The Soul

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

So...coming back....

Does "coming back" mean something like, "I'm just going to slide around the last problem I gave myself and will try instead something else in the hope that no-one notices"?

...there is now a thrust to understand Consciousness.

There's no "now" about it - consciousness has been an active field of study for a long time.

And chances are that, most of the spiritual philosophies that emphasize consciousness as central to our lives and to the universe, could be vindicated.

So you assert. In the absence of hard or complete data though, how would you know that?

[Enki]

My reply no 60 (in the linked thread) is also very relevant to your point in the above thread.

It didn't impress me then, and still doesn't. Even if what you say has a smattering of truth(i.e. that there are stages we go through when searching for the truth) then I really would have no idea if the so called stage that I am at is more advanced than the one you are at or even vice versa. The only way of even approaching any sensible answer to this would be to call upon external, more objective agencies which might be able to enlighten our rather closeted subjective ideas by producing some sort of valid evidence(or lack of). However I have to say that this idea of yours that we must necessarily go through stages in searching for some inner truth doesn't really cut any ice as far as I am concerned. I'll just go on living and learning hopefully till the day I die, and then, as far as I am concerned, that's it!

[ekim]

You brought this up before, Ekim, in 2017. Remember?

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=13324.0

Look down to post 17 onwards. There was plenty of discussion on it then by Sriram, Torri, Stranger, Outrider and others, including myself (see post 53, for instance).

For my money, Bramble's response in post 55, was the most telling. 

Yes, I vaguely remembered it but had forgotten how the discussion had developed. I am surprised that anybody else remembered it.   For my money the response to Bramble's questions in post 59 was the most telling. 
I also remember  bringing up  about listening to a woman who had been blind since birth and who had had an operation in adult life which gave her vision.  She was overwhelmed with joy at the blueness of the sky and greenness of the grass.  She found that she could name some simple objects from visual input, but some e.g. a kettle defeated her and she had to close her eyes and identify it with touch.  This was a story of a blind person living in the 'The Country of the Sighted'.

[SteveH]

Yes, I vaguely remembered it but had forgotten how the discussion had developed. I am surprised that anybody else remembered it.   For my money the response to Bramble's questions in post 59 was the most telling. 
I also remember  bringing up  about listening to a woman who had been blind since birth and who had had an operation in adult life which gave her vision.  She was overwhelmed with joy at the blueness of the sky and greenness of the grass.  She found that she could name some simple objects from visual input, but some e.g. a kettle defeated her and she had to close her eyes and identify it with touch.  This was a story of a blind person living in the 'The Country of the Sighted'.

In the days before born-blind people could be given their sight in later life, it was a moot philosophical point as to whether they would be able to recognise objects they knew by touch by sight alone. The question wasn't settled until the mid-19th Century, when it became possible to operate on congenital cataracts.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi OC,

In the days before born-blind people could be given their sight in later life, it was a moot philosophical point as to whether they would be able to recognise objects they knew by touch by sight alone. The question wasn't settled until the mid-19th Century, when it became possible to operate on congenital cataracts.

Reminds me a bit of the Mary’s Room thought experiment:

https://philosophynow.org/issues/99/What_Did_Mary_Know

[jeremyp]

That’s missing the point. There are various means of calculating the sum that don’t require telescopes (Aristarchus used Hipparchus' calculation of the Earth-Moon distance, who in turn used Eratosthenes' calculation of the Earth's circumference to calculate the Earth/Sun distance for example); mistakes or faking of the answer would require a global conspiracy or incompetence of such enormity and robustness as to put us in “dragon in the garage” territory etc.

Aristarchus' value was wrong by a factor of of nearly 62 in terms of Earth radii and that would be compounded by whatever error was in Eratosthenes measurement (we don't know for sure because we don't know for sure exactly how long a stade is).

To get the number 93 million miles that you quoted requires heavy investment in scientific technology including at the very least good telescopes in order to calculate very small parallax values and ideally rocket ships to take laser reflectors to the Moon to get a really good estimate of the Earth-Moon distance.

The point though is that all these various and independent methods coalescing on the same answer probabilistically give us a much higher truth value than the unqualified assertion of, say, “there’s a dragon in my garage”.

And my point was that, although, in principle, you and I can replicate the observations, in practice, we trust the scientists to get it right and we trust the scientific method to correct them when they get it wrong.

Sriram tried the going nuclear option of “we can’t know anything with certainty in any case” as if that made all truth claims epistemologically equal, and I was just explaining to him why they’re not.

I don’t suppose it’ll register though.   

I agree. There are degrees of certainty. The triangle thing is absolute. The dragon in the garage is not absolute but, I could be as near as dammit certain if I had ten minutes access to your garage. Also there are various reasons why dragons as described by most mythology would be extremely unlikely.

The Earth's orbit is a different thing because it is a measurement and there will be a margin of error associated with it that. If we take 93 million as the mean distance, it's wrong but we know it is pretty close to the true distance. (The Astronomical Unit is defined as about 92.956 million miles.)

[Sassy]

I am of the opinion that the word 'soul' is just another term for human consciousness, which ceases to exist on death.

For those who believe the human soul is created by god and survives death, what evidence do you have to support that supposition?

I suspect this will be a very short thread.

What do you suggest is a soul and how are you supporting the soul dies at death?

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

Out of bodies experiences where they see things from a height or position the brain could not imagine because it isn't programmed to see the things the eye cannot itself see.

I am thinking as you grow older Roses that you now approach the time of making your mind up. Supposition.... what are the experiences that brain can see things which the eyes are not seeing through the soul?

[Roses]

What do you suggest is a soul and how are you supporting the soul dies at death?

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

Out of bodies experiences where they see things from a height or position the brain could not imagine because it isn't programmed to see the things the eye cannot itself see.

I am thinking as you grow older Roses that you now approach the time of making your mind up. Supposition.... what are the experiences that brain can see things which the eyes are not seeing through the soul?

I don't believe the so called 'soul' is a separate entity to the human body. I think once we die we stay dead, end of story. I certainly hope that is the case.


As for out of the body experiences, the brain is a remarkable organ, which can create such experiences, imo.

[Robbie]

I think 'out of body' experiences are dreams, LR.
Some are quite enjoyable.

[Roses]

I think 'out of body' experiences are dreams, LR.
Some are quite enjoyable.

Have you ever had one?

[Alan Burns]

I think 'out of body' experiences are dreams, LR.
Some are quite enjoyable.

There is a distinct difference between dreams and out of body experiences for those who have had them.

Dreams are often vaguely remembered, difficult to recall in detail and are quickly forgotten, but witnesses to out of body experiences claim that they are recalled in very fine detail and the memory remains with them for the rest of their lives.

[Enki]

There is a distinct difference between dreams and out of body experiences for those who have had them.

Dreams are often vaguely remembered, difficult to recall in detail and are quickly forgotten, but witnesses to out of body experiences claim that they are recalled in very fine detail and the memory remains with them for the rest of their lives.

If you are at all interested in OBEs, you might like to look at this article by Dr Susan Blackmore, who has studied them extensively. The second part of this article deals with OBEs which are related particularly with NDEs(Near Death Experiences). To my mind she approaches the whole subject fairly objectively and with a wealth of knowledge at her fingertips. Well worth reading if you are at all interested in the subject.

https://www.susanblackmore.uk/articles/are-out-of-body-experiences-evidence-for-survival/

[SweetPea]

Alan, you may also be interested in Pim van Lommel studies - a cardiologist of 25yrs experience who witnessed patients that related NDEs:

https://pimvanlommel.nl/en/

I too have a friend that has had numerous OBEs since she was a child. One of these she describes as travelling to a corner of the ceiling in her nephew's bedroom that she had never actually visited. When she described the room to her brother he was amazed by the accurate detail she portrayed.

[Gordon]

Alan, you may also be interested in Pim van Lommel studies - a cardiologist of 25yrs experience who witnessed patients that related NDEs:

https://pimvanlommel.nl/en/

I too have a friend that has had numerous OBEs since she was a child. One of these she describes as travelling to a corner of the ceiling in her nephew's bedroom that she had never actually visited. When she described the room to her brother he was amazed by the accurate detail she portrayed.

Whose work in this field is pseudoscience.

See: http://www.critical-thinking.org.uk/paranormal/near-death-experiences/the-dying-brain.php

t is important to be clear that van Lommel et al. provided no evidence at all that the mind or consciousness is separate from brain processes. In addition, there were no direct measures of anoxia, and no measures of neuroelectrical brain activity from their patients. Their findings are entirely consistent with contemporary neuroscience and are in line with the general dying-brain account of Near Death Experiences. As such, this study poses no challenge at all to either psychological or neuroscientific accounts for the Near Death Experience. From this we can see that their claim of the need for a new science of consciousness (which makes provision for some form of dualism) is unfounded and unnecessary. In the absence of strong evidence for survival, it appears that the position of the survivalist is still one based on faith.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Whose work in this field is pseudoscience.

See: http://www.critical-thinking.org.uk/paranormal/near-death-experiences/the-dying-brain.php

Not sure about Van Lommel but the article you are appealing to immediately goes into dogma when it declares itself worried about dualism. There is then a bit of scientific padding throughout the reading of which, one must remember that Critical Thinking might not be a neuroscientific journal...…….is it?

[Gordon]

Not sure about Van Lommel but the article you are appealing to immediately goes into dogma when it declares itself worried about dualism. There is then a bit of scientific padding throughout the reading of which, one must remember that Critical Thinking might not be a neuroscientific journal...…….is it?

It is a site that reviews from the perspective of critical thinking, hence its name, and the chap critiquing van Lommel's work here, and exposing it as NDE pseudoscience, is a UK based academic with an extensive publication history in the field of psychology.