No, you're missing the point Meta. A rock is still a physical object that was discovered and named, a soul isn't.
— John Harris

Of course a soul isn't a physical object. But on what principle do you say that it wasn't discovered and named. The number two isn't a physical object but it was discovered and named, "two".

The real question is on what principle do you say the soul was discovered and named. Using your logic, God, the angels, and the demons were discovered because someone conceptualized and named them, like Aristotle conceptualized and named "soul. You must be quite the believer in God and the angels then.

According to your flawed logic, someone coming up with the concept of Santa Claus and naming it would be the same as discovering the Mississippi river and naming it. I hope you see the problem in that.
— John Harris

You're changing the subject now. We were talking about whether theory is required in order that the thing encountered is known by it's named. And clearly this is the case with the named river. Santa Clause doesn't fit the example because we do not ever encounter Santa Clause. We do encounter a soul though every time we meet a living thing.

I changed no subject, and you have no more idea you encounter a soul every time you meet a living thing than you know Santa Claus or God exists. And if you believe someone could have encountered a soul with no scientific evidence of it, you must believe the people who claimed to meet Santa Clause or God are being truthful too.

Likewise, if you encountered the Mississippi River and you did not understand that this thing is called the Mississippi River, you would not recognize it as the Mississippi River. So you might insistently argue that there is no such thing as the Mississippi River, and no one has ever encountered the Mississippi River, simply because you refuse to acknowledge that the thing you are looking at is the thing which many people call the Mississippi River.

No, not likewise, as when one encounters the Mississippi River they encounter a body of water science and other people can second as being true. Nobody has encountered a soul or given any evidence of it. Again, it's no different then saying one encountered God. And stop trying to do the Saussurean linguistic thing; you've got it all wrong.

Our knowledge of a particular word has to be stored somewhere in the brain.

No, it doesn't. We know where memory and mnemotic activity occurs but we have no idea where one word is located as opposed to another and in which particular site of that area. Go look it up.

And just because we don't know exactly where the word is stored, we know it is stored in some manner and somewhere in the memory site of the brain. We have no idea a soul even exists. Using your fallacious logic, we should be able to find God because we can't find exactly where "dog" is stored. Good luck with that one.

I don't believe in souls, but someone could argue that they are undetectable, just like the word 'dog' is undetectable in the brain.

Words aren't stored in any one singular part of the brain, and no neurologist claims that. So, that comparison doesn't work.

However, the soul has not only shown no physical locus, it has shown no physical effect either. Again, it makes the soul as "natural" as angels or demons.

Imaging a supernatural essence like the soul or a natural soul impossibly avoiding all detection is just fantasizing as one fantasizes Angels or Demons. Using your faulty logic, they could be there too.
— John Harris

Notice that I put 'soul' in quotation marks. When I say 'soul', I am referring to the sense of being more than just an animal, due to our higher level of intelligence. I don't think there is any force separate from our biological structures, but I can see how the sense of a soul could be an amalgamation of inputs from various parts of the brain, making it seem very real.

Sorry, you compared the soul to the part of our brain that generates language, a physical part of the brain, so you did argue the soul as something that could be found.

But f you're talking about the concept "soul" coming from an amalgamation of inputs from the various parts of the brain, then you are correctly rendering it to a concept, no more real than "God,' "Satan" or "the Easter Bunny.

Yes, it's me, Thanatos Sand, I lost my password.
— John Harris

Well at least we got rid of one idiot!

I've made clear I'm no idiot, Cashkev, unlike you trying to compensate for your poor education and intelligence with your hilarious pretentious posts like the one I just debunked...:)

Its a nice idea Cav, but if the soul is natural, it would have been detected by now. There's just no chemical entity/human part that could escape sciences exhaustive means of detection.
— Thanatos Sand

We know that a certain part of the brain is responsible for language, but we're not capable of finding exactly where the word 'dog' is stored. Does this mean words are not natural?

No, not knowing the exact in a particular organ causing a particular effect does not make the cause of that effect supernatural; it makes it natural but not entirely known, like not knowing why we are Gay or Straight doesnt' mean it comes from a supernatural cause.

Imaging a supernatural essence like the soul or a natural soul impossibly avoiding all detection is just fantasizing as one fantasizes Angels or Demons. Using your faulty logic, they could be there too.

↪Thanatos Sand
ts a nice idea Cav, but if the soul is natural, it would have been detected by now. There's just no chemical entity/human part that could escape sciences exhaustive means of detection.


We can pretty much tell animate from inanimate, but we don't know how matter became and continues to become animate, we can't even mimic it (Craig Venter has tried and tried). I lean towards a form of Panpsychism, since as far as I am concerned there is no way mind could have formed except from matter, and I think all matter in the right configuration has the potential for ensoulment.

Sorry, ensoulment has no basis in reality since the a material soul has never been discovered or recorded. It makes as much sense as believing in angels.

Aristotle never found the soul in nature. You're just being ridiculous now, comparing finding plants and animals to theorizing a soul.
— Thanatos Sand

Your missing the point Thanatos. What differentiates theorizing something, from something being found in nature? Suppose you find something in nature, you think it's a rock. Well isn't it a theory which says that it's a "rock"? The point is, that things are named, and there is theory as to how to apply the names to declare that the thing found is best called by that name. So you don't really find a thing with the name "rock" on it, and say "hey look I found a rock", you actually must refer to a theory to back up your claim that the thing you found is a rock. You don't find names in nature, you find nameless things, and use theory to put names to those things.

No, you're missing the point Meta. A rock is still a physical object that was discovered and named, a soul isn't. So, your comparison is completely nonsensical; Aristotle theorizing a soul he never encountered in the real world is different from a naturalist naming an animal he actually encountered there.

According to your flawed logic, someone coming up with the concept of Santa Claus and naming it would be the same as discovering the Mississippi river and naming it. I hope you see the problem in that.

Consider living things now. Do you agree that there is something called "life"? But have you ever found life? We find all sorts of different living plants, and animals, but we do not find life. It is only theory which tells us that there is something which is called "life", and this theory allows us to distinguish between being alive and being dead. It is the same with "soul", just a different word for the same thing. In theory there is something which is called "the soul", and this theory allows us to distinguish between being alive and being dead.

Again, you show you're wrong because you confuse naming real objects/animals/vegetation with naming concepts one comes up with in their mind like Tolkien's concept of the Orc. You must you think Orcs and Santa Claus really exist in the world then.

Yes, it's me, Thanatos Sand, I lost my password.

I know Comte and what you're arguing is pure positivism. And scientism.

You clearly don't know either, since you can't explain in any way how my relying on scientific standards is positivism or scientism, and their not, particularly since I don't reject the humanities at all in my argument.

Using your flawed notions of positivism and scientism, rejecting the concept of angels without scientific evidence--the equivalence of doing the same with the soul--would be positivism and scientism, and it's not. So go back and read Comte. Your knowledge of him is as poor as your reasoning here.