The Essential Soul

[gullyfourmyle]

Learn the facts, not the populist fantasy. Just take a quick trip out to "Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump" and you'll see the truth. They would run hundreds off the cliff and utilize only a few of them.

By the way, "Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump" is a world heritage site and much of the information is provided by the Natives on whose land the site is located. So if you have a problem with the truth take it up with them and correct their understanding of their history and customs.

I have lots of Blackfoot friends who would love to have you lecture them about their culture and past practices.

I know the facts. The buffalo jump was not used day to day. It was used when circumstances allowed. There was no waste as I said. Just because the natives didn't use it all doesn't mean the local wildlife didn't. Their concept of wildlife personalized the wildlife. According to their beliefs, they are all related. What the natives didn't use the wolves, bears, coyotes, and other carnivores took care of. It was family. I don't think you will find a Blackfoot that would argue the point.

When Europeans opened up the west, they used the buffalo for target practice and ate little if any of the carcasses. For the most part they were left to rot since the amount of destruction exceeded the local carnivore population to deal with the carnage. Then with the loss of the buffalo, the native population and the wildlife population crashed. It put an end to any resistance on the part of the Plains Indians. They had a choice - live on a reservation or starve to death. Some starved, some went to the reservations where they were abused in other ways including starvation. It was a lose/lose situation. I don't think you'll find any Blackfoot to argue that point either.

[gullyfourmyle]

It appears that Francis is refuting the idea of a disembodied soul.

That would contradict the old idea of a soul, in fact it appears that the concept of "soul" is intimately tied to our corporeal existence. Further to that he found the cells responsible for our sense of self, not some nebulous mystical force embodied in each of us. Therefore to use the word "soul" in this context is simply playing fast and loose with the

definition of the word.

So, I now go back to my original premise, you can do better than that. Never mixing science with mysticism is a good place to start.

No, not in other words, in your words. That would place the whole statement in the territory of opinion and as such not to be taken seriously.

Taking the mysticism out of the soul concept is exactly what he did. And yes I agree, in Crick's assessment, the use of the word soul could be considered to be playing fast and loose with the word and concept of 'soul'. Crick's work is not merely an opinion. You don't become a Nobel Laureate by offering unsubstantiated opinions.

That isn't to say you're wrong though Angus because future research could indeed find that Crick was wrong or that there is some other overlooked explanation. At the moment though, Crick's work is considered definitive.

[M.Dancer]

I know the facts. The buffalo jump was not used day to day. It was used when circumstances allowed. There was no waste as I said. Just because the natives didn't use it all doesn't mean the local wildlife didn't. Their concept of wildlife personalized the wildlife. According to their beliefs, they are all related. What the natives didn't use the wolves, bears, coyotes, and other carnivores took care of. It was family. I don't think you will find a Blackfoot that would argue the point..

Is that the same rationale used to explain the rusted out cars littering some reserves?

[gullyfourmyle]

Whoops...stop right there. Man you cna be a thread killer with this pontification of yours.

So, we have no soul, and there is no afterlife. Unless you mean the bar downtown.....but the booze is expensive.

Naw, what makes me is my charm and good looks. Aint gots no soul, never did, doesnt exist.

And here I thought dimentia was just being confused since all your faculties are withering away and the synapses are not connecting. So that pesky lil soul is to blame.

Can I buy one on E-bay ? I could get one cheap and keep it in the closet 'til my mom needs it.

I usually leave feeling sad that all their faculties are abandoning them and thinking of ways to make their life better.

Dont be such a narcissist. You could be happier making peoples last years better.

Ive seen dead people. That person they fished out of the river near my cottage wasnt in there 8 years and I can assure you the worms had done a nice job. Couldnt even use a hook, think of trying to pick up a sheet of newspaper out of a puddle after a few hours soak.

One thing you should never do is show a lack of respect for other people's shortcomings. Fate has a way of revisiting the issue on those showing the lack of respect. Considering how prevalent Dementia and Alzheimer's have become, you might want to take what steps you can to make sure it never happens in your family.

The big deal isn't that it happens to you. The big deal is when it happens to a close relative and now you are personally responsible for looking after what were formerly automatic bodily functions. That gets old real fast. Of course you do what you can to make the declining years as comfortable as possible. But I can tell you from personal experience that the effort is considerable and time consuming. It not only changes the victim's life forever, it includes the care givers as victims as well.

Eight years dying of Dementia or Alzheimers is not to be taken lightly.

And yes your personal charm is indeed wrapped up in those two or three cells Crick was talking about. Without them intact, your physical good looks are history in short order. Without them, you are nowhere.

[gullyfourmyle]

Is that the same rationale used to explain the rusted out cars littering some reserves?

Aboriginals have no monopoly on that feature. There are more derelict cars off reserves than on them.

In time, those cars become income streams as parts are sold to collectors or the entire body. Necessity tells you to make money out of whatever resources you have. Derelict cars on reserves will soon be the only place to get such parts and then prices will skyrocket. Think of it as money in the bank. A fairly ugly bank but still a bank.

The real problem isn't the cars and trucks, it's the oil still in the crankcases and transmissions. It's also the brake fluid. Without those, the cars are essentially 90 percent or better biodegradable.

The only way they can last over a century is in extremely dry climates or when sitting on a sheet of rock. Other than that, nature will reclaim them almost effortlessly.

[White Doors]

The belief was that by eating parts or all of the sacrificed person, or animal, traits were thought to migrate from one being to another.

In many respects that turned out to be true but not in the simplistic way the natives thought. Organ donors have passed on their traits and that is well documented. That was the effect the natives were looking for but with only very limited success - they got nutrition and little else. A bit of science might have changed their beliefs somewhat.

Another aspect of their brutal life style was the fact that sacrifices of virgins and captives acquired in war severely limited population growth and helped keep their numbers in line with what the environment could sustain for longer periods. However, archeology has shown that trying to maintain an urban centre in one place for too long generates new and ugly problems that affect the ability of the community and individuals to survive as healthy, genetically undamaged entities.

The virgins weren't slaughtered, the were ritually sacrificed. A sort of fashionable way to die in public. Fun to watch for the spectators, not fun for the star performer.

Ultimately they weren't brutal enough in some cases and entire civilizations ate themselves out of house and home. That concept is being demonstrated around the world to this day. Anyone care for a Haitian mud pie for a main course?

Oh, I see so the virgins that were killed and had their heart eaten were 'organ donars' and by this sacrifice they kept their populations at a stable level? Well, my! How progressive of them - clearly they were ahead of themselves. Wait.. Didn't the Myans disappear all on their own.. Didn't they eat themselves out of house and home and archaeologist think their societies collapsed because of catastrophic environemental destruction?

Odd.. Clearly they must not have been sacrificing enough virgins!

[White Doors]

I know the facts. The buffalo jump was not used day to day. It was used when circumstances allowed. There was no waste as I said. Just because the natives didn't use it all doesn't mean the local wildlife didn't. Their concept of wildlife personalized the wildlife. According to their beliefs, they are all related. What the natives didn't use the wolves, bears, coyotes, and other carnivores took care of. It was family. I don't think you will find a Blackfoot that would argue the point.

When Europeans opened up the west, they used the buffalo for target practice and ate little if any of the carcasses. For the most part they were left to rot since the amount of destruction exceeded the local carnivore population to deal with the carnage. Then with the loss of the buffalo, the native population and the wildlife population crashed. It put an end to any resistance on the part of the Plains Indians. They had a choice - live on a reservation or starve to death. Some starved, some went to the reservations where they were abused in other ways including starvation. It was a lose/lose situation. I don't think you'll find any Blackfoot to argue that point either.

Why did Natives hunt the North American horse to extinction then? Where were their beliefs on that one?

Did the wise crow tell them to do so?

[White Doors]

Is that the same rationale used to explain the rusted out cars littering some reserves?

The coyotes clean their teeth on the front axles ignoramus!

[AngusThermopyle]

Why did Natives hunt the North American horse to extinction then?

They had to. Imagine all those horses running around and damaging the resale value of all the rusted out hulks of cars they anticipated owning, can't have that now can we.

Seriously gully, so far in this thread alone your rationalizations have turned polluting rusted out cars into a sound business investment, ritual sacrifice into a fashionable way to die or enact population control and leaving hundreds of carcasses to rot as being environmentally responsible. How far will your specious rationalizations go in order to spin the truth?

You don't by any chance believe that reality can be changed to suit your perceptions because you desire it to be so do you?

I only ask because I'm curious as to whether you are a member of a very exclusive club, so far theres only one member to date.

[charter.rights]

They had to. Imagine all those horses running around and damaging the resale value of all the rusted out hulks of cars they anticipated owning, can't have that now can we.

Seriously gully, so far in this thread alone your rationalizations have turned polluting rusted out cars into a sound business investment, ritual sacrifice into a fashionable way to die or enact population control and leaving hundreds of carcasses to rot as being environmentally responsible. How far will your specious rationalizations go in order to spin the truth?

You don't by any chance believe that reality can be changed to suit your perceptions because you desire it to be so do you?

I only ask because I'm curious as to whether you are a member of a very exclusive club, so far theres only one member to date.

Setting your simplistic trolling comments aside.....

Your perceptions can be changed and you reality changes with them.

[margrace]

I am curious as to why people get so angry and judgemental about native people. I suspect that even suggesting that we as white people may be a little bit guilty of what has happened to them.upsets our fine view of ourselves.

It is the same as the attitude toward people on welfare and using food banks. It has to be their fault, they are you fill it the judgement.

[White Doors]

I am curious as to why people get so angry and judgemental about native people. I suspect that even suggesting that we as white people may be a little bit guilty of what has happened to them.upsets our fine view of ourselves.

It is the same as the attitude toward people on welfare and using food banks. It has to be their fault, they are you fill it the judgement.

I am not angry with Native people.

I am a realist with the myths some like to perpetuate about their history - that's all.

They are human like anyone else is. There are some who want to make them seem as different and superior to others.

You can think of me as the great 'equalizer'

[margrace]

I am not angry with Native people.

I am a realist with the myths some like to perpetuate about their history - that's all.

They are human like anyone else is. There are some who want to make them seem as different and superior to others.

You can think of me as the great 'equalizer'

It depends on what you call equal dosen't it?

[AngusThermopyle]

Your perceptions can be changed and you reality changes with them.

More unfounded fantastical and unprovable assertions from the usual source.

Go ahead show us some links and sites that prove reality changes as your perceptions of it change. Some peer reviewed articles on the subject would be nice too.

Oh, thats right, you can't because its just more of your made up crap.

Ones perception of reality may change however that does not mean reality changes to suit your perception. This is a fundamental truth that you appear unable to comprehend.

Thats your problem not mine, self delusion is not a discipline I aspire to. More power to you though.

Setting your simplistic trolling comments aside.....

Care to explain how pointing out the fact that Gully was using specious logical fallacies is trolling?

Darn! I forgot! Anything that does not support your POV is considered trolling by you. You really are an insignificant one trick pony aren't you.

Edited September 10, 2008 by AngusThermopyle

[White Doors]

It depends on what you call equal dosen't it?

I go by the dictionary's definition:

(1): of the same measure, quantity, amount, or number as another (2): identical in mathematical value or logical denotation : equivalent b: like in quality, nature, or status c: like for each member of a group, class, or society <provide equal employment opportunities>

What do you go by?

[gullyfourmyle]

In terms of specious facts, assuming horses were driven to extinction by people is a giant stretch with no way of proving it one way or the other.

Rusted out hulks are a pretty good investment. Each of those rusted hulks has the potential to generate thousands of dollars in economic revenue. Depending on the model, you could be talking upwards of a hundred thousand per vehicle. A valuable part enables another vehicle to be restored. So each car in inventory can contribute to hundreds of other cars in terms of parts. Those parts have to be refurbished or maybe copied. That generates thousands of dollars for each part. It's quite a sophisticated process and extremely lucrative. As traditional wrecking yards close down close to urban centres, the distant locations get scavenged. Those rusted hulks are considered treasures by many well heeled, sophisticated businessmen. That's why the wrecks haven't all been cleared up. It will happen at some point but not for a while yet.

All populations have ritual sacrifice in their background including us. There is no point criticizing them without considering the violent actions of your own ancestry that resulted in your being here.

Every human that dies before procreating terminates unknown future people on a planet where people have become so populous that our species is really a global disease.

What other points did you think were specious?

[AngusThermopyle]

Rusted out hulks are a pretty good investment. Each of those rusted hulks has the potential to generate thousands of dollars in economic revenue. Depending on the model, you could be talking upwards of a hundred thousand per vehicle. A valuable part enables another vehicle to be restored. So each car in inventory can contribute to hundreds of other cars in terms of parts. Those parts have to be refurbished or maybe copied. That generates thousands of dollars for each part. It's quite a sophisticated process and extremely lucrative. As traditional wrecking yards close down close to urban centres, the distant locations get scavenged. Those rusted hulks are considered treasures by many well heeled, sophisticated businessmen. That's why the wrecks haven't all been cleared up. It will happen at some point but not for a while yet.

Being kinda a car guy I can tell you right now that those rusted hulks on the reserves are not a gold mine in parts. First take into account that many of them are things such as Mavericks or Pacers or Biscaynes, not too many resto nuts falling all over themselves for those babies. Next is the fact that many of them are beyond salvage, hell, in our yard at work here we have a few, including a 52 Ford pickup that isn't in the worst shape. We've had people look at it but they all concluded the same thing I did, not worth the trouble.

So they aren't some canny business investment, they're rusted out worthless hulks. Much cheaper, faster and easier to just buy reproduction parts. These hulks just haven't been cleaned up and carted off to the junkyard.

Also, what about all the derelict old trailers and campers? What about the piles of garbage and trash, or the old never to float again boats? Are resto guys hunting those down as well? are they getting excited shouting "hey look, an old Hienz beans can, I can restore it and it'll be worth a fortune".

Are they also part of some mysterious and even more canny business plan?

As for ritual sacrifice, I never said that no one else practiced it. What I said was that your contention that it was a fashionable way to die was nonsense. Do you suppose that, because it was fashionable people were lining up waving their hands in the air shouting "pick me pick me"?

The simple fact is that the majority of such sacrifices were performed on captives who I am sure were not looking for a "fashionable" death at all, they most likely would have preferred to live given the choice.

Now your last point. I'm not sure what it is. Obviously everyone who dies without procreating deprives the future of the possibility of those who would have been descendants. So what?

I see no relationship between killing many Buffalo and leaving carcasses to rot and not having children, maybe I'm just a little obtuse today though.

Edited September 10, 2008 by AngusThermopyle

[WIP]

It is a fundamental belief that all human beings have a soul. What most people don’t stop to think about is that souls aren’t limited to humans. Every animal, plant and microbe has a “soul” so some degree. Indeed if this were not so, then we’d have a planet populated entirely by zombie-creatures given that every living thing is an amalgamation of cells with an intent to continue life to the last possible moment. We call it survival instinct. If each and every cell didn’t have this need to survive, cutting off the limbs of animals or trees for instance wouldn’t be an issue. Instead that sort of threat sends the entire organism into a paroxysm of dread right down to the cellular level. Your brain in isolation does not govern this reaction. Your entire organism wants to survive with all its members intact. This is evident when the head is cut off a chicken. When I was eleven, I saw a chicken beheaded for the first time on a farm. The chicken escaped and flew onto the barn roof and perched there for what seemed a long time until if finally keeled over. How did it fly? How did it know to land in the middle of the ridge on top of the barn as though it had eyes? We know chickens have their brains in their heads. Cockroaches live without heads until they starve.

It stands to reason therefore, that your soul is an aggregate entity made up of billions of tiny intents which in cohesion can form values, needs and drives. Again every living thing on the planet operates on the same basic principals. The soul therefore is a community identity not limited to humans.

I wrote the preceding prose on March 23, 2003. It was reported in the Toronto Star on May 15 2004 that Nobel Laureate, Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA followed that discovery up with an even more exciting discovery – to me at least – he discovered the cells in the human brain responsible for creating an individual’s unique sense of self. The location of the soul in other words – command center for the community of cells of which each of us is composed.

“For the first time we have a coherent scheme for the neural correlates of consciousness in philosophical, psychological and neural terms.

“Actual consciousness may be expressed by only a small set of neurons, in particular those that project from the back of the cortex to parts of the frontal cortex.”

The implications for religion are huge. But in the case of aboriginal belief systems, their approach seems to have been correct all along.

It appears there is no reason for denying that plants and animals within the context of their physiology and the eco-systems they live within, have a soul too.

Stop right there! Y got started down a road based on a weak premise that a claim by Francis Crick constitutes evidence for a cartesian theatre in the brain and then extrapolated it as evidence that plants and animals have varying degrees of consciousness, and then jumped to a pantheistic justification for cannibalism or merely eating the right sorts of animals to gain their qualities of ferocity, courage or wisdom -- all beliefs that are nonsense and could be tested if you wanted to determine if eating certain animals will give you their mojo. Without some significant, peer reviewed research, it can be dismissed as nothing more than superstitious nonsense.

The claims of "cellular memory" don't connect with these other animistic beliefs because even if it's possible that a transplanted heart's tissue contains cellular memories of the donor -- this is living tissue, not dead matter -- but even so, the evidence offered up for cellular memory are anecdotes from transplant recipients who more likely have undergone personality changes from the trauma of the procedure or drugs taken afterwards. Many transplant recipients go through periods of depression after their operations -- is that evidence that most donors are depressed people? Not likely.

This sort of "evidence" raises a red flag for me, because I first heard about these so called evidences of transplant patients assuming personality traits of their donors more than 30 years ago when my family was in the Jehovah's Witnesses. These anecdotes are used in their theology to justify not only refusing organ donation, but refusing blood transfusions as well. And over the years, many children have died needlessly because of this stupid, superstitious belief drawn from the animistic belief of the Old Testament authors that the soul of a person or an animal is in their blood. If you jump to conclusions conjuring up old animistic and vitalistic beliefs, there's no telling where it all ends up! Better to stick with beliefs that can be tested and verified, than to dredge up superstitions of the past!

Now, back to that claim: “Actual consciousness may be expressed by only a small set of neurons," -- based on the best research available from neuroscientists studying correllates between neuron activity and conscious activity, it appears that there is no dedicated group of neurons that maintain continuous conscious activity in the brain, and repeated observations with fMRI or other brain scanning technologies like S.P.E.C.T., show different sets of neurons involved each time a conscious decision is made by a subject. Consciousness is scattered throughout the cerebral cortex of the brain and can just as easily be explained by a "Bundle Theory of Mind" -- that the mind is not continuous, but instead conscious mental activities are linked together by short-term memory to provide a sense of unity of consciousness to the person. The reason we think we have a soul or even a unified physical mind is because our brain is organized to combine various inputs together to create this sense of unity.

When split-brain patients have had the corpus callosum bundle of nerves that connect the left and right hemispheres severed, each hemisphere is capable of generating consciousness independently. But, in normal people, the two hemispheres will create a single, unified sense of mind. But that is no reason to assume that our self-perceptions are accurate! If anything, the study of psychological abnormalities indicates that even the slightest damage to an area of the brain used in processing sensory information or generating body-maps that give us our sense of embodiment can make some unfortunate people believe they can still feel their severed limbs, believe that members of their own family are imposters, and the most bizarre dysfunction I've heard of are the sufferers of "Cotard's Syndrome" who believe that they are really dead, and will come up with all sorts of elaborate and convoluted arguments when questioned by therapists about how they can breathe, talk, eat drink, etc. if they are really dead.

It's easy to write off a person with Cotard's Syndrome as delusional, but how much can we trust our own sense of self and inner awareness? If personal observations conflict with empirical evidence that has been gathered, it's more plausible to consider something like an out-of-body experience to be a delusion, than having an immaterial soul actually leaving the body behind.

The arguments that particles of matter have fundamental elements of conscious awareness are usually referred to as Property Dualism to distinguish them from traditional substance dualistic beliefs that there is an alternate world of gods, souls, spirits etc. The claims advanced by property dualist philosophers such as David Chalmers are much more modest than what you are proposing here. Chalmers wouldn't argue that mind continues on after the brain dies any more than heat continues after you snuff out a flickering candle flame. Chalmers accepts that the brain generates consciousness, but argues that there are irreducible conscious properties in the matter that makes up the brain. A materialist such as Daniel Dennett, will argue that there are no fundamental conscious properties in matter and that consciousness can be explained by a higher order of emergence that occurs when 100 billion neurons connected by up to 10,000 dendrites each, start firing together.

Some philosophers of mind consider property dualism to be unfalsifiable, since it doesn't make any unique claims about brain function, but the ones who choose to hash it out argue over thought problems like Chalmer's Philosopher's Zombie, a thought experiment he created to try to prove that we would have no sense of subjective awareness if matter is strictly inert with no basic level of conscious activity. I don't know who's right, but I am sure that if I ever received a transplanted organ in the future, I would not receive part of the "soul" of the donor as part of the process.

[HisSelf]

Folks, when the mitochondria stop working, it's all history.

[Hawkins]

Unicorn is not a common belief, nor is it a group belief worthy of speculation and investigation. Human soul is a valid skeptic. Not only that, it concerns your life. It is your belief whether you are on either side of the fence. You believe that it doesn't exist, or you believe that it does exist.

Conceptually speaking, soul is a technical term applicable for humans and humans only. Those supernatual entities such as angels are usually refered to as spirits instead of souls.

Edited September 26, 2008 by Hawkins