Can an atheist believe in the human soul?

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romanP @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 9:37 pm

Tricks Tricks:

romanP romanP:

Tricks Tricks:

romanP romanP:

Tricks Tricks:

Is a soul something we are born with, or do we construct it ourselves?

Yes.

There was two questions there...

I just changed the "or" into an "and."

How can we be born with it and construct it ourselves?

You are born with electrical activity occuring in your brain, and throughout your lifetime, by living and learning, you make more solid connections for that electrical activity to continue occuring.

Tricks @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 9:39 pm

romanP romanP:

Tricks Tricks:

romanP romanP:

Tricks Tricks:

romanP romanP:

Tricks Tricks:

Is a soul something we are born with, or do we construct it ourselves?

Yes.

There was two questions there...

I just changed the "or" into an "and."

How can we be born with it and construct it ourselves?

You are born with electrical activity occuring in your brain, and throughout your lifetime, by living and learning, you make more solid connections for that electrical activity to continue occuring.

So we are born with the ability to construct a soul.

romanP @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:05 pm

Thanos Thanos:

Response to RomanP:

$1:

Difference leads to demonization, which in turn leads to dehumanization, which invariably leads to the self-proclaimed right of the accuser to murder in order to send them to the created Hell that they deserve. We see this everyday in the actions of the hardcore Muslim fundamentalists. We saw it three hundred years ago among the Christians, and could just as easily see it from them again within our lifetimes. If 10% of the world Muslim population are believed to support the actions of jihadists them it's reasonable to assume that a similiar percentage of Christians would similarily support the behaviours of an Eric Rudolph or a Tim McVeigh. As far as I'm concerned all they need is a grand coalescing moment to occur and once again we'll see just how peaceful the average Christian can be. Pushing or provoking them into what were once accepted patterns of violent behaviour will probably prove to not be particularly difficult.

Amazing, not one single mention of a non-Abrahamic faith. Why am I not surprised?

You're going to have to do better than that if you want to paint all religion with the brush of evil. Poking holes in the bad behaviour of a vocal minority of self-proclaimed Christians or Muslims is like shooting fish in a barrel.

The involvement of Buddhist spiritual leadership with the expansive phase of the Japanese Empire should be enough proof that the Buddhist claim to non-violence has a lot of holes in it.

You're thinking of Shinto, not Buddhism. During the Japan's era of state Shinto, it was illegal to combine Buddhist teachings with Shinto.

$1:

Should Buddhist monks in Japan who blessed Kamizake pilots before they went on a final flight or gave the divine stamp of approval to Japanese Army troops who tore through China not be regarded in the same light as Catholic or Lutheran ministers who blessed German troops during their colourful activities in Poland and western Russia?

Christian preists also blessed American and Canadian troops, and were even part of their regiments. It is not uncommon for clergymen to be on the battlefield, offering comfort for those about to die.

$1:

Not to mention the sad reality that the Buddhist faction in Sri Lanka should be fairly consdered as equally responsible as their Tamil opponents (inventors of the suicide bomb - gotta love Hinduism too!) for the civil war that's been wracking their country for decades.

Buddhists do not necessarily believe in any particular deity either. Their religion does not require it of them.

As for the violence, that is, once again, people abusing religion, and not the other way around. Saying that religion causes war makes about as much sense as phrases such as "the war on terrorism." Intangible things do not cause other intangible things to happen. People do.

$1:

Non-violence is easy enough to push or disguise as a major pillar of any religion. It usually isn't that difficult to find enough examples, however, that non-violence is usually only applied to one's fellow co-religionists. Non-believers are generally regarded by all sides (except by atheists, of course, who actually understand that the only real solution is to have the guts and courage to leave each other alone) as being fair targets for any sort of egregious behaviour.

I do not find it hard to think that there are atheists fighting wars that they are in favour of. In fact, there are probably many. Instead, they substitute fighting for deities with fighting for their right to be ignorant of things such as democratic political science while claiming to fight to "make the world safe for democracy."

$1:

Anyway, as a general rule, shouldn't a religion that awards Hollywood types like Richard Gere and Steven Segal titles of the "holiest of the holy" be regarded at best as laughable? If this is the sort of ground they operate on then Buddhism should be taken about as seriously as Scientology.

Atheism shouldn't be taken any more seriously. Just because you claim to lack a certain belief doesn't mean you don't hold other beliefs, and that can make you just as religious as the Pope himself, whether you believe in any particular deity or not. Just look at how you scrounge and scrape to find any little flaw the in the behaviour of those whose beliefs you disagree with, without once examing how your own beliefs could be used in the exact same manner.

romanP @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:10 pm

Brenda Brenda:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Atheists do not have souls. Ask them, they'll tell you the same.

Imho, for what it's worth, you are right in the sense of a soul going to heaven or live on while we are dead. I don't believe in that. As an Atheist, I think dead is dead, and there is not such a thing as an afterlife, or spirit that moves on into another body an do that again and again to "live till eternity".

I have just as much proof for this as a non-Atheist, who believes the soul exists, and so does an afterlife: none.

What if I told you that, with the exception of most parts of your brain, the body you had when you were six years old is dead, and that you are now mostly a completely different collection of cells?

romanP @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:23 pm

Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:

kevlarman kevlarman:

Actually, many of our most dearly held scientific beliefs faced tremendous opposition due to the scientific community's and the public's "personal comfort" with the new idea. Many much needed new ideas that should be accepted aren't still because of that. Some folks call it politics. I call it the politics of personal comfort.

Any new hypothesis faces opposition in science - attempting to prove it wrong is called falsification and is necessary.

As for the public's acceptance of the new theory, that's irrelevant - proving science doesn't include any consideration of popular opinion. Implimenting it may certainly involve such considerations, but that's not part of science itself.

It's not just the public's personal comfort, it's the scientists themselves. Many of the nuclear physicists of Einstein's era did not want to accept a lot of the new ideas that were coming about simply because they were uncomfortable with them, including Albert Einstein.

There are a lot of ideas in quantum physics than can seem terrifying, and I think some of them you are not quite so comfortable with yourself.

$1:

kevlarman kevlarman:

The human body has an electrical field, some might call it a bio-electric field. This controls a lot of what is felt, performed and acted out via the human mind and body.

Electricity is not proof of a soul, or are you going to suggest my computer also has a soul?

Why not? I don't think that's so far fetched. Computers store a lot of information too, and getting rid of it is not as easy as you seem to think.

$1:

kevlarman kevlarman:

So how far fetched would the idea of a soul be? A soul that is not governed by relgion but that just is? And then if it exists, does it matter if you believe in it or not for it to exist? Then what is stopping an athiest from believing in a soul?

For that matter, how 'far fetched' would an omnipotent God be? If science was based merely on people going around thinking about what may or may not be "far fetched", we'd be in a sorry state.

"If at first an idea is not absurd, then it has no chance for survival" -Albert Einstein

$1:

Look, I don't really care what you believe or not - just realize that what you're proposing is an irrational belief, not some proposed scientific theory supported by evidence. I haven't personally seen any conclusive evidence of the soul's existance, and since I don't have any overbearing desire to confirm its existance, it's not something I'm going to accept on a whim.

I can't see air, but I'm pretty sure it's there, because I'm still breathing. There are a lot of things we do not know about and cannot yet see, and that does not make those things undiscoverable.

Brenda @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:25 pm

romanP romanP:

Brenda Brenda:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Atheists do not have souls. Ask them, they'll tell you the same.

What if I told you that, with the exception of most parts of your brain, the body you had when you were six years old is dead, and that you are now mostly a completely different collection of cells?

Technically, you are right. Well, sorta. That body is not dead, it doesn't exist anymore, because the cells then "living" are replaced by new ones. My body didn't get another brain, it just changed dead cells for new ones, over and over again and not at the same time.

When I die, it is all over and done, in one second. The brain, that imho keeps one alive, cannot live without the existance of the body. So if there was a soul, made by the brain, it would not able to live without the body.

romanP @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:34 pm

Tricks Tricks:

romanP romanP:

Tricks Tricks:

romanP romanP:

Tricks Tricks:

romanP romanP:

Tricks Tricks:

Is a soul something we are born with, or do we construct it ourselves?

Yes.

There was two questions there...

I just changed the "or" into an "and."

How can we be born with it and construct it ourselves?

You are born with electrical activity occuring in your brain, and throughout your lifetime, by living and learning, you make more solid connections for that electrical activity to continue occuring.

So we are born with the ability to construct a soul.

I think it would be more accurate to say that you are born with the ability to improve your soul.

Tricks @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:35 pm

romanP romanP:

Tricks Tricks:

romanP romanP:

Tricks Tricks:

romanP romanP:

Tricks Tricks:

romanP romanP:

Tricks Tricks:

Is a soul something we are born with, or do we construct it ourselves?

Yes.

There was two questions there...

I just changed the "or" into an "and."

How can we be born with it and construct it ourselves?

You are born with electrical activity occuring in your brain, and throughout your lifetime, by living and learning, you make more solid connections for that electrical activity to continue occuring.

So we are born with the ability to construct a soul.

I think it would be more accurate to say that you are born with the ability to improve your soul.

So we are born with something we alter.

Brenda @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:37 pm

According to some people, people are born with an "old soul", that existed before, and chose you to live in during your life. When you die, it choses another body to live in.

romanP @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:46 pm

Brenda Brenda:

romanP romanP:

Brenda Brenda:

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Atheists do not have souls. Ask them, they'll tell you the same.

What if I told you that, with the exception of most parts of your brain, the body you had when you were six years old is dead, and that you are now mostly a completely different collection of cells?

In changing dead cells for new ones, over the course of your lifetime, save for most of your brain, your body is replaced with a new one several times. The only relation between the organs, flesh and bones that you have now and the ones you had when you were a small child is the DNA they were copied from. To say that that body is not dead is essentially the same as saying that your great-great-grandfather is not dead, because you are only a genetic copy of your predecessors.

$1:

When I die, it is all over and done, in one second. The brain, that imho keeps one alive, cannot live without the existance of the body. So if there was a soul, made by the brain, it would not able to live without the body.

I don't think anyone has proven than the brain can't live without the body. All it would need is the proper fluids, chemicals and electrical stimulii. As long as you could convince the brain that it wasn't suddenly without its body, you could probably keep it alive and sane.

Brenda @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:58 pm

$1:

Technically, he isn't dead. Because his DNA lives on in me, my mom, her relatives etc.

$1:

Like I said before, I have no proof, and neither have you ;-)

WBenson @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:01 pm

romanP romanP:

Since an atheist cannot believe in things that are supernatural, we must think about this scientifically.

Atheism has nothing to do with supernatural or science. The only qualifier for atheism is the belief that there are no deities.

Brenda @ Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:04 pm

All in all, Roman, you say one can "measure" the soul? As were it electrical pulses or something?
I don't believe that, and I have never seen any proof of it.

Imho, like religion, the soul is a belief. Can't proof it's existance scientifically, that is why it is a belief.

Joe_Stalin @ Wed Nov 28, 2007 1:30 am

$1:

Can an atheist believe in the human soul?

He/she/it can believe in Batman or the tooth fairy if he/she wants to. Most people can believe in anything they want.

But the answer to the question as intended is no.

Blue_Nose @ Wed Nov 28, 2007 6:04 am

romanP romanP:

Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:

romanP romanP:

Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:

Again, that's only my understanding of it from this.

Did you actually read any of this? Half of the stuff you've just criticised me for writing or blown off as nonsense is exactly what they're talking about in this lecture.

No - nothing proposed by that interview suggests that brains actually operate at the quantum level.

Everything that has a quantitative state operates at a quantum level. If there is one of something in this universe, existing in both time and space, it is quantum.

Rocks are quantum, hydrogen is quantum, and so is your brain.

Sorry - I ment that it operates at a different quantum level than classical mechanics can predict.

romanP romanP:

You can't be seriously claiming to have read this and missed the entire first couple of pages.

$1:

PRIBRAM: That's right. But you don't see it as such. So one of the main principles of holonomic brain theory, which gets us into quantum mechanics also, is that there is a relationship here between what we ordinarily experience, and some other process or some other order, which David Bohm calls the implicate, or enfolded, order, in which things are all distributed or spread -- in fact the mathematical formulations are often called spread functions -- that spread this out.

MISHLOVE: Now what you're talking about here is the deep structure of the universe, in a way. Beneath the subatomic level of matter itself are these quantum wave functions, so to speak, and they form interference patterns. Would I be wrong in saying it would be like dropping two stones in a pond, the way the ripples overlap? Is that like an interference pattern?

You've now claimed that the brain does not operate at a quantum level, and that discussion of consciousness has nothing to do with wave-particle theory, and here we have two scientists with PhDs in parapsychology and neurophysiology saying exactly the opposite, in a discussion you claim to have read and understood.

Can you explain how this is possible?

It seems to me that the only way you could read and understand this material and then dismiss everything I've said so far as nonsense, even though it agrees with what appears to be a rather commonly agreed upon set of laws among the people who study this subject for a living, is that you're afraid to admit that it is beyond your imagination to conceive of how it is that you can exist at all.

Try reading it again (emphasis added):

$1:

MISHLOVE: So in other words, in the brain,when we look at the electrical impulses traveling through the neurons, and the patterns as these billions of neurons interact, you would say that that is analogous, I suppose, or isomorphic to the processes that are going on at the deeper quantum level.

PRIBRAM: Yes. But we don't know that it's a deeper quantum level in the brain.

MISHLOVE: That may or may not be the case.

Neurological processes are similar to those found in quantum mechanics - it's not suggested conclusively that neurological processes are governed by quantum mechanics.

romanP romanP:

I'm not the first person to suggest that our entire idea of the atom needs to be reworked, many of the greatest physicists of the 20th century have said the same thing. The entire subject of subatomic physics would not exist if it were not for such thought. There is actually a billion dollar particle accelerator project being built in Sweden right now that may either confirm the theory it was built to prove, which would turn physics on its head or, in proving the theory incorrect, still require us to rethink everything we know about physics.

Blah blah blah - where's the indication that the periodic table needs to be dismissed due to the fact that the life-forming self-replicating molecules came into existance? That's what you initially proposed:

romanP romanP:

There's a lot we still don't know. For instance, how those self-replicating molecules came into existence. We may have to update the periodic table of elements, or just scrap it and start with a whole new idea about elements altogether. At least, that's what I think.

You're wrong - scientists have proposed many hypotheses as to how those original molecules were formed under primitive conditions, and they did so without scrapping any portion of the periodic table.

romanP romanP:

Since an atheist cannot believe in things that are supernatural, we must think about this scientifically. If we scientifically define a soul as a collection of information that survives the body (do you have a better definition, or a different one? I don't think I've seen you come up with one yet, which would seem to suggest that you are more interested in stifling realistic discussion than actually considering anything you might not have previously understood), then we must take quantum mechanics into account, what we know about the nature of subatomic particles and thoughts on their interactions with the very thing that gives us consciousness, that is, our nervous system.

To suggest that our nervous systems do not have any sort of quantum interactions is to suggest that our bodies are not following the laws of physics in this universe, which would really be sheer nonsense.

No, I'm suggesting you're coming to conclusions concerning this quantum brain hypothesis that haven't been established.

romanP romanP:

It's not a preference, because I never said anything about liking it or not liking it, nor did I even allude to any such thing. I said that I have trouble believing that all of the information we've stored in our lifetime becomes nothing when we die, given the computational potential we've discovered in neural networks created out of single artificial atoms.

This is not crazy talk, it's science that is in practise right now, and is being used in everything from cracking some of the world's strongest encryption algorithms to manufacturing the e-Ink screens in the eBook reader Amazon.com released last week.

Suppose I took my old laptop, filled the harddrive with photos, music, and text that I've acquired throughout my life, and then threw it into the ocean. Very quickly, the circuits in that computer will corrode, the connections between components will break, and the computer will be useless.

Where has the information gone? Where, in that rusty mass of garbage is the information that described those photos, music, and text?

Hell, let's take an even simpler example: let's say I find an old abacus and flip the beads around until it shows my cell phone number, or my social insurance number, or the number of leaves left on the tree outside my window. That abacus now "stores" a piece of information.

Then I shake the abacus until all the beads are random again - where's that "stored" piece of information now?

Demonstrate that information is necessarily conserved by addressing these examples.

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