Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

Sorry AB but that makes no sense at all.

Just think, for example, of the words "love" and "hate".  If you look these up in a dictionary, you will see them described in terms of other words.  But it is only within the depths of your soul, your inner self, where you can experience and perceive the real meaning without using words.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Just think, for example, of the words "love" and "hate".  If you look these up in a dictionary, you will see them described in terms of other words.  But it is only within the depths of your soul, your inner self, where you can experience and perceive the real meaning without using words.

What "soul" would that be then?

[floo]

Just think, for example, of the words "love" and "hate".  If you look these up in a dictionary, you will see them described in terms of other words.  But it is only within the depths of your soul, your inner self, where you can experience and perceive the real meaning without using words.

My consciousness is produced by my brain, it is not independent of it, which you appear to think the 'soul' is.

[Alan Burns]

 
Again with the “soul” error, and again you fail to grasp that we are animals, albeit animals with more complex cognitive functions than others

Just try using the definition of soul as "that which perceives meaning", and you should find that we do not just react, as animals do, to whatever our sensory data perceives, but we also attach meaning to it.  Just try thinking of what we experience as "meaning" without describing it in terms of a physical reaction.

[floo]

Just try using the definition of soul as "that which perceives meaning", and you should find that we do not just react, as animals do, to whatever our sensory data perceives, but we also attach meaning to it.  Just try thinking of what we experience as "meaning" without describing it in terms of a physical reaction.

The brain is a physical organ without which we have no consciousness and cannot attribute meaning to anything.

[Alan Burns]

   
So we play instruments to commune with the pixies.

I would say that most musicians use instruments to express something they experience within themselves (ie their inner souls) which can't be described in words.

[Alan Burns]

The brain is a physical organ without which we have no consciousness and cannot attribute meaning to anything.

The brain and the soul must work together, Floo, to make us what we are.  The soul can perceive the meaning behind what is contained in the physical brain, and can interact with it to facilitate human will.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Just try using the definition of soul as "that which perceives meaning", and you should find that we do not just react, as animals do, to whatever our sensory data perceives, but we also attach meaning to it.

First, “that which perceives meaning” is called consciousness. There’s no need to invent something else to do the job for which you have neither logic nor evidence. What you did was equivalent to asserting “there must be leprechauns because we have rainbows”.

Doesn’t work does it?

Second, you have no grounds at all just to assert that “animals” “just react”. To the contrary, there’s overwhelming evidence that other species emote, plan, defer reward, co-operate, grieve, use tools do all sorts of things you imagine only our species does.

Third, given that for example some great apes have been taught to use sign language and have initiated complex meanings of their own, your “meaning” point is about as robust as your assertion “soul”.   

Just try thinking of what we experience as "meaning" without describing it in terms of a physical reaction.

Just try thinking.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I would say that most musicians use instruments to express something they experience within themselves (ie their inner souls) which can't be described in words.

Whoosh!

[john]

AB

I absolutely assure you that (for at least one animal) my dog can understand perfectly well what I mean and respond appropriately (when he feels like it) and he definitely hasn't got a soul.

[Alan Burns]

Third, given that for example some great apes have been taught to use sign language and have initiated complex meanings of their own, your “meaning” point is about as robust as your assertion “soul”.   

The key here is the word "taught"
They are just being encouraged by humans to copy human behaviour, then those same humans declare this act of copying as some revelation that these apes are capable of human like behaviour.

Left to their natural habitat they would not exhibit such human like qualities.

[Alan Burns]

AB

I absolutely assure you that (for at least one animal) my dog can understand perfectly well what I mean and respond appropriately (when he feels like it) and he definitely hasn't got a soul.

Your dog is simply responding (reacting) in the way it has been trained.  Any concept of understanding is just in your perception, not in your dog.

[john]

AB

I take it you don't know much about dogs then?

[SusanDoris]

The key here is the word "taught"
They are just being encouraged by humans to copy human behaviour, then those same humans declare this act of copying as some revelation that these apes are capable of human like behaviour.

Left to their natural habitat they would not exhibit such human like qualities.

No, they are showing their brain's abilities to respond and imitate what they see. In case you have forgotten, we, the human species, are  a species of ape.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

The key here is the word "taught"

They are just being encouraged by humans to copy human behaviour, then those same humans declare this act of copying as some revelation that these apes are capable of human like behaviour.

Left to their natural habitat they would not exhibit such human like qualities.

Oh dear. You were taught English. Does that mean that you too must therefore just be copying behaviour?

What the evidence (you know, evidence  – the thing you seem to be so shy of providing for your various claims and assertons) is that, once they have the tools of language, the great apes in question express emotions and feelings and ideas of their own – sadness for example when a member of the troop dies.   

[Alan Burns]

AB

I take it you don't know much about dogs then?

I had a pet dog from the age of 6 and was with me all my childhood until my late teens.  I loved playing with it and trained it to do many things, but it was not human - it did not have a sense of right or wrong, it just behaved according to its instincts and what it had learnt from past experience.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

I had a pet dog from the age of 6 and was with me all my childhood until my late teens.  I loved playing with it and trained it to do many things, but it was not human - it did not have a sense of right or wrong, it just behaved according to its instincts and what it had learnt from past experience.

Stop digging! A "sense of right and wrong" is not the definition of Homo sapiens.

What many species do exhibit though is teamwork, co-operation, sacrifice for the greater good etc - essentially the basis of morality that our species happens to have the cognitive ability to codify.   

[floo]

The brain and the soul must work together, Floo, to make us what we are.  The soul can perceive the meaning behind what is contained in the physical brain, and can interact with it to facilitate human will.

I don't think your definition of a 'soul' has any credibility.

[BeRational]

Are these elephants just reacting or are they problem solving?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHPD3bmiUHY

[john]

Those elephants might have had compassion and been very clever in the way they responded to the little ones distress.

But it doesn't count.

Because they do not have souls.

And there fore they can't have a lifesaving award.

[bluehillside Retd.]

BR,

I had a pet dog from the age of 6 and was with me all my childhood until my late teens.  I loved playing with it and trained it to do many things, but it was not human - it did not have a sense of right or wrong, it just behaved according to its instincts and what it had learnt from past experience.

If you follow AB's reasoning, someone must have snuck in the day before and shown them a bunch of instructional videos, presumably with a few peanuts on offer too for whenever the got their training just right.

That's the thing when you're ignorant of your ignorance - you can assert whatever you like no matter how much the evidence you don't know about contradicts you.

[bluehillside Retd.]

John,

And there fore they can't have a lifesaving award.

Not even a special badge on their trunks?

I'll get me jacket...

[Maeght]

Round and round we go!

Alan, whatever you want tocall the thing which makes decisions can you explain howitmakes those decisions I.e. what does it use to base its decision on?

[ekim]

Round and round we go!

Alan, whatever you want tocall the thing which makes decisions can you explain howitmakes those decisions I.e. what does it use to base its decision on?

It might be better to personalise that question.  As Alan identifies with being a soul then he should be in a position to answer how he makes decisions rather than how a hypothetical soul makes decisions.  Is it any different to the way you make a decision without a soul?

[torridon]

Just try using the definition of soul as "that which perceives meaning", and you should find that we do not just react, as animals do, to whatever our sensory data perceives, but we also attach meaning to it.  Just try thinking of what we experience as "meaning" without describing it in terms of a physical reaction.

There is no reason to suppose that other animals don't 'attach meaning'.  'Meaning' is an emotional response to events and most animals share the basic emotions that we know.