What is a soul?

AnswersInGenitals wrote: Good question. Of course it requires belief in souls to be answered properly. While I don't believe in souls, I make the transcontextual observation that the genes of an aborted fetus do not die. They live on in the extant population of the fetus's species. Alleles, too, live on, but not in precise allelic combinations (unless there happens to be an identical twin}. Perhaps, then, there is a soul gene. If so, it might qualify for immortality, because the genes are out to live forever. To wit; there were genes in your hypothetically aborted fetus that are >500 million years old.”Hoot Mon

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The most incomprehensible thing about nature is that it is comprehensible. ”A. Einstein

Maybe there are those who have souls and those who don't. A soul could be a birth defect, needing lifelong spiritual medication, or it could be installed later through evangelical surgery. In my case, a soul is something I was born without, like a tail, horns, webbed feet, feathers...”Hoot Mon

2ice_baked_taters, re: I don't define a "soul" anything but a fluffy figment of the imaginations of true believers. How am I suppose to describe something that doesn't exist? I was also born without a need to be spiritual, so my personal glossary is tilted away from that kind of silliness.”Hoot Mon

2ice_baked_taters. re: Have you considered your irrational bias in this matter of belief? You seem to want to project YOUR principles of belief onto others. Is this fair? Believing in something does not make it a fact, because belief is a personal issue, while facts are transpersonal. Gravity is a fact, not a belief, and I can say it applies to you as well as to me. A soul, on the other hand, is only a personal thing, a religious belief, and therefore it has no transpersonal value.”Hoot Mon Edited by Hoot Mon, : typos

Don't you see what you're saying here? You are confusing transpersonal facts”age, heigth, weight, education, career”with personal beliefs”soul, spirit, savior, god. Just because YOU believe in souls and spirits does not mean they have any transpersonal value, because beliefs are entirely personal. You might even have a personal relationship with God, but whatever that is simply ENDS THERE. I don't have to BELIEVE in your weight, for example, I only accept that measure of your existence as a pure fact. (Boy, do get the feeling that I'm wasting my time!) Agreed absolutely!btw: Do you have to BELIEVE in oxygen to avoid suffocation?”Hoot Mon

2iced_baked_taters: You have a condition known to occur in true believers as "belief fixation." Your world is so belief-orientd that you cannot appreciated facts unless you "believe in them." I don't see anything wrong with that...so long as you understand that it is entirely a personal matter for you. The fact that I don't believe in Tooth Fairies is NOT a belief. Please! And if you happen to believe in them that does not make them a fact for me. Ay?Question: If I am willing to accept your personal belief that you have a soul, are you willing to accept the fact that I don't?I can factually say that I have a heart and a brain, even though I have never seen either one. But just because you believe you have a soul does not necessarily mean that I have one too. I've heard people say that their dogs have souls. But I have yet to hear a dog say that it believes it has one. (I'm pretty sure, however, that my dog "believes" in squirrels. All I have to do is to mention them and he is rip-snorting ready for a squirrel communion.)”Hoot MonEdited by Hoot Mon, : blips

And your proof is...? Faith and belief are the business of the bicameral mind, as described by Julian Jaynes. When humans arise from their primitive bicamerality they become conscious and then are able to deal with facts. The fact that you have a faith fixation and must believe in everything you say and do is evidence of your bicamerality. Thank you. Case closed.”Hoot Mon

Well, whadda ya got to refute Jaynes' theory, besides calling him an "excentric bird"? If the issue here is the possession of a "soul," then the burden is on you to prove it. Since I can't prove that you do or don't have one, we are both fussing around with unprovable propositions. BUT, you are out of line to say that I have a "soul" when I say that I don't. Remember, I am NOT saying that you don't have a" soul." If that's what you believe, then OK, I'll respect that. The real question here is: Do you respect my opinion that I don't have one of those true-believer thingies.”Hoot Mon

Once I believed I was a frog. And then a princess came by and kissed me. After that I wasn't a frog anymore. But I never became a prince...didn't have the genes for it.”Hoot Mon

I don't "believe in" much, because "believing in" is the business of true believers. Instead, I try to find principles that support my perceived models of reality. But OK, without the sarcasm, I do believe that these principles are important:1. Karma”"what goes around comes around"”life lessons have taught me that.2. Grace”a deep concept that measures a person's behavior in almost any situation.3. Emersonian free will”we are all entirely responsible for who we are and what becomes of us.4. Self-actualization”upward mobility on Maslows's need hierarchy.Of course these things can be conflated with "souls," if you are so disposed, but I don't need to. I have enough trouble managing my own conflated personality.”Hoot Mon

Put down? OK, not a put down. Well, for one thing, I believe that communicating with true believers can be very frustrating if I try to do it sincerely. True believers are belief-oriented, of course, and thus they are not often capable of rational discourse. To wit; I tried to accommodate you rationally and failed. But I'll try again. Here is my key point: I believe that when I die NOTHING will happen to me other than natural disintegration and decay. With a belief like that I really don't place much value on my "soul." I also believe that the same thing applies to all other living organisms. The only "hope" that any critter has for "life beyond the grave" is in its progeny, which is a genetic affair”and there are no "soul genes" that I know of.Once again, if you choose to believe differently, that's fine. Maybe "souls" are like laps”when you stand up or lay down they go away and nobody knows where they go. I believe that "souls" are devices used by religions to hold their faithful's feet to the fiire. Hey, maybe "souls" and "soles" are the same thing after all.Question: Do "souls" ever stink?”Hoot Mon

VERY interesting personal observation. Trauma can alter or obliterate a person's "person," and head injuries have a long history of bad outcomes. In fact, trauma does not even need to come from physical injury”war trauma has a record of terrible results.These observations certainly do point out that if a "soul" actually does exist it is not immutable. But why bother with a "soul" at all when "personality" will do for an explanation of what can be distorded by trauma?”Hoot Mon