Is there a soul? (Not a religious thread)

First off this is not a religious thread as plenty of cultures believe in souls.

This thread is to talk about whether or not you believe in a spiritual entity inside you that is more than just your physical body. Or if you believe that it's just the brain.

I personally think the notion of a soul is ridiculous, and one of the biggest things to me that proves that the soul is just a load of bull is this

It just goes to show that sentience is just the brain, and that when your brain dies you die. There is no force or essence that leaves your body.

Feel free to share your opinions, and no outright flaming other posters (That includes me).

Well there really isn't any proof that the concept of a soul exists. Like whatever spiritual views you have (or lack), it's all about belief.

That said I don't believe that there is a soul or any sort of essence. When a person dies their bodies decompose (or are burned into ashes, or whatever) and are returned to the earth as energy.

I don't get how the video has anything to do with it.

As I'm not a particularly spiritual person, I (personally) don't believe in souls. There is consciousness, yes, but change the physiology of your brain enough and you stop being 'you'. Narcotics, neurological injuries, mental illnesses, mental degeneration (and so on...) all have the potential to change a person completely without their control, or even wipe that consciousness away entirely. It seems silly to me that in each and every person, there is something 'special' that lives on after death when the body and the mind itself is so susceptible to outside stimuli.

One could make the argument that the brain simply interprets and expresses what the mind/soul. Damaging the brain obviously has the potential to completely destroy our ability to interpret and communicate, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we have no "soul," it just means that our souls ability to communicate with our body is damaged or in some cases, destroyed.

There isn't much reason to believe that we do have a non-physical extension of our body from where I'm sitting, but if you've accepted the idea that a soul exists... it's hard to rationalize backwards from there. I don't really accept any idea of a soul, because again... I don't see why I would think it exists.

Originally Posted by stella96

I don't get how the video has anything to do with it.

The baby in the video can't see, hear, feel, or think. It doesn't have a brain. Technically it's not even human. It's just an empty shell.

I believe in only that which can be empirically shown to exist and this only applies to physical things. The notion that something nonphysical like a "spirit" or "soul" can exist and have actual physical effects on physical reality is nonsensical to me.

I would define a soul in this case to be a permanent backup of a person's personality, that exists independent of a person's body. There are other definitions but I can't talk about them all at once.

Physically we don't have that sort of technology yet, and I don't believe there is any reason to assume one works naturally.

Spiritually I see no reason to believe in a spiritual realm unless I can engage with a spiritual realm through my senses in a way that is meaningful; and I have no previous engagement with one nor am I convinced that engagement can happen, so I don't believe in that either.

Abstractly we may be able to say that the information or a person may exist abstractly, since someone's personally may just be a physical coding of the materials that make that person's brain. If so, asking that question is rather like asking whether the binary sequence 10101111010100001101010101100 exists if no-one knew about it. If our personalities are just codes then we could in theory be constructed again, and although it makes it more difficult if that information has been 'lost' it is still possible to be constructed again. So in some sense an 'abstract soul' may 'exist'.

Originally Posted by Gamzee

Well there really isn't any proof that the concept of a soul exists. Like whatever spiritual views you have (or lack), it's all about belief.

That said I don't believe that there is a soul or any sort of essence. When a person dies their bodies decompose (or are burned into ashes, or whatever) and are returned to the earth as energy.

"So what do you think happens after we die?"

"The acids and lifeforms living inside of your body eat their way out while local detritivores eat their way in. Why?"

"No no no, what happens to you?"

"Oh, you guys mean the soul?"

"Exactly!"

"Is that in the body?"

"Yes."

"The acids and lifeforms eat their way out while local detritivores eat their way in!"

Sort of relevant, kind of interesting. Worth watching if the topic is interesting.

I do not believe in the existence of souls. I interpret a certain part of SS quite differently.

Spoiler: Contains SS spoilers  

See between 23:30 and 24:30

Spoiler: Here is my interpretation  

The Imprisoned drains Zelda's energy (which makes much more sense, since how can half of Zelda's soul be still inside her body and whatever is coming out of Zelda looks more like an energy beam than a person's soul to me)

It would be a nice thought that we had a soul, and that our consciousness would carry on after life. However, I just can't keep on going on believing the way I wish things were as reality. Our consciousness is chemicals interacting in our brains, and nothing more.

Originally Posted by Grooston

The baby in the video can't see, hear, feel, or think. It doesn't have a brain. Technically it's not even human. It's just an empty shell.

That child does have a brain. It could not eat or breathe without a brain. It is not just a shell. It is a living human being.

I'm not at all sure how that video makes you think that the soul doesn't exist. There's a living human being there in that video. I see that as evidence that the soul does exist. He lacks those parts that you believe are responsible for what we think of as a soul, and yet he exists. His mother holds him. He reacts to the breast. He reacts to touch. He grows. He moves. He lives. He is human. Although he is severely disabled, he looks and acts like he has a soul to me. His mother most definitely doesn't view him as an empty shell, like some plastic baby doll.

If the brain is all we are, and that boy doesn't have one (or more accurately, lacks the parts of the brain responsible for personality, creativity, and higher thinking) then why does that boy still look like any other person who we assume has a soul? Shouldn't he be a cold, lifeless, robotic shell? I see a warm, moving, living person there. Although you, most likely not a parent and definitely not his parent, look at him and see a shell, his mother, myself, and most likely any other parent sees a living, moving, growing baby boy who happens to lack the most complex parts of his brain.

Originally Posted by mattj

That child does have a brain. It could not eat or breathe without a brain. It is not just a shell. It is a living human being.

I'm not at all sure how that video makes you think that the soul doesn't exist. There's a living human being there in that video. I see that as evidence that the soul does exist. He lacks those parts that you believe are responsible for what we think of as a soul, and yet he exists. His mother holds him. He reacts to the breast. He reacts to touch. He grows. He moves. He lives. He is human. Although he is severely disabled, he looks and acts like he has a soul to me. His mother most definitely doesn't view him as an empty shell, like some plastic baby doll.

If the brain is all we are, and that boy doesn't have one (or more accurately, lacks the parts of the brain responsible for personality, creativity, and higher thinking) then why does that boy still look like any other person who we assume has a soul? Shouldn't he be a cold, lifeless, robotic shell? I see a warm, moving, living person there. Although you, most likely not a parent and definitely not his parent, look at him and see a shell, his mother, myself, and most likely any other parent sees a living, moving, growing baby boy who happens to lack the most complex parts of his brain.

Did you watch the video? It has a brain stem, not a brain. And parasites technically don't have brains yet they feed. Parasites are also able to respond to their surroundings as well.

DISCLAIMER: I'm no biologist or whatever.

Originally Posted by mattj

If the brain is all we are, and that boy doesn't have one (or more accurately, lacks the parts of the brain responsible for personality, creativity, and higher thinking) then why does that boy still look like any other person who we assume has a soul? Shouldn't he be a cold, lifeless, robotic shell? I see a warm, moving, living person there. Although you, most likely not a parent and definitely not his parent, look at him and see a shell, his mother, myself, and most likely any other parent sees a living, moving, growing baby boy who happens to lack the most complex parts of his brain.

A couple sources on Google(e.g. 1, 2) claim that the baby has Anencephaly where the forebrain, which is apparently the seat of thought and emotions, is missing. I'm not entirely sure whether or not these sources are completely true, but let's assume they are.

If Wikipedia is to be trusted, the baby lacks the capacity for thought and emotion due to not having a forebrain, but his retention of a midbrain would, as Wikipedia puts it, grant him control over/perception of "vision, hearing, motor control, sleep/wake, arousal (alertness), and temperature regulation."

If I'm not mistaken, the baby can therefore be considered sentient and able to react to external input, even if he lacks emotions. There's enough there for people who believe in souls to believe that Nicholas Cage Coke has one.

If we have fully functional brains that can reason, produce emotion, and process sensory information, and if we also have souls, and vice versa, then our designs are seriously redundant.

It's trivial enough to show that altering one's brain alters one's personality, mood, beliefs, and indeed everything that can be considered "you".

The thought that maybe the brain just interprets for the soul seems to solve that, but doesn't really. What of mental illness? Depression changes your entire view of the world. This isn't a case of you seeing things the same way but acting differently. If there is a soul then clinical depression can somehow alter it and, rather more confusingly, drugs can cure it. Odd for something without any physical existence.

Originally Posted by mattj

I'm not at all sure how that video makes you think that the soul doesn't exist. There's a living human being there in that video. I see that as evidence that the soul does exist. He lacks those parts that you believe are responsible for what we think of as a soul, and yet he exists. His mother holds him. He reacts to the breast. He reacts to touch. He grows. He moves. He lives. He is human. Although he is severely disabled, he looks and acts like he has a soul to me. His mother most definitely doesn't view him as an empty shell, like some plastic baby doll.

If the brain is all we are, and that boy doesn't have one (or more accurately, lacks the parts of the brain responsible for personality, creativity, and higher thinking) then why does that boy still look like any other person who we assume has a soul? Shouldn't he be a cold, lifeless, robotic shell? I see a warm, moving, living person there. Although you, most likely not a parent and definitely not his parent, look at him and see a shell, his mother, myself, and most likely any other parent sees a living, moving, growing baby boy who happens to lack the most complex parts of his brain.

Do you believe that a sufficiently advanced A.I./simulated human would have a soul? What about clones (Of the science-fiction nature, propagated from human tissue)?

Originally Posted by Grooston

The baby in the video can't see, hear, feel, or think. It doesn't have a brain. Technically it's not even human. It's just an empty shell.

That's the thing, see. It's human all right, down to the individual cellular level (which is really amazing to think about, considering the huge number of parts that must go together to form a complete organism).

The thing here is that he's physically human, but the emotions, feelings, mental function present in a normal human being simply don't exist. It doesn't make the defective human any less human because he/she can't think any more than not having a leg or an arm makes you inhuman.

Also, science has pretty much proven at this point that our individual consciousnesses is not the result of a spirit or soul or other metaphysical or supernatural entity. It's the result of physical connections within the brain that govern who you are.




That said, I don't understand the purpose of the video. Is it to say that those born with anencephaly are not human and don't deserve to live? Because as I said before, the presence of mental capacity isn't indicative of that right. The argument can be made that those who are unable to live without life support can be let to die if the relatives of that person are willing to do so, but in this case that child is perfectly capable of the functions required to live.

I don't see how it can be used to suggest or deny the existence of the soul.

It depends on how you define soul.


If a soul is some ghost that lives inside of you then leaves into the ghost world when you die, no.

If a soul is a reference to a sixth sense that connects us on a subbconscious level and you can use it to detect others and send messages, then maybe.

We never know what's real, but we should be rational.