How can humans live without a soul/spirit?

[Unveiled Artist]

In my understanding soul and spirit is the same, i could be wrong on this

How would you define it?

If our higher self is without ego, what is it that exists that makes us alive in your opinion?

In one sense you're saying that true being is without ego etc (a blackened room was my analogy) but the OP is speaking of it as something not an absence of something.

What would that thing/being (spirit/soul) be that keeps us alive in your view?

 

[ChristineM]

How can humans live without a soul/spirit?

I find it very easy and freeing not to be innombered with a supernatural chiain around my neck

What keeps people alive is chemistry.

 

[Spirit of Light]

Why to believe on things that we do not understand? And the question you asked is quite simple. Have you seen any evidence of spirit in dying men or animals? Have you seen ghosts? You have no evidence but you still believe. Atheist just do not do that.If it is a being. What do you think?Personality and memory is from your brain. When the brain stops working, they are erased like a file in a computer.

I have seen what i can not explain, i saw what i believe was my fathers spirit when he passed away. But i can not say for sure

 

[WalterTrull]

How can humans live without a soul/spirit?

My thought is that you’re talking about two different things. Soul seems to refer to whatever it is that makes us separate. Might be a figment.

Spirit I believe refers to consciousness itself. In the context of the question, ‘humans’ might be the figment.

 

[oldbadger]

As the headline say, How can humans live without a soul/spirit?

The same as Rabbits, Moose and Butterflies do?
Or Giraffes?

 

[RestlessSoul]

In order to answer the question, you'd have to define what it is to be alive. And beyond that, perhaps, what it is to be conscious.

If you use soul, or spirit, to mean that which distinguishes a living organism from a physical entity without biological processes, then you could conclude that spirit is necessary to sustain life. I would intuitively incline to such an interpretation myself. Plenty wouldn't, of course.

By this definition, all living things have spirit. However, not all living things have consciousness. While it seems perfectly possible to me that the universe itself may have consciousness, that it is all one entity, and that even inanimate matter may be part of a living whole..

More succinctly, it's a mystery.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Fair enough.

If you were to talk to someone on the street in your dream, would you assume they recognize they were being talked to? Do they have their own consciousness?

I find that very hard to answer -- when I dream, I always have this feeling that I know that I'm dreaming, and therefore all assumptions feel like they are somehow untrue anyway.

 

[Kooky]

As the headline say, How can humans live without a soul/spirit?

If there is no form of spirit or soul that is the true being, what is keeping us alive?

Have you ever heard of nutrients, water and oxygen?
I'm not being facetious here - I don't think we need anything else apart from a functioning organism.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

As the headline say, How can humans live without a soul/spirit?

If there is no form of spirit or soul that is the true being, what is keeping us alive?

Please respect that people will have different understanding and views on this, no need for snarky or bad words toward others who may see it different than you do.

I have no idea what it is that makes us who we are of if we even have a soul. I believe we do, that I do, but I don't know that means in practical terms.

Cartesian duality argues that we are body and spirt. But the astonishing hypothesis considers that we are neurons and associated chemistry and that what we are is the work product of those neurons and chemistry.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Perhaps they enjoy such but I can't see how.

That is part of the objection to dualism. How could an immaterial soul or spirit be attached to a physical body? What is the conduit between the two? I have no answer for that. Unless the soul is a physical thing. Then we could at least conceive of questions and formulate hypotheses.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Have you ever heard of nutrients, water and oxygen?
I'm not being facetious here - I don't think we need anything else apart from a functioning organism.

I wouldn't mind getting laid. But that is more of a quality of life issue rather than a requirement to survive.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I'm curious to add, who doen't believe in a soul?

Do you believe there is something unique about each person with or without the metaphysical terminology to explain it?

 

[Revoltingest]

As the headline say, How can humans live without a soul/spirit?

If there is no form of spirit or soul that is the true being, what is keeping us alive?

Please respect that people will have different understanding and views on this, no need for snarky or bad words toward others who may see it different than you do.

How would one determine the existence of a "soul/spirit"?

 

[WalterTrull]

Unless the soul is a physical thing.

Probably the other way round: the body not being physical.

 

[RestlessSoul]

How would one determine the existence of a "soul/spirit"?

 

[Trailblazer]

As the headline say, How can humans live without a soul/spirit?

If there is no form of spirit or soul that is the true being, what is keeping us alive?

I believe it is the soul/spirit that is keeping us alive, so we could not survive without a soul/spirit.
The following is what I believe about the soul, which is synonymous to the human spirit.

The soul is not “in” the body but rather it is associated with the body and it directs the body and brain and mind. It is the soul that directs human faculties. As outer circumstances are communicated to the soul by the eyes, ears, and brain, the soul communicates its desires through the brain to the physical body, which thereby expresses itself.

The soul works through the brain and while we are alive on earth in a physical body, but when we die and no longer have a physical body the soul continues to live. It lives forever, and that is why it is called an immortal soul.

The soul is the sum total of the personality so it is the person himself; the physical body is pure matter with no real identity. The person, after he dies and leaves his physical body behind remains the same person, and he goes to the spiritual world where he continues the life he conducted in the physical world. The soul takes on some kind of a spiritual form made up of elements that exist in the spiritual world.

 

[George-ananda]

I think a normal functioning human has a physical body, etheric body, astrl body, mental body and a soul/causal body.

The physical body alone can just exist in a comatose state with no capacity for thought or feelings.

 

[jonathan180iq]

How can humans live without a soul/spirit?

The same way as everything else that has ever lived before, or will live after.

If there is no form of spirit or soul that is the true being, what is keeping us alive?

Chemical and biological processes.

Remove consciousness from a person, and they're still alive, aren't they? Even after we die as individuals many systems and processes, both internal and external, are still going for very long periods of time.

I think a much more interesting question is; When do biotic processes begin and abiotic processes end? What is the barrier between life and non-life? Does it even exist?

 

[Trailblazer]

In order to answer the question, you'd have to define what it is to be alive. And beyond that, perhaps, what it is to be conscious.

If you use soul, or spirit, to mean that which distinguishes a living organism from a physical entity without biological processes, then you could conclude that spirit is necessary to sustain life.

By this definition, all living things have spirit. However, not all living things have consciousness.

I believe that the spirit is necessary to sustain life, but animals have an animal spirit whereas humans have a human spirit, which is the same as the soul. All animals have consciousness but not all animals have the same kind of consciousness as humans. It is the rational soul that only humans were endowed with by God that whcih permits humans to be rational and discover all things.

“The human spirit which distinguishes man from the animal is the rational soul, and these two names—the human spirit and the rational soul—designate one thing. This spirit, which in the terminology of the philosophers is the rational soul, embraces all beings, and as far as human ability permits discovers the realities of things and becomes cognizant of their peculiarities and effects, and of the qualities and properties of beings” Some Answered Questions, p. 208

More succinctly, it's a mystery.

Very well stated. When asked about the nature of the soul, Baha'u'llah said that the soul is a mystery that no mind can ever hope to unravel. I believe we can know the 'functions' of the soul, as noted above, but we can never know its nature.

“Thou hast asked Me concerning the nature of the soul. Know, verily, that the soul is a sign of God, a heavenly gem whose reality the most learned of men hath failed to grasp, and whose mystery no mind, however acute, can ever hope to unravel. It is the first among all created things to declare the excellence of its Creator, the first to recognize His glory, to cleave to His truth, and to bow down in adoration before Him. If it be faithful to God, it will reflect His light, and will, eventually, return unto Him. If it fail, however, in its allegiance to its Creator, it will become a victim to self and passion, and will, in the end, sink in their depths...”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 158-159

 

[blü 2]

Fair enough.

If you were to talk to someone on the street in your dream, would you assume they recognize they were being talked to? Do they have their own consciousness?

My dream in constructing them would generally expect them to act as people act in real life ─ part of the discomfort of nightmares may be when they don't. But they're all my creations. just as if I were remembering and writing fiction.