The Death of the Soul
- Thread starter phildwyer
- Start date
parallelepipete said:
I'm an atheist, and if there was a god after all this, why would s/he want to let me into heaven
Why go to heaven where all the goodietwoshoes are, when you can party in hell for all eternity 
Anyway the soul is inherent in us all
In Bloom said:
Entirely up to you mate. But i'm certainly not here to explain such stuff. Either you get it yourself or you don't. And that IS the point.
I know what the soul is, you apparantly don't. With any luck you might one day. It will depend, to a great extent, on your ability to listen, and then forage ahead under your own steam.
Then pray tell, what is the soul? All you're doing is emitting a lot of hot air. What is the fucking point? Seriously, I don't understand what motivates you to waffle on about this bollocks if you're going to shit your pants and cop out the first time you're challenged.fela fan said:
Crispy said:
First, yes, anyone can spot this gap, but the trouble is that despite this fact, the manifestly absurd models of human behavior erected by neoclassical economics are increasingly influential, and are rapidly being imported into other areas of life. How many people experience this in practice at their workplace in the guise of management dogma that equates market motivation with human nature per se?
Second, if you believe that the mind is material, then you believe it is determined by material factors, so you are a determinist. There is no room for autonomous agency in a materialist theory of subjectivity.
gurrier said:
Obviously human beings can *never* experience the world 'as it is.' We can only experience the world as it appears to human beings. But you *do* think consciousness is an illusion, because you identify it with the material operations of the brain. You do not believe in a consciousness that can be differentiated from matter. Effectively, then, you do not believe in consciousness except as an illusion. An illusion, it seems, that you would very much like to abolish.
118118 said:Seeing as this thread is a response to criticism on your God thread, are you then going to try and show that the soul can exist indpendent of the self/brain.
Yes. But, learning from the bitter experience of the 'God' thread, I shall approach the issue initially in purely secular terms. My first task is to define the *self,* of which I now propose a three-fold definition: (1) it is the *essence* of a human being; (2) it is that in us which *experiences,* rather than that in us which is *experienced,* and (3) it is an *idea* rather than a material thing.
articul8 said:
Subject implies 'subject of experience.' That is, the *active* element of experience. You agree that experience exists, right? Well in that case there must be something that experiences (a subject) and something that is experienced (an object.) This subject is part of what I mean by the 'self,' which term, as I intend to demonstrate, is co-terminus with the 'soul.'
An 'independent consciousness' does not have to mean 'God.' All it has to mean is that consciousness can, *potentially* exist without a body.
I agree that the concept of 'nature' is a human construct, like all other concepts. I don't see how that invalidates my case though. And you're right about Foucault rehabilitating the autonomous subject at the end of his life--Derrida did much the same. Both of them were practically *Christians* by the end (I'm thinkg of Foucault's 'The Care of the Self,' and Derrrida's 'Specters of Marx' in particular). All the more reason to scorn their scholars who still insist that the subject is material.
trashpony said:
Really Trashpony, I can' see what your problem is. Its not as if I smeared the humousall over the banana or dipped the bananainto the humous, or anything like that. They were kept entirely separate at all times. Anyway, I'm going to a 'soul food' restaurant tonight. I actually hate 'soul food' a lot, as it is nothing but entrails and ears covered with gooey sauce, and accompanied by a vegetable with no name--they just call it 'greens.' Collared greens.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
"as it is nothing but entrails and ears covered with gooey sauce"
That sounds like my idea meal. Really. Want to suck my fingers phil?
That sounds like my idea meal. Really. Want to suck my fingers phil?
butchersapron said:
Actually its even worse than entrails and ears. When I lived in Harlem, I was constantly horrified by the meat section of the supermarket. They had pig's lungs, snouts, trotters and tails for sale. Obviously it tastes alright if you cover it with pungent sauce, but still.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I thought you were from wales? Never been down the end market on a friday? (or maybe that's a SW thing, though i'm sure it happens in south wales as well)
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Ah,was just the stuff that didn't get into the 'meat draw' , but went into the pot for stew and that...you'd love it 
That's a very silly equation. You seem to be saying that anything that arises out of material operations and is dependant on them is 'an illusion'. By that definition, interpersonal communication is an illusion, friendship is an illusion, electricity is an illusion, society is an illusion, etc, etc.phildwyer said:
Consciousness, like society, is an emergent property, not an illusion. It is utterly dependant on the physical brain which hosts the complex mesh of chemicals and electrical signals whose activity, in total, creates the emergent property of consciousness.
Gmart
Well-Known Member
I hope that i may comment on this thread which has amused me for a few days. Apologies if i have 'missed the point' with something, but I feel that there is much to comment on.
For a start i would like to point out that there are some things that we will never know. One of these is whether our self is an illusion or not, because it is the only way we see the world and so we have nothing to compare it with. The same goes for consciousness and freewill. We all see the world through our senses, not through anything else. It is a basic limitation we all have to accept. I accept what Gurrier says though i see consciousness as an approximation as opposed to an illusion. The physical world is there no doubt. And lets not get distracted by dead ends such as 'what does exist mean?'. Proof is also a matter of perspective and is thus limited by our senses too.
As Gurrier also says there is much which could be proved as an illusion, but that still exist. Such as friendship, cooperation, knowledge, language etc. These are metaphysical concepts which exist through our common perspective. I see no reason to question this.
I would suggest that no one would say that we don't have a self, because who is writing this post?
I prefer the Taoist quote that faith and fear are both illusions of the self.
The rant about economics is fine in that it does indeed approximate individuals by using assumption. Thus by starting by saying that everyone is a robot opens up the problem that people are not, and especially when they realise the pattern. An example would be the Phillips Curve which showed a correlation between inflation and unemployment, however the moment it was discovered it broke down because individuals at a micro level will try to take advantage of a pattern when it is revealed. Anyway economics only spots general trends, ie if one takes 1000 people what would they do given a set of variables. It is not a science.
The basic argument seems to be that all people are robots and 'hence the death of self'. I don't see how anyone could argue that without putting themselves into that group (typically the author usually adds an 'except me' clause), however even within modern life there is ample space for self expression. I don't believe that anyone really believes that they are determinists as this omits their ability to affect the world to any degree. Or does it?? (We can never know i feel).
I accept that there has been a tendency for managements and economists to use determinism to create laws. Even to the point of accusing individuals of crimes their models say they MUST have done, and failing to acknowledge that there might be a 'Factor X' their model failed to take into account. This concerns me as predicting conscious individuals is a risky business (Something i have noticed in some posts too). Usually a society has a set of rights to ofset this problem, though we do not in the UK.
Meanwhile the market is just a mechanism to distribute scarce resources. Many people complain about it but there is no better method as yet. It is only inevitable that the market will appeal to the younger part of the population as they are the more likely to be fooled. Eg the 'pop' industry etc.
I find that there is a tendency to lump all economic activity together, but in fact there are luxury products and essentials, and there is a lot of profit being made trying to persuade the stupid that a luxury is an essential.
There is also a usage of the word 'natural' with abandon. Everything is natural, it is a useless word. Humans evolved on this planet the same as everything else.
For a start i would like to point out that there are some things that we will never know. One of these is whether our self is an illusion or not, because it is the only way we see the world and so we have nothing to compare it with. The same goes for consciousness and freewill. We all see the world through our senses, not through anything else. It is a basic limitation we all have to accept. I accept what Gurrier says though i see consciousness as an approximation as opposed to an illusion. The physical world is there no doubt. And lets not get distracted by dead ends such as 'what does exist mean?'. Proof is also a matter of perspective and is thus limited by our senses too.
As Gurrier also says there is much which could be proved as an illusion, but that still exist. Such as friendship, cooperation, knowledge, language etc. These are metaphysical concepts which exist through our common perspective. I see no reason to question this.
I would suggest that no one would say that we don't have a self, because who is writing this post?
I prefer the Taoist quote that faith and fear are both illusions of the self.
The rant about economics is fine in that it does indeed approximate individuals by using assumption. Thus by starting by saying that everyone is a robot opens up the problem that people are not, and especially when they realise the pattern. An example would be the Phillips Curve which showed a correlation between inflation and unemployment, however the moment it was discovered it broke down because individuals at a micro level will try to take advantage of a pattern when it is revealed. Anyway economics only spots general trends, ie if one takes 1000 people what would they do given a set of variables. It is not a science.
The basic argument seems to be that all people are robots and 'hence the death of self'. I don't see how anyone could argue that without putting themselves into that group (typically the author usually adds an 'except me' clause), however even within modern life there is ample space for self expression. I don't believe that anyone really believes that they are determinists as this omits their ability to affect the world to any degree. Or does it?? (We can never know i feel).
I accept that there has been a tendency for managements and economists to use determinism to create laws. Even to the point of accusing individuals of crimes their models say they MUST have done, and failing to acknowledge that there might be a 'Factor X' their model failed to take into account. This concerns me as predicting conscious individuals is a risky business (Something i have noticed in some posts too). Usually a society has a set of rights to ofset this problem, though we do not in the UK.
Meanwhile the market is just a mechanism to distribute scarce resources. Many people complain about it but there is no better method as yet. It is only inevitable that the market will appeal to the younger part of the population as they are the more likely to be fooled. Eg the 'pop' industry etc.
I find that there is a tendency to lump all economic activity together, but in fact there are luxury products and essentials, and there is a lot of profit being made trying to persuade the stupid that a luxury is an essential.
There is also a usage of the word 'natural' with abandon. Everything is natural, it is a useless word. Humans evolved on this planet the same as everything else.
- Besides, deterministic does not mean predictable - as any meteorologist will tell you!(1) What do you mean by "essence"? Defining characteristic? Serious question, btw.phildwyer said:
(2) Surely consciousness is merely (and I use the word merely in the sense of "no more than", not to suggest that consciousness is not a vital part of human beings) our awareness of experience? That is to say, when you experience something, you are conscious of experiencing it, e.g., your eyes recieve light, which then send a signal to your brain informing you that there is light coming through, your brain then forms a picture from the light recieved, which is your experience of it (if that makes sense).
(3) False dichotomy, why can't something be both an idea and a material thing? If consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, then it follows that ideas are stored in a material form in the brain.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
phildwyer said:
I have some sympathy with your arguments against a dogmatic materialism. However, the problem with your argument is that, in doing so, you leap back to an untenable idealism. You won't acknowledge a more sophisticated materialism which does not reduce consciousness to some physiological processes, but nevertheless makes material embodiment a condition of possibility of all conscious experience.
I also detect some slippage between "subjectivity" and "consciousness". Even if I was prepared, for the time being, to accept that 'consciousness' is not inherently rooted in the material, I am certainly not prepared to recognise that 'self' consciousness can, since the latter is necessarily dependent upon language acquisition, which in turn is grounded in the material signifier and the material human community in which it is in circulation.
I'm not sure it makes any sense to speak of "experience" without reference to the kind of embodied, creaturely beings we are as humans, ie. a condition which involves necessarily, 'being with' (in the Heideggerian sense) other humans. As Wittgenstein says, "If a lion could speak, we couldn't understand him". ie. once you conjure materiality out of the picture, you no longer have any 'experience' of which a 'subject' or 'object' may be predicated.
This has been bugging me for a while now. Not the content, which is consistent with what has gone before, but the spelling of 'coterminous'. I think as an adjective it should be spelled as I have - the other spelling IMO occurs only in apposition with two other nouns. Either that or it's some horrible Americanism.
stdPikachu
Plughole in bathtub curve
In Bloom said:
Only through purity of essence can we stop the Godless atheists contaminating our precious bodily fluids. Ice cream, In Bloom. Kiddies ice cream.
Archbishop Temple revisited in the attempt to reinvigorate Christian Theism through associating it with anti-capitalism? Though why we should resort to the discourse of the old slave masters to resist the ever-extending invasions of the new is a non question. There is quite simply no reason for associating scepticism, rationalism and agnosticism with the specific totalitarian project of globalist late capitalism - other than to attempt to give a spurious radical sheen to a reactionary version of theism. (We note the Daily Mailesque concern for our moral decline!) It is the same game as played by the nonconformist Whigs who sought to associate such views with Bonapartism and the same game as that played by "liberal" Cold Warriors who sought to smear such views as "Red" totalitarian in inspiration.
Apart from this, I thought the theist view was to project a view of a threefold nature of man - Body, Mind and Soul? But on here mind and soul appear to be conflated, with some fluff about making it more palatable for the dim/evil/deluded sceptics. I thought "soul" was supposed to be some undefinable undetectable "essence", quite separate from that confluence of memory and conciousness that can be called mind?
If consciousness is highly alterable through chemical, physical or mental methods, (as well experienced in these parts) , then surely it cannot be identified with some kind of permanent "self"? Similarly, as has been said, would a "self" without memory, socialisation or language be able to perceive itself or be externally perceived ? The materialist viewpoint is much simpler - Mind is a function of the brain/body, soul is only a non-verifiable assertion.
Having said all that, of course, if self is a combination of memory, conciousness and time, then it is not a material thing but a process, and in theory a process can occur in other mediums than the physical body. However, it is then incumbent on those who would posit any kind of non physical existence to prove, or even give reasonable indications of any evidence for any kind of non-material reality in which processes can have independent existence.
Interesting reflections on this sort of thing in the last few chapters of Umberto Eco's "The Island of The Day Before", BTW
There is quite simply no reason for associating scepticism, rationalism and agnosticism with the specific totalitarian project of globalist late capitalism - other than to attempt to give a spurious radical sheen to a reactionary version of theism. (We note the Daily Mailesque concern for our moral decline!) It is the same game as played by the nonconformist Whigs who sought to associate such views with Bonapartism and the same game as that played by "liberal" Cold Warriors who sought to smear such views as "Red" totalitarian in inspiration. Apart from this, I thought the theist view was to project a view of a threefold nature of man - Body, Mind and Soul? But on here mind and soul appear to be conflated, with some fluff about making it more palatable for the dim/evil/deluded sceptics.
I thought "soul" was supposed to be some undefinable undetectable "essence", quite separate from that confluence of memory and conciousness that can be called mind?If consciousness is highly alterable through chemical, physical or mental methods, (as well experienced in these parts)
, then surely it cannot be identified with some kind of permanent "self"? Similarly, as has been said, would a "self" without memory, socialisation or language be able to perceive itself or be externally perceived ? The materialist viewpoint is much simpler - Mind is a function of the brain/body, soul is only a non-verifiable assertion.Having said all that, of course, if self is a combination of memory, conciousness and time, then it is not a material thing but a process, and in theory a process can occur in other mediums than the physical body. However, it is then incumbent on those who would posit any kind of non physical existence to prove, or even give reasonable indications of any evidence for any kind of non-material reality in which processes can have independent existence.
Interesting reflections on this sort of thing in the last few chapters of Umberto Eco's "The Island of The Day Before", BTW
Well, you can do something no religion can do, prove the existence of god, though we've yet to see this proof. And you know something that philosphers continue to deny since the age of Plato, the existence of freewill. And your theory of the mind is at odds with modern science. You've got a lot of explaining to do boyo.
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