|
Navigation
The Rational Response Squad is a group of atheist activists who impact society by changing the way we view god belief. This site is a haven for those who are pushing back against the norm, and a place for believers of gods to have their beliefs exposed as false should they want to try their hand at confronting us. Buy any item on AMAZON, and we'll use the small commission to help improve critical thinking. Buy a Laptop -- Apple
|
Evidence for the Existence of the Soul
Posted on: July 31, 2008 - 8:23pm
   Offline
Evidence for the Existence of the Soul
Free will. Everyone presupposes it in practice, even those who verbally deny it.
|
|
Copyright Rational Response Squad 2006-2024.
|
Our first-person experience of free will is the evidence. If you believe that free will exists, then you believe in immaterial causes by default.
The argument should be fairly clear. You presuppose free will in practice. Therefore, by default, you presuppose immaterial causes in practice, despite the fact that you verbally deny that there is no evidence for immaterial causes in the world.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
How did I redefine materialism?
What I have accomplished is to demonstrate that you presuppose free will in practice. In other words, your metaphysical theory is incompatible with what you actually believe in practice.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
1. You call materialism "metaphysics". Metaphysics is a philosophy dealing with things beyond reality. Materialism deal with the stuff of reality. As such, it can't be metaphysics.
2. Your poor redefinition leads you to broad-brush assumptions of what others think.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
"Metaphysics" is not a philosophy. It is a branch of philosophy concerned with the ultimate nature of reality. Materialism (a.k.a. physicalism) is a metaphysical position that postulates that only the physical constitutes reality.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Who said my metaphysical theory was deterministic materialism? I'm actually a materialist in the sense that I believe that everything is made of material, but determinism would be a simplification, I think.
To use the ice cream choice again, there's a high probability that I'd choose chocolate ice cream, as it's my current favourite, but I could possibly choose other ice cream flavours from a tight group of favourites. In fact, I have occasionally. There's a certain amount of "noise" in my decision that takes a strictly deterministic worldview to task.
Besides, even if any of us did simply follow a kind of chemical tide, we'd all probably still think of it as decisions. That's neither here nor there.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Agreed. There is a certain amount of "noise" here. It's called logical inconsistency. If your worldview is not "strictly deterministic," then it is indeterministic by default. This implies that you believe in "uncaused events." Redefining materialism to be compatible with indeterminism is simply an admission of a fallacious worldview.
The point is that you believe, in practice, you could have chosen otherwise, which does not accord with the deterministic worldview that is atheistic materialism. What this implies is that you are environmentally conditioned to believe in illusions and cannot do otherwise.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
You're presuming to know a lot about the universe, there. You're also assuming that cause occupies a dominant place in my philosophy. Neither is necessarily true. There are "simultaneities" in the world which are correlations that have no specific causal relationship to each other, but remain intertwined. George Soros hinted at this kind of behaviour in markets, and called it "reflexivity". The universe has more in store for us than just causation, in my humble view. We give it a causal chain, and sometimes we're right (especially in physics, where something starts moving only when moved). That doesn't mean we're always right.
Have you been reading a lot of B.F. Skinner? It's awfully depressing stuff if you take it to that kind of extreme. Biological systems are messy. You can't have perfect determinism in the behaviour of people or I suppose anywhere in the universe. That ignores the success of modeling chaotic systems.
Tell me something: why do you tend to assume that "atheistic materialism" means strict determinism (that is, without the chaos)? Obviously I don't see the connection as clearly as you do.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Good evening, I hope the day has treated you well.
Thank you for your response.
From earlier...
Do I have a choice? Chuckle.
Serious. If determinism as you are loosely using holds, there is no way I could not experience regrets. They are part of the state you are dancing with.
Serious again, I can note your dance with absolutism and say ... Yep I had to say that I have to experience regret as a condition of being. I.e. I am determinalistically (sp) insisting that it has always been determined, and absolutely so, that I would comment about your use of this weak way of determining determinism. Could not have been otherwise, chuckle.
I find I am also Predestinated (to borrow a Paul term) to note that any choice is at least constrained by the presentation of the choice.
E.g. If I am asked whether I want bacon or scrambled eggs in an either this or that menu, I can not ask for roasted Katz and still be within my menu of prior determined options. I.e. most restaurants will not give me roasted katz.
Note plz I am trying to understand what you are trying to get past your apparent linguistic ability, and I am a patient dog.
AND PLZ, I am noting once again that you have not laid out any dots going from free will to soul. You have not done any work demonstrating Free Will ==> Soul.
Serious yet again, if you settle on your working version of free will and simply point from there to where you think soul might reside, I will do my very best to try and connect the dots you speak of.
tq
And you have demonstrated nothing that shows these things are not deterministic in nature.
You mean the one in which you make unsupported claims and then use them as the basis for unsupportable conclusions?
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
Cuz you wuz so ugly, he couldn' stop hisself!
(Sorry, had to be done.)
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
Except that our experience doesn't actually tell us anything in one direction or the other, only that if we do not have free will, then we are preprogrammed to want to think we do.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
Determining causal-relationships is paramount to science. Evidently, science does not hold a dominant place in your philosophy. However, science holds a dominant place in the philosophy of logical positivism. As I recall, you previously identified yourself as a positivist. Apparently, you have undergone some kind of conversion.
Yes, these "simultaneities" are called psi (paranormal cognition and extra-sensory perception) by parapsychologists and quantum entanglement (what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" ) by physicists. Both undermine materialism.
Yes, I recently became aware of this. However, "reflexivity" is a social theory that presupposes self-consciousness and mutual causality. I can see how it applies to the behavior of the stock market which is, after all, based on the interaction of all participants (i.e. people). However, to apply this to everything or nature as a whole is to hint at some form of panpsychism. Do you really see the universe as a network of social relationships and self-reflexive? Interesting. You have just provided the metaphysical basis for a panentheistic worldview.
Once again, if you don't have determinism, then you indeterminism by default, which implies a belief in uncaused events.
Incidentally, chaos theory is a deterministic theory.
See Wikipedia: Chaos theory
Materialism implies determinism. How do you account for "uncaused" physical events (the implication of indeterminism)? Reflexivity?
Once again, chaos theory is a deterministic theory. A chaotic system only has the appearance of randomness.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Since when do we disregard experiential evidence? If free will is an illsuion, then the burden is upon you to prove it. And that you can't help but believe in illusions does not speak well for your claim to be rational.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
No, actually it was you who insisted that I was a logical positivist. I'm a positivist in the sense that I believe that should science be employed for all eternity, the method will be able to learn everything. Pragmatically, I believe that the scientific method will always illuminate mysteries, and is the most successful epistemology. No conversion, you just have yet to see where I'm coming from (which is as much my fault as yours).
Neither is what I'm talking about. Mine is just a different way of looking at things without applying an assumed cause-and-effect relationship where there are too many variables to make the call. No magic powers, and no misquoting of Einstein to make it seem like he was promoting magic.
No, but I see how you could reach there. Citing reflexivity was more to highlight the complexity of systems as going beyond cause-and-effect as a whole. Obviously it's necessary for us to model and break down reality into cause-and-effect for the same reason that any model is a simplification: we learn from the process. But I'm certainly not introducing a spiritual atom or any such nonsense. Mindless atoms can be both cause and effect while interacting in motion without a magical aspect.
Right. And in a sociological context, obviously the conscious efforts of a group are involved ... because it's sociology. There's little talk of atoms in sociology, because they do that down the hall in the physics department.
And a belief in the false dichotomy of either determinism/indeterminism or caused/uncaused is what's causing your headache, apparently. Caused and uncaused are just ways of looking at the particles moving, and the main determinant is which particles you're observing.
Of course it is. It's math, not metaphysics.
That's what I was asking: how does materialism imply determinism?
There is nothing "uncaused" in a constantly moving energetic system.
You mean a chaotic model only has the appearance of randomness. That's why a modeled chaotic system is "pseudorandom". The actual universe has real randomness.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Translation: "I have no choice but to believe in the illusion of free will." Okay. Then you are clearly delusional by your own admission.
Indeterminism is constrained by the probabilities. Nevertheless, assuming that an element of pure chance is at play in the universe, given the same situation, things could have happened otherwise. This is not that difficult to understand.
The immaterial cause (the exercising of free will) is the soul. This is not difficult.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
I didn't misquote Einstein. He objected to quantum entanglement. However, it appears that he was wrong. Quantum entanglement has been verified. "Spooky things" really do happen at a distance.
Then you can't cite reflexivity as an argument. To go beyond "cause-and-effect" is to transcend karma. I believe the Buddhists call it "nirvana." If you know of another way, please share it.
However, I just quoted Einstein as saying that quantum theory suggests that electrons exhibit free will (his words, not mine). Evidently, elementary particles do display social behavior.
You have just implicitly invoked the "reflexivity" theory again by suggesting that the "observer" (consciousness) is the determiner. In quantum theory, this is called the "uncertainty principle." This is why George Soros named his mutual fund the "Quantum Fund."
Then why are you using it to support your argument?
Then it is deterministic. If it is not, please provide me with the alternatives.
You're waffling again. If the actual universe is really random, then it is exhibiting indeterminism by definition.
Here are you choices:
1) Determinism
2) Indeterminism
3) Mutual causality
4) Acausality (i.e. causality is an illusion)
If there is another option, please state it.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Can I put in a request that Paisley back up his/her/it's claims or be officially labelled a troll? I don't want to cause trouble but I'm fed up with the unsubstantiated claims and the refusal to answer most replies to bullshit.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
When our experiential evidence cannot actually show itself to favor one position or the other. You're making a claim that there is free will. Where is your evidence that would not look exactly the same without free will?
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
I second Matt's request and further state I'm fed up with this individual's relabeling of accepted terms to fit in with unsubstantiated notions.
Vote for McCain... www.therealmccain.com ...and he'll bring Jesus back
LOL Tell you what, I won't try and lie about what you say, and you refrain from lying about what I say, eh?
I can note, btw, that I've 'forgiven' and not been 'forgiven' on this one. Don't you find persistence attractive?
Now please read my statement again and note that not only is your response a lie, it's a stupid lie.
Serious, I am offended. I have treated your stuff with at least a modicum of respect and you have not lived up to ... well anything.
Now again noting that with the definition of determinism you are using, it seems to me that any regret I feel or do not feel has distinct and notable deterministic contstraints. Heck, I could be an easily offended sociopath who also likes to hack and phreak a bit and has now decided to pick you out of the phone book.
OH I am really just a dog, LOL
LOL is that like the Norns? IMHO you are not paying attention or you are just trying to muck with me. Serious... is your next word 'nevertheless?'
To quote.... WTF? The immaterial cause is the soul? The immaterial cause, i.e. the exercising of free will, is the soul?
NO it is not. The immaterial cause is the poophole. The immaterial cause, i.e. the exercising of free will, is the poophole.
See the difference? Well if you do you are playing to yourself and you are profoundly disrespectful while doing it.
And as far as the dictionary stuff... you use it and I'll respect you for it.
Serious last,
I noted you had not connect Free Will ==> Soul.
You still have not.
Considering that was your premise, please finish.
And quit disrespecting, plz.
TQ
Who said anything about karma? I'll make it easy for you: 5,000 particles are contained in a small space. #600 gets bumped by #1,035. Which particle caused the collision? Well gee, it was a bit of a group effort. That's what I'm describing. No poetry, no "karma", no meditation classes, no yoga, no new-age hemp lip balm. This one's easy: to transcend karma, you just ... transcend ... karma.
Are you seriously taking Einstein's obvious derision of a competing theory literally? He found it hard to believe that electrons exhibit free will. Therefore, because Einstein was mathematically incorrect about something related, he believes that electrons exhibit free will? Are you seriously suggesting that? I have no problem dropping it if you'd rather not mention that ever again.
You've misunderstood again. I'll rephrase: the main determinant of the way you classify the particles as an agent of motion or a victim of energy transfer is which particles you're observing. The universe is an energetic system. Cause is very difficult to determine.
You're confused. Chaos math is a mathematical system of modeling. As such, it will always be deterministic. Math tends to be deterministic. In fact, its classification as deterministic is easy because it's math. Keep in mind that I underlined the success of chaos math in modeling the universe. Chaos math approximates the chaos through pseudorandom processes. That's because the universe itself exhibits actual random behaviour. The model of this random behaviour will always be deterministic.
Randomness. There is an aspect of randomness to the workings of the universe.
No, not waffling. I've been saying the same thing this whole time. You've presented a false dichotomy from the beginning: that things are either deterministic or indeterminate. What I've been saying is that we have those two labels, and they're just that: labels. The universe exhibits randomness, and also exhibits deterministic processes.
There are certainly determinate processes in the universe.
Well, there's randomness in the world, too. That's obvious just from putting a geiger counter next to radioactive material and recording the level at discrete intervals.
This happens, too. There's quite a lot of interaction in the universe, and simultaneously, too. Who's to say where the cause is? And once that's determined, isn't it a little arbitrary?
This one's true, too. Causality is often ascribed where it's unwarranted.
You don't have to agree with me Paisley, I'm just trying to show you where I'm coming from.
edit: fixed quote misalignment
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
This is the common definition of free will which is a.k.a "libertarian free will" in philosophical discourse. Libertarian free will implies "indeterminism," which is the view that not every event has a cause (physical).
I don't have to prove free will. Everyone assumes it in practice, even those who verbally deny it (e.g. philosophers of mind who have written on the subject and "rational" atheists who frequent forums such as this one). This is why we experience guilt and/or regrets.
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
Anything that has "feeling awareness" has soul. Does an amoeba have feeling awareness? Does an amoeba have free will? Is its behavior completely predictable?
Belief in free will is based on experiential evidence. Indeed, this belief is so pervasive that many atheists have never questioned it. This probably explains why they take offense when I say their worldview reduces them to "robots with consciouness" (and no doubt, it does!). If you believe it is an illusion, then the onus is upon you to prove why it is.
Incidentally, what you are really saying in essenece is "I am delusional and I can't help it." Just FYI. The delusional are not rational!
"Scientists animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study." - Alfred North Whitehead
A)You've previously stated:
Now. Before you reply, Paisley, I want you to stop and think back: Hamby's avatar. What kind of gun is it? Remember what we discussed about how a simple statement like 'My bad, I misspoke, what I meant was...' can make you seem far more reasonable and less like an utter fool who's too stubborn to know when he's damaging his own case?
This is one of those times. You can: 1)Assert that you have not contradicted yourself. 2)Claim that both statements are exactly what you meant, and that amoebas and trees have souls. 3)Admit that you made a small, and really, inconsequential mistake, and move on. I do suggest #3.
B)Can you demonstrate to me that if a model existed which could take into account all of the variables and events of an individual's life, our behavior would not be completely predictable? That failure in prediction of human behavior is in fact not caused by inadequate or incomplete models, but because human behavior is somehow fundamentally unpredictable?
Can you demonstrate to me any experiential evidence that would in any way differ if free will did not exist? ie: Can you demonstrate that experiential evidence is actually evidence of free will, or merely evidence of a belief in free will?
You may claim the onus is on me to prove free will is an illusion, but I'm not saying it is. Nor am I saying it is not. I'm saying that much like the existence of God, we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of free will. I am taking the position 'I don't know, and so cannot accept it as evidence without first having its existence demonstrated.' You are the one seeking to add an element to the accumulated data: free will. Kindly prove that it exists before you ask us to accept it as evidence of anything else.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
...And there it is. Admission (via refusal to argue your position) that your ridiculous assertions can't be falsified and will never yield us any benefits.
Materialism isn't a 'metaphysical position', either. It's a non-position; a conclusion put together by evidence, not pre-supposed. You've got it backwards, and I guess at least you're right in that regard: materialism doesn't account for the evidence. The evidence accounts for materialism.
The scientific method produces theories that yield practical benefits to mankind. Metaphysical blather has produced nothing.
Oh, and feel free to try accounting for evidence like this which makes no sense if your idea of the world is correct (that we have magical 'soul' thingies that generate our consciousness and are trapped in these meat machines until the machine expires) but perfect sense if materialism is correct (that our consciousness is a byproduct of the brain, and that our perspective of the world warps if our brain doesn't function properly).
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Technically that girl has nothing physically wrong with her brain - she simply didn't get the needed input dring the crucial development years. Though there is plenty of other evidence that or consciousness is completely within our brains.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Matt:
Her brain wasn't 'wired' correctly simply as a result of not growing-up in an affectionate household. This is a textbook example of how what evolutionary psychology predicts will happen to an infant that is not reared by parents.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
The "soul" is simply a ridiculous bronze/iron age explanation for consciousness - before people had any idea that the brain was the center of consciousnes. Believing in the soul is as silly as believing that sperm contains microscopic fully formed people or that everything is made of a combination of fire, water, earth, and air.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Bummer... I thought I would get a working def for free will and a working def for soul.
Instead I get nothing useful at all.
In fact, what I get is lies about what I said and not even an honest statement from the 'Theist'.
LIS... Bummer.
Ghosts from the Nursery
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray