Is there any reason to believe that such a thing as a soul exists?

@cerealguy


Well do share.

@Pikachu there isn't a point if you're literally poised to deny it with the underlying premise of physicalism, is there? 🤷🏾‍♂️

Can we clear this inevitable brick wall?


And to start with some clues and ideas:

1. The first clue obviously are creatures without brains being clearly alive. Viruses as living, conscious beings, etc. Also, babies that are born with a full healthy body sometimes come out dead. Why is it life that is missing from them even if they have a brain?

2. Second, there are contents and thoughts of the brain that are clearly mechanical. And then come emotions which are not controlled by the brain. Feelings like jealousy, or that eerie desperation where you feel like you're being left behind don't come from the brain or heart, even if there are biological responses to that perception. Fear, for example.

3. Third is consciousness, which may be the hardest point. You can have a brain but not be conscious. Some brain dead people people in a vegetative state are alive still, for a time. If it really was the brain that keeps us alive, how does this make sense for someone to be alive without the brain

4. Fourth is sudden death. A perfect biological system that has no flaws that then begins to shut down. But before this, the person was unconscious, suddenly. This informally looks like the cardiac arrest of the gaps because with no explanation, doctors just say "his heart stopped" since it is the most vital organ. But there is no real explanation for why a perfectly healthy body shuts down

Besides the really intricate web of concepts that surround the notion of a soul, these ideas call us into questioning the idea that a brain equates the soul, where we know the soul is the idea of life or livingness

@cerealguy


Well since you go on at length after this statement, i'll ignore it and assume you found at least some point in doing so😉


Sure. Complex brains are not a prerequisite of life. But i don't think anyone is arguing that a virus has a soul.
I'm saying that the attributes that some people assign to a soul are more properly assigned to a brain.
That life can exist without a brain is irrelevant in this context. Or so it seems to me.


On what basis do you make that claim?


The brain is made up of more primitive and more developed parts.
There may be no higher brain function resulting in a vegetative state but the autonomic nervous system which controls heartbeat and breathing etc. is still functional.
This is a non-issue.


I find it an odd assumption that the apparently healthy body is "perfectly" healthy.
I also don't understand how a body failing without medical explanation is indicative of soul that exists beyond and without the body...

@Pikachu
No, I just continue regardless 😪
But hey, if you're game then we're game

Also, don't forget to answer my questions too:
Are you approaching from a physicalist model?

I guess we should have started off with the concept of a soul first. What is a soul to you? Or what you're questioning the existence of, so we can move on properly?

This is the exact point where you'll find that physicalism is about to dichotomize us. Some related concepts like dissociation, subjectivity come into play here where we find that we're not all just this straight, biological machine that fine tunes to come to conclusions. But again, you're gunna have to clarify if this metaphysical domain even is a consideration to you so we can properly discuss and conclude these things. Otherwise, this conversation will devolve into something where it is just you asking for a stance to be proposed and judged by your stance and worldview, and then we cannot criticize and analyze both sides properly to establish why your worldview holds this judging seat and its concreteness and evidences. Likewise, then this worldview I possess about the soul needs to also be analyzed and we can see what makes sense and what doesn't.

This is the whole issue with sudden death. Upon scanning, the entire body is healthy, so they conclude it sudden death and say the heart just stopped. It is the heart attack of the gaps, in a sense.

Then what's missing? When you place that body next to a sleeping one, both end up looking completely different. And if these bodies were just purely mechanical, why don't we just start it back up like a car? Hypothetically, from a physicalist perspective, there is just a leak or a broken spark plug, to break it down into a concrete example. In cars, you fix that and run it and it starts functioning. But when a human dies, there is no bringing life back into them. Even with the brain present

So, what do you actually propose is the answer to this question that has neuroscientists and biologists without an answer? (For those who talk about only the physical, scientifically observable, chemical world)

@cerealguy


I can conceive of it but i need to see evidence that it exists in order to believe it.
We know the physical exists. The metaphysical seems to be on less sturdy ground.


In this context simply some form of your consciousness that continues to exist after the destruction of the body.


I guess in that case you're assuming you understand how the machine works which is not really justified considering how much scientists still don't know about how humans work.

@Pikachu So you're certain that this physical world exists. So am I. It would be insanity to deny this all. So, about the metaphysical domain, suppose you had to discover or request evidence for it. The first question would be what form the impact metaphysical concepts have on the physical world would take and how we can address them.

Is it safe for you to step into a stance where we would have to come in tune with our metaphysical components of ourselves to make sense of these things?

An example being like we use eyes to observe visible, physical things. Then use our logic to rationalize truths, evidences, and axioms. Then our mind for imagination (which is metaphysical) and our soul for feelings (which is metaphysical). Metaphysical things are studied in soft sciences because these phenomenon can be partially understood, if not completely, through observation and data the same way we observe hard sciences to rationalize the real world, partially, if not completely

Please, criticize (truly constructively or positively) and share with me your judgements or thoughts about the above

I can agree to that. I imagine it as a separate entity to the physucal body that envelopes the entire experience, consciousness, identity, and existence we feel on a level that goes deeper than observation. Something that is clearly tethered to the same body and at the time of death is separated, in which we bury bodies because we know the soul/life cannot be returned. Even if we take a simply cardiac arrest and start pumping the heart, that a dead body truly will be dead not because of the heart (where if it was the issue, things would start up again like a dead car by simply pumping it) but because of some other trigger that turns off. Naming it the soul is just a thought, and some scientists are starting to lean towards a soul existing. Otherwise, merely kickstarting or replacing a broken or stopped part would be all that was needed to get a human running. The soul to me can be seen as a trigger or kickstarter or key for life. Without it, the physical body is truly dead. Different to sleep. This is why stillborns with healthy bodies are dead. They have everything but ONE metaphysical, nonbiological thing. Because scientists don't actually know what causes the heart to beat. Anatomically, they've pieced up the entire heart. But this key trigger that instructs it to beat is clearly not a physical or electrical thing. Otherwise, heart shocking and CPR would work in a physicalist paradigm and then people would be like a dead car battery that just needs starting

Unlike the metaphor that a human puts some key into the heart and starts it. The heart has its own system, separate to the brain to pump, yet it pumps sometimes and stops sometimes and we cannot force it. Its initialization and end are out of physical control. Unlike other, purely physical things. Namely inanimate, nonliving things. These clearly differ to living creatures on a dimension different than simply atomically.

Considering this, if it were true, would this combination of soul and body make sense to you? Regardless of either of our current beliefs. Would it be a complete way to view life and death?


Hmmm, let me spin this to show you an idea. Imagine I said you assume I do not know because scientists do not know. (Which you implied)

To dissect it plainly, you just proposed underlying premises:

1. I can't know something before scientists do (hence, you saying my justification is based on scientists)
Does this really sound rational and true? 👀
Why do you say that as if scientists are the ceiling of knowledge? Can I discover something without a scientist? Suppose they catch up, is it THEN I'm allowed to know what I already know? 👀 (considering a discovery)

2. That science is the only toolkit to knowledge. Because I can know things through means that aren't scientific. Did ya know this? (In fact, science is based on this)