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Don Paul
Social climber
Denver CO
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May 18, 2018 - 05:56pm PT
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This is giving me a headache! I prefer approaches based on the study of the brain. As for philosophers, the only one I've read who seemed to have much to say was Daniel Dennett (the so called "intentional stance" in which an outside observer sees that an animal or whatever, behaves intentionally), but even he doesn't pretend to resolve much. Now I'll go back to arguing over whether the Casual Route is a sandbag at 5.10a, lol.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 18, 2018 - 06:33pm PT
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but even he doesn't pretend to resolve much
Yeah, that's because Dennett engages in a punt that most philosophers of mind don't have much respect for: He simply "denies the phenomena." That's not an "explanation" or even an error-theory. I've read all of his material on mind, and I am perpetually amazed at how many pages he can devote to what amounts to a punt.
Perhaps a crucial point for our purposes here is that it's not clear that "mind" is even relevant to a discussion of "soul." Putting the two together would offer a pathway to an empirical discussion of "soul," which would likely appeal to the scientists/scientifically-minded among us. But I'm not sympathetic to presuming that "evidence" amounts to all and only empirical evidence, and you need that sort of presumption to neatly conflate soul and mind for the desired purposes.
As I've sort of "baldly stated" above (and can't really even begin to argue for, given the density of the matter), I don't grant that the "soul" is an empirically-accessible entity, as I think that all empirical "data" presupposes its activity. So, I think that the "soul" will remain forever out of our perceptual reach. We can "know it" only in terms of the barest description of its necessary activities a la Kant.
I honestly think that what most participants here are looking for IS a conflation of mind and soul, so that they can make assertions about mind being either material or immaterial. Philosophy of mind is good, clean fun in itself (I don't know of any diseases you can catch by doing it), but that's the mind thread rather than a separate soul thread.
I guess I don't think that much can be said about soul apart from mind. Even Kant's proof that "it" exists doesn't get most people what they are after when talking about a "soul," since Kant's account leaves the "soul" pretty barren, certainly nothing like the "life after death" folks are seeking to account for. Kant denies the term "soul" being applied to his "I think." And once you're in the empirical realm of discussion, people want "soul" to mean something like "self-consciousness." But that's just mind.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 18, 2018 - 06:37pm PT
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the only one I've read who seemed to have much to say was Daniel Dennett
I highly recommend John Searle. He has some really accessible works that are much smaller (and yet more information-laden) than Dennett's efforts. A really good little book is: Minds, Brains, and Science. Very short, but very perspicuous!
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WBraun
climber
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May 18, 2018 - 06:48pm PT
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Self-consciousness is NOT the mind.
The self is the soul itself which is consciousness itself.
The seat of consciousness in the living entity is the soul.
The modern gross materialists are always in poor fund of knowledge due to being stuck in material only consciousness,
The living entity itself is purely spiritual in nature being contaminated by the inferior material energies.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 18, 2018 - 06:59pm PT
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Self-consciousness is NOT the mind.
The self is the soul itself which is consciousness itself.
I don't understand this.
By "consciousness itself" are you referring to something that is not "self-consciousness"?
Are you talking about a "universal consciousness" that is NOT self-consciousness?
If so, then in what sense are you talking about a "self" at all? You are talking about a consciousness that is in-principle NOT a "self" or that can be "self-conscious"?
Until I can get clear on at least this much, I can't understand what you are claiming about soul.
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WBraun
climber
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May 18, 2018 - 07:07pm PT
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The individual soul is NOT universal.
It is part parcel with all qualities but NOT the quantity of the whole consciousness, God.
The individual soul has personality and is NOT impersonal ever and neither is God impersonal ever ....
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 18, 2018 - 07:15pm PT
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The self is the soul itself which is consciousness itself.
Thank you, Werner!
So, you are talking about an individual self when you talk about "consciousness itself." But this "self" is not (apparently in-principle) self-conscious? It is "conscious" but not "self-conscious"?
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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May 18, 2018 - 07:24pm PT
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Searle over Dennett every time. Dennett hasn't groped his way out of behavioralism. Searle is very lucid and solid on his philosophy.
Now that you mention Kant, the big question with Manny is that his ideas morphed over time, though not as much as Wittgenstein, who heavily influenced Searle. What Ludwig did make clear is the trouble with explaining anything. Simply describe. And go from there.
"Veil of perception" is not what I was talking about (the whole "veil" thing harks back to Ahab's monologue en wait for the white whale). My sense is that you believe that perception can shift but not what we perceive - EXCEPT in perception. Fact is, how we perceive is what we experience. There's no immutable stuff "out there."
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 18, 2018 - 07:59pm PT
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Fact is, how we perceive is what we experience. There's no immutable stuff "out there."
I'm not clear how to read you on this, John. I take you seriously, believe me. Perhaps this is better on the mind thread, although I quickly tired of the barrage of speculative opinion over there. And nobody will tolerate the repeated WoTs that it takes to be rigorous in such discussions. So, I find this venue to be virtually useless.
Regardless, I'm not seeing how this discussion explicates "soul." I may be obtuse, and I'm not just saying that. Werner seems to be saying that mind is not soul, but I can't yet make sense of how I'm reading him. So I'm confident that I'm misunderstanding. To a lesser extent, same with my reading of you. But I don't see "soul" in any of it yet.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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May 19, 2018 - 07:40am PT
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Largo: What Ludwig did make clear is the trouble with explaining anything. Simply describe. And go from there.
Yes, but this is not trivial (although it might seem that way to some).
Madbolter1,
+1 on your assessment of the Mind thread.
It's hard to see how we're going to get very far with conversations on soul (I suspect) for the very same reasons that may show up soon here in this thread. At least consciousness seems to be self-evident to everyone. Soul, less so.
Back to Ludwig: what does one experience with regards to soul?
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WBraun
climber
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May 19, 2018 - 07:51am PT
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The soul is consciousness itself.
One and the same.
We are the individual soul operating the material body.
We are NOT this material body, nor are we material ever, and we transmigrate to another body at the time of death according to our developed consciousness.
Our material body has been given to us according to our developed consciousness ....
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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May 19, 2018 - 09:48am PT
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Really great insights from everyone here. Dingus must have found God. He sounds like Uncle Remus. I could use some of that. And Madbolter and Mike have expressed the exasperation most feel about the mind thread. And here, about "soul."
I've never know what "soul" means in any tangible way, if it means anything. My felt-sense says soul refers to my vague and fleeting experience of individual participation in something bigger than myself, some context in which everything else plays out. Maybe it's graspable, but not by me. John Burroughs said that religious forms change over time, but the sentiment of religion - the wonder and reverence and love we feel in the flux of an inscrutable universe - persist. There's the soul right there, though that won't help those searching for something observable, so they can say, "that's it."
Mike's point - and Ludwig's obsession - about NOT explaining, rather describing, is a big one for me, and harks back to what I mentioned about perspective.
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eeyonkee
Trad climber
Golden, CO
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May 19, 2018 - 11:12am PT
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Perhaps this is better on the mind thread, although I quickly tired of the barrage of speculative opinion over there. I hope that you are not referring to the scientific opinion on that thread. For the most part, it is merely reflecting the current consensus of scientific opinion. You are an evolution denier. You are an outlier (although I kind of like you:)).
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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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May 19, 2018 - 02:14pm PT
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Of course Soul exists, and it’s very clean. I’ve done a layover there a couple of times on the way to New Delhi.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 19, 2018 - 02:44pm PT
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Consider Ed H - does he WoM when he needs to discuss physics? And yet, he communicates superbly. So do you, when you want to.
The huge difference is that Ed gets prima facie respect and credibility not granted to "just a philosopher." He could spout pure BS and nobody would call him on it (well, I do now and then when he slips into philosophical mode).
Most people don't think of themselves as physicists and really don't understand "the work," as you say.
But stark contrast, most people do think that they are pretty much on a par with trained philosophers, and, while they don't really understand "the work," they presume that they could (or do) do it just as well.
You hear all these accusations of this or that fallacy that people didn't even bother to look up on Wikipedia to begin to get it right. And it's just too much hassle to explain the nuances of how they are getting it wrong, while still trying to cover some substantive content.
Nah, it's a bad comparison to Ed. Ed has "authority" that no "mere philosopher" will ever have here. I'm perpetually put in an untenable bind between, "That's just your opinion" (as though theirs is on the same level as mine) and "WoT, WoT."
Only the simplest and most superficial treatment of most subjects can fly here, but that just helps people feel like, "My opinion is just as valid."
I'm not complaining. I've accepted the way things work here, and I've learned the limitations of the venue. But you really can't compare my efforts to Ed's.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 19, 2018 - 02:57pm PT
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I hope that you are not referring to the scientific opinion on that thread. For the most part, it is merely reflecting the current consensus of scientific opinion.
That's fine, as long as it's not considered gospel. When you presume an empirical hammer, all you see are empirical nails; and that deeply begs the question when talking about mind.
You are an evolution denier.
That depends on what you mean by "evolution."
You are an outlier
Yup, I get that a lot. LOL
I will say that all of my education was at secular schools, and UCSB was no "fluffy" graduate program. When I was there it was ranked number three in philosophy of language and logic and top-five in epistemology and metaphysics. I studied under some of the finest philosophers on the planet. And I was told flat out and repeatedly, "You could be a downright great philosopher, if only we could cure you of this ridiculous theism." So, they tried, and I TRIED to be cured! I honestly did.
But on just too many fronts, imo, the naturalistic explanation fails to explicate. Interestingly, of the many atheist professors that tried to cure me, almost all ended up telling me, "Because of you I'm more 'agnostic' than atheist, and I'm certainly more sympathetic to your critiques of naturalism than I would have thought possible." That, however, followed years and years of courses, readings, and lengthy discussions that I could not even begin to encapsulate in this venue.
By the end of my graduate work, I was considered much less of an "outlier" than at the start. I do understand that people like me are the minority, though, and I am dismayed at how intellectually weak and even vapid most Christian "apologetics" is. Frankly, I'm not much of a "Christian" either, so I find myself pretty much "a man without a country" intellectually.
(although I kind of like you:)).
Right back atcha. :-)
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J Wells
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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May 19, 2018 - 03:29pm PT
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You can turn any 'good' soul into a killing monster with a little alteration of neurochemicals or other malignancies like tumors. It seems too easy to alter both perception and behavior with much more earthly materials.
So then do we separate soul from good and/or evil, from personality and actions/behavior?
Fear's comment didn't really get addressed, or I missed it.
Is behavior driven by physiology/genetics, luck, and the sum of experience and not the soul?
Can humans judge if a soul is good or evil? Would that require a complete understanding of the effects of physiology/genetics, luck, and the sum of experience, and the ability to separate that out from the soul?
Werner: It is part parcel with all qualities but NOT the quantity of the whole consciousness, God.
Maybe I don't get what that means but if God exists and our souls are part (but not the whole) of God, then how can a soul be evil? I'm assuming God has no evil. Does evil/good even exist? Just asking, I have no idea.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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May 19, 2018 - 06:59pm PT
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You hear all these accusations of this or that fallacy that people didn't even bother to look up on Wikipedia to begin to get it right. And it's just too much hassle to explain the nuances of how they are getting it wrong, while still trying to cover some substantive content.
Pretty much. One of the biggest myths found here (less) and elsewhere (mucho) is that so long as you have the physical data, you have the entire plot, and so long as you get the facts straight, you're fundamental problems, the real ones, are close to being resolved. This comes from the illusion that real questions can only be addressed with quantifications.
My sense of it is that though perspective is a topic re relativity, few of this crowd understand the implications, that each perspective renders this at the exclusion of that. If a future "objective" machine with a billion times our capacity investigated a human brain and watched human behavior it would never suspect anything like experience. This was Nagel's point when he said that the phenomenological was not a question of physical causality, which can never show it in the first place, though few understand why, and insist this will be sorted out once the data is in - the data that our "machine" had times a million.
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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May 19, 2018 - 07:45pm PT
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This was Nagel's point when he said that the phenomenological was not a question of physical causality, which can never show it in the first place, though few understand why, and insist this will be sorted out once the data is in - the data that our "machine" had times a million.
Spot on. Too many philosophers of mind call this "the problem of qualia," but Nagal was making a subtler point than most realize. Reductionists haven't gotten far enough to recognize that there is a problem.
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