excellent points you make, science is somewhat coming around though, particularly quantum mechanics, they are realizing that the subjective does matter, and that the conscious observer can change the outcome of an experiment merely by observing and directing his consciousness towards it.
Actually, quantum mechanics really doesn't help that argument at all. The argument goes -- you can't point to a part of the brain and say "that's pain" or "that's love". Therefore just analyzing the physical is not enough.
That argument is bullshit, though. Obviously, trying to point to neurons and mapping them to high level subjective experiences is going to be very very difficult, and doing it the way they suggest is like trying to explain flight by looking at feathers. But just because you can't explain flight by looking at feathers doesn't mean you can't explain flight physically.
In cognitive science, David Marr came up with this idea of three levels of analysis for approaching problems. There's the computation level, which is like "what is the problem trying to be solved and what is the mathematical best answer to that problem? what are the input/output relations?". There's the implementation level, which is like "how would this problem be implemented on physical constituents?". And there's the algorithm level, which is sort of an inbetween step between the two.
Approaching a problem from only one of those levels isn't going to provide a fully satisfying answer. You need to answer the problem from many different perspectives to get any sort of understanding of the system.
Anyway, I would think that pain could actually be mapped on the implementation level if we started some levels up and continued to switch back and forth.
I believe in a undefinable, immaterial soul along the lines that some here have descibed (consciousness etc)
You believe in something undefinable? Why? If it's undefinable, you don't even know what it is that you're believing.
I don't think what you believe is really undefinable. I just think you're reluctant to define it because then people can shoot it down.
That's the best part about God--if you define it vaguely enough, nobody can pin it down enough to shoot down your delusions!
Or, you don't have to be delusional if you define it certain ways.
What if everyone around you believed in God and would socially sanction you if you said you didn't? Then you could just define God as the laws of physics, and voila! You have a logically consistent way of believing in God!
Why should we work any differently than machines? A computer isn't off because it lacks a soul. It's off because whatever electrical input is needed to make it work, is lacking. We are exactly the same. The brain works via electrical impulses.
Thank you thank you thank you thank you.
What people seem to forget is that we are made up of atoms. Atoms follow physical laws. It's not like any of those atoms one day can say to themselves "I'm not gonna follow this physical law this time!"
So all we are is a complex system deterministically following physical laws. Where's the room for a soul? If a soul is non-physical, and doesn't have to follow physical laws, how does it affect what is physical? The only way it could do that is to make an atom not follow the laws of physics....which can't happen, therefore it can't be non-physical affecting the physical.
If you define it as something physical, that's fine, I guess...but then it's just a bunch of atoms following physical laws. There's no hand-wavey hippie transcendence or whatever.
So, yeah, you can do that. You can say, the soul is the "I" in my subjective experience. And that's fine. It's a useful term sometimes. But don't think that doesn't somehow reduce down to physics.
Nice baiting.
But how can you think you know everything when we know so very little about the Universe? We don't even fully understand antimatter and how it holds systems together. Black holes, other stuff. We humans don't live in some closed system here on Earth, unremoved from the very thing that created us.
When we discover new things, we look at them from a physics perspective.
If there was anything non-physical, it couldn't affect the physical, therefore it wouldn't affect anything we see or do...
So, sure, there could be non-physical things. They just wouldn't matter.