Either there is a God, or there isn't.

Atheist or otherwise?


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Birdjaguar said:
If, if, if, if, if.....But you cannot map the brain, model it and predict the influence of culture on behavior. If I could travel back in time and video Joseph and Mary having sex, I could disprove the virgin birth. So what? I can't do that just like you cannot do any of the things you claim.

Ever heard of a 'thought experiment'?

It's the tool that Einstein used. Just because we can't do something now - if it doesn't break any physical law then it's a very good idea to ask "What if we could do this today? What would the implications be?"
 
warpus said:
Ever heard of a 'thought experiment'?

It's the tool that Einstein used. Just because we can't do something now - if it doesn't break any physical law then it's a very good idea to ask "What if we could do this today? What would the implications be?"
Such thinking is not a problem for me, and i enjoy it, but Kilroy stated all his claims as fact without a mention of their speculative nature. Now that he has made that clear, I can easily accept them for what they are. :)
 
We cannot map the brain now, but soon we shall!
 
Birdjaguar said:
Such thinking is not a problem for me, and i enjoy it, but Kilroy stated all his claims as fact without a mention of their speculative nature. Now that he has made that clear, I can easily accept them for what they are. :)

Wouldn't you say that speculating that "a soul might exist" is far more speculative than saying "What if we could fully map the brain" ?
 
I generally find the idea of god to just be a bit too convenient for my tastes.
 
warpus said:
Wouldn't you say that speculating that "a soul might exist" is far more speculative than saying "What if we could fully map the brain" ?
I guess it depends on how you define "soul" and what you mean by "fully map the brain" as to which is more speculative. I define the "soul" as that which is most fundamental to and present in all physical existence. The soul unifies all things. I think that it exists and is more likely to be "proven" than it is to build a real time model of how the human mind works. If you mean some christian version of soul, that may be more difficult.
 
Birdjaguar said:
Yes, but the key point made by Kilroy was that the chemical processes determined what was decided or done. That is what I question.

Well, that can be made into an unanswerable question.

However, we certainly know that inputing chemicals can change the way a person thinks, in a highly predictable and controllable manner. Chemicals or electricity can make someone act differently, and certainly seems to modify the range of options we choose with our supposed 'free will'.
 
El_Machinae said:
However, we certainly know that inputing chemicals can change the way a person thinks, in a highly predictable and controllable manner. Chemicals or electricity can make someone act differently, and certainly seems to modify the range of options we choose with our supposed 'free will'.
Stimulating the brain with chemicals and electricity is a more sophisticated version of tapping a person's knee with a rubber hammer and making it jump. With such techniques we can, and will, circumvent "free will". Hopefully we will use them to heal people more than we will use them as more subtle practices than live wires on the genitals.
 
Birdjaguar said:
I guess it depends on how you define "soul" and what you mean by "fully map the brain" as to which is more speculative. I define the "soul" as that which is most fundamental to and present in all physical existence. The soul unifies all things. I think that it exists and is more likely to be "proven" than it is to build a real time model of how the human mind works. If you mean some christian version of soul, that may be more difficult.
How can you prove a soul?
 
@Perfection & Warpus:

For the moment, the physical world has been reduced to quarks, leptons, and bosons, which, when you think about it, is pretty amazing. I wish I had fermion glasses that would show the world only as quarks and leptons. If each had its own color, the world would look pretty interesting. It would be tough to get worked up over somebody’s skin color. Anyway, I expect that in the future those “particles” (and their antimatter shadows) will be reduced further in number. I hypothesize that in the end experiments will “point to” a single unifying “substance” as the source of the physical universe. That uniformity is what I would call the soul. It is ever present in all things, but appears differentiated because we see the world as differentiated. The limits of our senses limit how we perceive the world. Our senses and consciousness work together to control how we view things and to keep the world orderly and functional.

Now can such a thing be proven? We seem to be heading in that direction, but I do not know if we will ever have the tools to see that deeply into the subquark world. That is why I said “point to” above. You’ll notice that this is all very rational and scientific while the word “soul” has very theological overtones. Why call it a soul? I’m sure there is a more neutral, scientific sounding word that would convey a most basic, primordial substance. If I were not religious, I might use such a word. With the science established as well as possible, this soul can be embellished with theology.

The fundamental unity of existence is perceived as fragmented at every level of creation when in fact (in Reality) it is not. This “tension” between the actual unity of all things and the perceived separateness of all things is the “force” driving creation forward.
 
Perfection said:
A unified mathematical construct of reality is a soul?!

I find your poetic word usage rather misleading.
Keep in mind Perf that any scientific depiction of such an entity that we make is constrained by our limits, not by any limits of the entity. Within the bounds of science, we can only describe it using "mathematics".

I have not tried to present any "theological" characterisitcs, nor have I talked about consciousness. I called it "soul" to leave a door open for theological stuff. Had I called it "primal energy or first force" would you like it better? If this concept does not make sense to you then nothing else will either. My most fundamental premise is that there is a uniformity that underlies all existence. That is it in a nutshell. To the best of my knowledge such an idea does not rule out any of our known science, nor does what we currently know, rule it out. It is a place to begin.

Now, do you think (very subjectively) that such a claim is more or less likely than brane theory? Not that they are necessarily mutually exlusive or even provable.
 
I define the "soul" as that which is most fundamental to and present in all physical existence. The soul unifies all things.

Birdjaguar, this definition is extremely nebulous and completely inadequate for any credible debate. Taking this definition I would assume 1) that all things, including non living entities and inanimate objects have a soul, and 2) that everything has the same soul connecting everything together. Hence there is only one soul which for some reason seems to choose to wander the planet in 6 billion different bodies (and an uncountable number of rocks and other inanimate objects to go by this definition).

I somehow doubt this is what you, or for that matter anyone else considers a soul to be. Any chance of a more refined and meaningful definition?
 
MrCynical said:
Birdjaguar, this definition is extremely nebulous and completely inadequate for any credible debate.
I thought it was quite precise and clear. In fact you seemed to have understood it quite well. And I am sorry if it doesn't provide sufficient leverage for debate. ;)
MrCynical said:
Taking this definition I would assume 1) that all things, including non living entities and inanimate objects have a soul, and 2) that everything has the same soul connecting everything together. Hence there is only one soul
Yes. There is only one.

MrCynical said:
which for some reason seems to choose to wander the planet in 6 billion different bodies (and an uncountable number of rocks and other inanimate objects to go by this definition).
No need to wander anywhere, the separateness is only a perceived distinction and not real.

MrCynical said:
I somehow doubt this is what you, or for that matter anyone else considers a soul to be. Any chance of a more refined and meaningful definition?
Sorry to disappoint you. I will try to add a layer of "meaning" on top of all this tonight.
 
Birdjaguar said:
@Perfection & Warpus:

For the moment, the physical world has been reduced to quarks, leptons, and bosons, which, when you think about it, is pretty amazing. I wish I had fermion glasses that would show the world only as quarks and leptons. If each had its own color, the world would look pretty interesting. It would be tough to get worked up over somebody’s skin color. Anyway, I expect that in the future those “particles” (and their antimatter shadows) will be reduced further in number. I hypothesize that in the end experiments will “point to” a single unifying “substance” as the source of the physical universe. That uniformity is what I would call the soul. It is ever present in all things, but appears differentiated because we see the world as differentiated. The limits of our senses limit how we perceive the world. Our senses and consciousness work together to control how we view things and to keep the world orderly and functional.

So the Universe has 1 soul and we're all connected through that?

Sounds like an extended version of Gaia theory.
 
Birdjaguar said:
I expect that in the future those “particles” (and their antimatter shadows) will be reduced further in number. I hypothesize that in the end experiments will “point to” a single unifying “substance” as the source of the physical universe.
I agree, except that I would distinguish between this unifying substance (and the Intelligence that created it) as "Soul," and our personalized experience of it as "soul."
 
warpus said:
So the Universe has 1 soul and we're all connected through that?

Sounds like an extended version of Gaia theory.
It does but the opposite is that nothing is connected but happens completely random by the simple rule of cause-effect.
This 20th century thought of "physical"-word is all there is, is as much fabrication of imagination as is simplified thought about one great biocentric soul unifying everything or personified androcentric God.

Personally I feel that I'm also agnostic when it comes to the explanation of science how universum works.
We don't simply have enough information, in fact I believe we won't ever have it.
I could go as far as claim we can't have it so all there is to do is put faith into certain things we think we know, but even then we must remember that information we have may and will fall short.

Universum's fabric of reality is full of layers and we seem to only cover one or two at the each time, so we only see the most obvious and missing most of it into what we see as complete and utter chaos without real meaning.

We may claim it because of God, because of physical laws, because of evolution or "intelligent design".

In the end, we know nothing.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.
- H. L. Mencken
 
warpus said:
We know far more today than we did 2,000 years ago.. and that's all thanks to Science.
Regarding God, unified Gaia soul or lack of them both?

I fail to see that.
All I see is that people concentrating into certain stuff make them see everything from that perspective only forgetting everything else.
So it's more like shift from one kind of knowledge to different kind of knowledge regarding the nature of God and his place in universum.

For some science has started to play the role of religion, as a failsafe belief system without the possibility of one going into hell if you happen to guess wrongly.

Different fields of science almost resembles nowadays polytheistic-religious system where everyone bows towards certain God and waits for it's prophet to announce what to expect.

We all have our illusions.
I guess we need them in order to be able to live.
 
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