Cold Steel,
Those pictures are awesome. Animals love each other, just like we do. Our cats look at us, and you can see that they love us. It is not something that we imagine and project onto a " dumb " animal.
Do Animals Have Souls?
by Cold Steel 165 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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JamesThomas
Dear Cofty,
I'm not trying to actually argue with you, or try and make anything you say seem unimportant.
Perhaps what I am getting at is that here in this thread, as we discuss whether or not an animal has a soul, there is an important opportunity to look deeper within ourselves. What is the essence of us?
How can we honestly and meaningfully discuss anything without knowing ourselves first?
Certainly we can just look at everything “metaphorically” as you say. Which makes everything we think and say twice removed from anything meaningful or real. So then what?
It's just another – in an endless amount of threads that equate to nothing more than mental masturbation. Nothing learned. Nothing gained. Just killing time. Same old, same old. Just throwing out meaningless opinions as if they mean something. On and on it goes, year after year. And then we die.
I basically said that humanity judged by thousands of years of mans inhumanity to man, nature and the planet, proves clearly that MAN HAS NO SOUL.
If it were otherwise would we be finding ourselves in the self-destructive polluted mess in which we presently are? The earth gives witness to the fact that humanity move through life as if we are soullessly insane...with only rare brief moments of sanity. But, there is hope.
Now, when we actually see this, and acknowledge it, we are now awake and aware. We can move on. We can perhaps discover the reality of a deeper self recognition. One that moves in harmony with nature.
This thread, no thread, is about animals or anything else, it's always about us. It always comes back to us. Everything we have ever thought, is about ourselves, no matter how removed it may appear.
If we see this, then we learn, we evolve, we grow. Unfortunately, 99% of the time we never shift the gaze inward. We just keep mindlessly blabbering. We go nowhere.
I am only feebly attempting to shift the focus. Chances are, it will just seem like the ramblings of a stupid fool. Which kind of proves my point.
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LisaRose
My Lizzie is such an old soul, She picked me at the shelter. I fell in love and told her she was to be mine. I went to make arrangements and when I walked away, she made the most most awful, mournful sound. They went to give her a shot and she got away away from them , I believe she was trying to find me. I picked her up a few days later and again she got away away from the shelter person, but just jumped into my cat carrier. The woman said that never happens. she is amazing. She goes out in the morning, then pretends to want back in, but when I open the back door, she gets down on the patio and does her most fetching roll, showing her tummy, looking at me, it's obvious she wants me to go outside with her. Sometimes she does this two or three times, until I give in and go outside with her and enjoy the morning. This is a soul.
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Qcmbr
The moment we start mentioning concepts such as the soul we leap into a world of speculation. Pretty pictures of cats do not substitute for a serious discussion. I no longer believe in what I was taught by a fraudulent faith from a mythical book and therefore I must also reject such fanciful notions as souls, spirits and ghosts. If I were to learn that indeed there is something to consciousness beyond the brain and nervous system I would be thrilled. To get to that point would need evidence.
This is a summary of the evidence as far as I've ever read:
1 / Reincarnation stories
2 / NDEs
3 / Sightings of ghosts
4 / The subjective and intuitive experience of self
These can all be discussed elsewhere but it is clear that none of these produce evidence of a consistent or sufficient quantity to argue for anything beyond statistical chance, confirmation bias, perception mistakes, planted memories, chemical flooding of the brain and the temporary overstimulation of parts of the brain. This is not to dismiss them but to simply show that these do not meet the requirements to argue for a consistent phenomenon.
This is a summary of the evidence against a spirit IMO:
1 / It is not required under any biological definition of life. Cell division, DNA replication, respiration, procreation etc. need no additional factors to explain them.
2 / All human behaviour can be traced to biological and chemical origins and do not argue for some as yet unmeasured energy. Chemical conditions induce happiness, sadness, anger, fear and so on. A brain that is learning grows new neural connections. A brain that is damaged loses functionality. Some brains produce or experience abnormal chemical levels leading to such constructs as depression, bipolarity, genius and so on. The use of chemicals to redress these balances can remove the behaviour.
3 / When the brain returns to its natural state consciousness ceases ( we call it sleep but it has many measurable stages) We do not experience this state, no accessible memories are laid down, no perception is constructed for us with the slight exception of REM.
4 / With the exception of obvious physical trauma deaths the process of death is not specific and occurs in stages. Sometimes it takes years as parts of the brain shut down. People declared dead can be resuscitated. People may go unconscious over a long time until the automatic signalling system portion of the brain shuts down and the heart stops beating. Brain activity will continue to flicker for some time afterwards in autopilot. If a spirit were an essential part of life it would be clear when death occurred, every single time.
If we argue for a spirit we must conclude that it itself has no memory, is totally dominated and controlled by the biological systems of the body, plays no part in determining emotional state, carries no character or state at birth ( children's behaviour absolutely matches well studied brain development paths), does not maintain character ( amnesia, alzheimers and so on) , is unable to maintain a sense of self independently ( deja vu, anaesthesia, being drunk, illness or physiological stress induced delirium) , has not been observed at any level, micro or macro in any biological systems nor is it predicted by any models ( no model predicts it and no unsolved biological question would be solved by it.)
It seems the greatest argument for a spirit is based on religious ideas, the need to explain reality as having some unmeasurable, mysterious essence which privileges the conscious being and flatters them as being not only vital in a vast universe but actually the cause of it ( the world was built for us idea.)
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DATA-DOG
LOL!!!!!
" statistical chance, confirmation bias, perception mistakes, planted memories, chemical flooding of the brain and the temporary overstimulation of parts of the brain."
Of course you are correct. The over-stimulation of my brain via chemical flooding, along with planted memories and my own comfirmation bias were finally statistically realized. The end result was my mistaken perception of a Gorilla who painted a picture of his dead friend.
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Qcmbr
DD, what has the concept of 'spirit' got to do with the neural capacity to form memories or to express friendship? Your comments suggest that you directly associate this idea of a soul/ spirit with individual behaviour , memory and social interaction. Please clarify why these given phenomenon cannot be the result of purely biological processes. Please do not fall into the mistaken assumption that any biological or chemical model would mandate robotic behaviour ( we can happily discuss robotics and programming elsewhere if you would like to discuss why. )
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new22day
Nice thread. There are some smart people on this forum, so let me apologize in advance of my post... :)
I believe animals have souls. I've never believed in or followed any religion.
Seraphim: That was interesting information (much of it over my head). This point struck me tho: "... in a famous conversation, (Einstein) mourned the fact that the present tense, "now", lay "just outside of the realm of science"
The "present tense" does not just lay outside the realm of science. Humans - esp in the west - struggle to Be in the present. Our 'consciousness' mostly consists of thoughts of the past or the future. Rarely can people suspend judgement and live in the moment. Animals, on the other hand, have mastered this. Some say this is because they are lesser beings...
Some thoughts (take 'em or leave 'em) from a (non-religious) book "Guardians of Spirit"
"We have forgotten what rocks, plants and animals still know. We have forgotten how to be -- to be still, to be ourselves, to be where life is: Here and Now."
"When you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought. A Depth returns to your life. Things regain their newness and their freshness."
"What is it that so many people find enchanting in animals? Their essence -- their Being - is not covered by the mind, as it is in most humans. And whenever you Feel that essence in another, you also feel it in yourself."
"When you are present you can sense the spirit, in every creature and love it as yourself. "Cold Steel - great pictures. Yep, Moggy is shameless, cuz Moggy doesn't judge. ;)
Data Dog - your story of Mike the gorrila and apple was wild.
Lisa Rose - like your story of your shelter pup - glad you found each other.
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Seraphim23
Qcmbr said:
“It seems the greatest argument for a spirit is based on religious ideas, the need to explain reality as having some unmeasurable, mysterious essence which privileges the conscious being and flatters them as being not only vital in a vast universe but actually the cause of it ( the world was built for us idea.)”
Much could be said regarding your well written mini analysis and you make some excellent points. However I won’t attempt a complicated rebuttal except to say that in nature when things become extreme in terms of physical processes, phenomena normally unnoticed and seemingly unrequired start to manifest. Take black holes for instance and what they are! They are effectively ghosts of stars unexplainable in many ways.
The maths for a start suggests infinite density and mass which is a concept that should not be possible and certainly not understandable in any conventional way, but the maths suggests a different story. Also in normal reality where Euclidean geometry holds true, the shortest path between two points is always a straight line and in your garden and most other places this holds true for obvious reasons, but this is not the case in the periphery of a black hole because space time itself is bent so that sometimes a straight line does not constitute the shortest distance between two points. It all depends on your starting assumptions holding true, which they often don’t at the extreme end of physics, and this is where physics stops being predictable for the same reasons. In fact it starts not even resembling what we call physics.
Another interesting fact is that if you were able to survive a descent into a black hole before being sucked in, and you could train your super telescope onto planet earth, and those on earth did the same thing on you with their super telescopes, we on earth would see you motionless and never moving from our point of view, but you on the other hand would see all of us on earth living our lives and the entire future of mankind unfold in seconds.
Now if all this is true with black holes, what of the other end of spectrum in terms of the extreme end of physics, the quantum domain? There is equal difficulty in this area as well. Speed for one thing seems inexplicably tied up with location, as though they were the same thing, creating a measurement problem. The fact that this area of physics underlies everything in the entire universe should at least give pause for thought.
So what I am trying to say with all this is quite simply that death represents a similar issue. Things like the quantum identity of the brain, with the breakdown of the body could well have phenomena that would surprise even the most nonchalant materialist, and for many this is not speculation because they have witnessed things suggesting that indeed death is the final frontier. Certainly nature is strange enough on its own that an open mind would not mean the brain would necessarily fall out!
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cofty
what I am trying to say with all this is quite simply that death represents a similar issue - Seraphim23
No not really. Physics is nothing like death. Growth in knowledge about physics is growing exponentially. Despite billions of deaths there is still not even the slightest hint that it is anything other than the total dissolution of the being.
Consciousness has always been unexplainable via a materialist only paradigm and always will be - Seraphim23
Really? How much have you read about the progress in neuroscience? Have you read "Consciousness Explained" by Daniel Dennett for example?
You may disagree with his evidence but you can't blithely dismiss it unless you have first considered it.
It's foolish to say that science will never be able to explain something. History has proved that many times. The Victorians were certain that muscles inflated because "animal spirit" was pumped along nerves and held in mini-bladders by one way valves. They were certain that the details would "always be beyond the view of science".
We now know the precise mechanism of muscle contraction, the interaction of actin and myosin right down to the molecular level.
"Every mystery ever solved has turned out to be not magic".
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Cold Steel
Interesting discussion so far. Many different opinions coming from people of varying backgrounds.
But watch this video. It makes me believe there is good in the world...and we know there is evil. It's a delicate balance and I can't believe that with the order of the Universe, and the beauty, that good ultimately overrules evil.