Spectrum theory against religion

[Cooker]

Yet another Atheist argument
The last one is covered in heaven and hell arguments, so I have to make another thread, and wish it fair better then the last.

“Spectrum theory against religion” :!:

Assume religion is correct
Assume evolution is correct
Religion stated that only human have souls
Now date back to the time where apes are gradually evolved to human
We can easily see there is a spectrum of transition between ape and man
Therefore, there is a Continuous, and not acute process of transition between things with souls from thing without souls.
Religion stated that soul is a quantum state, and can not be Continuous.
Therefore religion or evolution is wrong.
Since evolution is a fact, not a theory, while religion is a theory:
Religion is Objectively incorrect (all of them)

[bluevorlon]

Do we really need another of these? Can you at least wait until one dies before starting another one...

[Cooker]

The last one is buried so I decide to start another. And what is so bad about it anyways, now we can work on two of these at same time, twice the efficiency.

[bluevorlon]

There's now three religion threads, with questionable deviation on the topic. If you want me to lock your other thread an continue this one, sure thing. But I don't see the point. We've had this happen before with the Iraq war, and with science threads, if you spread the discussion the quality decreases dramatically and sooner or later they all become the same thing.

[ceejayoz]

Since evolution is a fact, not a theory, while religion is a theory: Evolution is still a theory - so's gravity.

Your argument is poorly constructed.

First, clarify what you mean by "religion". From the sounds of it, you're using the definition "Christian who interprets the Bible literally".

Someone who takes the Bible literally must by definition not accept the theory of evolution - as it goes contrary to a literal interpretation of the creation story laid out in Genesis.

If one does not take the Bible literally, however, and believes that Genesis is a metaphor for evolution, then it is certainly possible to say that the "soul" is a metaphor for the human spirit, or something like that.

[TheGeneral]

Yea, "religion" is rather vague, there, Cooker. As fas as Catholicism goes you're off: The Catholic teaching is that all living things have souls, including humans. It's just that apes' souls aren't immortal; their soul ceases to exist when they die.

I agree withe ceejay on the other point: just like religion is a "theory", so is evolution. It's not called the "Law of Evolution"; it's the "Theory of Evolution".

TheGeneral

[Martian]

Uh, wait, so there is no God because evolution is a fact (lets assume that it is for a second)? But what about a religion wich sees evolution as a part of the plan of this God (as large parts of the Christian churches do, as stated above... at least up to a certain point)?

But still, all religions must be wrong because evolution is a fact....

Your argument fails horribly :/

[malignus]

I don't see how that bit about Catholocism evades the spectrum argument. You then have to specify a point at which apes' souls became immortal, because they had become objectively "human."

The bit about disproving all religions, however, seems rather ludicrous to me. Not all religions automatically object to the theory of evolution. As for Christianity wiggling out of this by interpreting the Bible metaphorically... well, I think I addressed this in another thread, and have no desire to type it up again.

As for evolution not being fact... technically, that is true. It is a theory, not a fact. But as you said cj, so is gravity. In this case, "theory" is a just a semantic difference--evolution is about as well-established as gravity in the world of science as being objectively correct. The fact that it is a "theory" is no basis for discounting Cooker's argument.

[Cooker]

bluevorlon :
If you could, please merge the threads you find similiar.

[Higaran]

Cooker, religion and science both change with the times. There is a part in the bible which says that women who cheat on their husbands should be stoned to death, which is still practiced but not in the more civilazed countrys. We realize this is a bad idea, so we don't practice it anymore, but it was once a very firm belief, and was practiced by most. On the same account, people once thought that it was not possible to go faster than 35, that was supposed to be the maximum speed , that it was impossible to go faster, then a train did it and everyone was wowed, then it went faster and faster, untill it went up to the speed of sound. We broke that barrier as well, not its the speed of light, which we will eventually get to also, that is if we don't blow our selves up ahead of time. So religion and science are both totally relative to the times, one day the church may say that animals, plants, and everything has a soul, or science may even prove it eventually, so you really shouldn't think so hard about it, becaus we may never know this kind of stuff.

[Cooker]

Higaran:
Religion never wanted to change and is always forced to change instead of changing spontaneously. It does not seek to improve itself, and it’s often forced to. . I am unaware of any incidence where a religion realized its mistake and change before pressure was great enough for it to do so.
Modern science seeks to improve it and do so spontaneously, that is result of many conflict between modern science and various religions. If any religion is fundamentally correct at all, why we find increasing number of errors in them as technology progress?

[oneredpanther]

Cooker... somehow.... something in the back of mind that I can't quite put my finger on doubts that a two thousand year old book and it's appended religion ever "stated that soul is a quantum state"

The ancients of the middle east must've been hella clever if they knew about Quantum Dynamics before they had proper drinking water. :D

[Pestilance]

I like Bluevorlon's fluffy bunny avatar.

[Mr-e-Man]

Therefore religion or evolution is wrong.


So basically you've just found another way to prove that which most people (in my experience) assume out of hand?

Since evolution is a fact, not a theory, while religion is a theory

/raises eyebrow.

Please enlighten me, sir, of how anything can be historically proven. Even if 99.999% of all academics out there accept evolution as an absolute-positive-has-to-be-possible fact, that still leaves the question of whether it did occur, or whether the creation account (pick one) is actually correct.

[Higaran]

Crooker, nothing ever changes spontaneously, not religion, or science or even the direction I drive, in I feel like making a turn at the last second, or people. Everything that happens always happens for a reason. Laws aren't made just because, there is something that people think is wrong so they make a law. People don't just invent things, they think that there should be, or could be something that does a job better and they make it. Everything is cause and effect, it ins't possible for there to be some effect without some cause. Just as it ins't possible for there to be a new cause without some previous effect.

ORP yes I agree with you totally, a 2000+ year old book can't possibly be the absolute divine truth, when no one even know if any of the translations are even right, its been translated in at least 5 languages before it was to english, who know if it even says anything close to the origional texts.

[Martian]

Originally posted by Cooker
Religion never wanted to change and is always forced to change instead of changing spontaneously. It does not seek to improve itself, and it’s often forced to. .Western civilisation must change, and knows that very well. Yet, it will fail to do so until the pressure becomes too high, and most likely, by then it will be too late.

You give me any nation, movement or person that did change while it didn't feel any pressure to do so. If there is no pressure to change, why would anything change? Staying the same will be just as good-and easier. This argument is just as ridiculous as your entire theory.

[Bnonn]

Well, I would disagree regarding change. Change is not something which only happens when pressure is applied to do so. Generally there is a reason, but it can be just a spontaneous decision.

[Martian]

How can there be a reason that does not apply pressure? A reason is pressure.

[TheGeneral]

Okay, so at some point apes are instilled with immortal souls. Religion doesn't automatically cancel evolution out; God can create the universe however He wants to. If he did it through evolution, good for Him.

TheGeneral

[Paladin]

Religion stated that only human have souls...Religion is Objectively incorrect (all of them)

Two issues. Mormons do not believe that only humans have souls. They believe that everything has a spirit, even rocks.

Buddhists also do not have this "only humans have souls" foolishness in our religion.

Please do not generalize if you haven't looked into all possible instances of the class you are generalizing about. Thank you.

[The Reflection]

The problem is that, assuming there is a soul, we presumably are dealing with something that has never been measured. Thus, we couldn't know how much it corresponded to a physical body. Perhaps there's some essentially purely arbitrary threshold for evolution, below which there are no souls and above which there are souls. It might not make that much sense, since evolution is a gradual process, but since we don't know how any process of "ensouling" might work, it could very well be a sudden spiritual transition. Or think of it this way - there's a wide level of alertness from awake to drowsy to hallucinating half-sleep to sleep: yet when I wake up in the morning (especially when I'm using an alarm clock), within a few seconds I skip all the way from asleep to awake. While I'm sure that my body takes a while to get itself up to full alertness, my mind makes the jump pretty quickly. For all we know (if we assume there are souls), it might just be like that - one day an Australopithecus was born that had a soul.

Also, while some religious beliefs might assume there's a sudden jump, there are others where there is indeed a spectrum. For example, a few years ago, I used to believe in such a spectrum. Essentially, I imagined that there was this "spiritual ether" that filled the Universe. This ether responded to the arrangement of matter; it shadowed it in a way. As consciousness arose, the ether would arrange itself into ever more intricate patterns. But just as the development of the consciousness was not a sudden process, these patterns weren't an all-or-nothing thing: simple life - bacteria, even - might have simple patterns, while vastly more complex and more aware life like us might have more complex patterns. The more complex the pattern, the more of a "soul" it had. The idea even allowed for the possibilities of AIs and extraterrestrials having "souls" if they were complex enough. (Eventually that idea collapsed under its own weight: I was just creating a mirror world where everything was more or less like here, and I had difficulty believing that this ether could have awareness and yet normal matter could not.)

I think some versions of Hinduism have a spectrum of souls. Hinduism is based around the belief in reincarnation, and especially karma - if you are good and fulfill your duties, you will be reborn the next time around into a better body: a wealthier social class, or in some cases, I think, even a god. If you don't fulfill your duties, you are reborn into a worse condition: you might not only be part of a lower class, you might even be born as an animal. If you were really bad, you might be reborn as a flower, or a rock. So, I imagine that they would say that an ape has a soul just like a human, its just that they didn't have good enough karma last time around (either because they were bad, or they're still climbing the ladder).

Finally, it is possible that there is a God or gods, but no soul. Perhaps It created us such that this is the only existence we have. Once we're gone, we're gone. In this case, there'd be no dilemma, since there'd be no souls.

[Bnonn]

Martian, I said generally there is a reason. I also said that it can sometimes be spontaneous.

Paladin, unless I'm not mistaken, pure Buddhism is not a religion anyway.

And it's ironic that you say it's foolishness to say that only humans have souls. My reaction would be that it's foolishness to say that anything has a soul. Or spirit.

Or whatever other ridiculous comforting...thing...you pitiful human worms want to imbue them with.

</zim>

[Mr-e-Man]

no one even know if any of the translations are even right, its been translated in at least 5 languages before it was to english, who know if it even says anything close to the origional texts.

o_0? I can go down to the corner book store and buy a copy of the original Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible (to which I assume you refer) .

@ Bnonn: It's also foolishness to say that anything lacks a soul, since the point can not be developed any further either way without some evidence outside the relm of science or purely human logic (hence, religion)

[Bnonn]

Well technically speaking I think it's probably not foolish to say that something which defies science doesn't exist...

[Retroboy]

How can there be a reason {for change} that does not apply pressure? A reason is pressure.Just a quick clarification that on an INDIVIDUAL basis, this quote is hokey. However, on an INSTITUTIONAL basis, it is true much more often than not. I'm an example of a person who changed without pressure.

-- Retro

[Mr-e-Man]

How does the existence of something which science can neither prove nor disprove defy science? That's like saying present participles defy math.

[Bnonn]

It defies science because, while we cannot prove or disprove its existence, we have no way to scientifically explain how something we cannot detect in any way, and which we cannot model in any way either, can somehow be such a crucial element of human makeup. It also defies science by raising a lot of other questions, which I'm sure you can arrive at by actually thinking about the topic in some depth...

[Mr-e-Man]

sci·ence ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sns)
n.

a. The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
b. Such activities restricted to a class of natural phenomena.


re·li·gion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (r-ljn)
n.

Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.


Note the words "natural" and "supernatural." If the soul is "supernatural," while human senses and, therefore, science, can only detect "natural" phenomena, then the two will stay off each others toes.

And I find it hard to believe that you really think that raising questions defies science.

props to Dictionary.com

[Higaran]

Originally posted by Mr-e-Man


o_0? I can go down to the corner book store and buy a copy of the original Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible (to which I assume you refer) .

@ Bnonn: It's also foolishness to say that anything lacks a soul, since the point can not be developed any further either way without some evidence outside the relm of science or purely human logic (hence, religion)



Sorry Mr-e-man, these books you speak of are the closest thing that we think the origional texts said. Back in those days they didn't exactly have copiers, they did everything by hand, and each guy that copied, would always put in some stuff of his own. Most of the time the people that made these bibles were the very few that could actually read and write, and most of the stories that were in these bibles were stories that priest or people would talk about. Basically they were the closest things those people had to urban legends, because there weren't any newspapers around then to accurately record these things.

The dead sea scrolls, which is the oldest copy that we can find, were written somewhere around 200 AD so thats still 2 centruies after Jesus, and storys can change alot over that kind of time.

[Mr-e-Man]

you said at first that the text is unreliable because it was translated to english from some other translated text, which would be rather stupid on the part of the translators. Now you say that it is unreliable because of a lack of reliable copiers. pick one.

[malignus]

Why can't he pick both? They both sound valid to me. :smash:

But this misses the point. Souls are unobservable. They might not exist, or if they do, they might come three or four to a person. Why not? Nobody can verify or deny this. Maybe a person's soul changes every few weeks, or washes away in the shower. Maybe a person's soul is being constantly exchanged, or multiplying. Maybe you only get a soul when you drink Kool-Aid.

The only basis we have for believing in souls to begin with are religious texts. Without religious texts, we have no reason whatsoever to assume that souls exist (short of personal comfort). The soul in general is a pretty vague concept, and so it could be that Cooker's proof, by dealing only with one very narrow conception of the soul, is not even addressing the real issues at hand (particularly not if it pretends to simultaneously disprove all religions in the world).

The real issue is: what reason is there for believing in invisible, unobservable constructs without the texts that explicitly and inexplicably mention them? There isn't any. Once you've established this, you are free to begin nit-picking at the credibility of the establishing texts.

(And before some brilliant person begins trying to compare souls to electromagnetic forces, let me preempt them by saying that forces are observable. Souls are not.)

[Higaran]

Mr-E-Man, english today is very diffrent from the english from the turn of the century, or even old english. The same goes for the greek and hebew. We are assuming that is what it says, because that is the closest to what would make sense in todays language. People that are supposed to be experts on the stuff have gone over and over these old texts and figured out this is what it say in a way that makes sense, in our language, because if you translated it word for word it would sound like total krap. And yes both of my reasons are totally valid, just study the history of the bible, you'll see that I'm totally right.

[Mr-e-Man]

I want you to pick one argument because they are mutually exlusive. If the Bible is unreliable because we have no idea that what we read is anything like the original texts before translation, then it is impossible to know for certain that the original text is unreliable due to unreliable copiers/being full of bedtime stories/having been passed from word of mouth/whatnot.

If the text is unreliable due to to unreliable copiers/being full of bedtime stories/having been passed from word of mouth/whatnot, then you immediately acknowledge that you know what the original text before translation said.

So pick one.

[malignus]

Those are not mutually exclusive.

You have, first, the "original" texts which are not the real original texts. The method by which these "original" texts were created and passed down makes the legitimacy of the bible suspect.

Then, another order of magnitude removed from the real original texts, you have the attempted translations of the "original" texts, which add even more error and confusion to the mix.

You could remove some of the confusion by studying the "original" texts, thereby bypassing many of the translation issues (although you'd still have to do some translating yourself, and hence would [robably not be able to completely avoid such issues). Even then, the objections about the legitimacy of the "original" texts remain.

[Mr-e-Man]

So you choose the argument regarding unreliable copiers and bedtime stories, and throw out the argument stating that the text has been translated into and through several languages and then from these to English.

Will post my thoughts on the validity of the originals after research has been done.

[Vijil]

I believe bnonn once stated that there is some evidence that the human mind is linked to forces that could be described as metaphysical... I can't say for sure if it was him.

Well here is my reaction:

A: There is still lots of debate over the feasability of macroevolution. Although the evidence is compelling, I wouldn't call it a fact just yet.

B: Since when does the soul have to be unobservable? Bible doesn't say that afaik.

C: The bible does not state that the soul is a quantum thing. In fact this whole idea of the soul being a quantum entity does not apply to the bible.

The bible implies that man is the better of many animals (so all these may have souls), until recieving the "holy spiit" which biblically didn't start happening until about AD 33ish.

[malignus]

The soul doesn't have to be observable. But neither do the gnomes who slip into my underwear drawer at night. In terms of real, observable data, both have the same probability of existing. The only difference between the two is that the Bible mentions souls and not the underwear gnomes.

So really, believing in the existence of a soul depends entirely on which religious texts (if any) you believe are true. Let's say you get this idea from the Bible. At that point, if we decide to believe in souls, we have to make up certain properties for them because A) the Bible doesn't spell these out too terribly clearly and B) we have no other way of determining what these properties may be.

So we make up rules like A) every person has only one soul that appears at the moment of conception and stays with them eternally, until B) they die, at which point their soul basically becomes them and C) migrates to hell, or purgatory, or limbo, or heaven, or whatever celestial hereafter you ascribe to, and so on.

How do souls interact in the afterlife, since they don't seem terribly capable of interaction right now? We have to make up mythologies to answer questions like these because when you can't observe a soul, you have no other way of answering the question.

[Bnonn]

More to the point, why do we have a soul and a brain? They both do the same thing, as far as I can tell, except that the soul lasts forever while the brain does not. What's with the pointless redundancy?

Of course, that brings up with issues of pointless redundancy regarding life itself in religion...

[Wulfius-Khan]

Originally posted by Cooker

We can easily see there is a spectrum of transition between ape and man
Therefore, there is a Continuous, and not acute process of transition between things with souls from thing without souls.


Flawed argument.
Giveaway phrase 'we can easily see'.

At some stage the ape became human.
No one can claim for certain exactly when this happened.
Was it when the ape started using a tool
or was it when the ape painted the wall of the cave?
Human experience is made of a series of discrete events.
Many animals dream, some animals use a tool, some animals make artistic artifacts (Bowler bird).
But when you combine the three we have a human.

What makes us human is speech.
In the same way that the defining characteristic of a bird is flight and that of fish is ability to swim.
Therefore when the caveman said UG and meant what
he said and whats more, his peers understood what he meant, we became human.

Given that there is only 3% of DNA code difference
between us and the Chimps and given that the human
experience is a series of discrete characteristics
a very convincing argument can be made that
humans became, well, human virtually overnight.

Ie: There is Acute rather than a continous process in becoming a human.

Your argument is as flawed as any about the absence of God.

In fact your own scientific theories prove the existance of god.

Watch the hands;

Scientific theory;
"Universe is so infinitely possible, therefore everything imaginable is possible since an INFINITE ammount of permutations exists in an INFINITE universe."

Its strong enough to stand on its own two feet but if you
add to that;
"It is impossible to disprove the existance of God everywhere therefore it is impossible to disprove the existance of God anywhere."

At best you can prove that God does not exist here and now but even that is a shaky argument.

[Cooker]

The definition of human is rather arbitrary, ape did not become human overnight therefore there is a continuum between human and ape. there is no such thing as the last ape or the first human. An analogy is positioning an object and calls it “high” or “low”. There has never being high or low expected their arbitrary definition, same thing can be applied to ape’s transition to human, in fact what makes a human a human is how you define it.

If the definition of human is arbitrary, then the definition of things with souls is also arbitrary, the only reason you have soul is that some biologist classified you as human that is absurd.

Therefore the soul statement does not stand.

[Bnonn]

Er...Wulfius, I think you need to swat up on science and logic before making rather silly posts like that...

[Wulfius-Khan]

Originally posted by Bnonn
Er...Wulfius, I think you need to swat up on science and logic before making rather silly posts like that...

And you kind sir, need to open up a book on conducting an argument, if you believe my post is 'silly' please point out exactly where so I can make fun of it :D

[Bnonn]

Flawed argument.
Giveaway phrase 'we can easily see'.
How is this a "giveaway phrase"? One can, indeed—if one has an understanding of evolutionary theory—see a spectrum of transition between ape and man. It's not a debatable point; it's a clear-cut scientific observation.

some animals make artistic artifacts (Bowler bird).
Do you have evidence to demonstrate that this amazing bird is capable of appreciating the aesthetic quality of that which it creates? It is only art if it is created with the intent of being art.

What makes us human is speech.
How is it, then, that chimpanzees are able to communicate with us through sign-language? I presume of course that by "speech" you mean the ability to communicate intelligently, since otherwise dumb people wouldn't be human. Many animals display the ability to communicate intelligently via a number of different methods.

Given that there is only 3% of DNA code difference
between us and the Chimps and given that the human
experience is a series of discrete characteristics
a very convincing argument can be made that
humans became, well, human virtually overnight.
Please, make this convincing argument then. I don't even see a connection beween discrete events and DNA whatsoever. Obviously your argument is self-evident only to you.

In fact your own scientific theories prove the existance of god.
Perhaps you should explain this to everyone who still does not believe. Since you've solved the problem that the greatest minds on Earth have struggled with for millenia, you will certainly be quite famous. I would note, all sarcasm aside, that after the above quote, you went on to completely not prove any such thing, by the simple application of ignorance.

The fact that universe is infinite does not mean that anything we can imagine will happen. It means that anything possible under the laws of physics will happen.

It has already been established that one cannot disprove the existence of God (otherwise it would not be such a difficult myth to be rid of). Equally, we cannot prove his existence either. So quite what you think you've proved I am entirely uncertain.

Feel free to now make fun. I await the fun-making with eager anticipation.

[Genetic Bryy]

I clap my hands in golf clap fashion, Mr. Bnonn.

[Vijil]

Wulfius, that last post was uncalled for. Please try to maintain a good image on these forums perhaps?

And good job bnonn, ownage.

[SquidDNA]

Bnonn, the male bower bird collects objects that are, say, blue, and arranges them in a small structure it builds on the ground. Females come in, look around, and make a decision to mate with the male or not, presumably based on whether she likes the "artwork."

Oh, "It is only art if it is created with the intent of being art." Not true. The earliest peice of human artwork is thought to have been naturally occurring. It was a rock that sort of looked like a skull, and it was found in a cave dwelling amidst artifacts. Art lay both with the creator and the observer. Take the old man of the mountain (before he fell off.)

[oneredpanther]

First of all, this thread is about the most retarded thing I have read on the forums all month.... debating the existence or nonexistence of things (The Soul and God) that are in all probability a fiction devised by archaic mankind in an effort to make his hard and ungratifying life of misery and toil worth living without going insane.

What surprises me is that mankind has come so far in the last ten thousand years, yet most of the species still clings to some ridiculous ficticious errata of sensibility, which by rights should really have been cast aside one hundred years ago.

While I feel this thread has been (as is usual with these things) single-handedly saved by Bnonn, I'd like to ask this:

Since when did the universe become infinite?

It's infinite only in size, NOT IN VOLUME... therefore not really infinitely big at all. The Big Bang would have this fact as a prerequisite for it's existence. If something comes from ONE POINT and is EXPANDING (the number of dimensions that may be in makes no difference), it still has a quantifiable VOLUME at any given time....

There aren't infinite worlds out there because there is only so much *stuff* in the universe.

That aside, Bnonn is still a sechsy mofo.

Coffee.

[Cooker]

Defecating does not make you a Defecator; by the same logic making a mistake does not make you a moron. Similarly A thread containing moronic content does not make the thread itself moronic.

Put that aside, you are really good at Photoshop.

[malignus]

OneRedPanther... size is volume. Just thought you might like to know that.

:claw:

Next contestant!

[Wulfius-Khan]

Originally posted by Bnonn
Flawed argument.
Giveaway phrase 'we can easily see'.
How is this a "giveaway phrase"? One can, indeed—if one has an understanding of evolutionary theory—see a spectrum of transition between ape and man. It's not a debatable point; it's a clear-cut scientific observation.

It is a give away phrase because it gives away the flaw in the argument.
"We can easily see" instead of a robust argument. It dont cut it boyo.

It may very well be a spectrum.
But it is a spectrum made of discrete events.
In the same way we have discrete colors in the spectrum of a rainbow.
One of these events makes us human at some point in time. My argument stands.



Originally posted by Bnonn
Do you have evidence to demonstrate that this amazing bird is capable of appreciating the aesthetic quality of that which it creates? It is only art if it is created with the intent of being art.

I dont know. If you are a privy to a methodology how to get inside a birds head, write it up. There is a noble prize in it.


Originally posted by Bnonn
What makes us human is speech.
How is it, then, that chimpanzees are able to communicate with us through sign-language? I presume of course that by "speech" you mean the ability to communicate intelligently, since otherwise dumb people wouldn't be human.

No I mean SPEECH as in making coherent noises with ones throat, tongue, lips and teeth by expelling air.
If I meant sign-language I would have said ABILITY TO COMMUNCIATE and not the carefuly chosen word SPEECH.
PAY ATTENTION.

Originally posted by Bnonn
Please, make this convincing argument then. I don't even see a connection beween discrete events and DNA whatsoever. Obviously your argument is self-evident only to you.


Ok, I will take it slowly so that you can follow.
1. 3% DNA difference.
This statement postulates that there is minimal difference between us and the Chimps. And therefore, if you believe in evolution Chimps (or apes like chimps) are our ancestors.

2. I further postulate that to be human is to exhibit a series of discrete characteristics.
Eg: Ability to Talk, Ability to dream (as in creatively think), ability to create tools.
You lose one of these characteristics
you can not be considered a human (as a species not as an individual).
Speech impared people are still human.
A species of apes unable to talk is not.
You can not have any issue with this self evident assertion surely.

3. Now this is the tricky bit, so re-read this a couple of times before you spout your undergrad ire at me.
Since all of these characteristics could not have evolved overnight.
For you yourself are adamant that it is a spectrum, we have aquired those attributes one by one.
One instant in time, one of the apes met all the criteria to be a human.
Ergo: We became human overnight.
QED.
Unless of course you disagree with this argument. If that it the case, then you argue for divine intervention :)

Originally posted by Bnonn

In fact your own scientific theories prove the existance of god.
Perhaps you should explain this to everyone who still does not believe.
[Deleted]

The fact that universe is infinite does not mean that anything we can imagine will happen. It means that anything possible under the laws of physics will happen.


You sir are plain and simple Wrong from the Scientific American article;

"In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take place somewhere". So somewhere out there there is a planet of lesbian nymphomanics where I am the sole male ruler. Likewise somewhere out there, there is a planet where you actually read what is in front of you rather than start spouting pseudo-bubble just because I choose to disagree with you on the presence or absence of God.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000F1EDD-B48A-1E90-8EA5809EC5880000


Originally posted by Bnonn
Feel free to now make fun. I await the fun-making with eager anticipation.

For now your fervent pursuit of the truth straight of the edge off into the chasm of ignorance do not warrant making fun of.
Pehaps an indulgent smirk since you are not irredeemable.

PS. Vijjil. You find a flaw with my mildly sarcastic comment yet you heap praise on the pseudo scientific rant of an undergrad? If there is any ownage, it is the self ownage of bnonn.

[oneredpanther]

OneRedPanther... size is volume. Just thought you might like to know that. Not when you're dealing with a curved and bounded sheet of space-time.

It's infinite in 'size' because technically you could carry on travelling forever in a direction "x" only to come back on yourself. So perhaps size is a misnomer and I really should define it as 'ability to travel in a given direction before coming to the end'.

However the curve of space-time provides a bounding sphere on the volume of the universe, thus it is only so big in terms of how much space it contains at any given momemnt.

Make sense now?

I don't want to get into physics though, that'd be derailment of the thread.

[Cooker]

It may very well be a spectrum.
But it is a spectrum made of discrete events.
In the same way we have discrete colors in the spectrum of a rainbow.
One of these events makes us human at some point in time. My argument stands.

A continuous spectrum is one I referred to; it can not be made of discrete event. Evolutional spectrum is continuous. The spectrum of rainbow is also continuous, if you diffract the rainbow spectrum you will see there are now jumps (however, there are absorption gaps) between colors. You can amplify the spectrum to infinity and it’s still continuous.

No I mean SPEECH as in making coherent noises with ones throat, tongue, lips and teeth by expelling air.
If I meant sign-language I would have said ABILITY TO COMMUNCIATE and not the carefuly chosen word SPEECH.

That is how you define human; in fact, the official definition of human is rather complex and rather arbitrary as well.

"In infinite space, even the most unlikely events must take place somewhere". So somewhere out there there is a planet of lesbian nymphomanics where I am the sole male ruler. Likewise somewhere out there, there is a planet where you actually read what is in front of you rather than start spouting pseudo-bubble just because I choose to disagree with you on the presence or absence of God.

Yes, it’s possible, but highly improbable.

[Mr-e-Man]

No I mean SPEECH as in making coherent noises with ones throat, tongue, lips and teeth by expelling air.

MY CAT SI A HUMAN!!!1111

[Kheturus]

We were endowed with a soul when that big black brick appeared out of nowhere and we began smashing eachother's sculls in with thigh bones.

When using the term "soul", it is generally given only to animals which have a conscience. I am unaware of any animal that is capable to be sorry for past actions simply on principle other than humans. The soul is seperate from intelligence and knowledge.

Higaran, your references to bible translation are mostly incorrect. The majority of the dead sea scrolls are dated between 335 BC and 59 AD (http://physics.arizona.edu/physics/public/dead-sea.html). There is also not more than 2 steps between the original greek texts of the new testament and most current Bible versions.

Thanks to panth for coming in to tell everyone how stupid they are and then proceeding to thwart one experimental hypothesis with another experimental hypothesis. GG

[bluevorlon]

Next person to omnislash is banned from the thread.

Bnonn and Wulfius are on shaky ground.

[malignus]

Originally posted by OneRedPanther
It's infinite in 'size' because technically you could carry on travelling forever in a direction "x" only to come back on yourself. So perhaps size is a misnomer and I really should define it as 'ability to travel in a given direction before coming to the end'.


Okay, I figured you were talking about that, but "size" isn't the word you want. What's the right word? Beats me. :D

And what's "omnislashing"? It sounds like some cool secret samurai move! :yippee:

[Tygre]

Quoting too much.

I get what Wulfius is saying, if I picked through his excessively poetic post formatting correctly. :p And he's right. At one point in the evolutionary spectrum, (e.g., the end or near the end), homo whateverus became homo sapiens sapiens, when the final necessary attribute of the species became part of the individual's genetic code. If repeating it slightly differently than what he said would help, eventually in a rainbow spectrum viewed by a person, you are no longer at a color you can call orange. It has, at some point on the spectrum, become red or yellow (Stupid nerds, get away from me with your hexadecimal color names).

I do not believe in God or souls or any of that which doesn't exist on a plane that I can even detect in any fashion, so Wulfius' last argument about a universe of infinite size is interesting at best, but not really a good scientific argument. For example, in a universe with infinite permutations of matter and energy, there would be a bomb set to annihilate infinity in ten seconds (or at least create an explosion in the shape of the word "FARTKNOCKER" bright enough to be visible from earth) somewhere. Since that hasn't happened, I think, space isn't infinite. By logic alone.

Everything else is bleh.

[malignus]

It's all well and good to say that at some point we became human, but you can't actually name that point without establishing some arbitrary standard of "humanity." That's the point.

[Tygre]

Well, you sort of have to blur those lines when classifying species anyway. At some single point in time, the first "human" - by whatever standards you assign humanity - was born. It's loosely related to the chicken/egg thing. There was an egg, but it was a chicken-ancestor egg. Then a mutant came out of that egg, but the mutant was a chicken. The chicken came first because the egg the original chicken came out of was that of another species... Then you could argue about whether an egg is classified based on the animal inside or the animal that laid it, but it's all way too complicated and subjective to put a singular constraint on the board (e.g., only humans have souls). So many don't.

[IronHammer]

Question, Do the mentally retarded have spirits? If so, did early man have an immortal spirit; do we know?

If your talking about a diminished capacity for rational thaught being exclusive to the humans spirit imortal spirit, then are you not then posting a standerd?

No, I think we can only prove that he had one the moment he started thinking spiritually. As to when the blessed event occured, that is, when God created that immortal image, I could not prove beyond reasonable doubt, and neither could you.


Now that all is said, does this mean he haas no soul or spirit? If he has none then explane his actions and fundemental beliefs and opinions, perhaps science cannot deal in matters of the spirit. We may be using the wrong tool to measure it. Oh, do I hear an argument for metaphysics?

Could you prove scientifically, that there is a totally invisible man in your house? Or what about descartes "Evil Genius"

[Cooker]

“Well, you sort of have to blur those lines when classifying species anyway. At some single point in time, the first "human" - by whatever standards you assign humanity - was born.”

Well, the problem is that this point is defined by man. If that is true then, Man, not god, mandate if a creature process a soul, this is rather absurd.

[IronHammer]

Well are there any misssing links left to make a comparason, and see if they had an immortal soul or not? Nope.

Perhaps by design they died off. Its not to big a leep actually, we know God frequently hides himself in the events or actions of his creation.

there is a difference on the subject of the immortal spirit, as towards what the soul found in animals is. It being, that it is everlasting and most importantly, it is perhaps specific to a spiritual being.

[Darthpyro]

I just had thought....

What is we are in fact the Primates' ancestors and they are our descendants? Is there any evidence to support this? I think so. Maybe Darwin just got it all backwards?

[Tygre]

What?

[oneredpanther]

If darwin got it backwards then it'd be the theory of Devolution not Evolution... which would mean that the world started out with the most perfectly evolved and advanced species possible, and we're all heading towards being noncommunicative spooge at the bottom of some puddles.

Though judging by some of the discussion in IRC, you could be on to something... :D

[Bnonn]

Allow me to attempt to address some points which were originally aimed at me.

"We can easily see" is not a giveaway phrase. It does not automatically invalidate an argument as flawed. An experienced logician will view the phrase with some suspicion until he can determine that one can, in fact, easily see what is asserted. However, since we can ("we" being those of us with a basic understanding of evolutionary theory) easily see a spectrum of development from ape to human, there is no problem. Any attempt to create one seems likely indicative of an individual who has read, but not understood, some textbook on logic, and is amateurishly adhering to its tenets in the hope of bluffing his way through an argument.

Since the part of the argument where the phrase under dispute occurs is actually the premise, stating that it indicates a flaw in the argument itself simply because one does not approve of the semantics is not only false, but irrelevant.

Now, regarding this spectrum of evolution. Whether or not the spectrum is comprised of discrete events is a question that would be better answered by someone with actual in-depth knowledge of biology, such as Squid. However, as Cooker pointed out, the analogy to the electromagnetic spectrum is flawed since the electromagnetic spectrum (visually) does not have discrete colours, but is in fact quite contiguous.

Attempting to state that, at some point in the past, a human just popped into existence is extremely simplistic, and does not stand by itself. If one is to make this argument, one must justify one's definition of human (which has not been done), and must reconcile this with evolutionary theory, which does not mesh well with this model.

Regarding the bower bird—if even you, Wulfius, concede that it is impossible to demonstrate that the bower has intent to create art, how can you use it as an example of other animals creating art?

I'm rather confused (or rather, I think you are) about the characteristic of speech defining us as human. Many other animals demonstrate the ability to communicate by "making coherent noises with [their] throat[s], tongue, lips and teeth by expelling air." Yet obviously they are not human. Similarly, what of animals that are equally able to communicate, but do it via other means? Your definition is arbitrary and flawed. I am paying attention quite carefully, so getting uppity and yelling at me isn't going to achieve anything other than looking like an attempt to divert me away from your fallacious arguments.

Now, I'm particularly concerned about your interpretation of the Scientific American article (which I incidentally read some time ago). You seem to be unable to distinguish between "unlikely" and "impossible". Even in infinite space, you are never going to find a naturally-created planet comprised entirely of refined titanium. Additionally, given what Panth has said, I must call that Sci-Am article into question regarding its usage of the word "infinite" (Panth, this is where I got my understanding of the "infiniteness" of the universe, and it seemed reputable enough). Further investigation will need to be conducted before I can now agree that the universe has infinite volume at all, as I have two conflicting views from two sources I both consider trustworthy.

Anyway, the short of the long regarding that article is that it is you, Mr Wolf, not I, who is wrong (I won't bold "wrong" for effect because I'm not that insecure in my argument). Making a mistake as simple as confusing that which is impossible with that which is unlikely is not a good indication of your level of understanding of the topic you're trying to debate.

Now, if I may make a request. Since you know so much about argument and logical fallacies, may I ask that you refrain from the blatant (and wrong) ad hominem of calling me an "undergrad". It appears to be an attempt to imply that your level of knowledge is higher than mine, which may even have worked if you hadn't started quoting from Scientific American. You appear very full of yourself, and very confident in your own knowledge, yet I can only conclude from your remarkably poor arguments that this image is like the huffing bravado of a schoolyard bully—an attempt to intimidate everyone into believing you have more power than you do, for fear of that power actually being tested.

One question for IronHammer regarding this statement:
Its not to big a leep actually, we know God frequently hides himself in the events or actions of his creation.Um, maybe you "know" this. Could you give us some examples? Otherwise, please avoid making crass and obviously incorrect generalisations. On the other hand, kudos for drawing attention to one of the numerous holes in Wulfie's argument by querying the level of intellect required for a soul.

[LoCo]

Wulfie, can I call you that?

Well, anyway. I have a question for you, it may seem simple to you, but I am quite perplexed as to the meaning here in.

In your last post you said (Which many people have since quoted) "No I mean SPEECH as in making coherent noises with ones throat, tongue, lips and teeth by expelling air.
If I meant sign-language I would have said ABILITY TO COMMUNCIATE and not the carefuly chosen word SPEECH."

Then later in the same post you said "Speech impared people are still human."

I am confused as to what you mean here, are you trying to say the "speech impared people" are human, but if they can not make a noise with their throat using teeth and tongue and lips by expelling air then they are not?

This sounds all very logical to me, but I just can't shake the feeling that there is something wrong with it ... can you please explain?

[IronHammer]

Does a disabled person Dreem?

Question then, if a person is reduced to the level of a vegitable is he without a soul? If he still does some of what wulfus says (notebly dreem), then is he not human? I could point out that we also know by fact of obsevation that for some of the disabled, they were not born that way.

On communication, You could liken the smell sensations of ants to communication like humans, but ants do not aspire. They communicat for one reason and that is for their existence. Do animals communicate aspirations?

What about a change in communicative language, do animals do this? Do they invent esperantos, mathematics, ect. Looks like in the end animals do communicate, but its more of the indication and sign that they do infact have souls.

I said earlier, and I don't think this was much considered here about man soul and spirit, it quite plainly is this. We can see man became a spiritualy thinking being by studying his past, but that only tells us that he must be endowed with the immortal spirit. If cavemen thaught spiritually, they must have had an immortal spirit. This of course tells us nothing of when he got it, it only tell us he had one.

What im really getting at is this, man has a soul, if your trying to use the question of intellect against it you would end up with my above, "does the mentally retarded have souls," which was rhetorical. I say yes they do, does the imparment of the body impare the soul? No, it does not have weight. Can we see clearly soul or being in humans? Yes, and for those not so constrained, we see the aspects of his asperations, not just artwork, but language and a copacety for the abstract, which is found nowere near to the same level in anything else in this world.

We do not find herds of cows fallowing the teachings of the "great cow." Animals do not think or behave entirely like humans do, they have a soul and an understanding. But I think that they do not have the ability to believe, which requires an aspect of faith.

[Tygre]

We do not find herds of cows fallowing the teachings of the "great cow." http://www.madzworld.co.uk/tygre/cow_cult.gif

[malignus]

IronHammer, I can see your point. But following your examples, I then have to wonder if most men really have souls to begin with. I don't think that a very large portion of our population have real spiritual aspirations. Most of us, like the ants you mention, move around unthinkingly, feelers out to avoid collisions, thinking continuously of the next vacation, the next cigarette, the next t.v. show, the next material attainment. Very few of us are prophets or philosophers or poets, are people who dedicate their lives to unraveling and basking in the meaning of things. If aspiration is the criterion of soul-having, then by what right do must of us have souls at all? By right of inheritance? By the sheer blind luck of having been born into this particular species? There's something very discouraging about that to me.

[Bnonn]

To IronHammer's most recent post, I can only say:

What?

[LoCo]

What I don't get is how can humans say that animals are not intelligent. What just because they have not had wars? or because they have not built great structures? because they have not been messing around with science?

Maybe we should take a leaf from the animals bood (as it were) and stop trying to find an answer to everything, maybe we should just live our lives and get it over with. Why do humans have this need to try and be "better" than they are, you are who you are. Accept it and move on. Get over it.

[SquidDNA]

Because, with few exceptions, animals aren't very good at figuring things out, and rely on instinictive reactions to get them through the day. Not to say that we don't, but we don't have to, we have other options. While instinct arguably drives me to the bathroom and the kitchen in the morning, instinct doesn't make me drive to work.

That aside, it's part of our nature to ask questions. It's true that we can get too wrapped up in questions that cannot be answered (did Australopithecus have a soul?) and it can distract us. However, that's largely for the individual for decide.

[PenDragon]

Maybe I’m going a little overboard but I feel.....
Religion is the bane of human society. It corrupts and degrades us. It has caused more problems than help. It will be the sole reason for the end of civilized society as we know it. Simply put it, religion has no place in a productive society.

[SquidDNA]

I couldn't disagree with you more. I think the general practice of religion does a lot of good for a lot of people. Nearly every aspect of human behavior can be used as a weapon, religion is not somehow special in this regard.

[SlasherWolf]

here's a question, when does your soul no longer become a soul.

Since it has to be linked somehow to you in the physical plane, lets say you transplant someone a kidney, do you lose part of your soul? What about part of your brain, or what about a brain transplant, does the soul still stick with the brain, or does it remain with the rest of the person. Do people who have had their genetic code changed due to bio-engineering have a soul? is there a certain DNA strands that says, "give this a soul"

With these questions it's pretty easy to see that it's really not possible to have a soul.

[IronHammer]

Your soul has no mass, so how can it be transplanted?

Everything has a soul I'm sticking by that, it is just that mans is something a bit differant

[Unmei no Chibi]

Slasher, every living being (I don't know about plants though) has a soul. Your soul makes you unique, that's why it's impossible to clone without complications, because you can't clone the soul.

The soul is stored in the chakras, not in the physical body, so even if you would get a different heart, brains, etc. you would still have the same soul and thus memories and personality. Although you do get influenced by the new organs, considering that both the heart and brains store memories, you're still the same person.

[IronHammer]

Now what a minute, I'm not so sure a cloned human being would not have a soul. Unfortunately there are non of the human veriety to tell us otherwise. But it is observable in the animals who have ben cloned, that they have seperate and unique souls.

[Wulfius-Khan]

The argument Cooker threw together was probably meant to initiate
a debate (this it had done admirably). Well done Cooker!
I have done some quick research and I see that the argument
appears to be wholy original if seriously flawed.

Lets start from the top;

1.Assume religion is correct
2.Assume evolution is correct
3.Religion stated that only human have souls
4.Now date back to the time where apes are gradually evolved to human
5.We can easily see there is a spectrum of transition between ape and man
6.Therefore, there is a Continuous, and not acute process of transition between things with souls from thing without souls.
7.Religion stated that soul is a quantum state, and can not be Continuous.
8.Therefore religion or evolution is wrong.
9.Since evolution is a fact, not a theory, while religion is a theory:
10.Religion is Objectively incorrect (all of them)

1&2 Assumption setting out the argument fine.
3. WRONG.
"A common Hebrew word translated life (soul) is nephesh. Nephesh is used for the life or breath of both animals and man (Gen. 1: 20, 30; 19: 17). Life is that state that is the opposite of death. It is a state of animation, breathing, and awareness. Men and animals alike possess a soul in the sense of breath (nephesh). However, in the sense of possessing a part or element that lives forever, as man possesses, animals do not possess an eternal spirit (cp. Matt. 25: 46). The animal simply and totally returns to the dust, the spirit of man continues to exist (Eccl. 3: 21, cp. 12: 7)."
Religion stated that humans have immortal soul. Animals have a soul but it is not immortal.

We can drop the argument here since this assumption is allready flawed. But lets have more fun with it.

4. Ok, another setup premise. Fine.
5. WRONG. We can clearly demonstrate that at a certain (inarguably debatable point)
the ape met our definition of a human. It does not matter whether it was
when it stood up on two legs or when it ordered a cheezburger. At some instance
in time it met all the conditions of being human where previously it did not.

I reiterate, the "Easily seen" is merely a sleigh of hand device.
I have argued rather clearly I thought that for a postulate that
is "Easily seen" there are too many questions to the contrary
that can be rised.

6. WRONG on both counts.
a) The continous process is debatable
b) Animals have souls just not immortal souls.

7. I have no clue what this means but lets assume its true.
8. BZZzT! WRONG.
a) You can not at all make this assumption at all, since there are
flaws with some of your postulates disqualifying the argument as
a valid one.
b) I allways find it laugable how religion and evolution are
thought to be mutually exclusive.
An omni potent God would not fuck around creating each little
atom of the universe in the same way the CEO of the company
does not create each little products. Instead the CEO puts
a process in place that would accomplish his goals (evolution).
If God has only a minute capacity that we credit him with
he would create evolution as a device of creation.

9. BUZZ. Evolution is not a fact.
It is a theory. Since the name "The Theory of evolution".
Theories are often disproved.
It is a robust theory however it is a major stretch
of credibiliy unbefitting an argument of this
proportion to misrepresent a THEORY as FACT.

10. Wrong. Because if only one of the above is wrong
the conclusion is false.

Admirable effort Cooker. Keep it up.
The problem with a complex argument is
that only one premise needs to be disproven
for the argument to collapse. Keep it simple :D

IronHammer

"Could you prove scientifically, that there is a totally invisible man in your house? Or what about descartes "Evil Genius""
Oo... A challenge. Kool. Easily.
Making it harder for myself, assuming the invisible man is not radiating on any wavelength in the EM spectrum.
A few ways;
a) Saturating the house in a chosen wavelength and measuring absorbtion rates of said radiation.
And if you say he is reflecting/radiating its much easier because then I just measure that but
then he is not really invisible.
b) Measuring the movement of air particles in the house corellating air currents that are anomalous
to convection pattern and matching that with a model of a human shape moving through the room.
c) Installing a bog standard industrial surveilance video monitoring system.
Sooner or later the invisible man is bound to start moving the furniture, eating appless etc.
By analising the pattern of the 'mysterious' happenings we could correlate this to a high probability
with the presence of an invisible man.

By Evil Genius you are refering to the Cogito argument I take it?
Well, there is nothing to prove. Your being is your intellect "Cogito ergo sum".
Does not matter whether you are flesh and blood or a construct.
The Matrix.

LoCo

"Wulfie, can I call you that?"
No. Only friends call me that. You have not given me a reason to consider you such.

"...I am confused as to what you mean here, are you trying to say the "speech impared people" are human,
but if they can not make a noise with their throat using teeth and tongue and lips by expelling air then they are not?

This sounds all very logical to me, but I just can't shake the feeling that there is something wrong with it
... can you please explain?"

Go back and re-read what I said, I clearly stated the anwser in the argument.
Apparently I have failed to make easily understood. My fault.
In short. Speech impared humans are still humans even they lack the human ability to speak.
A flat cat remains still a cat since a flat cat is an anomalous condition for a 3D cat :D

--------- Special section for Bnonn. You may skip this petty "My dick is bigger" session.


Bnonn, lets get the pleasantries out of the way.
Your words are hollow. Complaining about ad-hominem and yet you have no qualms about using
ad-hominem in return. What little respect I had for you is rapidly venting into the cold
dark space like an emergency overide of an airlock.

You are mistaken about my claim as to the fallacy of the argument, it does not hinge on the phrase
"We can easily see." It hinges on the rather simple argument which you fail to grasp
even though I have laid it out as simply as I can without using crayons.
Something that a few respsondents (notably Cooker, the instigator of the thread) has apparently
largely conceeded.


"...the analogy to the electromagnetic spectrum is flawed since the electromagnetic spectrum (visually) does not have discrete colours, but is in fact quite contiguous."
With each statement like this you make you sink yourself further into the quagmire of your own argument,
and I lose the word argument very losely given that you are hell bent on pushing you contrarian dogma regarless
of the facts presented to you. You are like a prophet standing on the wing of a jumbo jet in full flight shaking
the fist at the word certain that man will not fly on a machine heavier than air.
Since you have apaprently slept throught the primary school lesson on EM spectrum here is a refresher;
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html
I draw your attention to the picture (minimal literacy required);
"The electromagnetic spectrum can be expressed in terms of energy, wavelength, or frequency."
All of which are specific, discrete values rather than the 'quite contiguous' state you seem to describe.
We tune in to 107.5FM for a favourite radio station, not somewhere between 100 and 110.

"Attempting to state that, at some point in the past, a human just popped into existence is extremely simplistic,
and does not stand by itself. If one is to make this argument, one must justify one's definition of human
(which has not been done), and must reconcile this with evolutionary theory, which does not mesh well with this model."
To use a phrase that you seem to favour to dismiss those whom you consider are beneath contempt; WHAT?
Thanks for your complement, I did indeed make my argument as simplistic as possible in a vain attempt
to address as wide reader base as possible. Something I recommend you endevour to do yourself
since all I can see in your style of arguing is basic disagreement, padded with pseudo science
and ignorance.



"Regarding the bower bird—if even you, Wulfius, concede that it is impossible to demonstrate that the bower has intent to create art, how can you use it as an example of other animals creating art?"
I have gone back to your assertion and once again it is evident that your capacity to make self ownage class statements is inferior only to your stubborness
to pursue a lost cause. According to your assertion, in order for art to be art, there has be a concious effort and appreciation of this by the creator.
You have heard of Idiot-Savants? Individuals who often are retarded and yet are capable of creating art (http://www.twainquotes.com/blindtom.html).


"I'm rather confused (or rather, I think you are) about the characteristic of speech defining us as human...[Rest of drivel deleted]"
I am delighted that you attribute all my opinions to my own manufacture, however I can assure you that most what I say
comes from reiterating what other people say; "In any natural history of the human species, language would stand out
as the preeminent trait. ... Homo Sapiens is a species like blue-green algea and earthworms that has wrought far reaching
changes on the planet [as the result of having language as its defining trait]" Pinker, S. (1994) The language instinct : Penguin books.
You shall remain as you say "confused" unless you start reading more. Try it.


"blah blah...You seem to be unable to distinguish between "unlikely" and "impossible"."
Infinite...Look it up. Without limits. No limits, no impossible. Simple enough?
Your reference to Panth threw me. WTF? Here you are arguing for absence of divinity and you
are basing your argument on your understanding of the word as imparted by fucking Sikh religion?
Then you have give it the same status as science whilst arguing against my eminently science like
argument (for I lay no claim to be a scientist, merely a dedicated fan). You must be insane.
I should stop this argument here and now, you sir are a madman.

Although I have no doubt that you shall provide me with more material to entertain myself with.

[PenDragon]

so what Wulfius-Khan is trying to say is that religion is a bunch of crap :)

[SlasherWolf]

so much anger.. so little time..:P

[Cooker]

"...the analogy to the electromagnetic spectrum is flawed since the electromagnetic spectrum (visually) does not have discrete colours, but is in fact quite contiguous."
With each statement like this you make you sink yourself further into the quagmire of your own argument,
and I lose the word argument very losely given that you are hell bent on pushing you contrarian dogma regarless
of the facts presented to you. You are like a prophet standing on the wing of a jumbo jet in full flight shaking
the fist at the word certain that man will not fly on a machine heavier than air.
Since you have apaprently slept throught the primary school lesson on EM spectrum here is a refresher;
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/s...emspectrum.html
I draw your attention to the picture (minimal literacy required);
"The electromagnetic spectrum can be expressed in terms of energy, wavelength, or frequency."
All of which are specific, discrete values rather than the 'quite contiguous' state you seem to describe.
We tune in to 107.5FM for a favourite radio station, not somewhere between 100 and 110.

They are continuous because there are infinite amount of values between any two values. And I may ANY two values as long as they are different, no matter how close they are.

Look, there are infinite numbers between 107.4 and 107.5, so stop insulting and start looking ….

[Cooker]

What is more absurd is that no one has bothered to counter my original argument, stated as:


Originally posted by Cooker
“Well, you sort of have to blur those lines when classifying species anyway. At some single point in time, the first "human" - by whatever standards you assign humanity - was born.”

Well, the problem is that this point is defined by man. If that is true then, Man, not god, mandate if a creature process a soul, this is rather absurd.

[ceejayoz]

Originally posted by IronHammer
Now what a minute, I'm not so sure a cloned human being would not have a soul. Unfortunately there are non of the human veriety to tell us otherwise. But it is observable in the animals who have ben cloned, that they have seperate and unique souls. It is observable that they have separate and unique souls?

You're the first person I've met who claims that souls are scientifically observable. Would you care to elaborate on how these souls can be observed, let alone observed to be unique and separate from that of their clone parent?

[oneredpanther]

Look, there are infinite numbers between 107.4 and 107.5, so stop insulting and start looking …. I think you'll find you're quite wrong sir.

If we're talking about radio waves, there are exactly 100,000 discrete oscillations per second of the electromagnetic wave between the 107.4 and 107.5 Mhz frequencies.

Imagining that the wavelength of this particular FM broadcast is of wavelenth 1000 metres (about average for a radio wave) then there is a difference of 100,000,000 complete waves between these two frequencies every second.

This means that there are not an infinite number of theoretically possible radio stations that could be using the space between 107.4 and 107.5 every second, but only 100,000,000 (1 per Hz-second seperation of the spectrum)

It is discrete and quantifiable in this manner because of the fact that I will pay you very good money to show me evidence of 'half a photon'. You can only do things in chunks of 1... and there's only so many 1's in a certain space.

The whole universe is like this... you can't just keep cutting stuff up, eventually you cant cut any more... and that's where it becomes discrete.

[Cooker]

Well, you are right, panther, there are only 100,000,000 stations between 107.4 and 107.5 due to quantum mechanics and there genetic code is discrete too.

But the number is so large that we generally consider them infinite for any intend purposes.

[oneredpanther]

Now you're just backpedalling.

[Unmei no Chibi]

Originally posted by IronHammer
Now what a minute, I'm not so sure a cloned human being would not have a soul. Unfortunately there are non of the human veriety to tell us otherwise. But it is observable in the animals who have ben cloned, that they have seperate and unique souls.

I didn't say the cloned person didn't have a soul, just that the original soul can't be copied. The "new" body has a different one. And considering the soul makes you, you; the cloned body will be different.

[oneredpanther]

I'd love to know where all you guys get your hard facts about what souls can and can't do. Can you reference the material which scientifically states the meaning of: "And considering the soul makes you" ???

I cannot even find the words to communicate my utter revulsion at arguments like this. People sit on two sides of a fence hurling abuse and opinion-as-fact on matters which I view as thus:

1) Q: Does God exist? A: Probably not. There has never in history been any evidence and was almost certainly just a fiction invented by humans to make life seem better.

2) Q: Does the soul exist? A: Probably not. There has never in history been any evidence and was almost certainly just a fiction invented by humans to make life seem better.

3) Q: Does the afterlife exist? A: Probably not. There has never in history been any evidence and was almost certainly just a fiction invented by humans to make life seem better.

Now really... I can't believe we're still at it in the year 2003. We've had at least 100 years of civilization to lose this horrid facet of errant sensibility from our lives.

[mrmoron]

Majority of humans will probably keep believing in afterlife as long as there is death, and probably wont bestow immortality on themselves until their pretty sure that God does not exist...

There isn't anything scary about the (presumable) fact that there is no afterlife though. But if there is afterlife... Well let's just say that that scares the shit outta me, for obvious reasons.

But if there is no soul, then nothing changes the fact (for me at least) that life is the most pointless thing in this universe.

(someone post the captain obvious pic now, hurry!)

[SquidDNA]

ORP, I'm not sold on the limitation of possible frequencies. Hz is an arbitrary unit of measurement because the second is an arbitrary unit of measurement. I don't understand why a finite number of discrete values for frequencies is implied by the existence of the Hz, and that's all I can see in your argument. Can you elaborate?

[malignus]

I'm a little rusty on this, so pardon me if this sounds stupid: as I remember it, frequencies are cycles per second. What does this have to do with quanta?

[oneredpanther]

Yeah sorry perhaps it wasn't as clear as it could've been.

I specified a limitation on number of discrete transmissions possible in one second at a given frequency and wavelength.

The reason it still checks out is because even though the Hz is an arbitrary value because of the Second, it was the Second i was using as the arbitrary window of time to determine maximum transmission capacity.

I clumsily wrote this as "Hz-Seconds" which probably didnt make much sense until now.

Hope that clears it up.

Malignus - this is more an analogy for the quantum nature of the universe rather than a direct physical argument. However, we can't cut up transmissions into units of less than one complete wavelength because Photons only come in whole particles, not half-photons or quarter-photons.

[Bnonn]

Wulfie, do you know the difference between ranting and debating? Because what you just did there...that was ranting.

Regarding my "ad hominem"—notice how it is very carefully phrased to coincide with my avatar...

Now, your primary argument itself doesn't hinge on the "we can easily see" phrase, but your assertion that this phrase is the leading indicator of a flawed argument certainly does. You have not, in fact, given any reason for us to believe that we cannot easily see a spectrum of species in evolution, from the most basic bacteria to the most advanced mammals.

I am quite familiar with the electromagnetic spectrum, however if you recall we were talking about rainbows. Colour. I would defy you to be able to distinguish every possible colour which we can create. Open up Photoshop and create a simple gradient. Notice how you are unable to pick out individual colours on the gradient, but how the overall effect is quite obvious of one colour changing to another? This is what I (and I had thought you) were talking about. The electromagnetic spectrum was really quite incidental to the discussion, as I think you'll find if you reread the original posts.

It's spelled "compliment".

Please address my argument rather than just stating that I'm babbling pseudoscience and ignorance. You haven't reconciled your model with evolution at all, and have avoided my attempts to have you do so by stating that I don't know what I'm talking about, without providing evidence to substantiate these claims.

Hmm, the bower bird. Obviously there is more than one way of looking at the issue of art. In the context of this argument, and the example that you yourself used, it seems quite clear to me that there must be an intention to create art in the bower bird if your example is to hold water. If the bower bird has no intention to create art, any artistic appreciation we get from its instinctive, libido-inspired structure is entirely coincidental. Otherwise, you could choose any arbitrary thing in nature which you happen to find pleasing to look at, and say that it is art.

Regarding speech; perhaps you should have said—first up—"advanced language" or even "multiple advanced languages". It would have saved you a lot of trouble and face. Defining your arguments clearly is quite important if they're going to hold water. I will readily accept that homo sapiens is the only Earth species with the ability to create and communicate with complex languages.

I'm not certain what you're rambling about with regard to the Scientific American article and me, so I won't address it. However, I will address the fact that I'm quite disappointed that you're using a dictionary definition of infinity to justify your claim that anything can happen in an infinite universe. Firstly, "without limits" does not mean that nothing is impossible. In fact, I would say that definition is quite wrong, since one can place limitations on infinities. For example, the set of positive natural numbers is infinite, but you will never find a negative number in it. From what you have said, it appears that your understanding of infinity is (understandably) rudimentary. A recent article on the topic (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/6/3/95744/71866) at kuro5hin may prove beneficial to you.

What you are claiming is that absolutely anything can happen in the universe, simply because it is infinite (and as I have said, I am not certain it has infinite volume). A small amount of logical contemplation of your claim will reveal that it is ridiculous. How do you propose to explain my naturally-created, refined titanium planet, for example? Instead of vitriolically attempting to defend an obviously ludicrous idea, why don't you declutch your ego from your arguments, engage your brain, and apply a little torque to the throttle of intellect?

[bluevorlon]

Bnonn, don't be a spelling nazi k.

Also, much great art is taken from coincidental and unintended occurrances and happenings. It's my view that to evaluate something on an artistic level defines that object as 'art'. It's as much a term that belongs in the hands of the consumer, the 'audience' as it belongs solely to the 'artist' or auteur of the piece.

[Bnonn]

Agreed, Blu. However, as I expained in my above post; in the context of Wulfie's example, there seems to be a definite requirement for the bower bird itself to appreciate its own art. Otherwise saying that it is creating art is very misleading at best.

[bluevorlon]

Maybe, but if wulfius views that as an artistic creation, whether consciously or subconsciously created by the bower bird, than his interpretation of it's construction on an artistic level causes it to become 'art' in itself.

Also, many great artistic works have come directly out of libido. I suspect 50% of great rock and roll bands form for the express reason of impressing women.

:guitar:

[Bnonn]

Once again, I agree, but he was using the creation of art as an example of one of the things which make us human. Now, humans have certain members of their society who specifically create art of various kinds. And all humans (I say that with reservation) are able to appreciate art in some manner.

If the comparison to the bird is to hold up, then, the bird must share these characteristics. Since it seems clear the bird does not, in fact, create art for its artistic value, nor can appreciate the art it creates, the comparison fails, and the example is invalid.

[bluevorlon]

Ah but if a peacock is attracted to it's mate due to the lustre of the male's tail and plumage, does that not mean it can appreciate the art of said tail?

I'm not quite sure any of this is relevant, so whack me on the head if this is the case and I'll go back to looking at all the long words...

[Bnonn]

Hehe, you stubborn bastard. I think you would be pushing to suggest that a peahen (peacock is male, snark snark) has an artistic appreciation of its mate's plumage. I would argue that artistic appreciation must involve more than mere instinct; the peahen likes the plumage because the better the colours, the better the genetic qualities of her mate, and the more desirable he is. One can see the same effect in humans—nice breasts, slender legs and a cute face are more likely to turn your head than flabby breasts, fat legs and a face with more chins than a Chinese phonebook. However, there is an added level for you—you have intellect, and are able to appreciate a beautiful women on a level above pure physical attraction.

This, I think, can be proved if you have ever had a girlfriend (or boyfriend) or spouse who you have really loved. Is not that partner the most beautiful person in the world, to you? Even though you may not look twice if you passed that person on the street without knowing them, once you do know them there is an intellectual and emotional attraction which influences how you see them.

All this is somewhat incidental to the main thread, of course, but makes for an interesting diversion from an otherwise completely retarded discussion (as Panth so eloquently put it).

[oneredpanther]

I think what makes us essentially Human is not just speech, but what speech allows. Every animal on the planet must learn everything about it's evironment either first-hand or through innate instinct passed genetically.

Humans on the other hand developed speech to allow them to escape this time-wasting way of learning about their environment. We don't have to experience everything first-hand to learn about it.

Mummy says electricity sockets are dangerous so we don't touch them. Animals learn the hard way.

Intelligent communication in itself is not what makes Humankind, intelligent communication to replace the need to learn by experience is.

[Tygre]

flabby breasts, fat legs and a face with more chins than a Chinese phonebook Wow, look how classy the thread has become.

[malignus]

Art is not accidental. I'm not going to try to define for you what art is at the moment, but I do know something that art is not, and it is definitely not accidental.

To quote from "The Pound Era," by Hugh Kenner:

"Flaubert had wanted the artist, lonely as God, to be somewhere outside his work, which is impossible; impossible because words are said by somebody; because--at the furthest remove from the intimacies of breath--a bicycle saddle and handlebars, even when no sculpturing hand molests their shapes, denote by their power to combine into a bull's head a possibility some human eye has seen (Picasso saw it, 1943). Art does not 'happen.' The vision that made it is part of it. The eye of vision sees systems of connectedness; this may not be that, but it has the same structure. A bull's form, some drawn lines, are so similar that we 'recognize' a picture of a bull, but part of the picture is the mind that contrived it."

We did not create the bower bird's displays, but we are the ones who saw in it something transcendant and beautiful, and even imagined there was some meaning behind it greater than basic instinctual courtship rituals. That is what makes it art. Without our observations, the bowers are nothing.

[Paladin]

Many artists would argue that their art flows through them, not from them.

-Paladin

[Cooker]

Originally posted by mrmoron


But if there is no soul, then nothing changes the fact (for me at least) that life is the most pointless thing in this universe.



no, life, is as pointless as everything else in this universe.

[Martian]

Originally posted by Cooker


no, life, is as pointless as everything else in this universe. And since I cannot believe that, there must be a God.

[Retroboy]

"must be"?

I don't believe that life is pointless, and I don't believe there must be a God.

I have no idea what philosophy this falls into, nor do I feel I need to know the label, but I believe my own life's point is to equally both enjoy my own existence while it lasts, and pass whatever I can on to my kids, peers, and friends to help them further enjoy their own. I don't need a great and noble purpose, or a defined divine being, to feel my own life is not pointless, as long as there are challenges to overcome and work (not necessarily my job) that creates some form of reward.

..but ask me the question again when I'm on my deathbed, and I might have a different answer. :)

-- Retro

[MorningLord]

Originally posted by OneRedPanther
If darwin got it backwards then it'd be the theory of Devolution not Evolution... which would mean that the world started out with the most perfectly evolved and advanced species possible, and we're all heading towards being noncommunicative spooge at the bottom of some puddles.

Though judging by some of the discussion in IRC, you could be on to something... :D

"the most perfectly evolved and advanced species possible"
That's one hell of an arrogant assumption to make. Humans are not the top of the evolutionary ladder. We are not the most successful creature on this planet. I'm sorry, but we aint. The insect word takes our success, beats it down with a big ol club and buzzes off to make twenty million babies in OUR buildings, eating away at the supports and bringing them crashing to the ground.
I like the irc reference though.
Just cos we can think don't mean we are smart.

On the whole religion matter:
There is, to my mind, sufficient historical evidence to assume with a high degree of certainty that a human being, by the name of Jesus Christ, did exist, and did have a big impact on the social strata at the time. Wether all his miracles were true or not, or wether or not he was the son of god, is entirely up to faith. They'd be hard enought to prove they were miracles if they happened NOW, let alone over two thousand years ago.
Ooooh, my patch just finished. Homeworld time!

Secondly, the bible has changed, and changed drastically over the years. There is a lot of information that has been REMOVED, yes thats right, just TAKEN OUT and for a book that has a dire warning at the end for anybody changing its contents, this leads to some serious doubts as to its validity. We aren't getting the whole story, so in my opinion, its not something we should rely upon. Who knows what else Jesus said, that the church has decided we are not fit to hear? (No, I don't have any hard emperical proof of this removal. If you want me too, I could try and find some, but right now I'm reinstalling homeworld so feel free to just ignore the above point if you want.)
No, basically, the best thing any religious person could take from it is the idea of "love your neighbor as you love yourself, and love god above all" and thats all you need.
Your not going to kill, steal and murder people you love, so it sorts out all those crimes and there we have it. A simple creed, and its the most important thing.
Funnily enough, its the thing 80% of christians just don't get. Kinda sad really. They believe in something, and they're getting it wrong.

Bear in mind that I'm an agnostic, and that I've read the bible front to back. Don't kill me, I'm not supporting either side.
Also, if I've missed some important post in the last few pages, you'll have to forgive me. I was dl the homeworld patch and it took me ten minutes just to load as far as the quoted post above, before my patience shattered like so many brittle crystal shards.

[LoCo]

Just an off topic here, it partains mainly to the above post (Unless someone got in there before me ...)

It seems to me that the bible is a fantasy book, it's got all the little bits that make a good fantasy eg: Magic, death, war, A hearo, the hearo's friends, ect ... I mean look at it ...

Now how many of you beleave in magic? How many "christians" believe in magic? if I recall right, in the bible with that Moses guy, the bad priests used magic or "magics" so it seems that magic is real according to the bible ...

Just a thought.

[oneredpanther]

"the most perfectly evolved and advanced species possible"
That's one hell of an arrogant assumption to make. Humans are not the top of the evolutionary ladder. No you donut. I didnt say humans were. I said that this is what Evolution tries to create. The attempt to create this form of life is the byproduct of the evolutionary process.

Right.

[SquidDNA]

It's hard, so hard, to argue with Natalie Portman, but I must do it, for the sake of truth! :sci:

1) While it's true that you can't have half a photon, there are wavelengths so long that the frequencies are measured in millihertz. "In any particular second" seems like a needless qualifier for the argument that there are an infinite number of possible frequencies in a finite range of the spectra. Would you concede that there are an infinite number of possible distances (positions) between the two ends of a yardstick? If so, is it not then possible that there are an infinite number of possible wavelengths that correspond to those distanaces? This argument may be wrong, but you've so far failed to explain why.

2) Evolution tends to generate things that are well adapted to their surroundings, but one should always avoid using the words "perfect" and "advanced" in connection to evolution. :) It's not just that humans aren't at the top of the evolutionary ladder, it's that there isn't one. Arguably, every species which is currently thriving is well adapted to its environment, whether you're talking about intestinal flora or ants.

But not to derail the topic any further: It's a good argument and a tough question, for those who buy both evolution and religion. "When did we cease being merely God's creation, and begin being God's children?" It's easy to formulate ideas to rationalize the conflict, but that's how you get by as a mystic. Is it silly? Does anyone really want to hear that God might have some sort of test for intelligence devised, to separate the soul of an animal from the soul of a human? Who can speak with any authority about the nature of the soul? No, it's a personal matter.

[Vijil]

After a spate of my friends randomly becoming Christians (several from agnostic/atheistic positions), and changing in amazing ways because of it, I have to say that although religion may not be totally necessary for life to have a "point", it sure as hell helps.

Um, that was off topic...

On topic: I'm just speculating here, but it may be possible that, say, the biblical writers used the word translated sould to refer to the "you" in you, the concious part of your mind. Thus, whether or not it is matierial may well be irrelevant. If this is the case, then an argument against God based purely on the metaphysicality of the soul seems to fall down.

Just speculating.

[oneredpanther]

Would you concede that there are an infinite number of possible distances (positions) between the two ends of a yardstick? If so, is it not then possible that there are an infinite number of possible wavelengths that correspond to those distanaces? No sir, there are not an infinite number of positions between two points. Numerically yes, but the universe doesn't run numerically, it's runs physically. Pure Mathematics is all imaginary in that one can deal with supernatural numerical phenomena, such as infinities, something which the physical universe probably doesn't have. (Physicists/Mathematicians take note: this is why Godel's Incompleteness Theorem isn't totally accurate!)

Y'see Squid, it all comes down to chopping things up again. The Greeks were on to a winner with their Atom (the word essentially means "that which can be divided no further") and we've taken it to the limit of our scientific understanding with Quanta and Strings. Practically, there's only so many discrete places something can be between two yardsticks.

I'd hazard a guess that this distance equals the diameter of a String.

Of course I could be horribly wrong, but such is life. :)

[SquidDNA]

To clarify, I'm not suggesting that this distance be expressed by cramming fundamental particles end-to-end in a line. Certainly, the number of possible chain lengths is constrained by the subunit in the chain. I'm speaking specifically of a fundamental particle occupying discrete positions.

I know nothing about strings, but I find your argument plausible.

[Bnonn]

What Panth is trying to say in his roundabout way is that space is quantised. Therefore, there aren't an arbitrary number of points which a particle can occupy along a line.

[Cooker]

And no one, so far, has directly confronted this statement. Which means you are either agree with it or are incapable of confronting it.

Branching arguments are useful, but not to extend which you can ignore a main argument entirely. that, is deviation from debate, a cowered act. :flame:



Originally posted by Cooker
“Well, you sort of have to blur those lines when classifying species anyway. At some single point in time, the first "human" - by whatever standards you assign humanity - was born.”

Well, the problem is that this point is defined by man. If that is true then, Man, not god, mandate if a creature process a soul, this is rather absurd.

[Kheturus]

Cooker, that is a strange argument to make. By that logic, you could claim that since we discovered the laws of science, we defined them. Religious people would argue that it is something that would be revealed by God, since the question you ask is impossible to investigate.

So again, the first creature that became aware of a conscience would be the first creature with a soul. Speech and intellect have nothing to do with it. If you can find a creature of any sort that has a conscience, then I will conceed that it has an immortal soul.

[Genetic Bryy]

Originally posted by MorningLord
On the whole religion matter:
There is, to my mind, sufficient historical evidence to assume with a high degree of certainty that a human being, by the name of Jesus Christ, did exist, and did have a big impact on the social strata at the time.

Well, of course.

[Starfisher]

... I'll complete that thought:

But it doesn't mean he was god/not god but his son (depending on which part of the bible you like). It just means that he existed and did something - Chrisianity came from somewhere.

The is no evidence of a soul whatsoever. Why this debate about the constraints of what has a soul, what doesn't? Your wasting your time. You can't prove that anything has a soul, so you're only arbitrarily imposing ethnocentric limitations on something that can never be proven to exist, so therefore might as well not exist.

[/Off scientific skepticism]

Panth - If the universe isn't infinite, what's outside of it? The universe most definately has an infinity of something... be it the size of this universe or the number of other universes.

[oneredpanther]

Panth - If the universe isn't infinite, what's outside of it? Make sure Physics is at the top of your college application and in a couple of years you'll see why that question doesnt actually make any sense.

But then again you could just bluff your way through it and read this unfinished but still useful thing instead. (http://www.chrismaloney.com/projects/book/Exercises.html)

I don't think you can qualify your statement "The universe most definately has an infinity of something..." because there's not really any evidence of it. We use infinities in maths because they're convenient enough to substitute miles of equations or corrections of either astronomical size, complexity or both.

Infinities are handy, but they probably aren't real.

[Genetic Bryy]

Thanks for stepping in, Starfisher. I guess I was a bit too tired to be on the computer.

[Kheturus]

I find it laughable that people think the only way to prove something is through science.

[oneredpanther]

How else would you prove something?

Q: I am standing at the top of a building. The building is 100m tall. I drop a rock from the top of the building weighing 1kg.

Using selected excerpts from the Bible and other religious texts, determine the kinetic energy of the rock as it impacts the ground.

This question is worth 4 marks.

:err:

[Kheturus]

Explain to me, using science alone, why I should have respect for other people.

10 marks

[oneredpanther]

Because your sense of morality and social awareness instructs you that you should; two constructs present in your concious mind as a result of subtle chemical and electrical processes which determine your mental makeup, the nature of which could be documented, explained and predicted with a refined enough scientific approach and technology.

Would you like fries with that?

[Retroboy]

According to sociology (a science), if I respect other people, the odds of their respect for me are significantly greater. This has the following effects: increases my self-image, reduces the potential for conflict with my peers, and in general improves the quality of life for all local individuals, thereby extending their expected lifespan and reducing the probability of their performance of desperate, antisocial acts or suicide. As a result, society in general benefits much more than many of the possible alternatives.

(edit - Khet, not ganging up on you, but you were starting to post gross one-liner generalizations, and these are cannon fodder in speculative threads like this one. )

-- Retro

[Kheturus]

Panth, I could just as easily go against what the chemical and electrical reactions in my brain predispose me to do. There are also people who do not have a well developed sense of morality or social awareness. Are they excused from repecting other people, since scientifically they are not supposed to?

4/10

Retro, sorry, but I feel that social science is a contradiction in terms :). I should have clairified that I meant empirical sciences. Social sciences are much more flexible, and there is still a level of philosophy. Why does it matter if I act anti-socially or commit suicide?

[oneredpanther]

What society deems appropriate and what certain people are neurologically predisposed to do have yet to be reconciled in the wider social context.

But so what. It's all quanta on the move at the end of the day.

As I mentioned in another thread a while back, If we knew and understood the instantaneous properties of all matter, energy and spacetime in the universe at any given time, then the behaviour of the entire universe could be calculated with 100% accuracy backwards to the Big Bang and as far forwards as one would care to discover. As I've also said before, just because we're Human does not magically make us exempt from this truth.

Even Humans are made from the everythingness of the universe.

EVERYTHING is science when you break it down.

[Kheturus]

Any time you talk about social constructs, you are not talking about science. You are talking about philosophy.

Just because there should be a way to predict the future doesn't mean that it is the reason that we should choose morally with our apparent freewill.

NOT everything is science.

[oneredpanther]

Sir would draw your attention to the word "apparent" in between "our" and "freewill" before he retires to bed.

QUANTA'S GONNA GETCHOOO!

[Retroboy]

Panth, although your departing quanta comment is funny, your previous comment on progressive/regressive state determination of the universe is assumptive. If we knew and understood the instantaneous properties of all matter, energy and spacetime in the universe at any given time, then the behaviour of the entire universe could be calculated with 100% accuracy backwards to the Big Bang and as far forwards as one would care to discover.
The input capacity and calculational load required to accept all the impacting parameters and then use these to predict even the most trivial of events more than one second out into the future with 100% accuracy is astounding, if not totally impossible (i.e. if true randomness exists).

Kheturus, before I take a second stab, do you consider psychology as a "pure" social science?

-- Retro

[Cooker]

Wait, you can not really take result of your prediction into consideration. And therefore is incapable of perfect prediction

[Cooker]

Originally posted by Kheturus
Panth, I could just as easily go against what the chemical and electrical reactions in my brain predispose me to do. There are also people who do not have a well developed sense of morality or social awareness. Are they excused from repecting other people, since scientifically they are not supposed to?


Kheturus, you can never go against chemical and electrical reaction in your brain. Because whatever final cause of action you take is result of the reactions. It's like saying that you can change history, but you really can't because whatever you do end up being history anyways.

[Bnonn]

Information theory dictates that we could not model the universe without a larger universe. The smallest complete model of our universe is (you guessed it) our universe.

That doesn't mean that Panth is wrong. It just means that we can never practically apply the theory he has espoused.

As he said, we are all made of universe stuff. And I would defy Khet to "easily go against what the chemical and electrical reactions in [his] brain predispose [him] to do." Please, Khet, stop your heart for a few seconds perhaps. Or maybe you could sneeze with your eyes open.

[Kheturus]

You are suggesting that it is impossible to go against your conscience. I call BS on that, because then everyone would have a perfectly clear conscience.

Panth, your argument is starting to make less sense. If you conclude that we have no freewill and that we are predisposed to act in certain ways due to chemical/electrical reactions in our brains, then technically there is no reason to have morals. This leads to the idea that there is no purpose to life. Is that what you mean?

Retro, I don't have enough knowledge of phychology to make a educated reply to that. I do know that for the purposes of my argument, I was talking to those who used bio/chem/phy/math to explain everything in the universe.

Again, I'm not saying I can do something other than what my brain tells me to do, but if morals are chemical reactions in my brain, then I know for a fact that I can act against my morals/conscience.

[Bnonn]

Morals are too high a layer of abstraction to be considered something you can or can't go against. What Panth is saying (and I support his argument since it's self-evident) is that, ultimately, all your thoughts, decisions, actions etc are governed by chemical reactions in your brain. They are therefore predictable (with good enough technology), and unavoidable.

This does indeed mean that technically there is no reason to have morals. This also does indeed lead to the idea that there is no purpose to life. No objective, scientific purpose.

Nonetheless, we perceive a purpose, and we perceive free will. They may not really exist, but as long as they subjectively exist to us, isn't that enough?

[Cooker]

Originally posted by Kheturus

Panth, your argument is starting to make less sense. If you conclude that we have no freewill and that we are predisposed to act in certain ways due to chemical/electrical reactions in our brains, then technically there is no reason to have morals. This leads to the idea that there is no purpose to life. Is that what you mean?


yes, there is no reason to have morals and no purpose to life, you'd better start getting used to it.

[Kheturus]

That's the thing. By that logic, there is no need to get used to anything, nor is there any reason to even investigate the possibility of a purpose to life.

[mrmoron]

Let's all commit mass suicide!

[Bnonn]

Kheterus missed the fact that consciousness is its own layer of abstraction.

Just because your CPU only sees open and closed gates doesn't mean that the clock in your system tray is just open and closed gates. Layers of abstraction create their own meaning, people...

[Starfisher]

Khet, sorry, I should have made myself clear.

You can't prove anything unless you use the scientific method. To follow your example, I would have to prove a causal link between A) Respecting other people and B) some benefit for you. Retro did so using sociology, which may not be a science but uses the scientific method. That's why I put the [/scientific skepticism] tag after my rant.

And for the Panther:

"If our universe is a hypersphere" - note the "if". If it isn't, and there's just as much proof either way, none, then the universe is infinite. :hippy:

But I've argued for the hypersphere in religion/universe threads before, so apparently you've got me.

[SquidDNA]

Sociology is a science in its infancy. Give it a break.

[Cooker]

Originally posted by mrmoron
Let's all commit mass suicide!

we are incapable of commiting mass suicide because we can only follow the reaction in our brain, which prevent mass suicide.

[malignus]

Okay, Kheterus, with all due respect, what were you smoking when you came up with this question?

Originally posted by Kheturus
I find it laughable that people think the only way to prove something is through science. ... Explain to me, using science alone, why I should have respect for other people.


You can't "prove" why you should have respect for people. You can't prove matters of "should," since they are moral judgments and not observable phenomena. The rules of respect are social mores. There is nothing to prove or disprove in them--they are simply socially accepted methods of behavior, interpreted regionally and individually. If you want to know where they came from, consult history. We made them up. They exist only in our own minds. Even assuming that we should in fact have respect for other people, you can't "prove" it, regardless of whether you rely on science or not!

[SquidDNA]

What you can attempt to prove is that societies possess "mutual respect" as an ideal enjoy certain benefits which other societies don't. Attempting to prove why you should want society to have those benefits is more difficult, and becomes more the realm of psychology, along the lines of the perceived likelihood of yourself enjoying those benefits. However, not everyone is wired the same way, so the model becomes lost here.

[oneredpanther]

"If our universe is a hypersphere" - note the "if". If it isn't, and there's just as much proof either way, none, then the universe is infinite Well, if you count 30+ years of String research yielding more and more promising resolutions of the nature of space to be "just as much proof either way", then maybe you're right.

Or maybe you're just unhappy with all the proof in the world.

*shrugs*

[Starfisher]

Hmm...

From http://superstringtheory.com/cosmo/cosmo21.html , discussing the geometry of the universe:

What's the final answer?

The Big Bang began with a radiation dominated era, which accounted for the first 10,000-100,000 years of the evolution of our Universe. Right now the dominant forms of energy in our Universe are matter and vacuum energy. The latest measurements from astronomers tell us:
1. Our Universe is pretty flat: The cosmic microwave background is the relic of Big Bang thermal radiation, cooled to the temperature of 2.73° Kelvin. But it didn't cool perfectly smoothly, and after the radiation cooled, there were some lumps left over. The angular size of those lumps as observed from our present location in spacetime depends on the spatial curvature of the Universe. The currently observed lumpiness in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background is just right for a flat Universe that expands forever.


Something that expands forever with no bounds seems to be infinite.

I'd be perfectly happy accepting your claim that the universe is a finite object whose bounds are defined by a hypersphere if you had all the proof in the world. Except you don't. You've got thirty plus years of research that don't quite agree with your statement.

[Kheturus]

I was hoping people would view my question in teh context of this thread. I question people who say that they can prove using material science that an immaterial soul doesn't exist. This doesn't work. To illustrate that, I was hoping someone would be able to give me an argument for why we desire social progress and why we desire to gather as much knowledge as we do. Why do we have the desire to live (in general)? I don't think that these are questions that can be answered by science. Sure, we might be able to come up with some biological explanation, but aside from direct observation, how do we arrive at these conclusions? We can't deduce using the laws of physics or math that we should pursue a purpose in our life.

This is getting muddled I realize, and people are getting too caught up in the specifics of my question.

[ceejayoz]

I was hoping someone would be able to give me an argument for why we desire social progress and why we desire to gather as much knowledge as we do. Why do we have the desire to live (in general)? I don't think that these are questions that can be answered by science. You should read the book "The Selfish Gene" - it explains a lot of that. The desire to live, the desire for progress, the desire for knowledge - all serve to enhance the survivability of our genes.

Basically, an organism with a drive to live is going to do better than an similar organism with a drive to jump off a cliff.

[Starfisher]

Khet - Prove that there is an immortal soul. You can't. Claiming one exists has the same merit as claiming there are invisibile chickens telling me what to type. Except that you can explain the concept of a soul easily as the human need to have cosmic purpose beyond our observable, stark and brutal live-reproduce-die existence. The chickens require some other explanation... perhaps insanity.

I suppose the soul is real enough to a believer, but that doesn't make it real.

PS - No freaking brains-in-tanks evil genius crap from anyone. Please.

[Retroboy]

Ceejay, considering your hamsterish mien is closely related species-wise to the misunderstood lemming, perhaps your last paragraph might use some rephrasing?

:D

-- Retro, injecting a minor bit of levity

[SquidDNA]

The world selects for things that want to reproduce themselves. I mean, if something reproduces itself, there's more of it to reproduce. Of course we like to live. If our ancestors didn't want to live and reproduce, we wouldn't be here.

Why? I don't know, it had to happen somewhere.

Interesting, Retro, someone once told me that the Lemming thing was a myth, and films to show the contrary were staged. I dont know how much stock I put in it, but it's an amusing idea.

[Bnonn]

Lemmings rule the underworld.

[Cooker]

Originally posted by Kheturus
Why do we have the desire to live (in general)? I don't think that these are questions that can be answered by science. Sure, we might be able to come up with some biological explanation, but aside from direct observation, how do we arrive at these conclusions? We can't deduce using the laws of physics or math that we should pursue a purpose in our life.


It is rather simple, to explain why we want to live scientifically. In simple words, anything that does not want to live has extinct, so everything left alive, including us, wants to live.

Is not that we lived so we want to live, it’s that we want to live so we lived.

Darwinian biology.

[Bnonn]

That doesn't explain why we want to live. It explains why we are here to ask the question.

[SquidDNA]

Well, you can get a handwaving explanation; it's neurochemistry. Instinct and so forth. Unless you demand specifics, I think it's a satisfactory explanation.

Neurochemistry and instinct isn't some sort of myth, I'd like to point out. I heard a talk given by a guy who figured out which neurotransmitter in which part of the brain was responsible for monogamous behavior in prairie voles. It was fascinating.

[Bnonn]

I agree Squid. I was just pointing out that Cooker hadn't actually answered the question.

[Kheturus]

Starfisher, you aren't reading my posts. I can't prove that there is an immortal soul to your satisfaction. I never will be able to. Nobody will be able to. Conversely, you can never disprove its existence. You CANNOT use material science to disprove immaterial concepts.

My point is that if you want to take a totally materialist point of view, you cannot say that there is any point to our existence. As soon as you start to claim that there is, you are not a materialist anymore.

You say that I am irrational in my belief that there is more than the material world. I say that you are irrational to believe there is only the material world, since I have an innate sense that tells me there is a point to my life (whatever it may be), and I have a very hard time believeing that all these people arguing that there is only the material world all think that we have a pointless existence.

[ceejayoz]

Well, the fact is life actually is rather pointless.

The "point" of life is to have sex and die. That's our basic drive.

p.s. one does not have to believe in something beyond the physical world to feel that life has a point

[Kheturus]

That's where you're wrong CJ. ;)

(edited to make myself look like less of an ass)

[LoCo]

Well that was one of the most profound answers I have ever seen. It's like saying "You are wrong because I say so."

It's something that I find lacking on these forums, I mean really, if I say you are wrong, you should just accept it and move on with your life, I am the be all and end all of every answer and question.

[Starfisher]

Life has no "purpose". There is no higher meaning to existence. That is unacceptable to the human psyche so we go through all sorts of hoops to think otherwise.

[oneredpanther]

And those hoops include inventing organised religion, God, the soul, the afterlife and ridiculous supernatural exceptions to the physical world.

It's a good job the human mind evolved this odd over-riding defecit of common sense because it probably kept us all alive during the dark ages, but in the modern world our slightly faulty wiring is merely a hinderance.

I dont blame people who believe in all this stuff because they can't help it. Kheturus is as likely to change his mind as his to be able to order his heart to stop. It's hardwired in about 99% of people.

[Cooker]

Panth, I suggest you and Reflection write a fanfic to explain these in a story. That would be more emotionally acceptable to people you wish to convince. Right now, I think they think you are an arrogant person, nothing else.

I suggest you to head over my forum, and look at my theory “failure of the mind” It talked about precisely what you said, yet in a more elaborate fashion.

The URL is:

http://alliance4.us/~technocrat/cgi-bin/ib/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=5;t=1

[SquidDNA]

Panth, it would be easy for me to summarize your secular position from a spiritual perspective with all the condescension that you do the converse, but see, I'd rather not be an ass. Please don't be like that.

[Cooker]

I, however, have read every one of your posts.
This very thread is attempting to disprove existence of an immoral soul, with my “spectrum” theory derived from Darwinian biology. We are arguing about if such a soul exists. You should not use the conclusion as an argument to back up it. And as long as spectrum theory stands, the immortal soul is disproved.

I am arguing from a materialist point of view, and there is, indeed, no point to our existence. I have never claimed there is a point, explicitly or implicitly.

It is rational to believe there is only the material word, because if there is a non material world, then there is no way for the non material world to react with the material world. If you really want a purpose on a collective scale, then the purpose is procreating, because biologically, the point of any lives is to live on.

Squid, I more scientific and elaborate equivalent of panth's statement can be found here, written by me

Please post any corrections you wish to make in that article or rewrite it entirely, if you wish.

http://alliance4.us/~technocrat/cgi-bin/ib/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=5;t=1

[bluevorlon]

I think it's quite clear that humans as a species have transcended their original 'biological purpose' to some degree. Their are so many other things in our lives that are seperate from this innate breed-eat-breed-die existence, so many things that aren't explained by biology or physics, that we attempt to explain our own existence from different angles. Be they artistic, spiritual, philosophical, whatever. The belief in a 'soul' ties into this enormous unknown aspect of all our lives that just isn't explained by science or 'logic' or materialism or whatever. But who's to say, ultimately, if someone creates their own reason for existence, then that isn't a perfectly valid reason? If I'm happy living my life believing in god, or if I'm happy living my life believing in chaos, does it really affect anyone as long as I've given purpose to my own existence? Whilst I might be wrong, or deluded, ultimately, what's the value of truth in this matter? These things aren't incompatible, they do not mutually invalidate eachother. A few hundred years ago we thought the earth was flat, who's to say in a few hundred more Quantum Mechanics will be viewed with such derision, and we all worship the god of lemonade?

It's like a rubik's cube trying to solve itself, each explanation can solve one side of the cube, but all the other sides are jumbled and complex and a mess.

[ceejayoz]

That's where you're wrong CJ. I could say the same for you, but I'm at least trying to respond to what you said. Do me the same courtesy, eh?

Why am I wrong? I certainly don't believe in a soul, but I believe my life has a point - to make the lives of those I love better, to have children and pass my knowledge and experiences on to them.

[Paladin]

Of course I've already invalidated your theory by showing that your original assumption (That all religions believe only humans have souls) was false Cooker.

There are multiple religions (Including at least one Christian sect) which believe animals and even inanimate objects have souls, and at least one religion which does not involve souls.

-Paladin

[Kheturus]

LOL, sorry. That did sound like a foot stomping answer. I failed once again to convey what I meant. CJ, you said that there is a higher purpose to life by way of science, after I just said that I think that there is more to life and that science can't provide that answer.

You say I'm wrong, and I say you're wrong. It was meant as more of a tongue-in-cheek remark.

Cooker, once again, it is impossible to disprove the existence of a immaterial soul using material science. If you argue that there is no soul because there is no non-material world, fine, but to argue that you proved it using science is ridiculous.

[oneredpanther]

Bugger.

I'm going with Khet on this one. :D

[Cooker]

Cooker, once again, it is impossible to disprove the existence of an immaterial soul using material science. If you argue that there is no soul because there is no non-material world, fine, but to argue that you proved it using science is ridiculous.


The spectrum theory is the proof, if you can not effectively counter it, it’s not ridiculous.
I emphasize again because definition of anything is given by man, so by saying some things have soul while others don’t, you conclude that man dictate if things have souls, which confront many religions.

There are multiple religions (Including at least one Christian sect) which believe animals and even inanimate objects have souls, and at least one religion which does not involve souls.

Well, at least one religion will have to bite it ….

[Cooker]

Originally posted by ceejayoz
am I wrong? I certainly don't believe in a soul, but I believe my life has a point - to make the lives of those I love better, to have children and pass my knowledge and experiences on to them.

well, that is a point given by you, not an arbitary point defined outside you, so it's only valid relative to you ....

[SquidDNA]

Cooker, your argument fails to take into consideration that a definition of an immortal soul may be held by one or more spiritual entities with absolute authority on the issue. From a Christian perspective, for example, you can argue until you're blue in the face about what you can or cannot know, but in the end none of it will change what God knows. This is why you're not going to make any headway.

[Cooker]

"Cooker, your argument fails to take into consideration that a definition of an immortal soul may be held by one or more spiritual entities with absolute authority on the issue."

Yet the holding entities are still man. Our definition of immortal soul is created by men.

"From a Christian perspective, for example, you can argue until you're blue in the face about what you can or cannot know, but in the end none of it will change what God knows. "

I don't get you ....

[LoCo]

Originally posted by Paladin
There are multiple religions (Including at least one Christian sect) which believe animals and even inanimate objects have souls, and at least one religion which does not involve souls.

-Paladin

I'm sorry, but I must have missed the part where you showed that a christian sect believed that inanimate objects have souls ... Could you please direct me or state again as to where you said this?

Also, I have noticed that you seem to think that if something has been proved by you then everyone all of a sudden knows it to be true. Just because you have explained to the best of your ability does not make it true and does not meant hat everyone agrees with you. Take the time to find out what others believe and think before you come here and state that you have proved something and remember that it is not proved to someone untill they accept it.

[Bnonn]

This is silly. We have people saying that just because the soul can't be disproved by science, its existence is a viable option.

I can't disprove that leprachauns exist either, you know. There is no reason for a soul to exist, other than to satisfy the desire in some people to believe that they are somehow special. Has no one heard of Occam's Razor?

[Kheturus]

Bnonn, the argument is that you can't disprove the existence of a soul based on lack of scientific evidence. You can argue that there is no such thing as non-material substance, but then you run into the arguments we were discussing above about whether there can be purpose in life and what that purpose is according to science.

Essentially this is a argument over whether there exists non-material entities or substance.

Occam's Razor is the most misused logical tool. You can't cut away the entire idea of non-material substance with Occam's Razor. You can, however, deduce that when you leave your room with the light on and return to find the light on and know that nobody had entered the room it is very likely the case that the light stayed on. Occam's Razor is one of those tools that everyone likes to play with but few use it properly (myself included).

[added in edit]
I want to address Cookers point with a little more detail. You are claiming that because there is no clearly defined line between human and not human at some point in evolution, then it must be humans who decide in which case, the whole argument falls apart. You have to take into consideration that all things we know about God and souls were said and written down by humans. God doesn't own a pen, and he doesn't have a mouth of his own. It is assumed that these sorts of things are inspired by God (if we need to know them). Traditional teaching dictates that at some point in the past, a human was born who had sufficient mental faculties and a conscience, and that God endowed a soul on that person. You will find no physical evidence of a change in that person, nor will you find a change in the culture in which that person lived, but that will have been the first human with a soul (Adam). Again, this was something God did, the greatest of all miracles. I can't point to a place in the past and say "there's the first human," but I can tell you that there was a first human with a soul. If you want to make the argument about how it is convenient that God just does all this stuff magically, well I think you're right. It is very convenient, and if you want to argue against only the existence of a non-material soul, you must make the argument much bigger or you won't get an answer either way.

[Paladin]

I'm sorry, but I must have missed the part where you showed that a christian sect believed that inanimate objects have souls ... Could you please direct me or state again as to where you said this?
First page of this thread. I stated the following:

Mormons do not believe that only humans have souls. They believe that everything has a spirit, even rocks.
I was raised Mormon, so I should know. Mormons worship Jesus and the Christian God and are thus a Christian sect by the only meaningful definition of Christianity.

Also, I have noticed that you seem to think that if something has been proved by you then everyone all of a sudden knows it to be true.
I posted this data to this thread on the first page. The theory is invalidated by this data and these things are objective facts that you can easily look up if you like. Hindus believe animals have souls. All the various animist religions state that everything has a soul, insofar as they embrace the concept of souls. Buddhism doesn't involve souls at all (Look up the concept of anatman sometime).

-Paladin

[malignus]

Originally posted by Kheturus
Traditional teaching dictates that at some point in the past, a human was born who had sufficient mental faculties and a conscience, and that God endowed a soul on that person. ...that will have been the first human with a soul (Adam).

Erm, Khet, what sort of "traditional" teaching is this? This sounds more like a progressive fusion of evolution and creationism than traditional Christian teaching. It sounds convincing to me, but to say that Adam appeared at some point in the evolution of a lower species contradicts a lot of Christian teachings on its own.

You are right that you can't scientifically disprove the existence of something that has never been observed, however. Typically, you just assume that it does not exist and get on with things.

[LoCo]

Originally posted by Paladin
I was raised Mormon, so I should know. Mormons worship Jesus and the Christian God and are thus a Christian sect by the only meaningful definition of Christianity.

-Paladin

If I didn't know better I would agree with you. How long ago did you go to church? It seems that some of the things you claim to "know" are wrong. I am now 21 yrs old and have been mormon for about 20 of them there years. I (Just like you) know that mormons do not believe that rocks and stuff have souls. Animals yes, but rocks ... no.

I hope you at least go and make sure of this before you come back and try and tell me I'm wrong. I'm nto talking about going and asking your mommy, go ask the biship of the church in your area if rocks have souls. The mormons believe that all LIVING things have souls.

[Cooker]

“I want to address Cookers point with a little more detail. You are claiming that because there is no clearly defined line between human and not human at some point in evolution, and then it must be humans who decide in which case, the whole argument falls apart.”

We should see …


“You have to take into consideration that all things we know about God and souls were said and written down by humans. God doesn't own a pen, and he doesn't have a mouth of his own. It is assumed that these sorts of things are inspired by God (if we need to know them).”

Well, after a while, it becomes difficult to discern “words of god” and “random rumbling of lunatics”. In fact, No religions document (any religion, any document) contain valediction entirely based on facts.

“Traditional teaching dictates that at some point in the past, a human was born who had sufficient mental faculties and a conscience, and that God endowed a soul on that person. You will find no physical evidence of a change in that person, nor will you find a change in the culture in which that person lived, but that will have been the first human with a soul (Adam).”

Archeological evidence indicated that at least two groups of apes evolved into human simultaneously, these include many East Asian groups, some North African groups and some West Asian groups. And that alone is sufficient to prove, materialistically, that not all human are descendent of a particular person. If you don’t make sense, think about the chance of black, white and Asians are descendent of the same person. And if only descendent of certain person has a soul, then majority of the world, according to your theory, including all of Asians and every Black, does not have a soul.

"Again, this was something God did, the greatest of all miracles. I can't point to a place in the past and say "there's the first human," but I can tell you that there was a first human with a soul. If you want to make the argument about how it is convenient that God just does all this stuff magically, well I think you're right. It is very convenient, and if you want to argue against only the existence of a non-material soul, you must make the argument much bigger or you won't get an answer either way.”


Again, clearly that the first human can not be the common ancestor of Black, white and Asian, therefore, most humans do not have souls.

[Bnonn]

If you don’t make sense, think about the chance of black, white and Asians are descendent of the same person.
Think about the chance of poodles, poms and german shepherds are descendent of the same type of animal (wolf). We know they are.

I agree with your actual belief that no soul exists (it seems fairly obvious, just like leprechauns don't exist), but your arguments are flawed beyond hope of recovery.

Sorry.

[Cooker]

Bnonn:

Wolf is not a dog.
And not all dogs are descendent of one particular wolf.
Can you say that, all dogs descended from one particular dog?

Same applies to us.


You might have to contact Squid, he will be able to justify why there is no possibility all men are descended from one particular man.

[SquidDNA]

Cooker, jury is still out on that one actually, but it has little to do with your argument. For instance, Neanderthals, while distinct, were probably "human enough"-- the argument regarding simultaneous human evolution in different regions is placed in a point in our history well after we began using tools. There's a big difference between "apes" and "hominids," even if it's cladistically a little misleading to say that.

Bnonn, I'm perfectly willing to concede that souls and leprechauns are on equal footing. Why I or anyone else chooses souls over leprechauns is not a rational matter. If faith were logical it wouldn't be faith, it would be logic. For logic, and forgive me if I'm restating, lack of proof does not constitute disproof, and since there's no information to be had on the nature of the soul, there's no reason to believe it exists. But one last time, faith is not reason.

Cooker, the point I was trying to make is that if a soul and its creator exist but cannot be proven, it doesn't matter what man thinks about the nature of the soul. If you think I live in New Mexico, it doesn't change the fact that I don't. If man creates a flawed definition of the soul which seems to disprove its existence, it doesn't matter if a perfect definition is held by the entity who created the soul. So just because we can't decide where hominids picked up an (immortal) soul doesn't mean they didn't-- it isn't really our decision that determines what happened.

[Cooker]

If man creates a flawed definition of the soul which seems to disprove its existence, it doesn't matter if a perfect definition is held by the entity that created the soul. So just because we can't decide where hominids picked up an (immortal) soul doesn't mean they didn't-- it isn't really our decision that determines what happened.

Here I tried to disprove the existence of soul as it’s defined by men, in religious texts. This attempt is independent of weather a better definition exists. What I tried is to disprove that human held a soul described by religious texts, not if they actually hold a soul described by other sources. And if such source exist is irrelevant to this argument.

[Kheturus]

malignus, that is Catholic doctrine applied to evolution. Since there is no official teaching on evolution (only that it is a viable threory), we have to apply the teachings to eachother. Most theologians I know would agree with this explanation.

Adam was the first human, not a lower species, and evolution is creationism execept to selected fundamentalists who can't interpret the Bible.

Cooker, then you are using a bad argument to begin with. Why not try to disprove a more robust argument, as the person who wrote the one you are refuting was not very informed on the subject.

[Retroboy]

I do recall reading a long time ago somewhere that the human body lost a small amount of weight when it "died", and this weight change was attributed to the soul's departure, but have no idea as to the validity of this source.

Google showed nothing useful from a preliminary search - just a bunch of bunk that interpreted "weight" as the burden of your sins on your soul, several biblical transcriptions, and a few quotes that said that nobody's ever seriously investigated the claim. In other words, no "empirical" evidence.

[Edit]Found one. Doesn't look like the most reliable of sources tho - it's a yahoo club. http://wednesday13.morpheus.net/deathlinks.html The 19th century was full of spiritualists. It was also full of Calvinists, Marxists, and Mormons. It drew lines between Lutheran and Catholic, Catholic and Protestant, Catholic and everything. A recently revisited experiment was conducted by a spiritualist. It measured, as carefully as possible, the body weight of a dying man. It then weighed that person at the time of death. The corpse weighed a half an ounce less than the living man. All things otherwise abandoned, the spiritualist claimed that a soul weighs half an ounce. Couldn't have been more right. Five-eighths of an ounce, really. I mentioned this experiment had been revisited... In 1995, a study concluded that of all deaths at a Minneapolis Veteran's Hospital, all deceased individuals weighed exactly five-eighths of an ounce less than their living counterparts. The study recommended that all final thoughts and wishes should be given at the exact moment of transition, or shortly thereafter, so as to ensure the departing soul has time to hear them before stepping into the light. This study is being re-enacted at four major metropolitan hospitals as we speak. The end result will be a confirmation of life after death.It gives you a link to the 1905 experiment that refers to a general newspage, however, so who knows how factual this is?

-- Retro

[oneredpanther]

The end result will be a confirmation of life after death. It will? :blink:
I would assume that the end result will be a confirmation of an anomaly whereby people lose 5/8 Oz on death.

This is akin to proving the existence of the Rain God because doing the Burmese Hula-Foxtrot Dance increased the average rainfall in Outer Mongolia by two thousandths of a percent.

Sort of.

[Cooker]

Retroboy: I wish to see a full experiment report as a confirmation of validity. This should include a full list of apparatus, a method description sufficiently detailed to duplicate the experiment. And any raw output data from repeated experiments. Scientific method is not subject of manipulation.

[Retroboy]

If you can find one, link it in, Cooker. As I mentioned, the information IMO is very questionable.

-- Retro

[Cyzada]

This is one of the silliest threads i have ever seen. Right up there with "Near Future" Interstellar Warfare.

One. You cannot disprove god, soul, or any other of the meta-physical constructs commonly referred to in religion. These are amorphous ideas not based on logic. You cannot disprove an idea that is not based in logic through logical means.

Two. Its amazing how we as a species can collectively deem to have understood the behavior of another species when are not even close to understanding our own behavior. How can we say with any degree of certainty that a snake doesn't have emotions, doesn't make intelligent decisions, doesn't have a moral code, etc.

Three. Lets calm down with the armchair physics. We know very little about the world beyond our tiny little planet and theories such as the big bang, infinite space, and curved space remain just that; theories. Thus using such concepts in any logical argument bears little fruit.

[SquidDNA]

Cyzada, armchair physics and hysterical speculation are the right and left arms of this forum. :D

[Starfisher]

I just read a Carl Sagan book where he makes an offhand reference to an attempt to 'prove' the soul - the same thing you linked Retro, except according to Sagan there was no appreciable difference.

Welcome to the forums Cyzada... get used to it. When people want to talk about this stuff, they post. Half the fun is the fact that you know you can't possibly change the other guy's mind, and you will find that quibbling over definitions and facts can be refined to a high art. So, unless you have something that will prolong this endless cycle, take the high road and ignore us.

[Cyzada]

Very well, since this discussion at its core is based upon belief, I'll state mine. Without further ado;

Religions with little exception seem to organize reality in such a way that it becomes simply a reflection of the creators of the religion. Likewise, the figures referred to in the religious teaching are often simply reflections of the people who created them. Thus i view the affair with disdain as a very homocentric concept. Furthermore i don't see any likelyhood that it has any basis whatsoever in reality.

[Genetic Bryy]

Originally posted by Starfisher
[B]Half the fun is the fact that you know you can't possibly change the other guy's mind, and you will find that quibbling over definitions and facts can be refined to a high art. [B]

This is doubled if its a thread about religion, strong subjects such as Abortion, and The Matrix (1 and 2).

[Bnonn]

Squid, as long as you concede that leprechauns and souls are on the same sort of level, then there's nothing more I feel needs to be said. I find it bizarre that anyone who would make such a concession would still believe in a soul, but then, humans are bizarre creatures.

Cooker, you didn't understand my argument. Wolves of all descriptions are similar enough to each other in relation to all species of dogs that they can be considered a single species. You were saying that all the different "types" of humans on Earth couldn't possibly have evolved from a single species of pre-human. I was demonstrating that if all species of dogs (which are far more varied than humans) could have evolved (forcibly, albeit) from wolves, which are all very similar, then your argument doesn't hold up.

[Bonnet]

Why do you guys care? For those athiest out there you knwo there is no god so why do you care what thoae other idiots think, they will just spend half there lives praying uselessly and u will get ahead because of that?
And for those religous people you know that there is a god so why do you care what those other fools think, they will just go to hell right?

[Cooker]

Originally posted by Bnonn

Cooker, you didn't understand my argument. Wolves of all descriptions are similar enough to each other in relation to all species of dogs that they can be considered a single species. You were saying that all the different "types" of humans on Earth couldn't possibly have evolved from a single species of pre-human. I was demonstrating that if all species of dogs (which are far more varied than humans) could have evolved (forcibly, albeit) from wolves, which are all very similar, then your argument doesn't hold up.

Well, I never said “all the different "types" of humans on Earth couldn't possibly have evolved from a single species of pre-human”. What I said is that know all subspecies of human have descended from a single person.

[Genetic Bryy]

Originally posted by zbobet2012
Why do you guys care? For those athiest out there you knwo there is no god so why do you care what thoae other idiots think, they will just spend half there lives praying uselessly and u will get ahead because of that?
And for those religous people you know that there is a god so why do you care what those other fools think, they will just go to hell right?

Bravo.
But its also too hard a post to not respond to with:
Because people think other people need to be educated.
That or shot down.
Me, I go for the latter.

[SquidDNA]

Bnonn, in many years of thinking about it, I've come to the conclusion that it's the nature of faith to be as strange and inexplicable as the things people often have faith in.

Knowing that I have certain beliefs primarily because I was raised to have them doesn't change the fact that I believe them.

[Retroboy]

Zbobet and bryy, maybe we talk about this stuff because we want to learn more about the mental set of those that believe in other things that we do. This is why I do.

Those other folks may not change our mind, but they sure can educate us about how they think. IMO that's worth a lot - if the only people you can understand are those that have the exact same opinion on issues that you do, well, you'll never ever be a trusted mediator, and you'll be close-minded for the rest of your life.

And who knows - maybe you'll come to realize from participating in these threads that the other side isn't necessarily 100% "idiots".

-- Retro

[Cyzada]

Here is a question for you armchair metaphyisicists out there. How "alive" does something have to be before it can be considered to be a living being endowed with a soul. Is it just us, that breed of mammals, that possess souls? or do all animals have souls? How about plants? Insects? Bacteria? Does every cell have a soul? and if so, are complex organisms then not made up of just one soul but many souls all working as one.

[Genetic Bryy]

Originally posted by Retroboy
Zbobet and bryy, maybe we talk about this stuff because we want to learn more about the mental set of those that believe in other things that we do. This is why I do.
And who knows - maybe you'll come to realize from participating in these threads that the other side isn't necessarily 100% "idiots".

-- Retro
I totally think the same thing, too, and I wasn't trying to imply that I thought everyone on here was a moron. I just said that its hard not to respond to Zbobet with a cynical answer. I also do like to shoot stupid arguments down; its something we all do and partake in. I enjoy debating just as much as the next guy, but there's only so far you can go before you start going in a circle, if you don't start thinking in different perspectives.

[Bnonn]

Well this particular thread was doomed from the beginning, because it started off with a deeply flawed argument, and then meandered about for ages. I'm pretty surprised it's lasted so long, and has such relatively high quality comments in it, considering how poorly it started.

[Genetic Bryy]

Have I disproved science on these forums yet?
I think I have, but there are so many threads about the same thing, I'm not sure.

[Kheturus]

Cyzada, read the last 50 pages or so... you kinda missed the boat on that one.

[LoCo]

Originally posted by Genetic Bryy
Have I disproved science on these forums yet?
I think I have, but there are so many threads about the same thing, I'm not sure.

Errr... Disproved science?

[Bonnet]

My post was not meant for those such as Retro and others like him, but those people who only seek to convert the otherside because they are either fools or infidels. And also pointing out that beliefs are not opnions and very rairly can be changed.

[Bnonn]

If a belief is not an opinion, then what is it?

[Retroboy]

Nor was I implying you guys thought that way. I was just explaining my own reasons why I participate in threads like this.

To try and change someone's mind here by stomping on their ideas and ideals as ridiculous would be the highest form of arrogance. Very little of that goes on here. :up:

-- Retro

[RBA-Wintrow]

I think this thread has reached its end and will soon be locked or catch fire. Either way it wil die, regardless of it having a soul. :)

I would like to learn some more about this "quantum soul" thing I've heard people mention. Some sources or explanations would be nice.

[SquidDNA]

Well, the thread has certainly become self-aware, since it's talking about itself. Despite the fascinating metaphysical implications of this, we always have to keep an eye out for the Beast. ;)

In seriousness, the thread has been exhausted. I'll lock to put it out of its misery unless someone does a good job of breathing life into it. Otherwise, a lot of good arguing.

[Genetic Bryy]

A belief is opinion, yes; on another note, it is also imagination. The implication of what that belief means.

[Bonnet]

Tru belief can be a opnion; however, the beleief is refer to is the one that is not a opnion but a faith. And you canot argue with someones faith as the definition of faith prescribes otherwise. I declare this thread officaly dead as of 2:23 gmt-7

[Genetic Bryy]

Yes, but to have Fath > Belief > Opinion > Worldview.

[RBA-Wintrow]

Is it me or has everybody suddenly getting bored with the topic and making up new ways to spell "belief" and "faith"?

So... Quantum soul. What is it? I guess by the name it has something to do with quantum physics. Did someone find a fundamental particle that is believed to form the building blocks of the soul? Did some study of the human brain or bio-electric field find some implication that there is more to the mind than just chemicals and electric impulses?

[SquidDNA]

Right, I think we're done here. :thumb: