I must be misremembering. Don't you reject materialism and idealism for being essentialist (in the substance sense)?
"Is Man Just Another Animal?" Professor Steve Jones says...
- Thread starter gorski
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I must be misremembering. Don't you reject materialism and idealism for being essentialist (in the substance sense)?
How do you know dolphin souls don't comprise nous?
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
if we are really lucky (or unlucky?) it will hang out with everyone else in the great gestalt consciosness AI funspace.
But in any case anything that poos is an animal imo.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
How can we be sure about what animals' perceptions of the world are like?
We can assume and extrapolate; but we can't be sure.
bimble
floofy
Yeah. In that book childhoods end, did the children poo?
mojo pixy
שיר חדש
Here's one I did enjoy though
Millroy the Magician
Millroy the Magician
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Jon travolta is laying out a cable when shot in Pulp Fiction.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
yes, you're correct, he was suprised on the way out. Always take your silenced submachine gun into the throneroom with you, thats a human trick he didn't learn
bimble
floofy
Curiously, Darwin kept a meticulous diary of his poos. Their consistency, timings etc. It did not make him feel less 'reason'ed or soulful.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
I really hope you aren't arguing this and rather you're paraphrasing how you (wrongly) think people are misrepresenting you're arguments. If it is the latter you need to clearly state it - no question marks, no mad punctuation, just clearly explain exactly what you meant. If it is the former then you're a cunt and can fuck off.
mojo pixy
שיר חדש
So even if we agree to call this I-that-is-I we each have, a soul - how can we possibly say all other animals definitely don't have one? My own experience of animals (anecdotal, yes) leads me to conclude that whatever it is that gives me my me-ness, most if not all mammals have, to a certain extent. Cats, dogs, horses, pigs, rats - they are not all identical. I'm fully convinced that a great many animals besides ourselves have an I-that-is-I.
The versatility creatures possess to make conscious use of this awareness is for me only a matter of degree, not of essence.
The versatility creatures possess to make conscious use of this awareness is for me only a matter of degree, not of essence.
gorski
customised free radical
Would you look at yourself and your own language?
Who are you to pontificate to me, when I was defending myself from unending attacks of the brainless
and "soulless" 
as it were... 
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
No. There's a quantitative difference. Our brains do much 'more' of what it is that brains do, than animal brains - so much more that we've convinced ourselves that we must be different from them. We're not.
It's like comparing a Commodore 64 with the most recent generations of computers. The Commodore had 64k RAM. Looking around, it appears that now, there is 128GB RAM available on a single stick. The capabilities of the two things are vastly different. But at essence, they are the same type of thing.
A qualitative difference would be if human skin contained chlorophyll, and we were able to synthesize energy from light. That's something that no animal can do.
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bubblesmcgrath
Well-Known Member
Thanks...I'm just home again from hospital. Tired and feeling a bit dejected.
Going to have an early night.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
No part of the soul is material, so none of it will be eaten by worms or "hang out" as you put it.
But appetite and emotion depend on the body and will therefore die along with it. That isn't necessarily true of reason (though I'm agnostic regarding its immortality as I suspect everyone is).
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Dolphins have souls.
Truly, you learn something new every day.
Truly, you learn something new every day.
bimble
floofy
I started typing a response to this but really, there;s no point.
lefteri
Well-Known Member
Reason appears to have died somewhere in this thread
gorski
customised free radical
Johnny, one MUST know Hegel for this one to "work" - you just can not understand it without it. You have some 'notes' in my posts...
Phil did set out various characteristics of what he means by "soul" - but most "debaters" have either forgotten it in a jiffy or never understood it for starters. Not dissimilar to treatment of my posts - ignore and wilfully misinterpret, stretch my meaning madly to suit their needs, never make an effort, never ask the right questions. Bah!
And the nature of questions put forward to him is generally rather lamentable, usually coming from crude materialism, positivism, biologism and whatnot. The worst is that plenty of forumites seem to treat him with blessed, hardly contained contempt, even though he invented thinking for them...
Phil did set out various characteristics of what he means by "soul" - but most "debaters" have either forgotten it in a jiffy or never understood it for starters. Not dissimilar to treatment of my posts - ignore and wilfully misinterpret, stretch my meaning madly to suit their needs, never make an effort, never ask the right questions. Bah!
And the nature of questions put forward to him is generally rather lamentable, usually coming from crude materialism, positivism, biologism and whatnot. The worst is that plenty of forumites seem to treat him with blessed, hardly contained contempt, even though he invented thinking for them...
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Yes he did; but you didn't. That's why I'm asking you, and not him.
I'm also asking another question, that I haven't seen you address: do you agree with Phil that the basis for human exceptionalism is the possession by humans of an immortal soul?
Why not?
Serious question. Are you so wedded to materialism that any other approach to life strikes you as irrational?
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