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No, they are not phenomena, they are human constructs; sums of observable phenomena that the human (or other animal) body/system displays. There isn't a separate soul; soul is a product of the multi-scale, bound infinite complexity of the body. From that point on, your argument builds upon the above false premise, producing a couple more false premises along the way. |
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How am I denying something that I included among the things I can observe? I can observe what my senses allow me to, but I could never observe separate, well defined entities of soul or consciousness. What definition of either the "soul" or "consciousness" describe them to be something that's not a product of phenomena observable through the senses (including the sixth sense, thinking as well)? Every entity that's included in the Infinite Whole, i.e. the World that itself is not the Infinite Whole is necessarily bound infinity, because there are other observable entities that are not the entity in question. There's an observable boundary (f.ex. our skin) beyond which there are other entities (air, other people, objects, etc.). But upon examination towards smaller scales, there's always matter displaying all kinds of different patterns. Of course there's a limit to human observation, but that's true regarding every observable areas. The best we can do is to go by the assumption (Occam's Razor applies here) that if something displayed a certain nature on so many different scales, it won't suddenly display a different nature or go out of existence; that would be a so called "strong emergence", just like the emergence of a soul (i.e. a separate, well defined and new entity) from complex matter would be a strong emergence as well. But the sum of certain aspects of this self-organized matter that displays all kinds of different patterns on infinite scales IS itself what we observe as "soul" or "consciousness". And that's why humans can't model soul or consciousness with AI. Because no matter how complex they make an AI, and no matter on how many different scales they build it, on some (actually infinite amount of, in at least one direction) scales it won't be similar to a human being, but instead it will carry the patterns of their original material (i.e. the material they are constructed of, like silicon, someone else's neurons or who knows what they try to make a thinking machine out of). Yet, there is nothing new in it, only matter, organized in a particular way. |
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What more is there but the physical phenomenon? There's nothing I can observe that I could circumscribe as "hey, this IS consciousness" or "soul". All I have is the observable world through my senses.
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In reply to this post by OmegaSEX
I don't agree with these definitions. For things that we can't understand, things like quarks and the origin of the universe, saying that we don't understand doesn't make these supernatural. What is supernatural is things that are contrary to our understanding of observed experience. So consciousness is not supernatural, but the soul is supernatural to the extent that it is independent of the body because it is contrary to observed experience for anything like the soul to exist independently of a body. An afterlife is supernatural for similar reasons.
Many religions emphasize supernatural events as an expression of God's power. The Old Testament is ambiguous. For example the parting of the Red Sea may have been done using canal locks, but this would have appeared to be supernatural for slaves for whom this would have been contrary to their observed experience. So in a sense, the Old Testament offers both interpretations - supernatural, or using the natural to appear supernatural to impress the ignorant. Of course modern Atheists believe in the supernatural, like that people can magically change their sex. But their supernatural beliefs are not attributed to God, but rather to their belief in their own God-like powers of reason. |
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In reply to this post by OmegaSEX
Seeing a color and recognizing it is no different from the recognition of a texture or light/shadow. In fact, empirically, upon examination on smaller scales, color IS a combination of texture and the light that illuminates that texture. Color is just one of the perceptual properties. That is a human made construct. The original reality is the perceived color itself; it is there immediately, even for a newborn, without having to learn about wavelengths. It isn't magical to me. I can see the world as something infinitely interesting, but magical it isn't. |
In reply to this post by OmegaSEX
The body. What would be the role of the body if the soul could exist independently? Why does behavior change when the body changes, for example, someone suffers brain injury? |
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No true Scotsman. Going by the above, the soul is a mystical entity that is in connection with many known things but is separate from each one of them, so any discussion that attempts to argue its non-discreteness fails, because none of those known things contain any part of soul. We won't attempt to test how your experience changes by causing brain damage to you, but did you feel and think the same you do now when you were just 3 years old, was your perception and experience the same as it is now? When your body is sick or tired, do you feel and think the same as when you are fresh and healthy, does your experience remain the same in all cases? |
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