A question for atheists\ agnostics

[Roman_Wolf]

hey guys, just wondering : do you believe that we humans have souls?

and if yes, what happens to it when we die?

[Ciabhán]

hey guys, just wondering : do you believe that we humans have souls?

and if yes, what happens to it when we die?

No.

[Manco]

No, the mind is a bunch electrochemical processes. When I die, those processes stop.

[finsternis]

No, the mind is a bunch electrochemical processes. When I die, those processes stop.

Same^^^

[Playfishpaste]

I don't think I'm just going to cease to exist after death, simply by probability, I think it's more complicated then that. Soley scientifically speaking, my exact body and thought processes should somehow come back some time in the future given an infinite or near infinite amount of time to do so.

[MedievalDragoon]

I don't think I'm just going to cease to exist after death, simply by probability, I think it's more complicated then that. Soley scientifically speaking, my exact body and thought processes should somehow come back some time in the future given an infinite or near infinite amount of time to do so.

I agree

[Tom Paine]

I don't think I'm just going to cease to exist after death, simply by probability, I think it's more complicated then that. Soley scientifically speaking, my exact body and thought processes should somehow come back some time in the future given an infinite or near infinite amount of time to do so.

Not necessarily. You're presuming quite a lot... like an otherwise static universe, and a nature of probability where things necessarily happen. Some things do have so close to a zero probability they won't happen - and some things can't happen: You're essentially arguing for a world in which, over the course of infinite time, your exact thought processes will return but also will not because there's a possibility of that too.

A little problematic, no?

[Nutsack]

I don't think I'm just going to cease to exist after death, simply by probability, I think it's more complicated then that. Soley scientifically speaking, my exact body and thought processes should somehow come back some time in the future given an infinite or near infinite amount of time to do so.

Haha, holy crap I'd never thought about it that way before. Though technically whether or not that means that we will re-appear sometime in the far future is debatable. edit: but considering the below information, the resulting person, identical to you, probably shouldn't be of the same conciousness.

Take teleportation. Theoretically, like in Star Trek, it's possible. It can be done today with matter comprising a few molecules. It's just it necessitates the destruction of the original molecules. If it could ever be done with a living being, they would be utterly destroyed and a new person, with identical memories and convinced that he WAS the original, would coming into existence. But it wouldn't be you. You'd be dead.

Which is why I would never step into a teleporter if I was a crew member on Voyager or the Enterprise . The guy created would technically be me, but not really.

[Astaroth]

hey guys, just wondering : do you believe that we humans have souls?

Not an easy question. Defining "soul" isn't easy. But the short answer from my point of view would be no.
Obviously humans are conscious beings, but from what I believe, that is because of us having a brain. Cogito ergo sum.

and if yes, what happens to it when we die?

Well, as I don't believe in it, I believe nothing will happen to it...
But incase you were wondering what I believe will happen once we die:
I think we will simply stop existing, gone, finito, over.

While some might find that sad or something - it really isn't. If you are gone, there will be no more pain, no more trouble, nothing. Just eternal peace. You won't bother thinking all the time anymore, you won't have to make decisions. You won't have to do anything.
That doesn't at all mean I am suicidal or so. Life is a beautiful thing, something we should enjoy thouroughly. We can be happy that we are here and have some time here on earth given to us. However, once it is over we don't have to be sad. We won't be sad. As we will be gone, there will be nothing to be sad about anymore, because "I" will have stopped existing.

That is a very hard concept for humans to understand and it is difficult for conscious beings to understand the meaning of simply not to be once.
It also explains our sadness when someone dies, apart from of course being very sad at a loved ones' passing away, it also reminds us of our mortality. Our fear of not existing at some time is also part why religions are so common - it's so much easier to believe that you, as an individual, as a conscious being, will continue existing somehow even after passing away, than having to accept that at some time in the future you will simply cease being.

But really - a person's death is only hard for those who love him. Dying itself is nothing to be afraid of.

[Musashi]

Not an easy question. Defining "soul" isn't easy. But the short answer from my point of view would be no.
Obviously humans are conscious beings, but from what I believe, that is because of us having a brain. Cogito ergo sum.

Well, as I don't believe in it, I believe nothing will happen to it...
But incase you were wondering what I believe will happen once we die:
I think we will simply stop existing, gone, finito, over.

While some might find that sad or something - it really isn't. If you are gone, there will be no more pain, no more trouble, nothing. Just eternal peace. You won't bother thinking all the time anymore, you won't have to make decisions. You won't have to do anything.
That doesn't at all mean I am suicidal or so. Life is a beautiful thing, something we should enjoy thouroughly. We can be happy that we are here and have some time here on earth given to us. However, once it is over we don't have to be sad. We won't be sad. As we will be gone, there will be nothing to be sad about anymore, because "I" will have stopped existing.

That is a very hard concept for humans to understand and it is difficult for conscious beings to understand the meaning of simply not to be once.
It also explains our sadness when someone dies, apart from of course being very sad at a loved ones' passing away, it also reminds us of our mortality. Our fear of not existing at some time is also part why religions are so common - it's so much easier to believe that you, as an individual, as a conscious being, will continue existing somehow even after passing away, than having to accept that at some time in the future you will simply cease being.

But really - a person's death is only hard for those who love him. Dying itself is nothing to be afraid of.

You said it all.

[chriscase]

There's a lot we don't know about consciousness and the mind. There is certainly the possibility that some of the "supernatural" and "spiritual" experiences people have reported will ultimately be understood in a rational, expanded framework of the mind. Several of those already exist. But none of them are likely to overcome the requirement for a living brain.

I think there may eventually be a good, empirical way to understand how a living person might have access to some information on a collective level; but that process itself is not likely to ever occur without a living entity (i.e., a person) as its focus.

[Roman_Wolf]

ok thanks for the answers guys

[Celsius]

Yes. Are souls are what gets people into heaven or hell. Everyone has a soul wheather they belive it or not.

[Ciabhán]

Yes. Are souls are what gets people into heaven or hell. Everyone has a soul wheather they belive it or not.

A question for atheists\ agnostics hmmmm if that is the title..........but you sig marks you as Christian........then you are not supposed to answer.

[Copperknickers II]

Yes. Are souls are what gets people into heaven or hell. Everyone has a soul wheather they belive it or not.

Same as everyone is evolving whether they believe it or not.

[Cluny the Scourge]

Since there is nothing to evidence the existence of such an entity as the soul, the answer must be "No."

It is difficult for me to understand why a religious person would even care whether the "soul" exists. The soul is clearly not the same thing as the Mind, since you can alter someone's mind by damaging or destroying a part of their brain, e.g. personality changes after being suffer strokes or undergo brain surgery with complications.

Nor is the soul the same thing as the emotions, since you make someone feel whatever emotions you wish by deep-brain stimulation with electrodes - scientists have shown that by inserting blunt electrodes into the brain and running a gentle electrical current into them at key locations, they make a subject become deliriously happy, or paranoid, or wistful, at will.

So what exactly do religious people think a soul is? What do they think survives when a person dies? It can't be their consciousness, because what is that but the scope of the mind and emotions?

I don't think I'm just going to cease to exist after death, simply by probability, I think it's more complicated then that. Soley scientifically speaking, my exact body and thought processes should somehow come back some time in the future given an infinite or near infinite amount of time to do so.

Solely scientifically speaking? Dude...

What scientific evidence do you have to support the suggestion that thought can exist without a brain? If the vehicle of mindhood - of consciousness - dies and rots away, so that all electrical activity has ceased, why should it ever "come back"? What is that supposed to mean?

[Ummon]

Solely scientifically speaking? Dude...

What scientific evidence do you have to support the suggestion that thought can exist without a brain? If the vehicle of mindhood - of consciousness - dies and rots away, so that all electrical activity has ceased, why should it ever "come back"? What is that supposed to mean?

Congratulations. You have managed to completely misunderstand what you were talking about, Cluny... again.

Playfish has posted an old idea, which suggests that given probabilities, someone exactly identical to him (or you) is going to exist in the future again and again, and has existed in the past, again and again.

[Cluny the Scourge]

Congratulations. You have managed to completely misunderstand what you were talking about, Cluny... again.

Playfish has posted an old idea, which suggests that given probabilities, someone exactly identical to him (or you) is going to exist in the future again and again, and has existed in the past, again and again.

He said he did not think that HE was going to cease to exist, and that HIS exact body and thought processes would return. He did not say anything about the proposition that HE was going to cease to exist but that a different person with an identical mind and body would some day emerge.

As a separate response, I would add that this other proposition is also utterly impossible. Not only is the lifespan of the universe insufficient for such an eventuality (if the human race were to survive until universal expansion causes its own heat-death), but since a person's character and bodily development depend in large part on their environment, and their particular socio-cultural conditions, no-one exactly like him will ever be reproduced ever again for the simple reason that societies are not static - philosophically, artistically, economically, technologically. Human societies do not regress in that way and even with an unlimited universal lifespan (and even supposing the human race will endure forever also) it could not happen. Human beings, after all, change the world by living it - consuming natural resources and altering the atmosphere are two ways - and any new society developing in the future will do so under such different conditions.

[Punkus]

the lifespan of the universe insufficient for such an eventuality

Big Bounce?

A thought.

[thatguy]

I'm mixed on the soul subject.
On one hand, I'm pretty sure we'd know, but on the other, i think about the complecity of the human brain, the powrful emotions, the capacity at which we think and i wonder, maybe its possible.
But if i did beleive in it, then I guess it would die with us.