[Louie Dawgs]

Originally Posted by BL_NK

“Some years ago, there was a lovely philosopher of science and journalist in Italy named Giulio Giorello, and he did an interview with me. And I don’t know if he wrote it or not, but the headline in Corriere della Sera when it was published was "Sì, abbiamo un'anima. Ma è fatta di tanti piccoli robot – "Yes, we have a soul, but it’s made of lots of tiny robots." And I thought, exactly. That’s the view. Yes, we have a soul, but in what sense? In the sense that our brains, unlike the brains even of dogs and cats and chimpanzees and dolphins, our brains have functional structures that give our brains powers that no other brains have - powers of look-ahead, primarily. We can understand our position in the world, we can see the future, we can understand where we came from. We know that we’re here. No buffalo knows it’s a buffalo, but we jolly well know that we’re members of Homo sapiens, and it’s the knowledge that we have and the can-do, our capacity to think ahead and to reflect and to evaluate and to evaluate our evaluations, and evaluate the grounds for our evaluations.

It’s this expandable capacity to represent reasons that we have that gives us a soul. But what’s it made of? It’s made of neurons. It’s made of lots of tiny robots. And we can actually explain the structure and operation of that kind of soul, whereas an eternal, immortal, immaterial soul is just a metaphysical rug under which you sweep your embarrassment for not having any explanation.”
― Daniel C. Dennett

Okay, here's what I'm reading.

His definition of a "soul" is essentially, "what makes us human?"

His answer to this is reason. We can think, we have self actualization, we have higher order processing. It's a bit of a "different" conception that was I was thinking of, and I guess if you want to classify the "soul" as the "essence of humanity" or "what makes us human" this is a generally decent argument.

---------- Post added at 05:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:31 PM ----------

Originally Posted by BL_NK

This, in a sense could deal with epistemology. Look at it from the point of view of knowledge, seeing the soul as a physical object seems to be the point of view of an empiricist. Empiricism is one of the most prominent stands in modern epistemology, is it not?

I consider empiricism to tote the line between the two. I consider myself a pretty straight down the line classic empiricist, although I do have some (related) questions about dissent and truth.

As an empiricist, I can't state that I'm trying to see a "soul" or whatever, but simply what is measurable. I don't think that there is a soul in the spiritual and transcendent sense, and I don't accept that a "soul" can be "human essence", as it seems your guy is stating.

[Louie Dawgs]

Originally Posted by BL_NK

“Some years ago, there was a lovely philosopher of science and journalist in Italy named Giulio Giorello, and he did an interview with me. And I don’t know if he wrote it or not, but the headline in Corriere della Sera when it was published was "Sì, abbiamo un'anima. Ma è fatta di tanti piccoli robot – "Yes, we have a soul, but it’s made of lots of tiny robots." And I thought, exactly. That’s the view. Yes, we have a soul, but in what sense? In the sense that our brains, unlike the brains even of dogs and cats and chimpanzees and dolphins, our brains have functional structures that give our brains powers that no other brains have - powers of look-ahead, primarily. We can understand our position in the world, we can see the future, we can understand where we came from. We know that we’re here. No buffalo knows it’s a buffalo, but we jolly well know that we’re members of Homo sapiens, and it’s the knowledge that we have and the can-do, our capacity to think ahead and to reflect and to evaluate and to evaluate our evaluations, and evaluate the grounds for our evaluations.

It’s this expandable capacity to represent reasons that we have that gives us a soul. But what’s it made of? It’s made of neurons. It’s made of lots of tiny robots. And we can actually explain the structure and operation of that kind of soul, whereas an eternal, immortal, immaterial soul is just a metaphysical rug under which you sweep your embarrassment for not having any explanation.”
― Daniel C. Dennett

Okay, here's what I'm reading.

His definition of a "soul" is essentially, "what makes us human?"

His answer to this is reason. We can think, we have self actualization, we have higher order processing. It's a bit of a "different" conception that was I was thinking of, and I guess if you want to classify the "soul" as the "essence of humanity" or "what makes us human" this is a generally decent argument.

---------- Post added at 05:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:31 PM ----------

Originally Posted by BL_NK

This, in a sense could deal with epistemology. Look at it from the point of view of knowledge, seeing the soul as a physical object seems to be the point of view of an empiricist. Empiricism is one of the most prominent stands in modern epistemology, is it not?

I consider empiricism to tote the line between the two. I consider myself a pretty straight down the line classic empiricist, although I do have some (related) questions about dissent and truth.

As an empiricist, I can't state that I'm trying to see a "soul" or whatever, but simply what is measurable. I don't think that there is a soul in the spiritual and transcendent sense, and I don't accept that a "soul" can be "human essence", as it seems your guy is stating.