The soul -- does it exist?

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Originally posted by KingPenguin:
this is what you atheists and evolutionists could use to prove their is no god. a conscience and a personality is what defines a person and without this ghost in the shell i think that we would be entirely impulse based like animals. this also means that a computer could possibly develop a personality of its own, if its as simple as it seems. how would explain emotions though? there is nothing gained from love other than maybe satisfaction and a reason to aspire to something, but why waste time like that if you dont need to and if its not helping you survive. why would we develop something that makes us worse and more dependent on others. i dont know any man that doesnt want a girl very badly or that wants to die alone. why would we need to do anything other than work if it didnt help us progress our species, the developement of emotions just doesnt need to be.

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What about lobotomy and electro-shock techniques ?They mangle the brain, and produce meek and mild individuals
from dangerously agressive ones ... by removing parts of the
brain responsible for these behaviour patterns.Personality traits can be REMOVED by excising parts of the
brain.I would contend that we are (OOps) NOT ANY different from any other animal
though. Would anyone care to show eveidence for the lack of
self-awareness in other animals or of their inability to reason
about the consequences of their actions ?How would you be able to hunt in organised groups without some
planning ability and communication system ? Have you ever
watched lionesses hunt (on TV anyhow) ... can you really believe
that such co-operation could be instinctive ?? A hunt
is an incredibly dynamic activity after all.

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[This message has been edited by Peter, 03-20-2002]

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Peter::
Would anyone care to show eveidence for the lack of
self-awareness in other animals or of their inability to reason
about the consequences of their actions ?

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Schraf::
Uh, sure, I can show that. It's the "dot on the forehead" test.

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Take an animal, put a dot on their forehead, and have them look in a mirror. The ONLY animals that reach to
their foreheads instead of the mirror are chimps and humans.

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Peter::
Human babies fail that test until they are several months old, and
primitive cultures when shown photographs of themselves fail to
recognise that the image is of them.That test shows nothing about self awareness, only of an inability
to comprehend mirrors (or at least the result is inconclusive
either way).(Western at least) humans are inundated from an early age
with images of themselves, and are TAUGHT that the image is
themself.

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Schraf::
"Learning" about the consequences of actions (cause and effect) is a lot different from "reasoning" (using logic) about the consequences of actions.

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What about creatures like squirrels and crows, who 'figure out'
how to solve succesively difficult problems in obtaining food
rewards. Crows are particularly good at it, and abilities
learned by parents have been seen to be passed on to offspring.Even better are the monkeys who wash their sweet potatoes
and use the sea to separate grain from sand. One monkey
worked out how to do it, and others copied. How did the
first monkey find this out ? By accident perhaps, but then
why repeat the process another time if there is not some
form of reasoning like 'It worked last time I'll try again' ?

quote:

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Peter::
How would you be able to hunt in organised groups without some
planning ability and communication system ? Have you ever
watched lionesses hunt (on TV anyhow) ... can you really believe
that such co-operation could be instinctive ?? A hunt
is an incredibly dynamic activity after all.

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Schraf::
Yes, I really can accept that much of that cooperation could be instinctive, the same way that I accept that
birds build nests without being taught, and a housecat who has never hunted a live animal in its life will still
stalk and kill a toy mouse exactly like a feral cat does.

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My cat was taken away from it's mother very young ... and
it DOES NOT stalk at all. Sure it'll chase shiny/moving objects,
but it doesn't stalk, because it has never been shown how.Hunting is an ACQUIRED skill, not an instinctive activity.

quote:

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Schraf::
Animals, such as lions, hunting in groups are using both instinct and learned behaviors, but not reason as I have defined it.

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I cannot imagine how an ambush (which lionesses
employ with great success) can be imprinted from instinct, nor
co-ordinated without some rudimentary communication technique.I've seen film of lionesses hunting where the lionesses (two of
them) walk side by side, heads close together, then one sneaks
around the edge of a heard and the other waits till it is in
position before startling the heard toward the now hidden
hunting partner. That seems pretty complicated pattern to be just
instinct ... and if it's learned, how did they learn it in the first
place ?[added by edit]I think I meant herd

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[This message has been edited by Peter, 03-25-2002]