Does the Soul or Spirit Really Exist?

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fixed.

same thing, basically. science is not ontology.

What do you mean by that? I would disagree because science is actually quite well suited for determining what exists physically and what doesn't. Unless you are somehow suggesting that science doesn't detect the soul implies that it doesn't exist physically, and is only a metaphorical concept, not different from the way people use the term "heart", which I could never understand.

science deals with finding MODELS for predicting phenomena. models, not dictums about existence.
by its method, science works by reasoning from singular cases to the formulation of general sentences, which isnt logically sound. empirical sciences primary principle is to superimpose cause-effect-chains onto observed phenomena. this superimposing is a subjective activity, not something that can be observed in the world.
to begin with, science proclaims the physical existence of a world outside, although this existence cant be secured epistemologically.

to ascertain actual existence to scientific sentences is to mistake pure method for real being.

now, if you are dealing with a subject that is, by definition, only subjectively accessible or evident, a method that deals with empirical data on an intersubjective basis wont have a chance of yielding any useable results.

Then is there such a dictum about existence that more accurately predicts what exists, and could more effectively realize what exists physically or how things work than science does? I have yet to see a different method which could accomplish what science has--to discover the properties of the universe that explain how it functions. Is there another model that makes better use of the observations we have than science does? I cannot see that because there haven't been any inherent flaws in the way the scientific method is being used. At the very least, it might correct itself, but you can't dismiss that scientists are using observations that they didn't make up.

If you are suggesting that the soul is subjective, then of course science can't tell you anything about that. But then I am less inclined to bother with something like that because such a non-physical concept that has no logic behind it is meaningless to me.

well, you could read into almost any kind of proper epistemology for a change. science theory wont hurt, too.

several issues with your post i have:
a) science does not predict what exists and science doesnt explain how things work. science offers invented tales that do a good job at predicting results. there is no evidence of forces. however, through the story of forces, you can predict the outcome of some things pretty well. forces are just a model, though, and not something that actual existence is to be claimed of (if you do, its not scientific anymore and is a belief like almost any other).
discovering the properties of the universe... hah. that was a good one. wrong tool, baby. youd need one to ascertain you of the existence of the universe first hand.

b) as said several times before: there are countless definitions to soul. most of them deal with that the soul is immaterial (descartes even talked about res cogitans as a differend substance from res extensa - matter) and that every subject has one soul, and only evidence of its own soul. hence, no intersubjective empirics possible, even if the soul was to be within the (limited) bounds of human senses.

c) non-physicals and unlogic. nice train you're on, but it basically has quite flawed logics. logic by itself is something immaterial. logic also can only be applied to immaterial things. variables, numbers, concepts... but not to material things themselves. at best, logic could be applied to the intelligibles you formed of things, but these intelligibles arent the things themselves and are also quite different from them (the things being material, the intelligibles being ideal)

My spirit is not really my own , it is only the bustling bundle of energy that is locked up inside me until I die one day and it is released in what ever way my body is dealt with whether it be burning , burial or fed to the vegetarian but-strangely-meatarian-for-my-body giraffes . Spirit and soul are just silly words everyone argues over but I think it is this essence of life , the vibrating energy observed at subatomic levels that can be dubbed whatever magical word you like , yes , that is the one great "Spirit " we are all a part of , we are all born out of but I think I 'm just pulling a spiritual hood over some quantum physics what do you think ?

that 's just what I 'm feeling right now but that 's just me of course on Wednesdays , as I change beliefs on a weekly rota , for example tomorrow is Thursday on which I turn into a ravenous self-cannibalising hardcore skeptic , craving to suck any meaning I may out my own bone marrow . Fridays well that 's really "ambivalent avenue " as the weekend dawns and I analyse my week 's performance , in the end judging that nothing of meaning has surfaced , And well all the other days I turn into a werewolf .

I'm well aware I know what science theory is, thank you very much. I'll have you know that I've studied it enough times at the university level to know what it is.



The scientific method makes predictions through the making of hypotheses, but these hypotheses are not proposed and assumed to be true indefinitely--they may be at first, but only so that they might either be disproven through contradictory evidence, or supported with evidence that shows there might be some truth in such a hypothesis. Now I have been told countless times that science assumes that what we have in reality exists, but it is aparsimonious to assume that this reality we are experiencing does not exist, or isn't what we see--what evidence is there to show that this reality is not real? You can't really use "reality isn't real" as a defeater unless you can show that it is true. And besides the hypotheses, scientists don't make up stuff. I have no idea where you got that crazy idea, but if scientists made things up, there would be no agreements or convergence in any of their results, and you might end up with something as contradictory as the bible. But we don't; most of the results that most scientists attest to are results that have been converged upon by a great number of scientists, who have done their research independently and in different ways--in fact, this makes the probability of scientists making stuff up significantly low since they couldn't all have made up the same things on their own. So the idea of the force is not a made up story. It was discovered through experiments and hypotheses, and has eventually developed into a theory that is useable by both scientists and technology. If you are somehow suggesting that this reality doesn't exist, why don't you show me a better method for knowing about how reality exists?



Yet, I cannot find any logic to the soul, just as there is no logic to Santa Claus.


[/quote]

And something can still be immaterial and illogical, which is what I was getting at. Stop trying to throw in some red herrings.

Hah. I love you, Charlie Brown.

angelus-mortis:

so, if you studied science theory, you know (and from how you wrote your post, i think you do) that scientific theories arent ontological statements. they cant be, given the method they come from.
it doesnt matter whether scientists come to the same conclusions independently - that shows that the rules of science provide good intersubjectivity - but not objecttivity, which would be needed for making statements about what really exists. whether the assumption of the existence of the world is parsimonious or not doesnt matter - there is only sense data. "the world" is a conclusion (one not following logic, by the way), what i referred to a made up story. its a product of the subject.
in terms of truth and real existence, the big difference is:
-the hypothesis yields working results (science can do that and is very good at it)
-the hypothesis describes what really is (science cant do that. at all. never. nada)

its as if every time we meet, you give me a little scrap of paper with a number on it, and i give you one back. over time, you collect a lot of such pairs of numbers and begin formulating rules. for example, the numbers i gave you always were double of what you gave me. so you come to the scientific conclusion that number i give you is twice number you give me - and hence postulate a causal connection between those two numbers.
however, what really is determining the numbers you get is me. i could give you back all kinds of random numbers - if you find a system in them, that doesnt make me give you back numbers by this system. the next one always could break the system, as the system is not at any point a statement about me, its something completely made up by you. you dont even know if there is a system for the numbers i give you. (and yes, force is such a model, made up by people collecting empirical data. they dont know a bit about what really is behind their data, they just formulated a model for yielding working results.)

that way, science never tells what really is, science only gives working solutions.
you are free to believe in what science tells to be real, but then, you left the field of science and switched over to believing.

The hypothesis, is, of course, only the beginning of the scientific method, and not all of it. What actually is is what happens in the tests. But since you are boasting about how science can't know what really exists and fail to provide me with an example of how to know what really exists, then one can only concede that we do not know what really exists, but at least using results from science might be better than taking stabs in the dark.



Science might not be so blind as to leave it at you giving me a number that is double the other every time; perhaps scientists might ask why you give such numbers to me, or how such a system works. If we did not ask such questions, science could not have advanced so far. What we might have concluded from the initial experiment would not necessarily be inaccurate though, if we discovered something from why you were giving us specific numbers. It would just be narrower in scope, and less detailed.



The fact that scientists never stop at a working solution and work to find many, particularly ones around the way that solution works makes the probability that what really is and what the working solution is are the same more likely. Science concedes that we may never find a 100% match with what we have found and what actually exists, which is why scientists never aim to prove, but looking for a 100% match might be ridiculous or insignificant. It is good enough that we have a probability that is significantly high, since it only matters that it works for the applications that we apply science to.
I would never suggest anyone to believe in science. I have no idea why you are picking at this, because I do advocate that believing is not a criteria in science.

I thought observation and data collection were the beginning of the scientific method.

angelus: indeed, thats why i wrote that believing is unscientific however, one could follow the belief that what science says is ontologically true.

all my point is that science at no point formulates ontologic dictums. hence, science is not about what really is. end of story. im not debating that science is useful, au contraire, actually. i just strongly vouch for not reading more into science than there is.

as for solutions to secure knowledge of reality: epistemology is the way to go. kant is not bad, but schopenhauer streamlined him and nailed some things much better. also, phenomenology rocks. even old descartes and augustinus have their place here.
no matter which way we go with this, we end up with a very limited scope of knowledge. schopenhauer illustrated it quite well when he said that its a superimposition of a causal chain when we conclude that the sense-data we have is caused by a world outside us.

and of course i am with mrmark... where is science to go after hypotheses? there may be segregation for good and bad theses, but it wont ever go beyond.
its method of concluding from the singular to the general (formulation of a hypothesis based on empirical data) actively prohibits it from leaving that realm of probabilities and progress to absolutes.

http://www.resurgence.org/2006/chopra234.htm

http://www.resurgence.org/2005/chopra231.htm

http://www.resurgence.org/selection/chopra0605.htm

I admit I'm not familiar with these concepts, at least as far as the names go. But since you probably are, can you use any of these solutions to prove that the soul exists, or show that it doesn't? Because if they can't, I don't know of any other way of determining how the soul exists. I realize science is not concerned with it just as it's not concerned with God, but there is no reason to believe that the soul exists, since we can explain much of what we know without either God or the soul. I'm not saying this as a scientific statement, but rather as my own thoughts based on what I have seen from science.



I don't buy into absolutes because they don't often exist in reality, or aren't easily determined. As I've already said, it is good enough that we obtain a probability that is significant enough, and need not be 100%, or since it doesn't exist in reality or can't be applied to reality, it's insignificant to me.

if soul is defined as the "self" in terms of how a person ticks, reacts, thinks, etcetera (its "internal way of being", a concept that should click easier with aspies than nts)... then the own soul is everpresent and immediately evident - to the degree that you couldnt properly deny its existence.

for a more religious definition of soul, wed need theologicans and the like - but its quite clear that there is no way of proving things like that kind of soul, god(s), existence circles like an impending apocalypse, and so on. (and yeah, one can do perfectly without. its just a question of what you are content with)

anyway, from an epistemological point of view - which means the theorization of how knowledge/cognisance happens - since kant, the whole thing is starting out strictly from the individual subject, not an objective world (because the world is just perceived by us, and could be all wrong, we have no way of telling - and because the world is shaped by us and our capabilities: the kind of sensual categories we carry into the world determines how the world looks/feels/smells/etc like; the mental "basic software" that has an idea of cause and effect ensures that we see the world as structured by causal chains- not because any of that was in the world, but because its a category we apply to the world)
within epistemology, there are several branches of thought, but since kant, they all have the subject as base in common.

as for probability statements: yeah, most knowledge that can be gained is of that kind, and works good enough if the theories are good. as long as the goal of the theorie only is to yield working results, that indeed doesnt matter. but if you claim that a theory explains how the world itself ticks, there is no room for probability and possible falsification anymore.

Well, I was referring to the religious sense of the soul, one in which they try to describe commonly as being transferable, so that when you die, it still exists, and goes somewhere. Technically, you could say that the "soul" or what you used to be still exists; we all know what you used to be when you were alive and what you were alike, so your "soul" exists, but that goes back to the first definition of soul you explained, which is just a metaphorical and imprecise term, and may be irrelevant to the religious definition--but religion often describes the soul doing things being a part of a different organism, going to heaven or hell, or whatever complicated process religion might have it do--one way of explaining my reasoning on this is that there seems not to be an accurate definition of the soul--it doesn't even meet the criteria for what the soul isn't, but contradicts itself. The soul can't both go to heaven or hell and at the same time be alive in another organism. It doesn't make much sense to me. Either that, or it should be falsifiable, but such a criteria is too vague to be worked upon. So either the soul doesn't exist or it's useless.

I never meant to suggest that we know absolutely that the soul doesn't exist. Sorry if you misinterpreted what I meant to say, but there's a very small chance that the soul exists, and I've simply made the conclusion it doesn't (the religious one) since science doesn't require the soul to explain how we think, nor have we observed it enough to consider it--I am not saying that this is absolutely true, but it is most probable.