What is a soul?

To me, to ask what a soul is, is silly and pointless.
I do not possess a soul. I am a soul. Edited by 2ice_baked_taters, : No reason given.

I am an expert on silly. As I change with time, to ask what I am depends upon the moment. I am certainly no expert on myself. Though I have managed to learn a few things about me as time has passed.

Ever human on earth seeks meaning of being. You have expressed a desire to "respect" and an acknowledgement of shortcomings based upon an ideal of perfection. Also a desire to learn from mistakes pushing toward your idea of perfection. You have humbled yourself to the service of a none physical thing. These statements are rife with meaning and sense of purpose. You seek to elevate yourself toward a non physical ideal. Why? Why? What is best? Your choices are random chance are they not?There is nothing known to man to indicate whether or not anything is caused by "chance"
Perhaps the idea of random should be replaced with unknown. The more we know about an event or subject of an event the closer we come to anticipating the outcome. With the understanding that with each and every reaction there is an equall and opposite reaction....nothing is ever random. We are just not capable understanding or keeping track of that many variables. Now if you meant that there is no higher power involved in life then you should be more clear. However you allready surve the higher power of your ideal. A concious drive toward "betterment" (whatever that is) exists or is it random? You may apply your quote below to your quote above. Is not your sense of "being" just a feeling? What love physically is..is imaterial. What love means to us is all that matters or...does it?

So, all the comunication we do is just useless gibberish with no meaning, a futile attempt at conveying who we are to another so they may know us for, we are unknowable but to ourselves. Seek no meaning for we are unkowable. Wow.....that is amazing. If no one understands
you and you have or seek no meaning what do you have? Explain this sense of "being" with no meaning. That would be projection yes? So, you are me or, I am you. To follow this thoroughly there is no "you" Just an intricate web of chemical reactions that interacts to stimuli. Just physical events and matter to analyze. This correlates with meaninglessness quite well. Where is the being? All I understand here is "It is" I do not ask a rock what it is. I cannot know a rock any more than I can know a person correct? Humility? to what? Why? You seek no meaning. Humility is a non physical ideal rife with motivations. Motivations are subjective non physical characterizations of behavioral observations. Why?You are attempting to comunicate that you have no meaning. I am trying to understand your meaninglessness. I am confused when you appear to convey meaning even if non intentionally. More to the point. How can human kind invent something? All events are
products of thier environment. "invention" is a subjective interpretation of physical events. "invention" implies meaning. I am getting real mixed messages here. No one can know you. You claim a "desire?" to "connect" and for others to "connect" Why? There is no higher purpose. You seek no meaning. I am trying to understand the meaningless sense of being you experience. I think I am beginning to understand. I cannot know your experience because as in the case of mutation there is no predetermined goal or meaning. Just a series of unforseen reactions to stimuli. I think?
A meaningless sense of "being" This is a tough one for me. What is perilous about it? I have done nothing more than state the fact that all events that will happen as they will....will happen as they will. Your above statement implies that you acknowledge some sort of "free will". How is it that you determine this "free will"? Is this not just natural randomness at work? Are you different or apart from nature? You are chance are you not? I am still trying to get a sense of "you", "being" with no meaning. I am a soul that experiences life. I am learning from the human experience. Asking you to identify exactly what "you" are is just as meaningless. Your answer, physically, will forever be lacking. Any meaningful answer will contradict your idea of "being" without meaning which is a contradiction in my understanding so far. Show me an answer with no meaning and I will have a meaningless answer.

An organism is nothing more than a complicated compound object. There is no need for sepparation.

Though this speaks nothing of a higher power...thank you.Now,Read the last statement in message 49

Again, Why? What would be the difference if you did stomp all over them?
Why the choice and how do you characterize it? Nature/Nurture? There's a difference? Explain to me how one arrives at the delineation. So to anologise....It is hot...it is cold....It is hard....it is radioactive....It is concious. Ah consiousness is a quality perhaps. Not a concrete and measurable thing. Or is it? Help me out here. Understanding how something mechanically works.
Consciosness is mechanical then. Choice, it is simply a perfect example of natures randomness at work. Invention is the result of random mutation. Explain this "we" What is there to accept? What accepts it? No, you have and are still attempting to sepparate meaning from experience. Unless all of your experiences are meaningless. How does one make a choice from a meaningless experience? How is spiritual meaning apart from, well, non spiritual? It is all meaning. Somehow you want to sepparate it. Is it not all meaning of the myriad things that happen during life?
Perhaps you meant to say that you do not agree with looking to anything other than yourself for inspiration. Yet you claim you are not perfect. What does this mean? There is no higher power or purpose so what is the motivation to improve? How do you know something is an "improvement"? Why is it an improvement? Explain this notion of an illusion of free will. Is this different from determinism? No apologies necessary I stand by my statement unless someone can show me how meaningless their life is. This will be tough as any explanation will have meaning and require a meaning for any possible way to begin an explanation.
I am curious as to your aversion to the notion of a higher power or purpose while holding that you percieve you are not perfect. What is the nature of this perception of imperfection? How can you know?

This is a misconception. There is not a part of me that is essential. I am essential. Your mind is stuck in the mechanical. You are component oriented. Whenever I would have been born would make no difference other than I would have experienced different circumstances and made different choices. People can drastically change their personality within a lifetime. This is done by either choice or necessity. In either case they are still themselves just doing what they choose or what they must do to survive and experience their circumstances in life. One may have a different persona but it is still they who choose to experience life that way in response to those particular circumstances. The simple fact that we in effect go through multiple sets of bodies in a lifetime as cells die and are replaced drives home to me that we are not our physical bodies. Now one can take exception and consider that our brain cells last a life time unless damaged. This still illustrates that we go beyond when other pathways are made and the person continues to go on. In cases where behavior is radically changed it simply means that the person is handicapped. It is no different if one loses an arm. One can not use an arm one does not have. I am not my behavior or my personality any more than I am my arm. I can be identified by my choices made evident by my actions through these things. Think of symbolism. In this way we can be many things. The choice is ours. We all through our lives identify "people" by their actions and how we relate to them. We understand a movie star one way until we see them in "real life" We know people at work in one way and tend to also act a particular way at work. We react toward race or looks or weight or behavior. It is all just symbolism of a fashion.Edited by 2ice_baked_taters, : extra thoughts

Simply look at what actors do. The evidence of our ability to "be other people" is blatantly obvious. People climb into and out of character on a regular basis throughout their lives. People profoundly change character within their lives all the time becoming different people by others perception. Does this mean they cease to exist at some point because they change? Every time you learn an improtant life lesson you fundamentally change. Why do you think it is expressed as spiritual growth? I am. within this life alone I can be many things. Many people. I have tended to settle upon a belief based on my experience and what the world has shown me.
You believe you are your experience. I believe I simply experience.
I am not my nose or my clothes or my hair or my status in the comunity...I am not a mere collection of my experiences for I experience them, however, they do become part of me in a sense. I can be identified by them however they are not me. The choices involving them are the tracks I leave behind. I am a force that affects my surroundings. As are you. You seek a tangible tied to a mindframe of physical component. The concept of "I am" does not fit that. Nor will it ever be identified by it. It is no different than to understand that the universe may be infinite and might have always existed. It is only we that put limits on things. I believe we draw lines we can understand setting limits to our understanding until we are ready. This is evident to me in the maturing of people everywhere. A person will not see a fundamental truth until they are ready to.

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.

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.