Why we have a soul

[PureX]

You don't seem to entertaining the idea that perhaps it is the definition of what constitutes being 'dead' that needs to be revisited, and not that people are coming back from the dead.

In other words, none of these folks were ever actually dead at any point.

But their brains were, or so we we’re assuming.

No argument from me in saying that the mechanics of cognition are complicated.

Not only how, but *what* it is that is actually happening. We'll have to see what the science can uncover.

Yet, as a mystery, it doesn't really clarify anything or provide insight.

Mysteries rarely do.

 

[MikeF]

But their brains were, or so we we’re assuming.

That is all I wanted to highlight, that we may have assumed incorrectly.

 

[Echogem222]

For me, reasoning in philosophy requires some set of established facts to reason upon. In that regard, it is not about proving or disproving a soul. If the word 'soul' is a useful label to assign to a set of interrelated facts, then great.

Let's look at the first part of your definition of 'soul': "I define the soul as existing as someone who is not someone else, to exist as an individual existence". So we are talking about someone's, I assume only a Homo sapiens someone, but if not, please clarify. These someones exist, and the exist as descrete entities, not different facets of some unified whole. How are you aware of multiple someones, more than one? How do you know that these multiple entities, if you will, a distinct and separate and not just a part of something else?

Now add to those questions your assertion that the entities have no physicality and cannot be seen (I assume in the broadest sense and not merely with eyeballs). How exactly are you made aware of any property or characteristic of a soul under such circumstances?

You know, science could be wrong about many things, yet people believe it's not wrong about many things. Why? Because it's understood as pointless to do otherwise, it hinders progress. It could be that the entire earth is just an illusion, or maybe it's made out of candy. And I have no clue why you're adding just Homo sapiens to the list of beings with souls, obviously anything which has awareness that they exist would have a soul, so this would be animals, bugs, aliens, etc. A body/mind is needed to house a soul, but a body/mind is not a soul, it just allows a soul to exist in a certain state (one with awareness, ego, etc).

If you wanted to argue that people can't know science exists which is why you don't believe in science, then I wonder why you think it makes sense to present your argument like this that implies you use at least a little science.

Simply said, right now, you either are aware that you exist, or you're secretly not (because you're just an AI). If you are aware of yourself, then you simply are, adding anything to that is not required to understand you are aware that you exist. In the ancient past, people didn't even understand how their bodies and minds worked, yet they knew they existed, this is because understanding how the body/mind work is not required to understand existence itself. You keep adding things to make this conversation more complicated, but you don't realize that doing that is preventing you from understanding the way your existence truly is. This is extremely simple, do not add anything to it or you will misunderstand.

 

[osgart]

First off, let me clearly define what I'm saying is a soul (since that word can have many different meanings). I define the soul as existing as someone who is not someone else, to exist as an individual existence, nothing else (so no, it cannot be defined as anything physical or anything that can be seen)

I have awareness that I exist, but I don't have awareness of myself truly being my body/mind. I could think that's true, but I can't actually prove it. On the other hand, I can prove that I actually exist as something, and I can do this by simply being aware of myself. And yet! I can't do this to prove that I am my body/mind. Why? It's because my existence and my body/mind are not the same thing, if they were, I could prove that I am my body/mind at the same time and in the same way I can prove that I exist. So, what is not my body/mind is what I understand is the soul, which is something that is not a body/mind, that needs a body/mind to have consciousness, therefore, the soul is not consciousness since that is created through the body/mind, it is just the fact that you exist as yourself and nothing else (in other words, if you only existed as a soul, you would have no awareness, and time could pass by without affecting you at all. So, if you died in this life, and only existed as a soul again for 1 million years, the moment you gain a new body, you wouldn't be aware any time had passed)

However, I cannot prove to others that I actually exist with certainty. After all, I could just be an AI made to seem like someone who is aware of themselves existing. But I don't need to prove myself existing to know that I exist, I do not need external confirmation to know such a thing because I am myself. Someone can say that you are not yourself, but they can't prove that any more than they can prove themselves to actually be themselves. This is important because it allows us to once again understand that the body/mind is not the true self. If it was, we would be able to know that someone is not secretly an AI made to seem like someone who is aware of themselves existing.

The brain explains why we exist as we do, but it doesn't explain why existence itself exists. The brain allows us to know we likely currently exist with bodies/minds, or at the very least something that gives us awareness (since we could all just be in the Matrix or something), but that does not explain how our existence exists instead of us being nothing. If understanding the brain could truly do that, we would understand what we were before the universe even began. But the brain doesn't go back that far, because it doesn't actually explain that much. It's like how you understand why a ball rolls down a hill, but not why the ball, hill, etc. exist in the first place (so not explaining how balls, hills, etc. can be made, but explaining how what they are made from exists instead of them being a non-applicable existence to reality itself). Understanding a function does not mean understanding an existence, it just means understanding how an existence currently exists as. Therefore, if the brain dies, only our function of being aware ceases, we do not stop existing.

"Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am") was said by philosopher René Descartes in his Discourse on Method (1637). However, I'm adding to that and saying: "To think is to be aware, but to be aware is not to be the self, it's merely to be aware of the self which is the soul." (And no, to clarify once again, the self is not the ego, in other words the soul is not the ego, the soul is simply to exist as an individual, and to be an individual means simply to not be someone else, to just exist as 1.)

Through awareness and experience by way of understanding I've come to the realization that I am a soul. A soul to me is an individual identity of a genuine self of individual heart, mind, and will. So I'm pretty much agreeing with you about the existence of soul.

The contents of a soul are character traits, capacity for understanding, memory, ability to think, learn, relate and know of things in the heart, mind, and will. The self is definitely not ego, nor any vanity or arrogance.

The brain and body provide us with the senses to alert our awareness. Without the physical body we would fail to be able to recognize, identify and express, anything about ourselves.

As to why I have a soul I consider that one of the great mysteries.

Through meditation I've tried to deny that I was a self, and discovered I am a self regardless of whether I deny or reject it. The self is no illusion. The contents, qualities, and character of the self are revealed by outward expression, and through interaction with all there is in relation to self. Imagination, stories and thought experiments reveal much about the soul as well.

The soul is perhaps rooted in the physical reality and emanates out into the spiritual. Or perhaps the physical is an expression of the soul that happens quite naturally.

I do think a soul is of intelligent composition. I don't think it would exist otherwise.

 

[MikeF]

You know, science could be wrong about many things, yet people believe it's not wrong about many things. Why? Because it's understood as pointless to do otherwise, it hinders progress.

It is not pointless to question science. That is actually a fundamental feature of science. Science can and does get things wrong because science is conducted by people, and people make mistakes. Science, however, doesn't rely on one scientist or one experiment. In that way, errors are eventually uncovered, hopefully sooner than later. I would also stress that much of our scientific understanding, especially at the limits of our collective understanding, is held with degrees of confidence and not in absolutes.

It could be that the entire earth is just an illusion, or maybe it's made out of candy.

No, neither of those are a possibility.

And I have no clue why you're adding just Homo sapiens to the list of beings with souls, obviously anything which has awareness that they exist would have a soul, so this would be animals, bugs, aliens, etc. A body/mind is needed to house a soul, but a body/mind is not a soul, it just allows a soul to exist in a certain state (one with awareness, ego, etc).

If you review my question to you, I wasn't adding just Homo sapiens, I was asking whether your philosophy only applied to Homo sapiens, as many who believe in a soul only attribute this phenomenon to human beings. So thank you for the clarification. I now understand that in your philosophy, anything with awareness will have a soul. a soul as defined by you that is.

If you wanted to argue that people can't know science exists which is why you don't believe in science, then I wonder why you think it makes sense to present your argument like this that implies you use at least a little science.

This would be somewhat funny if you had more experience interacting with me on RF. I am actually a strong advocate for science. My view regarding your philosophy of the soul is that it is wholly unscientific. My questions have been an attempt to understand your reasoning behind your arguments for a soul.

Simply said, right now, you either are aware that you exist, or you're secretly not (because you're just an AI). If you are aware of yourself, then you simply are, adding anything to that is not required to understand you are aware that you exist.

I'm not an AI (you'll have to take my word for it). Yes, I am fully aware that I exist. The question then is, in what way do you or I exist, and is this concept of a soul really a thing and necessary to explain in what way we exist. My argument would be that the concept of a soul is not necessary.

In the ancient past, people didn't even understand how their bodies and minds worked, yet they knew they existed, this is because understanding how the body/mind work is not required to understand existence itself. You keep adding things to make this conversation more complicated, but you don't realize that doing that is preventing you from understanding the way your existence truly is. This is extremely simple, do not add anything to it or you will misunderstand.

And I would suggest that you are unnecessarily complicating things by adding this concept of a soul to what it is that we are. You haven't provided a convincing argument for why there should be something else beyond our physical form.

 

[Echogem222]

I'm not an AI (you'll have to take my word for it). Yes, I am fully aware that I exist. The question then is, in what way do you or I exist, and is this concept of a soul really a thing and necessary to explain in what way we exist. My argument would be that the concept of a soul is not necessary.

Just this part! It seems to me that you do understand that existing in a certain state is different from just existing, and just existing is what are souls do without a body/mind. The point of a soul is to identify our true self which remains even after death. It could be that there is no afterlife, but in which case, we would still exist, we would just never feel the flow of time passing us by because we would have no awareness. But by understanding this, we can understand that an afterlife is actually possible for us since it doesn't require our current bodies/minds which we understand don't go to an afterlife since they decompose (or get destroyed some other way).

 

[Echogem222]

The contents of a soul are character traits, capacity for understanding, memory, ability to think, learn, relate and know of things in the heart, mind, and will. The self is definitely not ego, nor any vanity or arrogance.

This part, we disagree, because to me the soul is just existing, nothing else. But when we are connected to a body/mind, it allows for character traits, capacity for understanding, memory, ability to think, learn, etc. This is because the body/brain change our state of how we exist, it does not cause our existence though. As just a soul, we just exist, absolutely nothing else, which is why we need a body/mind or something like that to become how we are now.

 

[osgart]

This part, we disagree, because to me the soul is just existing, nothing else. But when we are connected to a body/mind, it allows for character traits, capacity for understanding, memory, ability to think, learn, etc. This is because the body/brain change our state of how we exist, it does not cause our existence though. As just a soul, we just exist, absolutely nothing else, which is why we need a body/mind or something like that to become how we are now.

Yeah I definitely don't see it that way. I can't see that character traits can be described by physical processes. Me being honest does not translate into chemistry without assuming that conclusion.

 

[wellwisher]

First off, let me clearly define what I'm saying is a soul (since that word can have many different meanings). I define the soul as existing as someone who is not someone else, to exist as an individual existence, nothing else (so no, it cannot be defined as anything physical or anything that can be seen)

I have awareness that I exist, but I don't have awareness of myself truly being my body/mind. I could think that's true, but I can't actually prove it. On the other hand, I can prove that I actually exist as something, and I can do this by simply being aware of myself. And yet! I can't do this to prove that I am my body/mind. Why? It's because my existence and my body/mind are not the same thing, if they were, I could prove that I am my body/mind at the same time and in the same way I can prove that I exist. So, what is not my body/mind is what I understand is the soul, which is something that is not a body/mind, that needs a body/mind to have consciousness, therefore, the soul is not consciousness since that is created through the body/mind, it is just the fact that you exist as yourself and nothing else (in other words, if you only existed as a soul, you would have no awareness, and time could pass by without affecting you at all. So, if you died in this life, and only existed as a soul again for 1 million years, the moment you gain a new body, you wouldn't be aware any time had passed)

However, I cannot prove to others that I actually exist with certainty. After all, I could just be an AI made to seem like someone who is aware of themselves existing. But I don't need to prove myself existing to know that I exist, I do not need external confirmation to know such a thing because I am myself. Someone can say that you are not yourself, but they can't prove that any more than they can prove themselves to actually be themselves. This is important because it allows us to once again understand that the body/mind is not the true self. If it was, we would be able to know that someone is not secretly an AI made to seem like someone who is aware of themselves existing.

The brain explains why we exist as we do, but it doesn't explain why existence itself exists. The brain allows us to know we likely currently exist with bodies/minds, or at the very least something that gives us awareness (since we could all just be in the Matrix or something), but that does not explain how our existence exists instead of us being nothing. If understanding the brain could truly do that, we would understand what we were before the universe even began. But the brain doesn't go back that far, because it doesn't actually explain that much. It's like how you understand why a ball rolls down a hill, but not why the ball, hill, etc. exist in the first place (so not explaining how balls, hills, etc. can be made, but explaining how what they are made from exists instead of them being a non-applicable existence to reality itself). Understanding a function does not mean understanding an existence, it just means understanding how an existence currently exists as. Therefore, if the brain dies, only our function of being aware ceases, we do not stop existing.

"Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am") was said by philosopher René Descartes in his Discourse on Method (1637). However, I'm adding to that and saying: "To think is to be aware, but to be aware is not to be the self, it's merely to be aware of the self which is the soul." (And no, to clarify once again, the self is not the ego, in other words the soul is not the ego, the soul is simply to exist as an individual, and to be an individual means simply to not be someone else, to just exist as 1.)

The soul is analogous to our personal memory. This unique data set, connected to each one of us, is what makes us unique. We all have a unique seat in the theater of life, by which to view life. The soul is connected to the ego and the conscious mind, as well as the left side of the brain; differential side of the brain = unique data storage.

We also have the more natural side of the brain, which is the right side, which is more integral and is therefore is less unique and more common to all. This is the divine soul. We all have hunger for food; natural instinct, but some egos like beef while others are vegan. The urge to eat is neutral; integral = same for all, and is not differential like our unique choices for this common urge.

In tradition, the soul is static, like the data on a computer hard drive. We can move a hard drive from computer to computer; reincarnation. The spirit is what animates the soul. The spirit are like the timed programs and Apps, that trigger and massage the static data of the soul, into dynamic actions and memory scenarios with that data.

For example, the "spirit of hunger"; based on neurotransmitters and hormones, will trigger our static memory; soul, based on the time of day and our normal food choices, along with our activities of food gathering and/or prep. Once this animation is over; finish eating, this aspect of the memory or soul returns to static storage, with the soul now waiting for another spirit; the urge to get back to work in our unique world and world view.

The idea of an eternal soul is about the idea that our hard drive of personal data, lives on after death, like saving the hard drive from an older computer and then translating it to the higher or more modern operating system.The soul is connected to the second law of increasing entropy as we write to memory. Our advancing soul; memory, gets more complex with time; wisdom, until it becomes part of the enteral soul and can be written to the DNA for eternal storage; like father like son.

 

[Echogem222]

Yeah I definitely don't see it that way. I can't see that character traits can be described by physical processes. Me being honest does not translate into chemistry without assuming that conclusion.

Yet, you can assume that to be the case without contradicting yourself. If those abilities were truly you, then you would hold zero doubt that's the case, in fact, it would be a logical contradiction for you to do so, like believing that 1+1=5 after understanding why 1+1=2, you just wouldn't be able to do it, as it would make no sense to.

 

[MikeF]

I can't see that character traits can be described by physical processes. Me being honest does not translate into chemistry without assuming that conclusion.

Does it matter what you or I or anyone else can see, or does it matter *what is* irrespective of our ability to know it?

This whole endeavor of figuring out how the world works starts from a place of ignorance. We do not start with a complete understanding of how all this works. We are left with puzzling it out and piecing it together a bit at a time, slowly, yet methodically building and expanding our core of reliable knowledge about the world.

I am curious as to how you can be confident in such a position, the one you have stated above, when it is quite clear to most that we have yet to gain a complete understanding as to how our very complex central nervous system works.

 

[osgart]

Does it matter what you or I or anyone else can see, or does it matter *what is* irrespective of our ability to know it?

This whole endeavor of figuring out how the world works starts from a place of ignorance. We do not start with a complete understanding of how all this works. We are left with puzzling it out and piecing it together a bit at a time, slowly, yet methodically building and expanding our core of reliable knowledge about the world.

I am curious as to how you can be confident in such a position, the one you have stated above, when it is quite clear to most that we have yet to gain a complete understanding as to how our very complex central nervous system works.

There seems to be a ton of confidence the other way as well; that life comes from physical processes and all you need is a central nervous system. There's confidence that life arises from none intelligent processes. But to actually explain the phenomenon of character traits in living organisms will always leave a gap in explanation. How does anyone measure honesty in a central nervous system?

It fits my intuition that the answer is philosophical, and no amount of tangible evidence will ever catch such phenomenon. That doesn't mean I wouldn't check for alternative explanations that I find weaker. If character traits in life arise from never existing prior I would be astounded. Life has so many attributes that if the whole thing were not put together carefully I'd be amazed. Not by design , but by trial and error, and a messy crude plan. Anything that works together with some level of efficiency, power and convenience, and is highly effective comes from intelligent byproducts.

 

[MikeF]

It fits my intuition

How does relying on intuition capture counter-intuitive truths?

In my view, intuition = bias. Sure it may land right on the money but it is in no way a sure bet. Something more is required than intuition.

Life has so many attributes that if the whole thing were not put together carefully I'd be amazed. Not by design , but by trial and error, and a messy crude plan. Anything that works together with some level of efficiency, power and convenience, and is highly effective comes from intelligent byproducts.

Your argument might hold some weight if today's complexity was present at the start, or arose in a short period of time. The fact that it has taken almost 14 billion years to get to this point leaves quite a lot of room for messy trial and error, wouldn't you say?

You also have to take into consideration that once the unique intelligence that is found in the Genus Homo arose, intelligence begins to be measurably and accountably introduced into the equation from Homo itself.

When you speak of "character traits", we are no longer speaking solely of Homo sapiens instinctual behavior, instead, we have to include all the added and evolved abstractions that have been attached to those inherent instinctual and emotional behaviors, abstractions that have been evolving by trial and error since Homo has emerged from its pre-verbal origins.

 

[osgart]

Your argument might hold some weight if today's complexity was present at the start, or arose in a short period of time. The fact that it has taken almost 14 billion years to get to this point leaves quite a lot of room for messy trial and error, wouldn't you say?

Intelligence could be a latent potential that only becomes apparent when conditions are right. Intelligence could be working autonomously without mind. Intelligence could become apparent at the fine tuning of the universe and is perhaps responsible for that.

I don't think those abstractions are accidental, they are very real things.

Intuition alone doesn't work well in all situations, but there are some that work well and are hard to ignore.