Teleportation and Consciousness

[bobcamel]

So is a retarded person's soul retarded too?

Not necessarily. It's a human soul born into a crippled body.

As for the topic- I remember reading a science fiction story dealing with this exact question a while ago. Ray Bradbury? Not sure. There was a machine that teleported people to other planets, then destroyed the original body, but it malfunctioned on one and didn't kill the teleportee. The technician was supposed to then kill the original but he couldn't do it. Don't remember how it turned out...

My best bet it was something like that: Both of them teleported to a third place and only one was rematerialized.

[Demagog]

Exactly what I stated previously lol... If almost everyone disagrees, maybe it will need to be changed. The main point though is that the soul is not the consciousness.

[Demagog]

I don't think it matters... we can't KNOW what it does, we can only believe what it does. The main question regarding souls here is asking if the soul's fate can be determined by the copy, or if the soul loses all ties with the world (unless it's reincarnation, or becomes a spirit/ghost) once the person is disintegrated. Also, does the new copy have a soul, either the original one or a new one.

[Demagog]

You were talking about "typical" Christian views on the soul, I was simply saying I don't think it's as typical as you think it is.

The soul is also a philosophical "belief" (Daxx could probably elaborate). Also, I think you are only considering the major religions. I'm referring to every religion. And I don't see anything that says the soul controls the body in that Webster definition.

[Demagog]

I don't think there is a "typical" Judeo-Christian doctrine. The bible mentions very little about the exact nature of the soul - most of what we consider to be part of the Judeo-Christian mythos is what various thinkers have developed over several thousand years, and it varies quite a lot from place to place and denomination to denomination, and this includes concepts of the soul.

Could you define your concept of the soul in a little more depth? I'd be interested to see what you think, because definition is so important in these discussions. This is a bit off topic though, so feel free to not bother or do it in another thread or something if you want.

unfortunately that's not exactly true. there are many parts of the christian doctrine that are exactly the same everywhere. for example, any person that calls themselves a christian has to believe that the Christ already came. or they aren't actually christian. the concept of a soul is similarly central to christian belief. If a christian didn't believe that he had an immortal soul (it doesn't matter what its called), then (s)he couldn't believe in eternal life. because its the soul that christ came to save, not our physical bodies.

my concept of the human person is this. we have our physical body, this includes hair feet, all of hat stuff. then we have a brain (which i think of as a sub-category of the physical body). the brain is kind of like a control booth. it has room for storage, it basically operates the machine that is our body. then there is the soul, which is basically the controller. You. you are your soul and your body is a temporary inhabitance.
i hope that's clear enough

again, i am speaking entirely aout what people believe, i'm not saying that any of this is provable fact.

p.s. the bible does say something to back this up. it consistently talks about the body as a possession. or it talks about being present in spirit but not in body. so anyway thats my definition or how i think of it if you come up with a different concept of soul then i will abide by that and think about it that way for the purposes of this discussion.

p.p.s. awesome topic by the way.

I'm a Christian, and I obviously believe the soul is not the "controller." Anyway, we shouldn't define the soul by Christian standards. It needs to be a general definition.

[sillyking14]

i'm not going to get into an argument about this, but seriously lets get a specific definition from the OP. exactly what do you want the soul to be/do?

[sillyking14]

ok so what is it? what does it do?

[sillyking14]

I don't think there is a "typical" Judeo-Christian doctrine. The bible mentions very little about the exact nature of the soul - most of what we consider to be part of the Judeo-Christian mythos is what various thinkers have developed over several thousand years, and it varies quite a lot from place to place and denomination to denomination, and this includes concepts of the soul.

Could you define your concept of the soul in a little more depth? I'd be interested to see what you think, because definition is so important in these discussions. This is a bit off topic though, so feel free to not bother or do it in another thread or something if you want.

unfortunately that's not exactly true. there are many parts of the christian doctrine that are exactly the same everywhere. for example, any person that calls themselves a christian has to believe that the Christ already came. or they aren't actually christian. the concept of a soul is similarly central to christian belief. If a christian didn't believe that he had an immortal soul (it doesn't matter what its called), then (s)he couldn't believe in eternal life. because its the soul that christ came to save, not our physical bodies.

my concept of the human person is this. we have our physical body, this includes hair feet, all of hat stuff. then we have a brain (which i think of as a sub-category of the physical body). the brain is kind of like a control booth. it has room for storage, it basically operates the machine that is our body. then there is the soul, which is basically the controller. You. you are your soul and your body is a temporary inhabitance.
i hope that's clear enough

again, i am speaking entirely aout what people believe, i'm not saying that any of this is provable fact.

p.s. the bible does say something to back this up. it consistently talks about the body as a possession. or it talks about being present in spirit but not in body. so anyway thats my definition or how i think of it if you come up with a different concept of soul then i will abide by that and think about it that way for the purposes of this discussion.

p.p.s. awesome topic by the way.

[sillyking14]

I'm a Christian, and I obviously believe the soul is not the "controller." [/color]Anyway, we shouldn't define the soul by Christian standards. It needs to be a general definition.

im not sure what your saying in the red part. but im pretty sure you don't understand what i'm saying. my point is that you are your soul. as in the part of you that thinks and decides is the soul. so not that we are controlled by our souls, but that we, as the soul, control the body.

as for the blue part my point is that soul is almost exclusively a religious belief. the only religion that i know of that doesn't use soul to mean conscious self is Hinduism. although even that is debatable. so i'm aren't using the "christian standard" im using what i thought the inherent definition of what soul is.
like webster
soul:1 : the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life
2 a : the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe b capitalized Christian Science : god 1b
3 : a person's total self
4 a : an active or essential part b : a moving spirit : leader
5 a : the moral and emotional nature of human beings b : the quality that arouses emotion and sentiment c : spiritual or moral force : fervor
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soul

but like i said if you want to refine and use a different definition of soul thats fine. i was just answering based on what i thought soul was. maybe when people answer they should include what they mean when they say "soul" so as to avoid confusion.

[Daxx]

1. I would answer this as a no. Everything about the copy will be exactly the same, yes, and the copy will think it has the same consciousness, because it knows everything you know. However, I don't think consciousness is something that can be transferred like (hypothetically) personality/memories can. This is my question of emphasis, but I don't know that we can make headway on it...

Okay, so, a question: what about consciousness is different to and separate from personality and memories? I'd posit that they are all products of the physical configuration of the brain, and that therefore consciousness would be "transferred" along with the physical data in the same way that memories or personality might.

In relation to this concept of a soul that we've been discussing: where exactly does the soul come from, and what ties it to the body/brain/personality/consciousness? The other question, of course, is that if we follow your definition of a soul then I would imagine that it will almost certainly become detached from the original form - what happens to the soulless copy? And, what happens to the soul?

there are many parts of the christian doctrine that are exactly the same everywhere. for example, any person that calls themselves a christian has to believe that the Christ already came. or they aren't actually christian. the concept of a soul is similarly central to christian belief. If a christian didn't believe that he had an immortal soul (it doesn't matter what its called), then (s)he couldn't believe in eternal life. because its the soul that christ came to save, not our physical bodies.

p.s. the bible does say something to back this up. it consistently talks about the body as a possession. or it talks about being present in spirit but not in body. so anyway thats my definition or how i think of it if you come up with a different concept of soul then i will abide by that and think about it that way for the purposes of this discussion.

Sure, there are common elements to Christian doctrine in terms of core elements that are necessarily shared by Christians - some of those you listed and there are others besides. What I mean, though, is that it is difficult to find a more full acceptance of other ideas and that includes attitudes towards the nature of the soul. As other examples of , we have the idea of the resurrection of the body, the creation story, angelology and celestial hierarchies, attitudes towards various aspects of Mosaic law (homosexuality, slave keeping, food preparation etc. and the veracity of such law under the new covenant), the assumption, transsubstantiation - I could go on for quite some time. Christian theology is for the most part quite convoluted and disparate depending on the denominations you are looking at. Most of this has been divined from the text of the bible in its many and various forms by using exegesis and philosophical extrapolation.

The point I was really making was not really very important, but I just wanted to point out that not everyone agrees on exactly how the soul works, even within the Christian faith. It doesn't really matter, but the lesson we learn from this is that it's important to examine the dogma that you follow.

/offtopic

[Daxx]

IF it was possible to create a perfect copy- down to the quantum states of matter of a body- I don't believe that copy would function. The new body would be a soulless shell. It might have physical behaviors- seeking out food when it's hungry, operating on instinct, etc. But the higher functions are driven by our souls and attached to our bodies.

Why do you believe that these higher behaviours are driven by a "soul", as opposed to being driven by the brain like every other behaviour? Do you have any evidence to support that claim?

There are cases of where transplant recipients get memories/feelings/likes & dislikes of the donor- not ever having met that person. I think that's because a part of the soul transfers with the organ. Would that transfer to a manufactured copy of an organ? i doubt it.

I'd not heard of these before. Have they ever been scientifically verified? If they were, that would be something quite exciting for the scientific community because it would suggest that certain functions are not contained wholly within the brain. Or are these cases just another case of self-deluded wishful thinking, like pretty much every case of those who believe they have been reincarnated and have the memories of their past lives?

Let's accept for a moment the idea that transferring organs can transfer parts of the soul. Where does that leave Christian ideas of the soul? After all, throughout the ages many people have accepted organ donations, blood transfers and so forth. Many have cannibalised other people. When these people are resurrected for judgement in the eschatological sense, does that mean that parts of a Christian's soul might go to hell, or parts of an unbeliever's soul might go to heaven? Are there people with composite souls wandering around in the afterlife because they had a kidney transplant? An interesting related topic to this is the resurrection of the body. Robert Boyle makes for interesting reading on the challenges that thinkers faced when trying to reconcile the theology with the practicality of life.

[Demagog]

I've heard stories where people's behavior changed slightly after an organ transplant, but have also heard (more recently) these are just stories. If someone's behavior did change, it's much more likely it is a psychological effect. Basically they have heard a person's behavior/personality can change after an organ transplant, and it then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.