A question of spirits/souls

Ahnimus

Keep in mind, the adult brain as 100 billion neurons with 100 trillion synapses.

If each neuron has even 5 different firing rates (frequencies or states). My suggestion is conceptually oversimplified.

There is a googolplex of different possible neural configurations in the brain.

Ahnimus

Check it out. this is what I mean.

An artificial neural network (ANN), often just called a "neural network" (NN), is a mathematical model or computational model based on biological neural networks. It consists of an interconnected group of artificial neurons and processes information using a connectionist approach to computation. In most cases an ANN is an adaptive system that changes its structure based on external or internal information that flows through the network during the learning phase.

Simplified Structure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Artificial_neural_network.svg

Full Text
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_neural_network

NETTalk is a good example of such a system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NETtalk_(artificial_neural_network)

Gary Cottrell's (Computer Science and Engineering Professor UCSD) Slides (PDF)
http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/classes/sp07/cse150/lectures-pdf/ch20-neural-nets.pdf

Ahnimus

Ahnimus wrote:

Simplified Structure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Artificial_neural_network.svg

This describes a purely feedforward network. For more information on recurrent networks, backpropagation and so forth, check out this article.

http://www.brains-minds-media.org/archive/290/

Jeanie

Ahnimus wrote:

Training.

Vector coded networks learn from training. By presenting to it the stimulus and reward.

Suppose as a child, your parents enjoyed the Opera. They expressed exaltation at the Opera, both in anticipation and during. A child will quickly realize this is something to be enjoyed, and the neuroplasticity does it's thing.

See and that's where I have a problem, because I do love Opera and it does make me emotional, but I can tell you right now, there was absolutely NO OPERA in my household as a child. So where did I "learn" my exultation from?
Similarly, with regard to souls, I cannot say that there was much, if any, discussion of souls in my house as a child. Certainly if anything, there was a complete lack of religious education or fervour. There was definitely death. So I watched a lot of people die as a child. But I can't say that we were all encouraged to "pray" for the souls of the dying or that their souls had gone somewhere else. If anything I was encouraged to believe that once a person is dead they are dead and gone forever and that nothing "spiritual" or "other worldly" happens. Their body stops. Biological function stops and they are gone. So how do we then attribute this to training?

Ahnimus

Jeanie wrote:

See and that's where I have a problem, because I do love Opera and it does make me emotional, but I can tell you right now, there was absolutely NO OPERA in my household as a child. So where did I "learn" my exultation from?
Similarly, with regard to souls, I cannot say that there was much, if any, discussion of souls in my house as a child. Certainly if anything, there was a complete lack of religious education or fervour. There was definitely death. So I watched a lot of people die as a child. But I can't say that we were all encouraged to "pray" for the souls of the dying or that their souls had gone somewhere else. If anything I was encouraged to believe that once a person is dead they are dead and gone forever and that nothing "spiritual" or "other worldly" happens. Their body stops. Biological function stops and they are gone. So how do we then attribute this to training?

Yea, like I said, there is no "only cause", childhood is not always the cause of our beliefs and desires. With 100 trillion different synapses, 10^4 synapses per neuron and 100 billion neurons. It's improbable to pin-down exactly what the cause is from the perspective of neurobiology. But what we do know is that our brains are made up of these neurons, layed out in networks, and without them, we have no sensation, no desires and no beliefs. We can describe how they work, as was done above. Knowing how neurons and networks behave, gives us a perceptual model to work from, causes now become imaginable, and this knowledge might assist in intropsecting the true causes.

Ahnimus

Double Post

Ahnimus

Triple Post

onelongsong

Ahnimus wrote:

Ah, but you cannot describe a soul, therefor you cannot know if another being also has a soul, since as you state, it is ineffible. How can you be sure that a machine, cannot have a soul, or at least the sense of having one?

i can describe a soul but not in a way to convince you. your mind is already made up. my time would be better spent debating with a fish.

Ahnimus

onelongsong wrote:

i can describe a soul but not in a way to convince you. your mind is already made up. my time would be better spent debating with a fish.

You still cannot be sure that another human has a soul, let-alone a machine. It's very possible that a machine could have the same sense and describe it in the same way you do. It may even say the same thing to me.

Ahnimus

onelongsong wrote:

i can describe a soul but not in a way to convince you. your mind is already made up. my time would be better spent debating with a fish.

I guess that makes two of us. Since your mind is already made up concerning souls and the construction of human beings.

OutOfBreath

double post

OutOfBreath

Ahnimus wrote:

I think there is plenty of evidence, not to mention an absence of evidence. Maybe it started with William Harvey, maybe there was evidence before that. Certainly there was no inclination of souls/spirits prior to the concept.

When did Harvey live? I'd say the concept of souls and spirits are pretty damn old. And you are not coming forward with the evidence, just stating that it's there.

But, I think part of the problem is bordering on Pyrrhonism. "You can't know anything, not even this." reflects the ultimate end of pyrrhonic scepticism.

Actually, that quote was mentioned in the wikipedia article as an example of academic scepticism. The pyrrhonic scepticism sounds very sensible to me:

wikipedia wrote:

Whereas 'academic' skepticism, with as its most famous adherent Carneades, claims that "Nothing can be known, not even this", Pyrrhonian skeptics withhold any assent with regard to non-evident propositions and remain in a state of perpetual inquiry. According to them, even the statement that nothing can be known is dogmatic.

For example, Pyrrhonians might assert that a lack of proof cannot constitute disproof, and that a lack of belief is vastly different from a state of active disbelief. Rather than disbelieving psychic powers, for instance, based on the lack of evidence of such things, Pyrrhonians recognize that we cannot be certain that new evidence won't turn up in the future, and so they intentionally remain tentative and continue their inquiry. Pyrrhonians also question accepted knowledge, and view dogmatism as a disease of the mind.

Ahnimus wrote:

As David Hume expresses, if we can't trust our senses of smell, touch, taste, sound, etc... to describe objects in the real world, or if those objects do not exist in a separate autonomous reality, and are only figments of our consciousness. Then how can we be sure that our thoughts, which we perceive by a sense, are also real? A sense of purpose, a soul, spirit or God, is put into the same dilemma. We are consequently in a state of lethargy until the very real forces of nature concludes our fate.

*snip*
David Hume An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Interesting that you would actually use David Hume for this. Well enough that he is an empiricist, thus relying on observation, but his views in general poorly matches yours. For instance the whole first part of that long quote is a criticism of knowledge, the nature of it, and what can and cannot be known. Hume's most famous examples are that X causes Y, but only because we attribute it. We expect the future to be like the past, thus the ball on the pool table struck in a certain way is expected to roll a particular way, and seeing only white swans leads one to believe all swans are white. This only holds until the moment the ball acts otherwise, or we see a black swan, and for this not to happen, we have no guarantees. Wikipedia again:

wikipedia about Hume wrote:

... this is the basis for our idea not in the sense that our concept of necessary connection can be analysed into such feelings of anticipation, expectation, etc., but that we then come to see the world as structured by a certain predictability of order, and we attribute this predictability to the external objects themselves, i.e. we attribute them a causal power which makes things fall out, or occur in, the way they do; a property of necessary connection. So Hume's argument is that the mind synthesises and then projects a concept of causal power when it observes similar events to occur together repeatedly. This is an example of what the philosopher Simon Blackburn has entitled ‘projectivism’; Hume argues that we project our feeling of predictability onto the objects, much as he argues that we project our moral attitudes onto situations or objects, as “nothing is more usual than to apply to external bodies every internal sensation which they occasion.” (about necessary causal condition)

Hume thus concludes that our inductive practices have no rational foundation, for no form of reason will certify it. ... Furthermore, Hume is not saying that induction doesn't work, or doesn't reliably lead to true conclusions, or anything of that sort; rather, he argues just that it isn't spurred on by reason. The important thing to remember with Hume is that although pessimistic about the likelihood of showing that induction was a rational procedure, he thought it was a remarkably accurate—indeed, quasi-magical—ability to predict the future. (about induction)

Bottomline here, you havent presented any evidence here, soul/spirit is a very old concept, you might call me a pyrrhonian, and the use of David Hume is not quite to your advantage if it is meant to support your positions. But I do note that you have accepted that it is a philosophical question, seeing as you are quoting philosophers now.

PS: Hume's beef with pyrrhonians seem to depend more on their rejection of the "natural gift of induction", not necessarily their views and criticisms on knowledge.

Peace
Dan

catefrances

onelongsong wrote:

i can describe a soul but not in a way to convince you. your mind is already made up. my time would be better spent debating with a fish.

describe it to me then.

OutOfBreath

Jeanie wrote:

Thanks Dan, I appreciate you replying.

So you're saying that you think that there is another level of human awareness or being that hasn't been adequately covered by science and you're not happy with the religious explanation either?

Something like that. I think that both science and relgion are on the right track at times, but neither are able to adequately cover it.

With regard to souls do you consider that you have one yourself and if you do how are you aware of it? And if not how are you aware that you do not have one?

I dont believe I have a soul, in the traditional sense as seperate from body. That doesn't mean I dont think there's anything there, I just dont think it is really seperate from our bodies. I dont know how one could determine souls or not, so I sit on the fence on the matter.

I'm asking this question already agreeing with you that the religious explanation of souls is not one that I believe either. I guess the reason I ask is that I really believe that people have a soul or an "essence" that is intrinsic and unique to them and I have difficulty believing that it is ONLY the brain and brain function that makes a human who they are in essence. My problem being that I really cannot pinpoint why it is that I believe this. And I cannot adequately explain to myself or others how it is that I believe this.

Sounds like a common problem that.
I think alot of it goes through the brain, but postulating that it then always starts in the brain dont sit right by me either. But I do sit on the fence and keep most options open on the subject. I can't help you with the explanations, as I have none.

Peace
Dan

MattCameronKicksButt

No one has proof of this and like someone above has said, it is probably more of a philisophical question so we can only speculate whether a soul exists or not but personally, I just can't except than anyone could cease to exist in any form. I just can't get my head round it. I can't get my head around nothingness - if you see what I mean.

It's definetely more of a spiritual of philisophical question. It makes me think about God.

Pity I won't be around to see if anyone has any scientific evedence of this. If anyone really knows the answer to this then they are a genius and they should not be wasting their time on the message pit.

Jeanie

Ahnimus wrote:

Yea, like I said, there is no "only cause", childhood is not always the cause of our beliefs and desires. With 100 trillion different synapses, 10^4 synapses per neuron and 100 billion neurons. It's improbable to pin-down exactly what the cause is from the perspective of neurobiology. But what we do know is that our brains are made up of these neurons, layed out in networks, and without them, we have no sensation, no desires and no beliefs. We can describe how they work, as was done above. Knowing how neurons and networks behave, gives us a perceptual model to work from, causes now become imaginable, and this knowledge might assist in introspecting the true causes.

Yeah, I think our posts overlapped. I was typing my previous one and by the time I'd finished you'd already posted several others.

I agree with you in that quite possibly all that we think, believe and perceive is all a function of the brain and our neural networks but if we can imagine neurobiological cause based on the perceptual model, and if we know more about the brain now than ever before why does the idea of a "soul" persist?
It cannot just be because of "learned behaviour" or the passing down of the idea from generation to generation. We debunked vampires, dragons, Santa Claus, The tooth fairy and God to a greater or lesser degree, but what is it about the soul that endures? It cannot merely be that people are uneducated or unaware of the advances in neurobiology. It cannot be that people insist on perpetuating a myth. And much and all as I like to imagine that it's collective consciousness or cellular memory even those things have not been proven or negated the existence of the soul. So why do you think that is Ahnimus? I'm just curious, to see if you have a theory on it.

Byrnzie

Ahnimus wrote:

As David Hume expresses, if we can't trust our senses of smell, touch, taste, sound, etc... to describe objects in the real world, or if those objects do not exist in a separate autonomous reality, and are only figments of our consciousness. Then how can we be sure that our thoughts, which we perceive by a sense, are also real? A sense of purpose, a soul, spirit or God, is put into the same dilemma. We are consequently in a state of lethargy until the very real forces of nature concludes our fate.

It was Hume's questions and philosophy that inspired Kant to pen his 'Critique of pure reason', in which he stated that the world we see around us is indeed largely - although not fully - created by our cognitive make-up. He also posited an 'unknown' - or 'noumena' - that exists beyond our sensory capacity, but which still infuses the external world around us. His philosophy in turn led to Schopenhauer's 'The world as will and representation', in which he took Kant's philosophy a step further and integrated it with many of the mystical aspects of Eastern philosophy.
If you really want to understand Hume, then read Kant.

gue_barium

Ahnimus wrote:

As David Hume expresses, if we can't trust our senses of smell, touch, taste, sound, etc... to describe objects in the real world, or if those objects do not exist in a separate autonomous reality, and are only figments of our consciousness. Then how can we be sure that our thoughts, which we perceive by a sense, are also real? A sense of purpose, a soul, spirit or God, is put into the same dilemma. We are consequently in a state of lethargy until the very real forces of nature concludes our fate.

Our basic senses do not rely on "trust' so I guess it can be argued that to describe objects in the real world is very much dependent on the person describing the object. Including Einstein.
There is no dilemma in being oneself. The dilemma is of 1)creativity through the spoken or written word (education), and 2) the crisis of senses.

gue_barium

gue_barium wrote:

Our basic senses do not rely on "trust' so I guess it can be argued that to describe objects in the real world is very much dependent on the person describing the object. Including Einstein.
There is no dilemma in being oneself. The dilemma is of 1)creativity through the spoken or written word (education), and 2) the crisis of senses.

Dude, you're an uneducated illiterate.

gue_barium

gue_barium wrote:

Dude, you're an uneducated illiterate.

You're probably right. I read these things, and see these impressive replies and suggestions...and then i mispell a word.

I meant, "crises of senses."
not "crisis."