Logical argument for existence of souls

[near tartan]

Zeleni Sok#7612 has been warned

Reason: Duplicated text

[obsidian tiger]

wait what, the topic was approved but my post text was deleted?

the bot sent me a dm saying "don't send the same message over and over again! "

[near tartan]

GG @obsidian tiger, you just advanced to level 2!

[obsidian tiger]

but i didnt

[livid tapir]

Two different mechanisms.

There is no "topic approval" process that happens automatically here in the forums.

It was your huge copy/paste that triggered the duplicate warning.

That being said, we probably should make the forum exempt from that kind of moderation, but limit newbies the ability to post.

[obsidian tiger]

i already typed out the text on another place, of course im going to copy and paste it here, why would i type the whole thing again ._. what a nonsense mechanism..

[livid tapir]

Which is exactly why it works ... it prevents nonsense.

It's based on a heat system, and if you copy/paste huge walls of text on a particular topic, it is likely going to see it as spam. We have enough trolls that show up and try to be disruptive, I prefer having these tools in place to reduce the nonsense.

[obsidian tiger]

i mean it could work just by banning trolls, and thus not prevent sensible people from pasting sensible things which would be interesting to discuss..

[livid tapir]

Cool. Make a bot that does that.

[obsidian tiger]

i meant a mod could just ban spam and troll profiles..

[livid tapir]

So we have to look at every single post and determine who is a troll and who is "interesting" according to you.

No thanks.

Did you want your text back, or did you want to keep living in a fantasy world where you're not inconvenienced and everyone has to do more work to make sure of it?

[obsidian tiger]

did i want my text back?

[livid tapir]

I dm'd all that was kept. I suggest not posting walls of text in the future

[obsidian tiger]

ah, that, i had it on another place where i copied it from, i thought you could return the text back in the post..

[obsidian tiger]

ok, so i'll type out the short version, has three premises and a conclusion

1. it is logically possible for me to exist without a body (as per Ibn Sina's floating man, or Descartes' second meditation)

2. if physicalism (/materialism /naturalism) is true, then it is impossible for me to (continue to exist) without a body.

3. if some kind of substance dualism is true (and naturalism /materialism /physicalism is false), then it is possible for me to (continue to exist) without a body.

4. therefore substance dualism is true and physicalism is false.

@naive steeple 👆

[naive steeple]

If physicalism is true, it becomes logically impossible for you to exist without a body.

So 1 isn't necessarily true. You're attempting to put the cart before the horse.

1. If physicalism is true, it is logically impossible for you to exist without a body.

You're essentially attempting to prove physicalism false by assuming it is false in your first premise.

[naive steeple]

Your conclusion just doesn't follow.

1. It is possible for me to be sitting
2. If I'm standing, then it is impossible for me to be sitting.
3. Therefore, I'm sitting and not standing.

[obsidian tiger]

premise 1 is generally accepted in philosophy to be true. like when you take the cartesian methodical doubt route you can doubt the external world - including your body - exists, but cant doubt that your mind exists, so it is coherently conceivable, ie logically possible for your mind to exist without the body.

you can phrase the argument as

1. if physicalism is true it is logically impossible
2. if dualism is true it is possible
3. it is possible
4. ergo physicalism is false (because its impossibility is contradictory to the core claim that it is possible)

the order of the premises doesnt really matter. the point is that the possibility is claimed and the other two premises are conditionals.

not a good analogy. argument has a form more like

1. it is possible for me to sit.
2. if view A is true it is possible for me to sit.
3. if view B is true it is impossible for me to sit.
4. therefore B is false.

[naive steeple]

It's a better phrasing.

You have to substantiate 3) in this instance. It has no grounding.
Under physicalism, the mind IS physical.
So a "mind without a physical body" is a "mindless mind". A square circle.
That makes it logically impossible.

For a non-physical mind to be logically possible (for 3) to be true), you have to use a totally different definition of what a mind is.

Let me reverse the argument for you to see where I'm coming from.

1. If dualism is true, a physical mind is logically impossible
2. If physicalism is true, a physical mind is logically possible.
3. It is logically possible.
4. Ergo, dualism is false.

[obsidian tiger]

i gave substantiation of premise 3 (in that second formulation). it is simply a fact that it is logically possible, and that is shown by its conceivability, as talked about by descartes and ibn sina. that is why i (well not really i, this is not my argument, its a swinburnian argument) originally put this as the first premise. it is what is the case, and then in the next two premises we examine under which view it can (or cant) be the case.

[near tartan]

Zeleni Sok#7612 has been warned

Reason: Duplicated text

[obsidian tiger]

oh fuking hell, this dumb bot is again deleting my messages, and this time i didnt even copy and paste anything, i typed out a whole passage

[naive steeple]

You can try splitting larger texts into manageable chunks.
The silly bot detects repeated phrases and words, and works off a certain level of trust.
Even if you're not copying, typing out words that aren't your own isn't exactly satisfying either.

It's still hyperactive and has hit me a few times in the past as well, so I get your frustration.

[obsidian tiger]

@livid tapir wth.. can you reverse it's deletion? or at least send me what i wrote..

[obsidian tiger]

ok, i'll try to post what i wrote in chunks

full disclosure, i actually dont think this argument works, i just cant put my finger on why. i think there might be two problems it:

1. it might be using different (im)possibilities in different premises, so the issue is whether the impossibility of a bodiless mind under physicalism in one premise is truly contradictory with the logical possibility of a bodiless mind in the core premise;

and 2. it might be the case that physicalism and dualism are not a true dichotomy, in that case the impossibility of physicalism wouldnt imply that dualism is the only thing which allows for the possibility of a bodiless mind.

[near tartan]

GG @obsidian tiger, you just advanced to level 4!

[obsidian tiger]

but rejecting the core premise (the possibility of a bodiless mind) is not way to go, like, no academic setting where analytical philosophy is done would take seriously the denial of the fact that a bodiless mind is logically possible (again - logically, so not necessarily in any other way). and the argument itself is logically valid, the issue is whether is it sound..

[naive steeple]

It's not quite there.

Under physicalism, a "bodiless mind" is a term with no logical referent. It's a "square circle".
Under dualism, a "physical mind" is the term with no logical referent.

To reach the conclusion in your first argument, you have to accept that the term has a referent, ergo, you're already working on dualist grounds. That's why I initially called it putting the cart before the horse.

Outside of that framework, starting off on physicalist grounds, you reach the conclusion of my reverse argument from earlier.

Both your argument and its reverse boil down to "Accepting the definition of what a mind is from a worldview makes the other worldview false".
Which is tautologically true, because that's the main difference between both worldviews.

[obsidian tiger]

its not like square circle tho, its more like unicorn, you know the concept just think it doesnt exist.

so like you have the concept but are checking where it can exist or not. kinda

youre just checking how something which is assumed in philosophy to be possible could be possible

[naive steeple]

The concept is impossible if one definition holds.

If a mind is an emergent property of matter, a "matterless mind" cannot exist.
If a mind is ethereal and something entirely separate from the physical, a "physical mind" cannot exist.
A bachelor cannot be married. Not because you think it doesn't exist, but because the very definition of what a "bachelor" is means it's not married.

Both worldviews use a different definition for "mind". What one worldview might accept as perfectly logically possible the other outright denies. And they're BOTH right.
They're just not speaking the same language.

Let me go back to your initial argument, and do the same reversal I did earlier.

1. It is logically possible for my mind to be an emergent property of matter.
2. If dualism is true, then it is impossible for my mind to be an emergent property of the matter that composes my body.
3. If some kind of physicalism is true (and dualism is false), then it is possible for my mind to be that emergent property.
4. Therefore, physicalism is true and substance dualism is false.

A dualist would reject 1), because the definition of "mind" they use simply precludes that. A mind cannot logically be an emergent property of matter under a dualist definition of mind. And it isn't because that dualist just thinks those don't exist either.

[obsidian tiger]

no, no a dualist can say 1 is fine, because it really is logically possible for my mind to be an emergent property of matter.

you are again making a faulty parallel. according to your parallel the argument claims:

1 if dualism is true it is possible my mind is a soul
2 if physicalism is true it is impossible that my mind is a soul
3 is it possible that my mind is a soul
4 ergo dualism is true

but that is not the form of the argument. bc it is both possible that mind is the soul and it is possible that my mind is the brain. both are conceivable.

whereas it is not both true that 1 it is possible for my mind to exist without the body, and 2 it is not possible for my mind to exist without the body. we know from philosophy that only the former is true. the latter is wrong.

[naive steeple]

I don't get how a dualist could say their mind is both the brain and the soul unless you're actively trying to say it's not a true dichotomy.

Your final point makes little sense to me.
"It is not possible for my mind to exist without the body" isn't any single point.

(accepting the dichotomy as-is: the mind is either brain or soul)

1. it is logically possible for the mind to be the brain.
2. It is logically possible for the mind to be the soul.
3. if physicalism is true, then it is impossible for the mind to be the soul
4. If dualism is true, then it is impossible for the mind to be the brain

All strictly true statements. All we did was define dualism and physicalism in their simplest.
What conclusion should we reach from those?
Reminder that using 2 and 3, you managed to reach "dualism is true".

[obsidian tiger]

sorry, i mistyped, ok so what i meant to say was this

out of two views 1 my mind could be a soul, 2 my mind could be the brain, both are possible, both are conceivable.

of the two views 1 its (logically) possible for my mind to exist without a body, and 2 its impossible for my mind to exist without a body, only the first view is possibly true, its a basic fact, we can conceive of our mind existing without a body.

thats why the core premise is "it is logically possible for my mind to exist without a body", bc its a simple fact, there is nothing logically contradictory in that conception.

and then we are checking to see which other views (which might or might not be true) fit with that core premise

like under P X can be true, 3 under Q X cant be true. if X is true Q is false (and P is true).

and X is true. (X being that it is logically possible for my mind to exist without a body)

[naive steeple]

Perfectly sound so far.
It seems you just had the conclusion backwards.

Here, let me reverse the order of my 4 premises to make it even clearer.

1. if physicalism is true, then it is impossible for the mind to be the soul
2. If dualism is true, then it is impossible for the mind to be the brain
3. it is logically possible for the mind to be the brain.
4. It is logically possible for the mind to be the soul.
   ---- Just add a proper conclusion now.
5. Therefore, neither physicalism nor dualism are true.

If one was true, it would become logically impossible for either statement 3 or statement 4 to be true. And neither statement 3 nor statement 4 are false.

It doesn't mean either of them are false either. If one is false, the other is true, and we know from our conclusion that neither of them are true.

[obsidian tiger]

in both physicalism vs dualism and soul vs brain both could be true or not. we are checking which one is.

the one premise for which we dont say it might or might not be true is "it is logically possible for my mind to exist without a body". thatswhat is true.

and by using that as a measure we are checking what is true or false out of the other stuff..

[naive steeple]

Same with the premise "it is logically possible for my mind to need my body".
It's just as true.

In this instance, it just proves that dualism isn't true.
Same with the premise you mentioned - all it does is show physicalism isn't true.

[obsidian tiger]

ok, i think we are coming to something

or are we

haha

i have to think about that

it is logically possible for my mind to need my body, sure.

[near tartan]

GG @obsidian tiger, you just advanced to level 5!

[obsidian tiger]

i'll have to think think about if this shows the argument is faulty

[naive steeple]

At best, we can say we have no reason to think either of those worldviews is true.
That those need further grounding in order to be accepted.

At best, you reach a conclusion that "the other worldview isn't true".
So we have two untrue worldviews, the truth of which would make the other false.

Here's what happens when we switch a few words around while attempting to keep only true premises.

1. if physicalism is false, then it is possible for the mind to be the soul
2. If dualism is false, then it is possible for the mind to be the brain
3. it is logically possible for the mind to be the brain.
4. It is logically possible for the mind to be the soul.

---

5. Therefore, both are false.

I still think there's a logical fallacy in there, but I can't for the best of me point it out.

Here's the premise that WOULD lead to your initial conclusion.
"If it is logically possible that the mind is the soul, then dualism is true."

But it isn't. We've successfully argued above that one being logically possible doesn't make dualism true.

If you want an actually TRUE premise, here's a variation:
"If it is logically possible that the mind is the soul, then dualism is possible."
Which says nothing, but has the merit of being accurate.

[obsidian tiger]

no, but it is true that mind being the souls is logically possible.

if we were to forumulate it as an implication then it would something like

if physicalism is contradictory with the fact that that its logically possible for my mind to exist without a body, then physicalism is false.

i think i might see a discrepancy

[obsidian tiger]

so it seems that the argument says:

we must say it is logically possible to exist without a body

bc thats simply a fact that its logically possible

[naive steeple]

Same with the mind being the brain. It's logically possible... unless dualism is true.
So dualism isn't true, because there is no logical problem with the premise.

"If dualism is contradictory with the fact that it's logically possible for your mind to exist because of your brain, then dualism is false".

That's our previous conclusion. That neither dualism nor physicalism are true.
A secondary conclusion is that they're both false.

[obsidian tiger]

under physicalism we would have to say it is logically impossible to exist without a body

but that is false

under physicalism we would also have to say it is logically possible to exist without a body, its just not physically possible

so physicalism is not contradictory with the core claim

and thus not proven false

yeah, i think thats where the argument fails

as i said way above, i suspected it had something to do with different (im)possibilities in different premises, but i couldnt put my finger on it

but i think this is it..

[naive steeple]

Like I said earlier, I mostly think this is definitional in nature.
So the statements LOOK like they're axiomatically true, until you compare them to the opposite statements with just as much truth value.

There are two logically opposed things that are possibly true.
Both dualism and physicalism are in that state: possibly true.

The argument attempts to say "If this is possibly true, then this is certainly false".
And it just doesn't follow.

I'm of course veering off into physicalism myself, but that's not quite the reason. Souls existing somehow gives me body horror because of some medical knowledge.
It used to be a huge nightmare fuel.
We have cases of people becoming outright murderers, even one case of a person becoming a pedophile, just from a brain injury (many cases getting fully cured after an intervention).
Who is responsible here? Did damaging a brain somehow deal the same damage to the soul, and they BOTH became (and subsequently quit being) pedophiles?
Going further, talking about the afterlife, are there murderers in Heaven because their souls were good but their bodies just wouldn't listen? Are their actual good people in Hell because their good intentions came from their bodies not listening to their murderous souls? Or is the body the only one important? Are there evil souls in Heaven because their bodies accepted Jesus Christ as their savior?

[obsidian tiger]

seems to me that dualism has an answer to that, like the soul needs to be connected to the body in a proper way, and in general there is a struggle between the soul and body, and if an injury of a specific kind happens the connection is messed up

there is in general an inner struggle we all perceive, like i want to lose weight but i also want to the cake, i want to get healthy so need to be active but i want to lie around and not be active

and we know of cases where the impulse gets too strong for the voluntary mind (which is in dualism the soul) to resist, like eg when someone is drunk, or when someone addicted to hard drugs

[naive steeple]

Under that paradigm, every soul is essentially a slave to its body.
It tries its best to communicate with the body, but the body demonstrably has the last word.

There is no way to differentiate whether the alcohol modifies the body in a way the soul is further limited, or further enhanced.
Under a dualistic system, I think there's a stronger link to it being the latter.
The conscious mind is still the body's, unless you think knocking somebody unconscious somehow also hits their soul, unconsciousness is a physical response. Once the body stops responding, the conscious mind is lost.
If there IS a soul controlling behind the scenes, our conscious mind is not it. A substance that affects the conscious mind has a greater chance to let the behind the scenes do its thing.
By making the body, which generally acts as a limiter, stop working properly, drugs and alcohol become soul-enhancing.

Good soul, evil body. Evil soul, good body. Both are cases of miscommunication.
That temptation to eat cake? It might be your evil soul attempting to control the body. Or it might be the evil body just doing its thing and the good soul failing to make it work as it would want.

In both cases, it sounds horrifying to be a soul. Locked-in syndrome times a thousand.

[obsidian tiger]

i wouldnt say that the body has the last word, sometimes maybe, usually not, but i dont have a problem of saying smth like being slaves to the body, personally i do believe we are souls trapped in matter due to actions of an evil god lol

alcohol seems to be limit the soul-body connection, obviously we have worse perception and worse intentionality

knocking someone out doesnt hit the soul, it messes with the brain and thus the connection of the soul with the brain

[naive steeple]

If the soul was what is conscious, hitting that connection wouldn't hit consciousness.

[obsidian tiger]

well 1 not necessarily, like dualism accept that the interaction is both ways, not just one way, 2 it could be the case that there was consciousness, but re-establishing connection messes with the memory of it a bit, like people who are put under anesthesia for surgery report the stuff they heard while being under..

[naive steeple]

I've yet to encounter a dualist accepting the both-ways relationship.
Accepting you can physically alter a soul would be quite new to me.

Anesthesia isn't unconsciousness. It isn't meant to be. It's more akin to medically-induced sleep.
Actual unconsciousness is potentially lethal on its own. That's the reason you have to try to get the person back up ASAP.

[obsidian tiger]

no, not that you can alter your soul, but that there is a two way interaction, as i said a struggle of soul vs body, sensations come from the body, like pains come from the body and obviously large amounts of pain can influence our mental faculties that are attributed to the soul by dualism

[naive steeple]

We've already established that the conscious mind is body-dependent.
You don't get to keep consciousness if your body is unable to do so.
If your body is unconscious, you are unconscious.
Until you "re-establish connection", no conscious mind.

To make it properly work as a two-way interaction, you can try to parse this as consciousness being the connection between body and soul. So the connection could be cut from either direction and that would indeed stop transmission.
In that example, "you" are the connection between the soul and body and cease to exist if your body stops working. Existing without a physical body becomes illogical, because minds are a connection between the immaterial and the material.

Consciousness in that system isn't the soul OR the brain. Neither of them is any more conscious than a random rock.
The physicalist equivalent is saying that none of your individual brain cells are conscious.

[obsidian tiger]

consciousness under dualism is is dual (lol), like the 'core' functions of the mind (basically what is in science imaginatively called system 2) are in the soul, and various automatic functions (automatic thoughts, impulses, etc) are in the body.

being knocked out or passing out doesnt seem problematic being that eg sleeping is already a state where soul is in some sense inactive (except if it gets active and then you have lucid dreams), and if you meditate in a certain way and get good at it, you stop remembering dreams, at least at was my experience

(i had a period where i meditated became very proficient at it, including entering altered states of consciousness via it, i became much calmer as a person, in the framework of dualism i would say my soul became more in control of my body, and calmed down some of its metal functions, and i stopped remembering dreams even tho before that i remembered them pretty frequently.. and its also known that meditation can cure sleep paralysis. which according to dualism would be that your soul became active but your body is kinda lagging, its partially awake partially not..)

[abstract nimbus]

The mind is somehow the same thing with the soul
the mind is something like the soul and the brain is the pink thing that you think it is the mind
the mind choose something to do
the brain is a machine that execute the thing that the mind choose it
you can touch the brain but you can't touch the mind because it is maybe a part of the soul or even the soul

@edgy needle

[edgy needle]

p1 false
p2 da fk???
p3 is false
p4 false

[abstract nimbus]

proof?

i will pray the asr and i will be back to give an example

[edgy needle]

logical arguments require proof, if you havent provied the primese its false

[naive steeple]

I don't get where you're coming from.

1. The mind is an emergent property of the human body. You can call that a soul if you want. That just makes the soul physical.
2. ? Wha? In no dictionary is mind = brain.
3. Demonstrate how choices are separate from the mind/soul. If choices are part of the mind instead, then they're physical as well.
4. You can't touch the mind because the mind isn't the brain. Same thing with you being able to touch the wall but not the color red. You can touch red things, you can touch things that generate minds. You can't touch minds or the color red.

[abstract nimbus]

i did an error here sorry !

i was thinking that "mind" is the translation of the arabic word العقل

"العقل" means the soul of the mind or something like

العقل

[obsidian tiger]

which formulation are you talking about? we talked about different ones.

in the original one i posted p1 is "it is logically possible for me to exist without a body". it just claims logical possibility, not any other kind of possibility.

[near tartan]

GG @obsidian tiger, you just advanced to level 6!

[livid tapir]

How have you demonstrated that?

[naive steeple]

His argument is that there's no logical contradiction with him existing bodiless.
I originally said it just depended on what a "mind" actually is.

There's an obvious contradiction if the mind is physical, or a property of the physical.

To demonstrate there is a logical contradiction would need to demonstrate physicalism.

The first premise uses a dualistic definition of the mind/self. So the conclusion is dualism.

[edgy needle]

I was responding to the comment directly above mine, to respond to your argument you are using an equivocation/ambiguity fallacy with possible using logically possible in the 1st and 3rd Premise, and metaphysically possible in the 2nd

physicalism doesnt states its logically impossbile for you to contine after your body dies, there are ways to do that in physicalism also

it states that metaphysically with known physical properties it cant

[obsidian tiger]

well i wrote there in continuation: (as per Ibn Sina's floating man, or Descartes' second meditation) its simply accepted in philosophy that such a thing is conceivable and isnt logically impossible

[obsidian tiger]

yeah, yeah, we reached that conclusion, the argument could work only if under physicalism it would be logically impossible to existing without a mind, but thats false..

[noble hornet]

fr

[hallow nest]

"Wings of a Butterfly", by HIM

"Love Like Winter," by AFI

"Soul Meets Body," by Death Cab for Cutie

[young warren]

It is not possible for you to exist without a body

[neat rampart]

What was it?

[near tartan]

GG @neat rampart, you just advanced to level 7!

[hushed gate]

Hang on ,

You claimed it was impossible for you to exist without a body if naturalism is true.

What?

What what?

Do you follow quantum naturalism .

You can Be completely destroyed , I.E dead
And you can be transferred somewhere else.

Which asserts in naturalism on that front

You are the information
Not just the body and the Brian

.

In naturalism it's possible to exist without a body.

Which btw for whatever reason you believe in soul could be the Exact counter explanation and not an exclusive explanation.

Which means the soul isn't proven and you got to go back to the drawing board

Could the soul exist
Yes
In all 4 points.

What if there's a material soul.

Do we have evidence

I'll read the rest and see if you provided any.

We kinda do
We kinda don't .

You can flip pages massive hours on Ndes , psychodelics, reincarnation studies, ghost stories.

But it's not definitive.

We can all accept evolution for instance, because it is definitive or the shape of the earth 🌎.
If it's not definitive, then the outcome of the debate will differ with each person
If it is definitive.
Then the outcome will be consistent, with due respect to especially rational people.

I'm gonna read the rest, but one of these things doesn't disprove the other.

A perspective, theory , idea.
Hard to prove.

It's incredibly hard to definitively prove physicalism, but physicalism is reliable.
It reliably shows up. Dualism and idealism don't seam to reliably show up in a significant way.

Not as much near enough as physicalism .

Brain *

[livid tapir]

https://tenor.com/view/words-trump-gif-10343307

[hushed gate]

Exactly

It may not be true , but it feels true.