Can an atheist believe in the human soul?

I don't really think I'm getting that far off track since the people that will ultimately prove the existance or not of a human soul are the scientists that despite rigorously using the scientific method will still be doing the research through their flawed and very human perspective. And in the end, the only group of organized humans the athiests will believe are scientists using the scientific method.

Not at all, all I'm suggesting is that you, a human you, could very well have a soul. Science has not proven the soul does NOT exist anymore so than supporters of the soul theory have proven it does. There is enough evidence present in this problem to suggest that "something" is there by the affects being generated. Enough to warrant further investigation.

The irrationality of what I propose is largely determined from what angle you approach this debate on. The purely scientific mindset that a soul does not exist because we simply cannot find one is not particularly revealing one for me. A lot of new ideas, theories and in fact some of our greatest leap forwards came about by the discovery of something or some theory that was largely held to be ABSOLUTELY impossible. All I'm saying is just because something is NOT there, doesn't make it non-existant. Keep an open mind to the possible.

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.

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.

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.

Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:

No - nothing proposed by that interview suggests that brains actually operate at the quantum level.
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Roger Penrose puts together a pretty strong case that the brain works at a quantum level in his book "The Emperor's New Mind." Penrose is head math dude at Oxford, which is another wauy of saying he's one of the smartest guys ont he planet, so he's no lightweight.

From the Wikipedia entry for the book:

$1:

Penrose presents the argument that human consciousness is non-algorithmic, and thus is not capable of being modeled by a conventional Turing machine-type of digital computer. Penrose hypothesizes that quantum mechanics plays an essential role in the understanding of human consciousness. The collapse of the quantum wavefunction is seen as playing an important role in brain function.

The synaptic delay in each of those synapses is at least 0.5 ms and therefore the parallel and serial interactions between millions of neurons would take a very long time, too long for the individual.s adequate interaction with the environment. Therefore, there must be some other mechanism governing the interactions of large numbers of neurons, located even in remote parts of the brain.

Therefore, beside relatively slow "classical" electrochemical interactions, rapid quantum interactions originating in functioning cell membranes may participate in many, perhaps in all, brain functions. Together, all the moving electrons produce a non-local system which we call the Real Human Soul, RHS, which is created by the functioning neurons and, at the same time, can also influence other neurons. Thus, it creates a connection between all functioning parts of the brain. The brain then functions as a unified system in which everything is interconnected and is able to interact. Viewed thus, the brain functions as a quantum computer.

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Blue_Nose Blue_Nose:

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

Roger Penrose puts together a pretty strong case that the brain works at a quantum level in his book "The Emperor's New Mind." Penrose is head math dude at Oxford, which is another wauy of saying he's one of the smartest guys ont he planet, so he's no lightweight.

From the Wikipedia entry for the book:

$1:

Penrose presents the argument that human consciousness is non-algorithmic, and thus is not capable of being modeled by a conventional Turing machine-type of digital computer. Penrose hypothesizes that quantum mechanics plays an essential role in the understanding of human consciousness. The collapse of the quantum wavefunction is seen as playing an important role in brain function.

Cool - might have to put this one on the Christmas list

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.

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.

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.

Try reading it again (emphasis added):

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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.

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.

Yes, I know where you are coming from and I know where RomanP is coming from. I used to think exactly like RomanP. I even wrote a paper called "The Derivation of God Through Mathematics." Until I ran into a guy who actually knew and understood quantum mechanics who laboriously, over the course of days, completely deconstructed my argument. Bascially I was trying to attach theological significance to unexplained aspects of quantum theory, particularly to non-locality (through, for example, Bohm's Implicate Order). I had a preconcieved notion of what I wanted the truth to be (that is, I wanted to derive God), but I was subconsciously selecting and interpreting observations to match by presupposed conclusion. He said to me: "If you believe in God or some Universal Consciousness, great. But if you do have faith--if you know this to be true--why do you need science to prove it?"

I don't believe in god. In fact, I try not to believe in anything.

Because I think all things are true, even when they're false.

I'm also a little bit Discordian, and a little bit Buddhist.