Can you prove or disprove the existence of the soul or spirit?

[Imploded Tomato]

(Warning : Do not post anything about religion, it is against the forum rules! No scriptures or religious references will be tolerated under any circumstances! You've been warned!)

Can you prove or disprove the existence of the soul or spirit? A question that has gone without a valid answer since the dawn of mankind. Why is it that when a person dies, a small percentage of their weight is lost in the process. Is it possible that there are materials that human beings cannot detect such as spirits because are senses aren't attuned to them?

This is a question that has stuck with me since I was in elementary school, and so I have decided to start a topic to see what everyone else thinks. I look forward to hearing all your replies and hope this topic will not leave the boarders of the forum rules because of careless posting. Thanks for reading.

Edit : For everyone asking what I mean by spirit or soul, I mean ghost or : an apparition of a dead person that is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image.

 

[nio kasgami]

well this is not like ''a bunch'' of energy? 

in simple a accumaltion of energy or electricity who affect the  envirronement? 

due the  things of the ''ghost'' who can move object I don't remember the name

 

[Imploded Tomato]

well this is not like ''a bunch'' of energy? 

in simple a accumaltion of energy or electricity who affect the  envirronement? 

due the  things of the ''ghost'' who can move object I don't remember the name

There are different kinds of orbs, for instance there is a natural phenomena called ball lightning that occurs all over the world because of the Earth's rotation. Just static electricity generated by friction in the air. Then there are other types of orbs that don't quite make sense in a scientific perspective because of unusual characteristics, commonly referred to as spirit orbs. These orbs tend to show up in photographs and footage during ideal conditions.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

I have seen things I cannot explain. I mean. Quite some usual things. And one house I lived in I would call haunted. I'm a definite skeptic and I'm very intrigued by ghosts. But I have a problem with the idea of "super natural" and personally believe the answer lies in natural sciences we have not fully discovered or come to understand. Basically, if ghosts are real there is a natural explanation.

 

[nio kasgami]

I have seen things I cannot explain. I mean. Quite some usual things. And one house I lived in I would call haunted. I'm a definite skeptic and I'm very intrigued by ghosts. But I have a problem with the idea of "super natural" and personally believe the answer lies in natural sciences we have not fully discovered or come to understand. Basically, if ghosts are real there is a natural explanation.

yes everything's have a answer but the fact is did we have the knowledge for understand these answer? 

There are different kinds of orbs, for instance there is a natural phenomena called ball lightning that occurs all over the world because of the Earth's rotation. Just static electricity generated by friction in the air. Then there are other types of orbs that don't quite make sense in a scientific perspective because of unusual characteristics, commonly referred to as spirit orbs. These orbs tend to show up in photographs and 

hooo so in simple also the sonor experience and the visual are the same types of orbs or simply two different one?

but this is really hard to explain due the Human imagination who can alter the reality of what we see and naturally something we can't explain is categorize in ''supernatural

 

[hian]

It completely depends on what you mean by spirits or souls - after all, unless we set down with rigid definitions of the terms, the question is meaningless.

The second problem is that in most cases one cannot prove a negative outside of a small portion of philosophy known as propositional logic's modus tollens. It goes as follows -

X implies Z
Z is false
therefore X is also false

What this means, is that a lack of Z, has the necessary implication that X cannot be true.
If a creature X was stated to be a being living on the moon, and no being was discovered on the moon, then that would mean that creature x didn't exist(as in a creature living on the moon).
It can also be said that, for events that we can demonstrate would leave evidence, and where we know evidence could be found, if no evidence is found, that would demonstrate that the event never took place.

(example -  earthquake happened at location X. Earthquakes leave damage. There is no damage in location X, therefore no earthquake happened at location X)

Apart from this kind of inference however, negatives cannot be proven wrong.
If you claim I stole your car for instance, then by saying "prove to me you didn't steal my car", you're setting up an impossible task because I can never provide enough evidence post the cars disappearance to 100% eliminate the possibility that I indeed stole it, which is why in a court of law, it would be your job to prove that I stole it, not the other way around.

The same applies to claims of spirits and souls. If no evidence of souls or spirits exists, the default position is "they don't" or "as far as we know, they might as well not".

So is there evidence for spirits and souls?
Non that I know of.

We now exactly what human consciousness is, through the medical sciences and neuroscience.
It's a process resulting from the functioning of our brain.
There is absolutely nothing indicating that human consciousness is possible without the brain, and if a spirit or soul does not imply consciousness, then I am not sure what these terms are supposed to mean, or what sort of function these terms have.

Anyone doubting this only needs to do some modicum of research on brain damage, and see the wide arrange of personality-/conscious-changing effects this has on human beings.
The fact of the matter is that the human persona can be completely altered or even completely destroyed at the level of the brain, so what does that say about the fundamental nature of a human's identity?
If human identity is completely dependent on the brain, then how can identity in terms of a soul or spirit be said to exist?
If a spirit or soul does not imply identity, then what does soul and spirit mean?
Nothing, I would say.

So, I reject the ideas of souls and spirits based on the facts that

1.) There is no compelling evidence to say that they do exists, which means I have no reason to believe they do, and

2.) since identity is brain-dependent and the brain ceases to function at death, identity is also lost at death which renders the terms "soul" and "spirit" meaningless.

EDIT -

There is of course one way I can envision a "soul" exist, although it would be unprovable.

If we're all just highly complex artificial intelligences running in a highly complex computer simulation, then it's conceivable that the data that accumulates through the simulation, our A.I's included, are stored on some sort of hard-drive.

If that's the case, our A.I could be rebooted at any time, with all the data intact from before we shut down, at any point based on the the routines of the simulation, or the whims or the entity that controls the program.

 

[Shion Kreth]

It cannot be proven without the means to observe and interact with such a phenomena in a consistent and predictable manner, and can never be disproven on the grounds that we've never found a way to achieve such. However, I believe such a notion appears to be a creation of the human imagination as the greatest predictor for those kinds of beliefs are cultural in nature; with more close-knit cultural groups sharing more specific beliefs on the topic, and more individualistic cultural groups all experiencing these phenomena differently and as such share no specific beliefs on the topic. This suggests it is something rooted in and reflecting cultural beliefs rather than the observation/experience of any tangible happenings.. but it doesn't PROVE anything.

 

[Imploded Tomato]

It completely depends on what you mean by spirits or souls - after all, unless we set down with rigid definitions of the terms, the question is meaningless.

The second problem is that in most cases one cannot prove a negative outside of a small portion of philosophy known as propositional logic's modus tollens. It goes as follows -

X implies Z

Z is false

therefore X is also false

What this means, is that a lack of Z, has the necessary implication that X cannot be true.

If a creature X was stated to be a being living on the moon, and no being was discovered on the moon, then that would mean that creature x didn't exist(as in a creature living on the moon).

It can also be said that, for events that we can demonstrate would leave evidence, and where we know evidence could be found, if no evidence is found, that would demonstrate that the event never took place.

(example -  earthquake happened at location X. Earthquakes leave damage. There is no damage in location X, therefore no earthquake happened at location X)

Apart from this kind of inference however, negatives cannot be proven wrong.

If you claim I stole your car for instance, then by saying "prove to me you didn't steal my car", you're setting up an impossible task because I can never provide enough evidence post the cars disappearance to 100% eliminate the possibility that I indeed stole it, which is why in a court of law, it would be your job to prove that I stole it, not the other way around.

The same applies to claims of spirits and souls. If no evidence of souls or spirits exists, the default position is "they don't" or "as far as we know, they might as well not".

So is there evidence for spirits and souls?

Non that I know of.

We now exactly what human consciousness is, through the medical sciences and neuroscience.

It's a process resulting from the functioning of our brain.

There is absolutely nothing indicating that human consciousness is possible without the brain, and if a spirit or soul does not imply consciousness, then I am not sure what these terms are supposed to mean, or what sort of function these terms have.

Anyone doubting this only needs to do some modicum of research on brain damage, and see the wide arrange of personality-/conscious-changing effects this has on human beings.

The fact of the matter is that the human persona can be completely altered or even completely destroyed at the level of the brain, so what does that say about the fundamental nature of a human's identity?

If human identity is completely dependent on the brain, then how can identity in terms of a soul or spirit be said to exist?

If a spirit or soul does not imply identity, then what does soul and spirit mean?

Nothing, I would say.

So, I reject the ideas of souls and spirits based on the facts that

1.) There is no compelling evidence to say that they do exists, which means I have no reason to believe they do, and

2.) since identity is brain-dependent and the brain ceases to function at death, identity is also lost at death which renders the terms "soul" and "spirit" meaningless.

EDIT -

There is of course one way I can envision a "soul" exist, although it would be unprovable.

If we're all just highly complex artificial intelligences running in a highly complex computer simulation, then it's conceivable that the data that accumulates through the simulation, our A.I's included, are stored on some sort of hard-drive.

If that's the case, our A.I could be rebooted at any time, with all the data intact from before we shut down, at any point based on the the routines of the simulation, or the whims or the entity that controls the program.

1.) Medical science and neuroscience does not fully understand the human brain, instead it uses theories that reflects on relevant data from research.

2.) If you cannot prove the spirit exists, you also cannot prove it doesn't exists either regardless of the brain being active or not.

3.) X implies Z, Z is undefined and remains unknown therefore X is also unknown.

Here is a theory : What if the human body is a vessel for the spirit to reside, a shell. And what if a spirit is the sum total of all our knowledge and experience combined in the form of consciousness, including our past lives which defines our soul being. Without our brain, our soul cannot operate the body. Just a theory, but try using it with that formula you made and it might make more sense.

 

[Ms Littlefish]

The definition of what a spirit is, is important. When one seeks out the answer to a problem you have to be open that the the findings will probably not describe exactly what you already believe things to be. That's just the thing. We don't know what these phenomena (ghosts) truly are. We simply call it what we do. Whether it is a 'spirit' or not doesn't make it any less interesting. Instead of asking, "Are spirits/ghosts real?" The question we really asking are, "What are these things we call spirits/ghosts?"

 

[CrazyCrab]

Hmm... to be honest I think that these concepts cannot be proved or disapproved, simply because the uncertainty is one of their characteristics.

I mean, if we ever prove the existence of a soul it simply won't be a soul anymore, it will be something like a liver. I have a feeling that if there is something like that there, it cannot be proven on purpose, as proving it would completely ruin the point of it.

I mean, if we think of the idea of a metal bird that flies in a way that no bird does, is capable of staying still in the air and is powered by the remains of organisms that lived millions of years ago, it just sounds so awesome, yet we see these things every day and nobody gets excited over it.. At the same time one magic trick in a game like ''fireball'' is immediately recognizable and totally cool and if anyone was capable of doing that, even though it's way less impressive than a helicopter is, everyone would get excited. 

I feel like the ability to scientifically prove soul's existence would completely ruin it and that's why it's impossible. It would just take all the excitement away and besides, such things, if they exist, do not follow the rules of physics. I don't think that proving their existence while being limited by these rules is even possible.

Now, talking about spirits... that's a weird one. To be honest I've ran into so many weird situations in my life that don't make any sense, that it's hard for me to say that they simply don't exist. At one point I had my life saved by a mysterious stranger that not only came out of nowhere, but also completely vanished afterwards and, when I asked about her, everyone said that such person doesn't exist. Then there were also 2 very memorable incidents where things just happened for no reason and shouldn't have happened and the fact that they did saved me from a world of pain... call me crazy, but I have this feeling that something just doesn't want me dead. 

Sorry if I'm not making much sense here, it's 2 AM and I should be sleeping by now. Was watching stuff and I lost the track of time. 

Yeah... I should better go to sleep.

 

[hian]

1.) Medical science and neuroscience does not fully understand the human brain, instead it uses theories that reflects on relevant data from research.

Irrelevant. We understand enough to accurately give accounting of human consciousness.

2.) If you cannot prove the spirit exists, you also cannot prove it doesn't exists either regardless of the brain being active or not.

And as I said, if something cannot be proven to exist, the default assumption is one of non-belief. It's not my job, or that of anyone else to prove non-existence, it is the job of the ones making the positive claim to prove that it does. Saying something exists, or might exist without evidence is pointless.


If we were to engage in belief about everything which hasn't proven to not exist, we'd have more stuff to believe in than our brains are capable of managing (everything from goblins and unicorns, to aliens and Egyptian space-travelers).


My point was that, if your definition of spirit doesn't entail consciousness, I would say that the idea of a spirit seems rather useless. If spirit entails consciousness, then since consciousness ends at destruction of brain-activity, then spirits don't survive our death, which is another property people usually ascribe to spirits.

3.) X implies Z, Z is undefined and remains unknown therefore X is also unknown.

This is true. I never said anything to imply anything else, I simply stated the rule as is it in formal logic. If you concede that Z is undefined and therefore unknown, then no argument can be made about Z because that would be tantamount to committing the fallacy known as argument from ignorance.


If you haven't decided what Z is supposed to be, you cannot investigate it, and therefore are not at liberty to say anything about it, least of all whether it exists or not.

Here is a theory : What if the human body is a vessel for the spirit to reside, a shell. And what if a spirit is the sum total of all our knowledge and experience combined in the form of consciousness, including our past lives which defines our soul being. Without our brain, our soul cannot operate the body. Just a theory, but try using it with that formula you made and it might make more sense.

Our experience and knowledge is data accumulated through consciousness. Experience and knowledge cannot exist without consciousness and the brain(or some sort of computer to maintain it). Again, this is something we know through modern science dealing with the brain.


We know that it's possible to break down memory without removing a persons ability to be conscious. Memory-loss and/or false memories are examples of this.


Similarly, memory can be retained even if we lose consciousness at some times, or even if our conscious faculties are impaired, such as loss of our senses, or downgraded cognitive abilities.


Yes, our body is a vessel for our mind. That's true even in the most basic physical sense. However, I thought the point about spirits in most people's minds is that spirits go beyond the physical body, and can exist without it, while retaining some sort of identity of the being it came from or resided within?


This seems highly unlikely, or even impossible, considering that all the stuff with which we usually relate to the spirit can be influenced and broken down prior to death through external stimuli to the physical body.


That's my point here.

 

[supercow]

depends on the definition of this soul or spirit.

it can be anything or nothing important.

-it could be in the past what people attribute as a soul / spirit is actually the function of brain but they dont have a clear understanding of brain so they made up word of soul / spirit.

after a while it gain traction and was added mystical (made up/false story) experience on it.

and then in modern time where people understand the brain they wont let go of the superstitious baggage of a soul or spirit.

by mystical made up/false story = people can lie, imagine stuff up, they can even be mistaken.

example: in modern time with a lot of ghost movies, when people walk up to cemetary and saw a swirl of light they might thought it was an actual ghost and run without investigating and turns out it was just some car's light passing the fence.

people can be gullible even the most skeptic has their moment of weakness.

btw the weight lost thing,

1.i think it was debunked since the method is not proper , if you freeze things of course its gonna gain weight from the cold air.

2.if it were proper method and soul/spirit actually has weight , that means it have mass, which mean we can observe it in whatever organ that mass were.

so in conclusion can people prove or disprove soul/spirit?

impossible without them defining it first.

 

[Imploded Tomato]

Irrelevant. We understand enough to accurately give accounting of human consciousness.

And as I said, if something cannot be proven to exist, the default assumption is one of non-belief. It's not my job, or that of anyone else to prove non-existence, it is the job of the ones making the positive claim to prove that it does. Saying something exists, or might exist without evidence is pointless.

If we were to engage in belief about everything which hasn't proven to not exist, we'd have more stuff to believe in than our brains are capable of managing (everything from goblins and unicorns, to aliens and Egyptian space-travelers).

My point was that, if your definition of spirit doesn't entail consciousness, I would say that the idea of a spirit seems rather useless. If spirit entails consciousness, then since consciousness ends at destruction of brain-activity, then spirits don't survive our death, which is another property people usually ascribe to spirits.

This is true. I never said anything to imply anything else, I simply stated the rule as is it in formal logic. If you concede that Z is undefined and therefore unknown, then no argument can be made about Z because that would be tantamount to committing the fallacy known as argument from ignorance.

If you haven't decided what Z is supposed to be, you cannot investigate it, and therefore are not at liberty to say anything about it, least of all whether it exists or not.

Our experience and knowledge is data accumulated through consciousness. Experience and knowledge cannot exist without consciousness and the brain(or some sort of computer to maintain it). Again, this is something we know through modern science dealing with the brain.

We know that it's possible to break down memory without removing a persons ability to be conscious. Memory-loss and/or false memories are examples of this.

Similarly, memory can be retained even if we lose consciousness at some times, or even if our conscious faculties are impaired, such as loss of our senses, or downgraded cognitive abilities.

Yes, our body is a vessel for our mind. That's true even in the most basic physical sense. However, I thought the point about spirits in most people's minds is that spirits go beyond the physical body, and can exist without it, while retaining some sort of identity of the being it came from or resided within?

This seems highly unlikely, or even impossible, considering that all the stuff with which we usually relate to the spirit can be influenced and broken down prior to death through external stimuli to the physical body.

That's my point here.

"Irrelevant. We understand enough to accurately give accounting of human consciousness." I disagree as this is indeed relevant and on topic regardless of being accurate or not. Here is a prime example of what I'm talking about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWkJnS8RHyE&list=UUzWQYUVCpZqtN93H8RR44Qw

"Our experience and knowledge is data accumulated through consciousness. Experience and knowledge cannot exist without consciousness and the brain(or some sort of computer to maintain it)." This is not entirely true, experience and knowledge can exist to a certain extent through natural instincts passed down through genetics. 

"This seems highly unlikely, or even impossible, considering that all the stuff with which we usually relate to the spirit can be influenced and broken down prior to death through external stimuli to the physical body." Highly unlikely, maybe; but not impossible as we live in a universe filled with infinite possibilities that go beyond human comprehension. For all we know the neurons within our brains could break down after our deaths into smaller pieces and still communicate with one another continuing our conscious reality, another theory to consider.

 

[Imploded Tomato]

depends on the definition of this soul or spirit.

it can be anything or nothing important.

-it could be in the past what people attribute as a soul / spirit is actually the function of brain but they dont have a clear understanding of brain so they made up word of soul / spirit.

after a while it gain traction and was added mystical (made up/false story) experience on it.

and then in modern time where people understand the brain they wont let go of the superstitious baggage of a soul or spirit.

by mystical made up/false story = people can lie, imagine stuff up, they can even be mistaken.

example: in modern time with a lot of ghost movies, when people walk up to cemetary and saw a swirl of light they might thought it was an actual ghost and run without investigating and turns out it was just some car's light passing the fence.

people can be gullible even the most skeptic has their moment of weakness.

btw the weight lost thing,

1.i think it was debunked since the method is not proper , if you freeze things of course its gonna gain weight from the cold air.

2.if it were proper method and soul/spirit actually has weight , that means it have mass, which mean we can observe it in whatever organ that mass were.

so in conclusion can people prove or disprove soul/spirit?

impossible without them defining it first.

By soul or spirit, I mean ghostly apparition or being that you continue to live as after your death. Of course you could always define the word "soul" or "spirit" yourself instead of having someone else define it for you, or you can look it up on wikipedia or the dictionary.

 

[Petite Elite]

Personally, I'm sceptical about the idea of a spirit, however, it is not my intent to criticise or insult anyone based on their beliefs. I will merely put forward my way of thinking, I do not claim it to be correct.

Do animal's have spirits? Do trees have spirits? Algae? This isn't rhetorical; it's an actual question.

If the only requirement for a spirit is for something to be alive, then the real question is "what is life?"

Is the requirement for a soul to have consciousness? If so, then what defines consciousness?

After all, what is consciousness other than a series of functions in the brain? What is life but a series of actions and reactions. If I arranged a bunch of molecules in a specific way and produced something that is fundamentally human, have I also created a spirit? If I assembled a person atom-by-atom, at what point would they receive their spirit? I mean, I believe it's possible (albeit kind of gruesome) to create a human and never physically put in a spirit - I wouldn't know where to find one! 

If I gathered a bunch of rocks, took out every atom necessary to create a human, and constructed one, would a spirit be produced? If I then removed every atom, would the person die and lose their spirit? What if I assembled a new human by placing the exact same atoms in the exact same places; would they have an identical soul, or would that first soul now occupy this body? Could I potentially create infinite souls and ever only use a finite number of atoms?

I guess my point is: A puzzle is comprised of puzzle pieces, and only puzzle pieces. Arranging them in a different way may produce a new picture, but the same pieces are still there. Our perception and assumptions are not enough to create things; only perceive them and assume that they're there.

However, at the end of the day, I do believe that things can happen beyond our comprehension. We can only examine and imagine things based on observations we make with our senses, whether directly or indirectly. We can describe the universe in many ways, but in the end, the adjectives we use are dictated only by our senses. e.g. big, by our sense of spacial dimensions; old, by our sense of time; colourful, by our sense of sight; etc.

 

[supercow]

By soul or spirit, I mean ghostly apparition or being that you continue to live as after your death.

the next question will just keep continue if you use a vague placeholder answer.

what is ghostly apparition? , flashlight?

what does it means by being continue after death ? , decompose corpse?

both of those question is just as vague as soul/ spirit.

we tend to explain things in term that we understand.

Of course you could always define the word "soul" or "spirit" yourself

of course we cant, because the person who want to talk about soul/spirit hoping the other person to define it is an error or gonna be a miscommunication.

having someone else define it for you

the problem here is what exactly do you mean by soul/spirit, if we are talking to you its better to ask you , because if you are not exactly sure what it is that you mean then the subject that we are talking about can be anything which mean meaningless.

thats why i say that prove/disprove soul or spirit is an impossible things since its a vague term.

 

[Tsukihime]

If you're asking whether one can prove the existence of things after one has died, no, you cannot prove that at this point.


Maybe when we figure out how to resurrect the dead or communicate across the spirit plane.


There are plenty of theories on how that could potentially be done.

 

[Imploded Tomato]

the next question will just keep continue if you use a vague placeholder answer.

what is ghostly apparition? , flashlight?

what does it means by being continue after death ? , decompose corpse?

both of those question is just as vague as soul/ spirit.

we tend to explain things in term that we understand.

of course we cant, because the person who want to talk about soul/spirit hoping the other person to define it is an error or gonna be a miscommunication.

the problem here is what exactly do you mean by soul/spirit, if we are talking to you its better to ask you , because if you are not exactly sure what it is that you mean then the subject that we are talking about can be anything which mean meaningless.

thats why i say that prove/disprove soul or spirit is an impossible things since its a vague term.

If you can't imagine what a spirit is then I'm sorry, I cannot help you and this topic is not for you.

 

[Petite Elite]

If you can't imagine what a spirit is then I'm sorry, I cannot help you and this topic is not for you.

If you are saying that the definition of a spirit depends on the person you are asking, then you are also saying that you do not believe spirits are real. The name you give something does not determine what it is, it is the properties of that something that determines what it is. If everyone has a different definition of a spirit, then no one is actually talking about a "spirit", everyone is talking about a different thing.

 

[Imploded Tomato]

If you are saying that the definition of a spirit depends on the person you are asking, then you are also saying that you do not believe spirits are real. The name you give something does not determine what it is, it is the properties of that something that determines what it is. If everyone has a different definition of a spirit, then no one is actually talking about a "spirit", everyone is talking about a different thing.

I've already explained my definition of what I believe a spirit is, I don't know what else to tell you. What else would I be talking about?