What is a soul?

Well I guess we’ve reached the classic impasse. A thinks B is limited in their understanding by their reluctance to open themselves up to things that are incomprehensible to them. B thinks A is limited in their understanding by their delusional tendencies. So do I want to give you the last word? Sure, why not, I don’t need it to be otherwise

I really thought we’d reached a stalemate in this debate . and then along came a little puffin.Last night I was watching a TV documentary that featured some puffins. As I was watching it, this question popped into my head, “does 2ice believe a puffin to be a soul?”So that’s my next question. Do you consider animals to be souls?

What about when you forget? Are Alzheimers patients fundamentally changed?

Who is delusional is the question. You harbor the idea that through science "which is all about measuring things" we will discover the nature of what we are. I understand that as delusional.I see a recurring theme within ideas such as you harbor. The notion of a higher power or purpose almost seems to offend. Let me ask you. Is an idea physical? Can you physically measure an abstract? Do you recognise the existence of non physical things? The fact that they exist is a paradox to any notion that all things are physical. Either they are or they are not....or our understanding of what physcial is, is misguided. My understanding is that all matter is energy in a given state. What is the nature of energy? To hold ones perspective strictly to the narrow notion of what "physical" is...is simply folly. However we will learn many interesting things from that physical perspective.

In seeing the notions humans have harbored that have proven folly:
White people are superior
Nobels are a higher order of people.
Blue collar workers?
Ethnic clensing
Humans are somehow superior to animal
The superior race
The sun revolves around the earth
The earth is the center of the universe ect...ectThe recurring theme here is the folly of human ego.
In light of this blatant track record I deduce that it is far more likely than not that all living things share commonalities. As I can not comunicate with animals to ask thier oppinion, to give mine in their stead is a bit presumptuous of me. My personal view is that it is far more likely than not.Edited by 2ice_baked_taters, : No reason given.

How about when someone loses a limb or any other apendage? How about your sight or your voice? A person becomes a drug addict or alcoholic and our perception of them may change..does this mean that they ceased to exists and now the new drug induced/handicaped person has come into being? The perception of many people who used to be thought of as mindless has changed. Just because someone does not have the physical means to comunicate does not mean they are not there. They are simply handicapped.

If one is atheistic?
It is my most sincere conviction that we are only grand in our own design. The typical biblical/koran/Torah view is male ego oriented. I am not sure about the eastern religions. The American Indians tended to think of us more as part of the whole.

It would stand to reason. A child is one step in a process. Human kind is a child as species go. We are but one step in an ongoing process.

For sure. I quite often have a little chuckle to myself when I’m on here and I see how earnest we all are. So sure we are all ”right’. The chances that any of us are ”right’ are probably none too great. We live on a tiny planet, in universal terms, the back of beyond, but that doesn’t prevent us expounding our theories of ”everything’, whether they are scientific, philosophical or theological. Aren’t we all just a little guilty of taking ourselves a bit too seriously on here from time to time?There are a couple of things I try to remind myself in these situations.The first relates to accounts I’ve read about previously unknown tribes of the Amazon and New Guinea coming into contact with the ”outside world’. These guys have their own culture and understanding of reality that works perfectly well for them. But their wider understanding of the cultures, philosophies and technologies of the planet as a whole are severely limited.If you extend this to humankind as a whole, our understanding of the universe must necessarily be similarly constrained by the limits of our ”event horizon’. Which comes close to what you appear to be saying, but I’ll come back to that a little later.The second thing I like to remind myself is a phrase I’ve used on these forums previously - certainty is the mother of delusion. The more certain we are, the less we question. The less we question, the more likely are we to miss a vital piece of information that might help increase our level of understanding. Now I’m not suggesting we should spend our lives questioning our certainties - that would be wholly impractical. I just think we need to remind ourselves from time to time that our certainties may not be what we think them to be, and cut others who feel differently a little slack. I need to address a couple of issues you have raised here.You ask if an idea has physical presence. Probably not, at least not as far as we are able to ascertain at the moment. But it can clearly be seen to arise out of physical processes. We can measure the brain activity that leads to ”non-physical’ events such as ideas. This is crucial. Without the pre-existence of the physical brain, there is absolutely no reason to suppose that ideas could exist independently.You don’t define what you mean by ”higher power or purpose’, so I’m not sure exactly where you’re coming from. However, for your suggestion to work, I put it to you that it would similarly have to be dependant on some physical entity, else you are not comparing like with like.My understanding of matter is the similar to yours regarding energy, and I’m also aware of superstring and M-theory. However, I am not aware of any suggestions that energy is not measurable and therefore not accessible to scientific research. So if you want to propose a ”higher power’ based on the natural, then I’m all ears. However, if you simply want to introduce the idea of ”non-physical’ things that are dependant on nature for their existence, so that you can ”bridge the gap’ to ”non-physical’ things independent of nature, you need to find a alternative method of doing so.Previously I ”threatened’ to ”enlighten the world’ with some of my beliefs, so I’d like to go back to your ideas on maturity from an earlier post to take that forward As humans, we start the journey of life in the womb, alone in our own little universe - the centre of that universe even. As we start to grow older, we gradually become less dependant on our parents and slowly learn that the world does not revolve around our personal needs. We slowly learn that it is us who have to change to fit in with the world, not the other way about. Perhaps this ”conflict’ is at its greatest during our teenage years as we try to come to terms with what we want from the world, and the world wants from us.However we generally come through these years and slowly learn to understand how utterly insignificant we are in relation to the vastness of the universe we inhabit. But understanding is one thing, accepting is quite another. So those who are prepared to accept this perception of reality do, and get on with living their lives.But what of those who aren’t able to accept? It is my belief that they retreat into the great “I am” to help them deal with this realisation. But why do I use the word ”retreat’?I fear I need to stray into pseudo-Freudian areas to address this issue. Ouch! But this makes me wonder about the effect our experiences in the womb and early life have upon us. We start off as the centre of our own universe; move through the safety and security of our early years, and eventually to the slow realisation of our place is in the vastness of the universe.What could be more natural than to seek again the comfort of our earlier experiences, where we didn’t need to think about the fact that, physically at least, we are no more than a few cells hurtling through space at frightening speeds on an object over which we have no control? What could be more natural than to want to recreate a time when we were at the centre of our own universe, or a time when we received the succour and guidance of our parents?When you throw in the effect of coming to understand the ”smallness’ of ourselves in comparison to the vastness of ”everything’, it’s easy to see why we might want to ”rebel’ against such apparent insignificance, to believe “this cannot be so”.In short, I think belief comes down to our temperament - do we see the cup as half full or half empty? I tend to see the cup as half full, so am happy to accept the reality I perceive. Perhaps, if my temparement were different I too might seek to recreate an environment in which I was ”sheltered’ from many of life’s harsher realities.

I was unsure as to what your answer to the question would be. On the one hand, much of what you say suggests that you’d see all animals as souls, if not necessarily all life forms. On the other is the frequent reference to the ”non-physical’, with its theistic undertones, although I notice that you are very careful to never actually go there.But I think you know where this goes next. I want to explore what follows on from the above with a couple of more questions.Do you believe that the soul persists beyond the death of the physical entity? If so, is it altered, given your believe that the soul represents the ”wholeness’ of being, a ”wholeness’ that incorporates the physical entity?Okay, I can see that you may take exception to the association I have made between the ”non-physical’ and the theistic, so I’m going to take another time out to see what your response is before going any further

My point here was to illustrate that our notion of "physical" Is nowhere near as clear as what reality seems to be showing us. The idea of "natural" is simply a notion. We do not have a clue as to the reality of what natural is. We have perceptions. We do the best we can as we fumble along trying to understand. In my mind there is no gap to bridge. There never was one. Just different perceptions of the same thing. As to the merrit of measure. Countless things exist that science cannot measure. We cannot discerne from measurment anything other than we can measure it. I can describe you by means of many measurements. The only way I can understand you exist is by comunication. Otherwise your just another chemical reaction...a blob of protoplasm existing till the reaction fizzles out. As I have stated. What is physical and what is not is becoming blurred
to science. From what I can understand by your comments you percieve that all things derive from physical events. Then energy in all forms must be physical..or all things 'physical" are our perceptions of energy in a given state and all things are really energy which we have not a clear cut deffinition of in a "physical" sense. The notion of physical becomes a slippery thing. So you "are not"? Sorry...had to ask "I am" curious about this notion of retreat. "I am" not clear how a perception of "one'self" with respect to a notion of a "big picture" translates into retreat.
We all find our escape in one form or another. It is rejuvenating.
I will never leave the child behind.

I have several thougths on this. To begin with I believe the notion of what is physical to be just that. We now understand our physical bodies are simply energy in a given state. I also recognise the force of me. As to wether or not I cease to be when I die. Part of me questions although there is no point to an answer. Live this life for what it is. There is much to learn. The other part of me has no doubt. This would involve my personal experience with the death of my mother. Yes. There is a real backlash that tends to happen involving anything with "religious" conotations. Many people give religions a bad name. I do recognise that science is a religion to many. As I have stated before in other threads, If you believe all answers can be found through science then it is your religion. I simply see science as a tool which provides facts based on measurement. Interpretation is where any religion gets messy

Beside the point.
Now address the point.

I have. That is the point. It is you who have made the some sort of distinction between losing a limb and the capacity to recall a memory.
I do not. Perhaps you would like to elaborate your understanding of any distinction you percieve.

Not for the first time, I’ve probably been a bit loose with my use of language. For me the word ”physical’ encapsulates energy as well as matter, given that matter is simply a form of energy. However, in the strictest terms, it is a misuse of the word.I am keen to defend the measurement issue though. To me, life forms are receivers, i.e. they have the ability to detect various aspects of reality, whatever ”reality’ may be. Whilst I accept that there are many things that science cannot measure at the moment, I simply don’t accept the assumption that science can never measure these things. It seems like we have some role reversal here, with you prepared to place limits on what science can contribute to our understanding, and me preaching open-mindedness in the matter (no pun intended)Let me give you an example.At the moment, science is unable to ”measure’ a dream, at least not to the point that in can accurately determine what is being dreamt. The best it can presently do is to detect brain activity during the dream phase of sleep. But is this always to be the case? I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be prepared to risk my life savings on the possibility that it will. Science has a pretty good track record of ”understanding the incomprehensible’.I also like to try to remind myself that reality within this universe has been around a whole lot longer than we have. Was reality any less ”real’ before we came along? Methinks not. “Am not”, I kind of like that. I could be the nondescript “Am not” It suits me rather well I thinkBut enough of the self-depracation. I deliberately placed the word “great” in front of the “I Am”, to suggest the theistic or divine. The whole idea suggests to me a desire to put oneself beyond the reach of ”measurement’, beyond the reach of science, beyond the reach of even the universe. Which does nothing for me, and will be one the reasons I do not seek the great “I Am”I used the word “retreat” as an alternative to regress, as I tend to see life as a journey, and “retreat” seems a slightly better fit.The idea itself is a simple one. Faced with the realisation that one is a miniscule part of the whole, the “bigger picture”, it can seem attractive to recreate the environment of a time when one felt oneself to be a much larger part of the whole, a time when one, by that definition, was much more significant, a time when one was sheltered from the harsher realities of life by parental figureheads, and a time also when the notion of mortality was much less acute.