All living things have souls

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 42 here:

1) All living things have "souls," but "soul"=/="immaterial."

For debate:

Please offer some means to confirm the referenced claim is true.

[Zzyzx]

.

AND, any claim that "soul = life" strongly departs from biblical / religious descriptions of a "soul" as an entity that transcends death.

Here's a biblical description of what happens to "souls":

The soul that sinneth, it shall die. (Ezekiel 18:4)

Does the "soul" that dies transcend death?

Beats me. I do not pretend to know about "souls" but others seem to think (or pretend) that they know. The writer of Ezekiel, whoever that may have been, seemed to be claiming knowledge -- or was it imagination or exaggeration? How can we tell?

To the best of my knowledge, what "transcends death" are memories about the person and works they may have left. I am open to considering other possibilities given verifiable evidence (not opinions and testimonials -- ancient or modern).

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 25 by dianaiad]

Dark Matter is observable... it has mass, and causes gravity.
It is distinguishable from other massive particles by sheer weight, and by how weakly it must interact.

I didn't say anything of "if I can't see it, it ain't there", I (effectively) said "If souls don't/can't directly interact with anything but their own bodies, even other souls doesn't this make them inherently unreasonable by parsimony?".

I can't think of a better analogy for this than a programming related one, but as simply put as possible, if souls only interact with their own bodies, everything that a soul is/has/does could instead be of the body (making this kind of soul redundant).

Or at best (as I tried to phrase as 'a poor word to use', a simple description of a subset of properties of something else.

[David the apologist]

From Post 11:

I have several "big posts" I'm working on right now, so the best I can do for the time being is reference you to chapter 8 of David Oderberg's book Real Essentialism.

"I ain't got me no time to present it, 'cause here it is, I spent all my time explaining why I ain't got me no time to present it" is as poor an excuse as I've ever known.

Actually, I had spent all my time working on a reply to Divine Insight in the cosmological argument thread.

[dianaiad]

[Replying to post 25 by dianaiad]

Dark Matter is observable... it has mass, and causes gravity.
It is distinguishable from other massive particles by sheer weight, and by how weakly it must interact.

I didn't say anything of "if I can't see it, it ain't there", I (effectively) said "If souls don't/can't directly interact with anything but their own bodies, even other souls doesn't this make them inherently unreasonable by parsimony?".

Parsimony...or Occam's razor or whatever you want to call it, is actually a lousy 'law.' that is, it might be a lot easier for the thinker to go for the simplest answer, but 'simple' doesn't always equal 'true.'

In fact, 'simple' is always suspicious. There's always something unforeseen, or that sneaks up behind you. Now, this doesn't prove that something like the soul (and that word bugs me, because 'soul' is actually the combination of spirit and body, and you are using it as a synonym for 'spirit' only. I have to switch mental gears here) exists. It DOES prove that deciding that it does not because of 'parsimony' is probably unwise.

I can't think of a better analogy for this than a programming related one, but as simply put as possible, if souls only interact with their own bodies, everything that a soul is/has/does could instead be of the body (making this kind of soul redundant).

Could be, if this is true.

Is it?

Or at best (as I tried to phrase as 'a poor word to use', a simple description of a subset of properties of something else.

What 'something else" did you have in mind?

[Zzyzx]

.

Parsimony...or Occam's razor or whatever you want to call it, is actually a lousy 'law.' that is, it might be a lot easier for the thinker to go for the simplest answer, but 'simple' doesn't always equal 'true.'

Actually, Diana, Occam's Razor should be considered a principle rather than a law AND it should be applied exactly as stated.

The principle states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove correct, but"in the absence of certainty"the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

That is very different from, and much more complex than, the common usage "the simplest answer is best"

Note the emphasis on assumptions " and note that assumptions are not synonymous with evidence.

In fact, 'simple' is always suspicious.

I agree

[sleepyhead]

[Replying to post 23 by DanieltheDragon]

Hello Dianaiad and Daniel the dragon,

dianaiad >>>In fact, 'simple' is always suspicious. There's always something unforeseen, or that sneaks up behind you. Now, this doesn't prove that something like the soul (and that word bugs me, because 'soul' is actually the combination of spirit and body, and you are using it as a synonym for 'spirit' only. I have to switch mental gears here) exists.<<<

When the body dies it turns to ashes and then some of the atoms eventually become parts of other peoples bodies. You being LDS I know you believe that God will round up all these atoms and put our bodies back together again but I'm not sure if that viewpoint is held by modern day Christianity. Anyway I will now use the term spirit instead of soul so you don't get bugged anymore.

D the D>>>reasonable?<<<

it's good to know you went along with part A as reasonable so now I need to go from A to B.

How do you make the leap that:

Life exists on earth ergo souls exist all over the universe and they can experience life in the flesh for a period of time
Very few of the bodies produced on earth are perfect. Some have major medical problems at birth. Other medical problems may pop up later in life. Since part A is based on the ability of Nature to produce life on earth, then since this life is often times imperfect we have to assume that the spirits that Nature (if it does produce spirits) would also be imperfect. Now suppose that the spirit spending some time in physical bodies was a way of repairing any deficiency in the spirit. Nature provides ways for physical bodies to heal themselves. Wouldn't it be logical that if by inhabiting physical bodies spirits were able to be healed that nature would find a way of allowing it?

Can you define the attributes of a soul?

Can you explain how you come to the conclusion that the soul has these attributes?

Can you verify that a soul exists?

The answer to all of the above is not without relying on my faith system.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 21:

...
As for the OP, hey, I was responding you you, sweetie, (and I mean that in all the best possible ways...) not the OP. I don't happen to think I need to offer you evidence sufficient to convince you in order for me to believe something.

No offense taken.

That said, I do find it a rather goofy notion to enter into debate and swear up and down how fancy one is, simply 'cause they believe 'em something.

After all, do you think you must offer evidence sufficient to convince me that there is no deity in order for you to dismiss the idea of the existence of one?
...

Please link to and quote verbatim those claims I've made which you seek to challenge, and I'll set to it.

I've challenged the position put forth in the OP.

I await the Christian, or anyone who can show up and put truth to the challenged claim/s.

"Well Joey, we can't, but danged if we ain't us proud for thinking it" does nothing to establish the veracity of the challenged claims.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 22:

I can't prove it either.

There's another'n.

Part A. We know that life appears and survives on the earth on even the most remote and hostile places. All that life, in order for us to know about it requires a body. It seems to me reasonable that other life (souls) would be produced all over the universe that wouldn't have a body.

Part B. If there are souls, would it really be that difficult if a soul wanted to experience life in flesh for a period of time, for it to inhabit a physical body.

If.

We can use if to summon us up plates of biscuits piled so high we set to frettin' the gravy supply. What we can't do is if the pretty thing into the kitchen to make 'em.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 33:

Actually, I had spent all my time working on a reply to Divine Insight in the cosmological argument thread.

"It just breaks my heart to know I had me the time to make the claims, only don't it beat all, now that you've challenged my claims, I done run so short of time, all I can do is tell how I can't show I speak truth, 'cause it is, I done spent all my time a-tellin' how I can't show I speak truth, 'cause it is, I done run out of time a-tellin' how it is, I can't show I speak truth."

Twice.

In a row.


Conclusions?

Time is the enemy of those who can't show they speak truth.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 34 by dianaiad]

Namely the body, but as I see it, parsimony can be filed directly under rationality, and addresses plausibility and what is reasonable.

Most every day things aren't really addressed by parsimony, one reason being there isn't a great deal of difference in simplicity. (outside professional research, courts of law, etc)

In maths, this isn't "this solution is simpler to think of therefore true", the simpler is actually "this very complicated solution follows the laws of mathematics" - because the previous breaks existing rules without justification. Similarly, an exception to a rule is also a decrement in simplicity (which is why it should be justified).

As an example of something that isn't outwise observable, say someone was abducted by unobservable aliens instantaneously and replaced with an exact replica. Nobody could possibly tell.
That is not reasonable to believe because of parsimony. The alternative is necessarily simpler (or justified in its complexities), making it an inherently bad idea. Similarly, if someone says anything impossible (but internally consistent), provided they prefix it with "the laws of physics don't apply to it", it is now "possible" for anyone that does not approve of parsimony.

The specific problem is, what was being said was "X has this set of properties. For no reason, I'm going to take Y (a subset of X's properties) and put them in another object, one that violates various physical laws, and claim it is influencing X".

The only reason you ever do anything like this this, is to make something easier to contemplate, or to discuss something abstract that it has in common with other things. In terms of programming, you may do something similar in an object oriented program, to make it more readable and maintainable, but when saving such an object to a file you'd certainly want to group them back together. (otherwise you've effectively got two files/sections of a file for one thing)