[ExI] Weighing the Soul

[Brent Allsop]

Hi Stuart,

Some people, (i.e. mormons at Brigham Young University for example) assume
a soul has some weight.  They weigh people, animals and bugs, and try to
see if their is a decrease in weight, when they die (hopping to measure
when a "soul" with physical weight leaves the body).  You're not proposing
this, right?
It seems to me you are saying something just a bit more refined than our
soul is the weight of our brain?
You're not saying anything incompatible with "mind (er soul) brain identity
theory" right?

I get so frustrated with people that make claims like: "a bit of
information is a real physical thing" or even worse when people say,
fundamentally, all matter is just bits.
A bit, is just some random physical thing or state, with a required
interpretation mechanism, so you can get the 1, from any arbitrary
different physical thing.  In other words, a bit is just abstracted away
from the physics, by a required interpretation mechanism.
Souls, or minds, are made of physical stuff (qualia), that is not
abstracted away from the physics.  Consciousness runs directly on the
qualitative nature of physics - no abstracts.  In other words, to get a "1"
from any physics, you need to interpret the particular set of physics, as a
"1".  But redness, is just pure physics - no interpretation required.
In other words, can we not know, more surely that we know "I think therefor
I am" what the physical quality of our redness is like.
Since minds are not abstracted away form the physics, like 1s and 0s are,
then the physical nature of our consciousness, can not be in some abstract
simulation.  Can we not know this more surely than we know anything.  I
experience the physical nature of redness, therefor I can not doubt it's
fundamental, basement level, physical nature, right?

Brent





On Thu, Sep 20, 2018 at 2:28 AM Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 1:08 PM William Flynn Wallace
> <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > C'mon - it is scientifically impossible to measure anything nonphysical,
> right?
>
> Stuart did at least give a definition of "soul" that corresponded to a
> discrete physical thing, rather than the usual supernatural
> immeasurables.
>
> > And toss the term 'soul' along with all of it.  You will upset and
> confuse religious people, who are already confused enough.
>
> Is it possible to leave them so confused they have no more mental
> bandwidth for the upset?
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