What is a reason for people to believe in a soul or a ghost inside

>>8643023
it's an attempt at an explanation of subjective, unsolidifiable experience.

the soul is not a 'thing' outside or inside human beings. Start with the Greeks.

>>8643036
you know what he means.

Because it excuses believing in an afterlife.

A proper Monist outlook quashes the idea of the soul pretty readily.

Well, so does any sort of study into the field of neuroscience.

The soul was formerly thought to be the executive part of the human animal - a metaphysical sublime part that provided free-will and represented an immortal object apart a world in decay, but still a part of us.

But neuroscience marches on and now we know you can change how a person thinks of what they believe in by fiddling with their brain enough.

Though we aren't very good at it yet; early lobotomies were so bad that Stalin himself banned them as inhumane.

The US government on the other hand was lobotomising people against their will up 'til the 1980's.

Funny old world.

>>8643023
Your body is a physical thing, yet you see the world in terms of concepts and abstractions.
Has its logic, quite frankly.

>>8643834
Good old us. It is so good to be alive in an age where we know it all

>>8643834
Neuroscience isn't as far along as many people think. We can say that these thoughts or these emotions stimulate this part of the brain or these kind of neurons. As a result, damaging or stimulating different parts of the brain can make a person act in a semi-predictable emotional manner. But we are a long way away from identifying what causes a thought to formulate, let alone compress it down into a neat little theory.

Not saying we won't one day. I just think the human brain is much, much more complex than most people understand.

>>8643023
It's because we have two different parts of ourselves: the physical and the mental. it is easy to imagine our physical deaths. We can observe it in trees, pets, and family members. We take their physical body and bury it, and it decomposes as the tissues are no longer maintained by oxygen and other energy sources.

Our mental death is harder to imagine. The best thing we can imagine to compare it to is what it was like before we were born, those 13 trillion years of nothing it all. It scares us because we do not know what will happen. The same is the reason as to why children are afraid of the dark: they cannot see what is in it.

So we have this subconscious fear of death, bred into us because our primal drives push us towards survival so that we can continue the species. The meaning of life is to live, so to speak, at least according to our baser desires and fears. Death is something that is contradictory to our existence. We can't explain it.

So we listen to a few insane geniuses who seem to know what they're talking about. They say they see, hear, and know things that nobody else can. So we become okay with this. We accept it and act aggressively when it is challenged because challenging this is wakening a instinctual fear of death, of the unknown.

>>8643023
The soul is there breh but you aint there yet

>>8643023

subjectivity is simultaneously unrepresentable and undeniable.

Because God is real and the Bible is right.

The immateriality of the intellect is evidenced by the universality of our concepts, e.g. the concept "triangle" applies to every individual triangle (that is has been, will be, or even can be). Material things are always individual, never universal; the universality of the concept proves it is immaterial, subsisting outside of matter; and as act follows nature, the fact that the act of our intellect is immaterial, shows that on some level our intellect itself is immaterial.

Dualism is the default, most common sense position, so it's no wonder that it's the most popular position throughout history. Both monisms - materialism or idealism - lead to absurd consequences.

>>8643023
The belief exists because the thought of it not existing is too horrifying for people to accept. People can't easily accept their own mortality and fragility for their own existence.

>>8643036
>the soul is not a 'thing' outside or inside human beings

Plato thought that the soul was a thing inside the body. Aristotle thought that it was the very form of the body itself; except the form of the rational (i.e. human) soul also has an immaterial part.

>>8643919
This is a truly asinine comment. It's as stupid as saying, "materialists don't believe the soul exists because they are too afraid of hell and don't want to believe that they can rest after death".

>>8643924
If you look at the available evidence, then there is no way you can come to the conclusion that a soul exists without wishful thinking.

There is the difference.

There is no soul, there is only the will and your volition.
The problem I have with the soul is that it's the mentality that we don't die. We live in on some other plain of existence, or in heaven, or we get reincarnated, or whatever. It's all the same. We don't die. Therefore the soul exists.
And while a secondary application is to explain consciousness, it's still a means in the hopes to cheat death.

I am more a dualist in the sense that there is a epistemological dualism between concept in the form of the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy. I tend to agree with Paglia that this dualism is likely the result of our inner-fighting between our reptilian and our mammal brain.

>>8643922
And Plato, like always, is wrong.

>>8643924
You don't ''rest'' when you die. You just die.

>>8643946
>If you look at the available evidence

see: >>8643915

And this is without the testimony of almost all of mankind, at all times, in all places, that testify to spiritual realities.

>>8643952
>And while a secondary application is to explain consciousness, it's still a means in the hopes to cheat death.

This idea that the soul is something men invented in order to console themselves about death is historically ridiculous. The Buddhists taught that death or extinction is desirable, and the continued existence of the soul painful. Most of the pagans were in despair about the fate of the soul after death, believing that most souls went to a Hades of misery (e.g. Homer puts Achilles in Hades saying, "it's better to be a slave on earth, than a king in Hades"). The idea of the soul existing after death being a real source of consolation only enters history with Christianity, and even then Christianity ups the game by saying that unless the soul lives a good life, its state after death is eternal torture - so that's hardly vapid "wishful thinking", considering that most of the early Church fathers and theologians taught that there were more damned souls than saved.
Just because people today are sentimental does not mean that past societies were sentimental about death and the soul. For many, the idea of the soul existing after death was just as much a source of horror than comfort.

>>8643878
Not all of it, just more of it.

>>8643886
Yeah, like I said; we're not very good at it yet.

>>8643974
The real reason that most people have believed in a soul that can subsist outside of the body, is that they have looked at their own minds and seen that it obviously has an incorporeal aspect. We intuitively imagine that we are or have immaterial minds that move our bodies. To say that that basic intuition we have is an illusion throws all our intuitions into doubt.
The reason that you don't think it's obvious that your mind is immaterial is that you've been indoctrinated with materialism, because the intellectual elite in your society are materialists and that influences the schools and popular media.

>>8643974
If you don't accept the necessity of evidence to come to conclusions then you can't come to any conclusions at all.

Testimonies are evidence, weak evidence.

>>8643986
I gave evidence: >>8643915

>>8643990
cont. just look at any one of your concepts, "triangle", "chair", "man", "justice". You will see that these concepts are immaterial. The mistake you have to avoid is associating your concept of triangle, for example, with a particular imaginary image of a particular triangle (with certain dimensions, color). You have to look past the image to see the universal concept which applies to all individual triangles of whatever dimension or color, etc. Once you have realized that your concept of triangle is universal, you will be able to see how it must be therefore immaterial, because material things can only ever be individuals.

If the concept of free will is coherent, then a person can't merely be chemical reactions in the brain. If he were, then he could not freely choose a course of action any more than a rock at the mercy of gravity and friction can choose which way to roll down a hill. If humans are free, then they must have an "immaterial mind" that is the source of their free will that allows them to act without being completely determined by their biological functions.

>>8644002
>>8643915

Can you elaborate on why
>the mind exists outside of the material realm
is proven by
>the mind can imagine things outside of the material realm

>>8643023
Yes
Yes
No

>>8644018
There is no such thing as a ''free'' will, just a will.

>>8644025

Convincing argument mate

>>8644032
Our will is binded by many factors. Genetic, our neurons, brain chemistry, etc. But what people need to realize is that the problem with the argument of ''free'' will is the word ''free''. We aren't entirely free, our will is binded to some biological, memetic cultural traditions and societal structures. To many people, the fact that there is no true freedom means that we are slaves and everything is deterministic, and thus nihilistic as nothing matters. But this isn't the case. Humans have an innate sense of superiority over nature. Evolutionary psychology, which is honestly just mental guessing and backtracking probabilities, views that we developed a higher sense of volition by identifying moving objects in the hopes of understanding the world, but anthropology argues more that it's the chance creating of a state that forced humans to develop volition. With the creation of civilization and the state, humans have no means of survival except for their own ingenuity, cooperation and skills. All of which require volition as it is not automatic.

The law is built essentially on this foundation. Not on free will, but volition. We judge people by their intent and actions. If a person is incapable to understand anything to the point where they have no volition, due to some neurological patterns or whatever, then they are considered insane. It's the same process with the concept of free will. We don't have free will, but with the small amount of actual control we have in our lives, we can dictate what to do. It's only when you go full deterministic and argue that you have no control over your own actions, that you have no volition, that you take the willful action to negate your own will that you become nihilistic.

There is only one constant in the world which is reality and existence; living. Your life is what gives reality value. You only have your consciousness for a short period, so make the best use of it. Spend your time appropriately, etc. But when you deny having a will and just go ''meh, I have no control over anything'', you deny your life and become nihilistic.

Anyways, hopefully that was a decently convincing argument on the topic of ''free'' will. I find that most people can't understand the difference when the answer is pretty obvious.

It's observable, the soul. If you're clever.

>>8645503
explain or gtfo

>>8643023
>What is a reason for people to believe in a soul or a ghost inside a human being?
Because there is no functioning materialist model which accounts for the existence of a human consciousness.
The soul is for all accounts and purposes the mind and cartesian/platonic dualism is hardly the only non materialistic model.
>Is it just a concept left behind from years of religious thought?
Religious thought is not a thing of the past. In fact it's far stronger now than it was in the 18th and 20th century.
>are there any dualist here that want to argue?
I'm not a dualist because dualism is just one of the accounts of the immaterial nature of the mind.
>>8644021
I'll assume he's an Aristotelian, hence that's not what he thinks at all.
The mind doesn't exist outside the material even if it is not materialist itself and is not a free floating ghost which controls the body.

>>8644278
wtf am I reading. First you start out not even that rationally ("our will is binded by many factors") but at least with a kernel of truth, and then you go full retard and say "BUT volition still exists cuz..." random nonsense "and we still need to live as if we have freewill otherwise it's nihilistic".

First, there is no single will in humanity. First a person wants one thing, then they want another that contradicts it, they try to stick to a plan, but before long, they're either too weakwilled to, or they completely change the plan to make it easier for themselves while thinking they're still following it. For example, giving up drinking, or being a pedophile. Physically, a person wants one thing, mentally they may know it'll lead to trouble and emotionally they may know it's sickening: so who's the self here? Suppose they follow the physical part of themselves and rape the 2 year old girl or get shitfaced and beat their children as always, what part of their self dictated that action? Suppose they follow their emotions or sense of morals or rationality and don't do it --- which self controlled them to do that? The self is always changing, there is no self, no unified will in most people, this is what the Buddhists said and this is what Heraclitus said --- "One can never step into the same river twice", because the river has changed and your own foot has changed.

You talk about the same old platitude that, "Even if freewill does not exist, we must live as if it does." This is silly and possibly projection: just because one realizes how mechanical one's actions are doesn't mean one is nihilistic or even sad. What if precisely we should live as if we ourselves don't have freewill, and as if no one around us has freewill either? Is this not the gist of Buddhist enlightenment, the enlightenment spoken of in religions and philosophies? If you were to notice how much of a slave you are to mechanical influences, you would possibly have a chance to become less mechanical, than if you attribute to yourself a "freewill" that is nonexistent and act as if you have it.

>>8644021
Action follows nature. If a thing has an immaterial action, then it must have an immaterial nature. Because the process of abstraction (of concepts) is immaterial, the intellect which abstracts (the concepts) must itself be immaterial.

>>8645586
>The mind doesn't exist outside the material even if it is not materialist itself and is not a free floating ghost which controls the body.

Well, the human mind does not exist totally outside of the material realm, in that it is united to the body and uses the data of the senses to abstract concepts from. The human intellect is not absolutely dependent on the body for its existence though, although it can't function normally without the body/senses.

>>8645641
>Action follows nature. If a thing has an immaterial action, then it must have an immaterial nature. Because the process of abstraction (of concepts) is immaterial, the intellect which abstracts (the concepts) must itself be immaterial.

To expand on this. How can the mind "imagine things outside of the material realm" if it is itself material? How can a material substance "imagine" the immaterial?

>>8645615
>The self is always changing, there is no self, no unified will in most people, this is what the Buddhists said and this is what Heraclitus said --- "One can never step into the same river twice", because the river has changed and your own foot has changed.

Aristotle already solved this with his distinction of act/potency, substance/accident. If I paint my face read I am still substantially the same organism, even though accidentally my face is now one colour rather than another. The idea that there is no stable being, only perpetual flux or motion, is sophistical, because without any stable being - what is it that is changing/moving? If you say "everything is flux" then even the meaning of the statement "everything is flux" must be in flux, therefore unintelligible and ultimately self-contradictory. There must be stable being. Aristotle says that there is mobile being (the world), which changes by moving from potency to act (e.g. potentially red, now actually red; potentially hot, now actually hot), and then the unchanging pure act/being which is the ground - the first cause or prime mover - of everything.

The brain is a machine that indexes into an external semi-platonic "world" of ideas by processing symbols that point to that "world". The "soul" is just the space within that "world" allocated for each individual brain computer so it can perform operations. Most likely this is not an artifact of objective reality but of the computer simulation we live in, but it allows for a lot of different things to happen. For instance, it explains why giving spirits your true name is generally bad (because it's like giving a russian hacker access to your hard drive over network; even if all they do is store stuff there, it can still fuck up your computer). Blood also is a pointer to the same space somehow, I don't know how exactly. But we think we're discrete consciousnesses when in fact we are really brain computers running a program evolutionarily encoded in blood and the semi-platonic "world" it points to; ie, we are in a literal sense an amalgamation of our ancestors, whose blood we carry. But it's not like blood by itself has spooky magic powers, it requires the brain to perform certain operations on it (otherwise reports of possession from people who had received blood transfusions would be much higher than they actually are, even in our secular skeptical society).

>>8643915
I guess you could say our concepts are immaterial, but they come are modeled from the physical world. We have a concept of triangles after seeing triangles in the world around us and recognizing their common traits and then deciding to classify them as "triangle."

Also, nothing I know of precludes a physical mechanism (the brain) from producing a nonphysical intellect. If the soul/intellect/consciousness/etc is produced by the brain, it must die with the brain, so it does not fit with the usual idea of the eternal soul.

>>8645615
>First, there is no single will in humanity. First a person wants one thing, then they want another that contradicts it, they try to stick to a plan, but before long, they're either too weakwilled to, or they completely change the plan to make it easier for themselves while thinking they're still following it.
Strawman. You say that humans are weakwilled as an example of not having a will. This lack of control on our will does not demonstrate a negation of a person's will.

>For example, giving up drinking, or being a pedophile.
As I said, there are some elements that one cannot change that holds our will, making us only capable of using it in a certain direction, but just because you have a fetish for young boys, or have a gene that makes you want to drink a lot does not limit you from obtaining your dream and be happy. That becomes nihilistic.

>This is silly and possibly projection
No, it's exactly what Nietzsche argued. You cannot know how much of your will is binded and deterministic, so just do whatever you want instinctively.

>Suppose they follow their emotions or sense of morals or rationality and don't do it --- which self controlled them to do that? The self is always changing, there is no self, no unified will in most people, this is what the Buddhists said and this is what Heraclitus said --- "One can never step into the same river twice", because the river has changed and your own foot has changed.
Their morals and their sense of values will be what controls them along with other factors.
Just because everything changes does not mean we do not view identity as singular. The single event that does not change is existing; living. Even if the river changes, even if the skin on your foot changes, you still exist as you so long as you are alive and can use your will within your limit.

>What if precisely we should live as if we ourselves don't have freewill, and as if no one around us has freewill either?
Then we become deterministic and it's a worse alternative. You embrace nihilism. You're just a robot, without feelings, desires, goals and hopes for happiness. What's stopping me from killing you? This is how the law works. Humans have an innate sense of superiority that we have a will that is above causality and nature but it is still within causation. Whether we are truly slave is incorrect so long as we have semblance of control. It's when we have absolutely no control, like a person going on a murderous rage because all he can see is ghost and it is proven that he is unable to understand his own actions. Volition, that single word, is the key. Not will to power, but power to use your will!

Your justification of slavery is as much as an outcry to be liberated from it by act of murder. It reduces human to nothing more than materials that can be removed, destroyed at a whim

Again, the problem is ''free'' will. There is no true freedom, but there is a will, which, again, is what you mistakenly attribute. Use your volition

If God was real then how come do I have to slave everyday at a job that I hate when I'd rather stay home and read books instead?

>>8646313
There is no entity that manipulates causality. God is simply another word for causality.

>>8646322
No, in fact God is another word for the subject.

>>8646328
What do you mean by subject?

>>8646331
the highest principle that forms the basis of being. The transcendental self that constitutes an experienced world.

But if you prefer I could also argue for God as non-causal immanence or the absolutely removed. Just saying "causality" doesn't make a conception any more intuitive or convincing than a plethora of others.

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>>8646345
Hmm, well I guess you can view it that way.

I just view God as any being or entity, immortal or not, that can manipulate reality and causality in a way that shows that they are above causality itself and are not bound by this reality's causality.
If some alien were able to perform magic and do whatever it wants, would it not be considered a God? The answer is no, as it is simply manipulating causality with the tools available within causality, like science, but to the point where it's indistinguishable from magic. Only something that is truly above causality and manipulates all events at a whim is considered a God. There are two aspects of proving that such an entity exist, the unmoved mover and miracles.

The unmoved mover is basically the prime mover of all of causality and some entity, real or not, that started the chain of causality. This is what people ask ''well who created God? He always existed'' etc. And if you deny such an entity, you endlessly go backwards without a visible point of origin or prime mover. So the only conclusion is to just accept the axiom that existence exist, reality is real, and leave it as that. Cut the prime mover and only focus on causality within this reality.

Miracles are events within causality which seemingly do not follow an a prior understanding of causality. The parting of the red sea for example. Water cannot do that. An entity that can manipulate causality sure could. But if you try to explain that even in more ''realistic'' terms, theologian would say that maybe it was just a hot day, and the water dried up. But that's boring, since it removes the entity that manipulates causality. If a little boy is dying and doctors have no way to save him, yet somehow survive, it's a miracle. Something outside of causality likely saved him! A God or entity surely manipulated causality to protect that boy's life! This is also what >>8646313 means when he asks how come X happens and not Y if a being could manipulate causality.

Polytheism is essentially just many entity that manipulate only certain aspects of causality, while a monotheistic god, like the christian God, which we call God, is in control of everything that relates to causality. Hence, when people pray for a good action to go their way, they are wishing causality to somehow endow them in the way they desire. But it cannot be shown that causality was manipulated in a way that was different than causality operating within its own rules. If you win the lottery, did God make the balls with your numbers fall a certain way, or was it just luck?

Spinoza argues that God is nature, but I would go a step higher and just argue that God is causality itself.

>>8646403
well that still makes him subservient to creation, doesn't it? It doesn't really solve the problem you've posed with the unmoved mover, since he still necessitates his existence by the objects of creations he is a relation in.

>>8646437
It makes everyone subservient to reality and existence, not creation, since that word implies intent and order.

>It doesn't really solve the problem you've posed with the unmoved mover
It doesn't solve the problem, it ignores it. Existence exist. Reality is real. Not knowing what caused the chain of causality, or even knowing it, does not mean that reality does not exist. You should live with the knowledge that your own life is finite and will end.

There may be an entity that created everything, but the issue is whether or not that same entity can currently manipulate causality. If a person plays a game of pool, hits the first ball, can he still decide to move the balls in whatever orders with his hands?

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>>8646403
you seem to grossly misunderstand what causality means

not only you ignore causality every time when you don't understand the exact mechanism of an event (and when you don't have an alien nearby to claim it's all dem alien technology, as if it were a sufficient explanation) despite there is a clear causality chain for any miracle: god wills -> stuff happens, the first is the cause the second is the result

so, not only you make that already dubious claim, you also claim that god is above causality because he is (ba-dum-tss!) the original cause. that's some orwellian doublethink stuff

>>8646505
It seems you have understood nothing at all.

>>8646523
i suggest you to check the definition of causality

>>8646472
I don't think you understand under which condition one would capitalize the word God.

>>8646532
I suggest you check my arguments in order instead of arguing them separately and thinking you've made a point against it.

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>>8646552
your problem it's that you think that ignoring causality and ignoring physics means the same and you chose w/e you thought sounded more smart

"Some look on the soul as amazing, some describe him as amazing, and some hear of him as amazing, while others, even after hearing about him, cannot understand him at all."

http://www.vedabase.com/en/bg/2/29

>>8643023
The soul isn't real, but qualia is. There is the experience of being a person. Why is there a consciousness when we could must act as machines without inner experience? You can never properly communicate or quantify the actual feeling of sunlight or the taste of food. It seems that there is some kind of emergent property from these things that isn't truly reducible.

I still don't buy into the soul, but there is this gap that some people might try to fill with the soul.

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>>8643834

>Well, so does any sort of study into the field of neuroscience.
>But neuroscience marches on and now we know you can change how a person thinks of what they believe in by fiddling with their brain enough.

Who let Sam Harris on /lit/?

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why do ghosts exist

>OP poses a jenyooayn empirical question that could be answered by a simple survey
>receives a mass of speculative nonsense/

culler me souprised

>>8645652
I feel you but here's a counter argument: if the supposed material mind has an accurate conception of itself other than the fact that it ascribes to itself a nonsensical quality, IE its immateriality, the self-representation would not be of something immaterial after all. It would be no different than any counterfactual thought. This presupposes that a material representation in this regard is coherent in itself, but that's another story.

>>8645652
>How can a material substance "imagine" [...]

This is the actual question.

>>8643023
>uses a picture that contradicts his claims
You must be a special kind of retarded.

>>8648440

I don't see how you can defend the existence of qualia but deny the soul, because the soul is that which enables you to (or it itself) experience(s) qualia.

>>8648777
OP does not claim anything though, he just asks.

Guys it was me who let Sam Harris on /lit/, don't tell anonymous

>>8646313
>I have to slave everyday at a job that I hate when I'd rather stay home and read books instead?
Have you ever tried doing the latter?

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>>8643023

Take this trash over to /x/ already

>>8643023
G-d is real check my digits

>>8649569
God confirmed for sex addict

>>8649265

> implying /x/ is even as good as this

/x/ is all about creepypasta, cryptids, and aliums. The closest they get to metaphysics is "how can I summon a succubus?"

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These ideas are rooted from an anomaly in human behavior, and the ideas have evolved to become increasingly incoherent as time went on.

The issue, described in its simplest form, is that each human measures a single acting force driving all of the body's intentional motions. So we have an entity with the properties "singular", "acting", and "immutable" which is for some reason perceptible to humans. The questions are "what is it?", "how do humans measure it?", and "what does measuring it lead to?"

We can see that most derived ideas run contrary to human perception because they discard one or more of the three aforementioned properties. If an idea lacks any of them, it will be plagued with unresolvable problems.

>>8643886
>13 trillion
dropped

>>8648450
Not a cogent counter-argument froggo.

Or are you claiming that brain damage doesn't cause changes in behaviour and cognition?

Because you can ask /sci/ about that, they'll set the record straight.

>>8643023
Only one's own soul, which is readily demonstrable- cogito ergo sum.
Aside from natural faith and custom, there's absolutely no reason to attribute a soul to other humans though. Even assuming the consistent reality of the material world as we imagine it and so on. No, not even induction.

>>8651403
If you're gonna be like that, then you have to explain why soulless people claim to have souls.