Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Can the inanimate be made into the animate?

Zeraph · 07-25-2006, 02:27 PM

Note: To follow my line of reasoning will require slow and careful reading, if you don't have the time or patience for either don't bother. That said I make no claim that my reasoning is sane

let me know if you see a fault in the chain.

A question I came up with when once again pondering the possibility of a soul. What I do when thinking through these unsolvable questions is make an assumption (this one is: soul, or no soul, focusing on "no soul") and make conclusions based on that assumption. The one with the best sounding conclusions is the one I go with until I come across another assumption I can make and do it all over again.

So that is what it comes down to if there is no soul; lifeless atoms can be arranged in a specific way so that there is sentience. That would mean that the inanimate can be arranged so that it* can change itself. Which would make it (building blocks) not inanimate in the first place, no? So if there is no soul or something that is separate from the physical reality/building blocks that we can point to two things and say "this is animate, this is not" then everything is either inanimate or animate. And since we are animate, and are made of the same thing as everything else, then that everything else must be animate in some way too.

So again, assuming no soul, we are patterns of energy that can affect itself and other patterns of energy. We call that animate. Therefore the animate (seemingly) magically appears once a certain pattern is arranged (in this case a healthy brain with a support system of a body) or does it? Obviously the point of such pondering is to take the magic (read: unknown) out. So perhaps there is no magic taking place that needs to be called a soul entering a pattern of energy to cause it to be animate. Perhaps down to the tiniest building block contains sentience of some kind. Perhaps everything together (the universe) is all one big sentient being and we are just subdivisions of such sentience.

Then again, maybe that's as crazy as the idea of a soul. Thoughts?

*"It" being basic building blocks: atoms, quarks, however small you might want to go. Formless energy, whatever.

07-25-2006, 02:27 PM	#1 (permalink)
Zeraph Banned Location: The Cosmos	Can the inanimate be made into the animate? Note: To follow my line of reasoning will require slow and careful reading, if you don't have the time or patience for either don't bother. That said I make no claim that my reasoning is sane let me know if you see a fault in the chain. A question I came up with when once again pondering the possibility of a soul. What I do when thinking through these unsolvable questions is make an assumption (this one is: soul, or no soul, focusing on "no soul") and make conclusions based on that assumption. The one with the best sounding conclusions is the one I go with until I come across another assumption I can make and do it all over again. So that is what it comes down to if there is no soul; lifeless atoms can be arranged in a specific way so that there is sentience. That would mean that the inanimate can be arranged so that it* can change itself. Which would make it (building blocks) not inanimate in the first place, no? So if there is no soul or something that is separate from the physical reality/building blocks that we can point to two things and say "this is animate, this is not" then everything is either inanimate or animate. And since we are animate, and are made of the same thing as everything else, then that everything else must be animate in some way too. So again, assuming no soul, we are patterns of energy that can affect itself and other patterns of energy. We call that animate. Therefore the animate (seemingly) magically appears once a certain pattern is arranged (in this case a healthy brain with a support system of a body) or does it? Obviously the point of such pondering is to take the magic (read: unknown) out. So perhaps there is no magic taking place that needs to be called a soul entering a pattern of energy to cause it to be animate. Perhaps down to the tiniest building block contains sentience of some kind. Perhaps everything together (the universe) is all one big sentient being and we are just subdivisions of such sentience. Then again, maybe that's as crazy as the idea of a soul. Thoughts? *"It" being basic building blocks: atoms, quarks, however small you might want to go. Formless energy, whatever.