Does "Soul" exist?

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i-b-goB

Social climber
Wise Acres
May 17, 2018 - 08:04am PT

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Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
May 17, 2018 - 08:22am PT

Soul Train - Papa Was A Rolling Stone

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Does the rolling stone papa exist or is it just soul-speak?

Don't Stop The Dance

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Trump

climber
May 17, 2018 - 08:46am PT
“Vedanta philosophy teaches that the soul is uncaused, endless and beginningless, and its true nature is beyond all forms of human expression. Surrounding the soul is a casual matrix of 35 ideas, then an energy, or "astral" body, and then finally the gross physical form. At death the soul, the astral body, and the causal matrix all separate from the physical form.”

Mental speculators, one and all.

A theory by Anne Elk:

“All brontosauruses are thin at one end, much much thicker in the middle and then thin again at the far end.”

Who is she kidding?! Brontosaurauses don’t exist outside of our heads any more.
Craig Fry

Trad climber
So Cal.
May 17, 2018 - 08:55am PT
If man has a soul that lives on after death
so does an ape
and so does a mouse, a bug, an amoeba

do these souls all live on as well?
Where do they go?
Why?
What is the purpose of soul w/o a body, what does it do?

how about this, nothing lives past death, just like the amoeba, when you die, your soul dies

That can be the only possible answer....
if you have evidence to prove otherwise, please, show it now.
Craig Fry

Trad climber
So Cal.
May 17, 2018 - 09:03am PT
knowing is possible
some people want to know
some people don't care but seem to want to insult people that do want to know or may already know

is not caring to know a real position to take?

The Skeptical Movement takes issue with these kinds of inquires, there are books and magazine articles galore targeting the existence of a soul, if a soul lives on, and what religions believe in the afterlife, and which do not

In the end, it's all about man's desire to be some how blessed by God and to live on past death, a reason for hope or salvation

and there is zero scientific evidence of any soul living past death
Roadie

Trad climber
moab UT
May 17, 2018 - 09:50am PT
Absence of proof isn't proof of absence.
If by soul we mean the thing that animates us then yes, obviously. If we mean a part of us that lives on after death then we will likely never know until we get there. Which is probably for the best.


I like to think the answer is yes. To take it further I think that part that lives on is probably a lot like compost, melding with other souls to help grow something new. That kind of bothers me on an aesthetic level. Maybe because I like myself so much and live under the delusion that I am in some way special.

I see a lot of people walking around obsessed with 'things' and 'status' and other such nonsense, they seem to put no value on experience or testing themselves physically or psychologically. Most don't seem happy or fulfilled. I wonder what happened to their souls.
jogill

climber
Colorado
May 17, 2018 - 10:01am PT
One simple definition: soul=personality

It has an expiration date, unfortunately.
jogill

climber
Colorado
May 17, 2018 - 10:34am PT
^^^ I was thinking of something a bit more terminal.


;>)
Trump

climber
May 17, 2018 - 01:55pm PT
“Is pretending to know a real position to take?”

Sorry, but yea, I think that’s our birthright, and one of the most advantageous positions we’ve managed to take. Beats sitting in the corner twiddling our thumbs, waiting for surety, so we invent that surety to help motivate us to act.

We’ve only got so much real estate in this evolved brain apparatus - use it wisely and get up off that couch and wingsuit yourself into oblivion!, or wherever it is you’re headed.

Here we are humans when we could have been bird brains with a flittery fluttery soul. We hold all kinds of wacky positions, like that it doesn’t make sense for other people to hold the positions they hold. I guess holding our positions passes the time, or something like that.
Don Paul

Social climber
Denver CO
May 17, 2018 - 02:51pm PT
The concept of a soul isn't the same as the concept of consciousness, which is called the "hard problem" by some philosophers, and admittedly, not well understood. The perspective you have, of being "you" all the time. It goes away when your brain stops functioning. The belief that your consciousness exists in some other space or dimension, apart from your brain is pure fantasy. The person promoting an idea has the burden to prove it, not the person who questioning it. As Carl Sagan once said, if there's no evidence to support a theory, you should just forget about it.
Craig Fry

Trad climber
So Cal.
May 17, 2018 - 04:41pm PT
No, pretending to know is not a position to take

The scientific method does not include pretend as a option
Craig Fry

Trad climber
So Cal.
May 17, 2018 - 05:31pm PT
soul (spirit)

http://skepdic.com/soul.html

A soul or spirit is a non-physical entity capable of perception and self-awareness. Souls are often believed to be immortal.

If ever there were an entity invented for human wish-fulfillment, the soul is that entity. As Thomas Hobbes pointed out, the concept of a non-substantial substance is a contradiction. It is not possible to imagine a non-physical entity having life and perception. Even believers in souls always imagine them as being like human shaped clouds or fogs. It is a delusion to believe that the concept of soul is conceivable. Yet, billions of people have believed in a non-spatial perceiver which can travel through space and perceive and interpret vibrations and waves in the air without any sense organs.

Work done by philosophers and psychologists based on the assumption of a non-physical entity, which somehow inhabits and interacts with the human body, has not furthered human understanding of the working of the mind. Instead, it has furthered superstition and ignorance while hindering the development of any real and useful knowledge about the human mind. More promising is the work of those who see consciousness in terms of brain functioning and who try to treat 'mental' illness as primarily a physical problem. Two vast industries have been made both possible and lucrative by this belief in a non-entity in need of treatment from experts in non-entities: religion and psychology. A third industry, philosophy, also flourishes in great part due to the concept of soul: a good many philosophers write books and articles based on the assumption of the existence of spirits, while a good many others make a living writing refutations and criticisms of those books and articles.

See also astral projection, dualism, materialism, and mind.


from The Skeptic's Dictionary
http://skepdic.com/

under "S", for soul
WBraun

climber
May 17, 2018 - 05:47pm PT
soul isn't the same as the concept of consciousness

Soul and consciousness are one and same.

Psychologists and skeptics are worthless to understand the soul.

Academics like Craig fried are worthless to understand the soul, the living entity itself.

Academics can't even see their own selves .....
Bushman

climber
The state of quantum flux
May 17, 2018 - 06:11pm PT
If only I knew what my dog tried to teach me

Don’t know if I have a soul
and haven’t a clue what god is
Lost and adrift
dazed and confused
Don’t know anything
‘bout life after death

When I die guess I’ll find out
or fade into the nothingness
That’s OK I’m alright with it
little time to learn the enth of it
But ‘least until my dyin’ breath
I’ll be asking questions and I won’t quit

-bushman
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
May 17, 2018 - 07:04pm PT
No idea.
madbolter1

Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
May 17, 2018 - 07:33pm PT
The person promoting an idea has the burden to prove it, not the person who questioning it.

Kant did a pretty bang-up job.

See, when empiricists request "proof," they are asking for a contradiction in terms. Nothing can be proved, in the really strict sense of that term, by empirical means. The long history of science has "proved" that fact.

"Proof" really means a deductive, not inductive, process. The scientific method is, by definition, inductive and so cannot in principle produce proofs. Thus, I find it entertaining when empiricists demand a level of evidence that they themselves never, ever produce.

And if what an empiricist means is "some reason to believe," it is very deeply question-begging to presume that that reason must necessarily be anchored in empirical evidence alone.

Kant employed deduction, so his account, unlike a scientific one, can in principle act as a proof.

In other words, there is a very good reason to believe in the Kantian "I think" that defies scientific "proof," because mind and all empirical data it perceives presupposes its action.
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
May 17, 2018 - 08:39pm PT
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Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
May 17, 2018 - 08:40pm PT
Nothing can be proved, in the really strict sense of that term, by empirical means. The long history of science has "proved" that fact.

"Proof" really means a deductive, not inductive, process. The scientific method is, by definition, inductive and so cannot in principle produce proofs. Thus, I find it entertaining when empiricists demand a level of evidence that they themselves never, ever produce.


as I've stated elsewhere, this is a particular philosophical view of science which I'm not sure is correct.
donini

Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
May 17, 2018 - 08:41pm PT
Soul music, soul food...pretty sure about them.
Ed Hartouni

Trad climber
Livermore, CA
May 17, 2018 - 08:43pm PT
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