Rational Explanations to Religions

[bilby]

Sorry, but you are out of date.

Of course, QFT could be wrong; but it is the best tested scientific theory in history; If it is wrong, then everything in science is up for grabs, and we know nothing.

It is significantly more likely that we will discover that NASA is wrong, and that the Moon actually is made of cheese, than it is that life after death is possible.

I agree that Reincarnation is just speculation but unlike heaven and hell, it does hold itself up to scrutiny. As time goes by our record keeping gets better and better - if some child says i was born in x place in such and such a year and lived this way, we can now check. Of course skeptics dismiss it as nothing but the child hearing about such a person

Wisely so, given that no possible mechanism exists for it to be true. One should treat such claims as equally implausible with perpetual motion machines - they cannot be true without demolishing all of science, so they can be dismissed out of hand.

And then there is the soul - Consciousness - what is it?

It can only be electrochemical activity in the brain, because there isn't anything else that can interact with brains; and we know that brains interact with consciousness.

What makes us conscious? How come Big Blue with the ability to crunch lots of lots of data not have consciousness? Are computers still primitive? If we build a quantum computer one day will it get conscious and start communicating with us?

We don't know. But we DO know enough to rule out dualistic explanations.

The 'soul' cannot be a separate thing from the physical activity in the brain; because if it was, there would be no way for the two parts to affect each other - and we know that simple changes to the brain DO have an effect on consciousness (at least, we do if we have ever been drunk, used drugs, or been anaesthetised.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Fel1VKEN8[/YOUTUBE]

I am sorry there is a lot that we do not know - you are dismissing concerns just because the label says religion - that is a problem

No, I am absolutely not doing that.

I am dismissing incorrect assertions, that have been demonstrated to be impossible by science.

If you tell me you have built a perpetual motion machine, I can tell you that this cannot be true. Not because it is labelled 'religion' - there is nothing religious about such a machine - but because it is simply scientifically impossible. (Or, more accurately, for it to be possible, we would need to be almost completely wrong about almost everything; and we can't be that wrong about that much, or we would have noticed that almost everything we try to do simply doesn't work at all).

You do realize that we have 2 brains? One is the old reptilian one and the other the neo-cortex? They do things differently?

That's simply not true. We have one brain; it has a LOT of different regions, with different roles and evolutionary histories.

And then we also have the left brain and the right brain?

Yes, the brain is divided into two hemispheres, with only limited communication between them. So what?

Different parts of the brain do different things - control different things?

Of course. So what?

The brain is not just one unit - we have not yet discovered the soul - consciousness - you have not yet explained why Big Blue with all the electrical activity is not conscious - what is missing in the Big Blue and other computers? Why is a dog that is so much less than Big Blue have consciousness and is aware of itself? A lot of animals are also

" One should treat such claims as equally implausible with perpetual motion machines - they cannot be true without demolishing all of science, so they can be dismissed out of hand" - that's crazy thing to say - something like what Einstein said when he heard that particles can be at two places at the same time! Nothing demolishes Science - it just adds another layer just as the quantum world has done

I don't NEED to explain how consciousness works in order to know it CANNOT be by the influence of a separate 'soul' that communicates with the physical brain; Any more than I NEED to know the exact geology of the lunar core to know that it CANNOT be made of Stilton.

There is nothing crazy about dismissing perpetual motion machines or souls on this basis. Einstein didn't like quantum mechanics. So he was wrong. So what? When an idea is new and untested, lots of very smart people will be wrong in their guesses as to how it will pan out - even for ideas less strange than Quantum Physics.

But we are not talking about a new idea - QFT is the best tested theory in history; we know it is true.

Science limits what is possible. That's its strength; that's how it works. It eliminates the wrong ideas from the infinite number of possible ideas, leaving us only with that which can be shown to be true; and it all fits together.

There are no souls; there is no reincarnation, no heaven and no hell.

If you don't want to put in the effort to learn QFT for yourself, to understand why this is so, you can instead ask people (like Sean Carroll), who have put in the effort.

If you think he is wrong, then it is up to YOU to prove it - a Nobel prize awaits, so go for your life.

There is a lot we don't know; but there is a lot WE - humanity - DO know; and that souls are impossible is one of those things. Of course, there are many individuals who don't know this; but they are not qualified to hold an opinion.

If I say the capital of Burkina Faso is Ouagadougu, You can learn some geography, and find out if I am right or wrong; or you can go there and check for yourself. You need not take my word for it. But if you haven't been there yourself, or taken a geography class, then you can't justify claiming that I don't know the right answer on the sole basis that you don't know it.

You don't know. That's OK. I do know; and I am not asking you to take my word - I have provided links to information from a highly qualified expert. You need not even take HIS word - you can enrol in college, learn QFT, and see for yourself.

But you can't just claim I don't know.

Sorry, but the answers are known - dualism cannot be right; souls cannot exist. The brain is made of atoms. We know all the things atoms can be influenced by at the temperatures and pressures we live in; and we can detect all of them; and we cannot detect anything that could be, or even allow for, a soul.

The Moon might be made of green cheese; but we know it can't be. Scientifically speaking, the idea that the Moon is made of green cheese is MORE likely than the idea that we have a separate soul, that is not a part of the physical brain.

Quantum mechanics is weird; but it works.



If we are wrong about how it works, we wouldn't be able to have this Internet conversation, which relies upon quantum effects in computer chips.

 

[Ramaraksha]

You are repeating the same assertions - "we have no evidence of it, so it must not exist", "Science says it doesn't exist, so it must not exist" - and i keep saying we have yet to find it - tell me how we have consciousness - and please it is not separate from the soul - the soul is your conscience. If we were having this conversation before Bohr proved the quantum world you would be dismissing him also, just as Einstein did

You have not yet answered why computers - we say our brains are like computers - don't have consciousness - when even a lowly cat or dog has it. The point about different areas of the brain was to show you that Consciousness is in some part of the brain but we have not been able to find it or maybe it is in some other part of the body

Your example of some capital is silly - you are talking about known things - i am talking about things that are not known - it's like columbus calling native americans indians - he was mistaken but didn't know and it would be like you insisting that he was right

Yes quantum mechanics is weird, but it works - finally some enlightenment - replace the world quantum mechanics with the word soul or consciousness and you have exactly the same thing we are talking about. There is more than just electric signals going around in our body - there is something else

 

[skepticalbip]

You are repeating the same assertions - "we have no evidence of it, so it must not exist", "Science says it doesn't exist, so it must not exist" - and i keep saying we have yet to find it - tell me how we have consciousness - and please it is not separate from the soul - the soul is your conscience. If we were having this conversation before Bohr proved the quantum world you would be dismissing him also, just as Einstein did

No he is saying that we understand the physics of what can interact with the brain. It is like physics can confidently state that a solid block of lead can not float through the air on Earth at STP because we understand what can interact with lead to overcome Earth's gravitational attraction. Though mystics claim to levitate things all the time and some people believe them.

You have not yet answered why computers - we say our brains are like computers - don't have consciousness - when even a lowly cat or dog has it. The point about different areas of the brain was to show you that Consciousness is in some part of the brain but we have not been able to find it or maybe it is in some other part of the body

That is a bad question. You must first define what you mean by consciousness. If you define it as the ability to plan chess moves several steps ahead then Big Blue would have consciousness. Obviously, that isn't how you define consciousness but then you nor anyone I know doesn't have a good definition.

Your example of some capital is silly - you are talking about known things - i am talking about things that are not known - it's like columbus calling native americans indians - he was mistaken but didn't know and it would be like you insisting that he was right

Yes quantum mechanics is weird, but it works - finally some enlightenment - replace the world quantum mechanics with the word soul or consciousness and you have exactly the same thing we are talking about. There is more than just electric signals going around in our body - there is something else

But you can't make that substitution because we know what QM is very precisely and specifically. We are still trying to even get a decent definition for consciousness. The best the Woo crowd has come up with is something like magic stuff that can be squeezed into any mystical dream list to fulfill each and every believer's wishes.

 

[bilby]

You are repeating the same assertions - "we have no evidence of it, so it must not exist", "Science says it doesn't exist, so it must not exist" - and i keep saying we have yet to find it - tell me how we have consciousness - and please it is not separate from the soul - the soul is your conscience. If we were having this conversation before Bohr proved the quantum world you would be dismissing him also, just as Einstein did

NO. I am not AT ALL saying "we have no evidence of it, so it must not exist"; I am saying that we have VERY GOOD evidence that it IS IMPOSSIBLE, so it CANNOT exist.

You have not yet answered why computers - we say our brains are like computers - don't have consciousness - when even a lowly cat or dog has it.

I have indeed - several times. The answer (once again) is: We don't know, and we don't need to know.

You don't know that computers don't have consciousness; or that cats do; or that I do. You're just guessing.

Fortunately, we have no need to know the answer to that question in order to know that whatever consciousness IS, it cannot interact with our physical bodies unless it is part of the Standard Model; And we know enough about the Standard Model to rule out a separate non-physical consciousness.

I understand that you don't LIKE this fact; I understand that you probably don't know enough about Quantum Field Theory to prove it for yourself without significant effort to learn the science.

But that doesn't make it any less true.

The point about different areas of the brain was to show you that Consciousness is in some part of the brain but we have not been able to find it or maybe it is in some other part of the body

Yes, I know that's what you were trying to do; but the attempt is doomed to fail. consciousness is not a 'thing'; it is a process. Like an ocean wave is not a thing, but relies on the presence of seawater; so consciousness is not a thing, but relies on the presence of a functioning physical brain. You cannot live after death any more than a wave can continue up the beach and into town - once it breaks on the shore, it is gone forever.

Your example of some capital is silly - you are talking about known things - i am talking about things that are not known - it's like columbus calling native americans indians - he was mistaken but didn't know and it would be like you insisting that he was right

I am talking about known things. YOU may not know them, but that doesn't make them unknown.

Yes quantum mechanics is weird, but it works - finally some enlightenment - replace the world quantum mechanics with the word soul or consciousness and you have exactly the same thing we are talking about. There is more than just electric signals going around in our body - there is something else

No, there isn't. There CANNOT be. If there was, we would have found it by now, because we KNOW all the interactions in matter at the temperature and time scale of the living brain, and none of them can account for an independent soul - so it CANNOT exist.

I know you don't want it to be true. But it IS. Whether you like it or not.

Don't take my word for it; study; learn for yourself; do the experiments. You will find that I am correct.

 

[Underseer]

You are repeating the same assertions - "we have no evidence of it, so it must not exist", [...]

Even if that were the argument being made (see Billby's response), that is still a valid point.

If there is no evidence for something, then there is no good reason to believe that it is true.

Most existence claims are non-falsifiable. That's just how it is. Let's use fairies as an example. The existence of fairies is a non-falsifiable claim. If you try to disprove fairies, there is an endless series of rhetorical games I can play that always leaves open the possibility that fairies exist despite your best efforts to disprove them. For example, I could say the fairies were in the cupboard while you were searching the shed. The only way I could conclusively disprove fairies is if I could search every cubic centimeter of the universe simultaneously, and I would pretty much have to be omniscient to do that.

Since I am not omniscient, I cannot possibly disprove the existence of fairies, even if they do not in fact exist, however I can prove the existence of fairies if they exist. This is why the burden of proof has to be with the person making the positive claim.

For the record, there really are people in this world who believe that fairies are real, although the belief was much more common in the 1800s and before. Not that it matters, but for some reason many theists tell me that arguments about burden of proof apply one way to the existence of god and another to the existence of fairies because no one believes in fairies. Whether or not people believe in fairies has no bearing on whether or not the claim that fairies exist is true, and even if it did, there really are people who believe in fairies.

If we are going to be intellectually honest, then we have to acknowledge that it is possible that fairies are real. We cannot state that fairies definitely don't exist because we cannot possibly prove that.

So we cannot prove that fairies don't exist, and there is no valid evidence that fairies exist (plenty of bad evidence, though). Since we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of fairies, does this mean that it is reasonable to believe in fairies? Does this mean it is equally reasonable to believe in fairies or not believe in fairies? Does this mean it is impolite or arrogant to disagree with people who think fairies are real?

No, no, and no. The fact that we can neither prove nor disprove fairies is precisely why it is not reasonable to believe in fairies.

Or elves.

Or vampires.

Or Chupacabra.

Or pixies.

Or trolls.

Or Bigfoot.

Or your god.

I know, I know. You think we should treat your belief in god differently than we treat belief in fairies because you believe in your god and you don't believe in fairies, therefore these are two completely different truth claims and entirely different logic should be applied to supporting or refuting the truth claim. If this is your argument, then I would strongly recommend reading this article on Wikipedia. Logic does not change based on what conclusion is being supported.

The rules for burden of proof are pretty clear cut and straightforward. There is not a lot of wriggle room here. Either you have a good reason to believe something is true, in which case show us your supporting arguments, or else you can argue with people about the burden of proof and hope no one notices that you are committing a shifting the burden of proof fallacy by doing so.

 

[Ramaraksha]

No he is saying that we understand the physics of what can interact with the brain. It is like physics can confidently state that a solid block of lead can not float through the air on Earth at STP because we understand what can interact with lead to overcome Earth's gravitational attraction. Though mystics claim to levitate things all the time and some people believe them.

You have not yet answered why computers - we say our brains are like computers - don't have consciousness - when even a lowly cat or dog has it. The point about different areas of the brain was to show you that Consciousness is in some part of the brain but we have not been able to find it or maybe it is in some other part of the body

That is a bad question. You must first define what you mean by consciousness. If you define it as the ability to plan chess moves several steps ahead then Big Blue would have consciousness. Obviously, that isn't how you define consciousness but then you nor anyone I know doesn't have a good definition.

Your example of some capital is silly - you are talking about known things - i am talking about things that are not known - it's like columbus calling native americans indians - he was mistaken but didn't know and it would be like you insisting that he was right

Yes quantum mechanics is weird, but it works - finally some enlightenment - replace the world quantum mechanics with the word soul or consciousness and you have exactly the same thing we are talking about. There is more than just electric signals going around in our body - there is something else

But you can't make that substitution because we know what QM is very precisely and specifically. We are still trying to even get a decent definition for consciousness. The best the Woo crowd has come up with is something like magic stuff that can be squeezed into any mystical dream list to fulfill each and every believer's wishes.

No, physics and Science knows a lot but not everything is explained - you yourself have no clue about consciousness - you asked me to define it - i did - we are not machines - they say our brains are like computers - yes the computer is not self-aware, we are - where is this awareness coming from? And if it all just wires going around in our brains how come the computers are not self-aware?

There are other things we have no clue either - for example when can we say multiple grains of sand is a pile? We have no idea, but we know when we see one. Can you describe colors? You can't. Can you tell me how the color Blue differs from the color Red? Only by showing me. Grammer is another mystery of the human mind

Point is that there is a lot that we do not know

 

[Ramaraksha]

"You don't know that computers don't have consciousness; or that cats do; or that I do. You're just guessing" Now that's funny - if a computer had consciousnes if would talk to us not just give us answers for prior inputs - Dogs and cats do talk to us

"If there was, we would have found it by now" again a wrong statement - there is much that we do not know - we still don't know much about the QW - we know more about the moon than our own deep oceans. Some examples that i wrote above - when do you know if you have a pile of sand? How many grains before you say we have a pile? Can you tell me how colors are different? Describe the difference between the color red and blue, please

 

[Ramaraksha]

You are repeating the same assertions - "we have no evidence of it, so it must not exist", [...]

Even if that were the argument being made (see Billby's response), that is still a valid point.

If there is no evidence for something, then there is no good reason to believe that it is true.

Most existence claims are non-falsifiable. That's just how it is. Let's use fairies as an example. The existence of fairies is a non-falsifiable claim. If you try to disprove fairies, there is an endless series of rhetorical games I can play that always leaves open the possibility that fairies exist despite your best efforts to disprove them. For example, I could say the fairies were in the cupboard while you were searching the shed. The only way I could conclusively disprove fairies is if I could search every cubic centimeter of the universe simultaneously, and I would pretty much have to be omniscient to do that.

Since I am not omniscient, I cannot possibly disprove the existence of fairies, even if they do not in fact exist, however I can prove the existence of fairies if they exist. This is why the burden of proof has to be with the person making the positive claim.

For the record, there really are people in this world who believe that fairies are real, although the belief was much more common in the 1800s and before. Not that it matters, but for some reason many theists tell me that arguments about burden of proof apply one way to the existence of god and another to the existence of fairies because no one believes in fairies. Whether or not people believe in fairies has no bearing on whether or not the claim that fairies exist is true, and even if it did, there really are people who believe in fairies.

If we are going to be intellectually honest, then we have to acknowledge that it is possible that fairies are real. We cannot state that fairies definitely don't exist because we cannot possibly prove that.

So we cannot prove that fairies don't exist, and there is no valid evidence that fairies exist (plenty of bad evidence, though). Since we can neither prove nor disprove the existence of fairies, does this mean that it is reasonable to believe in fairies? Does this mean it is equally reasonable to believe in fairies or not believe in fairies? Does this mean it is impolite or arrogant to disagree with people who think fairies are real?

No, no, and no. The fact that we can neither prove nor disprove fairies is precisely why it is not reasonable to believe in fairies.

Or elves.

Or vampires.

Or Chupacabra.

Or pixies.

Or trolls.

Or Bigfoot.

Or your god.

I know, I know. You think we should treat your belief in god differently than we treat belief in fairies because you believe in your god and you don't believe in fairies, therefore these are two completely different truth claims and entirely different logic should be applied to supporting or refuting the truth claim. If this is your argument, then I would strongly recommend reading this article on Wikipedia. Logic does not change based on what conclusion is being supported.

The rules for burden of proof are pretty clear cut and straightforward. There is not a lot of wriggle room here. Either you have a good reason to believe something is true, in which case show us your supporting arguments, or else you can argue with people about the burden of proof and hope no one notices that you are committing a shifting the burden of proof fallacy by doing so.

Please read the whole thing - not just skim my answer and take part of it and write a whole straw-man argument

We are not talking fairies or God here - I am a Theist but the first to admit there is no evidence for God except a belief - and I am Hindu - we don't abuse Atheists - I myself am an Atheist Hindu

What we were talking about was about the existence of the soul - and to me our Conciousness is the proof - that is the soul - that the discussion going on here

 

[skepticalbip]

No he is saying that we understand the physics of what can interact with the brain. It is like physics can confidently state that a solid block of lead can not float through the air on Earth at STP because we understand what can interact with lead to overcome Earth's gravitational attraction. Though mystics claim to levitate things all the time and some people believe them.

That is a bad question. You must first define what you mean by consciousness. If you define it as the ability to plan chess moves several steps ahead then Big Blue would have consciousness. Obviously, that isn't how you define consciousness but then you nor anyone I know doesn't have a good definition.

Your example of some capital is silly - you are talking about known things - i am talking about things that are not known - it's like columbus calling native americans indians - he was mistaken but didn't know and it would be like you insisting that he was right

Yes quantum mechanics is weird, but it works - finally some enlightenment - replace the world quantum mechanics with the word soul or consciousness and you have exactly the same thing we are talking about. There is more than just electric signals going around in our body - there is something else

But you can't make that substitution because we know what QM is very precisely and specifically. We are still trying to even get a decent definition for consciousness. The best the Woo crowd has come up with is something like magic stuff that can be squeezed into any mystical dream list to fulfill each and every believer's wishes.

No, physics and Science knows a lot but not everything is explained -

Where has anyone claimed the science knows everything?

you yourself have no clue about consciousness -

I know that consciousness is a process of the brain, not a thing like a kumquat. Turn off the brain's processing and consciousness vanishes (have you ever been under anesthesia). Exactly how the brain's processes produce awareness is a question still being studied by neurologists.

you asked me to define it - i did - we are not machines

That is not a definition of what consciousness is. It is a statement of what we are not.

- they say our brains are like computers - yes the computer is not self-aware, we are - where is this awareness coming from? And if it all just wires going around in our brains how come the computers are not self-aware?

That is an extremely poor comparison, at least the comparison to today's computers. Who knows, after the few next few generations of computers, it may become a fair comparison. But then if it does become a better comparison then we may have to assume that computers have awareness. They already can talk to us. Ever used Siri?

There are other things we have no clue either - for example when can we say multiple grains of sand is a pile? We have no idea, but we know when we see one. Can you describe colors? You can't. Can you tell me how the color Blue differs from the color Red? Only by showing me. Grammer is another mystery of the human mind

Certainly. Blue and red are not things. They are terms we have assigned to specific wavelengths of light. We define wavelengths 450–495 nm as blue and wavelengths 620–750 nm as red.

Point is that there is a lot that we do not know

No argument. So why do you insist that you know that something that people have invented, the soul, is some eternal thing when there is no evidence that it exists other than in people's beliefs and wishes? Some people believe in faeries but that doesn't make them real.

 

[bilby]

We DO know enough to rule out a separate soul.

It doesn't matter what consciousness is; we know for sure that it influences and is influenced by the physical brain - adding chemicals to the brain can change consciousness.

So whatever consciousness is, it interacts with chemicals.

Chemicals are made of atoms. Atoms are made of hadrons and electrons.

We have smashed up electrons and hadrons, and by doing so we have revealed all of the things that can interact with these things. Quantum physics predicts that, if there was anything not in the Standard Model, that has a low enough energy to exist in human brains, then we must see it in particle accelerators.

We have found a lot of stuff that interacts with matter; and we know, from the predictions of QFT, and from the experimental results from the LHC and elsewhere, that we have found ALL of the particles and fields that can interact with matter at the scale and temperature of a living human being, without setting him on fire, or blowing him to smithereens.

We KNOW that there cannot be any more pieces to the puzzle; we are certain that all the remaining unknowns exist only in conditions in which life is impossible.

A soul, whatever it is, cannot interact with a human unless it is made of standard model particles, and/or one of the four forces. We know how to detect all of these; and we know how they behave. There is nothing that can possibly leave a dying brain and propagate to another place, or another brain. The strong force is too short range; as is the weak force. Gravity is too weak, and gravitational signals would be swamped by the massive planet we live on. That leaves only two possible ways for a hypothetical soul to leave a dying brain - either a material object would need to come out of the body (which we would surely notice); or the soul must propagate via electromagnetic radiation. EM radiation is easy to detect at every wavelength; and we cannot detect any souls or even practical candidates for them. If the soul was carried by radio waves, for example, we could detect them very easily.

It is impossible. Whether or not you like it; whether or not you understand it; it remains impossible.

Science has ruled out the possibility of dualism. Either dualism, which has no evidence to support it, is wrong; or quantum field theory, which is one of the best evidenced theories in the history of science, is wrong.

Betting that QFT is the wrong one of these two ideas is moronic. The blue cheese theory of lunar geology is more plausible than dualism.

There are not, and cannot be, souls.

Sorry.

Science rules things out. Souls are one of those things.

 

[Ramaraksha]

Where has anyone claimed the science knows everything?

No argument. So why do you insist that you know that something that people have invented, the soul, is some eternal thing when there is no evidence that it exists other than in people's beliefs and wishes? Some people believe in faeries but that doesn't make them real.

Bilby did - he said if there is such a thing as the soul we would have found it by now

I fear the problem is religion - because religion says there is a soul it must be wrong - i have given evidence - that is Consciousness and our failure to explain how it arises - how come we are different from a computer? Your example of Siri is downright silly - it is just responding to inputs - that's not consciousness.

Most Science is done by speculation, wonder - asking questions about things that we cannot explain - the english man who first said the star was the same as the sun didn't have evidence - all he had was speculation and an idea. Today we wonder whether we are in hologram, whether our universe is part of a much larger multiverse, whether black holes are creating other universes etc - and then we have the String theory - zero evidence so far of how it is supposed to work - put any of these under the umbrella of religion and you hurry to dismiss it

My thought is that ancient Hindus used religion to keep their ideas alive - it is Hinduism that says our universe is about 9-10 billion years old, close to what today's scientists say about 13 billion. Hindus used the multiverse idea by saying there are millions of Brahmas - creator of this universe and us - that Brahmas come and go, this one will die and another one will be born and the cycle continues

They used religion because they knew that would keep the ideas alive - these are just ideas - we can discard religion and keep the idea

 

[Ramaraksha]

We DO know enough to rule out a separate soul.

It doesn't matter what consciousness is; we know for sure that it influences and is influenced by the physical brain - adding chemicals to the brain can change consciousness.

So whatever consciousness is, it interacts with chemicals.

Chemicals are made of atoms. Atoms are made of hadrons and electrons.

We have smashed up electrons and hadrons, and by doing so we have revealed all of the things that can interact with these things. Quantum physics predicts that, if there was anything not in the Standard Model, that has a low enough energy to exist in human brains, then we must see it in particle accelerators.

We have found a lot of stuff that interacts with matter; and we know, from the predictions of QFT, and from the experimental results from the LHC and elsewhere, that we have found ALL of the particles and fields that can interact with matter at the scale and temperature of a living human being, without setting him on fire, or blowing him to smithereens.

We KNOW that there cannot be any more pieces to the puzzle; we are certain that all the remaining unknowns exist only in conditions in which life is impossible.

A soul, whatever it is, cannot interact with a human unless it is made of standard model particles, and/or one of the four forces. We know how to detect all of these; and we know how they behave. There is nothing that can possibly leave a dying brain and propagate to another place, or another brain. The strong force is too short range; as is the weak force. Gravity is too weak, and gravitational signals would be swamped by the massive planet we live on. That leaves only two possible ways for a hypothetical soul to leave a dying brain - either a material object would need to come out of the body (which we would surely notice); or the soul must propagate via electromagnetic radiation. EM radiation is easy to detect at every wavelength; and we cannot detect any souls or even practical candidates for them. If the soul was carried by radio waves, for example, we could detect them very easily.

It is impossible. Whether or not you like it; whether or not you understand it; it remains impossible.

Science has ruled out the possibility of dualism. Either dualism, which has no evidence to support it, is wrong; or quantum field theory, which is one of the best evidenced theories in the history of science, is wrong.

Betting that QFT is the wrong one of these two ideas is moronic. The blue cheese theory of lunar geology is more plausible than dualism.

There are not, and cannot be, souls.

Sorry.

Science rules things out. Souls are one of those things.

All that spooky stuff that you rule out - have we learned nothing from QW?

Why do you keep saying the soul is separate? It's like saying that there is one command center in the brain that directs everything - that's what people used to think at one time also, now we know better and that is the same thing you keep repeating - that somehow the soul is a thing that stands out and since we can't find it it doesn't exist?
We can't find lots of things but that doesn't mean they don't exist

I think we have talked enough about this issue - you are stuck with we know everything - there is nothing more to know and i can't seem to get you past that unless we get new evidence of something new and then you will say well we know this new thing now

 

[bilby]

We DO know enough to rule out a separate soul.

It doesn't matter what consciousness is; we know for sure that it influences and is influenced by the physical brain - adding chemicals to the brain can change consciousness.

So whatever consciousness is, it interacts with chemicals.

Chemicals are made of atoms. Atoms are made of hadrons and electrons.

We have smashed up electrons and hadrons, and by doing so we have revealed all of the things that can interact with these things. Quantum physics predicts that, if there was anything not in the Standard Model, that has a low enough energy to exist in human brains, then we must see it in particle accelerators.

We have found a lot of stuff that interacts with matter; and we know, from the predictions of QFT, and from the experimental results from the LHC and elsewhere, that we have found ALL of the particles and fields that can interact with matter at the scale and temperature of a living human being, without setting him on fire, or blowing him to smithereens.

We KNOW that there cannot be any more pieces to the puzzle; we are certain that all the remaining unknowns exist only in conditions in which life is impossible.

A soul, whatever it is, cannot interact with a human unless it is made of standard model particles, and/or one of the four forces. We know how to detect all of these; and we know how they behave. There is nothing that can possibly leave a dying brain and propagate to another place, or another brain. The strong force is too short range; as is the weak force. Gravity is too weak, and gravitational signals would be swamped by the massive planet we live on. That leaves only two possible ways for a hypothetical soul to leave a dying brain - either a material object would need to come out of the body (which we would surely notice); or the soul must propagate via electromagnetic radiation. EM radiation is easy to detect at every wavelength; and we cannot detect any souls or even practical candidates for them. If the soul was carried by radio waves, for example, we could detect them very easily.

It is impossible. Whether or not you like it; whether or not you understand it; it remains impossible.

Science has ruled out the possibility of dualism. Either dualism, which has no evidence to support it, is wrong; or quantum field theory, which is one of the best evidenced theories in the history of science, is wrong.

Betting that QFT is the wrong one of these two ideas is moronic. The blue cheese theory of lunar geology is more plausible than dualism.

There are not, and cannot be, souls.

Sorry.

Science rules things out. Souls are one of those things.

All that spooky stuff that you rule out - have we learned nothing from QW?

I realise that you don't LIKE the idea that we know this; but nonetheless it is known. I am not ruling out 'all that spooky stuff'; there is plenty of stuff that is pretty spooky that remains in the Standard Model.

But QFT is very clear - Any new particles or forces must be detected by our experiments, unless those particles are very massive; or the forces are incredibly weak. A force that is weak enough to remain undiscovered is too weak to influence an object as small as a solar system; much less an object as small as a human; and a particle with sufficient mass/energy to have remained undetected would require so much energy to produce that a human would be vaporised.

We don't know everything. But we do know everything about atoms at human scales and temperatures. Brains interact with consciousness. We know this. So whatever consciousness is, it can only be those things we find in brains - atoms, molecules, electric fields, etc.

And while consciousness could be due to some unique physical structure in the brain, if it is, then it cannot possibly leave the brain upon the death of the host; because if it scuttled out of dying people's ears like a spider (even if it was microscopic) we would have caught one long ago.

If the 'soul' could leave a dead person and go elsewhere, then we could not have failed to detect this occurring.

You can't prove that I don't have a dragon in my garage; but if you have searched the whole garage with a microscope, then you can be completely confident that no dragon dwells within.

Why do you keep saying the soul is separate?

I don't; it is part of the definition of a 'soul'. If the 'soul' is inseparable from the brain, then it can't leave the host upon his death (to go to heaven, or hell; or to be re-incarnated in another body; or whatever). If the 'soul' is a mere structure in the physical brain, like the amygdala or hippocampus, then it cannot do the whole immortality thing that is a basic part of the definition

It's like saying that there is one command center in the brain that directs everything - that's what people used to think at one time also, now we know better and that is the same thing you keep repeating - that somehow the soul is a thing that stands out and since we can't find it it doesn't exist?

No, not at all. The soul is an hypothesis; and it has been disproven. It doesn't 'stand out'; it is purely an idea invented to explain how a dead person's 'self' can survive the death of his body, and go somewhere else. And it has been proven that such a thing cannot occur.

We can't find lots of things but that doesn't mean they don't exist

True. But if something is ruled out as physically impossible, then that does mean that it doesn't exist.

We haven't searched the entire stratosphere for house bricks; but as physics says a house brick cannot stay in the stratosphere without an aircraft of some kind to support it, we can safely say that aircraft-less stratospheric house bricks don't exist.

I think we have talked enough about this issue - you are stuck with we know everything - there is nothing more to know and i can't seem to get you past that unless we get new evidence of something new and then you will say well we know this new thing now

If you have to mischaracterise a person's position in order to argue against it, then that's a pretty good indication that you are in the wrong.

I do not think, nor have I ever argued, that we know everything.

I am certain, however, that we know enough to rule out any possible continuation of the 'self' or 'consciousness' or a 'soul' after a person's death. Heaven, Hell, reincarnation, purgatory, ghosts, spirit guides, telepathy and telekinesis are amongst the things we can be certain are not possible, for much the same reason that bricks floating unaided in the stratosphere are not possible.

The only thing that distinguishes the idea of floating bricks from that of reincarnation is that you have a personal desire for one of these to be real.

But it's not real; it is impossible. It contradicts basic physical law. No matter how much you want this not to be the case.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

This is all argument from ignorance. Since we do not yet understand this brain state we call conciousness in all its details, there is a gap in which we can stick soul or QM or any other woo you want. In the days o Rene Descartes, attempts to say what a soul is or how it works with our brains was an abject failure. It all still is. Metaphysics and theology has nothing to say about any of this worth bothering with.

Its something science will have to figure out and we aren't quite there yet.

 

[bilby]

This is all argument from ignorance. Since we do not yet understand this brain state we call conciousness in all its details, there is a gap in which we can stick soul or QM or any other woo you want. In the days o Rene Descartes, attempts to say what a soul is or how it works with our brains was an abject failure. It all still is. Metaphysics and theology has nothing to say about any of this worth bothering with.

Its something science will have to figure out and we aren't quite there yet.

We don't know what consciousness is; but we do know that whatever it is, it cannot be transmitted from a dying brain to somewhere else. There is no gap there big enough to fit an afterlife, reincarnation, ghosts, heaven or anything of the sort.

Consciousness is a process in a living brain. We don't know exactly which part or parts of the brain are involved. But we do know that the 'self' can no more outlast the brain, or be transferred to another person, than an ocean wave can continue up the beach, across the continent, and into another ocean. A wave is more than just water; but without water there can be no wave. Consciousness and the feeling of 'self' are more than just a bunch of neurons; but they cannot be separated from a brain. Waves are what the water is doing. Awareness is what the brain is doing. They are processes, not objects.