Existence of the Soul

[Anonymouse]

The narcissist bites the dust.

[anileve]

You tell him, girl! *snap snap*

VAY astvats, spanetsir Anna jan!!!!!!!!

[Sip]

I never claimed I have any answers. I only claimed marvel at the questions and wonders which man cannot answer. ....

Not exactly true ... below is a quote from you, ironically enough posted in the love and romance section

Everyone knows the answers to everything. And that is proven time and again in the Love and Romance section.

Just kidding fellas .. please do continue. No reason to stop now.

[loseyourname]

Look, I said I'll revive this thread when I'm ready to bring up real evidence for the existence of something that might be called a human soul. Evidence that doesn't involve ridiculous speculation and pointless tangents. I haven't forgotten, though it may be a while.

[Anonymouse]

You are the same person that wanted to study human consciousness by going into biological sciences.

[loseyourname]

No, I'm the same person that still wants to. You act like this is something revolutionary. Have you bothered to actually look at any of the neuroscience links I've posted? There is great progress being made. Whether or not consciousness will ever be understood on a purely material basis is unclear, but it is perfectly clear that the brain is somehow involved, and it is worth studying. Quit being silly.

[Anonymouse]

Hahaha you said "silly". Can a soul be silly? Why do you think people talk about "soul" from ancient times? What would be the significance of that?

[loseyourname]

Uh, okay. I didn't say you were silly for talking about a soul. If I thought that was silly, why would I start a thread to talk about the soul? Think a little harder next time.

[Anonymouse]

You totally missed my point.

[loseyourname]

Okay, I'll answer your questions then.

Can a soul be silly?

Well, I don't know. If I grant the existence of such a thing, and grant that it is the source of human emotion, then sure, I would guess it can be silly, given that humans quite often have some silly emotions.

What is the significance of people talking about a "soul" from the beginning?

I could be wrong, but I was pretty sure that no one did talk about a "soul" until Socrates. Most early civilizations certainly didn't seem to have much sense of self, or of free will, instead attributing their actions to fate or to the whims of the gods. I would imagine that once the Greeks realized how obviously ridiculous this was, after developing a very rudimentary science and philosophy, that they then had to attribute human action, and thought in particular, to something else. Once it was postulated that ideas could have a non-physical existence that was not tied to anything material by necessity, I would imagine it wasn't much of a leap to guess that the interface of these ideas with the physical body, that is thought, must itself have an immaterial origin. Hence the idea of the soul. Of course, they had no knowledge of the brain, so it is to be expected that they would attribute thought to something else.

I guess it really isn't that significant.