Do you think animals have souls

I agree with what hexagon said here. You see, if you follow your line of reasoning, you would basically believe every piece of complete nonsense until something contradicts it.

That's not an effective means of rational discourse or way if reaching the truth.

As hexagon stated, the burdon of proof lies on the one asserting a claim and not on those who do not accept claims due to insufficient evidence and justification.

Happy days

 

of course they do every living body have a soul
even plants have souls its just that the body changes and the brain is different which is why animals are stupid and plants don't move

 

@Hexagon And @Radioactive Bi

Well but you can imagine the form of a teapot "floating" through space. The physical form of a teapot among the asteroids. But can you imagine the form of a soul? As far as I know it's probably something shapeless.
You can't prove the existence of a thing like a soul, physically prove the existence of a soul, (in the same way you can't prove the existence of God). BUT in the same way you cannot disprove the existence of said things.
Argument from ignorance. You can't say it does not exist just because there is no proof confirming it.

How do you prove/disprove the existence of something as immaterial as a Soul or God?

Edit:
LOL My exam tomorrow is about these things (arguments and such)

 

^ I like the way you think.
Assuming that souls exist, then yes.

 

Well...Descartes, the very founder of Cartesian rationality declared, quite arbitrarily that only humans have souls.

One of the biggest intellectual frauds blunders. Ever.

It thus follows, from Descartes' "Diktat", that since only humans have souls, we can do with the Earth and all non-human living things whatever the fuck we want. We will bully Nature into doing what we want it to do. No soul but ours exist, therefore, there are no moral safeguards for anything but humans, therefore nothing but humans can be loved and only humans can love humans, everyone knows you cannot love something without a soul...

So now we live with the fruits of a sick rationality: technological ugliness, the almighty buck...and factory farms...

 

I don't think humans have souls so...

 

Sure, but the positive claim has to be proven before a negative claim, especially where the negative claim only exists in relation to the positive claim.

You can't say that an argument is balanced when the affirmative don't have substance on their side in the first place. We have no evidence to say souls exist in a literal form, so that indicates that the negative side have at least one point over the affirmative.

 

We're all animals. We all have souls!

 

What, really?

You have to realise that you've unnecessarily opened a very large, squirming, and unpleasant can of worms by saying "well everything is possible, so therefore every theory is legitimate."

You can't say it doesn't exist because there is no proof for its existence, but you can be confident in saying it doesn't exist when everything we do know about the universe works without souls being a factor, and to introduce souls would introduce contradictions in many of the things we empirically do know about the universe, so to assert that souls are even a mere possibility would be complicating things unnecessarily with no basis in doing so.

 

I agree with this.. People can call us crazy but I think we're onto something!

Animals also certainly have feelings guys.. My dog gets so scared when i'm angry at him poor little fella. Cats may seem selfish to others but I have seen enough from my cats to know they're capable of feeling love and a whole lot more. Animals are just like humans to me.. and I HATE hearing about animal abuse. It's sick.

 

A few points to cover. First, this is not an argument from ignorance. An argument from ignorance is where you try to demonstrate something because you can't think of a better explanation. That's not what we are doing here. We are saying we are not justified in belief as there is insufficient evidence.

Secondly, using the tea pot example, even if there was a teapot out in space, until you have evidence of such, you would not be justified in believing it.

Finally, you say that god and the soul are immaterial and cannot be examined. What I'd like to know, is how you know these things are immaterial, by what mechanism have you identified that these exhibit that property and therefore exist at all.

You see we live in a material universe and can only really examine things contained therein. I do not need to disprove something that is not evident in the first place and we don't need to disprove every none sense claim that comes along. The way investigation works is to examine reality and see what can be found out. Not dream up a load of crazy ideas and then try to disprove them all when there was not good reason to believe them in the first place.

Trying to shift the burdon of proof on us is a typical tactic for theists (which always fails) as they are unable to provide any evidence if their laughably ridiculous claims.

So sorry, fail on all counts.

Happy days

 

I don't know whether I believe in souls or not being that I'm agnostic. I believe in the mind and human consciousness and the feelings that result from that, because those come from the brain and the brain is something tangible that I know exists. But that's another conversation in itself.

If souls exist, I'd like to believe that animals have one. If souls do not exist, I know animals at least have feelings just as we humans do. There's no way I could deny that after seeing the way my dog treats me everyday as if I am her whole world. Animals are truly special.

 

The soul is something ambiguos to explain, but let say its sort of what makes us different from mere machines with complex programming. Also is what give you conciousness/ first personess. We are not just objects that react to situations, we actually perceive reality and we know we exist. The brain is an object that retain information, knowledge and experiences, the body is an object that permits the brain obtaining resources, move and reproduce.

The soul is the subject that is contained within brain and body.

T

 

Still no evidence for souls I see. Just a few baseless assertions about the nature of consciousness. I suggest some study into neuroscience. You will find the idea of a souls is not necessary for perception and consciousness.

I mean let's face it, the idea of souls dates back to the ideas of primitive man who had no idea how the world really works. It's laughable people believe this Bronze Age nonesense in the face of the vastly superior modern science.

Happy days

 

So I got shot down pretty hard xD. I guess I'll go study a bit more of everything.
Anyway, no I do not think animals have a soul.

 

Yes, Descarte pisses me off. I mean, I like a lot of his thinking. But that, and his irritating argument about god, really ruins him for me.

 

If humans have souls, so do animals, we're nothing but animals with a rather high brain capacity.
If humans don't have souls, neither do animals.
I'm not certain about either, but I tend to the first option.

No need for further philosophical thought on it in my opinion.

 

The problem with evidence... I dont even have evidence that this is not some sort of dream, it could be that this ipad, the internet, even my body and my past are just a dream or something similar. I have no proof that anything that is not me exist. But still i have the belief that you are a real person responding me throught the internet, and i belief events on my memory did happen.

Of course, that is not a defence of the existence of souls, im just making an example of why i believe in souls even not having scientific evidence. Soul is kind of and incognita, a value not yet known/understood.

Neuroscience explain how the brain with the help of nerves and other elements can transform the data that eyes, tongue, skin, ears , nose, etc get, and then process that data. This is perception.

It also explains how after processing that data, it either store it, jump to a conclution or react to tha data by taking an action.

It explains how i feel things, and why i react to them. But even a computer can do similar things, you put a CD inside the disk tray, the computer reacts by reading the CD, and that reaction is followed by reactions like a window popping up in the screen. The computer perceived then reacted. But the computer doesnt really know it perceived and then reacted.

I on the other hand know im here, perceiving and reacting, im not a machine, im present as a subject, not as a reactionary object.

...

A shame i cannot explain it throught a diagram here.

But let say soul is the "x" in a equation.

 

A computer can engage in processing based on the knowledge that it is perceiving and reacting. However, you're right in saying that processing in the human brain is more complex that in a computer. That doesn't mean it always will be. You're working under the assumption that there is something unique and transcendent about consciousness, but that isn't necessarily true. It may well be a series of extremely complex physical reactions that when brought together behave as an independent being - something that a powerful and appropriately programmed computer could easily do.