soul gain

Originally posted by sonship

is the 'mind state in abstraction' what you think of as a soul or part of the soul?

I think the mind is one of the functions of the soul.
The other two functions in the soul are your emotion and your will.

If I look up all the passages which mention [b]soul in the Bible, many of them can be classified under one of three func ...[text shortened]... and legends.

[quote]
sonship:
But for that long it has been intuitive to mankind tha....[/b]

Now if you think about it a little, you will see that every action you perform today will involve these three functions of your soul = [b]Mind, Emotion, and Will

if you believe emotion is created in the soul what is the purpose of all the chemicals that appear to cause emotion?? do you accept that chemicals made in the body cause emotion?

if thought comes from the soul why does damage to certain parts of the brain cause certain types of thought to occur? can you explain why stimulating certain parts of the brain cause certain types of thought?
do you believe dreams are caused by the brain or the soul?

im still very unclear on this dualism you refer to. does the brain do anything unique that the soul cannot do?

does the soul change? can it be changed by things that happen in the physical world?



Are you informing and causing the activity of your thinking ? Or is it the physical mechanisms of the matter of your brain that is making you think ?
If the latter is your explanation then I think that true freedom then does not exist for you. This also negates responsibility. [/b

i think the laws of nature create thought, like they create the current on a circuit board. once the current has started then there are various inputs such as external experience, dna and chemical make up that alter the circuit board, the changes in the circuit board changes the thoughts we have. thus we grow and change as we get older, otherwise we remain the same.

[b] And we haven't even gotten to the emergence of consciousness yet.
I really do not have enough faith to be a consummate naturalist or an atheist.

it doesnt require faith. its not a case of saying i believe in this theory 100% even if its only 50% proved (for example). that would be needing faith to bridge the 50% gap. a scientific view looks and accepts that something has been only part proven. we are also prepared that things may be proven wrong that a new theory might arise that has better proof......no faith required.

I think this definitely undermines part of your genuine humanity.
It is a dehumanizing concept which reduces your identity to a material machine without freedom of choice or responsibility.

i dont think it does dehumanize humanity and i disagree that our responsibility is removed. but i think this is another debate.

Evidence of near death experiences and soulical capabilities which seem to perplex a pure physicalist view of man may show we are on the right track to see a substance dualism.

there is nothing more than anecdotal stories regarding out of body experiences. it offers nothing in proving dualism. like i said james randi is yet to even come close to giving his million dollars away.

So he's a paraphychologist. So what? That may be a science in its infancy. Plenty of other scientific disciplines

it may well be in its infancy, but as of yet it has proven zero. we have to go with the scientific evidence they have put forward...zilch. if you research the guy in the video you will see that he has put forward nothing in a scientific paper. hence why he doesnt put up any real stats in his presentation choosing to only allude research and stats, very odd.

I don't dismiss it out of hand for that reason.

you should until they back up what they say with proof.



[Want to talk about myths and legends ? Look no further than the workings of the cell being the result of lucky accidents over a long period of time.

If a frog turns into a prince - its a fairy tale.
If a frog turns into a prince but it took 10 millions years - that's "science".

we see simple cells form in labs, we can see more complex cells form from simple cells. we have evidence. how can you say its a myth, when we have good evidence?

Originally posted by sonship

sonship:
But for that long it has been intuitive to mankind that this dualism of soul and body existed. We cannot so easily rule it out as part of the reality of universe.

we have believed many wrong things for very long periods of time. its not good ground to base as evidence. we shouldn't rule it in until we have evidence.

Sure, w ...[text shortened]... vidence do you have that in matter, mind exists as a potentiality ?

Cont. latter perhaps.

Sure, wrong things have been believed. And right things have been believed too. I am not arguing for ad populism fallacy. I am applying healthy skepticism to the assumption that new opinions are always more correct and better.

i agree, its good to be skeptical. its possible accept that theory 'x' is currently has the best evidence but also accept that it is not proven. you seem to write like you think atheists follow everything they defend 100% regardless. the truth is atheists will accept all evidence put forward and do not have any loyalty to any particular scientific view.


When it comes to the creation of the universe, as far as we know, either a miracle occured without a miracle worker or a miracle occured with a miracle worker.

You have a creation of space, time, matter, motion, mass, energy out of nothing. And a quantum vacuum is not nothing. So Lawrence Krauss is misleading when he writes about the possibility of the universe coming out of a quantum vacuum. For that is not nothing.

we do not know how the universe came into existence. there are many theories. you seem to focus on the something from nothing as if it represents scientific fact. it does not and the 'nothing' in the theory isnt really 'nothing'.

But there is evidence for God

like what?

But for Jesus to believe that He was God become a man is accompanied with an academy award winning acting job because He spoke and acted like God become a man.

do you really think the bible recounts his words and actions verbatim??
he only acts like a 'god' to you because the bible informs you what a god should act like first. you are conditioned to think he acts like a god. in my opinion he acts nothing like a god. his words are simplistic, morally questionable, the actions lack logic. he seems a lot more like a man.

[o, I consider that Jesus believing that He was God, and ACTING like that, as evidence for the existence of God.

but you have no reason to accept that the accounts of the bible are factually correct. if it were a scientific theory it woulnt hold up, there is just too many question marks to logically accept it as fact.

That's where the science is at the moment.
Space, time, matter came into being at the Big Bang.

the Borde, Gooth, Valenkin theorems postulate that any expanding universe or multiverse proposed had to have had a beginning. And that beginning included the beginning of everything.


there are many theories, all accept there was a big bang. conditions before the big bang vary. most say that there was a beginning to this universe that does not mean a beginning of everything. as i have explained science is about looking at which theories have the most evidence, there is almost zero evidence of before the big bang. so its sensible to sit on the fence until there is a breakthrough.

Can you refer me to any physics text which indicates there is something potentially conscious about matter

im not saying matter is conscious. just as i do not think matter feels. the consciousness is an effect, a function, created by the collective system. non of the individual parts are conscious, but together they create the effect. which is the brain monitoring its self and creating real-time reports of its process.

So Mind must somehow exist in matter as a potentiality if matter emerged into consciousness. What evidence do you have that in matter, mind exists as a potentiality ?

i dont agree with your explanation and conclusion. it is not in the matter, the arrangement of the matter creates the thoughts. like a biological boolean logic, in which the boolean circuit board can grow new gates to make short cuts or new path ways .

Originally posted by stellspalfie

can anybody give an even remotely logical reason for the existence and function of a soul. what does a soul do that a brain doesnt and visa-versa?

Before I respond to last two posts, I want to write for some readers of this conversation something about the phrase "soul gain".

I would like to ask you why you called this thread "soul gain" ?

You may not care about this too much. But for the sake of people not misunderstanding the New Testament about what I think you meant to mean by gaining the soul or "soul gain" I write this.

To "save your soul" does not mean what most people think of. I wager most people think the salvation of the soul or the saving of the soul means that your metaphysical being goes to a happy place when your body dies.

Without a lot of "proof texts" I would submit that to save the soul or have the salvation of the soul is to be transformed into image of Jesus Christ.

To have your soul saved is to have your soul conformed to be like the man Jesus in mind, in emotion, in will. Your intentions become like the intentions of Jesus. Your memory, imagination, decision apparatus for choosing this over that, and all the functions of your personality become like the that of Jesus Christ.

The salvation of the soul is the transformation of the soul to be like Jesus Christ. The "gaining" of the soul is the "metabolic" transformation of the soul to be like Jesus Christ.

In the New Testament then so-called "soul gain" as an expression means expressing and enjoying God in one's humanity.

The gaining of the soul is not simply continuing to exist or live after the body dies. Neither is it physical resurrection. One resurrected physically may still need the transformation of the soul to "gain" the soul.

Originally posted by sonship

can anybody give an even remotely logical reason for the existence and function of a soul. what does a soul do that a brain doesnt and visa-versa?

Before I respond to last two posts, I want to write for some readers of this conversation something about the phrase "soul gain".

I would like to ask you why you called this thread [b] ...[text shortened]... on. One resurrected physically may still need the transformation of the soul to "gain" the soul.

'soul gain' was kinda implying that a soul in not necessary for humans to be who they are. it seems to me that the soul was invented before we knew what the brain and our chemical make up cant do. hence why people thought it came from elsewhere. a soul is something humanity has gained to explain the unknown.

Originally posted by stellspalfie

soul gain' was kinda implying that a soul in not necessary for humans to be who they are. it seems to me that the soul was invented before we knew what the brain and our chemical make up cant do. hence why people thought it came from elsewhere. a soul is something humanity has gained to explain the unknown.

You must believe that the electro-chemical synapses which created beliefs were not operating then as they are now.

If I understand your theory, all beliefs, opinions, thoughts are created by these physical mechanistic operations of various kinds of matter.

It appears that the chemical combinations and electrical activity in the brain alone determines what people believe. Then what does it have to do with what belief is more rational ?

Above you spoke something about a damaged brain indeed effecting the thinking. And based on this the mind and brain must be indentical. I think that is what you were implying.

A damaged brain and improper thinking are so linked so as to make mind = brain. I think that is the implication.

While I would be crazy to disagree that a damaged brain effects proper thinking, I would point out that such a problem gives rise to not trusting rational explanations as well.

If we view lying, stealing, cheating, unfaithfulness, selfishness, dishonesty, greed, unkindness, lust, sexual immorality, murders, bribery, bribe taking, extortion, blackmail, and many other maladies of people to be some damaged operations of physical forces in the brain, how can we trust it to inform us of the nature of all reality ?

These kinds of behaviors are agreed universally to be pretty much improper. Something in a man or woman is "not right" we deem if they are doing these things that they OUGHT not to do. So we have things like KEYS to lock up our possessions because we know too well that people can steal.

IE. Electro chemical operations fire off in the grey matter but STEALING something is the resultant action. We all have stolen. We take things from a shop or office and do not return them. We borrow something which is not ours but it somehow becomes ours.

If man is not acting as we nearly unanimously agree man SHOULD act, IE. not stealing, then this seems to imply some damage upon the physical brain. At least things up there are not clicking the way we agree they should.

Doesn't a damaged brain, witnessed throughout all of human history, indicate that it cannot be fully trusted to inform us of the nature of reality?

This is of course making a huge leap assumption that proper operation of the electro-chemical synapses of the brain matter should somehow inform us of what truth is.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
[b]Now if you think about it a little, you will see that every action you perform today will involve these three functions of your soul = [b]Mind, Emotion, and Will

if you believe emotion is created in the soul what is the purpose of all the chemicals that appear to cause emotion?? do you accept that chemicals made in the body cause emotion?

...[text shortened]... orm from simple cells. we have evidence. how can you say its a myth, when we have good evidence?[/b]

Some of these deserve short answers:

if you believe emotion is created in the soul what is the purpose of all the chemicals that appear to cause emotion?? do you accept that chemicals made in the body cause emotion?

I believe God created man with three parts to correspond to three different realms.

The Body to interact with the physical world.
The Soul to interact with the psychological world.
The Spirit to touch God and interact with things spiritual.

short reply this time

if thought comes from the soul why does damage to certain parts of the brain cause certain types of thought to occur?

They work together. And for certain damage of the physical brain can effect thinking.

I'll study this more.

can you explain why stimulating certain parts of the brain cause certain types of thought?

I'll look into it more.

do you believe dreams are caused by the brain or the soul?

My belief is probably both.

Now I have memories of things. Sometimes I might recall something that I have not thought of in years. If my cells are replaced massively every so many years, the memories should have gone away as the material brain is changed over.

I believe the SOUL unites the span of time - past up to today giving me the sense of being the same person. The soul unifies our experiences in one unity.

im still very unclear on this dualism you refer to.

I am also not completely clear.
But I do not think it is most likely that science can prove either the existence or non-existence of the soul. And it cannot prove the existence or non-existence of God.

Evidence for these matters I accept.

does the brain do anything unique that the soul cannot do?

The brain can be subject to physical examination.
That is something that the immaterial soul cannot share.

If it can be conceived that something is true for A which is not true for B, then the law of identity says that A and be are not then the same thing.

You may recall the story by Kafka called Metamorphosis. In his story a man wakes up one day with a beetle body. He is lying on his back in bed one day and has so many legs. He is the same person but inside the body of a beetle.

The law of identity would say that if it is conceivable that your personality could be within another body then that proves that there is something true of your soul which is not true of your body. The two must not be the same thing.

Can you imagine being YOU in another's body? If not a beetle body just another human body will do. Can you see your personality inhabiting say another skin color or another nationality or another sex perhaps, or another time in history. I think we can conceive of our souls being in a different body.

The law of identity would postulate that this demonstrates that our SOUL and our BODY are not identical.

If you can imagine being in pain without actually physically feeling pain, that means that your Mind and your Brain must not be the same thing. But they do correlate and work together.

Originally posted by sonship

soul gain' was kinda implying that a soul in not necessary for humans to be who they are. it seems to me that the soul was invented before we knew what the brain and our chemical make up cant do. hence why people thought it came from elsewhere. a soul is something humanity has gained to explain the unknown.

You must believe that the elec ...[text shortened]... of the electro-chemical synapses of the brain matter should somehow inform us of what truth is.

You must believe that the electro-chemical synapses which created beliefs were not operating then as they are now.

i think the basic operation will be the same, but a change of input can change the way the brain is structured.

If I understand your theory, all beliefs, opinions, thoughts are created by these physical mechanistic operations of various kinds of matter.

yes, various matter includes all things that provide an outside input.

It appears that the chemical combinations and electrical activity in the brain alone determines what people believe. Then what does it have to do with what belief is more rational ? [b]

its more cyclic than that. the outside inputs can help determine the brain output. so the person who repeatedly hits a child on mondays causes the childs brain to develop thoughts that fear mondays. so it is not the brain alone just creating thoughts. genetics may also cause some parts of the brain to be better than others, so i think its wrong to say 'the brain alone determines beliefs' the brain processes the input and delivers an output.

[b]While I would be crazy to disagree that a damaged brain effects proper thinking,

if you agree, then how to you rationalize this with your view of the soul/mind. if a underdeveloped amygdala causes violent thoughts do you think that the soul must be of a violent person? or can the soul be a different personality to the brain and body?

If we view lying, stealing, cheating, unfaithfulness, selfishness, dishonesty, greed, unkindness, lust, sexual immorality, murders, bribery, bribe taking, extortion, blackmail, and many other maladies of people to be some damaged operations of physical forces in the brain, how can we trust it to inform us of the nature of all reality

the world is not black and white. we tend to generalize as it makes understanding each other easier, most maybe all of those things listed in some situations can be moral or good.
in many cases we cannot trust what our brains advise. there are many clear examples of our brain giving us wrong information, especially when it comes to translating what we see. its been proven that a lot of the time the brain guesses at what it thinks it has seen, it fills in the gaps, tricks us. there are all sorts of fun experiments you can do. have you seen the one where the brain changes what it see lips doing to fit with the sound it hears?
the point is that brains are complex and have many failings, some are small and mean we can function normally (we are still well with in the bell curve) and sometimes the brain functions extremely abnormal (and sits like an outlier).
morality and rationality are all parts of survival, we have brains suited for this as the brains which are good at these things tend to survive more than the ones without rationality.

If man is not acting as we nearly unanimously agree man SHOULD act, IE. not stealing, then this seems to imply some damage upon the physical brain. At least things up there are not clicking the way we agree they should.

not quite, its possible to have a fully functioning brain and still do bad things. outside inputs could effect the matrix to develop in a way in which the persons rationality becomes 'abnormal'. in a case like that we as a society think we can rehabilitate the individual, change the way they think. with brain damage often the brain cannot be changed, new pathways cannot be created.

Doesn't a damaged brain, witnessed throughout all of human history, indicate that it cannot be fully trusted to inform us of the nature of reality?

it does. i have said there are many cases of brain damage effecting peoples perception of reality. the fact the brain tricks so easily and can be fooled so easy tells us that unusual thoughts or claims should be treated with suspicion until we have evidence and logical proof.

This is of course making a huge leap assumption that proper operation of the electro-chemical synapses of the brain matter should somehow inform us of what truth is.

its not a 'proper' brain that reaches truth. a brain that has a damaged artistic/emotional side but excellent mathematical and reasoning side may discover many truths that a more average fully functioning brain.

Originally posted by sonship
Some of these deserve short answers:

if you believe emotion is created in the soul what is the purpose of all the chemicals that appear to cause emotion?? do you accept that chemicals made in the body cause emotion?

I believe God created man with three parts to correspond to three different realms.

The Body to interact with the ...[text shortened]... at your Mind and your Brain must not be the same thing. But they do correlate and work together.

The Soul to interact with the psychological world.

this is the bit i am interested in, but you seem to have any reasoning to back it up. no explanations of why or how

The law of identity would say that if it is conceivable that your personality could be within another body then that proves that there is something true of your soul which is not true of your body. The two must not be the same thing.

just because you can conceive something doesnt make it true.

Can you imagine being YOU in another's body? If not a beetle body just another human body will do. Can you see your personality inhabiting say another skin color or another nationality or another sex perhaps, or another tie in history. I think we can conceive of our souls being in a different body.

again, conceiving something does not make it true. i can imagine myself as a dog, all i am doing is replacing the image of me in my head, with the image of a dog. we are not actually transferring ourselves into the body of a dog then having real thoughts.......this is borderline crazy talk.


If you can imagine being in pain without actually physically feeling pain, that means that your Mind and your Brain must not be the same thing. But they do correlate and work together.

again, imagining is not reality. imagining pain is not real pain. the imagining of pain occurs within the brain. it is in no way shape or form and example of a separate mind and brain.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
[b]You must believe that the electro-chemical synapses which created beliefs were not operating then as they are now.

i think the basic operation will be the same, but a change of input can change the way the brain is structured.

If I understand your theory, all beliefs, opinions, thoughts are created by these physical mechanistic operati ...[text shortened]... matical and reasoning side may discover many truths that a more average fully functioning brain.

i think the basic operation will be the same, but a change of input can change the way the brain is structured.

Knowledge is essentially a material thing ?

yes, various matter includes all things that provide an outside input.

The hitting of matter against another kind of matter leads to truth ?
The combination of material from without to material within results in truth ?

sonship:
It appears that the chemical combinations and electrical activity in the brain alone determines what people believe. Then what does it have to do with what belief is more rational ?

its more cyclic than that. the outside inputs can help determine the brain output. so the person who repeatedly hits a child on mondays causes the childs brain to develop thoughts that fear mondays.

I agree in this conditioned response. I don't see that it necessarily negates the existence of a non-material mind or soul.

so it is not the brain alone just creating thoughts. genetics may also cause some parts of the brain to be better than others, so i think its wrong to say 'the brain alone determines beliefs' the brain processes the input and delivers an output.

I'll try to remember that - the material brain plus material inputs.

There is no orchestrating of the right material inputs though. That seems quite random.

You say inputs today are different from inputs 200 years ago. So the new inputs combine with brain material and the result is more learning of what is really true.

If you imagine a material machine that receives material inputs which results in TRUER realizations about reality, well that's pretty fantastic. Such an apparatus, I think, surely reveals a design from an intelligent agent.

By itself this material brain somehow boots up over the centuries to have a TRUER realization of reality ? You're talking about the need for some strong faith.

I didn't yet notice where the POTENTIAL for consciousness resides in matter. I didn't yet notice that you have contemplated that the potential to be conscious is actualized in matter AND identified this property in matter.

Is there a conscious atom among the atomic particles?
Maybe in the sub-atomic quarks and muons - a particle of CONSCIOUSNESS ?

It is not fair that I load too many questions on you.
I think neither one of us claims an exhaustive understanding of our beliefs.

I do not see how yours though claims the high ground on rationality.

if you agree, then how to you rationalize this with your view of the soul/mind. if a underdeveloped amygdala causes violent thoughts do you think that the soul must be of a violent person? or can the soul be a different personality to the brain and body?

Let me think on that for awhile. I don't know what the amygdala is.

sonship:
If we view lying, stealing, cheating, unfaithfulness, selfishness, dishonesty, greed, unkindness, lust, sexual immorality, murders, bribery, bribe taking, extortion, blackmail, and many other maladies of people to be some damaged operations of physical forces in the brain, how can we trust it to inform us of the nature of all reality

the world is not black and white. we tend to generalize as it makes understanding each other easier, most maybe all of those things listed in some situations can be moral or good.

True that all things are not clear black and white. There is enough of a line of demarcation to have me arrested if I clunk you on the head and steal your wallet. No?

There are difficult moral problems in the same way that there are difficult mathematical problems. The daily news paper is enough to inform us that too many people's minds seem not to work as we would like.

Divorce is at about 50% in the US.
The electro-chemical synapses of quite a lot of us are resulting in broken families and broken hearts.

Einstein himself could not be relied upon to be faithful to his first wife.
Maybe the function of too many brains cannot be depended upon to inform us of the nature of reality.

You have faith in the apparently mal-functioning grey matter of some of the smartest people. Maybe those brains have a vested interest in believing in a world in which when they melt into the dust all that they are will disappear.

You have to admit that for the average wrong doing person, it does have its advantages to melt away when their body does.

in many cases we cannot trust what our brains advise. there are many clear examples of our brain giving us wrong information, especially when it comes to translating what we see. its been proven that a lot of the time the brain guesses at what it thinks it has seen, it fills in the gaps, tricks us. there are all sorts of fun experiments you can do. have you seen the one where the brain changes what it see lips doing to fit with the sound it hears?

There is the fun part. But there is also the serious part of brains actively working to deceive OTHER brains to take advantage of them.

All of us do it. And for this reason, as much respect as I have for science, I can see the need also for revelation from God.

the point is that brains are complex and have many failings, some are small and mean we can function normally (we are still well with in the bell curve) and sometimes the brain functions extremely abnormal (and sits like an outlier).

Extreme abnormality may be in the outliers.
But we all seem to have some abnormality.
That is if we idealistically assume a proper brain will automatically result in proper human living in every respect.

This is with a great assumption that truth is some combination of matter and electrical activity that has to fire just right.

Is there a truth molecule ?
Is there a electrical charge that results in moral OUGHTNESS - the good.

morality and rationality are all parts of survival, we have brains suited for this as the brains which are good at these things tend to survive more than the ones without rationality.

Sheer survival mean man's purpose is no more than to be a propagator of DNA for "who knows what?" ultimate purpose. We have in your view, I think, a machine which has no purpose but to preserve DNA.

Somehow this matter became self aware.
Somehow this matter evolved from material into consciousness.
Somehow this matter has a sense of what is RIGHT and what is WRONG.

But this right and wrong boils down to a combination of processed matter and electrical charges.

I think an self aware Maker in whose image we are created is a better answer to why we are. Time, Space, Matter this Creator doesn't need for His own existence. But for our existence God has prepared the universe.

We require three directions of substantiation.

One towards the physical world - the body
One towards the world of other minds, wills, and emotions - the soul
One toward things spiritual, like God our Creator - the human spirit

These three parts integrate and comprise a unity of humanity.
I think denying the soul is a negation of a legitimate part of my entire humanity. I think it de-humanizes you in my eyes to think of you as only a brain.

I stop here for length.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
[b]The Soul to interact with the psychological world.

this is the bit i am interested in, but you seem to have any reasoning to back it up. no explanations of why or how

The law of identity would say that if it is conceivable that your personality could be within another body then that proves that there is something true of your soul which ...[text shortened]... occurs within the brain. it is in no way shape or form and example of a separate mind and brain.

sonship:
The Soul to interact with the psychological world.

this is the bit i am interested in, but you seem to have any reasoning to back it up. no explanations of why or how

You have experienced it.
You are experiencing it now as you interact with me.

However, I think you think the only thing that is going on is material operations of chemicals and electrical operations in the grey matter of both of us.

I think immaterial souls are interacting in correlation with these material events.

Perhaps this cannot be proved scientifically.
Perhaps it cannot be disproved scientifically.

This will cause frustration if we cling to a questionable assumption that the only true is that which can be scientifically researched.

That is scientism, I think.
The belief that the only knowledge of truth comes through scientific method is scientism, I believe.

Originally posted by sonship

i think the basic operation will be the same, but a change of input can change the way the brain is structured.

Knowledge is essentially a material thing ?

yes, various matter includes all things that provide an outside input.

The hitting of matter against another kind of matter leads to truth ?
The combinat ...[text shortened]... it de-humanizes you in my eyes to think of you as only a brain.

I stop here for length.

Knowledge is essentially a material thing ?

isnt everything?

The hitting of matter against another kind of matter leads to truth ?
The combination of material from without to material within results in truth ?

sometimes, sometimes it leads to lies, sometimes it leads to nothing.

I don't see that it necessarily negates the existence of a non-material mind or soul.

agreed. it also doesnt necessitate soul.

There is no orchestrating of the right material inputs though. That seems quite random.
i think there is a huge random element, but as a species we know roughly how to generally achieve what we want when we pass on information to our children. generally those who pass on good teachings end up with good children, who become good adults.

You say inputs today are different from inputs 200 years ago. So the new inputs combine with brain material and the result is more learning of what is really true.

partly. but somethings truth's are easier to define than others. some truths are subjective. we can never find the truth to things that are subjective.

If you imagine a material machine that receives material inputs which results in TRUER realizations about reality, well that's pretty fantastic. Such an apparatus, I think, surely reveals a design from an intelligent agent.

no, you are over simplifying it. as i have said something like mathematics have a clearly defined truth. which each generation can build on. some truths are part of the zeitgeist and only true for that time, some truths are subjective. the human brain can help resolve some truths, but somethings have no real truth.

By itself this material brain somehow boots up over the centuries to have a TRUER realization of reality ? You're talking about the need for some strong faith.

why strong faith? we have more evidence of this than we do of god. this puts this theory (albeit with unknowns waaaaay ahead in the probability game).


I didn't yet notice where the POTENTIAL for consciousness resides in matter. I didn't yet notice that you have contemplated that the potential to be conscious is actualized in matter AND identified this property in matter.

i did deal with this. i think consciousness is only a collection of sensors. a light sensitive cell is conscious of light, nothing else but light. we are a uber complex bunch of sense sensitive cells. we feel, smell, touch and taste. those with better bigger brains can deal with more senses and thus survive.


Is there a conscious atom among the atomic particles?

no, consciousness is a description of our ability to sense the world around us.

i think neither one of us claims an exhaustive understanding of our beliefs.

true.


I do not see how yours though claims the high ground on rationality.

although much, especially in the last 4 or 5 post is my own musings. most of it is based on real science and evidence, i think most of my theories stand up. as of yet, you have not really explained anything of your beliefs. you seem to be saying you know im wrong, but you dont know why you are right.

I think, a machine which has no purpose but to preserve DNA.

i dont believe man has a purpose. the desire to reproduce exists but it has no given reason. just a by-product of nature. those first cells that could reproduce would of course be the ones who continue. like a human that cannot of babies is no less human than one that can. neither have a purpose to reproduce, but the one that can will and thus continue.

ill leave it there for now, tired. got a week off work though, be prepared for some more walls of text!!!!

Originally posted by sonship

sonship:
The Soul to interact with the psychological world.

this is the bit i am interested in, but you seem to have any reasoning to back it up. no explanations of why or how

You have experienced it.
You are experiencing it now as you interact with me.

However, I think you think the only thing that is going on is material op ...[text shortened]... belief that the only knowledge of truth comes through scientific method is scientism, I believe.

This will cause frustration if we cling to a questionable assumption that the only true is that which can be scientifically researched.


i am happy to ignore science for a while. all i would like is an explanation of the soul/brain system. how and why do they effect each other? why does brain damage effect personality? is the personality the brain projects the same personality as the soul? is the soul personality fixed or changeable? are all brain thoughts mirroring soul thoughts? why do people tend to think similar depending on where they live, does this mean souls are also regional?

i think regardless if you think im correct ive given a pretty detailed speculative account of how i think the brain works. its your turn.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
[b]This will cause frustration if we cling to a questionable assumption that the only true is that which can be scientifically researched.


i am happy to ignore science for a while. all i would like is an explanation of the soul/brain system. how and why do they effect each other? why does brain damage effect personality? is the personality the ...[text shortened]... t ive given a pretty detailed speculative account of how i think the brain works. its your turn.[/b]

why do people tend to think similar depending on where they live

conditioning

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
why do people tend to think similar depending on where they live

conditioning

conditioning mainly and maybe a tiny bit of genetics.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
can anybody give an even remotely logical reason for the existence and function of a soul. what does a soul do that a brain doesnt and visa-versa?

The soul is the life force.

The soul is you.

The body is not you.

The brain only functions because of the soul.

Consciousness is a symptom of the soul.

If there is no soul there is no you and no consciousness.

The soul is eternal.................which means you are without beginning and without end.

You have always existed and you will never not exist.

That is the meaning of eternal.

You have had thousands of bodies..................sometimes male and sometimes female.

The soul is the combination of sat-cit ananda-vigraha.

You do not belong in the temporary world of birth and disease and old age and death.

We all belong in the eternal spiritual world of bliss and knowledge.

Bona fide religion conditions us with love and knowledge to return back to Godhead.

False religion conditions us to take birth again in the material world.