It's just that you said I was sad because I don't think their is a soul. Because, I assume, you think that there is some mystical entity that is directing the body that is you, and a spiritual practice would lead to that conclusion. The soul would be some essence that is beyond the physical world, (a being from alternate universe maybe?). But then you speak of meditation and fasting. I would say that meditating has been what lead me here. Meditating, examining, observing ones own mind helps one see that there is no self, thoughts arise on their own. There is no core, non-detectable, mystical soul.

We give our minds too much credit, we keep arguing if AI is, or can ever be, conscious, without ever defining what consciousness is. I would say that humans aren't conscious in the way we think we are. There is no free will, we don't decide what we think about, if you think about thinking, where does the first thought come from?

Well, I'm looking at AI as an artist. The first notable thing I see is that I can pick out where all the refeferences come from and I find that boring. They are often not adapted to each other, there are obvious scale discrepancies and poor to little perspective. Cohesiveness is missing. Also by the arguments that I have seen, there is a very poor understanding of how artists work and develop their art. Artists transform materials, not existing art. Some artists may copy others but developing your own style is considered the gateway to making your best art. Art has many forms with a large portion of them being three dimensional. AI is a greatly limited tool that can statistically gather and render already existing imagery into a 2 dimensional format. It can be used as a tool to make art if the user has the skill to direct it with the proper prompts, but to equate that with how humans learn to create is to truly misunderstand the human process.

I wish I could help you more, but I don't know if I really can. But look at it this way: What are the odds that you have figured out everything about existence and there is nothing more to it than cold matter? Wouldn't you at least try to prove yourself wrong?

I wish I could help you too. Isn't that the crux of the problem, you think I'm so deluded, I can't be helped, and I think the same of you. So once again, the two sides of any faith based / mystical interpretation of reality can't prove anything. I can't prove there is no soul, and you can't prove there is one. Anything based on mystical faith is just someone's opinion.

What are the odds you have it figured out? Why can't you try to prove yourself wrong. The odds are you haven't figured it out either, so why have you stopped trying. You say the soul exists, so why is the onus on me to prove it doesn't, but you don't have to prove anything.

It hasn't to do with you, it is the limit of the medium. You can't prove a soul or anything spiritual through text. Or at least I can't. I don't think you're deluded.

But, I will argue that there is physical evidence for the soul and for the spiritual beyond our everyday comprehension. That physical evidence is psychedelics. If you take psychedelics once with a person who is dear to you, I'm certain you will come out on the other side much assured they have a soul, that there is much more to people than what you see in everyday life.

I see where you are coming from now. See, 'text' got us here eventually.

I'm more from Zen Buddhism background, so agree about not trusting 'text'. That language is limited for communication. I think a lot of the issues here, are just about miss-interpreting language.

But for Psychedelics, I have always fallen on the side that they can also cause delusion. I guess because they are mind altering, then potentially they are altering perceptions to be something even less real than someone had without psychedelics.

The other reason I have not depended on them, is because no matter the impressions they leave, however mind expanding, it is still isolated inside my own head. They don’t provide proof of anything outside myself. The results are still limited to the individual’s point of view. But also agree, that they can be valuable if someone is so buried in dogma it helps them break out to look around. So, guess for psychedelics, it depends on where someone is at, and trying to achieve.

With all addiction dogma aside, or arguments on what is addictive, or not, aside. My struggles to overcome addiction have led me to not trust mind altering substances. That even if our own un-altered perceptions are an illusion, so is the altered perception. So being in an altered state is not gaining ground on understanding.

On other hand Psychedelics do help with some addictions, so guess mileage can vary.