What, exactly, is the soul?

[Aupmanyav]

Ego, people's imagination, priest's wisdom talk, charlatan's selling point. After all, he has the potion to save it.

 

[Mock Turtle]

Sorrow not my friend.... I do not feel that touch either, but sometimes I hear that Voice.

You were right up to that point because the soul comes into existence at the moment of conception.

No, it will not dissolve into nothingness after we die, it will continue to exist in the spiritual world forever. For a more detailed explanation, see my response to the OP above. #89

I'm not sure if I would prefer one over the other - an existence over just death - and I can't see it affecting my life here and now either way, so I will just have to wait with bated breath.

 

[dfnj]

Well?​

​

You can have a perfect mathematical description of a record player. You can have a detailed map of every scratch on the record. But you still can't hear the music.

The soul is the music and a person's body is the record player and record. Does one's music keeping playing after we die. I think we all melt back into the mind of God and we then get replayed in other people. There are only so many ways a human being can be. We are all much more similar than we are different. You can probably go as far to claim we are all the SAME person with the same human mind. We just have different experiences and ways of expressing what it means to be human. Some people are protective. Some people are generous. Some people are egotistical a holes.

 

[`mud]

Way too many `gods`,
and only one Cosmos,
to which we have to return.
Our `soul` is the sense of spirit within us,
a gift from the Cosmos,
and all the `gods` within it.
Call it what you will, with your `words`,
and put some olives in the salad.
That salad is the `stuff` of life,
and mine will go on after I'm gone.

 

[Audie]

> is this not an example of the 'facts not in evidence" that I was saying
ye spiritual ones speak?

what bull****? care to elaborate?

Gimme some context, if you want to know.

 

[sojourner]

Nor does Christianity have a corner on the market.

It certainly doesn’t!

 

[Audie]

You don't seem to understand that that is what a metaphor is! It imagines an "as if" view of reality, putting a pattern on the face of the vast Openness that is Reality. We do that every moment in every thought, imagining a world made up of these "things" we call them with our language, drawing a box around a collection of objects, like mapping out Orion of out the vast sea of stars.

We are pattern recognizers, and all we are doing is mapping out this pattern or that and give it a name. These are "as if" statements about something wholly beyond imagination. As Timothy Leary said, "All science is metaphor". From a macro perspective, such is the case. All language is all well, I'll add.


Well, first you'd have to start with what you imagine "spiritual realms" mean to you when you visual them. Then, I'd probably point out that there are very real experiences people have, but that language about such experiences should be understood as metaphors, trying to describe something beyond words, and such. Then I'd ask if you could allow for that or not. If not, why not?


For something beyond the mind's ability to grasp? The Great Mystery? That's what I'd say.


Do I sound like that to you? Do ever read any of my posts? I pretty sure of whatever reputation I have around here, being a "dopey dreamer out somewhere past the orbit of pluto," would hardly fit at all. I'm quite grounded in my thoughts on these things, and the things I am not just from my own thoughts, but are drawing from a long list of academics and philosophers dealing with things like language, sign, symbol, metaphor, etc.

I think the question I'd like to ask you, is why would you automatically assume just because some people believe literally about these metaphors, like the soul, imagining it could be weighed or something, that they constitutes all the thought and all the thinkers out there on the subject? Why are you doing that? Can you explain?


Did you get to correlation to how those that see the world only as a mechanistic reality, are living in a two-dimensional version of a multi-dimensional Reality? A Reality where speaking of things in metaphor seems the only way to describe the tangible experience of it?

That Reality is not a separate "realm", but this realm, right here. But it's just unseen by those who live in Flatland while it was right there the whole time.

My mom was a professor of English Lit, I'd have a hard time not knowing
what a metaphor is. If someone speaks in metaphors, fine. Others do not.

Some think Genesis is a metaphor, likewise the flood. Others think they
are as real as anything can be. You know all this. It is awful obvious.Why is this even a topic?

If your "spiritual realm" refers to transcendent experiences, fine.
I've had my own transcendent experiences, no doubt quite different from yours.

I hear from those who talk quite glibly about things like the 7 levels of
spiritual blah blah, and they are just making it up.


Timothy Leary-I probably would not go to Dr tune in for my info!

I understand what "Flatland" was about, metaphors, you know, when I read it
what, 26 years ago. It is a fun book, but it is not subtle.

For something beyond the mind's ability to grasp? The Great Mystery? That's what I'd say.

There is so much of that in physics! Or lo full many another field of inquiry.
I dont give it proper noun labels, tho.

If you dont qualify as a dopey dreamer, good for you.

What I mostly see is shallow ignorant people who make claims of "spiritual"
abilities as an evident sop to palliativeize themselves re their low status in the real world.

I am sure you know what I am talking about there, you see the same things.

 

[Audie]

Way too many `gods`,
and only one Cosmos,
to which we have to return.
Our `soul` is the sense of spirit within us,
a gift from the Cosmos,
and all the `gods` within it.
Call it what you will, with your `words`,
and put some olives in the salad.
That salad is the `stuff` of life,
and mine will go on after I'm gone.

What the hell kind of salad do you make???

 

[Audie]

​

You can have a perfect mathematical description of a record player. You can have a detailed map of every scratch on the record. But you still can't hear the music.

The soul is the music and a person's body is the record player and record. Does one's music keeping playing after we die. I think we all melt back into the mind of God and we then get replayed in other people. There are only so many ways a human being can be. We are all much more similar than we are different. You can probably go as far to claim we are all the SAME person with the same human mind. We just have different experiences and ways of expressing what it means to be human. Some people are protective. Some people are generous. Some people are egotistical a holes.

"overstating the obvious"

 

[`mud]

hey Audie,
One of too many `words`,
and not enough life !
And too few olives !

I love the `olives` of life in my salad of stuff.
And still, too few years to enjoy,
see you in the Cosmos !

 

[Araceli Cianna]

I don't know, but in many pagan and shamanic traditions it's believed there are multiple souls.

 

[qaz]

Gimme some context, if you want to know.

i wrote a little overview of the notion of soul in history. you wrote that it was bull****, then i posted some quotations that confirm my reconstruction. the one who should explain where i 've been inaccurate it's you.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

A lot of fancy metaphysic words to describe the word identity.

 

[dfnj]

"overstating the obvious"

Are you egotistical too?

 

[Windwalker]

My mom was a professor of English Lit, I'd have a hard time not knowing
what a metaphor is. If someone speaks in metaphors, fine. Others do not.

Everyone does, if you understand language from the macro-level, which is what I specified in my response. I'm not talking about the micro level as in some part of normal speech which is overtly an "as if" statement. At the macro level, looking at language as a whole, as pointers to something beyond the words itself, it's all metaphor. It's all "as if" it were whatever term or definition we choose to apply to it.

Some think Genesis is a metaphor, likewise the flood. Others think they
are as real as anything can be. You know all this. It is awful obvious.Why is this even a topic?

Because a lot of literalists on both sides of the aisle, believers and unbelievers alike, can't think in symbolic terms.

I understand many read Genesis literally, to their own diminishment. The only difference between the believers in it, and the unbelievers in it, is whether they accept it as factual history and science or not. Both are guilty of mistaking the fingers pointing at the moon with the moon itself. However, I also understand they can't read it any other way, because of the limitations of not being able to think in symbolic terms in these areas. Their both stuck at the entry-level view. They have to be read as descriptors of reality, concrete definitions. Otherwise, it makes no sense to them. "What do you mean, 'as if'? If it's not factual, it's not real! If it's not factual, it has no meaning!"

If your "spiritual realm" refers to transcendent experiences, fine.
I've had my own transcendent experiences, no doubt quite different from yours.

Why no doubt? What do you assume about me? And yes, these terms we use, even if the person using them takes them as factual descriptors of the spiritual, like disembodied supernatural entities found in folklore, that does not change the reality that they are trying to describe in many cases an actual experience, such as you yourself claim to have. You don't dismiss your experiences because there really isn't any decent language to attempt to describe the contents, do you? Why do you think poetry exists? Why do you think mythologies exist?

I hear from those who talk quite glibly about things like the 7 levels of
spiritual blah blah, and they are just making it up.

You are making up, that they are making this up. The things I am referencing are well-researched and documented. Developmentalists do actual case studies, as well as direct experimentation with states of consciousness. So, when I hear someone quite glibly making up that this is all "blah blah", I hear someone well-motivated to not look at the data, while claiming a devotion to scientific research.

Timothy Leary-I probably would not go to Dr tune in for my info!

I only quoted him, because I love the quote. If you'd like to make yourself more aware of what I'm talking about, start here in this roundtable discussion that deals with this area we're discussing:

I'm particular drawn to Hilary Lawson's take, which BTW, is who I draw the quote from that when I metaphor becomes a descriptor it becomes a dead metaphor.

For something beyond the mind's ability to grasp? The Great Mystery? That's what I'd say.

There is so much of that in physics! Or lo full many another field of inquiry.
I dont give it proper noun labels, tho.

Great. Then why do you struggle with this, to understand that "All science is metaphor"?

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”

- Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies​

The above, is how I believe.

If you dont qualify as a dopey dreamer, good for you.

I do not. And as a result, your argument that those who are spiritual are loopey, is complete crap. Was Einstein loopy too? Yet, he embraced the spiritual nature of our humanity. Clearly so, as evidenced in the quote I provided above as but one example. So, why do you claim otherwise, against evidence then?

What I mostly see is shallow ignorant people who make claims of "spiritual"
abilities as an evident sop to palliativeize themselves re their low status in the real world.

So, you are defining spirituality based on the lowest possible common denominator? How is this being rationally careful, as one would expect from a claim of having better evidences upon which one bases their current beliefs? That seems to me to be rather disingenuous.

I am sure you know what I am talking about there, you see the same things.

I understand everyone is a different stages of growth and understanding. To look at the least sophisticated ideas as defining the whole, is just plain sloppy and insincere.

 

[Audie]

Everyone does, if you understand language from the macro-level, which is what I specified in my response. I'm not talking about the micro level as in some part of normal speech which is overtly an "as if" statement. At the macro level, looking at language as a whole, as pointers to something beyond the words itself, it's all metaphor. It's all "as if" it were whatever term or definition we choose to apply to it.


Because a lot of literalists on both sides of the aisle, believers and unbelievers alike, can't think in symbolic terms.

I understand many read Genesis literally, to their own diminishment. The only difference between the believers in it, and the unbelievers in it, is whether they accept it as factual history and science or not. Both are guilty of mistaking the fingers pointing at the moon with the moon itself. However, I also understand they can't read it any other way, because of the limitations of not being able to think in symbolic terms in these areas. Their both stuck at the entry-level view. They have to be read as descriptors of reality, concrete definitions. Otherwise, it makes no sense to them. "What do you mean, 'as if'? If it's not factual, it's not real! If it's not factual, it has no meaning!"


Why no doubt? What do you assume about me? And yes, these terms we use, even if the person using them takes them as factual descriptors of the spiritual, like disembodied supernatural entities found in folklore, that does not change the reality that they are trying to describe in many cases an actual experience, such as you yourself claim to have. You don't dismiss your experiences because there really isn't any decent language to attempt to describe the contents, do you? Why do you think poetry exists? Why do you think mythologies exist?


You are making up, that they are making this up. The things I am referencing are well-researched and documented. Developmentalists do actual case studies, as well as direct experimentation with states of consciousness. So, when I hear someone quite glibly making up that this is all "blah blah", I hear someone well-motivated to not look at the data, while claiming a devotion to scientific research.


I only quoted him, because I love the quote. If you'd like to make yourself more aware of what I'm talking about, start here in this roundtable discussion that deals with this area we're discussing:

I'm particular drawn to Hilary Lawson's take, which BTW, is who I draw the quote from that when I metaphor becomes a descriptor it becomes a dead metaphor.


Great. Then why do you struggle with this, to understand that "All science is metaphor"?

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”

- Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies​

The above, is how I believe.


I do not. And as a result, your argument that those who are spiritual are loopey, is complete crap. Was Einstein loopy too? Yet, he embraced the spiritual nature of our humanity. Clearly so, as evidenced in the quote I provided above as but one example. So, why do you claim otherwise, against evidence then?


So, you are defining spirituality based on the lowest possible common denominator? How is this being rationally careful, as one would expect from a claim of having better evidences upon which one bases their current beliefs? That seems to me to be rather disingenuous.


I understand everyone is a different stages of growth and understanding. To look at the least sophisticated ideas as defining the whole, is just plain sloppy and insincere.

I dont "claim" a spiritual experience-or whatever exactly that was.
Other than extremely eerie.

I do not. And as a result, your argument that those who are spiritual are loopey, is complete crap

Would be if that were what I'd argue.


To look at the least sophisticated ideas as defining the whole, is just plain sloppy and insincere.

Well, yes, and also news of the well known. But it is not applicable here.
The facile, if it is found in this case, is your take on what I said.


I dont think "all science is metaphor" is a useful statement, as it is so
open ended, say that to a thousand people and you'd get a thousand different ideas of what it might mean.

"blah blah", I hear someone well-motivated to not look at the data, while claiming a devotion to scientific research.

We do tend to hear or say what we wish or expect to, as you do here. That is not it at all.

Why no doubt? What do you assume about me

Perhaps you and I are more similar than I'd suppose.
That we come to where we are from quite different backgrounds,
I will, I think, very successfully assume.

Sometimes, metaphorically speaking of course, different
paths doth converge.

 

[YmirGF]

If you like to think you are special, you are not alone.

That is something I have had to work on in my life. I do understand that I am unique, but I'm not special.

There is a rather profound difference.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

That is correct. See my response to the OP above. #89
So what do you as an atheist think happens to this non-physical entity after you die?

Haven't the faintest idea, and would tend to think it is more a concept than an actual thing. But...no idea.

 

[sayak83]

No, I am not. I am simply pointing out that a word that came into the English language around 800 AD was a word used most probably as a translation of the Hebrew word.

All cultures have views on human immortality, spirits, ghosts, the essence of a person, etc.

Today they all are collectively called souls in English and other languages.

A culture may have a specific word for their concept, and that is what their word means.

The soul is the complete living person, all that she is, When she dies, the soul ceases to exist. Life + body= soul.

You or others make take issue with that, and thatś fine, that is the Hebrew definition, originally translated as soul, that means many different things today.

I accept and believe the Hebrew definition.

As is usual. You are wrong. It's origin is a Germanic word seele (that which comes from or rests in the sea) and comes from pagan understanding of the soul. It's not related to any Hebrew word, and hence, according to you, all current usage of the word by Christians is wrong.
soul | Origin and meaning of soul by Online Etymology Dictionary

A substantial entity believed to be that in each person which lives, feels, thinks and wills" [Century Dictionary], Old English sawol "spiritual and emotional part of a person, animate existence; life, living being," from Proto-Germanic *saiwalo(source also of Old Saxon seola, Old Norse sala, Old Frisian sele, Middle Dutch siele, Dutch ziel, Old High German seula, German Seele, Gothic saiwala), of uncertain origin.
Sometimes said to mean originally "coming from or belonging to the sea," because that was supposed to be the stopping place of the soul before birth or after death [Barnhart]; if so, it would be from Proto-Germanic *saiwaz (see sea). Klein explains this as "from the lake," as a dwelling-place of souls in ancient northern Europe.

 

[YmirGF]

Haven't the faintest idea, and would tend to think it is more a concept than an actual thing. But...no idea.

It's a trick question, @lewisnotmiller

The decoding key is in "happens to this non-physical entity after you die". The key action phrase is "non-physical" and so physical death would have little overall effect on this entity, even as it welcomes you back into the greater identity from which you emerged.