Is the soul real?

[Tobias_Marco]

Science tells us that everything happens due to force and changes in energy (gravity, electro/magnetic, chemical), but what about the human mind?
Someday I will die, and someday you will die. When you die your body will shut down and your brain will not get enough of what it needs to work, at that time all electro/chemical reactions within your brain will stop, and your brain will not be able to tell the rest of your body to work.
At that time you will be dead, and all that will be left of you is the memories that you have left behind.
However someday everyone who ever met you will be dead.
George Washington, William Shakespeare, Joan of Arc, and Socrates are all dead, so is everyone who ever knew them. All that we know of them is what is writen in books.
If you want to know Joan's favoret color or Will's favoret food or if George had a good sence of hummor you can't ask them, or talk to any of their friends. You will have to hope that you can find out from reading the right books.
However what if death is not the end?
What if there is more to you that just the physical body you are using right now?
Maybe you have a consciousness that lives on after you die, some people call that a spirit, a ghost, or a soul.
What ever you call it, if it is real then when you die your soul leaves your body and goes...


...elsewhere.
Now where that is depends on what you believe and how close you are to being right.
Some people say that it doesn't matter what I did or thought in life, my soul will end up with the rest of the souls, perhaps they are right, but can you imagin a place where Hitler and Mother Teresa are treated the same?

Some people say that we are reincarnated to be given another chance. But another chance at what?
If reincarnation is true then SOMEONE MUST be judging us when we die, to say if we have done good enough that we get to move on, or if we have to go back and try again, and if so...as what?
...then again, life hardly ever gives out second chances, so why should death?

Others say that I will judge myself, if so how do I judge myself and what are my options?

Perhapse there is a god or gods that judge me to see where I will end up, Heaven, Hell or back to Earth (or some other planet with life on it) to try again.
If this is the case then what is this god or gods looking for?
What kinds of things make a soul good or bad?
Is it "the 7 deadly sins" and/or "the 10 Commandments"?
If so then how well have I kept or broken these rules?
If not these then what?
There is a movie where the main person in the movie dies, the whole movie is about what happens to this person in a kind of waiting area before being sent off to Heaven or Hell.
At one part of the movie he thinks that he is being judged on how much money he made in his life.
In the end it turns out that he was being judged on how he delt with fear and overcoming what was put in his way.
Is that how we will be judged?
...or perhaps all this has just been a bunch of electro/chemical signals bouncing around in my brain because that is the path they were forced to take from the day I was born...

[Current]

Simple question: Is there any good reason to believe there's more to the mind than the matter and energy that conform it? So far, I've yet to see one. So no, I don't believe in souls or however you wish to call some supernatural aspect of ourselves that lingers somewhere after we die. I see the appeal of believing otherwise, but I don't.

[Tobias_Marco]

<There have been many stories of people who have "died" only to be revived, and then said that they "saw their body beneath them" or they say that they went to some strange place where their loved ones were, only to be told that it wasn't their time yet.>

<Do these stories point to there being a soul, or do they point to there being no such thing as a soul?>

[Current]

By themselves, they point to nothing. Let's take the example of the person who sees their body as if they were out of it. By itself, the story is nothing but a perception that could be true or false.
If, say, this person sees an object while they are outside their body that they hadn't seen while conscious, and could only be seen from an elevated angle, and then, after awakening, they find the object is really there, then that would point in favour of some sort of soul. But, if the only things they see from this perspective are those they already knew were there, or worse, they see things that aren't there, it would point towards the experience being no more than a dream, hallucination, or whatever you want to call it.
For your other example, when they meet their loved ones, if those loved ones reveal information only they could've known, and when revived the information turns out to be true, that would also point towards some sort of soul. Same, for example, if they met people they didn't know were dead. But, if they only said things the person already knew, or state something that turns out to be false, then there's no reason to believe the experience was real.

Is there a known case of a person returning from clinical death with information they could've only procured from the afterlife, or a true out of body experience? How many cases? How certain are we the stories are real and not just myths or exaggerations? Etcetera.

[Dr Sario]

I agree with Current - our mind functions as a connection of neurons, linking together in response to electrical impulses. We should eventually be able to duplicate that in machines.

[Tobias_Marco]

<Even if that does prove to be true I do not believe that any machine will be able to be creative. However some of then might be able to fake it the way computers can fake genarating random numbers.>

[capnnerefir]

So what if our brains are just electrical impulses, networks of neurons, and chemical reactions? I see no reason why that would be a valid argument against the existence of a soul. It would be like me saying, "My heart is made up of tissue and cells, therefor emotions do not exist."

[Dr Sario]

So what if our brains are just electrical impulses, networks of neurons, and chemical reactions? I see no reason why that would be a valid argument against the existence of a soul. It would be like me saying, "My heart is made up of tissue and cells, therefor emotions do not exist."

Errm, capn, You Fail Biology Forever. Emotions don't come from the heart, they're hormonal/chemical (can't remember which) signals generated by the brain.

And T_M, I do think that if we can understand the human brain (and the source of creativity) better, we can eventually build a creative machine/computer. Not today, not tomorrow, but eventually.

[capnnerefir]

So what if our brains are just electrical impulses, networks of neurons, and chemical reactions? I see no reason why that would be a valid argument against the existence of a soul. It would be like me saying, "My heart is made up of tissue and cells, therefor emotions do not exist."

Errm, capn, You Fail Biology Forever. Emotions don't come from the heart, they're hormonal/chemical (can't remember which) signals generated by the brain.

Yeah, I know emotions don't come from the heart, that was exactly my point. I thought that was pretty clear. I guess I should try and think of a better way to explain the point, but I really don't see how I could make that much clearer...

[Dr Sario]

So what if our brains are just electrical impulses, networks of neurons, and chemical reactions? I see no reason why that would be a valid argument against the existence of a soul. It would be like me saying, "My heart is made up of tissue and cells, therefor emotions do not exist."

Errm, capn, You Fail Biology Forever. Emotions don't come from the heart, they're hormonal/chemical (can't remember which) signals generated by the brain.

Yeah, I know emotions don't come from the heart, that was exactly my point. I thought that was pretty clear. I guess I should try and think of a better way to explain the point, but I really don't see how I could make that much clearer...

I think I got a hint at what you were talking about, but I wouldn't claim it as your idea, and typing it out'd take twelve pages...
If you find a way to explain it better, please, do get back to me.