What is a soul?

I just wanted a way ”in’, to engage you so that you would start to reveal some of the things you believe. I posed the question “what is a soul?” in the opening thread and ended up talking interminably about my own beliefs.If you read my question carefully, I don’t ever say that I believe in a ”component soul’. Remember I don’t believe in a soul at all. I am aware that you have already implied your belief in the ”oneness’ of the soul. However, I wanted to explore the idea of the ”youness’ of you, and if it was in any way transferable, so sought to construct a scenario that might offer some insight.I am happy to plead guilty to the belief that human beings are essentially biological machines, and will try to expand on that when I get some time. You really need to help me out here. Are you saying that you would have been the same soul, living a different life, developing in a different way, with a different sense of who ”you’ are/were, but still ”you’ in some non-physical sense?Do you see where I’m coming from? If you can be identified by your choices, and your choices had been different because of the circumstances of your life, to what extent could ”you’ still be regarded as ”you’ and not somebody else?Or are you saying there would still have been an ”I’, just a different ”I’, and the you that is ”you’ might never have existed?But what I really need to understand is what you are saying with the phrase, “would make no difference”. Would make no difference to what? I’m still not getting the sense of what you mean by soul and ”essential’.

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?

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

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.

Cheers pilate.Thanks for the contribution. It’s nice to hear from someone who was actually 'in the neighbourhood’ at the time the big deal was going down. I’m not sure how beautiful the topic is, but I hope everyone is having some fun.

To be able to function effectively as beings, we need to have faith in our own perception of reality - and I suspect that’s no less true for a cow or a squirrel than it is for a human being. If I had no faith in my perception that the staircase was ”real’, I would forever be trapped on the upper landing Obviously life forms are more than receivers, in the same way as humans are more than simply bipeds, so I would never read the statement, “humans are bipeds” to mean that was their only attributeThe point I was making was; is there anything special about life that allows it to detect forms of reality that cannot be measured by science? You appear to suggest that there may be whilst I prefer to wait and see what transpires. Agreed. But that’s not what I said. I said at the moment science can do no more than detect the brain activity that points to a dream occurring. At the moment science has no way of determining what is being dreamt, so the dream is incomprehensible in the sense that monitoring brain activity offers science no ”knowledge’ of the dream. The question would be, can science ever ”progress’ enough to accurately tell what a person dreamed by analyzing their brain activity, etc. I put the word ”progess’ in quotes as it’s questionable whether the ability to read the minds of others could ever be considered to be progress. I’m not sure I follow you here. I saw something recently where a neuroscientist felt that most of the mysteries of the brain would be solved within the next twenty years. I don’t have any way of knowing whether he’s right, but I assume you would take issue with him if he is implying that the mysteries of the mind and the ”self’ will similarly be solved.

I’m increasingly getting a sense off, “I think, therefore it is”. By that I mean you appear to be suggesting that not only is a thought a non-physical reality, but the ideas contained within the thought become non-physical realities. In other words, if you can imagine something, anything even, the very act of doing so imparts a degree of reality (that is necessarily beyond the realms of scientific measurement).Or do I completely misunderstand where you are coming from?

I started this thread with my devil’s advocate hat on, and I think it’s time to dust it down again to see if it still fits. So for the sake of argument, let’s accept the concept of god and an afterlife, etc.I guess my first question would be if animals are souls, do these souls persist after their physical entity ceases to be? In other words, do they have the chance of accepting salvation?Or do animals automatically receive salvation, as they have never committed original sin?Does the Bible have anything to say on these issues, and if not, how are we to determine the answers?Well it’s off with the devil’s advocate’s hat and back to the kennel for me now

Strictly speaking, this is not my quote, I was simply responding to another for the purposes of debate. Absolutely. One of my areas of interest is how we come to formulate our belief structures in areas where our understanding is very limited. I don’t know if you’ve read the OP, but one of the questions I asked there was, “What is it that draws people to their beliefs in this area?”Edited by dogrelata, : No reason given.

Given your hope, what is it of you that you’d like to endure beyond your physical demise?

I realise this is entirely hypothetical, but if your hopes were to be realised, what do you think it might retrospectively tell you about the nature of reality, and specifically some of the ideas regarding the soul that have been expressed within this thread?Edited by dogrelata, : No reason given.

I realise my question always had the potential to be a bit on the dumb side, but I’m struggling to articulate what I’m trying to understand.To the uninitiated onlooker, many of the views you express appear to be very close to agnosticism, yet you clearly hold deeply felt faith-based beliefs. It’s tough for a non-believer like me to get my head round this. All my instincts tell me that a significant part of faith-based belief arises out of the sentiments you expressed in Message 104, so I struggle to see past the possible cause and effect - people want to believe these things so badly, they are prepared to believe almost anything to keep that hope alive.You may not want to answer this question, but I’d like to ask it anyway. Would what you expressed in Message 104 be enough for you if something did endure beyond your physical demise, or would you also need the existence of the god you believe in?

I guess this thread has more or less run its course now, but it did get to the century mark, so I’m happy with that.Anyway, I hope if you get your afterlife, it’s all you would wish it to be.