From: pkk36438@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Polygon)
Subject: Re: Reality and the Soul (long and strange)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 01:01:42 GMT

lfoard@Turing.ORG (Lawrence C. Foard) writes:

>Several people asked how I can believe in a soul and not believe in
>the supernatural.

>Warning this was written in a very strange mood but it is essentially
>what I believe :-)

>----------------------------------------------------------------------

>Copyright (c), 1992, Lawrence Foard, may be freely distributed as long as
>credit is given for all derivative works.

>                            The soul and reality

> The supernaturalists* tell us that the soul is supernatural, and that to
>challenge the existance of the supernatural is to challenge the existance of
>the soul itself. This trap is all to easy to fall into. When one comes to
>the point where one realizes that there is no external supernatural it is
>all to easy to reject the existance of what religion calls the soul, and to say
>that we are lowly machines. We accept the "lowly" tacked onto "machines"
>without a second glance. We are machines but why must machines be lowly? We
>are no different than we where when we believed in the super natural, rather
>than lowering the status of the soul, we should raise the status of the
>physical world, to that of a world that can contain souls every bit as
>fantastic as the soul that supposedly existed in the imaginary supernatural
						  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>world. 
 ^^^^^^
	First of all, if you can't disprove the existence of such imaginary
	world, you can't simply call it "imaginary".  In fact, many people
	did claim that they had entered such "supernatural world".

	Second, not all religion give "soul" a very good or specific
	definition.  Basically we sometimes equate "soul" with "conscience"
	or "a kind personality".  I think this metaphysical meaning of soul
	is more important than its physical or supernatural meaning.

> Why must the end result of accepting reality be nilinism? Nothing has
>changed, we have souls just as we did before and now we even have the means
>to understand why we are here and what we are. No longer do we have a
>supposedly benevolent God randomly handing out trial and tribulation which
>we must accept without question or anger. Our creator is the universe
>itself, our creator does not cause pain out of spite, it causes pain because
>it doesn't know any better. Why spend our lives railing at a sadistic human
			     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>God when we (refering to all sentient life) are the only beings in the
 ^^^^^^^^^^^				     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>universe that know what pain is, and the only ones that can do something about
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>it? It is upto us to bring meaning to reality. 

	I also don't know why we bother to "rail at a sadistic human God". I
	am not a Christian and I don't care much about the so-called god.
	However, I do believe that  everyone of us has an inherent desire to
	know our origion, meaning of life, future, and everything.  As we
	pursued the answers, we feel that we not "alone".  There is another
	being "out there".  Then the curiosity drives us to "rail" at that
	being.

> Our creator (evolution) built the world like a blind watch maker making a
>watch with a sledge hammer. In the process many beautiful watchs where
>destroyed but eventually you was a working watch. We can see and we have
>fine tools, we can bring sight and fine tools to our blind and clumsy God.
>We now are the eyes, mind and tools of God. We cannot say "God" knows best,
>when a beautiful creation is destroy by an act of God it is a tragedy not a
>willful act, without us God has no mind or eyes to know what God does.

> We have always seperated three things, the world, the body and the soul,
>we now know there is no reason to seperate the body and soul. The soul
>exists in the brain, not in a tiny corner of the brain but all over, and
>the brain exists throughout the body as nerves, where ever nerves are to
>sense something the brain sees that as part of the body. But why do we
							      ^^^^^^^^^
>say our bodies are seperate from the world? One could connect a nerve
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>cell to a fiber optic cable and have it control a finger on the other
>side of the planet. But how is this fiber optic interface different from
>our ordinary senses? It is not. Our bodies do not end at the skin, we
>are what ever we sense and/or control. I have stood in worlds inside of
>a machine 3000 miles away. It is easy to call it fantasy, but just as
>I call my finger part of myself because I can control and communicate with
>it, I must also say I was really there because I could control and sense that
>world.

	Any physical boundary of a human body must be an operational
	definition.

> As the communication becomes better the boundary between soul, body and
>world will blur and eventually disappear altogether. One day probably less
>than a century from now souls will travel freely in the matrix, the whole
>world as there bodies, not only will the boundary between soul and world
>disappear, but the boundary between soul and soul as well. Sentient beings
>will merge and split like virtual amabeas, in the matrix.

	I am not sure if I get your point.  It seems to me that we cannot
	examine a soul like how we examine a body.  In fact some people are
	still arguing the existence of soul.  (Of course, only Berkeley
	would argue against the existence of body. )  Perhaps the boundary
	is blur, but surely soul is a very different thing from body.

> These times (the rise of civilization) are like the waking dreams of the
>sleeping God*, slowly God through its creations (sentient life) has become
>self aware. But still ruled by the fuzzy world of half sleeping delusions,
>and nightmares. As God awakes the mythology of the supernatural, external
>heaven and hell, and the religious wars and purges will become like the
>memories of an incoherent dream and nightmare.

>  God has slept 15 billion years, but in the wink of an eye God has
		 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	How did you get this figure?

>shuddered in its sleep and began to lucid dream saying "I am, what am I". In
>response the dreams of God answered, "you are God our creator, you are
>seperate from us, you are not of our world for we do not know how we got
>here". God awoke some more and again asked "I am, what am I", and this time
>the dreams remembered the dreams of deeper sleep and said "we sort of know
>how we got here". But the dreams where driven back by the remnants of old
>dreams said "you cannot not know God because we could not", how dare you
>answer the question, for only God can know the answer! The new dreams answer
>"We dare because we are part of God, God asked the question of itself, and
>we as the thoughts of God shall seek the answer". This is now, we are the
>dreams and thoughts of the quickly waking God.

> Throw off the ancient delusions and dreams for God awakes soon, we have
>the priviledge of living on the borderline between dream and thought, help
>to awake God and we will live as thought rather than delusion. Mystery
>abounds we do not need the occult to give us mystery, operations on the
>finite integers contain all the answers to what we are, for we ourselves
>live atop a world built of this. Numbers are not the dry things found in
>elementary school text books, the soul, a field of grass, trees and all of
>reality are built out of these. Because of this do not downgrade reality
>to the rote arithmatic of an elementary school text book, but rather upgrade
>math to that which can contain the soul, a field of grass, trees and all of
>reality.

> Perhaps this dismays you, but one day if you live long enough you will be
>able to travel the matrix, a world that can be reduced to NAND gates. It
>will be no more mundane than our reality which is no more mundane than the
>wildest fantasies of the supernatural. Why then assume that reality is
>something other than that which can be represented by finite integers? 

>God* refers to the creator and therefore world itself, we are part of God
>     because we are part of the world and participate in the process of
>     creation.
> 
>Supernaturalist* the set of religions that believe in an untouchable reality
>                 superior to and seperate from our own.
>-- 
>------          Join the Pythagorean Reform Church!               .
>\    /        Repent of your evil irrational numbers             . .
> \  /   and bean eating ways. Accept 10 into your heart!        . . .
>  \/   Call the Pythagorean Reform Church BBS at 508-793-9568  . . . .
>i

	Sir, your article is indeed a very poetic one.  However, it seems to 
	me that your central argument for the exisitenc of soul independent
	of supernatural world is the followings:
		1) the boundary of a body is not well defined.
		2) the boundary between body and world is not well defined;
		3) then the boundary between body and soul may be "blur";
		4) therefore soul can be related to our world without relating
		   to a supernatural world.

	I cannot buy your argument for this moment.  Maybe there is not
	clear-cut boundary, but there is a grade of membership to distinguish
	body and world.  As we cannot give soul a definition or even a 
	meaning, we may have difficulties in identifying "the boundary".
	It makes me wonder what's the position of the Pythagorean Reform
	Church.

							Peter
    
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