[_ Old Earth _] Scientfic Evidence for the Soul?

[lemonfresh]

Well, what reason is there to think that the personality, behaviors, thoughts of a person are anything more than events happening in the brain? That there is some supernatural aspect to it?

 

[lemonfresh]

Anyone? (bump)

 

[Drew]

Anyone? (bump)

Hello lemonfresh:

This topic is of particular interest to me. I am really busy right now but hope to write something sometime on the week-end. Please do not give up on this thread yet!

 

[Drew]

Hello lemonfresh:

Let me take a really quick shot at this. I hope to write more later.

I think that the "personality, behaviors, thoughts of a person" are not particularly "supernatural" and may indeed be inextricably tied to brain events.

I am probably out of the mainstream of N. American Christian opinion when I claim that we have no "immortal soul" that is somehow independent of our physical bodies. While I do believe in eternal life for those who have accepted the grace offered to us in Christ, I think that this life will be very physical in nature - we will not be disembodied "spirits". I believe that the created order is such that life for humans must be physical - whether now or in the life to come.

I do think that the defintion of what counts as "physical" is subject to some dispute. Despite what I have written above, I do believe that our "physical" description of the world is presently incomplete, and I believe we will need to revise our model of reality to account for what I will call "free will". In short, I think there is no reason to believe that our scientific models cannot be extended to accomodate free will. I suspect that free will can be "inserted" into our model of the world through the doorway of quantum mechanics.

I will stop for now.

 

[lemonfresh]

Hello lemonfresh:

Let me take a really quick shot at this. I hope to write more later.

I think that the "personality, behaviors, thoughts of a person" are not particularly "supernatural" and may indeed be inextricably tied to brain events.

I am probably out of the mainstream of N. American Christian opinion when I claim that we have no "immortal soul" that is somehow independent of our physical bodies. While I do believe in eternal life for those who have accepted the grace offered to us in Christ, I think that this life will be very physical in nature - we will not be disembodied "spirits". I believe that the created order is such that life for humans must be physical - whether now or in the life to come.

I do think that the defintion of what counts as "physical" is subject to some dispute. Despite what I have written above, I do believe that our "physical" description of the world is presently incomplete, and I believe we will need to revise our model of reality to account for what I will call "free will". In short, I think there is no reason to believe that our scientific models cannot be extended to accomodate free will. I suspect that free will can be "inserted" into our model of the world through the doorway of quantum mechanics.

I will stop for now.

My question for you is : how does God judge those people whose brains are not functioning properly?

For example, a woman who used to be a devout Christian, gets knocked in the head from a car accident. Certain parts of her brain have disrupted and she has very little recollection of her life before the accident. She is now very violent and not a Christian anymore. The woman is still fully conscious and it would seem she is acting of her own free will, but clearly she is a different person to her friends and family.

Does God only judge the woman as she was before the accident? Or does he judge them as two different people?


I certainly think in a materialist view that free will can exist, depending on how you define free will.

 

[Drew]

My question for you is : how does God judge those people whose brains are not functioning properly?

Given some of the stuff you will read in these forums, I hope He is merciful......

Does God only judge the woman as she was before the accident? Or does he judge them as two different people?

I suppose only God would know for sure whether this negative change in personality is due to the accident, although it would certainly seem to be the case. If the woman has undergone a personality change that she cannot reasonably control, I would expect that God would judge her "as she was before".

I certainly think in a materialist view that free will can exist, depending on how you define free will.

I think I agree with you although greater minds than ours have struggled with this for millennia.

 

[lemonfresh]

I believe that the created order is such that life for humans must be physical - whether now or in the life to come.

So when a person's body dies is an eternal body is created for them? There are some people who are "braindead". Are they already in the afterlife or does God wait until their body stops functioning, the point at which they are pronounced to be clinically dead? How does God transfer the memories of a person to his body in the afterlife? When God gives people a revelation or when he "talks" to people how does he do this? Does he just stimulate neurons? Does the Holy Spirit even exist? I would assume that heaven would be a physical place too. Is God himself physical?

The whole thing seems a bit convoluted to me.

I'm sorry for all the questions but it's a very unusual view for a Christian to have.

 

[Drew]

Hello lemonfresh:

I propose the following "explanation". When a person dies, God preserves knowledge of the "brain state" of that person. So when they die, they die - they slip into non-existence. However, because God retains knowledge of their brain-state, He (God) is able to "re-create" the person at the time of the resurrection of the dead - an event that I believe lies in the future. I believe that the dead presently "sleep" - they have no conscious awareness of any kind. Despite the widespread view that the saved who have died are now in heaven, I see no compelling scriptural argument for this view. It is a comforting view, I grant you, but I think it is untrue.

Perhaps an analogy to computers might clarify. If, at the moment of death, God "uploads" the programs that make up our mental life, then perhaps the death and disintegration of the brain is not "the end". As long as the knowledge needed to rebuild our brains is preserved in the mind of God, there can be a physical resurrection of us at some time in the future.

This is all speculation on my part, of course.

And yes, it is an "unusual" view in the context of evangelical / fundamentalist Christian culture.

 

[lemonfresh]

I'm still waiting for someone to give some evidence that the soul exists.

 

[Drew]

I'm still waiting for someone to give some evidence that the soul exists.

If by "soul" you intend to refer to an entity that enjoys an independent existence from the body, then I do not think such a thing exists.

If by "soul", you refer to the manifold of conscious experiences we all have - sensations of taste, visual phenomena, emotions, etc. - then I think we all agree such a thing exists (i.e. soul as phenomenology). The real question becomes "how do we explain these phenomena?".

I believe most Christians think we have a soul that "inhabits" our body, yet would continue to exist if the body were to be, say, vapourized. I do not share this view and I think that the Scriptures do not either. I hold to the view that the commonly held idea of the soul arose through Greek influences, not Hebrew ones.

 

[lemonfresh]

I suspect that free will can be "inserted" into our model of the world through the doorway of quantum mechanics.

Elaborate on this.

 

[lemonfresh]

If by "soul" you intend to refer to an entity that enjoys an independent existence from the body, then I do not think such a thing exists.

If by "soul", you refer to the manifold of conscious experiences we all have - sensations of taste, visual phenomena, emotions, etc. - then I think we all agree such a thing exists (i.e. soul as phenomenology). The real question becomes "how do we explain these phenomena?".

I believe most Christians think we have a soul that "inhabits" our body, yet would continue to exist if the body were to be, say, vapourized. I do not share this view and I think that the Scriptures do not either. I hold to the view that the commonly held idea of the soul arose through Greek influences, not Hebrew ones.

I understand this but I want Christians who don't share your view to tell me why they believe that the soul exists outside the body.

 

[Drew]

I suspect that free will can be "inserted" into our model of the world through the doorway of quantum mechanics.

Elaborate on this.

I'll try to give a very high level answer for starters. Our present scientific models of the world are not fully deterministic - there are events ("quantum events) whose outcome seems to be determined by the "roll of a dice", not a fully deterministic law. This is why some physicists claim that "God plays dice with the universe". With the advent of quantum mechanics in the early 20th century, scientists have been "forced" to create scientific models that contain an element of indeterminism - we cannot know precisely what will happen until "God rolls the dice".

I propose that it is possible that this element of randomness is only apparent, and that the actions of a free will "entity" can "influence" these dice rolls in order to achieve directed purposes. However, these effects are extraordinarily subtle - so subtle that the outcome of such quantum events seem to be purely random.

The overall point is something like this: If the evidence showed that every event in the universe could be predicted in advance by a knowledge of the initial conditions and a fully deterministic set of physical laws, then it would be very challenging to "find a place" for free will in the natural order - it would seem that every event would be determined by these deterministic natural laws and "there would be nothing for a free will to do".

However, the quantum nature of reality seems to open the door to the possbility that not all events are sufficiently determined by natural law. So "free will" could somehow still find a place in our description of the world,

 

[Slevin]

Well, what reason is there to think that the personality, behaviors, thoughts of a person are anything more than events happening in the brain? That there is some supernatural aspect to it?

You can't have scientific evidence for a soul if a soul is supernatural since science cannot study supernatural claims.

 

[ikester7579]

Maybe these links will help you.

http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp

http://www.homestead.com/WinterSteel/Soul.html

http://216.247.205.102/weighsoul.html

They are all about the same experiment. This experiment was repeated several times with the same results. The reason I list those links to the same story is because some links have more info than the other ones.

 

[ikester7579]

Well, what reason is there to think that the personality, behaviors, thoughts of a person are anything more than events happening in the brain? That there is some supernatural aspect to it?

You can't have scientific evidence for a soul if a soul is supernatural since science cannot study supernatural claims.

True. It was a set up question. There are several anti christian sites that list the unanswerable christian questions. This is just one of many have have seen on that list from several sites.

 

[ikester7579]

I'm still waiting for someone to give some evidence that the soul exists.

I have given evidence. No comments? Hoping thread will die?

 

[lemonfresh]

Maybe these links will help you.

http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp

http://www.homestead.com/WinterSteel/Soul.html

http://216.247.205.102/weighsoul.html

They are all about the same experiment. This experiment was repeated several times with the same results. The reason I list those links to the same story is because some links have more info than the other ones.

This is the only evidence? This is pathetic. It's hardly means anything other than the person lost a little bit of weight. There are countless explanations for this. Besides do you actually think that the soul would have physical weight?

 

[lemonfresh]

True. It was a set up question. There are several anti christian sites that list the unanswerable christian questions. This is just one of many have have seen on that list from several sites.

I made this question myself. Just give me a reason to believe that there is something beyond this life, or that the brain can't account for conciousness, etc... It doesn't have to be a scientific answer.

 

[ikester7579]

Maybe these links will help you.

http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp

http://www.homestead.com/WinterSteel/Soul.html

http://216.247.205.102/weighsoul.html

They are all about the same experiment. This experiment was repeated several times with the same results. The reason I list those links to the same story is because some links have more info than the other ones.

This is the only evidence? This is pathetic. It's hardly means anything other than the person lost a little bit of weight. There are countless explanations for this. Besides do you actually think that the soul would have physical weight?

Let's hear these countless explanations.

1) What makes a person lighter when they die?
2) What keeps that weight loss "exactly" the same (in loss) regardless of size or weight of the human (which is said to have a soul)?

This is like saying: Regardless of what size meteor hits the earth, the chunk that comes off will always be the same size and weight.

Do you know the "only" test that would prove this wrong? Take a animal, which has no soul, and do the same test. If it loses weight upon death, then it is physical. If it don't, then the other test proves there is a soul. I don't know of any scientist brave enough to make such a bold quest for actual truth. Because this test has been out there for how long? And no one, that wants to disprove this, is not smart enough to figure out that a soul-less life test would bring no doubt?

I actually think the test has already been done. But the atheist did not like the out come. So it was never revealed. There is a difference between wanted actual truth, and justification for what one wants to believe.

Besides, you are probably a naturalist. Which means you would not believe any spiritual evidence in the first place. Which makes me wonder why you asked such a question?

For if you really wanted to know, you would have been intrigued with that test, instead of getting upset. Which tells me your not interested in truth, just justification for what you believe.

As far as you being the originator of this question. I have seen it more times than I care to remember. How did you think I found that answer so quickly? I researched it. Because it was being asked on several forums I debate on.

In fact, from that test, there is a lot more evidence for the soul (because it was repeatable). Than there is for matter coming from nothing to create everything through an explosion (which is not even testable, and you can't repeat what you can't test). But you would believe one more than the other? So tell me. Which has more evidence, and why would you believe the one more than the other?