What is a soul ?

[Kulaf]

Not at all the same.....because animals are not aware of their own mortality. That is what seperates us.......we know we are doomed to die.

Many higher mammals seem to be aware of their own mortality... and bseides, you can't have it both ways. You can't argue that fear is the animal's response to death, and then say that animals don't know what death is.

I am unware of any scientific study showing any animal is aware of it's own mortality other than simple responses to pain or fear of attack. Fear is an animals reponse to attack, the "survival instinct".......you know exactly what I meant so please stop playing the idiot.

No Kulaf, I didn't know what you meant. You implied animals were capable of the emotion called "fear", and that "fear" in animals could be caused by the animal knowing it could die.

You also mentioned throwing yourself on a grenade as proof that we have a soul. That, too, is hardwired into animals. You see it when a mother will attempt to save its offspring by confronting the attacker and exposing itself to mortal harm... or you see it in communal groups where a species like chimps will work together to drive off a predator, each one exposing themselves to death for the greater good.

But again you fail to grasp the obvious. Yes an animal will do the same thing......but they have no conceptual understanding of their own mortality. It is humans ability to leap beyond the hardwired that demonstrates the soul. A bee might defend the hive too for the greater good and sacrifice its own life.......but it has no understanding of death, and most humans would never choose to use such an attack if it meant their own life would be forfiet.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Not at all the same.....because animals are not aware of their own mortality. That is what seperates us.......we know we are doomed to die.

Many higher mammals seem to be aware of their own mortality... and bseides, you can't have it both ways. You can't argue that fear is the animal's response to death, and then say that animals don't know what death is.

I am unware of any scientific study showing any animal is aware of it's own mortality other than simple responses to pain or fear of attack. Fear is an animals reponse to attack, the "survival instinct".......you know exactly what I meant so please stop playing the idiot.

No Kulaf, I didn't know what you meant. You implied animals were capable of the emotion called "fear", and that "fear" in animals could be caused by the animal knowing it could die.

You also mentioned throwing yourself on a grenade as proof that we have a soul. That, too, is hardwired into animals. You see it when a mother will attempt to save its offspring by confronting the attacker and exposing itself to mortal harm... or you see it in communal groups where a species like chimps will work together to drive off a predator, each one exposing themselves to death for the greater good.

But again you fail to grasp the obvious. Yes an animal will do the same thing......but they have no conceptual understanding of their own mortality. It is humans ability to leap beyond the hardwired that demonstrates the soul. A bee might defend the hive too for the greater good and sacrifice its own life.......but it has no understanding of death, and most humans would never choose to use such an attack if it meant their own life would be forfiet.

How do you know they have no idea of their mortality? Behavioural evidence similar to ours indicates otherwise. Seems you're ingnoring the "obvious", which is all around you. And I wasn't talking about insects, I clearly stated higher mammals.

[Kulaf]

I asked for the study before......you want to provide info to back up your assertion please do so.

[Partha]

Well, you can't prove your point, either, so both of you are just sitting here, pointless.

Kinda like normal.

[Embar Angylwrath]

I asked for the study before......you want to provide info to back up your assertion please do so.

I dont have one. Do you have one backing up your assertions?

[Klast Brell]

But again you fail to grasp the obvious. Yes an animal will do the same thing......but they have no conceptual understanding of their own mortality. It is humans ability to leap beyond the hardwired that demonstrates the soul. A bee might defend the hive too for the greater good and sacrifice its own life.......but it has no understanding of death, and most humans would never choose to use such an attack if it meant their own life would be forfiet.

So a human that does sacrifice himself is no more moral than a bee? (yes I know it's a loaded question feel free to ignore it) In nature there are examples of both behaviors. Some animals will sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Some animals will scatter in an everyone for themselves panic at the slightest sign of danger and leave the slow, the weak and the young to get munched.
Are those animals who scatter more like people? You can find examples of homosexuality, prostitution, rape, and recreational non procreative sex as well. If like me you believe that we are purely biological creatures, and have no spiritual component, then it's easy to see that we are just one more species on this planet. We may have more advanced brains, and greater critical thinking abilities, but the differences are not that great. Dolphins chimps and gorillas have shown the ability to use sign language and keyboards to communicate complex thoughts with humans. Just like you can find examples in the bible to support any position, you can find examples in nature.

[Kulaf]

Gee I don't know......do I need to prove that a bee is aware of it's mortality?

No.

As the top of the evolutionary chain at this point if you want to ascribe human traits to lower forms of life it is incumbant upon you to prove those traits exist. You know it.

[Klast Brell]

Gee I don't know......do I need to prove that a bee is aware of it's mortality?

No.

As the top of the evolutionary chain at this point if you want to ascribe human traits to lower forms of life it is incumbant upon you to prove those traits exist. You know it.

Give me a fucking break. I have to prove that gorillas use sign language? Ever heard of Koko? http://www.koko.org/index.php Have you been in a coma for the last 30 years? The same applies to everything else I said. If you seriously doubt any of my claims in that post just take a second to do a google search or consult the wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin#Re ... _sexuality
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.j ... imp111.xml


And seriously. Where the hell do you get off saying you don't need to prove your claims but I do?

[Embar Angylwrath]

In order for an animal to be aware of its own mortality, they must first be self-aware. That is, they can distinguish themself as an individual, and they can think about thinking. Once an animal has crossed the threshold to self-awareness, ideas of mortality, which is the end of the individual, are a given.

here's some research (or at least a podcast for it, from Scientific American, a well respected science journal). Also please note, the article makes mention that chimps and dolphins are also self-aware. I'm betting if studied, gorillas and bonobos would also make the grade. Possibly even orcas.

And in response to Klast, using sign language (or any other communication tool) doesn't necessarily indicate self-awareness, although in the case of Koko, it is compelling.

http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cf ... 8F58DB3ACA

[Ariannda Kusanagi]

did you 2 ALMOST agree there ?

[Xtizu]

monkeys actually utilizing a mirror (somewhat)

Elephants exhibiting self-recognition in mirrors

Great apes self recognition video (youtube)

Why do people laugh at creationists?

[Embar Angylwrath]

did you 2 ALMOST agree there ?

Without going into the soul debate, and just limiting it to a discussion of certain animals being aware of their own mortality, Klast and I have been on the same side of the debate from the beginning.

[Klast Brell]

Xitzu. you beat me to it. I was just going to paste in a link to the mirror test
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_tes ... irror_test
It's interesting to see that 1 year old humans do not pass the test.

[Select]

While this test has been extensively conducted on primates, there is also debate as to the value of the test as applied to animals who rely primarily on senses other than vision, such as dogs. As dogs have very poor visual resolution and acuity with red/green color blindness, they have little chance of recognizing themselves or a dot (commonly red) in a mirror. However, dogs do recognize their own scent invariably with 40x more neurons than humans dedicated to processing smell.

I was going to add dogs. I believe dogs are, but they do process the world much differently and need to be tested differently.
(I think cats are too)

There is some debate in the scientific community as to the value and interpretation of results of the mirror test .... The key point being that the mirror test is only a measure of ability closely matching humans, not a statement of consciousness, as is popularly believed.

So it's not a test to determine self awareness, am I correct?

[Fallakin Kuvari]

A bee might defend the hive too for the greater good and sacrifice its own life.......but it has no understanding of death, and most humans would never choose to use such an attack if it meant their own life would be forfiet.

Radical Islam.

[Alluveal]

Xitzu. you beat me to it. I was just going to paste in a link to the mirror test
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_tes ... irror_test
It's interesting to see that 1 year old humans do not pass the test.

Well, human babies develop slower than many other animal babies (who are up walking, swinging and so forth days after they are born.)

[Select]

Yea, if we did pass babies when they could crawl/walk, the head size would break the momma.

[Xtizu]

Yea, if we did pass babies when they could crawl/walk, the head size would break the momma.

more than it allready does?

Also, that isn’t necessarily true, evolution suggests that a woman giving birth to a baby that destroys her ability to create more children would most likely lead to an evolutionary dead end as breeding would not be prolific enough to support a viable population, thus over time we would adapt to have more than one child in a lifetime with less "breakage"

[Ddrak]

That's actually the evolutionary explanation for the higher order mammals being born while not self-sufficient. In order to maintain the head/brain size without causing fatal problems for the mother, the baby has to be born earlier in the life-cycle and so requires post-natal care. The larger the brain size, the more infant care is required.

This leads into theories about evolutionary development of communal behavior and non-selfish attitudes.

Dd

[Select]

Yep, Dd. That's what I was referring to