feel like my question is something that other Selves, Subjects, or Observers might understand, but not something that I can totally prove. How can "I" prove that "I" am in Rakovsky's body, and not eg. a ventriloquist or a hacker who is pretending to be him? How can "I" objectively and directly prove the existence of first person states by using only materialistic terminology?

 

[MikeG]

Dear Susan,

In case you don't agree with the statements, such as "I exist".......

You've already told us that ticking this box means acceptance of the existence of a soul. What option do people who accept that they exist but do not accept the existence of a soul (ie most of us here, I'd warrant) have? You are blatantly trying to trap people into a response they don't agree with, and that is straightforward dishonesty. You really should be ashamed of this mess of a thread.

 

[rakovsky]

Can science explain why I myself am in this body at this moment, as distinct from simply a forum user, Rakovsky, recognizing that he is in his body?

Er um whut?

The presumably subtle difference is?

Fagin,

The difference is in the states of being. I myself being in my body at this moment refers to the subjective state in the first person. A forum user recognizing that he is in his body is in the third person.

My experience of being in the subjective first person does not seem to be something that I can explain, especially as to its ultimate source. I can explain why Rakovsky's brain detects that he exists, but I have trouble explaining how or why I am in Rakovsky's body right now, because the concept of "I" does not seem to be a physical, material one. The state of being "I" seems to be something that only other Selves or Observers can relate to.

 

[rakovsky]

You've already told us that ticking this box means acceptance of the existence of a soul. What option do people who accept that they exist but do not accept the existence of a soul (ie most of us here, I'd warrant) have?

The thread title is not the same thing as the poll question.

The poll question is
Please select the statements with which you would generally agree about yourself.

So if I accepted that "I exist" but did not accept the existence of a soul, I could select "I exist" as a statement that I agree with, since the statement does not mention the existence of a soul.

 

[MikeG]

The thread title is not the same thing as the poll question.

The poll question is
Please select the statements with which you would generally agree about yourself.

So if I accepted that "I exist" but did not accept the existence of a soul, I could select "I exist" as a statement that I agree with, since the statement does not mention the existence of a soul.

But you've already said:

... the no option is the last one.......

So, the other 4 are just alternative "yes" options, and you've just suggested that someone who doesn't think they have a soul should tick one of the options which you already interpret as meaning they accept that they do have a soul.

Why are you being so dishonest?

 

[rakovsky]

Not a good example. If a person were legally deemed to exist after death, then there would be no reason for such trusts to exist; it's the trust that exercises the privilege of ownership.



These relate to the historical fact that the person did exist, but the very fact of them being posthumous indicates that the person no longer exists.



This is getting as tenuous as Jabba's logic-chopping in the immortality thread; you combine two concepts as alternative descriptions of what you claim is the same thing, then suggest that the defensibility of one of those usages proves the actual existence of the other. It's a very complex and, frankly, rather clumsy implementation of the fallacy of equivocation.



And there you go again, combining definitions to try to blur the distinction between them. The soul is not a legal concept, except in the deranged imaginations of the Freeman on the Land movement and its outliers.

Now we have court decisions claiming that the corporation is a legal person. This is an example of the concept of a person being a legal fiction. A corporation is not actually a real person.

And your defense of the poll categories is pathetic, frankly. You chose "Does the Soul Exist?" as a thread title. How intelligent would one have to be to realise that one possible answer to this was "No, the soul does not exist," and offer it as an option in the poll?

If the person addresses the question "Does the Soul Exist?" in the negative, he/she would leave empty the box for the statement
"I have a soul that exists in reality". After selecting the other statements with which he agrees (including None of the Above if applicable), the poll then calculates how many persons did not agree with the statement "I have a soul that exists in reality." Currently, only 5 persons (15.63%) agree.

 

[MikeG]

Here you are, rakovsky. How difficult was that?

 

[MikeG]

.......
If the person addresses the question "Does the Soul Exist?" in the negative, he/she would leave empty the box for the statement
"I have a soul that exists in reality". After selecting the other statements with which he agrees (including None of the Above if applicable), the poll then calculates how many persons did not agree with the statement "I have a soul that exists in reality." Currently, only 5 persons (15.63%) agree.

Your question is is so loaded, and so gormless, that even the interpretation you have just given it is a leap of faith on your behalf. You are deciding what people meant in replying to what they think you mean, but probably didn't actually mean, in your loaded questions.

 

[rakovsky]

So, the other 4 are just alternative "yes" options, and you've just suggested that someone who doesn't think they have a soul should tick one of the options which you already interpret as meaning they accept that they do have a soul.

The poll allows as many answers as a person wants to agree with. They are not alternative exclusive Yes options.
I conclude from the fact of my subjective self consciousness that this alludes to my own existence distinguishable from my body, which I find to be my soul, an observer.

Someone else may not draw that same conclusion, but they should still tick "I exist" if they find "I exist" to be a correct statement about themselves. I want to see how many people even agree with the experience of first person subjective self. Almost 20% of respondents have not accepted the statement "I exist" about themselves.

 

[MikeG]

........Almost 20% of respondents have not accepted the statement "I exist" about themselves.

Because some people are too canny to fall for a loaded poll. Some people presumably know something of your posting style, and your views on this matter, and know very well that you are simply seeking a "gotcha" moment.

 

[BStrong]

I've been "brought back to life" more than once and didn't see dead relatives or bright lights while I was out.

The soul is a human conceit, not an actual entity.

That doesn't in any way mean that certain constructions using the word are invalid. I listen to "soul" music on a regular basis and do not find the term misused.

 

[rakovsky]

I've been "brought back to life" more than once and didn't see dead relatives or bright lights while I was out.

The soul is a human conceit, not an actual entity.

One of my difficulties in accepting this is my first person state, which I associate with my soul, but which does not appear to exhibit an independent objective physical set of measurable properties.

To say that the soul is a human conceit or fiction would make me ask if I am as my own subject also a conceit or fiction? It appears in my experience that I exist as a subject observing my body, yet am also distinguishable from my body. To say that this entire experience is a fiction is confusing, like saying that the world is a fiction, as I cannot verify the world's existence either outside of my own subjective experience of it.

 

[MikeG]

One of my difficulties in accepting this is my first person state, which I associate with my soul, but which does not appear to exhibit an independent objective physical set of measurable properties..........

There's your problem, right there.

Let go of this crap, and provided some actual evidence of the existence of this thing you keep going on about, then we can have a serious discussion. At the moment, all you've got is your own personal world-view. That's it. Why do you think anyone should give your un-evidenced world view any regard?