So here's my theory, it's about death and the after-life:

What makes you you ? And I dont mean your behavour or looks, I mean the fact that you control your own body and look trough your own eyes. Call it your soul, because I cant think of a better word for it.

Alright: Biologically speaking there must be some part of your genes or DNA that makes up your soul, that enables you to be you.
The chances that those exact genes are copied is close to zero. You know like 1x10^-99.
So there is still a chance for you to resurrect after death. There is, after all, a really really small chance that those genes are copied. You wont remember your previous life and you probably wont look like your past-self, since that is not stored in your genes (Looks are, I know).

So eventually after billions of years you will live again.
Since I imagine being dead is like sleeping, no concept of time really, it wont matter how long it takes. Hell, it might be after another big bang before you ressurect.

Hope I made this clear, but Im dealing with a lot of vague concepts here, along with the language barrier
Please Disscuss this, or share your own Ideas of death. Dont make this a flame war about after life crap.

-Gets flame thrower ready - Has no opinion on it otherwise

Thanks for the support...

well i thought it better to prepare for it rather then to sit back and watch .. though it was interesting to read, don't get me wrong, i did read it but with topics like that, religon and politics, i keep out...its not a battle that can be won when none of it is dealing with fact.

It is indeed really theoretical and opinion based.

This theory would assume identical twins - being genetically identical and all - are the same person. This is provably false by looking at identical twins. It also assumes that the soul is biological in nature (which not everyone would agree with) and that we would in any sense be the same with a different body and experiences (which it seems very few people would agree with).

What you have defined as soul... isn't. Not in any meaningful sense. Whether or not the religious/spiritual people who believe in an immortal soul are correct, our "soul" is unique to us. It's not because of genes. If the technology was currently viable and somebody cloned me while I was still alive, there aren't two of me. There's me and my clone. Our genes are only a part of what you'd call soul - the rest is what happens to you and what you choose to do in your life.

So reincarnation is essentially meaningless and impossible. Even if there is some immortal animus that will be the basis of the soul in a future person exists, that person won't be the same in any meaningful sense. It would be just like a clone from the soul's end instead of the body's.

Edit:

There is a fact of the matter. Just because we don't all know it (or maybe none of us know it) doesn't make the fact cease to exist. People disbelieving a fact don't change the fact. The Earth is spherical despite the existence of Flat Earth Theorists.

And your position is the worst sort of intellectual cowardice - you take a position you never have to defend and claim to be superior to people willing to make a claim. Yes, plenty of very dumb people will persist in holding a theory that's provably false but what you're doing is essentially refusing to play the lottery because you believe that none of the numbers will be chosen.

What you said is correct, but not what I meant.
I knew this would happen...

Alright here it goes:

- I used the word "Soul" not in the spiritual sense, but because I couldnt think of a better word.
- I said part of the genes. Twins do not share all their genes.
- I meant with soul: If you "work" like I do, you should see the world like a first person shooter. You'll see your hands, little bit of your nose perhaps, maybe your lips, I dont know. You also control your own body and thoughts. In short, you are you. Completly physically, no behaviour, no thoughts. This has to be caused by something, I assume that it's your some part of your body. A very complicated part.
I also think that there is a very small chance that that part can be copied. The chance that that will happen in this existence of humans is basically zero.

But there is a chance.

i'm not disbeliving the fact, im stating i just don't see a reason (to me) to agree or dispute his opinion. and that i simpily chose to watch the disscution unfold.

the topics i stated are topics i don't speak of because as there might be fact in the matter.. but this is Bast's insight on his post so i'll let it be

And my argument allowed for both the spiritual sense and a non-spiritual sense of the word. I didn't especially want to since it made my sentences clunky but I strive for clarity.


No, but given that identical twins share a very heavy majority of their genes it seems like poor thinking to simply assume that whatever theoretical sequence would be responsible for your concept of soul is a bit silly. Not to mention that, at some point in the next, oh, few hundred years we'll probably be able to manipulate our genes well enough to create perfect biological clones.


There's an unsubstantiated claim. We are just as much our behaviour and thoughts as we are our body. In fact, if any of those three changes sufficiently we feel alienated from our self because the reality has diverged from our self-concept.

Worse, you're assuming a lot of things in order to be able to make a fairly vague point. Let's assume, for a moment, that we do have an immortal soul that is non-physical. It is connected to our meat in some way we don't understand but it's what animates us. Your theory makes no sense in the context of this premise. If the immortal soul in Bob reincarnates years later in the body of Phil, it has nothing to do with his genes. It would probably have nothing to do with his meat at all since it clearly isn't dependent on the meat.

Now let's assume there is no immortal soul (meaning a mortal soul, which is kinda what you're talking about here). You aren't simply your body. You're also your experiences. Any future simulacrums won't have your experiences. You're also your choices. Any future copy won't make your choices. You're a product of your society. You 2.0 won't be a product of the same society.

To claim that people with an identical gene sequence are the same is condescendingly minimalist in its definition of a person and patently silly. A brilliant forgery of the Mona Lisa isn't the Mona Lisa. They might be strikingly similar, they might be capable of fulfilling the same function. This does not make them the same.

And I'm somebody who thinks people are essentially fungible! I should be an easy sell compared to somebody who thinks people are unique and valuable as ends in themselves.


I quoted the part where you said there was no fact. That's intellectual cowardice. Personally, I don't like fence-sitters but the ones who claim there is no ground give me the shits.

See? You can say that you don't have strong opinions, or that you aren't willing to defend a side in a debate. Sometimes that's just true. What you did was claim you weren't going to take sides because no side could be right, that there was no fact of the question. Which is incredibly weak, dishonest or dumb. Especially for something like the idea of an afterlife. Either there is some afterlife, or there isn't. We might not know but there's a fact about it.

I hate to sound like an ass but we already know what body part this is.... it is called the brain. People are the way they are from a mixture of genes and traits passed over from there parents, and experiences they have recieved in life.
We breath because our sub concious controls that, same with blood flow, mucus creation, sweat.
Nerves act as sensors for our brain. Got a fever? the nerves tell the brain your body is too hot. Your brain tells your body too produce more sweat to cool you off.
I do not know my personal view on religion, so there is no way i would mock yours. Personally i can not see an all knowing entity punishing someone who lived there life the best they could, and helped others when possible.
I have done alot of soul searching and have yet to find a religion that suits me.
So good luck with your theory good sir.


Quote Verbose "See? You can say that you don't have strong opinions, or that you aren't willing to defend a side in a debate. Sometimes that's just true. What you did was claim you weren't going to take sides because no side could be right, that there was no fact of the question. Which is incredibly weak, dishonest or dumb. Especially for something like the idea of an afterlife. Either there is some afterlife, or there isn't. We might not know but there's a fact about it."

Hmmmmm. this i do not agree with.

I do not personally know if there is an after life, neither do you. There is really no Proof proving either of the options wrong. There is also no proof proving either right.

In a subject like this, I see no problem sitting on the fence because perhaps he can admit he does not know the answer.

No Offence, but are you purposefuly misunderstanding me ?

I just mean the fact that you control your own body. Look trough your own eyes.
No behaviour, thoughts or ideas.

Imagine it as "Reset" of you.

Appereance will also differ. Since the change that the genes of my theory are the same is already small, the genes that make up your appearance being the same is zero.

wait they did a movie about this O.o what the crap was it called. Where they were growing clones and used them as substitute bodies O.o

Well, then that is the part Im talking bout.
Or atleast a small part of the brain.

I'm not going to sit here and side track what Bast is trying to get across, i like sitting on my fence, looking out at the world.. which side i chose in the end is up to me and me alone.. Don't like it, don't comment....>> And please don't belittle someone... you only know someone for how they type, and that is a shallow assumption to call someone dumb and cowardice for simply stating something they wanted to share..

The island

We are going! To the island!! We are going!!! To Santa Ville!!!! BAH BAH BAH!!

Sorry you got that song stuck in my head.

omg bad movie, i expected more ....

Sigh.

There are hundreds, thousands of conceptions of the afterlife. Millions of possibilities that we haven't thought of. Maybe there is no afterlife at all. So there is something, or there is nothing. You can't have any possibility that isn't either something or nothing. That covers every possibility.

The fact that we don't know doesn't change the fact that there is something or nothing. There is a fact. The fact is unknown to us. Denying that there is a fact is just stupid. Denying that a particular person knows the fact might be very reasonable.


And I have argued, at length and a couple of times now, that any "reset" wouldn't be me. It would be someone similar to me, perhaps, but not the same as me. There are people alive now who are similar to but not the same as me. It would be somebody else, somebody distinct in their own right.

So, like I said, in any meaningful sense, then no.


Not if it's dumb or cowardly.

I made (and make, as much as I'm tempted to) no claims at all about you as a person. You shared an idea which I expressed my opinion on. I explained my reasoning for doing this. It was actually relevant to the issue being discussed, albeit tangentially.

I don't think people are deserving of respect before they've earned it, even if generally I'll offer politeness for free. I certainly don't think that just because you happen to think something I have to leave it alone because being wrong might hurt your feelings. I'm being very careful here not to insult you. I very much want to. It would be very easy. If you'll note, I did actually concede that sometimes not choosing sides is a rational thing to do. I didn't call you an idiot or a coward for not choosing a side. I called the very condescending idea that there are no facts [in this matter] cowardly or idiotic. Just because it's your opinion doesn't make it immune to being wrong.

I did not state that there were no facts... I said we have no proof. Which we do not.

Arguing that there are facts, we just do not know them is pointless.

Which depends entirely on what you think is sufficient proof. There are people who believe that the Earth is six thousand years old because they simply ignore all evidence and argument to the contrary. I would like to think evidence and argument have "proved" that the Earth is not six thousand years old to the majority of people.

And people are currently studying near death experience. Some of them even do it properly. So either you take the skeptical position, that you can't prove anything ever, or you acknowledge that there is some virtue in experimentation and argument. If you acknowledge that virtue then it's not pointless to do those things. If you don't acknowledge that virtue, then there's no point trying to stop people who do since a true skeptic can't properly be certain that skepticism is a virtue.


Not when somebody has been saying there are no facts.

I directly quoted and then argued against an expressed opinion. I didn't bring it up to talk about tautologies. If people are saying things they don't mean, that's their own fault. I can't be expected to ignore what you say to divine what you mean. You need to learn to say what you actually mean, then I can simply read what you say. Plenty of people say and mean stupid things. If they learned to say what they meant then at least we'd only waste our time dealing with the people who mean stupid things.

Please note: the 'you' in the last paragraph is plural, not the singular.

There is a possibility of having no facts.

How you ask? Lets say the after life is imaginary. There would be no way of getting any facts. Lets take your near death studies you were talking about. Even if someone temporarily "dies" People will use the excuse of "well god never planned on keeping you dead and thus you never got to see heaven or hell."

I could say I have an undetectable bunny beside me. You will never be able to prove he is not there because I said he was not detectable.

And yes my writing is pretty terrible. I have never really been decent with grammer. Although I was great at math and robotics. I was ranked within the top 1% of people in Ontario for 3 years in a row for the highschool math contests.

There are different ways of being smart verbose. Just because you are capable of writing elequently does not make you any better then some kid who enjoys science or art.

I am not trying to insult you and in fact I may be talking out of line, But i am getting sick of forum trolls ( which you are not technically one of.) Instantly assuming someones I.Q. Is directly related to the amount of spelling and grammer errors in their posts.

I still am a firm believer that you can not prove something by proving that there is no way to prove it is wrong.... ( ok that sounds a bit off.)

You're right, there's no empirical way of proving or disproving God. Science has nothing to do with souls or anything like that. You can't disprove a soul because it exists outside the realm of observation while at the same time it can't be proven to exist without actually seeing one (and seeing it wouldn't necessarily translate to believing it)
And Bastyaan, what you're describing is something of a moot point. If you were "reborn" without your original memories and without your personality and developed in a different family and in different surroundings then its not really you, its a completely different person. A clone of you isn't you simply because he wasn't born in the same way and will probably be treated differently than you, a natural-born person. What you call a soul I call an identity, identities are unique and by their very nature can't be replicated.

Not in the scenario that it came up in. No life, no death, no life after death.


Yeah, because it's logically impossible to prove a negative. That's why the burden of proof is always on the person positing the theory or the existence of something. You would have to prove you have an undetectable bunny, I wouldn't have to prove you don't. If I claimed to believe in aliens, I couldn't point to a lack of conclusive proof they don't exist as evidence they do. You can only prove positives.


Nor does it make me worse, which is pretty much the heavy implication here. I'm fairly sure you didn't mean to imply that but since I haven't been denouncing anybody for anything, there's not really a lot of room for me to interpret things here. I pointed out that an idea was wrong and stated my contempt for another idea.

Of course, if we're talking education, then I've spent years doing philosophy. It's why I spend so long splitting hairs; semantics is all important when you're arguing because it's all about what you mean. Since I haven't been arguing about mathematics or robotics, that seems very tangential. If we were arguing mathematics or robotics, I wouldn't expect my field of expertise to carry a lot of weight. You know, seeing as it has nothing to do with the discussion. Waving around how wonderful we are on the internet is a little counter-productive, I find.


Why do people assume you have to be dumb to believe something dumb? Socrates would have believed that women had nothing of value to put into a philosophical debate. That's a factually incorrect belief. Quite a lot of important twentieth century philosophers are/have been women. So that belief would be dumb. Socrates is still a smart guy.

Also, I.Q. has very little connection to intelligence since it only has very slight value in testing a small range of intelligence types and then comparing them to the average score of the total test takers. I don't actually think they have any uses at all. I also haven't corrected or commented on peoples' grammar or spelling. I have commented on word choice but I haven't expected anybody to have more than a basically fluent vocabulary.


Because you've just pointed out that you can't prove a negative. Which is kinda reinforcing the point I was making earlier.

I've also not been trying to prove a negative at all in the thread so far. Being perfectly honest, I don't know how many different ways I can say these things before my head will simply hurt too much to think of another rephrasing. If people in general could pay a little more attention to exactly what I say, maybe? I don't usually settle for near-enough if I can be more accurate.


Actually, you'd only need to disprove God if somebody provided a proof.


There's a small but increasing amount of evidence that suggests this is not true. Scientists were always happy to claim they couldn't because they associated it with Religion (read: the Enemy) but there's actually a fair amount of evidence that would demand further study at the very least.

And really, a great deal of our scientific knowledge is about and based on things we can't actually see. People hypothesise, and if experiments support the hypothesis we assume it's correct until it's not.


At this point, I'll say it again because apparently I'll need to be repeating myself anyway: meaningful sense. You can redefine the words to make the theory true but that takes all of the meaning out of it.

Please note: this time, my commentary does not refer to the quoted text. It was quoted for further emphasis.

But your saying there are facts.... But technically there is a possibility that there is none. If there is no after life, you would never be able to prove it. Because like i said they will always state more reasons as too why that person never reached it, Near death is not the same as dieing. Your body may mimick the conditions but your brain cells do not decompose, and if they did the person who comes back will be brain dead. Which will be useless for the study.

Being on the fence is ok. Because technically you CAN be unsure of where you stand. For the longest time i believed in a god, but at the same time realized that the chances he existed was very slim, so i would kinda flip flop between the two.

In which case the fact would be there is no objective reality. There would also be facts about the subjective reality in which we live, seeing as there are a number of facts about the physical world we've been able to ascertain and repeatedly test. If nothing else, we're all in the same subjective reality.

There's always facts.


And again, I never said the problem was people choosing to sit on the fence (although personally, I'm of the mind that should be a temporary thing). My problem was with people who denied that there is a fact, for the logical reasons listed at length previous, and the idea that fence sitting is in any way superior to taking a position.

Before it comes up, I also think you can and likely will choose the wrong position. If someone can prove your error to you, it would be wise to change your position. I don't know what it is about perennial fence-sitters but they seem to think that the bloody-mindedness of fundamentalists (and there are always fundamentalists on both sides of every fence, including the ones with fifteen sides) is the result of choosing a side. It's not. You can always recognise an error and choose again.

You know...this debate may be interesting and all, but I think it may have gone on too long for all intents and purposes. So I will say, Basty, I'm a pretty open minded person, and though there may be a few flaws, it kind of reminds me of how no snowflake is ever exactly alike with another at the time, but there could have been a snowflake exactly like the one you just saw, back in the Jurassic Era. There are only so many patterns, though it sure is a shit load. Now, even though the snowflake you see now is exactly the same as the one back in the Jurassic, the outcome (what happens to the snowflake after) may very well be different. It could fall on the ground and melt immediately. It could stick, and with thousands of others make a nice fluffy blanket of snow. It could land on some little kid's tongue. But the point is, up until the point that another variable was added that the previous snow flake did not have, they are the same.

Please don't say I'm wrong or anything...you don't have proof either. This is all simply about your beliefs on the after life, not that everyone else is wrong. Sorry if that is all I got from skimming through the topic you guys...

You're comparing apples to oranges. Assuming that dark matter exists because there are some incongruities in current scientific theories that would be satisfied by the presence of something like dark matter is a lot different from hypothesizing about something metaphysical like a soul to explain something science can't currently grasp. And anyways without a soul a body still functions perfectly fine. A soul is something that hypothetically explains why, not how. How could you test the existence of a soul? Perhaps controlled death and resuscitation to see if the people go anywhere? There's a damn good reason why science doesn't touch the soul: it has no practical value to a scientist. It's anathema to science not because of some sort of rivalry with religion but because its in a different field of understanding entirely.

Lol! Yeah...hundreds and thousands of years. I don't think a debate like this has a shelf-life.

Kelly is back!!!! HIYA KELLY!!!

Lol...you know I didn't even think about it that way. I was just refering to the fact that it didn't even seem like they were talking about the same thing anymore. I got so confusing with all the, I meant this, and stuff.

Dark matter is us hypothesising about something we don't actually know exists because it would fit our current understanding of the world and further contributes to our understanding by positing something that helps with the inconsistencies.

So yeah, I'm comparing apples and oranges because I'm talking about fruit.


The word 'soul' has a lot of baggage. You're assuming the baggage is necessary to the idea. I don't agree. I think it's also a bit of a stretch to say that the body functions perfectly fine without a component you don't know the function for. Before we understood proprioception, most people would have said they'd be fine without it but it makes walking very tedious.


There are a lot of studies (most of them fairly dodgy because better scientists refuse to consider the possibility) being done on 'near death' experiences because some of the evidence doesn't fit our current understanding. No good scientist would look at this and claim that there's proof for a soul. Some wouldn't even claim there's evidence for a soul. There is some evidence that our own ideas aren't right, though, and given how poorly we still understand the brain that's not too surprising.


Most of high end physics has no practical value to a scientist. Hell, past a certain point and the only thing we can use to even test the ideas are mathematical proofs. Nothing has a practical value until some clever person figures out how to use a particular bit of knowledge. Refusing to collect knowledge because there's no current practical application is an economic decision, and a fairly short-sighted one. You can't know how knowledge would be useful until you know what it is, anyway.

Vaguely related: I don't think that the 'soul' is much like most religions claim. I think there's some stuff about ourselves we don't understand and that there's no good reason to avoid looking to understand what's left.

Awesome methaphore. I think you get what I mean.

you're welcome ....-bow- admit it, if it wasn't for me "fence sitting" no one would of started this argument on fence sitting..... -cough- ok im just gloating but as one person said above, there is no way to disproove or prove..you can't prove there is, yet we can't sit here and disprove it...it alllll goes back to what one believes... and when i see it, i'll believe it.

Well, it's a poetic metaphor. I'd imagine it's not actually true but like all good metaphors it does get the point across.


Again, burden of proof is always on the assertion. If I want to believe there are no kangaroos, the existence of a single kangaroo would prove me wrong. If I wanted to believe that there are magical blue kangaroos that use their magic to hide from everybody, that would be insane unless I could provide some argument or evidence to support it.

And don't be silly. You believe in hundreds, thousands of things you've never seen. Everybody does. It's not possible to verify every belief you have because you then have to verify the verification and you get stuck in an endless loop. The fact that we have to accept some beliefs without proof isn't a good reason to believe that having beliefs without proof are equally as good as the ones with proof, though. A much larger error margin when you have no real reasons for believing something.

How do you know what i belive in?for all you know i'm the anti-christ..(lets not rant about that either..) or choose not to believe in? Why believe in anything then if one has no real reason for believing? because they were raised that way? and if i want to believe there is an army of fat little ponies hidden from the world, planning for world domination..then so be it, i won't have to prove it to anyone but myself..if i wanted to SHARE my beliefe with you that the army is real, then we can go on disccusing proof.. but you seem to think you're right so i'll take my thoughts of my chubbie ponys and go stalk another thread... this is getting to be too much of a hassle to defend my thoughts on belief....

Hehe, this is fun to watch, because I'm pretty sure there's at least one of you who has NO IDEA what the other is trying to say, yet you argue anyway. This is why philosophical debates never get anywhere. XD

Alright, so about the gene thing... you're taking a theory of genes and placing that directly over our awareness, which as we know is a development of environment and memory. I'm sure it's been said, but merely making a copy of someone is not going to make them again (clone's won't share awareness, and once the clone is made, they become their own entity by the fact that they're living an entirely new life, and have their own awareness and unique perspective).

The fun thing about awareness, is that on a personal level (well, how about a level of everything) it can only be proven in the moment. So consider, we're inevitably unsure of the future and death because we're not sure what happens, and we can't prove what happened next. But reality is, neither can we prove what happened before. Our awareness can only be proven in the present.

I have memories of the past, I "know" I typed what I wrote about this, but if some cosmic force just started my life at this very moment, and instilled all the memories that led me to this moment, I wouldn't realize it.

So "Me" is a collection of memories and thoughts, but as I'm prone to forget things I've remembered, well, obviously my memories don't determine who I am.

So I must be myself as in my body is who I am (organs, brain etc.) However, if you don't realize, your skin cells replace themselves on a weekly basis. But this process of replacing and rebuilding is constantly happening, and you currently have no living cells in you that you had about 7 years ago. It's all been replaced at some point, and is constantly being replaced. So physically, nothing of what I was 7 years ago is still there. So I've physically been replaced.

But cells have no memory <.< Nor can they share memory on to the next (They're just a collection of atoms anyway). Yet "Me" has been here throughout my entire life. The cells have been replaced, the memories have come and gone, everything has changed, but the "I" is constant.

I can't prove the past happened, my reality is controlled by "perceptions" which we know can be manipulated (head phones can "create" sound, replicate voices, sight can be replicated, smell can be replicated, touch for all we know can be controlled, whether we have the means to do it now.)

The only thing that can't be replicated, is my thought... I think... or "Me". And the hardest thing to imagine, is a state where "Me" or my awareness, doesn't exist, because it's the only true way I know the world. Heaven may not exist, but "Nothing" would just blow my mind...

I didn't say what you believed at all. Do you believe there is a continent called Antarctica? Maybe yes, maybe no. Either way, what proof about Antarctica have you seen? Probably very little. In fact, quite a lot of the things you believe (no matter what they are) you don't have personal evidence for believing them. Mostly, it's not important because it never comes up. When people want to talk about something important is usually when questions of truth and evidence get called up.


I didn't say that nobody has any real reason to believe in anything. I said everyone believes a lot of things based on very little/no evidence. The reason you discuss it, or argue it, is because it is an attempt to correct a false belief.


Yeah, this is what I was saying. Let's say you do believe in your rubenesque pony militia. That belief is right, or it's wrong. If you discuss that belief, most people are going to say that it's wrong. They will demand proof. If you're a fundamentalist, you will probably say you don't need proof and that they have to prove that there is no armed mob of ponies just shaking in their plus size pants for the chance to conquer the globe. If you said this, you would be misunderstanding the logical burden of proof. We seem to be in agreement about this.


Of course I think I'm right. So do you. So does everybody. Nobody consciously believes something they believe to be wrong. The biggest difference between us in this discussion is that I am openly, honestly and clearly stating that I think things people have said are incorrect and I then go on to explain why I think that. Several times, rewording it to help ease understanding.


It's provoking a headache, that's certain. I wouldn't credit it with causing a headache but it has not helped the one I have along at all.


That is probably the most bleak outlook of human experience you could possibly have. Basically, what you just said there means that there is never any point to discussing anything, that humanity as a whole is so fundamentally and repeatedly stupid that any attempt to teach or enlighten is a waste of time.

The view is a little pessemistic to my mind.

<.< Forum debates? Or real life philosophical debates?

Historical results of Philisophical debates:

Math
Religion
Politics
Physics
Gravity
Shape of the world (ok, arguable, but our knowledge of it at least)
etc.



Although I feel our lovely forum debate here is a lot of yelling at each other without any listening to each other, but that's another story.

Verbose isn't really debating the original point anymore, he's mostly just arguing about the nature of belief which is fine and all but rather moot in this case.
Like I said having exactly the same DNA won't mean that you're the same person or that you have the same soul.

yea...im a just wait on that milita of chubby ponies...then we'll see who's laughing >>

No, I think everybody is listening to everybody else. They're just mostly communicating their point poorly (and I'm probably included in that they). I'm very precise when I argue and I assume that others will strive for precision also. This means I tend to take posts where people argue a case fairly literally, since I do my best to make my points fairly clearly.

Apparently, the people I'm arguing with don't strive for that clarity. That's not necessarily a bad thing - most European philosophers tend towards a less linear, less logical, less clear style of thinking. I'm very much a product of the Western school, however, where you state your case followed by your reasoning and you try to do it as clearly as possible. The difference between viewing philosophy as an art and viewing it as a skill or science.


I didn't start that way. I did explain my position on the original topic. A couple of times, even. There hasn't been a lot of other argument, really. Mostly people have taken a view that is opposed to the posited theory. I opposed the posited theory. I can hardly be expected to argue against my own position.

The rest sorta just happens.

It's your brain that enables you to control the body- That's why the braindead can't do anything. When the brain dies, so does your conciousness.
The main question is what is the defination of "you?" Are you saying that you'd still have your past memories? Or multiple personalities in your shared conscience, your atman?

I believe what he was originally grasping for was "identity" not soul.

I can has res?

just lol

It is strange to think of where our thoughts come from. I've tried thinking of every possible situation that might be and it is practically impossible. Even if we are mostly right it is highly doubtful that we can be 100% correct in our philosophical theories.
I've even thought up that all Matter is accompanied by "spiritual" matter which is where our thoughts and emotions come from. And that this "spiritual" matter can be changed or rearranged, lost or collected, and even manipulated by people (perhaps the ability that God has) to create feelings and to change physical matter/rearrange atoms.

Even so, I can't say that this is true. I've had many other theories and (to be honest) it's actually quite fun to think them up. But, collectively, I feel that we will not achieve the knowledge of everything in our life time.