soul???

Originally posted by lucifershammer
such that this insta-time travel concept was an acceptable answer to my questions... who else would reside here?

Could be anyone. I don't need to know the names and addresses of every man, woman and child in England -- just the ones who impact (or would be expected to impact) me.


if there was such a frame of reference that your god r tself, does not have a "pure" physical or supernatural "form".

Firstly...I am big enough to state that I made a mistake when describing the number three...in language terms it is a class of determiner and it can be used to specify the quantity of elements that make up the complete set of certain things (be it a set of apples, parts of an apple etc...)...in the context of mathematics it is a concept that allows you to count, specify the size of, manipulate etc..., abstract entities. In the physical world the number 'three' manifests itself by assigning to a set of things (that are either physical or for the sake of argument supernatural) a specific one-to-one relationship with the counting numbers...3 doesn't exist as an object, though when it is assigned to say a group of apples it prevents that group of apples (whilst assigned the number 3) from being individual, two, infinite numbers of etc... apples.

You state that the soul is our essense, with regards to what you said in the other thread I expect that your notion of the soul is that it is merely a way of describing a human in much the same way that 3 apples is a way of specifying that a group of apples is of a specific quantity (that being 1 more apple than you'd have if you started with one apple and added another apple).

I'm happy to leave it at that if soul or essence is merely another way of describing the group of different groups of functioning tissue that represent our human physical bodies; for then I could say that when we die we are no longer a mass of functioning cells and we simply cease to exist (though I would argue in this case that the terminology is un-necessary)...I'm not happy to leave it at that though if you can then suggest that when we die, our essense goes somewhere else (be it heaven, end of the world etc...) or is altered

My reason for this is that when we die our physical bodies cease to function, decompose, and at some point in time the material that represented them is recycled in the bodies (or essense even) of a different creature(s), we no longer have an essence or existence...apply the Thomistic soul to a religion such as Christianity or Islam (amongst other religions) however and this essense (that describes what was once our physical bodies) now describes a supernatural form...a different form.

I expect you'd then follow up with something like me is re-instantiated in a supernatural form...(which I'd interpret as: for a certain amount of time I am physical and then !!!schazam!!!...I'm now supernatural!)...Though somewhat grudgingly I'd have to accept that it does avoid some of my initial problems, this definition of our soul however should prevent you from stating in another thread that we exist in at least 5 dimensions (one of which being supernatural) for we are always instantiated in physical form!..Basically, I'd argue (with this definition) that there is no part of us (whilst we are alive physically) that can be specified spiritually (we have no holy spirit...might have one in the future but certainly don't have one right now) such that for any point that you break this rule in order to counter another atheist's argument...I have grounds to point out a contradiction...(of course, no-one other than you would be bound to this 🙁 )



For lack of a good place to add this point, If our essence describes not only our physical existence but also our supernatural existence then please define this *supernatural* aspect of our existence whilst managing to still evade the initial physical agents having an effect on the supernatural part of us problem...though I assume that you do not need to answer this question; for it seems essence describing (whilst we are alive) anything other than our physical existence isn't a view you agree with.

The problem with saying that 3 is the essence of 3 apples is that id does not fully describe the apples and although using the number 3 and the word apple you could get another three apples they would not be the same apples.
A full description of the apples (essence?) requires two very important things.
1. A specific point in time.
2. An absolute definition of what is included in the apple. (ie do you include the caterpillar that is eating one of them.)
lucifershammer conveniently ignores both points. with point 1. he assumes that the apples have a single essence through out time and that complete essence describing the apples complete history (from flower to rotting) can somehow be reinstantiated into a single point in time to create a new apple which contains the full essence from the life time of the original apple. The other option is to take a specific point in time (say the rotting stage) and somehow heal it to a more preferred type of apple.
On point number 2 he has basically assumed that an apple has a definite and absolute boarder which it does not. He seems to think that each and every molecule or atom is either part of the apple or not part of the apple. This is not the case. This means that there cannot be an absolute essence.(or soul) The problem here is that when it is re-instantiated after death it must be absolute so a definite line must be drawn as to which atoms get re-instantiated and which don't.

Originally posted by Agerg
Firstly...I am big enough to state that I made a mistake when describing the number three...in language terms it is a class of determiner and it can be used to specify the quantity of elements that make up the complete set of certain things (be it a set of apples, parts of an apple etc...)...in the context of mathematics it is a concept that allows you to coun ...[text shortened]... are alive) anything other than our physical existence isn't a view you agree with.

I expect you'd then follow up with something like [b]me is re-instantiated in a supernatural form[/b]

No, I don't need to. What you've said is more or less what I hold.


this definition of our soul however should prevent you from stating in another thread that we exist in at least 5 dimensions (one of which being supernatural) for we are always instantiated in physical form!

Not necessarily. For instance, I did specify in the other thread that our "value" on the 5th axis could be zero. Here the quibbling is one of terminology -- do you say that a being with non-zero values on just two coordinate axes but which nevertheless inhabits a space with three is 2D or 3D?

Originally posted by twhitehead
The problem with saying that 3 is the essence of 3 apples is that id does not fully describe the apples and although using the number 3 and the word apple you could get another three apples they would not be the same apples.
A full description of the apples (essence?) requires two very important things.
1. A specific point in time.
2. An absolute defi ...[text shortened]... bsolute so a definite line must be drawn as to which atoms get re-instantiated and which don't.

Re: (1)

In fact it is the very fact that the (fruity part of the )flower, the ripe fruit and the over-ripe mass has the same essence that allows us to say that it is this flower that becomes this fruit becomes this over-ripe mass. We understand intuitively that there is some aspect that is common to the three that allows us to say that they are the same being at various stages of flowering (or whatever).

I'm not ignoring (1).


Re: (2)

That's a ridiculous argument (which you've been repeating ad nauseam through this thread). You don't need to specify everything about an apple to the nth degree to know what it is; I'm pretty sure you won't be thinking about where the "atomic borders" of apples lie the next time you're in a supermarket -- and I'm sure that ambiguity is not going to stop you from claiming a refund if you find a worm in your apple. We know that the core of an apple is clearly part of the apple, the air around it isn't and a worm doesn't belong there.