Oh yeah. I love atheists, its good practice to argue with the completely illogical. 

 Oh yeah. I love atheists, its good practice to argue with the completely illogical. 

Since science is pretty much useless in a philosophical argument of the soul

 

IAMJACKSBROKENFAITH wrote:

 In what way is it rational to believe in no deity? 

 

What twisted logic brings you to doubt the existence of something that created our souls?

 

Welcome to the forums!  I'm your God, because you can't prove I'm not. 

Thanks for playing!

 

 

In what way is it rational to believe in no deity?

Since science is pretty much useless in a philosophical argument of the soul,

I already made an argument for the soul, a quite good one since you all seem to be incapable of arguing against it. 

 

Besides, there is NO FUCKING PHYSICAL EVIDENCE THAT SUPPORTS OR DENIES THE EXISTENCE OF A SOUL. SCIENCE IS NOT GOING TO HELP US OUT HERE BECAUSE ITS NOT A SCIENTIFIC IDEA!

 

So yeah, if you know that the soul doesn't exist, or know of a scientific way to determine its existence or not, then by all means, enlighten me. COme on I dare you.

 

 

Oh wait. you cant. 

 

pffft they're probably caught up in this whole evolution garbage.

 

How can they think straight if they think their cousins crave bananas?

In what way is it rational to believe in no deity?

What twisted logic brings you to doubt the existence of something that created our souls?

Oh yeah. I love atheists, its good practice to argue with the completely illogical.

Since science is pretty much useless in a philosophical argument of the soul, lets just use logic and common sense.

There are a finite amount of possible chemical combinations in the brain. However, there is an infinite amount of separate thoughts, feelings, emotions, reactions... that can occur.

if you honestly don't believe in a separation [between humans and animals], then follow my previous instructions [and suffocate by inhaling laundry detergent.]

Chemical A + Chemical B=Fear. then it doesn't make sense that Chemical A + Chemical B could then equal Sad another time.

Since science is pretty much useless in a philosophical argument of the soul, lets just use logic and common sense. (Yes I know, there are no universal or apparent truths, everything is relative to the observer, blah blah blah. If thats how you think than dunk your head in some laundry detergent and breathe deep cause your hopeless)

 

So:

 

There are a finite amount of possible chemical combinations in the brain. However, there is an infinite amount of separate thoughts, feelings, emotions, reactions... that can occur. Since the combinations are finite and the thoughts are endless, then it follows that the chemical reactions of the brain cannot be the root cause of the thought. Therefore it follows that it must be something else that separates us from the animals (if you honestly don't believe in a separation, then follow my previous instructions), a nice word for this thing would be: soul. 

Soul is just a name for the consciousness with which I experience the occurrences of my daily life. Anything other than the knowledge that at least I have a soul, is faith and assumptions. So if we're gonna make assumptions about life, why not make logical ones?

 

 

How about a logical argument against the existence of a deity or soul?

 

I really hope you understand the difference between chemicals and the alphabet because that was a horrible analogy.

No horse, dog, cat, pig or fish has ever been to the moon. No cow has ever driven a car and could not create it at any time. If you can't see the difference then your not only blind, your mentally ill.

Brain dead, yeah they have a soul, no avenue with which to channel that soul into the physical world (the brain being that little connector).

It makes an appeal to ad hoc

An ad hoc is a specific tweaking of a hypothesis to avoid its falsification. In this case, the breakdown of Descartes ontological division punches a hole in theistic concepts such as God (the disembodied mind), and life after death. The proposition in this case is deliberately vague and incoherent. Notice how it cannot actually establish any sort of ontological status for its proposition. It has to refer to vague incoherencies and entails forcing a concept which has antecedents in the local world to the conscious entity as “prepackaged” rather like radio waves. The proposition does not mean anything in the sense that the phrase "the knife was a receptor for sharp-bladeness" does not mean anything.

There is not any coherent causal structure

It makes no sense in terms of causal structure. A causal structure entails the causal relationship between mental and physical events. There is no causal structure here to speak of, the proposition is nonsensical. Certain causal structures are naïve, like epiphenomenalism (mental dead-ends) but at least have established relationships between mental and physical states. The causal structures that we can establish as necessary antecedents to functioning perception fly in the face of the hypothesis in question. For one, physical events which are part of the immediate experience have a temporal causal effect on mental events that they antecede. If the causal structure in this case implies that mental events are not localized, ie, are not emergent from the brain, but rather some other hitherto unestablished source, it doesn’t actually mean anything to speak of a causal structure between the physical immediate world and the mental events. Yet clearly, regardless of position, such a correlation clearly exists. I burn my finger (physical event), experience pain (mental event), exude outward symptoms (physical event). There are numerous different causal structures from functionalism, epiphenomenalism, interactionalism non-reductive physicalism and reductionism. However, all causal models between neuronal events entail a necessary causal structure between physical events and mental events. In this case, no such causal structure can exist, since mental events do not derive from any immediate causal structure. This entails the proposition, essentially, is complete and utter nonsense. I cannot experience a first person ontology without experiencing some thing. Yet this in turn entails a causal relationship between my immediate world (empirical) and mental events. It literally makes no sense to speak of “consciousness” being amputated from the experience which has causal structure necessarily anteceded by immediate experience.

It entails the disjunction of properties from the brain which are necessarily localized

Consciousness by nature refers to experience from whence the thing being experienced cannot be amputated from consciousness, whether that thing being experienced be external or internal, or both, a causal structure entails that (a) a first person ontology being a first person experience of a world which is characterized by its locality to the brain, ie my immediate perception of the world around me. Yet in this case, such an experience cannot exist, it makes no sense to speak of a causal structure between the immediate world and the mental events that come from this antecedence. It means nothing to speak of an experience which is anteceded by an immediate causal structure between the physical and the mental to be generated by “something” which has no causal structural relationship with either of these things. The proposition is not coherent.

Another way to consider the causal structure is to consider how we normally experience the causal structures. Presuming the existence of other first-person ontologies, then a normal pattern of causal interaction in, say, a conversation can entail in S1 (subject 1) and S2 (subject 2), the following pattern of interaction;

Stimulus => S1 (physical

Brain (S1) => (physical causality) neuronal network response and processing of stimulus

Mental causality (S1) => Thought process

Mental causality (S1) => Thought process entails referencing to neuronal networks

Physical causality (S1)=> Entails the activation of other neuronal networks via this causal relationship

Physical causality (outward exuding) (S1) => Communication

Stimulus => S2 (physical)

Etc.

Now, obviously, applying this particular model to the entire mental causal process is called analytical functionalism. And I do not think that analytical functionalism is MSF is a sufficient account of the mind, for one, it is not only true that exterior stimulus can induce mental causality (or that physical states being induced by such), because mental causality can in turn cause other mental processes, or rather, physical processes underlying those mental process such that there is an action-reaction between neuronal networks and thoughts, emotions (and the associated neurotransmitter), sense data (physical stimuli causality). But the problem is that in the ridiculous model being discussed, there is no relationship between experience and physical causality and hence the physical processing of the world, and the conscious awareness does not entail any active causality between the neuronal networks and the conscious experience, because “consciousness” does not proceed from the local object upon which the experience is acting (the brain). That being the case, being that there is no computational relationship between experience and physical causality, but this is gibberish because the being the case, we wouldn’t be experiencing anything. Regardless of whether or not analytical functionalism is a sufficient account of the mind, it is definitely a contigent truth to say that. to some degree,  mental states are defined by their functional states relative to physical states and other mental states (it is also possible to argue that  the idea of a single "mental state" is not). However, I have never accepted functionalism always remaining a staunch type physicalists ((mental events are defined by their physical correlates). For reasons of the fact that mental states can be realized in non-human brains and also non-human experiences, I rejected strong type physicalism in favor of token type physicalism, which accounts for what I described above, called Multiple realizibility. At any rate, the thing to take away is that the "consciousness being broadcast" nonsense (a) has no model of interaction and (b) does not account for qualia, the subjective nature of consciousness localized to the physical occupance of the thing expereincing the first person ontology, ie the feel of the pain when one burns their finger. It is not coherently established how "consciousness" being broadcast would accout for this given that this would entail that consciousness is a "thing" which exists indepedently of  the experiencing first person ontology and its extended body.

To consider my own position further, I am a specific subset of identity type theorists called an anomolous monoist. 

 So, to me, although there is no bridge of reductionist subsets, mental states still have their necessary antecedants in neuronal networks, and constellations of such give rise to neuronal networks. I settled on this particular model several years ago, after realizing that (a) Epiphenominalism was nonsense because it has causal dead ends on mental events (something I discuss in my paper on multiple realizability) and (b) Machine state functionalism could not account for the person understanding the Chinese language as opposed to Searle's Chinese Room machine, and I did not want to bite the bullet of functionalism by admitting that Ned Block's Chinese Nation-Mind state entity could be a functioning mind. Emergentism appealed to me because Token types entail multiple realizability, as shown:

 

 What this entails is what is called supervenience, which I have defended before, which is propositionally simple: Systems, be they emergent or reductionist, cannot entail changes in higher level properties without constituent changes. It is a constitutional relationship which entails that certain properties have necessary antecedants, and supervenience was what I used in principle to Attack the existence of God. In simple terms, the existence of God entails certain properties which have supervenience to lower properties, and these lower properties have been amputated from the theistic description of God. The nature of the mental, both a priori and discovered a posteriori , such as by neuroscience, entails, something which virtually every philosopher (or indeed, everyone else) would accept, that mental events supervene the physical, ie mental events have properties which entail physical antecedance, which I have already mentioned. This is very problematic for the existence of God, which entails a disembodied mind, something which I have firmly established before is not possible. Note that while certain propositions entail synthetic knowledge, gained by neuroscience about how mental and physical events interact, necessary a priori truths can also entail that this is problematic, ie that consciousness is entailed by expereince of something, or that physical events antecede mental. In property terms, certain properties do antecede each other. It is possible for an object with extended body to be a color other than blue, but is not possible for a blue object to exist without extended body. 

Returning to the ridiculous model being propogated here. It necessarily entails due to the lack of causal structure, anomolous dualism, that there are no laws governing the mental-physical relationship, and they are two differeny substances (mental events are then not causally effacious of physical ones, or other mental events). This is problematic

The other thing we might consider is that there is no coherent causal structure of the “broadcasting” thing, obviously it is ridiculous to speak of a first person ontology being “broadcast” because a first person ontology entails antecedants which are local only to the experiencing physical entity in question. It is therefore incoherent and confusing to speak of “consciousness” being plucked out of the air by such entities. Obviously then, it is incoherent to speak of “mental causality” being existing unto itself. How can this be? The nature of the local experience of first person ontologies entails that there is physical causality prior to mental causality. “Mental things” do not exist by themselves, it is not coherent to speak of such things. How could we? I’m not trying to suggest that only a naturalistic ontology is necessarily the only correct solution merely that returning to my first proposition, it is not established the identity of the “broadcasted” consciousness, nor what it means to speak of consciousness being “broadcast” any more coherently than it is to speak of “ . Nor does it appear that the brain has any properties which would entail it is “receiving” anything other than sense data, from whence it builds its subjective experience of the world.

I presume those who would propagate this particular ad hoc are attempting to propagate the hypothesis that “consciousness” originates in some supernatural realm, but it is completely meaningless to speak of such things for the reasons already discussed. For one, it is not coherent what ontology this “broadcasting entity” is, or what it means to speak of some sort of amputated first person ontology without any extended body, because consciousness by nature has antecedents which entail an extended body, because it entails experience, that is what underlies the notion of qualia. And that entails the processing of sense data, and that entails an experience of something, which defines a first person ontology. It becomes even less coherent when we consider that unless one is solipsistic, there exist other minds, it is not coherent what causal structure would be entailed form some incoherent supernatural realm that would generate the local experiences of the many first person ontologies. We may as well regard the entire proposition as appealing to nonsense.

It is not coherent to speak of consciousness being some “Raw” entity which is processed and altered by the brain, because consciousness cannot, by nature be a thing, by which we might mean a substantial entity unto itself. It appears to be a property exuded by certain entities that we might call having first person ontology (theory of other minds), not merely that but it does not appear that it can be “broadcast” due to such entailment and such a posulation would create an incoherent infinite regress. Also, being that there is no causal structure, there is no coherent way whatsoever in which such a model could generate (i) experience and (ii) mental states. It is gibberish.

It makes a fallacy of reification

It entails that it is possible to amputate consciousness from that which is being experienced. Strictly speaking, this is complete gibberish, comparing consciousness to radio waves to be plucked out of the air is rather like comparing apples to rocket launchers. Furthermore, it makes an appeal to something without positive ontology hence generating a rhetoric tautology. It is unclear what is meant by “consciousness” as if this could exist as a thing unto itself. It means nothing to speak of “consciousness” being transmitted into brains, because that would entail that we define “consciousness” in this sense. If consciousness has antecedent of experience, and hence a first-person ontology needs to be experiencing something, then it makes strictly no sense to amputate these properties from the substance in question, the brain. Even Descartes model has the dualistic “soul” operating with some sort of causal epiphenominalistic mechanism with the brain. But if consciousness has local antecedents, ie certain properties are entailed that are part of what is being experienced by the first person ontology (for example, it makes no sense to speak of a conscious being forming without experience via sense data) then it means nothing to speak of consciousness being “transmitted”. This is further supported by the fact that consciousness develops ontogenically along with the brain. The idea that consciousness could be packaged and transmitted rather like radio waves is ontologically incoherent, it is not established what sort of independent ontology “consciousness” by itself might have, or indeed, what it means to speak of “consciousness” existing by itself. Certain properties, by their nature, necessitate the first-order quality of extended body in order to be coherent. If my computer mouse, which is blue, occupies points in space time and hence is extended, it makes no sense to speak of my mouse being blue if it was not extended because then we wouldn’t be meaningfully referring to anything being “blue”. Nor can I amputate the blueness of the entity from its extension, similarily, it is unclear what precisely we are left over with ontologically speaking when we amputate the physical body, because there does not appear to be anything left over to generate the comprescence relation such that higher-order properties are generated.

By the fallacy of reification being occurred here, it is impossible to turn consciousness into a “thing” or a property that exists extant and external to the causal structure of the brain, since by its nature it is intertwined the local causality but it is unclear how a wholly non-local causality with no interaction whatsoever to the local causality would play a part in the equation. It is very unclear what we mean to speak of consciousness by itself. It would be rather like saying that rather than a monetary transaction being underlied by an abstract notion of “value of X” and “value of Y” being held in the minds of the participants, rather value was an actual thing that filled the aether and was plucked out of the air by objects. Can anything be more ridiculous?

It eliminates the concept of volition

It is absurd to speak of my first person ontology if my first person ontology is not actually “mine”. A radio exercises ownership over its valves, but not radio waves. It makes no sense that the idea of me having a first person ontology if “consciousness” is being beamed into my head. It is not clear, being that there is no apparent causal structure between mental and physical events, why I am actually locally experiencing something if the “consciousness” is not anteceded by local causality. For example, it is unclear why I am experiencing my body if my experience is not local. I would not have what neuroscientists call proprioception. It is not clear what it means to speak of “transmitting” consciousness as first-person ontologies are not transmittable by nature. I do not particularly go to sleep worrying that I shall wake up in another’s body the next day (for good reason, obviously, my body has certain antecedants to the entity that I recognize as “I”, such that it holds my memories and experiences and causal brain states in its physically imbued qualities, and it is meaningless to speak of me being amputated from such causal brain functions and states, because then, strictly speaking, there is no me.

It creates a problem of regress

It is not established what precisely is generating consciousness and how any causal structure with the brain may arise from this. Strictly speaking, it does not mean anything to speak of consciousness being amputated from the antecedants of (i) sense data and (ii) physical causality. The former because without such there is no first person ontology, the latter because of the former (sense data necessitates physical causal structures between sensory perception. One could argue it rests on the same fundamental confusion as the Homunculus fallacy, ie the idea that there is a “little man” viewing the sense data, but of course, this entails that it begs the question what inside the head of the little man is experiencing the sense data since in this case to answer the question of perception we are appealing to another conscious entity and hence end up with Homunculi ad infinitum in each other’s heads. Descartes believed the epiphenomenal interaction between the “soul” and the brain occurred in the pineal gland, but this is nonsense, there is no neuroscience evidence that would support this and the pineal gland is simply the gland that controls circadian rhythms. The appeal to infinite regress that occurs here is identical. It is incoherent to speak of “consciousness” being received by minds because the entails that we must ask the question of the origin of the “consciousness” in the first place. It makes no sense to amputate consciousness from a conscious being as though “consciousness” could just float around in the void, this would rather akin to trying to put a number in your pocket (not a representation of a number, like on a piece of paper, but actually putting a number in your pocket). That entails another conscious being is “broadcasting” consciousness, but if we return to the prior point, this makes strictly no sense as your first person ontology is localized, and furthermore it creates an infinite regress. Combined with the fact that the proposition has no causal structure, makes reference to an incoherency, and the fact that nobody wants a bloated ontology, the whole thing is cut away like a cancerous rot by Occam’s Razor. Added to that, it is propositionally unhelpful because it does not define consciousness in any sense.

Since Consciousness is Extrinsic by nature, it strictly makes no sense to speak of it as being non-localized (by which I mean generated by something outside the brain)

Consciousness has a causal structure which is defined by local change, which makes it strictly incoherent that it could be a “distilled thing unto itself”. It is not coherently described how or indeed why the physical brain should take part in this ridiculous equation. Since consciousness is defined, by nature, by change and a highly dynamic brain structure, (ie The extrinsic nature of consciousness applies to the whole world line. Consciousness is defined by change, your consciousness at t(1) was not the same as it was at t(2), because your experience at t(1) was not the same as at t(2). Nor was your mind. As you are reading this, entire patterns of neuronal networks in your brains are shifting and overturning. The brain is surely the most fluid organ in terms of its plasticity, and this plasticity is born out in the functioning mind (vast details are provided on this in the technical piece). This applies to spatial experience as well. Two cloned brains won't have the same consciousness, since they won't have the same experience, and that will have a proportional effect on the physiological brain. In other words, consciousness, as a property of the complex brain, which exists in a continuum fashion, is not a fixed property whatsoever) so it makes strictly no sense to speak of “transmitting consciousness” any more than the idea makes sense to speak of a “whole body amputation”.

 

A thought that has no base in the sensory. How can that be? How does the brain think up what it has not seen or experianced?

In what way will science ever answer the question why?

You posted a bunch fo information but said basically nothing.

There is no physical evidence of a soul. There is however evidence, mainly being the ability to not only experiance (like animals- animals being defined by me as living creatures other than humans.)

Input=output on everything but humans.

Do any of you atheists believe in the equality of man? Or d you believe in right or wrong? Do you believe in any kind of self evident truth at all? Do you believe that logic has any meaning? Believing in any of that while being an atheist is kinda contradictory.

Arguing with the illogical is often necessary, in life, it happens.

I define god as a thought that has in some way created more thought and put that thought in the greatest work of art in existence.

Im lazy and i really dont care about this whole argument so dont be suprised if it take me awhile to respond to you.

 I really hope you understand the difference between chemicals and the alphabet because that was a horrible analogy.

 

No horse, dog, cat, pig or fish has ever been to the moon. No cow has ever driven a car and could not create it at any time. If you can't see the difference then your not only blind, your mentally ill.

zarathustra wrote:

IAMJACKSBROKENFAITH wrote:

Soul is just a name for the consciousness with which I experience the occurrences of my daily life.

how do you assess human being who is brain-dead?  Soul or no soul?

Brain dead, yeah they have a soul, no avenue with which to channel that soul into the physical world (the brain being that little connector).

If you want the evidence of a deity, than think about the idea of the universe around us, the infinite complexities of the earth, the feelings and thoughts we have, the self-evident truths that we can comprehend. Think of all that happening for no reason. Nothing causing it, it just is. No explanation of how or why, or even when, just is.

Atheism is like closing your eyes and sticking your head under the sand and ignoring all the world around you.

I'm really fuckign lazy,

and I will be the first to say that I'm not a biologist on any level

Im lazy and i really dont care about this whole argument so dont be suprised if it take me awhile to respond to you.

That was not an intoxicated rambling (I am sober now). It was, in fact, a well constructed piece which made important philosophical insights into the nature of the mind.

No horse, dog, cat, pig or fish has ever been to the moon. No cow has ever driven a car and could not create it at any time. If you can't see the difference then your not only blind, your mentally ill.

Brain dead, yeah they have a soul, no avenue with which to channel that soul into the physical world (the brain being that little connector).

No animal has ever displayed anything to me except for being a flesh computer.

If you want the evidence of a deity, than think about the idea of the universe around us, the infinite complexities of the earth, the feelings and thoughts we have, the self-evident truths that we can comprehend. Think of all that happening for no reason. Nothing causing it, it just is. No explanation of how or why, or even when, just is. Atheism is like closing your eyes and sticking your head under the sand and ignoring all the world around you.

In what way will science ever answer the question why?

(like animals- animals being defined by me as living creatures other than humans.)

There is no evidence that animals or trees or bacteria or stars think.

Do any of you atheists believe in the equality of man? Or d you believe in right or wrong? Do you believe in any kind of self evident truth at all? Do you believe that logic has any meaning? Believing in any of that while being an atheist is kinda contradictory.

Arguing with the illogical is often necessary, in life, it happens.

It helps to know how to argue against the stupid and rediculous

Im lazy and i really dont care about this whole argument so dont be suprised if it take me awhile to respond to you.