What is a Soul?

[VeganCrustAtheist]

I believe the soul is your mind ,will, and emotions and is a gateway between your spirit and your flesh.
Sometimes when you are tired and run down and can't go on , there is a part of you that doesn't give up and will keep going and this battle is fought in your soul.Your spirit wants to keep going even when your mind is telling you to give up.Your spirit is the part of you when you go watch a rocky movie and after you get charged up and feel like you can take on the world.

I'd say it's because of your will to survive. But neither of us can prove our ideas. In these cases I think you need to go by which idea is the simplest. The idea that we have a invisible soul, which can't be tested for neither can it be seen. Is not the simplest explanation.

Why would the spirit be interested in the survival of your flesh? If the spirit does exist, then it's eternal. If the spirit can't die by the death of the flesh, why would it then be so concerned about the survival of the vessel?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I believe the soul is your mind ,will, and emotions and is a gateway between your spirit and your flesh.

If the mind, will and emotions are all safely located in the soul, then how could physical conditions like Alzheimer's disease affect the mind, will and emotions?

 

[Storm]

If the mind, will and emotions are all safely located in the soul, then how could physical conditions like Alzheimer's disease affect the mind, will and emotions?

By degrading their interface with the body. IOW, the soul is unaffected, but can't "connect" properly anymore.

 

[Walkntune]

I'd say it's because of your will to survive. But neither of us can prove our ideas. In these cases I think you need to go by which idea is the simplest. The idea that we have a invisible soul, which can't be tested for neither can it be seen. Is not the simplest explanation.

Why would the spirit be interested in the survival of your flesh? If the spirit does exist, then it's eternal. If the spirit can't die by the death of the flesh, why would it then be so concerned about the survival of the vessel?

Your spirit is not interested in the survival of the flesh.Your soul is torn between your flesh and your spirit. Your will is actually your soul or youcan call it mind, will, and emotions.
What would you consider the part of us that wants to keep going even when your will does not.Will power is the ability to not surrender when you want to give up but to keep going.Your flesh wants to give up but your spirit wants to keep going and your will is being pulled in both directions causing a strong feeling of resistance.The more you resist the stronger your willpower becomes.

If only flesh exists why does the battle exist inside of us and what is it between?

 

[VeganCrustAtheist]

If the mind, will and emotions are all safely located in the soul, then how could physical conditions like Alzheimer's disease affect the mind, will and emotions?

It wouldn't.

 

[VeganCrustAtheist]

Your spirit is not interested in the survival of the flesh.Your soul is torn between your flesh and your spirit. Your will is actually your soul or youcan call it mind, will, and emotions.
What would you consider the part of us that wants to keep going even when your will does not.Will power is the ability to not surrender when you want to give up but to keep going.Your flesh wants to give up but your spirit wants to keep going and your will is being pulled in both directions causing a strong feeling of resistance.The more you resist the stronger your willpower becomes.

If only flesh exists why does the battle exist inside of us and what is it between?

You're creating a problem where there isn't any. This "conflict" doesn't exist, that's why I can't explain it's existence.

Emotions are chemical reactions and processes in your brain. If the spirit is the willpower, the emotions or even the mind, then the flesh has no will. This battle of interest can't exist, even by your own reasoning.

 

[Walkntune]

You're creating a problem where there isn't any. This "conflict" doesn't exist, that's why I can't explain it's existence.

Emotions are chemical reactions and processes in your brain. If the spirit is the willpower, the emotions or even the mind, then the flesh has no will. This battle of interest can't exist, even by your own reasoning.

If conflict doesn't exist, then addictions would not exist.
IF I tell you not to think about a red tennis shoe, you will automatically think about one and the harder you try not to the more you think about it.

I say chemical reactions are an effect from emotions and not the cause. I say emotions are instinctive and come from the fight and flight response in our instintcs from awareness and the chemical reaction comes from rationalizing what the emotion is(our brain signaling to all of our body after it has rationalized the emotoins) and whether or not we need to stand on guard from danger or or whether we are safe.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

By degrading their interface with the body. IOW, the soul is unaffected, but can't "connect" properly anymore.

Hmm. To me, this makes no sense. Maybe it works for memory loss, but how does a degradation of the interface create a new personality?

 

[Storm]

Hmm. To me, this makes no sense. Maybe it works for memory loss, but how does a degradation of the interface create a new personality?

How does Alzheimer's create a new personality, regardless of souls?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

How does anything you listed create a new personality?

Personality changes are a common effect of conditions like Alzheimer's disease.

 

[VeganCrustAtheist]

If conflict doesn't exist, then addictions would not exist.
IF I tell you not to think about a red tennis shoe, you will automatically think about one and the harder you try not to the more you think about it.

I say chemical reactions are an effect from emotions and not the cause. I say emotions are instinctive and come from the fight and flight response in our instintcs from awareness and the chemical reaction comes from rationalizing what the emotion is(our brain signaling to all of our body after it has rationalized the emotoins) and whether or not we need to stand on guard from danger or or whether we are safe.

I've never heard so many baseless assumptions in my life.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Hang on, Storm. I think we may have a conflict of terminology.

By "personality", I meant a set of characteristics like mannerisms, behaviour, emotional responses, etc.

I get the impression that by "personality" you mean something more like "the essence of a person"... is that a fair assessment?

 

[Storm]

Personality changes are a common effect of conditions like Alzheimer's disease.

From the Wiki:

As the disease advances, symptoms include confusion, irritability and aggression, mood swings, language breakdown, long-term memory loss, and the general withdrawal of the sufferer as their senses decline.
​

I don't think any of that constitutes "a new personality." I also think it's all explicable by the interface notion.

 

[Storm]

Hang on, Storm. I think we may have a conflict of terminology.

By "personality", I meant a set of characteristics like mannerisms, behaviour, emotional responses, etc.

I get the impression that by "personality" you mean something more like "the essence of a person"... is that a fair assessment?

Yes, it is. The set of characteristics you list strike me as superficial manifestations of personality.

 

[Walkntune]

If the mind, will and emotions are all safely located in the soul, then how could physical conditions like Alzheimer's disease affect the mind, will and emotions?

Your soul is your mind, will and emotions and will be effected by all things that can get you down. It's a good thing we have a spirit to lift us back up out of ruts or whatever or help us overcome different situations.

 

[VeganCrustAtheist]

There was an accident once. They were building a railway. A man had his head pierced by a steel pole. He actually survived, but he was totally changed afterwards. His wife didn't recognize his manners and his personality. He was, according to his family and the people around him, a totally different person.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

To expand on my point from before, here's what I was getting at:

When a person's brain is affected by physical phenomena like Alzheimer's disease, they will often undergo significant changes in things like behaviour, mood and mannerisms. Sometimes, this will be so severe that the person is no longer recognizeable as the person prior to the disease (except, of course, that we can recognize that it's still the same body in front of us).

If the effects of Alzheimer's were a matter of the connection between the brain and the "real" seat of personality being degraded, then we wouldn't expect to see this. Memory loss and reduction in cognitive ability, perhaps, but the other phenomena aren't so much a loss as a change. What was there before has been replaced by something else. This says to me that degradation of a connection like you describe can't explain all of what's going on.

To use an analogy, when your radio loses signal, you expect to hear static. You don't expect to hear a completely different song.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes, it is. The set of characteristics you list strike me as superficial manifestations of personality.

I suppose, but changes in them would indicate a change in their source, wouldn't they?

Edit - for another way of thinking about it, consider a modification on the Turing test: say you're at a computer terminal, connected to another computer terminal with another person. You can converse with this person by typing. Would you be able to tell whether the person on the other terminal is your son or not?

You probably could, right? I'm sure you could do it very quickly. But all the outward signs that you'd rely on to make that determination are the sorts of characteristics I'm talking about.

 

[Walkntune]

There was an accident once. They were building a railway. A man had his head pierced by a steel pole. He actually survived, but he was totally changed afterwards. His wife didn't recognize his manners and his personality. He was, according to his family and the people around him, a totally different person.

Yes many people get there soul crushed from hard situations and since that is your mind will and emotions you will be different. Some people never come back and others do heal.
Post traumatic stress disorder is when the soul is locked inside and they won't let go do to paralysing fear!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Your soul is your mind, will and emotions and will be effected by all things that can get you down. It's a good thing we have a spirit to lift us back up out of ruts or whatever or help us overcome different situations.

You realize that you didn't answer my question at all, right?