Immortality of the Soul

Dexter Sinister

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Oct 1, 2004
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Re: RE: Immortality of the Soul

the caracal kid said:
Socrates,

it is not humour to discuss the illusions of perception and abstraction.

Some thorny ontological issues in that simple sentence, Kid. How do you figure that perception and abstraction are illusions? Are you suggesting there's no external reality separate from our perception of it, that we're all engaged in some solipsistic game that has no real substance to it?
 

Socrates the Greek

I Remember them....
Apr 15, 2006
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Re: RE: Immortality of the Soul

the caracal kid said:
Socrates,

it is not humour to discuss the illusions of perception and abstraction.

Abstraction is what we all talk about when ever we engage in a conversation that has to do with something we have not ever experience in real life. That is an inescapable fact. We can only imagine what it will be like, but we will never have the ability to feel something that we have not experience in real life. As for perceptive, many people today are so involved with every day life’s chores that perceptiveness is not on the radar screen, which sends the subject in to the theater of apathy and that is the problem today with this human life as we know it. Apathy has become a condition that in rat race circles it can be described as DOG EAT DOG, which is the depiction that fits the real human picture to day.
 

the caracal kid

the clan of the claw
Nov 28, 2005
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dex,

on perception:
first, what stimuli can be received is limited by the mechanisms of the body.
second, the brain actively processes and filters said stimuli.
your reality is constructed by your brain. It is a clever illusion of the fuller picture. It creates the categories, the separations, etc, to ease in functioning (separations resulting from only perceiving a subset of the greater reality).

socrates,
it has always been "dog eat dog". This has always been a reality of the human condition. The man seeks his status and security, at the cost of others. This is balanced against the need to work together, but always active. Abstraction to one is not abstaction, but a mondane reality to the next.
 

Dexter Sinister

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Oct 1, 2004
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Re: RE: Immortality of the Soul

the caracal kid said:
first, what stimuli can be received is limited by the mechanisms of the body.
second, .... etc.
(just wanted to cite enough to make it clear what I'm responding to, no need to reproduce the whole thing)

Okay, I see where you're coming from, and I'd agree up to a point. I think it's a bit over the top to call it an illusion. It's incomplete, certainly, science has made that much clear: physical reality, whatever it is, is not what your unaided senses would tell you it is. Evolution, however, has equipped us to receive and process certain stimuli that are present in our environment. Our eyes, for instance, are most sensitive to the range of radiation wavelengths that are most abundant where we live, and that radiation is no illusion, it's really there.
 

Naci_Sey

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Apr 30, 2006
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Re: RE: Immortality of the Soul

the caracal kid said:
First, what stimuli can be received is limited by the mechanisms of the body. Second, the brain actively processes and filters said stimuli. Your reality is constructed by your brain. It is a clever illusion of the fuller picture. It creates the categories, the separations, etc, to ease in functioning (separations resulting from only perceiving a subset of the greater reality).

Socrates, thank you for starting this thread. Interesting discussion.

caracal kid, I'm with you on the reality we perceive as being a tunnel view of what is actually there. The problem goes even further, since reality changes dependent on where one stands (distant or far from a certain point, for example) and who is doing the perceiving (the nature of our perceptual faculties).

I'm with Dex, however, regarding your comment that the reality we experience is an illusion. It's real enough, just not all there is, as it is.

Our senses tell us that the moon exists. Scientists are able to extrapolate from that evidence and create theories, based on mathematics, physics, engineering, and so on, of how humans might get from here to there. Though humans will never experience directly the reality of all that comes between us and our moon, nonetheless that distance is real.
 

gopher

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Jun 26, 2005
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Interestingly, most Christians believe that the soul is immortal. But the Bible says otherwise: "the soul that sinneth, it shall die". See Ezekiel 18:20
 

Socrates the Greek

I Remember them....
Apr 15, 2006
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Re: RE: Immortality of the Soul

gopher said:
Interestingly, most Christians believe that the soul is immortal. But the Bible says otherwise: "the soul that sinneth, it shall die". See Ezekiel 18:20

The truth Gohper is, the Bible if we truly analyse the whole book some things writhen in the Bible are a little far fetched, one example that comes to mind is Adam & Eve. The human soul is in freedom after exiting the human body. Reincarnation is a theory that makes many people feel good about, who knows the truth to that, we may be coming back for another round of the same. I like to believe that life is cyclical one dies and another is born securing the human race for extinction.
 

sanctus

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Oct 27, 2006
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Interestingly, most Christians believe that the soul is immortal. But the Bible says otherwise: "the soul that sinneth, it shall die". See Ezekiel 18:20


Careful of pulling quotes from Scripture out of context. The image of the soul dying is suggestive that it shall be away from the glory of God, in Hades.
 

sanctus

The Padre
Oct 27, 2006
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Interestingly, most Christians believe that the soul is immortal. But the Bible says otherwise: "the soul that sinneth, it shall die". See Ezekiel 18:20


Careful of pulling quotes from Scripture out of context. The image of the soul dying is suggestive that it shall be away from the glory of God, in Hades.The soul, in my view, and that of the Church(Catholic) is eternal, and will exist in three states after death, hell, purgatory or heaven.It is the essence of what and who we truly are.
 

The Project Man

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Aug 22, 2006
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If Dolphins Could Speak!

One of the most perceptive creatures could give us a better answer if they could speak. (They actually do, we just can not understand what they are saying.) Considered to be the best at perception, through feelings not sight, touch, taste, smell or hearing as we know it. Yet they can understand us. They perform tasks for us upon request. Is it the repetitious training or is it that they get us and we don’t get them.

The study with the great apes and sign language. You can’t teach most humans sign language, but the apes pick it up. Some apes have a larger vocabulary then some humans.

Can the above examples be a “soul-connection” between living things? Or we are such masters that we can teach them anything they are physically capable to do.

For a human to try and fully understand anything is very difficult, due to our limited perception.The human’s lack of a heightened awareness is well documented. We pale in comparison from our taste buds to the # of rods & cones in our eyes. There is so much we can not see it is incredible. Yet we have that little voice inside that makes us aware of our surroundings.

Is the soul that inner-voice that tells what is right and wrong? Is it the soul the electrical charge that we have in our bodies?

There is a noticeable difference in the eyes, said to be the gateway to soul, when a person is well, when a person is dieing, and if you have ever looked into the eyes of a dead person, you understand what I mean. In spite of the obvious notion of ones death, there seems to be something inexplicitly missing. Is this proof of a soul?

There is something in the way an animal stares back at you when you make direct eye contact. (Don’t do it to the filthy cats though, they say it hurts their feelings and is considered a stressful threat. Retched little vermin.)
Is the soul something that is linked to a viable living thing?

Creatures that have no eyes, do they have souls that we can not see, due to the lack of eyes? Since they have no eyes then are they soulless?

Plants, when hooked up, react to abuse and care in completely different ways. Is the equipment detecting their soul or a physical reaction within the plant?

Since we have an inner monologue, I believe this is where the idea of the soul is derived.

As far as it retaining memories, no.

I do believe in equivalent exchange. There is only a certain amount of energy and matter in this place. Although be it in enormous amounts. We do have an electronic charge and gasses which are dispersed upon death and decomposition. The matter of our body is reabsorbed by the earth. For all of the elements we are composed of are on this earth. As far as retaining this life’s memories, I do not believe it is possible.

I guess I believe their is no soul.