(no subject)

[jianantonic]

I finally have my car back! For the first time ever, I felt out of sync with it. I've gone long stretches without driving it before, but I think I got used to the truck and had to readjust. That was weird, and a sad feeling. But we're cool now, me and the car. The only thing that sucks is I filled up the truck right before I gave it back to mumsy, and the car was on 1/4 tank when I got it...and I never let it dip below 1/2 a tank. The poor thing was probably feeling really unloved.

Speaking of unloved, Jeremy used a stuffed animal as a pin cushion today. When I noticed, I rescued the poor thing. I'm one of those people that doesn't necessarily believe, but has a hard time discounting that stuffed animals have souls/feelings/emotions. I mean I could throw together a stuffed animal with some cloth and cotton balls, which I don't really think have feelings...so why would the stuffed animal have feelings? But then again, I can throw two gametes together and have a brand spankin new human being before long, and we all know that humans have feelings, so what makes the two cells any different than cloth and cotton balls? That's a good point, I think. Good for me.

I'm off.

Peace.

Comments

[radanax.livejournal.com]

It's all about the soul. Or the cell. Or self-mobility... or something.

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

Are you saying that a stuffed animal cannot have a soul because it is not like a human, which does? The only thing that separates humans from stuffed animals is flesh, and if the soul has anything to do with flesh, it must be assumed that the soul would die when the body dies. I am not sure that I believe in souls, however, I hope they exist, and if they do, I do not believe that being flesh has anything to do with having a soul.

[radanax.livejournal.com]

I think that a soul has a lot to do with self-awareness and such things as that which we usually associate with intelligence. The idea of a stuffed animal having any self-awareness or self-motility and not to show these things to someone who plays with it for a long enough time seems strange to me... though of course there are plenty of way sthat this could be the case.

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

Why does having a soul have anything to do with motility? Quadripalegics and people in comas don't have self-motility, but do they not have souls? Once again, our motility and self-awareness are things that originate in the brain. They have to do with chemicals. Even a baby has to learn self-awareness...when they see their own feet, they don't realize what they are...anyhow I think what you are perceiving as soul is really just specific parts of the brain. I'm not saying I believe stuffed animals have souls, but I do believe that if humans have souls, it's just as likely that anything else could.

[radanax.livejournal.com]

Your first argument isn't a good one, because you're dealing with things that aren't as they should be.. as for the first, if you think that all that stuff is because of the brain then you've already eliminated the need for souls, so there really isn't any reason to keep talking about them if you think everything of that sort comes from the brain.

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying that everything comes from the brain, but everything that people usually define as "soul" are actually functions of the brain. My first argument is not bad because involves things as they shouldn't be...I'm just saying that the ability to control one's actions comes from the brain, not the soul. Before I believe that stuffed animals don't have souls and humans do, I'll need a definition for soul that can be something that exists independently of human anatomy, including the brain.

[radanax.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can prove really that it doesn't at some point exist as something outside of the human body. And I think that if the soul does exist then it and the brain must be what does what we do when we try to do it and actually do. What can be said about the soul is that if it does exist then presumably it's absence is a bad thing... in which case it doesn't seem out of line to call the soul a part of what a human human. If the soul is not in the human anymore, then there's no telling what it's up to, so you can't really get at it from that angle.

[jianantonic.livejournal.com]

If the soul is part of a human's anatomy (albeit difficult to label), then what becomes of it when a human dies? I certainly don't have the answer to any of the questions I have posed in this discussion, and the more I think on it, the less certain I am of the existence of a soul whatsoever. However, since it cannot (or likely will not, at least) be proved, I resign myself to the fact that although science would seem to point in the direction of "no soul," a soul is something worth believing in. Since it is impossible to prove what may have a soul without proving what a soul is and where to find it, I conclude that it is also worth believing (to me) that all things living or representing life have souls. It is hard to draw the line between life representation and non-life, but then again it is difficult to draw the line between human and non-human (and the abortion debates ignite). Therefore, if you want to believe that something has a soul, go ahead and believe it, because it is better to think something has a soul and be wrong than to think it doesn't and be wrong.