Consciousness before physical creation

[Sha'irullah]

Many arguments of the soul can stretch on forever but the most puzzling one is not what happens to the supposed existing soul after death but before life itself.

The soul according to almost all theists is the immortal essence of a person and continues for eternity. If this was so then why is it hard to believe that the soul and spirit end after physical existence?

If god creates the soul and what theists perceive as the true core of conscious experience then why is it hard to believe that god can dismantle and destroy it?

I recall of nobody who remembers the events that occurred while the soul preceded the physical avatar for the body.

Atheists and Deists like myself are looked at in a bizarre fashion for entirely disacknowledging the existence of the soul yet the question still occurs to exist about the relative nature of the soul/spirit's existence before physical life.

I recall interesting theology from Muslims describing the existence of the spirit before entering the dunya and how our soul is born Muslim from the beginning and gives testament that Allah is the only deity before entering the entrapment of the dunya.

This can be said so and indeed such a concept may be true but why would god erase the experience of the soul before casting it into physical existence. If the spirit/soul is the true and primary core of experience then it is absurd to state that the experiences of the soul can be lost. If one looses the foundation for A then one cannot proceed to B.

This destroys the foundation of the purpose and conceive of the soul and spirit outside of physical reality?

 

[George-ananda]

Well, here’s another way to look at it; a more ‘eastern’ view.

The soul is eternal before and after this short life. It transmigrates and reincarnates to advance itself through new challenges. Our soul’s home is on a higher plane/realm of nature. It has memory of all its past incarnations.

If the soul desires further and new experiences on the physical plane for its advancement, it births a new astral form (a realm between the soul and physical planes). This astral form will unite with a fetus and start a new experience. The new human will start as a blank slate with no memories. The soul guides this new form with its development.

What you’re calling ‘memory’ is our normal physical memory which can only include events that happened to that physical body. The soul memory includes all.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

The "soul," as varied and ambiguous as that term is, simply doesn't hold up to any sort of rational or evidence-based analysis. Like most things religious and mystical, it is an idea rooted in emotion and aesthetics. It's appeal isn't rational in nature, and it doesn't serve the human psyche in that role. Only when people find their irrational, emotional beliefs at odds with a rational worldview do they fall into the fruitless practice of attempting to reconcile the two. This seems to be a natural result of people wanting the comfort of their beliefs, but also needing others to accept that their beliefs are actually reasoned and reflect reality. It's a path which invariably results in many clumsy arguments and poorly rationalized views.

 

[ruffen]

Indeed the soul is a human construct, a good example of "I really really want this to be true, so therefore I believe that it is true".

There is no evidence for an immortal soul, and there is no evidence that any of our actions, intentions, decisions, memories, emotions, consciousness, or thinking, comes from anywhere else but the physical brain.

Undergo a surgery under general anesthetic, and all those abilities go away. Drink too much alcohol, and what seems like a great idea there and then, might embarass you to think of tomorrow. Where is your soul then?

Or is the soul just an observer, a parasite passively watching your life and your actions and bad decisions without interfering?


Besides, the soul, if it existed, would either have mass or not. If it has mass, it should be measurable - sometimes souls would land on laboratory scales and mess with experiments, so the soul would then be clearly measurable and detectable.

If the soul does not have mass, Special Relativity then dictates that the soul must at all times travel at the speed of light.

 

[ruffen]

The way I see it, our "soul" is the software that runs on the hardware that is our brain.

 

[Sha'irullah]

The "soul," as varied and ambiguous as that term is, simply doesn't hold up to any sort of rational or evidence-based analysis. Like most things religious and mystical, it is an idea rooted in emotion and aesthetics. It's appeal isn't rational in nature, and it doesn't serve the human psyche in that role. Only when people find their irrational, emotional beliefs at odds with a rational worldview do they fall into the fruitless practice of attempting to reconcile the two. This seems to be a natural result of people wanting the comfort of their beliefs, but also needing others to accept that their beliefs are actually reasoned and reflect reality. It's a path which invariably results in many clumsy arguments and poorly rationalized views.

It seems that without irrational and emotional biases that apologetics would be nonexistent. The concept of an afterlife in general is an obvious product of human egoism mixed with the need to survive. The afterlife is a sort spiritualistic extension of the biological need to survive.

 

[idav]

This destroys the foundation of the purpose and conceive of the soul and spirit outside of physical reality?

Sort of, I dont think god destroys any of it but it would take cosmic knowledge to remember all the experiences. The body experiences without our knowledge and will continue to do so when we are not aware of it. So we didnt miss what we think we missed prior to having a physical body, however your brain did miss it cause it didn't exist.

 

[Straw Dog]

At this moment, I tend to view the eternal soul as an abstract notion created and craved after as a means of eluding mortality cognizance. We cannot readily reconcile our survival instinct with the awareness of certain death, and so we generate an ego and ethos as anxiety buffers. In many cases, the ego is presented as powerful enough to transcend mortality, ergo the "soul".

 

[rusra02]

Many arguments of the soul can stretch on forever but the most puzzling one is not what happens to the supposed existing soul after death but before life itself.

The soul according to almost all theists is the immortal essence of a person and continues for eternity. If this was so then why is it hard to believe that the soul and spirit end after physical existence?

If god creates the soul and what theists perceive as the true core of conscious experience then why is it hard to believe that god can dismantle and destroy it?

I recall of nobody who remembers the events that occurred while the soul preceded the physical avatar for the body.

Atheists and Deists like myself are looked at in a bizarre fashion for entirely disacknowledging the existence of the soul yet the question still occurs to exist about the relative nature of the soul/spirit's existence before physical life.

I recall interesting theology from Muslims describing the existence of the spirit before entering the dunya and how our soul is born Muslim from the beginning and gives testament that Allah is the only deity before entering the entrapment of the dunya.

This can be said so and indeed such a concept may be true but why would god erase the experience of the soul before casting it into physical existence. If the spirit/soul is the true and primary core of experience then it is absurd to state that the experiences of the soul can be lost. If one looses the foundation for A then one cannot proceed to B.

This destroys the foundation of the purpose and conceive of the soul and spirit outside of physical reality?

I think the Bible gives the correct answer. The soul is the person or animal, not something that exists apart from the physical body. Of the first man, Genesis 2:7 reports:"And Jehovah God went on to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living person." The KJ translation of this verse is "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Note that Adam became a living soul, not that he had a living soul. Nowhere in the Holy Scriptures can be found the term immortal soul. In many places the Bible teaches the soul can and does die and can be destroyed.

 

[George-ananda]

It seems that without irrational and emotional biases that apologetics would be nonexistent. The concept of an afterlife in general is an obvious product of human egoism mixed with the need to survive. The afterlife is a sort spiritualistic extension of the biological need to survive.

Sounds good. I might agree with you if it were not for the paranormal evidence I've seen.

 

[Straw Dog]

Sounds good. I might agree with you if it were not for the paranormal evidence I've seen.

I'm trying to be more open-minded about the paranormal. Recently watched some documentaries about it.

Could you share some of your experiences? Why do you interpret them the way you do?

 

[George-ananda]

Indeed the soul is a human construct, a good example of "I really really want this to be true, so therefore I believe that it is true".

There is no evidence for an immortal soul, and there is no evidence that any of our actions, intentions, decisions, memories, emotions, consciousness, or thinking, comes from anywhere else but the physical brain.

I might agree if it were not for the quantity and quality of paranormal evidence I've seen.

Undergo a surgery under general anesthetic, and all those abilities go away. Drink too much alcohol, and what seems like a great idea there and then, might embarass you to think of tomorrow. Where is your soul then?

Anesthesia and alcohol can temporarily impair the connection between the physical brain and your Higher Self.

Or is the soul just an observer, a parasite passively watching your life and your actions and bad decisions without interfering?

The soul attempts to guide the physical ego. The success varies depending on the advancement level of the soul and the nature of the vehicle it's driving.

Besides, the soul, if it existed, would either have mass or not. If it has mass, it should be measurable - sometimes souls would land on laboratory scales and mess with experiments, so the soul would then be clearly measurable and detectable.

The soul consists of matter above the physical realm and cannot be detected by physical instruments. Most of the matter in the universe cannot be detected by physical instruments.

If the soul does not have mass, Special Relativity then dictates that the soul must at all times travel at the speed of light.

It has mass not detectable by physical instruments.

 

[George-ananda]

I'm trying to be more open-minded about the paranormal. Recently watched some documentaries about it.

Could you share some of your experiences? Why do you interpret them the way you do?

When I said 'I've seen' I was referring to things I've seen in all the different forms of media and personal discussions with others including serious studies by scientists and parapsychologists. I probably should have said 'I've heard/read'. For me personally, nothing dramatic has happened; just small things that I felt were real and not worth debating with others. I'm left-brained and many would say less likely to have psychic and spiritual experiences. I'm better at logically evaluating what I hear/read and trying to be unbiased about it and believe things happen that could not happen in the universe envisioned by the atheist-materialists.

 

[Straw Dog]

Right now, I'm watching a show about the thesis that the plasma used to make synaptic connections in the brain survives death, so to speak, and causes the phenomena of orbs. So, in this case, it would be plasma rather than 'consciousness' per se.

 

[Me Myself]

Sounds good. I might agree with you if it were not for the paranormal evidence I've seen.

Likewise.

 

[ruffen]

I might agree if it were not for the quantity and quality of paranormal evidence I've seen.

I haven't seen any.

Anesthesia and alcohol can temporarily impair the connection between the physical brain and your Higher Self.
...
The soul attempts to guide the physical ego. The success varies depending on the advancement level of the soul and the nature of the vehicle it's driving.

But who is the real you, the conscious thinking you that you perceive as yourself? The consciousness that arises from activity in the physical brain or the higher self? Ar you your soul or are you your brain?

The soul consists of matter above the physical realm and cannot be detected by physical instruments. Most of the matter in the universe cannot be detected by physical instruments.
...
It has mass not detectable by physical instruments.

How convenient. If you think about dark matter and dark energy, both are detected by physical instruments - scientists don't pull theories like these out of thin air. Dark matter is real and is detected by the gravitational pull it creates, dark energy is detected through the detection of accelerated expansion of our Universe by observation of distant supernovae.

But do you mean that the soul is undetected, or inherently undetectable?


If it is undetected and/or undetectable, how can you know it exists?

 

[George-ananda]

I haven't seen any.

I haven't experienced anything dramatic either. I clarified this in post #13 above.

But who is the real you, the conscious thinking you that you perceive as yourself? The consciousness that arises from activity in the physical brain or the higher self? Ar you your soul or are you your brain?

Ultimately the real 'you' is Brahman/Oneness. What we colloquially think of as 'you' is a spark of Brahman under the temporary illusion of separateness (called Maya in Hinduism). Brahman Alone is Real.

How convenient. If you think about dark matter and dark energy, both are detected by physical instruments - scientists don't pull theories like these out of thin air. Dark matter is real and is detected by the gravitational pull it creates, dark energy is detected through the detection of accelerated expansion of our Universe by observation of distant supernovae.

Dark matter is only indirectly detectable by the gravitational pull of 80% of the universe. It is not detectable in tiny amounts by any physical instrument.

But do you mean that the soul is undetected, or inherently undetectable?

It is undetectable by current physical instruments.

If it is undetected and/or undetectable, how can you know it exists?

Because humans have astral bodies, soul bodies, etc. These bodies have senses like our physical body has senses. Advanced masters can explore the universe through these super-physical bodies (i.e. astral projection, etc.).

In Vedic thought we are sparks of Brahman encased in five sheaths (maya-kosa = illusion sheaths). The outer most sheath/body is our physical body. There is detailed understandings available of each of these sheaths for those wishing to know more.

Guessing your next question might be 'how do we know these masters/sages/rishis of India are not full of crap?.' To that they would say don't take our word for it, find out for yourself if it's true by personal experience. However this exploration can take years or lifetimes of spiritual practice. Before that, we can never have proof but can consider this as a hypothesis. To me, it is clearly the most reasonable hypothesis I have heard considering what I have read of and by these masters and it entails the most reasonable universe structure for explaining so-called paranormal phenomena that I have heard (and that includes the atheistic-materialism hypothesis).

 

[Windwalker]

At this moment, I tend to view the eternal soul as an abstract notion created and craved after as a means of eluding mortality cognizance. We cannot readily reconcile our survival instinct with the awareness of certain death, and so we generate an ego and ethos as anxiety buffers. In many cases, the ego is presented as powerful enough to transcend mortality, ergo the "soul".

Though some of what you say in here has truth, it seems you are conflating things together where not justified. I do not view the soul as part of some immortality project, anymore than the ego as traditionally understood is that either. To start with some terminology here if you look at what the ego is, it is really nothing other than what we identify as the "self", considering that the word ego itself means self. What we typically identify as the ego in normal use boils down to the body-mind self-image.

What the "soul" references in traditional usage of religious traditions is on that Great Chain of Being, which moves from matter, to body, to mind, to soul, to spirit. We ascend up this chain of being from the lower to the higher through evolution; from the simple to the complex. The higher the complexity, the greater the inclusion of the lower levels and hence the greater the depth inherent within that level. Mind includes body, includes matter, and therefore has more depth. Soul, includes mind, includes body, includes matter, and therefore more depth.

The soul is really a continuation of the "self", or the ego as you say, but it is not the exclusive body-mind identification of the typical ego, but includes or embraces a higher stage of awakened consciousness. It is recognized by those who access this within themselves through higher states of consciousness than ordinary consciousness consisting of constructed mental models, as the highest form of self-knowledge beyond the ordinary "ego" of body-mind identification. You are still "you" in the sense of a recognized separate individuality, but that individuality is centered in a much higher stage than the ordinary ego.

But this has nothing to do with death-anxieties and immortality projects. It has to do simply with self-awareness. It has to do with self-realization. It has to do with self-identify beyond the simpler self-identifications at lower stages of ones growth, or evolution. In fact, in moving into these sorts of awareness of self at higher stages, death-anxiety becomes non-questions. It's not that you tell yourself some tale that everything will be alright 'after death', or something like this. It's just the very need to look for relief from such fears is gone. It is the exclusive identification with the body-mind ego form that creates that anxiety in the first place. If you don't identify that way, the sets of questions themselves become replaced with new questions. Death anxiety isn't part of those sets of questions that exist at the soul level, just like worrying about separation anxiety from your mother, though part of the fears of a toddler, is not part of the anxieties of an adult.

As far as this reductionist point of view that its "all just the brain", I wish to offer a simple response. Every single thing we experience in the body has its correlation in the brain, or the nervous system to give it a broader reach (not all animals have a proper brain, and yet still experience life). There is always an exterior correlate for the interior reality. But the system of a worm for instance, is not itself sophisticated enough for "mind" to emerge as an expressions of consciousness. The worm has consciousness, as does everything all the way down in the great chain of being. But that consciousness is not a fully expressed as in the higher mind of us as mammals possessing a neocortex in a triune brain.

It is not that brain creates consciousness ex-nihlo, like some "god-did-it" sort of magical creationism, but rather consciousness is there all the way down and all the way up, from simple "prehension" as Whitehead called it, to comprehension, to apprehension of what is ultimate in awareness. Mind simply opens what is there into our body, which is then integrated into our minds, our psyches, and into our self-identification, the ego, and beyond into soul, and into spirit.

Just as mind is itself not something you can put in test tube or on a scale measuring mass (I'm not referring to brain matter, I'm referring to the mental world we live in itself of thoughts and concepts, etc which evoke responses in the material body, of brain and body and matter - just as action is registered in the movement of the arm, cutting off the arm does not get rid of the source of action), ego and soul, and spirit as well are realities of the interior. They are not something evaluating by the empiric-analytic sciences through units of weight and measurement. They are invested in the mind-sciences or the spiritual disciplines looking within.

I'll leave it at this.

 

[Ablaze]

Fascinating topic.

In Buddhist philosophy, consciousness (Pali: viññāṇa, Sanskrit: vijñāna) is merely a causally conditioned phenomenon that helps constitute the human personality despite having no relation to a permanent identity or self as an agent. With regard to mind and consciousness in particular, a unique metaphor is used by the Buddha to describe their transient nature:

Just as a monkey, swinging through a forest wilderness, grabs a branch. Letting go of it, it grabs another branch. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. In the same way, what's called 'mind,' 'intellect,' or 'consciousness' by day and by night arises as one thing and ceases as another.

Assutava Sutta, SN 12.61

Evidently, one cannot find a mind, consciousness, or self that is separate from change. There is no true self, only the sense of self that arises and ceases at each passing moment, never the same from one instant to the next.

Nonetheless, it is tempting to identify with consciousness, which seems to animate a being, thus giving it life. This tendency to identify with consciousness, along with the other aggregates, is acknowledged as a form of clinging, which is ultimately harmful.

An underlying theme of Buddhist philosophy is the interdependent nature of phenomena, expressed in terms of dependent co-arising (Pali: paticca samuppāda; Sanskrit: pratītya samutpāda).

"And what is dependent co-arising? From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications. From fabrications as a requisite condition comes consciousness. From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form. From name-&-form as a requisite condition come the six sense media. From the six sense media as a requisite condition comes contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging/sustenance. From clinging/sustenance as a requisite condition comes becoming. From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. Such is the origination of this entire mass of stress & suffering.

Paticca-samuppada-vibhanga Sutta, SN 12.2

Dependent co-arising thus facilitates a deeper understanding of not-self by demonstrating that the emergent sense of self necessarily depends on other factors outside the alleged boundaries of a person:

When a disciple of the noble ones has seen well with right discernment this dependent co-arising and these dependently co-arisen phenomena as they are actually present, it is not possible that he would run after the past, thinking, 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past?'

Paccaya Sutta, SN 12.20

In the sequence of dependently co-arisen links, consciousness has no inherent existence. It is troublesome to even refer to dependent origination as a sequence or its individual components as links due to the inter-dependent, bi-directional, co-arising of phenomena. As each “link” (Pali, Sanskrit: nidana) is relative and interconnected, dependent co-arising is not a linear chain. Due to the non-linearity of dependent co-arising, the sequence of conditioning is anything but unidirectional. The mutually conditioned relationship between name-&-form on one hand and consciousness on the other is illustrated by the following passage:

I will give you an analogy; for there are cases where it is through the use of an analogy that intelligent people can understand the meaning of what is being said. It is as if two sheaves of reeds were to stand leaning against one another. In the same way, from name-&-form as a requisite condition comes consciousness, from consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form.

Nalakalapiyo Sutta, SN 12.67

Name-&-form and consciousness are thus shown to be mutually dependent. Without one, the other could not exist. This point is reiterated on multiple occasions:

'Name-&-form exists when consciousness exists. From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form.' [...]'Consciousness exists when name-&-form exists. From name-&-form as a requisite condition comes consciousness.' [...] 'Name-&-form doesn't exist when consciousness doesn't exist. From the cessation of consciousness comes the cessation of name-&-form.' [...] 'Consciousness doesn't exist when name-&-form doesn't exist. From the cessation of name-&-form comes the cessation of consciousness.'

Nagara Sutta, SN 12.65

Clearly, consciousness is not an isolated link within dependent co-arising, but part of an interdependently arisen stream that is mistaken as a substance, supporting the illusion of self.

Not only are mind and body mutually constitutive, but mentality-&-materiality, in the singular, is inseparable from consciousness. In other words, consciousness cannot be surgically extracted from mentality-&-materiality to exist on its own. This is further illustrated in the following discourse:

Were someone to say, 'I will describe a coming, a going, a passing away, an arising, a growth, an increase or a proliferation of consciousness apart from form, from feeling, from perception, from fabrications,' that would be impossible.

Upaya Sutta SN 22.53

In Buddhism, consciousness is not its own entity, separable from material existence (which constitute “form”), or from sensations, perceptions, and cognition (which mutually constitute “name”). There is a clear qualitative difference between “name” (the mental) on one hand, and “form” (the physical) on the other, yet the Buddha always teaches that they are mutually dependent (see again the Upaya Sutta, SN 22.53; Nagara Sutta, SN 12.65; Nalakalapiyo Sutta, SN 12.67; etc.).

Interestingly, the place of consciousness in the chain of dependent origination is immediately succeeding mental fabrications and immediately preceding name-&-form, coming between cognition on one side and mind and matter on the other. On the basis of dependent co-arising, fabrications condition consciousness and consciousness conditions name-&-form, which may appear counter-intuitive. Only upon a clarification of definitions does the order of these conditional relationships make sense:

"And what is name-&-form? Feeling, perception, intention, contact, & attention: This is called name. The four great elements, and the form dependent on the four great elements: This is called form. This name & this form are called name-&-form.

"And what is consciousness? These six are classes of consciousness: eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, intellect-consciousness. This is called consciousness.

"And what are fabrications? These three are fabrications: bodily fabrications, verbal fabrications, mental fabrications. These are called fabrications.

Paticca-samuppada-vibhanga Sutta, SN 12.2

Fabrications of body, mind, and speech give rise to sense consciousness, and sense consciousness conditions the ability to perceive, attend, and so on. In Buddhist philosophy, the nature of one’s consciousness depends on the nature of one’s fabrications (otherwise understood as dispositions) and consciousness in turn factors into the nature of name-&-form, the psychophysical personality. Thus, consciousness cannot exist in-and-of-itself, a point reiterated in the scriptures:

It's good, monks, that you understand the Dhamma taught by me in this way, for in many ways I have said of dependently co-arisen consciousness: 'Apart from a requisite condition, there is no coming-into-play of consciousness.'

Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta, MN 38

Ultimately, consciousness is not an isolated link within the chain of dependent co-arising, but part of the interdependent reality of phenomena. Because consciousness is inter-dependently co-arisen, it cannot be claimed to be in any way distinct from the things that give rise to it.

 

[Straw Dog]

What the "soul" references in traditional usage of religious traditions is on that Great Chain of Being, which moves from matter, to body, to mind, to soul, to spirit. We ascend up this chain of being from the lower to the higher through evolution; from the simple to the complex. The higher the complexity, the greater the inclusion of the lower levels and hence the greater the depth inherent within that level. Mind includes body, includes matter, and therefore has more depth. Soul, includes mind, includes body, includes matter, and therefore more depth.

Do all religious traditions use "soul" in this manner?

It is the exclusive identification with the body-mind ego form that creates that anxiety in the first place. If you don't identify that way, the sets of questions themselves become replaced with new questions. Death anxiety isn't part of those sets of questions that exist at the soul level, just like worrying about separation anxiety from your mother, though part of the fears of a toddler, is not part of the anxieties of an adult.

I agree with this, actually.

As far as this reductionist point of view that its "all just the brain", I wish to offer a simple response. Every single thing we experience in the body has its correlation in the brain, or the nervous system to give it a broader reach (not all animals have a proper brain, and yet still experience life). There is always an exterior correlate for the interior reality. But the system of a worm for instance, is not itself sophisticated enough for "mind" to emerge as an expressions of consciousness. The worm has consciousness, as does everything all the way down in the great chain of being. But that consciousness is not a fully expressed as in the higher mind of us as mammals possessing a neocortex in a triune brain.

Reductionism is merely a single point of view with its own utility and limitations. I feel free to draw from multiple POVs, or none.

What is consciousness? How do you determine that everything has it all the way down?

Just as mind is itself not something you can put in test tube or on a scale measuring mass (I'm not referring to brain matter, I'm referring to the mental world we live in itself of thoughts and concepts, etc which evoke responses in the material body, of brain and body and matter - just as action is registered in the movement of the arm, cutting off the arm does not get rid of the source of action), ego and soul, and spirit as well are realities of the interior. They are not something evaluating by the empiric-analytic sciences through units of weight and measurement. They are invested in the mind-sciences or the spiritual disciplines looking within.

Are some spiritual disciplines more efficient than others? How do you determine this?

What are the mind-sciences?

It seems that you have all the answers and I have all the questions.