Natural vs Supernatural

[OmegaKV]

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[R.C. Christian]

OmegaKV wrote

The soul and consciousness are supernatural phenomena...

No, they are not phenomena, they are human constructs; sums of observable phenomena that the human (or other animal) body/system displays. There isn't a separate soul; soul is a product of the multi-scale, bound infinite complexity of the body.

From that point on, your argument builds upon the above false premise, producing a couple more false premises along the way.

[OmegaKV]

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[R.C. Christian]

OmegaKV wrote

If you believe this then you are denying your own sentience and the existence of sensations of things such as colors. It is hard for me to refute this to you though, because all I know is my own sentience, not yours.

How am I denying something that I included among the things I can observe? I can observe what my senses allow me to, but I could never observe separate, well defined entities of soul or consciousness. What definition of either the "soul" or "consciousness" describe them to be something that's not a product of phenomena observable through the senses (including the sixth sense, thinking as well)?

OmegaKV wrote

There isn't a separate soul; soul is a product of the multi-scale, bound infinite complexity of the body.

Can you explain what you mean by this?

Every entity that's included in the Infinite Whole, i.e. the World that itself is not the Infinite Whole is necessarily bound infinity, because there are other observable entities that are not the entity in question. There's an observable boundary (f.ex. our skin) beyond which there are other entities (air, other people, objects, etc.). But upon examination towards smaller scales, there's always matter displaying all kinds of different patterns. Of course there's a limit to human observation, but that's true regarding every observable areas. The best we can do is to go by the assumption (Occam's Razor applies here) that if something displayed a certain nature on so many different scales, it won't suddenly display a different nature or go out of existence; that would be a so called "strong emergence", just like the emergence of a soul (i.e. a separate, well defined and new entity) from complex matter would be a strong emergence as well.
But the sum of certain aspects of this self-organized matter that displays all kinds of different patterns on infinite scales IS itself what we observe as "soul" or "consciousness". And that's why humans can't model soul or consciousness with AI. Because no matter how complex they make an AI, and no matter on how many different scales they build it, on some (actually infinite amount of, in at least one direction) scales it won't be similar to a human being, but instead it will carry the patterns of their original material (i.e. the material they are constructed of, like silicon, someone else's neurons or who knows what they try to make a thinking machine out of). Yet, there is nothing new in it, only matter, organized in a particular way.

[OmegaKV]

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[R.C. Christian]

What more is there but the physical phenomenon? There's nothing I can observe that I could circumscribe as "hey, this IS consciousness" or "soul". All I have is the observable world through my senses.

[fschmidt]

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[OmegaKV]

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[OmegaKV]

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[R.C. Christian]

OmegaKV wrote

I would say the most obvious example is colors. Colors as we (or at least I) experience them have no basis in reality.

Seeing a color and recognizing it is no different from the recognition of a texture or light/shadow. In fact, empirically, upon examination on smaller scales, color IS a combination of texture and the light that illuminates that texture. Color is just one of the perceptual properties.

OmegaKV wrote

The reality is that colors are just different wavelengths of light.

That is a human made construct. The original reality is the perceived color itself; it is there immediately, even for a newborn, without having to learn about wavelengths.

OmegaKV wrote

But the experience of perceiving colors is something magical.

It isn't magical to me. I can see the world as something infinitely interesting, but magical it isn't.

[R.C. Christian]

OmegaKV wrote

What has been observed that would suggest that the soul does not exist independently of the body?

The body. What would be the role of the body if the soul could exist independently? Why does behavior change when the body changes, for example, someone suffers brain injury?

[OmegaKV]

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[R.C. Christian]

OmegaKV wrote

Personality is a different concept than the soul. The soul at its most basic is just experience. It may or may not influence personality, and the personality may or not influence the soul. I tend to think they do influence each other but it is a separate discussion.

No true Scotsman. Going by the above, the soul is a mystical entity that is in connection with many known things but is separate from each one of them, so any discussion that attempts to argue its non-discreteness fails, because none of those known things contain any part of soul.

OmegaKV wrote

Personality is a different concept than the soul. The soul at its most basic is just experience.

We won't attempt to test how your experience changes by causing brain damage to you, but did you feel and think the same you do now when you were just 3 years old, was your perception and experience the same as it is now? When your body is sick or tired, do you feel and think the same as when you are fresh and healthy, does your experience remain the same in all cases?

[OmegaKV]

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[R.C. Christian]

Next!