Can o' worms: Soul

[Elude]

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

This is an idiot made device. Humans use matter and energy to create Ipads. The universe uses matter and energy to create galaxies.

Comparing an Ipad to a galaxy are we, you do realize they are equally insignificant right? If you're going to insult the human intellect you might as well insult the universe along with it.

Originally Posted by DjEclipse

Science and Religion like to define what already is. To me that is as significant as Christopher Columbus discovering the new world. There's nothing new about it.

You have that half right.... except religion likes to define what isn't

[Warborn]

Maaaan, what if, like, the world is just energy, right? I mean, if the whole world were made of energy, how could we ever run out, you know? *puff puff*

DjEclipse is either high or trolling.

[ItsTheSheppy]

I'll cop to it, I was trolling him a bit. About half. The other half was just sort of a textual facepalm at the incredibly dumb things he's saying which may all be just trolls.

I mean... scientists being responsible for the deaths from missiles. As if science is to blame. That's like blaming language for arguments. Gah.

[Vecha]

Originally Posted by ItsTheSheppy

I mean... scientists being responsible for the deaths from missiles. As if science is to blame. That's like blaming language for arguments. Gah.

Albert Einstein was at one point German.

He made a Bomb.

He's a Nazi.

I use this formula for all scientist.

It all goes back to either A.) Being a Nazi B.) Being a Russian C.) Magic

(I may or may not use the Indiana Jones films as research).

[Elude]

Albert Einstein never made a bomb....

[Vecha]

Originally Posted by Elude

Albert Einstein never made a bomb....

Yeah, he did.

I got proof too.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wcW_Ygs6hm0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Elude]

[p0intman]

Originally Posted by Warborn

Maaaan, what if, like, the world is just energy, right? I mean, if the whole world were made of energy, how could we ever run out, you know? *puff puff*

DjEclipse is either high or trolling.

The world is made of mass. Mass is the equivilent of energy as per E=MC2. So yes, the world is a ball of energy.

[Warborn]

Thanks for the pro tip, Einstein.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by p0intman

The world is made of mass. Mass is the equivilent of energy as per E=MC2. So yes, the world is a ball of energy.

The problem DJ Eclipse has is not being able to differentiate between energy you can harness and energy you can't acquire because it's either entropy or in a wrong state or simply too much to handle.

Like the earth in your example. You can use heat pumps to siphon some earth warmth out of it, but you can't actually mine the earth's kinetic energy.

You can however slingshot satellites by creating kinetic energy with a planet's gravity, but that doesn't mean you can use that to drive your car.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by elfailo

Eclipse is trying to say that soul = unity and coherence in everything.

I think the problem is a matter of definition. It's similar to some of the problems of defining god, where we have such ridiculous notions like "all powerful." All powerful is an improper use of infinities, sort of like the idea of a perfect human. Infinities can be meaningful within certain narrow definitions, but when you just start throwing them out there willy nilly, it gets to be rather meaningless.

A perfect circle is a good example of a proper use of an infinite. It's a very simple concept. We'll never see a true perfect circle, but it's a concept that we can clearly define. We know exactly what a perfect circle would look like. But what is a perfect human being? There are so many variables, and we don't have a clear guideline for what makes a more perfect or less perfect human in each complex category. Ideas like an all powerful god get even more absurd, since the very concept implies some contradicting infinite attributes, aka the omnipotence paradox.

So what exactly is a soul? If it's "a part of us that goes on after our physical body dies," then what part of us is it? As has been mentioned several times in this thread, huge portions of our personality are clearly tied to our physical brain, so what is it exactly that survives? What form of energy does this soul exist as? Is it electromagnetic? Is it some form of energy that we haven't yet observed? Through what mechanism does this soul interact with our physical brain and nervous system?

We need a solid idea of what we are talking about if we are going to even begin to accept the idea of a "soul" on any kind of rational basis. I can have reasoned discussions about the merits of certain definitions of a god entity, but other definitions are too ludicrous to waste much time with. There are so many different versions of god, that I usually like to make sure I know what a person means by "god" when I start talking with them about it, and if it consists of vague, nonsensical and/or contradictory ideas, there isn't much that's worth discussing.

If a soul is just a blueprint as eclipse seems to be suggesting, then that sounds like a synonym for physics. Physics doesn't suggest that much of anything of our minds and personality live on after we die though. Physics just indicates that the matter and energy that made up our living bodies converts into other forms. We live on as dirt and water. At best, we seem to live on through our actions when we were alive, through other peoples memories and the repercussions of what we did while alive, and through our children. But that hardly seems like the kind of eternal soul that most people talk about.

Maybe eventually we'll have an eternal soul through technology though. It's already starting to happen with "ghost in the machine" type stuff with the internet, and it's only going to explode from there once we start interfacing computers directly with our brains.

[Neurotoxin]

Here's a curveball - teleporters. When you use a teleporter, does your entire being transfer across, or do you die and the version people see on the other side is a soulless replica?

Another version of this is the TRON digitizer. When The Dude is digitized into Encom's network, what happened to his soul? Dis it gut sucked in the machine too? Does that mean the MCP could have killed him and captured his soul, or would it have derezzed with the rest of his code?

Also, when does the soul begin? The moment a sperm finds its way in an egg? Or is it more along the Jewish traditional lines, where life only begins when God breathes your first breath into you? Where does it come from, does it grow with the fetus, or is it summoned down as raw ethereal matter from Heaven?

[MasterChief096]

Warborn you missed the whole point of Eclipse's comment about the star.

Yes, we know, through science, how stars are born and their life cycles, as well as how they die.

What we don't know is why any of the constants in our universe are set to their parameters. Why does gravity exist? Why did Hydrogen come from nothing during the big bang, then coalesce into the first stars and galaxies? What is the blueprint for all the physical laws of our universe?

I think that is what DJEclipse was getting at.

[Malorn]

Meh.

[Elude]

Originally Posted by Malorn

A line in 2D space cannot see that it is part of a cube in 3D space. It might even claim cubes don't exist because it fully understands itself and all things observable in it's 2D space. The cube thinks he knows better than the lines, unaware that he himself could be part of something much bigger in 4D space. Or 5D...etc.

Assuming greater dimensions exists while also assuming that a line in 2d space can even think let alone comprehend what a cube is before questioning its existence.

It's one thing to believe in something you have no proof of, it's another to believe in something piled under other shit that you have no proof of. This is the very problem with religion.