Consciousness before physical creation

[Windwalker]

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

Some I believe use it differently, like having spirit before soul and soul at the top. But it's really saying the same thing, just a different word applied. You really have to determine what they're touching on to say how they're using it. I think that this order I mentioned is more common.

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

That is true as a method. But when it's a philosophy, it restricts how one can see things beyond it. I agree with multiple perspectives. I subscribe to an epistemological pluralism.

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

A way to talk about consciousness is to speak of it broadly as "awareness". That awareness occurs in many ways, and unfolds in many ways. Looking at how Alan Combs and Ken Wilber describe it may help:

"We are not saying that the only "really real" reality is sitting behind your eyes, nor are we implying that our consciousness is somehow "quaffing" reality into existence as we go. What we are saying is that some degree of subjectivity is indeed present all the way up and all the way down the evolutionary ladder, from the tiniest quarks to the biggest brains. This consciousness can be loosely described as a "perspective-making, perspective-taking" system that creates, collects, and organizes deeper, wider, more sophisticated points-of-view as it develops."​

There's a brief recorded discussion of this here you can listen to: Consciousness Explained Better | Integral Life

One way to look at why consciousness goes all the down and all the way up the ladder of evolution is to understanding that what emerges in the human brain is novel only in the depth of it, not the fact of it. To imagine it suddenly came into existence out of nothing is tantamount to magic. It's is comparable to a creationist paradigm where man was formed whole out of nothing. Awareness exists in everything in one form or another. There is the subjective sense of self and surroundings, even if it is extremely rudimentary in nature.

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

Oh that's easy. Try them. What works for me would totally lose someone who needs tight rules and roles imposed upon them for their development. They would fail to thrive in my practices. Likewise, I would be suffocated to death in some system that dictated forms over substance.

What needs to be recognized is that everyone is at different stages of their personal development. Certain types of systems work for those at earlier stages, which hinder at later stages. There is no one-size-fits-all religion.

What are the mind-sciences?

Psychology, for one. Mystical practices also go much deeper down that rabbit hole.

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

Hah! I don't have all the answers, but I do have lots of thoughts.

 

[idea]

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.

Us Mormons believe that our spirit has no beginning, and no end, and that we have free will because we have no beginning. Having no beginning allows us to escape the cause/effect chain - no initial cause to trace all our actions back to.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Us Mormons believe that our spirit has no beginning, and no end, and that we have free will because we have no beginning. Having no beginning allows us to escape the cause/effect chain - no initial cause to trace all our actions back to.

So you are saying that the spirit is not always conscious?

Isn't that just fine and dandy. There is an issue though with this. If the spirit does not house perpetual consciousness then what on earth is it's function?

 

[Gjallarhorn]

If the spirit does not house perpetual consciousness then what on earth is it's function?

Ad hoc solutions to unfavorable situations?

 

[Sha'irullah]

Ad hoc solutions to unfavorable situations?

I would prefer the concept that our spirit was created to run simulations then be given nonsense that the soul is not always conscious if you ask me.

Changing the definition and quality of the soul because it cannot survive rational analysis is just a massive cop-out.

It is like how William Lane Craig speaks of reason and god when debating an atheists but reverses all his arguments and behaves like a fundamentalist nut-job when preaching a sermon.

 

[Katzpur]

So you are saying that the spirit is not always conscious?

Isn't that just fine and dandy. There is an issue though with this. If the spirit does not house perpetual consciousness then what on earth is it's function?

I think you may have misunderstood idea. And just to further explain (I believe idea will agree with me on this), we do believe that God created our spirits, but that He did so using highly refined matter the LDS scriptures refer to as something which can essentially be described as "the light of truth," and that this matter (invisible to the naked eye) is, in fact, co-eternal with Him. What we don't believe in is an ex nihilo creation.

The spirit is always conscious. I'm not sure what she said that led you to believe otherwise. It was conscious before it entered a physical body (at birth), was conscious throughout the mortal life of the person to whom it gave life, continues to be conscious after death, even though it no longer resides within the body, and finally, will be conscious when it gives new life to the newly perfected body at the resurrection. It will remain conscious throughout eternity.

As a matter of fact, our belief that the spirit continues to exist as a fully cognizant entity, even while the body lies decaying in the earth, is the basis for our belief that deceased spirits can continue to learn, grow and make choices that will impact their eternal destiny.

 

[Awoon]

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?

Matter is just congealed consciousness.

 

[George-ananda]

Matter is just congealed consciousness.

I like that. Now someone's talking.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Matter is just congealed consciousness.

Other way around. Consciousness is just a product of congealed matter that has been arranged in a particular order. Mainly the correct order of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon elements.

 

[Sha'irullah]

I think you may have misunderstood idea. And just to further explain (I believe idea will agree with me on this), we do believe that God created our spirits, but that He did so using highly refined matter the LDS scriptures refer to as something which can essentially be described as "the light of truth," and that this matter (invisible to the naked eye) is, in fact, co-eternal with Him. What we don't believe in is an ex nihilo creation.

This changes matters completely then since I am only referring to the classical definement of a spirit.
If your spirit is nothing but a physical clone in a perpetual cycle of synthesis with our physical body then it would indeed explain consciousness after death although it still does not provide consciousness before life.

How can we have a blank slate?

The spirit is always conscious. I'm not sure what she said that led you to believe otherwise. It was conscious before it entered a physical body (at birth), was conscious throughout the mortal life of the person to whom it gave life, continues to be conscious after death, even though it no longer resides within the body, and finally, will be conscious when it gives new life to the newly perfected body at the resurrection. It will remain conscious throughout eternity.

How can we not perceive the events of our consciousness before the life int his universe then? That is the issue in which I am specifically addressing.

As a matter of fact, our belief that the spirit continues to exist as a fully cognizant entity, even while the body lies decaying in the earth, is the basis for our belief that deceased spirits can continue to learn, grow and make choices that will impact their eternal destiny.

LDS differ heavily from Christianity it seems

 

[Katzpur]

How can we not perceive the events of our consciousness before the life int his universe then? That is the issue in which I am specifically addressing.

Well, again, according to LDS thought, it was part of God's plan for mankind that we would not recall our existence prior to birth and so He made it so that we wouldn't. The reason for this is that (okay, this is going to be radically different from traditional Christianity...) we actually had a choice as to whether or not we wanted to experience mortality. This means that every single solitary person who has lived, is now living or ever will live, made the decision to experience life on earth. We believe that the reason we decided to do so was that we wanted to have the experiences that would ultimately enable us to progress to become like God ourselves. We knew there would be a lot of trials and challenges, and we knew that we would need to learn to make decisions between right and wrong in order to progress. Now if we could remember our previous existence, living in the presence of God, it would be relatively easy to just go through this life, knowing exactly what awaited us after death. We'd understand God's plan so perfectly that faith would be pretty much unnecessary. And having faith is a huge factor in our progress and growth. We believe that if we could now recall our life prior to our birth, the potential for growth would be considerably lessened.

LDS differ heavily from Christianity it seems

Yes, we differ in quite a number of ways from traditional Christianity, but we believe our doctrines were exactly what the ancient Christians believed.

 

[Runewolf1973]

See this becomes a problem when we have too many labels for the same thing...too many definitions. I believe that the soul IS our consiousness. How do we know that the soul exists?...because we know that our consciousness exists. We are conscious, therefore our soul exists. The debate is really not whether the soul exists or not, but whether our consciousness/soul extends beyond this physical life.

I find the notion or theory that conscious "animate" creatures somehow mysteriously arose out of non-conscious "inanimate" matter to be highly illogical. To me that just doesn't make any sense. Rather, I find it more logical to think that all energy was and is already conscious or "animate" to begin with, and that is what gave way to "animate" life. That energy just changed and evolved over time. Everything is "soul" or "spirit" and what we see as matter is that "soul" or "spirit" manifesting itself.


---

 

[atanu]

Other way around. Consciousness is just a product of congealed matter that has been arranged in a particular order. Mainly the correct order of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon elements.

How do we know that?

 

[atanu]

Fascinating topic.
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.

Yes. Fascinating post.

I have a query. You say "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"

I wish to know what then are the interdependent arisings in Nibbana that a monk will be conscious/aware of having escaped the Samsara and attained Nibbana?

I suppose that Nibbana is free of interdependent arising? If so then how will one ever know it, if consciousness, as you say, is solely arisen inter-dependently?

 

[atanu]

Yes. Fascinating post.

I have a query. You say "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"

I wish to know what then are the interdependent arisings in Nibbana that a monk will be conscious/aware of having escaped the Samsara and attained Nibbana?

I suppose that Nibbana is free of interdependent arising? If so then how will one ever know it, if consciousness, as you say, is solely arisen inter-dependently?

Either the Buddha lied that he was privy to a Nibbana that was devoid of any rising or falling or the understanding that Buddha taught that consciousness was merely a result of dependent risings is amiss.

 

[Sha'irullah]

How do we know that?

It is called biology, look it up

 

[Contemplative Cat]

Namaste
consciousness exists in all energy(and all qualities) like wettness in all water.

This means that nothing is unconscious, and thus "living beings" are just forms that have the capacity of an intellect, ie a brain.
Rocks and trees are just as conscious as beings, but not self conscious because they have no intellect.
this leads to the realization that when the brain dies we become like rocks and trees. Unthinking deep sleep. Thus no transmigration of a 'soul'.

Consciousness is simply inherent in all existence. I think they call it anamism but not sure.

 

[Sha'irullah]

See this becomes a problem when we have too many labels for the same thing...too many definitions. I believe that the soul IS our consiousness. How do we know that the soul exists?...because we know that our consciousness exists. We are conscious, therefore our soul exists. The debate is really not whether the soul exists or not, but whether our consciousness/soul extends beyond this physical life.

That has been the whole argument this entire time.

I find the notion or theory that conscious "animate" creatures somehow mysteriously arose out of non-conscious "inanimate" matter to be highly illogical.

I find your logic to be illogical.
Alll biological life we have today compromises of elements that can be found in separate forms. All of in which are non-biological at that. Our entire body compromises of non biological particles to create cells like any other animal.
Please look into the Urey–Miller experiment to learn a bit more about the "building blocks of life".

Also you fail to recognize that we are carbon based organism. So are you saying carbon has a soul? Just like Oxygen? Or Iron?

Also please provide an example of consciousness existing without a physical biologically present form.

To me that just doesn't make any sense.

Rather, I find it more logical to think that all energy was and is already conscious or "animate" to begin with,

Consciousness and anime are not equivalent always. This is a massive failure on your behalf.
You can think all you want but you require proof to say with sincerity that energy is conscious. Please provide examples of this.

and that is what gave way to "animate" life. That energy just changed and evolved over time. Everything is "soul" or "spirit" and what we see as matter is that "soul" or "spirit" manifesting itself.

Energy must have causality. You are heavily misusing the word energy here. Energy does not change nor does it evolve. The universe is the result of energy and that has never changed. What you wish to do is entirely rewrite science and knowledge altogether. The laws of physics do not change or else all matter and life would change no matter how slight something is. Thermal energy does not cease being thermal energy nor does any other kind.

 

[Katzpur]

Rocks and trees are just as conscious as beings, but not self conscious because they have no intellect.

Hello, Cat! I have a question for you... Could you explain, please, whether you see a difference between the consciousness of humans and animals. Also, I'm not quite sure what you mean when you make a distinction between consciousness and self-consciousness. Could you explain. I can personally kind of go along with the idea of all things having a consciousness, but to me, rocks and other things that we think of as "non-living" would have a different kind of consciousness than trees and other plant life. To me, there's a kind of heirarchy of consciousness goes like this...

God
human beings
other animals
plant life
other things (like rocks)

 

[idav]

Some more advanced animals are self aware similar to humans. Mainly great apes, elephants, and dolphins (probably more but thats what I know of). The rest have less intelligence than a human toddler, toddler being the point when humans pass the self aware test. Monkeys werent even passing.