The James Brown question.

[brettDbass]

As I understand it, in the christian way of belief, if one accepts god and Jesus into one’s life then one’s soul will dwell in the eternal bliss of heaven. Conversely, if one rejects them then one’s soul will burn in the eternal damnation of hell.

I’d like for us to discuss the soul in more depth. How can (or does) any christian know their soul? How does your conscious neural perception make contact with this soul? Does it have any appearance, touch, taste, smell or sound? If not, how else do you explain it to me? If you can explain this, I’d love to hear it.

If it is unexplainable one surely has to make a leap of faith and “believe” in that, as well as “believe” in the unexplainable god. That whole set-up in itself would make me rather uncomfortable, where I a christian.

Aside from the debate over the existence of the soul, there are other questions which remain.
If it is unknowable in the true sense of the factual and explicable world (as god is), then one can have no direct contact with it. If it is not contactable, unknowable, then it becomes totally unnecessary to be concerned over whatever may happen to it: one will never have perceived anything through it or about it and so when one dies everything that YOU actually are ceases to exist, including your means of perception. If you have had no contact with your soul throughout your life one cannot expect to suddenly find oneself suddenly perceiving through it AFTER the moment of death unless one is quite deluded. Again, if you have had contact with or perception through your soul, please demonstrate it to us.


Of course, I stand open to correction (or at least discussion) on any of the factual points in this post.

[BJQ87]

If it is unknowable in the true sense of the factual and explicable world (as god is), then one can have no direct contact with it.

Perhaps something can have the ability to be known yet lacks the possibility (not ability) of being explained. (at the moment anyways.)

[brettDbass]

Perhaps something can have the ability to be known yet lacks the possibility (not ability) of being explained. (at the moment anyways.)
Arguments that have to rely on perhaps statements are not convincing arguments.

[BJQ87]

Arguments that have to rely on perhaps statements are not convincing arguments.


then i give you permission to mentally erase the "perhaps" in my prior statement. I wasn't really trying too hard to convince anyone of anything, just putting in my two cents.

[brettDbass]

OK.
In which case you said... Something can have the ability to be known yet lacks the possibility (not ability) of being explained. (at the moment anyways.)
That cannot hold true.

If fact is not fact then nobody on the planet can hold any kind of rational discussion.


Nevertheless, I'm intrigued to learn at least some kind of rudimentary explanation of the soul. Have you got a view you could share with us?

[Beth]

Something can have the ability to be known yet lacks the possibility (not ability) of being explained. (at the moment anyways.)

That cannot hold true.
Gravity is a well-known fact, yet how it works it not yet understood.


Nevertheless, I'm intrigued to learn at least some kind of rudimentary explanation of the soul. Have you got a view you could share with us?
A good question. Which do you suppose humans will explain first - gravity or the soul?

[Mercutio]

Gravity is a well-known fact, yet how it works it not yet understood.

A good question. Which do you suppose humans will explain first - gravity or the soul?
And if we spoke of gravity as causal, we would be committing the same circularity errors as we do when we speak of the soul. Our descriptions of gravity, properly, do not say that things attract one another because of gravity; rather, they attract one another, and that is gravity. We do not have an explanation as to why as yet, but we can certainly describe gravity, the effects of whatever that cause is.

We do not do this with the soul. We have no set of behaviors or experiences or anything that we can point to and say "that is the soul" (as we can with gravity). In practice, we slap together a bunch of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and say that these things are evidence of a soul (and some will go further and say that they are evidence of a soul that transcends physical laws, that survives physical death, yadda yadda yadda, despite the fact that it is impossible for such things to have been demonstrated to us physical beings). A soul is, in practice, always inferred circularly from the things it is alleged to have caused (IMHO, things which are already perfectly well explained more parsimoniously in other ways).

To make a long answer short (too late!), my money is on Gravity. We may never explain it, but we can never explain the soul, if it is merely the fictional product of circular reasoning. ("Fictional" is not intended as an insult; it is a technical term within Behaviorism, for alleged causal entities that are circularly inferred.)

[brettDbass]

Gravity is a well-known fact, yet how it works it not yet understood.
We can explain the existence gravity, even if we cannot definitively explain the process which makes it arise. We can observe it, measure it, predict how it will affect things and so forth.
Gravity exists - fact.
Soul exists - unfounded supposition.


A good question. Which do you suppose humans will explain first - gravity or the soul?
The Large Halon Collider (http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapters/AboutCERN/CERNFuture/WhatLHC/WhatLHC-en.html) is going to be working on exactly that problem within the next few years.
Exactly how many scientific experiments are being conducted to locate the soul do you think?

Anyway, bickering is not what I'm here for. To quote myself...
I’d like for us to discuss the soul in more depth. How can (or does) any christian know their soul? How does your conscious neural perception make contact with this soul? Does it have any appearance, touch, taste, smell or sound? If not, how else do you explain it to me? If you can explain this, I’d love to hear it.

I'm not fishing to shoot you down, I'm genuinely interested.

[GrnMtSkeptic]

The classic problem with Cartesian Dualism. To be able to influence or be influenced by something in the natural world is by definition to be a part of the natural world. Also by definition the supernatural is not part of the natural world, so how can the supernatural influence or be influenced by the natural world?

Hence the Holy Mystery that necessitates faith.

Sagan had a good send up up this in "The Demon Haunted World", specifically Chapter 10, "The Dragon in My Garage." Dennett likened it to the problem of Casper the friendly ghost in "Consciousness Explained" p.35.

[brettDbass]

The classic problem with Cartesian Dualism. To be able to influence or be influenced by something in the natural world is by definition to be a part of the natural world. Also by definition the supernatural is not part of the natural world, so how can the supernatural influence or be influenced by the natural world?

Hence the Holy Mystery that necessitates faith.

Sagan had a good send up up this in "The Demon Haunted World", specifically Chapter 10, "The Dragon in My Garage." Dennett likened it to the problem of Casper the friendly ghost in "Consciousness Explained" p.35.
I never got around to reading my copy of Demon Haunted World. I must dig it out some time.

Further to your first paragraph (with which I agree wholeheartedly), I'm wondering how the connection is made in a christian's perception of the world. There must be a direct and permanent connection/contact with the soul, one which they experience, or else they are simply fooling themselves. There must surely be a way around the Dualism if they are correct on the issue of the soul. If we could have any attempt at an explanation of this it could go a long way towards resolving such a problem.

For some reason I don't seem to be getting very far as yet.

[hammegk]

... There must surely be a way around the Dualism if they are correct on the issue of the soul. ...
Idealism allows for, but does not require, what imo organized religions are proposing in the concept "soul". Dualism is nutty; materialism must absolutely deny "souls" exist.

[Mercutio]

Idealism allows for, but does not require, what imo organized religions are proposing in the concept "soul". Dualism is nutty; materialism must absolutely deny "souls" exist.
How so? (re idealism, I mean). One can, within materialism, still allow for a metaphorical use of some processes, or a categorical term encompassing many processes (behaviors, experiences, all material) which would account for what some would call "soul". Yes, of course, others would deny it vehemently, but I think mostly out of principle rather than correctness; no one wants to think that their belief is essentially illusory.

Within idealism, would it not be the same thing? A particular category of experiences would be contained in a category labeled "soul", if I read your first sentence correctly. This sounds like the same animal, with the label changed. That it is more acceptable has more to do with the name on the label than with the active ingredients.

[PixyMisa]

Let's take it from easiest to hardest.

First, dualism is nutty. Agreed. Any statement of dualism that is not self-contradictory describes a universe that is not logically consistent. Big help there, Rene.

Second, materialism and the soul. Souls can exist under materialism, unless you specifically define the soul to be immaterial, of course. If the soul was a squidgy little worm thingy that survived when the body died and then, I don't know, went and inhabited an adult female so that it could be reborn in her children then we would accept the existence of souls. And view them as ghastly alien parasites, but that's beside the point.

Third, idealism and the soul. If thought is what exists, what is the soul? Is it a meme-worm, the immaterial analog of the material soul? Or something else?

Souls seem to me to be an inherently dualistic concept.

[hammegk]

The materialists (as I see them) here and myself reach full agreement that a monism must be the answer, with the aside that "non-interactive dualism" of some sort could be postulated, and would argueably allow ego etal to continue "elsewhere".

In that sense postulating the soul (should such exist) as being another material object is logically correct. I object to the use a 'material object' only because the inherent attributes that language conveys are imo inescapable. That's why I prefer idealism (or more recently, a-materialism). Should theistic "souls" of any kind exist, a-materialism better allows them in a semantic sense.

[Mercutio]

The materialists (as I see them) here and myself reach full agreement that a monism must be the answer, with the aside that "non-interactive dualism" of some sort could be postulated, and would argueably allow ego etal to continue "elsewhere".

In that sense postulating the soul (should such exist) as being another material object is logically correct. I object to the use a 'material object' only because the inherent attributes that language conveys are imo inescapable. That's why I prefer idealism (or more recently, a-materialism). Should theistic "souls" of any kind exist, a-materialism better allows them in a semantic sense.
I think we agree, although the "semantic sense" is a double-edged sword. Just as most people who speak of a soul would be uncomfortable speaking of it in materialist terms (even as a category or emergent property), most people who speak of a body would find it odd to speak of it in a-material terms. Certainly, one can easily see that "it appears to be material" is (with the emphasis on "appears") perfectly compatible with a-materialism, but it is the same problem on the other end of the spectrum from a soul appearing to be illusory to a materialist.

Logically, they both work just as well as the other.

[hammegk]

Agreed. The only argument would entail the attributes of the 2 positions -- for both a matter (so to speak ;) ) of faith.

Intent? Freewill? Life? etc.

[Mercutio]

The attributes? Perhaps...but they can be the observed attributes, or the inferred attributes we manufacture from our observations. I am always amazed...2 people can observe the same thing, assume the same monism, and still come up with vastly different explanations. I doubt all a-materialists would argue for the same attributes, nor all materialists.

There are too few of us pragmatists about to make the same bet.

[hammegk]

LOL. Yup, us pragmatists sometimes appear to disagree. :D

[brettDbass]

I am extraodrinarily disappointed that nobody with the relevant kind of religious belief is willing to share with us their stories of this incredible experience.

:con2:

[Mercutio]

I am extraodrinarily disappointed that nobody with the relevant kind of religious belief is willing to share with us their stories of this incredible experience.

:con2:
Wrong forum to ask it. No guarantee that anyone fitting that description even posts here! Of course, some of the forums where you could get an answer, you'd be banned simply for asking the question...

[brettDbass]

Wrong forum to ask it. No guarantee that anyone fitting that description even posts here! Of course, some of the forums where you could get an answer, you'd be banned simply for asking the question...
Kinda true, I suppose.

However, after a statement as bold as this...
I myself was not content living what I call half truths. Mans wisdom on his own is incomplete. I have lived this as a personal conviction. There is a freedom and peace I have never known and I explain it like this," It comes from God."

" What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world but loses his soul? "
I was hoping I might get some kind of answer from her at the very least.

I'm not holding my breath, mind you! :boggled:

[brettDbass]

Exactly one week since I asked my question.
Still no reply from the resident believers...

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=1387812#post1387812

[hammegk]

Perhaps you should pose your question elsewhere where Christians actually congregate ... :)

[sphenisc]

As I understand it, in the christian way of belief, if one accepts god and Jesus into one’s life then one’s soul will dwell in the eternal bliss of heaven. Conversely, if one rejects them then one’s soul will burn in the eternal damnation of hell.

I’d like for us to discuss the soul in more depth. How can (or does) any christian know their soul? How does your conscious neural perception make contact with this soul? Does it have any appearance, touch, taste, smell or sound? If not, how else do you explain it to me? If you can explain this, I’d love to hear it.

If it is unexplainable one surely has to make a leap of faith and “believe” in that, as well as “believe” in the unexplainable god. That whole set-up in itself would make me rather uncomfortable, where I a christian.

Aside from the debate over the existence of the soul, there are other questions which remain.
If it is unknowable in the true sense of the factual and explicable world (as god is), then one can have no direct contact with it. If it is not contactable, unknowable, then it becomes totally unnecessary to be concerned over whatever may happen to it: one will never have perceived anything through it or about it and so when one dies everything that YOU actually are ceases to exist, including your means of perception. If you have had no contact with your soul throughout your life one cannot expect to suddenly find oneself suddenly perceiving through it AFTER the moment of death unless one is quite deluded. Again, if you have had contact with or perception through your soul, please demonstrate it to us.


Of course, I stand open to correction (or at least discussion) on any of the factual points in this post.

"The Latent Power of the Soul" Watchman Nee
http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/nee/5f00.0634/5f00.0634.c.htm

This gives a (fairly mainstream) Christian view of the soul.

[brettDbass]

Perhaps you should pose your question elsewhere where Christians actually congregate ... :)
That's the most sensible thing anyone's said on this thread.