Why do you post to this forum?

Skylimit · Post by **Skylimit** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 1:02 pm

The return to the original question : why do you post ..

Je post donc je suis

emmem · Post by **emmem** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 9:22 pm

Skylimit wrote: Je post donc je suis

That's Europanto

The English translation

I post therefor I am.

But is it really me who does the posting or my hands?

Antti · Post by **Antti** » Thu Oct 24, 2002 3:22 pm

emmem wrote:But is it really me who does the posting or my hands?

It's your computer

Skylimit · Post by **Skylimit** » Thu Oct 24, 2002 6:49 pm

An interesting question is :

If we were smart enough to build computers that have a soul (question 1 : what is a soul, and does a soul exist ?) if that were possible, then would we have to acknowledge that they are no longer machines, and would we have to give them rights, and would we have to treat them like they were human beings ... ?

(replace computer by android)

I know the answer, but it is a bit long to post here ... (about 450 pages)

emmem · Post by **emmem** » Thu Oct 24, 2002 10:32 pm

Skylimit wrote:An interesting question is :

If we were smart enough to build computers that have a soul (question 1 : what is a soul, and does a soul exist ?) if that were possible, then would we have to acknowledge that they are no longer machines, and would we have to give them rights, and would we have to treat them like they were human beings ... ?

(replace computer by android)

I know the answer, but it is a bit long to post here ... (about 450 pages)

Which means those 450 pages have a soul.

And now a bit more serious: Do those 450 pages have a name (title of a book, title of a paper, some document on the internet, etc)?

Skylimit · Post by **Skylimit** » Fri Oct 25, 2002 1:17 pm

Man, Beast & Zombie by Kenan Malik
(a bit heavy for my brain ... or should I say, soul)

Antti · Post by **Antti** » Fri Oct 25, 2002 2:26 pm

Skylimit wrote:An interesting question is :

If we were smart enough to build computers that have a soul (question 1 : what is a soul, and does a soul exist ?) if that were possible, then would we have to acknowledge that they are no longer machines, and would we have to give them rights, and would we have to treat them like they were human beings ... ?

I think we should never take techmology that far.

hebben-en-houden · Post by **hebben-en-houden** » Fri Oct 25, 2002 7:45 pm

Antti wrote:
Skylimit wrote:An interesting question is :

If we were smart enough to build computers that have a soul (question 1 : what is a soul, and does a soul exist ?) if that were possible, then would we have to acknowledge that they are no longer machines, and would we have to give them rights, and would we have to treat them like they were human beings ... ?
I think we should never take techmology that far.

That's the same thing my PDA said to me yesterday

Skylimit · Post by **Skylimit** » Fri Oct 25, 2002 10:09 pm

Do you think it could be stopped (if it were possible) ??

emmem · Post by **emmem** » Fri Oct 25, 2002 10:22 pm

Skylimit wrote:Man, Beast & Zombie by Kenan Malik
(a bit heavy for my brain ... or should I say, soul)

Which leads me to the questions: What’s a soul? How is it defined?

Skylimit · Post by **Skylimit** » Sat Oct 26, 2002 10:47 am

Well, if you believe that there is no such thing as a soul, because your brain and whatever is "in" it is part of your body, and brainwaves are therefore nothing more than chemical reactions, this would lead to the conclusion that every given "input" leads to a more or less predictible "output" which would mean nothing less than that there is no such thing as a free will.

So the fact that I don't accept the concept of soul, would therefore not even be my own choice ...

Of course, I cannot explain this complex matter in the same way Kenan Malik did... he's a genius, and he is controversial, and challenging to the brain. So read the book (and take some time off, to recover) Soul (and Descartes) is an important part in the long introduction, the second part is about all variants of Darwinism. And in the third part there is a shift to artificial intelligence.

Antti · Post by **Antti** » Sat Oct 26, 2002 4:36 pm

If someone someday finds the final answer to the question whether the thing we call soul exists or not, I think I don't want to hear the answer, because if there certainly was a soul in my head, that would sure lead to some kind of "one real religion that knows what soul is" and that would have to be adopted by everybody, since it then has to be right. Of course, like other scientific "facts", the real existance of soul would be controversial at first, but would later be accepted, like e.g. darwinism. And if there is no soul, I don't want to hear that either so I can at least imagine I can affect the things going on in my head, and I can really make decisions, that they aren't just chemical reactions taking place in my head by some random rules, that are to complicated to be understood by human brains.

emmem · Post by **emmem** » Sat Oct 26, 2002 7:35 pm

Whenever somebody uses the word soul, I almost always respond by asking what a soul is. Often they have problem answering this. On some occasions I even had the answer : If you have a soul you know what it is.

So now there is this thing of which I think it is my soul, but I’m really not sure if it’s the thing. So I keep on asking.

It’s far more simple to get an answer to the question "What’s an arm?". If you want to get an answer to the question "What’s pain?" it is fairly simply answered too, although not so pleasant to get the answer. But the question "what’s a soul" seems to give far more problems.

Kenan Malik seems to have a website. I took a look and I read some very interesting things there.

Saying that the soul is just chemical reactions is a bit like saying NATO is just buildings. A soul probably needs those chemical reactions to exist, but has probably an influence on those chemical reactions too. The chemical reactions are a condition for the existence of the soul.

Antti wrote:And if there is no soul, I don't want to hear that either so I can at least imagine I can affect the things going on in my head, and I can really make decisions

So it seems that one of the characteristics of the soul is that it can affect the things going on in your head.

Donald · Post by **Donald** » Sat Oct 26, 2002 9:03 pm

Concerning the aspects of matter, life, mind, soul and spirit, I like the systematic approach applied by Ken Wilber http://wilber.shambhala.com/ .
So far Wilber also provides imho the best way to discuss the relations between arts, ethics, science and religion. He does not provide final answers to the question what a soul is, but he has a clear perspective of possible properties a soul has.
I just read Wilbers's "A Theory of Everything" and I recommend this as an introduction to the world of Wilber's books.

Skylimit · Post by **Skylimit** » Sat Oct 26, 2002 9:08 pm

emmem wrote: "What’s pain?" it is fairly simply answered too, although not so pleasant to get the answer.

Well that is not Malik ... Malik says, animals do not have a consciousness, so therefore they cannot experience pain, at least not in the same perception as we do. They have the reflex, they have the reaction, but the experience we think they have, is just a projection of what we experience when we are in pain ... I must say, this is a part of the book that I have difficulties with accepting

emmem wrote: "What is a soul"

Well in my words, as you said also, the chemical reactions are the conditions necessary for the soul to exist, but are not the soul, just like a software program is not a computer. It cannot exist on it's own, but a computer without software is just a piece of hardware ...

Furthermore, I don't see the soul as a religious concept anymore. I see it as sofware running on our brain. Darwinism explains the part of the brain that is genitically determined, but Malik introduces a new concept, the social selection (versus natural selection) which explains that the brain is not a tabula rasa when we are born, some stuff is genitically transferred, while other stuff is planted there through social selection, which to some extent explains some values that are universal, without being genetically determined ...

I hope Malik doen't read my interpretation... It's been a few months since I read that stuff, and it probably doesn't come out the way he intended it ...

emmem wrote:Saying that the soul is just chemical reactions is a bit like saying NATO is just buildings. The chemical reactions are a condition for the existence of the soul.

Did you come up with that yourself ? I think it is in the book ...