My theory of the nature of good evil and the soul

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by hobbes, Sep 4, 2002.

  1. hobbes Crazy about philosophizin Registered Senior Member

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    Ok ..This is a difficult thing to explain so if i get it wrong please forgive. I can always just reedit it.

    Also alot of it is wild conjecture really. But very well thought out. I have seen evidence of some of the things i speak of in life and existence. Not to mention it explains somethings like the soul in a more scientific light which is pretty unique i must say.

    This is also the first time i've ever tried to put it fully down.
    So it might be longer then it needs to be and confusing in places but please keep this in mind.

    Some of this stuff is just a preamble to help explain some of the stuff I'm trying to say.

    First I believe energy only exists as the movement of particles and not as its self. Which means you can't convert energy to mass and back if energy is only the movement of mass. Which puts me at odds with most current conventional science beliefs. Even light has shown to have particle properties.

    Before someone brings up nuke bombs all they do is release the energy and movement within atoms not convert mass to energy. (imho of course)

    I believe if you kept on going down the chain from atom to proton to electron to quark and smaller you keep on finding smaller and smaller particles. (what binds them is still a question mark in my mind but i have several theories on that. )

    Anyways which brings me to my theory on the nature of the human soul. (animals have this too except a more simple version of it usually) My theory goes that a web of ultra small particles line our central nerves system. We already know electrons pass back and forth like a small electrical current. What if some other particles were involved too. This web/pattern of small particles while connected to our nerves system would also be independent of it.

    Like if you lost part of your brain due to disease that web would still exist in that area but freed of the influence of the brain would work differently perhaps. As part of it would still be part of the brain the part that isnt could still affect the brain except more indirectly.

    If you died this pattern would survive Which would mean the soul would have infinitely small mass.

    Now about good and evil.
    There are three basic kinds of intelligence.

    Raw data/information.-can be basic building blocks of the more advanced forms of intelligence but is not much on its own./

    Cunning.- The ability to take raw data and form thought .
    To be able to make plans etc.

    Wisdom. - the ability to see the big picture.

    Information is what/one dimensional- building blocks.

    cunning is how/2d- Adding those building blocks together to create advanced items.

    wisdom is why/3d- Is being more then the sum of your parts.


    What does this have to do with good and evil?
    When you do evil things you loose track of the why. You become more simple. In short you destroy your soul. This act of self destruction of ones soul is evil. The act of growing and expanding in complexity with ones soul is good. The acts we describe as good and evil have direct consequences to our soul and its complexity.
    Which is why,'why we do something' is as important as what we do.

    Some of what we call "emotions" are also forums of intelligence. Hate destroys reasoning. Love(i dont mean the sexual kind of love) expends your vision and allows you to see much more then you could ever possibly see normally as such a limited creature. To see more of the whole picture but at a distance and fuzzy sometimes.
    There are many kinds of hate and love. These words are inadequate to express all these definitions.

    Which is also why according to this theory at least. If god did exist he would have to be good because in order to reach the magnitude of power as is described to him he would have to become very very complex and very good/kind/loving.

    The mind and soul can be compared to a computer program.
    Volumes of data dont make a program complex and effective.
    Efficient smart programming does. As any programmer knows smaller amounts of data can be good for more effiecient and fast running of a program.

    In other words sometimes some information and knowledge can work against our overall complexity and wisdom. Evil thoughts and such could even be described as a virus of the soul perhaps.

    Also a last thought. In order for AI program to ever actually feel emotions and become sentient it would need the immense processing power and complicated construction and programming of a human in order to process the why.
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2002
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  3. hobbes Crazy about philosophizin Registered Senior Member

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    Hmm i was hoping for some kind of decent reply.

    Does anyone have any feed back on this?

    What do you guys think?
     
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  5. Xev Registered Senior Member

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    Don't you just hate it when everybody ignores an insightful topic?

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    I don't believe in good, evil, souls, heaven, hell or the tooth fairy, so I have nothing to contribute. Interesting though.
     
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  7. Voodoo Child Registered Senior Member

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    As one a materialist, I'd say the soul adds an unnecessary layer of complexity to your scheme without contributing anything. Can't any strong, "simple" emotion overide higher comtemplation? Love might very well make us simpler and it has a well documented reputation for messing with intelligence.
    Conversely, hate may inspire us to higher levels of reasoning and a greater fulfilment of our potential, such as any motivating force might.


    Finally, a non-anthropocentric account of animals and their souls. Has anyone considered that animals might have a soul that different attributes altogether, rather than merely a stripped down version of a human soul. For example, they may possess a more instinctive, primal, highly profound type of self-awareness that we can not possibly comphrehend with our higher thought faculties? Its a soul, Jim, but not as we know it.

    Nice post Hobbes (after the philosopher? Cartoon?)
     
  8. hobbes Crazy about philosophizin Registered Senior Member

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    First off like i said the term "love" and "hate" encompasses too many meanings.
    Like my explanation does not include "falling in love" kind of love.
    As for messing up intelligence, cunning kind of intelligence maybe. Wisdom no.

    Anger can motivate action and help us to reach our potential.
    Hate,(in any of its forms or meanings) has never shown to do anything of the sort. It just eats at you like acid. If I still haven't convinced you I challenge you to give me a example of hate that wasn't destructive.


    Very good. I agree. I kind of took the lazy way out concerning animal souls. I figured my post was long enough as it was.

    Lets not generalize though. A fly is likely not to have much of a soul.
    Elephants and dolphins could likely have profound souls.(By this I am not saying that the smarter animals are for sure to have more complex souls but that does seem logical) Each having a unique makeup making for a unique features of there souls.

    My cats could excel in areas of complexity of soul that no human could ever match. Who knows.

    Souls taking up such minimal mass and the universe being so big there would be more then enough room for it all.

    The comic strip. Its also a name i go by on another board.
    I know little about the philosopher but i don't think my views and hes are the same.

    Thanks. That was a excellent reply as well

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    It challenged me without dismissing out of hand. I like that kind of reply.
     
    Last edited: Sep 6, 2002
  9. Squid Vicious Banned Banned

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  10. hobbes Crazy about philosophizin Registered Senior Member

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    No no not even close. Sometimes information can be counterproductive to wisdom is what I was saying.

    IMO Love provides wisdom.
    By love i dont mean the extremely strong attachment to one person either.(even nonsexual)

    I guess to prove what im saying im going to need to prove this point..

    Hmm it wont be easy. Most of the difficulty is putting it into words.
    So let me think on it and ill try to get back to you.

    Or perhaps someone else knows what i mean as well and can assist?
     
  11. static76 The Man, The Myth, The Legend Registered Senior Member

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    There's no tooth fairy....

    *Removes his grandfather's false teeth from under his pllow*
     
  12. Voodoo Child Registered Senior Member

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    You're talking about love in a "general compassion toward others" sense, rather than the popular usage?
    Your idea kind of mirrors Socrates' "all evil is ignorance" theory.
    Hate can make us more than we might otherwise be. An example is the creators 9/11: hate motivated them toward a brilliantly executed world changing event. Alright, they killed 6000 people started a war, killed themselves, but still, hate encouraged them to do something of great magnitude.
    We are not talking about destructiveness. We may become a greater person and more hate-filled and more destructive at the same time. Hitler's hatred of those who betrayed Germany in WWI motivated him to do great(but terrible) things. Otherwise he would just be a failed artist.

    Does wisdom exist? What separates it from intelligence? I am not sure that a meaningful distinction can be made between the two. What properties does widom have that can not be explained by greater intelligence.

    Souls. Why would a fly have less of a soul than a human? Souls can not be empirically investigated, we can not know anything about them, so any statement about them has about as much worth as any other.
     
  13. hobbes Crazy about philosophizin Registered Senior Member

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    Well that can be part of it but there is more to it then that as well.


    Your missing the point. its not about doing something of great magnitude but being something of great magnitude. Thats something inside not about fame.

    In both your examples it caused them to do things that affected people on a large scale but so what? It was still poison. In the end it destroyed those who hated even. Think of the mafie. They thought they had great power. Power? They were helpless. There "power" could only be used to destroy. Including themselves.

    A failed artist with a noble loving soul can be more then any number of country presidents/kings combined.


    I rather already answered these questions and made the distinction.

    I used the words cunning and wisdom and I use them with more meanings then they usually contain.

    The distinction is cunning is a 2d kind of intellegance. Wisdom is a 3d kind of intellegance. (put here everything else i said in my first post about the distinction between the two concepts)

    Some of it can't be understood by reason alone perhaps. It would help to use that kind of 3d intellegance to understand what I mean.
    For me to be able to explain the distintion between seeing in black and white and seeing in color it helps to have seen in color.

    Im sure you can its a matter of stretching yourself to do so.
    (I do hope you don't take offense by any of this. Its not meant that way)
     
  14. Squid Vicious Banned Banned

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    That's a fairly sweeping premise. Wisdom is a subjective term defined by the individual. What you might see as "wisdom" may not be so in another community, eg. the village elders in ancient religious communities who thought stoning was a good punishment for an adulturous wife.
     
  15. Squid Vicious Banned Banned

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    Originally posted by hobbes
    its not about doing something of great magnitude but being something of great magnitude. Thats something inside not about fame.


    getting fairly close to eastern philosophies here.


    A failed artist with a noble loving soul can be more then any number of country presidents/kings combined.


    i know this is tied in with that first quote, but can you explain in what way they'd be more noble? they've contributed nothing. Who would they be "more" to? themselves or others?


    For me to be able to explain the distintion between seeing in black and white and seeing in color it helps to have seen in color.


    Well, yeah, but then if we'd already seen in colour we wouldn't be asking you to describe it *smile*
     
  16. hobbes Crazy about philosophizin Registered Senior Member

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    Then use my definition. If you dont want to call it wisdom then lets call it modsiw. The point isnt to argue over the definition of a word the point is to attach a particular meaning to a word to facilitate better communication of the idea.

    I tried to attach a very specific meaning to the word. I guess i failed. But if you would please go back and look at it again and see if you can get what kind of definition i am trying to attach to the word.

    Does it matter what philosophy its closest to? Its my own really.

    Its a adjective not a verb. Its not about what you do but what you think and how you handle life.

    Lets say a greedy man stole a great deal of money and fled away in a small plane.
    As he passed over a poor village starving and desperately in need of money. At the same time turbulence hits the plane and knocks the money out of the plane but the greedy man doesn't notice.

    Does that make him a generous kind man having given all that money to the needing village?
     
    Last edited: Sep 7, 2002
  17. hobbes Crazy about philosophizin Registered Senior Member

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    Lets compare two men.

    Hitler and a dad. Lets call him john.

    Hitler I'm sure lived in fear most of his life. He feared the jews. He feared losing power. He even feared his allies I'm sure. worried one might stab him in the back.

    Someone who I'm sure spent much of his day dreaming of power or fearing/hating something. Really he wasn't much of a man.

    Compared to john. He loved his daughter dearly. A attentive father he spends his life energies in service to make her life better. He even sells his house and moves into a studio apartment so that he has enough money to put her through collage.

    True he didn't create a immediate and noticeable national/world affect but hes done more then hitler ever did.

    Fame/notoriety do not equal greatness
     
  18. Xev Registered Senior Member

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    hobbes:
    Perhaps not to you, but others might disagree. To a neo-Nazi, perhaps, Hitler was great, and John just ordinary.

    Can you objectively show that they are wrong?

    Thought not.

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    To my mind, Hitler was not "greater" but neither was John. Hitler was weak, although interesting to study. John is simply a man like any other of billions of men.
     
  19. Voodoo Child Registered Senior Member

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    Fame/infamy is not the sole measure of greatness, however, they are reasonably accurate indirect measures, IMO. It takes quite a remarkable person to execute 9/11. It takes a remarkable person to captivate a nation, rebuild it as Europe's greatest power, economically raise it from the dead. Using their acheivements is the only objective measure that I can think of, otherwise you get a highly dodgy, subjective mush.

    Many would say a loving soul amounts to little when the scope of its influence is so limited. One of our Nietzsche fans would point out here that imposing our power on others is the only thing that matters. It seems their greatness is based upon an unverifiable quality that may not even exist(ie the nature of their soul)

    I see a kind of circular logic here:

    Goodness/love is greatness
    Greatness is goodness/love.

    It is only a satisfactory paradigm for the evaluation and understanding of people if you already hold this value.

    I understand you definition of wisdom, but I can't see how we can tell if it is meaningful. What are the tangible, unique characteristics of wisdom? How do I know if this person is wise? Plato's Republic all over again.

    How do I know there is a color world? Because others say? What if they are deluded? People say they KNOW there is a God by means of some magical/spiritual dooh-da. Are they nuts or the real deal?
     
  20. Xev Registered Senior Member

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    Voodoo:
    What?! Have you read Nietzsche?
     
  21. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    or he hasn't understood him
     
  22. Voodoo Child Registered Senior Member

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    Three quarters of Zara. Bits of the others.

    I probably should switch those two sentences, seems like I'm talking about the Nietzsche buffs being unverifiable. However, a person who is to lazy to read what he writes should be too lazy to fix it later. So confusion will be the casuality of consistence.
     
  23. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    zvirbulvanags: what are you discussing exactly
    zvirbulvanags: ?
    Asguard: does evil exist and what is it
    zvirbulvanags: my answer- no, it's dependant only on our culture and morality
    zvirbulvanags: can paste this answer to Xev
    Asguard: we are not talking about what IS evil ie murder is bad

    Asguard: but what evil IS if it exists
    zvirbulvanags: oh, I see
    zvirbulvanags: it doesn't

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    zvirbulvanags: it would be the same as to define god
    Asguard: so what was hitler then?
    zvirbulvanags: we can make only assumptions
    zvirbulvanags: Hitler ? he was a man with bad morals and he used them to get into power
    zvirbulvanags: bad is also relative to our understanding of good and bad
    zvirbulvanags: I don't like him and he is bad to me, but maybe he's works are not considered bad in some far away alien civilization
    zvirbulvanags: his
    Asguard: i belive "evil" is a mental illness that could be cured but i am worried the cure is worse than the illness
    zvirbulvanags: I don't think we are right to judge what is evil and not fundamentally
    zvirbulvanags: I mean- for crime - YES
    zvirbulvanags: death to mass killers
    zvirbulvanags: but I don't believe we are to say who is evil or not
    Asguard: i am against the DP but the cure to crime maybe worse than even that evil
    zvirbulvanags: able to say
    zvirbulvanags: erasement of brain?
    zvirbulvanags: it's the same as death
    zvirbulvanags: I have a nice idea/concept- Those who are sentenced to death- their brain is erased and is uploaded all brain information form a incurably ill person
    Asguard: nah that maybe ok but what happens when that sentance is handed down to political dissadants?
    zvirbulvanags: I was talking about criminal
    zvirbulvanags: not political
    Asguard: i know but that is the risk once they can do it
    zvirbulvanags: so I say to save the suspended brain info in a databank for 50 years, if the person is not rehabilitated then erase
    Asguard: no no no
    Asguard: what if the tecnology falls into the hands of a dictator
    Asguard: he wips the memorys of his oponents and makes them surporters
    zvirbulvanags: no- mine technology would only allow to erase and upload
    zvirbulvanags: and it's the same- opponents get killed or their memories wiped out....political oponents get killed nowadays also
    Asguard: yea but its OVIOUSE if ur oponet turns up dead
    if u can just control them then its more covert
    zvirbulvanags: people can be controlled- hypnosis

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    , lsd
    zvirbulvanags: propoganda
    zvirbulvanags: torture, blackmail
    zvirbulvanags: just another, bu also very scary method
    Asguard: but how easy would it be if u could do it with just some sort of mind ray
    zvirbulvanags: and I agree that it's the most dangerous
    zvirbulvanags: agree agree- maybe in the fuure ppl will have protection fields
    zvirbulvanags: duno
     

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