Trying to understand the mechanism/purpose of the soul... a braindump.

[Exaltist Ethan]

Due to quantum mechanics we know that matter acts like a wave when it does not interact with other parts of the Universe, whereas when it does it acts like a particle. For a long time now I've thought that humans will create souls. All matter is both a wave and a particle, as it is always under interaction and non-interaction with other things, but it is entirely plausible that we could develop matter that only had a wave and not a particle, thereby acting in the same way souls do, because the way we understand souls is that they don't interact, like a particle, with anything else in the Universe. If we were able to develop matter that could exist without a particle it would be very similar to a soul.

 

[DharmaCatLamp]

I'm hoping to understand peoples' perspectives better, as the non-physical soul is a concept I struggle to grasp. This post is a kind of brain dump with all sorts of semi-related things I've always wondered about the soul.

For those who believe in a non-physical soul, especially anyone who views it as separate from the body, what do you believe its purpose is? What does it accomplish that the physical body does not, and how?

I have met a lot of people that believe the soul is responsible for consciousness, morality, etc... but to me, it seems as though physical brain and body activity are responsible for these things... And we can observe the physical impacts of thought on the brain. So the brain is certainly involved, no argument about that.

From the perspective of those who believe in an afterlife (at least many of those I've spoken to), the soul is still capable of thought after it has departed from the body. If the soul was capable of conscious thought on its own the whole time, then why does the brain do that same thing when we're alive? On that note... how does the soul do anything without a physical body? If the soul can exist on its own, why do bodies exist at all, and why would the soul be tethered to them?

For those who believe the full extent of morality, love, etc. are beyond the capabilities of the brain and are the result of the soul, how does the soul produce these feelings? Why?

Do you believe the physical world creates the non-physical soul, or do you believe the non-physical soul has non-physical origins? If it does have non-physical origins, then why/how does it attach/relate to the physical world?

If each person has an individual soul, when do we get it, and how is it formed/made? The creation of a human involves a complex physical process in the womb. When/how does the soul come into the picture?

I'm curious about what you guys think about this. And really, anyone can chime in, even those who don't necessarily believe in the clauses I'm presenting. Feel free to answer just parts of this post, because its all kind of a mess anyways...

I tend to think the soul just sort of puppets around the body. If you get a bum wheel on your shopping cart it's going to go sideways, if your engine stutters you are going to have issues driving around. The soul as far as I can tell is part of something much greater and this is just part of the divine play. I think if you look far enough down it seems like most things are just consciousness and beyond that it just starts to break down from a materialist explanation.

As far as morality and love are concerned I don't think you need to believe in a soul for that stuff to make sense or be possible. I suppose I would also argue morality isn't really a thing so much as a concept that takes on different meanings to different people. I have seen how with enough concentration and training you can take almost any feeling and abandon it or just let it pass right on by. We also have a tendency to get attached to feelings because we claim them because they came from "our" mind. I've seen people ( and done so myself) just straight up change their feelings through effort and detachment.

As far as why do we have a body etc the best explanation I have come across was presented to me through Kashmiri Shaivism. It's all part of the divine play and God is just experiencing different emotions etc. To be fair that fits well with my view that the world is a much sillier place than people give it credit for. We are just weird animals that happen to be able to contemplate these things. The world is run by buffoons following their every whim and desire no matter how unhappy it makes them. We attempt to put order to this place and often miss the order and chaos that is right in front of us.

The honest answer for a lot of your questions about why have a body just turns to I don't know for me. I like the explanation about God experiencing things but beyond that I just sort of go with it. It seems unimportant to me to answer those questions cause I don't think it would really matter one way or another and people tend to make the biggest fools out of themselves when they try to force things they don't understand to make sense.

 

[Ponder This]

what do you believe its purpose is? What does it accomplish that the physical body does not, and how?

Purpose implies agency. An entity acts towards some purpose. The soul directs purpose as opposed to having a purpose. One possible "use" of the soul is the evaluation of entities in an Afterlife. If a Creator made souls, their purpose is to fulfill the desire of the Creator.

I have met a lot of people that believe the soul is responsible for consciousness, morality, etc... but to me, it seems as though physical brain and body activity are responsible for these things... And we can observe the physical impacts of thought on the brain. So the brain is certainly involved, no argument about that.

When you say something is "responsible" you need to be more clear. To what (or whom) does the soul owe its obligation?

From the perspective of those who believe in an afterlife (at least many of those I've spoken to), the soul is still capable of thought after it has departed from the body. If the soul was capable of conscious thought on its own the whole time, then why does the brain do that same thing when we're alive? On that note... how does the soul do anything without a physical body? If the soul can exist on its own, why do bodies exist at all, and why would the soul be tethered to them?

What is consciousness? Someone who is conscious is awake. Someone who is unconscious is not awake. The senses are the windows of perception. The physical is a medium for the non-physical.

For those who believe the full extent of morality, love, etc. are beyond the capabilities of the brain and are the result of the soul, how does the soul produce these feelings? Why?

What do you mean "the full extent of morality, love, etc"?

Do you believe the physical world creates the non-physical soul, or do you believe the non-physical soul has non-physical origins? If it does have non-physical origins, then why/how does it attach/relate to the physical world?

That which is non-physical seeks manifestation in the physical.

If each person has an individual soul, when do we get it, and how is it formed/made? The creation of a human involves a complex physical process in the womb. When/how does the soul come into the picture?

The soul is present, seeking manifestation. Some say a Creator formed souls; some say souls always were.

 

[URAVIP2ME]

I'm hoping to understand peoples' perspectives better, as the non-physical soul is a concept I struggle to grasp. This post is a kind of brain dump with all sorts of semi-related things I've always wondered about the soul.
For those who believe in a non-physical soul, especially anyone who views it as separate from the body, what do you believe its purpose is? What does it accomplish that the physical body does not, and how?
I have met a lot of people that believe the soul is responsible for consciousness, morality, etc... but to me, it seems as though physical brain and body activity are responsible for these things... And we can observe the physical impacts of thought on the brain. So the brain is certainly involved, no argument about that.
From the perspective of those who believe in an afterlife (at least many of those I've spoken to), the soul is still capable of thought after it has departed from the body. If the soul was capable of conscious thought on its own the whole time, then why does the brain do that same thing when we're alive? On that note... how does the soul do anything without a physical body? If the soul can exist on its own, why do bodies exist at all, and why would the soul be tethered to them?
For those who believe the full extent of morality, love, etc. are beyond the capabilities of the brain and are the result of the soul, how does the soul produce these feelings? Why?
Do you believe the physical world creates the non-physical soul, or do you believe the non-physical soul has non-physical origins? If it does have non-physical origins, then why/how does it attach/relate to the physical world?
If each person has an individual soul, when do we get it, and how is it formed/made? The creation of a human involves a complex physical process in the womb. When/how does the soul come into the picture?
I'm curious about what you guys think about this. And really, anyone can chime in, even those who don't necessarily believe in the clauses I'm presenting. Feel free to answer just parts of this post, because its all kind of a mess anyways...

I find in the Bible there is No non-physical soul.
ALL of Adam was a living soul, a living person as per Genesis 2:7
At death ALL of Adam ' returned' to where he started - the dust - Genesis 3:19
Adam went from non-life, to life, and returned back to non-life.
A person can Not return to a place he never was before.
Adam was a living soul and the soul that sins dies - Ezekiel 18:4,20
Adam sinned, Adam died. No post-mortem penalty, No double jeopardy in death.

I find ' afterlife ' means being more alive after death than before death.
The Bible does Not teach 'afterlife' but future Resurrection - Acts of the Apostles 24:15
Future resurrection ( restored back to life ) from: death's deep unconscious sleep.
- Jesus taught 'sleep' in death - John 11:11-14 - and the OT teaches sleep in death - Psalms 115:17; Isaiah 38:18; Ecclesiastes 9:5
So, especially when un-faithful Jews began mixing with non-Jews that is how the religious myth of the separate or invisible soul being immortal then crept into so-called Christian teachings.

 

[The Hammer]

For those who believe in a non-physical soul, especially anyone who views it as separate from the body, what do you believe its purpose is? What does it accomplish that the physical body does not, and how?

It's the You behind your thoughts, feelings and physical actions. That which observes all things and passes judgement. The purpose is to gather experience, so that one can grow from one lifetime to the next. We each have a divine spark of the gods in us, and when we physically pass, that divine spark goes back to the Gods and gets reformed into a new body.

 

[JDMS]

It's the You behind your thoughts, feelings and physical actions. That which observes all things and passes judgement. The purpose is to gather experience, so that one can grow from one lifetime to the next. We each have a divine spark of the gods in us, and when we physically pass, that divine spark goes back to the Gods and gets reformed into a new body.

I think the idea of a soul makes the most sense to me when it's also paired with the idea of a God or gods actively guiding our existence, which some religions believe in and some do not. It's almost like a parents guiding the essence of their child.

 

[YoursTrue]

As a former atheist and still a sort of naturalist, yet also a sort of religious, the soul in naturalistic terms is to me subjectivity, because I can't in effect reduce all of the everyday world down to being objective.

Hi. Just curious since you say you are a former atheist. Do you now believe there is a God?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Hi. Just curious since you say you are a former atheist. Do you now believe there is a God?

Yeah, but not in the standard theistic sense.

 

[Alien826]

Imagine a car/automobile. It consists of many parts that work together to produce ... several things. Transportation. Movement. Comfort (in seating). And so on. All the words are abstract nouns, referring to functionality.

Now let's consider a brain. It also consists of many parts that work together to produce thoughts, feelings, consciousness, all abstract nouns.

We don't feel it necessary to invoke supernatural explanations for the functions of the car, because we understand how the car works in detail and there is nothing immaterial involved.

So why, simply because we don't fully understand the working of the brain, do we decide that it's functions cannot be produced by its material parts working together, and have to invent various immaterial objects, like souls to explain them? Wouldn't the logical assumption be that the brain can produce these things on its own, and stick to that until we have hard evidence that these immaterial things exist? (And they may, but what's most likely given our current knowledge?)

 

[JDMS]

So why, simply because we don't fully understand the working of the brain, do we decide that it's functions cannot be produced by its material parts working together, and have to invent various immaterial objects, like souls to explain them? Wouldn't the logical assumption be that the brain can produce these things on its own, and stick to that until we have hard evidence that these immaterial things exist? (And they may, but what's most likely given our current knowledge?)

My thoughts. I see no purpose in trying to find a new explanation when the explanation we have now is just underdeveloped but likely correct.
EDIT: Although I guess the soul was the original explanation, not a new one, lol. But likewise, no need to return to old theories before we've properly explored the one that's most likely.

 

[Heyo]

Although I guess the soul was the original explanation, not a new one, lol. But likewise, no need to return to old theories before we've properly explored the one that's most likely.

<nitpick>
In science, an "old" theory is only replaced with a new one if the new one is better, more accurate or explains better or more.
But 1. the soul was never a theory and 2. the no soul hypothesis is better as it makes one less assumption.
</nitpick>

 

[amorphous_constellation]

I have met a lot of people that believe the soul is responsible for consciousness, morality, etc... but to me, it seems as though physical brain and body activity are responsible for these things... And we can observe the physical impacts of thought on the brain. So the brain is certainly involved, no argument about that.

I guess it comes down to this: that you believe that the brain is either a vessel, which is something that is a 'resister,' or you believe that brain originates, rather than gains, or tunes into, activity and knowledge. But it seems fairly clear to me, that the brain seems to be but a sipper in a larger ocean. Say that you had a brain as large as a planet, and you orbited a star. Though you would surely know an immense amount, there would still be far more there, yet for you to know

And by that, I mean that the space in-between brains, in the universe, seems to represent either un-soul'd raw material, or a more fully souled material, if we define the soul as something fully extant, but occasionally captured by the resisting vessel, which is the brain

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

<nitpick>
In science, an "old" theory is only replaced with a new one if the new one is better, more accurate or explains better or more.
But 1. the soul was never a theory and 2. the no soul hypothesis is better as it makes one less assumption.
</nitpick>

But you need just to get rid of in effect subjectivity in everybody including you and you can have your perfect objective model.
The problem is that perfect is not objective, but subjective.

 

[Alien826]

I guess it comes down to this: that you believe that the brain is either a vessel, which is something that is a 'resister,' or you believe that brain originates, rather than gains, or tunes into, activity and knowledge. But it seems fairly clear to me, that the brain seems to be but a sipper in a larger ocean. Say that you had a brain as large as a planet, and you orbited a star. Though you would surely know an immense amount, there would still be far more there, yet for you to know

The planet-sized brain (Marvin?) would know nothing apart from it's own existence if it had no input from the external world. So it really doesn't matter how big or small the brain is.

I agree though that the sum of data available to our brains is far smaller than the total sum of potential knowledge. I'm not sure though how this adds up to anything apart from "we can't know everything".

And by that, I mean that the space in-between brains, in the universe, seems to represent either un-soul'd raw material, or a more fully souled material, if we define the soul as something fully extant, but occasionally captured by the resisting vessel, which is the brain

In the latter case you would need to show that we sometimes know things that are not attributable to our physical senses alone. And even then we might find that the brain (or some part of our bodies) has an ability to capture information that we currently haven't discovered (the ability, not the information), and that could be perfectly natural. Or not.

What do you mean by "resisting" in this context?

 

[amorphous_constellation]

The planet-sized brain (Marvin?) would know nothing apart from it's own existence if it had no input from the external world.

I suppose it would need, as we do, an intermediary set of tools to sense things with. Suppose then it was covered in a kind of highly advanced skin, dotted with any kind of sensory satellite it would need, to perceive its surroundings at an extremely high fidelity.

What do you mean by "resisting" in this context?

I mean that even at our best, our perception is limited, as is our ability to learn, remember, and switch our attention etc. What this implies, is that the soul might have a higher-speed intermediary than the human brain

 

[Alien826]

I suppose it would need, as we do, an intermediary set of tools to sense things with. Suppose then it was covered in a kind of highly advanced skin, dotted with any kind of sensory satellite it would need, to perceive its surroundings at an extremely high fidelity.

OK.

I mean that even at our best, our perception is limited, as is our ability to learn, remember, and switch our attention etc. What this implies, is that the soul might have a higher-speed intermediary than the human brain

That's assuming such thing as a soul exists. Equally, it might have no inputs apart from the human brain at all. Or it might only wake up when we die. Or .... anything at all really.

 

[amorphous_constellation]

That's assuming such thing as a soul exists. Equally, it might have no inputs apart from the human brain at all. Or it might only wake up when we die. Or .... anything at all really.

Reality seems to work by constricting experience to perception - limiting inputs. This presupposes a narrowing effect, I think, on something that could perceive more, had it a better input