Does the transporter disprove the soul?

[Teaos]

So your just substituting the word "life" for the word "soul"?

[Nickswitz]

There are other slight differences between them in my belief but basically you could say that, yes.

[Thorin]

We are aware thus we must have a soul?

...No...

Whether you call it a soul or whatever is pretty irrelevant. My point is that something gives us the the ability to experience existance - hey, even your desk might be self aware, even the air you're breathing might be self aware, it might be experiencing existance. We don't know what it is that gives us the ability to be here, and while we shouldn't question it (otherwise existance would not exist - as it is said "I think, therefore I am" - existance is your experience of it, existance is all in your mind). What gives rise to the supernatural is that your mind does not make sense. Why exactly do I know I exist. Why do I know I am sitting here? What gives me that ability to know I am here? There are two separate issues at hand here - one is of the brain making decisions and learning through neuron synapses firing, the other is your awareness of the mind doing those things. When I say "you", I mean your awareness, not your brain. The fact you are experiencing anything makes no sense. Why should we experience anything?

To relate it to the original transporter thing, my point is that the transporter doesn't disprove that there are two different consciousnesses, with the same body and same memories.

[stitch626]

Well, if you want to be picky, the transporter doesn't prove or disprove anything because it doesn't really exist. It just gives us something to argue about.

[Sonic Glitch]

Well, if you want to be picky, the transporter doesn't prove or disprove anything because it doesn't really exist. It just gives us something to argue about.

Hey, I said that!

On the original topic, being a fictional device, the transporter niether proves nor disproves a soul.

There, logic.

[Mikey]

Mark - your proximity to Japan is showing.

Anyway, the point I have made and Thorin is trying to describe can be summed up in the words of Descartes: "Cogito, ergo sum." There is an indentity of existence in experiencing or being able to describe that existence. You don't have to call it a soul if you find that distasteful, and it may not in the final analysis be more than a collection of physical processes. But for PRACTICAL purposes, that identity if existence is outside and superior to the existence itself.

[Grundig]

For my own benefit, it would be helpful to make a distinction between 'soul' and 'consciousness.' in this discussion I'm finding it hard to keep the two straight- maybe there's something to that.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

Perhaps I may be framing my arguments in a different fashion than Mikey has (not to pick on anyone), but I do find some commonality in our approach despite our differences in religious belief. Our high self-awareness is something which seems to transcend the simple "animal" sort of raw intelligence, and I suspect may at least partly have inspired the *religious* concept of the soul, as in the idea that it is this awareness that would continue past the expiration of our physical selves. Maybe this will help to clarify my prior arguments in this thread.

Getting back to the point about complexity of the brain for just a second, it is true that the gap in complexity between the human brain and that of even the next less complex brain is rather large - we are thought to be far smarter than naive evolution would predict we need to be, perhaps due to competitive forces between humans. So, the notion that the incredible complexity of our brains leads to far "higher" levels of abstract thought than other species are capable of has a backing in neurology.

[Mikey]

For my own benefit, it would be helpful to make a distinction between 'soul' and 'consciousness.' in this discussion I'm finding it hard to keep the two straight- maybe there's something to that.

Exactly what I've been trying to say - the fact that we may accept a convention which even partially equates the terms leads to the conclusion that the <insert name of choice for entity of self-awareness> doesn't require a religious paradigm in order to be accepted.

[Teaos]

Getting back to the point about complexity of the brain for just a second, it is true that the gap in complexity between the human brain and that of even the next less complex brain is rather large - we are thought to be far smarter than naive evolution would predict we need to be, perhaps due to competitive forces between humans. So, the notion that the incredible complexity of our brains leads to far "higher" levels of abstract thought than other species are capable of has a backing in neurology.

On a related matter I saw a fantastic doco awhile back on why the human brain evolved the way it did, really interesting. According to them a large part of it is dum luck.

[Mikey]

I'd think "dumb luck" would be a key factor in any instance of evolution - hitting on a mutation which supports an organism's advancement trhough natural selection rather than one which hinders it is a pretty piece of luck on its own.

[Mark]

Here's a mind bender for you. If the transporter breaks your physical form to the molecular level, how was Barckley able to "grab" those people out of the transporter, mid cycle???

[Mikey]

Thans, OVEG, but I'll handle this.

Because... you know, quantum.

[Mark]

Quatumus Quantrificus!!!

[Teaos]

I'd think "dumb luck" would be a key factor in any instance of evolution

No sereral parts of it was dumb luck.

Back when we were more monkey like we had much stronger jaws, just like modern primates do. Now big jaws mean big jaw muscles, big muscles need big bones to anchor to. This required us to have bigger thicker skulls to support the jaw muscle.

Now according to the show there was a rather sudden and quick reduction in the size of our jaw strengh with ment our brains had room to grow, according to the doco there was no good reason for the jaw to weaken, there are still loads of benifits of having a strong jaw, but by a random mutation in some of the species we had the ability to get bigger brain.

Dumb luck.