LogFAQs > #943093462

ssjevot posted...

That's a lot of words to say you can't measure it and you don't even know if it influences behavior. So again it comes back to what is the point? If I say there are invisible gnomes everywhere. You can't see them, you can't measure their existence, and they might not be able to interact with the physical world, then what is the point of these gnomes and what does believing in them do?

It's not measurable in the same way a human body over a life span is not measurable. What is there to measure? Part of a soul, for example, would be the counterfactual existence in a situation: there's a way things would be if a person did not exist, and there is a way things are by virtue of their existence. There is no reasonable way to expect to measure that, but it's clearly an existing phenomenon.

You can be a materialist and still accept an analytical soul that exists at a rational level, it doesnt have to be an esoteric thing. But there are physical and nonphysical properties: the identity they fall under has to be both physically and nonphysically coextensive with all of those properties, and that is what a soul would be.

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"Why is ontology so expensive?" - JH
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