[ExI] No gods, no meaning?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Sat, 25 Apr 2020 at 08:45, Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 2:34 PM William Flynn Wallace via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 12:21 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>   Science cannot deal with anything unobservable.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Our theories do. We have theories that describe the interiors of black
>>> holes, other branches of the wave function, galaxies and radiation beyond
>>> the cosmological horizon, etc. despite none of them being observable.
>>>
>>
>> Yes but, your theories start from observed facts about atoms and
>> molecules and fission and fusion and the spectrums of the black holes,
>> which are observed indirectly via their influence on bodies near them.
>> This is hardly without observations.  All scientific theories start with
>> observed facts.  Many things are not observable directly, but indirectly.
>> As long as the scientific method is use, with replication etc., you are
>> still doing science.
>>
>>>
>>> It's going to take a lot for me to swallow any idea that science and
>>> religion can get together somehow.  Differen epistemologies, as I said.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> The theory of energy underwent many reformulations as our understanding
>>> improved. Cannot the same happen for our understanding of God, souls,
>>> reality, afterlives, etc.? Can science not investigate these subjects
>>> merely because some religion claimed them first?
>>>
>>
>> You can investigage anything if you can find something to observe.  Find
>> my soul, will you?  I am going to donate it to any god who will accept it.
>>
>
> I'm currently writing a book on the science of the soul. There is much
> that we can glean about the soul just using science. There is scientific
> support for many ideas that one would typically assume fall into the sphere
> of religion. For example: eternal life, immortality, reincarnation,
> afterlives, divine union, the immateriality of the soul and its distinction
> from the body.
>
> In many cases, these conclusions are inevitable if you start from the
> standard scientific ideas about consciousness (e.g. mechanism).
>
> If it can be scientifically demonstrated that your consciousness possesses
> some or all of these traits, would you call it a soul?
>

Good luck with your book, I’d be very interested in reading it. My only
problem, and probably this is just prejudice, is with the terminology. I
think the word “soul” is tainted by its use in religion.

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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