Soul

Anything that doesn't fit anywhere else below.

Moderators: Darkchilde, Calilasseia, Weaver, HughMcB, Crocodile Gandhi

Soul

 
 

Soul

#1  Postby Joe09 » Jan 24, 2012 2:31 am

Would someone be kind enough to give me a list of papers which show the dependence of the physical brain on memory/conciousness please

Debating with a group of cretins who think the soul is real, that it
Your "evidence" is based on the theory that the personality and soul are linked. What if that supposition is not correct, and personality and soul are not actually linked (scientific theories can be proven incorrect with new evidence, so can religious theories be incorrect in their basic assumption). It is sloppy science at best, inconclusive at the
very least.


Someone has asked for links to my evidence, but i dont know any papers myself (as im a physicist not a biologist :))

thankies
Joe09
THREAD STARTER
 
Posts: 1082
Age: 22
Male

United Kingdom (uk)

Re: Soul

#2  Postby DougC » Jan 24, 2012 2:39 am

Good luck my young friend, your trying to find a scientific paper dealing with something MAGICAL. What else do they want, an anthropological study of Leprechauns?
To do, is to be (Socrate)
To be, is to do (Sartre)
Do be do be do (Sinatra)
SUBWAY(1985)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb-GvpCUwDw
DougC
 
Posts: 1460
Age: 39
Male

Country: U.K.
Falkland Islands (fk)

Re: Soul

#3  Postby laklak » Jan 24, 2012 2:46 am

I've got one somewhere, next to my copy of A Morphological Analysis of Equus Unicornus.
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. - Mark Twain
The sky is falling! The sky is falling! - Chicken Little
I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except vegetarians and people like that - Oscar Wilde
User avatar
laklak
RS Donator
 
Posts: 3994
Age: 58
Male


Re: Soul

#4  Postby Tbickle » Jan 24, 2012 2:50 am

Joe, it seems to me that you are asking the wrong people for evidence. If it is their position that this soul exists, it is incumbent upon them to prove that it exists. Even if we didn't have any evidence that a mind or someone's personality is dependent on a physical mind, they would still need to prove that a soul exists before they could ever even begin to hypothesize what it does.

What evidence do we have that memory, personality, or a mind is dependent on a physical brain? Well, first of all we have absolutely no evidence of these things existing without one! After that it's fairly simple, we have evidence of people suffering from amnesia after serious brain trauma. Someone could take drugs or ingest alcohol which has an effect on the physical processes of their brain and can lead to a change in inhibitions, memory loss, and a change in personality. There are many, many case studies of people experiencing vast personality changes after suffering from a severe brain trauma. If these weren't a byproduct of a physical brain, then why are the affected by physical trauma, prodding, or chemical reactions?

I would also ask, if there is a soul, then where is the mechanism in the brain for where it interacts with the brain. It would seem that they think that the soul is immaterial and a non-physical force, so how is a physical object (the brain) impacted by the soul? Where does the soul exist? If it is an immaterial force, then how do we detect that there is one, and if we can detect it doesn't that mean that it can be detected and tested? Then it's no longer a supernatural force, it's just a part of nature.

Put it back on them though. They are the ones claiming that something exists for which they cannot demonstrate. They are the ones claiming that this undetectable force is known to them and that it defies everything that we have come to know about how the brain is structured and works. Put the onus back on them, it is not incumbent upon you to prove that their supernatural nonsense doesn't exist.
"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
-Thomas Paine
User avatar
Tbickle
 
Posts: 3672

Holy See (Vatican City State) (va)

Re: Soul

#5  Postby pelfdaddy » Jan 24, 2012 2:51 am

I've noticed that as my brain ages, my soul forgets things.
pelfdaddy
 
Posts: 357


Re: Soul

#6  Postby DougC » Jan 24, 2012 3:01 am

These morons don't need a physicist or a biologist, they need a psychiatrist.
To do, is to be (Socrate)
To be, is to do (Sartre)
Do be do be do (Sinatra)
SUBWAY(1985)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb-GvpCUwDw
DougC
 
Posts: 1460
Age: 39
Male

Country: U.K.
Falkland Islands (fk)

Re: Soul

#7  Postby Joe09 » Jan 24, 2012 6:35 am

i wholeheartedly agree and appreciate your responses :)
Joe09
THREAD STARTER
 
Posts: 1082
Age: 22
Male

United Kingdom (uk)

Re: Soul

#8  Postby ScholasticSpastic » Jan 24, 2012 7:57 am

Wikipedia wrote:Perhaps the first reported case of personality change after brain injury is that of Phineas Gage, who survived an accident in which a large iron rod was driven through his head, destroying one or both of his frontal lobes; numerous cases of personality change after brain injury have been reported since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_brain_injury

Look up Phineas Gage. See also books written by Antonio Damasio or enjoy Oliver Sacks' book: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales.

If souls do what we are, then why is it possible for our personalities to so completely change when our brains are altered? It makes more sense if brains do what we are.

Here's Antonio Damasio on TED:
http://blog.ted.com/2011/12/19/the-quest-to-understand-consciousness-antonio-damasio-on-ted-com/
"You have to be a real asshole to quote yourself."
~ ScholasticSpastic
User avatar
ScholasticSpastic
 
Name: C. Dustin Clark
Posts: 454
Age: 36
Male

Country: United State of Apathy
United States (us)

Re: Soul

#9  Postby Sovereign » Jan 26, 2012 1:51 am

Also look up the studies regarding split-brain patients and how each half of the brain is different. One side may believe in a divine being and the other may be an atheist. You should ask them which half goes to heaven and which half goes to hell.
Oh, that's a really big cat. It looks so nice. Would you look at th...
Sovereign
 
Posts: 1245
Male

United States (us)

Re: Soul

 
 

Re: Soul

#10  Postby Wuffy » Jan 26, 2012 10:41 am

ScholasticSpastic wrote:
Wikipedia wrote:Perhaps the first reported case of personality change after brain injury is that of Phineas Gage, who survived an accident in which a large iron rod was driven through his head, destroying one or both of his frontal lobes; numerous cases of personality change after brain injury have been reported since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traumatic_brain_injury

Look up Phineas Gage. See also books written by Antonio Damasio or enjoy Oliver Sacks' book: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales.

If souls do what we are, then why is it possible for our personalities to so completely change when our brains are altered? It makes more sense if brains do what we are.

Here's Antonio Damasio on TED:
http://blog.ted.com/2011/12/19/the-quest-to-understand-consciousness-antonio-damasio-on-ted-com/


I read about him in a book about emotional intelligence. It was discussing how he became really self centered and unable to pick up on normal emotional queues and other such things.

May be getting some of the details wrong it was a while back. But it discussed how there are different types of functions in our brains and you could just lose some.
Wuffy
 
Posts: 1223

Country: Thailand
Belgium (be)


Return to General Debunking

Who is online

Users viewing this topic: No registered users and 1 guest