Are we just flesh?

I know I would hate living in a wold where my being is defined purely by something as mortal as my carbon-based body. Whether I am, or am not, is still uncertain. Some evidence tends to angle towards the suggestion that there indeed is something more to us, yet lack of other facts provides a base on which to build a belief that we are in essence, what we eat.

I am, of course in favor of being something more. We know how the thinking process works, but what on earth is the impulse that starts it? If it is simple some unnoticed reaction to the world, then why do we dream? Why, even bereft of contact with reality, are we able to think?

I am intrigued by the idea of cloning people. Not growing people from a identical set of rules, but true copying, making another instance of the same being. Would such two entities think seperately, or would they simply become two nodes of the same consciousness?

"Just" flesh? What's more wondrous and full of mystery than the infinite complexity of what we are, and how it fits into what everything is? What a dull, two-dimensional world it would be if all of this were for something, rather than just riding its own radiant nature.

Everything you know is not what it is. This is a test.. don't forget it.

Oh, it is certain that there is something more than just the flesh...there is the consciousness, the soul, the energy. How can you say otherwise?

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Originally posted by Rakkantekimusouka
Oh, it is certain that there is something more than just the flesh...there is the consciousness, the soul, the energy. How can you say otherwise?

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The consciousness is created by the functioning of the brain, which is why when you're asleep or knocked out (or dead), and you're brain isn't fully functional, the consciousness goes away temporarily. The soul is a made-up concept to try to explain why we have a consciousness, but it doesn't make much sense (by made-up I mean the people who first thought of the concept of a "soul" didn't really have a good reason to believe why they should exist). And I don't know what you mean by energy. So, I say otherwise.... I guess it would be nice to think that we're more than "just flesh", but it seems like a lot of human beliefs are just created by what we want to be true instead of what we have reason to believe is true, unfortunately.

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Originally posted by Stevehattan
he consciousness is created by the functioning of the brain, which is why when you're asleep or knocked out (or dead), and you're brain isn't fully functional, the consciousness goes away temporarily. The soul is a made-up concept to try to explain why we have a consciousness, but it doesn't make much sense (by made-up I mean the people who first thought of the concept of a \"soul\" didn't really have a good reason to believe why they should exist). And I don't know what you mean by energy. So, I say otherwise.... I guess it would be nice to think that we're more than \"just flesh\", but it seems like a lot of human beliefs are just created by what we want to be true instead of what we have reason to believe is true, unfortunately.

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Well many humans have reason to believe in a soul. They draw theyr beliefs from experience that surpass the natural(Like OBE's, NDE...). Offcourse there are those who havent really experienced something but learnt or heard it, or just believe in it(not that that is wrong). But to really prove something like a soul and make a scientific breaktrough will be, i think, impossible with a machine. And the quest for the exsistence of a soul remains subjective.

But offcourse it is the question wheter this experiences is created by the mind and yada yada yada....

i agree with stevehattan. do animals have souls? if not how come we have souls? if animals have souls do plants have them? do everything living have a soul? if so where does the bordeline between living and not go?
i think the soul was made up long ago so ppl could have more understanding of themselves. and still in these days ppl want to believe in it. but one the other hand it doesnt matter if there is a soul or not. if it leads to a better understanding for ppl might just be good.

Props dj0s, well-said.

I think there's some eternal aspect of our conscious selves. As we know, change is constant over time - our physical appearance, the earth's features, events in the cosmos, etc...Everything seems to change - everything except our desires and emotions. Of course, we mature and change our outlook of the world, but only as a result of learned experiences which condition us. Our basic conscious structure, whether it's centred upon exciteability, observance, introspection, etc, it remains virtually unchanged. I find it peculiar that our cellular structure can take such drastic shifts, yet our personalities can remain constant throughout our lives. Of course that doesn't definitively suggest there's something supernatural going on, but it's interesting to ponder, because it's not something of physical reality. It's something above and beyond what we can see, hear, taste, smell or touch.

we also have bone, cartilidge, fat, hair and some other stuff

The answer: Maybe

I have an interesting concept. What if we each have a consciousness that controlls the randomness of quantum physics and thus possesses free will(is not random or determined). This may be suggested by the light beam thing(observed light particles behave like particles, unobserved light particles behave like waves).

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Originally posted by Stevehattan+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stevehattan)</div>

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Oh, it is certain that there is something more than just the flesh...there is the consciousness, the soul, the energy. How can you say otherwise?

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The consciousness is created by the functioning of the brain, which is why when you're asleep or knocked out (or dead), and you're brain isn't fully functional, the consciousness goes away temporarily. The soul is a made-up concept to try to explain why we have a consciousness, but it doesn't make much sense (by made-up I mean the people who first thought of the concept of a \"soul\" didn't really have a good reason to believe why they should exist). And I don't know what you mean by energy. So, I say otherwise.... I guess it would be nice to think that we're more than \"just flesh\", but it seems like a lot of human beliefs are just created by what we want to be true instead of what we have reason to believe is true, unfortunately.[/b]

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How do we know you didn't make up the brain? How do you know brains exist? You can know that you see a brain, but not that it is a real entity in an objective universe.

As far as I'm concerned the brain and the soul are the same thing, an explanation for our consciousness, both equally baseless.

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Originally posted by Rakkantekimusouka
Oh, it is certain that there is something more than just the flesh...there is the consciousness, the soul, the energy. How can you say otherwise?

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Would you bet your life on it?

It's like this flesh body we have is a cast and our soul is what's behind it. We feel physical pain b/c our body is is our soul's connection to this physical world.

Dj0s said [quote]do animals have souls? if not how come we have souls? if animals have souls do plants have them? do everything living have a soul? if so where does the bordeline between living and not go? [quote]

I gotta give props to that comment too. Very well stated


Hey Belisarius, I like your concept that our thoughts are able to control the randomness. I think it's very deep and badass.
I think it's possible that all humans are connected telepathically in a way that most don't know. This could explain why a lot of ideas seem to simultaneously come about from different parts in the world during different times in history.

I have to disagree with one thing though. It's in regards to the light wave/particle phenomena.
It seems that if we measured a beam of light, we could only detect it as either a wave or as bunches of individual particles. So, it could appear that it behaves according to how we think about it; i.e. if we "don't look", then it'll be a wave and if we "don't look" the other way, then it's a bunch of particles.

The reason light will act like either particles or a wave is b/c of how we as humans created the equations that define the behavior of the light wave/photons. On a deeper level, it's also b/c of how our math is created.

If we define light as a wave, then we can only detect the probability of the location of the particles that make it up. Any light wave can be expressed using what is called the Schroedinger Equation. We then look at the equation and take out time from being a factor. So, the wave only changes by position/location and not by time. Then, we mathematically set the probablility of the particle's location equal to 1 between some given distance interval...we can do this now b/c we took out time from the equation. So, by math, it's impossible to know the exact location if we know the exact wave given by the Schroedinger Equation.

I know this is very broad and not all that comprenhensive, but it's one of the fundamental things taught in any quantum mechanics course.

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Originally posted by Abu Dhabi+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Abu Dhabi)</div>

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Would you bet your life on it?[/b]

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Yes.

<!--QuoteBegin-Belisarius
How do we know you didn't make up the brain? How do you know brains exist? You can know that you see a brain, but not that it is a real entity in an objective universe.

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Umm...could you expand on that a little? I'm not getting what you mean by that, exactly...

soul, no soul; being, non-being; living, non-living; flesh, more than flesh; person, not a person -- These are all distinctions, discriminations, of the mind and cannot be applied to reality; they don't really exist.

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Originally posted by Rakkantekimusouka+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rakkantekimusouka)</div>

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Originally posted by Abu Dhabi@
Would you bet your life on it?

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Yes.

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How do we know you didn't make up the brain? How do you know brains exist? You can know that you see a brain, but not that it is a real entity in an objective universe.

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Umm...could you expand on that a little? I'm not getting what you mean by that, exactly...[/b]

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Certainly,

How do you know that a brain exists in a real universe, and that you're not just seeing/remembering/sensing things?

Let's not start talking about wave-particle duality unless we have a better understanding of it ok? The fact that light behaves as a particle and a wave simultaneously has nothing to do with the "equations that humans created". Get one thing straight, equations are not created, they are discovered.

It is experimental evidence that shows light acting as a wave and a particle. In the famous double-slit experiment, performed by Fresnel and Young in the early 1800s, they showed that when light is sent through this double slit, a characteristic interference pattern that is very similar to the pattern observed from the interference of water waves in the same way.

The photoelectric effect however, which is the emission of electrons from a surface (usually metallic) upon exposure to, and absorption of, electromagnetic radiation (such as visible light and ultraviolet radiation). Shows that light can also act as a particle (ie. the photon). This was later explained mathematically by Einstein and others.

Wave-particle duality has nothing to with "how our math is created".