Soul shatter?

[rangrz]

I have never felt my "soul" shatter, because it's a non-existent thing.

Even tossing aside the formality of it not existing as such, how can something which by all accounts of what "it" is suppose to be, is NOT an object with regular, ordered bonds between it's atoms/molecules (that is, not a solid...can air shatter?) or more broadly, is not made of matter period (Can light...energy which has mass, but is not matter per se) shatter...or more formally, how can something for which the concepts of modulus of elasticity and plastic deformation are inapplicable undergo brittle failure?

That makes no fucking sense.

 

[RobotRipping]

Yes, it is. You need to take the simplest explanation for stuff.. So what's simpler, obviously provable correlations between brain and behaviour, or magical space energies nobody ever observed or measured?

occam's razor is to take the simplest of two theories, each of which have equal evidence. So if there's a complex explanation and a simple explanation, both of which have sufficient evidence, then the more simple explanation is the most likely. Besides i think it would be just as complex to explain that a soul does not exist as it would to explain that it exists.

Occam's razor is not an embargo against the positing of any kind of entity, or a recommendation of the simplest theory come what may

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor#Ockham See the religion section for some extra info.

rangrz: i don't think OP was referring to the soul as in the literal meaning of soul. I think he was referring to either the ego or the self.

again from wikipedia:

When modern scientists speak of the soul outside of this cultural and psychological context, they generally treat soul as a poetic synonym for mind

 

[rangrz]

occam's razor is to take the simplest of two theories, each of which have equal evidence. So if there's a complex explanation and a simple explanation, both of which have sufficient evidence, then the more simple explanation is the most likely. Besides i think it would be just as complex to explain that a soul does not exist as it would to explain that it exists.

No, a theory which is otherwise consistent with what science has so far determined to exist empirically is more complex than one without. Because, in order stay consistent with what we have already observed exists, we need to keep ALL of that, PLUS add in a soul and supporting frameworks. Which makes the theory more complex than it already is, without adding any explanatory or predictive power to it. Replace "soul" with "invisible leprechauns" and you have a theory which is functionally the same. Not only that, there is not evidence supporting the existence of it, and arguably, some evidence against it. (If it exists in any meaningful sense, it has mass. If it has mass, then that mass is a conserved value. Ergo, one should be able to detect the mass of a person changing at death if the soul leaves at death. If not, we can safely conclude that no such phenomena exists.)

Take celestial mechanics, calculate the orbit of the planets, moons and minor objects like comets. Now readjust them all to account for a perturbation that would be caused by a little teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between the chromosphere and the orbit of Mars, despite no empirical evidence of it existing, and tell me it does not complicate the theory while adding nothing of value.

 

[In_A_Transit]

5-MEO-DMT Tore my soul right in half no questions asked. Mistakenly snorted 200mg, never again will I miss label a bag or not start off small on new batches!

 

[RobotRipping]

No, a theory which is otherwise consistent with what science has so far determined to exist empirically is more complex than one without. Because, in order stay consistent with what we have already observed exists, we need to keep ALL of that, PLUS add in a soul and supporting frameworks. Which makes the theory more complex than it already is, without adding any explanatory or predictive power to it. Replace "soul" with "invisible leprechauns" and you have a theory which is functionally the same. Not only that, there is not evidence supporting the existence of it, and arguably, some evidence against it. (If it exists in any meaningful sense, it has mass. If it has mass, then that mass is a conserved value. Ergo, one should be able to detect the mass of a person changing at death if the soul leaves at death. If not, we can safely conclude that no such phenomena exists.)

Take celestial mechanics, calculate the orbit of the planets, moons and minor objects like comets. Now readjust them all to account for a perturbation that would be caused by a little teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between the chromosphere and the orbit of Mars, despite no empirical evidence of it existing, and tell me it does not complicate the theory while adding nothing of value.

you could also replace 'soul' with 'God'. My point was just that occam's razor doesn't prove that God or the soul doesn't exist. I can't argue that God or the soul does/doesn't exist, just that occam's razor doesn't prove it either way. I think it would be equally complex to explain why the Universe is absurd as to explain a system of souls, God and connected consciousness. If God doesn't exist, if souls don't exist then you are left with an absurd, meaningless life in this universe, which is fine but doesn't explain anything. With science you are working with what you can measure or see, the phenomenal, what I am suggesting is that we just don't have enough information to say one way or the other at this point.

i do see your point about the teapot. Thanks for the link i'd actually never heard of Russell's teapot so i'll have to do some reading on this.

In the philosophy of religion, Occam's razor is sometimes applied to the existence of God; if the concept of a God does not help to explain the universe better, then the idea is that atheism should be preferred (Schmitt 2005)

Philosopher Del Ratzsch[44] suggests that the application of the razor to God may not be so simple, least of all when we are comparing that hypothesis with theories postulating multiple invisible universes.[45]

both from the wikipedia occam's razor page, sorry to keep quoting that page but it sums it up better than i can.