What is a soul?

[Harbal]

I’ve worked with plenty of union folks who made stupid into an artform, but I never did it pro bono.

Well you won't get paid for being stupid here.

[Dontaskme]

I'm just playing with ya!

So you are toying with me, are you?

Yes, I'm watching toy story right now, you can play at being woody if you like.

Hello sunshine, hello blue sky, hello lovely day..oh what a glorious morning.

[Dontaskme]

I’ve worked with plenty of union folks who made stupid into an artform, but I never did it pro bono.

Art is natural... nature is artificial.

And I am, in fact, asking what people's views are on the nature of the soul.

[Age]

When the 'soul' word refers to an invisible part of the human being, then the soul is just the 'person' within a human body. The 'person' word refers to the thoughts and internal or emotional feelings, which are usually associated with the brain.

The 'human being' words refer to the whole or the physical visible part and the invisible part. The 'human' word refers to the physical, visible body and the 'being' word referring to the non visible part.

Now, the 'I' word refers to the One that is within everyone, which is what the 'God' word, in the 'Spirit' sense, refers to, but which is not the soul. The 'soul' word refers to the individual one or 'person', which the 'i' word refers to.

Now, the 'Spirit', of which there is only One, and which is not the soul, is eternal. The soul (or the 'you') is born, or is in creation, but has an everlasting affect, forevermore.

Although you, the soul, or the individual 'i', is, in a sense, aware, you and i are only aware, from and because of the five senses of that individual human body we are individually within. So, we, individually, only have a limited and relatively very small and narrowed field of view, and so also generally only have a limited and relatively very small and narrowed view, or opinion, of things.

The Spirit God, or the collective of ALL I, however, is aware of ALL things. Also, only because and from ALL of the sense that ALL individual physical bodies have.


Now, after a human body changes from being a breathing air, heart pumping body, the you, and i, within, existing as the invisible thoughts and feelings, or just the soul, stops being aware anymore, and so also stops gathering new thoughts or just stops becoming anew. But, the reason it is said the soul keeps existing and exists forever more is because what influence you have made and changed on the world and on other beings will have an everlasting effect, on one way or another.

- Nice presentation. Cogent, tight, a clear presentation with careful thinking, all predicated on the first statement.
- Obviously you expect from yourself what you ask from others.
- Plenty there to fuel Harbal’s enquiry.

“When the 'soul' word refers to an invisible part of the human being …”

- Based on this first statement and the intriguing word “invisible”, then to know that a soul exists at all, it must in some way be detected directly, or inferred as a cause affecting action, or effecting action.
- Old soul, young soul, good soul … what’s that all about?

Either just misnomers, or, just words referring to, for example, the way the 'thoughts' within are being presented. Like, an 'old person', and/or the way an older body is behaving, a 'young child', and/or the body playing, 'views with good intentions', or good behaviour seen from another physical, visible body.

[Harbal]

I would still like to know what a soul is, if anyone has come up with any ideas.

It would also be interesting to know what reason there is to think there even is such a thing as a soul.

[bobmax]

I would still like to know what a soul is, if anyone has come up with any ideas.

It would also be interesting to know what reason there is to think there even is such a thing as a soul.

The reason why there is a soul is that if it weren't there you would be nothing.

And in fact the soul is not there...

[seeds]

I would still like to know what a soul is, if anyone has come up with any ideas.

Clearly, this is just going to be speculation, however, I suggest that a soul is the permanent (eternal) aspect of our inner-being that is formed the moment the proverbial lights come on at the event of our initial birth.

The soul is the self-aware "agent" that sits at the throne of consciousness within the mind, with the mind itself being a part of the living fabric of the agent's very being.

If within the context of a vivid dream you created a mirror within your mind - a mirror that could actually reflect an image back at you, then, looking into it, I suggest that you would not only see what your soul (the creator of the mirror) truly is and what it looks like,...

...but you would also understand what the greater "SOUL" of this universe (God) looks like, for (allegedly) we are its familial offspring, created in its image.

Some of the members of this forum get annoyed with me when I upload my illustrations, however, I do it repeatedly because I feel they help to better visualize the claims I am making in these sorts of recurring conversations, so here it is...



Now of course I'm not suggesting that our eternal souls are going to look like "bubbles" to each other. No, we are going to look like whatever it is that the Creator of this universe looks like.

Anyway, you asked for "ideas" regarding the soul. So, there you go.
_______

[Harbal]

Anyway, you asked for "ideas" regarding the soul. So, there you go.
_______

Yes, I did ask, so thank you. I can't help but wonder, though, how you, or anyone, could possibly know what you have outlined above.

[Dubious]

Something which comes back in shreds after taking it to the dry-cleaner...meaning a nearly desiccated concept with no life-affirming waters flowing through it. Or maybe it's just something we wish we had!

[seeds]

Anyway, you asked for "ideas" regarding the soul. So, there you go.
_______

Yes, I did ask, so thank you. I can't help but wonder, though, how you, or anyone, could possibly know what you have outlined above.

I will never pretend that I "know" with absolute certainty that what I stated in my prior post is true.

However, the reason why I made those assertions about the soul...

(assertions that I personally believe are quite plausible)

...is a result of many years of obsessive analyzing of a mind-blowing, life-changing epiphany I experienced when I was 20 years old (approximately 53 years ago).
_______

[Harbal]

I will never pretend that I "know" with absolute certainty that what I stated in my prior post is true.

However, the reason why I made those assertions about the soul...

(assertions that I personally believe are quite plausible)

...is a result of many years of obsessive analyzing of a mind-blowing, life-changing epiphany I experienced when I was 20 years old (approximately 53 years ago).
_______

And does having these beliefs have much influence on the way you live your life, or on how you percieve the world?

[Iwannaplato]

I will never pretend that I "know" with absolute certainty that what I stated in my prior post is true.

However, the reason why I made those assertions about the soul...

(assertions that I personally believe are quite plausible)

...is a result of many years of obsessive analyzing of a mind-blowing, life-changing epiphany I experienced when I was 20 years old (approximately 53 years ago).
_______

And does having these beliefs have much influence on the way you live your life, or on how you percieve the world?

For me the belief is part of a model, loosely held, that fits experiences I have had that do not fit with the physicalist model of things, including of us. I can't isolate out the idea 'soul' in my life and then look for effects. But given experiences that some would brush off as merely coincidence or say I have confused interpretations, it actually seems better to consider that something does continue on after death and reincarnates or does other things. Of course most skeptics consider my interpretations false/confused. But given what I experienced I began to take seriously a model that is different from the physicalist one. (I don't have some monolith model that I adhere to at all times, I notice that I shift between different models or paradigms). So, this idea of 'soul' is part of a model that has facilitated me actively seeking experiences because I found some of these experiences, that I did not seek but which just sort of happened, useful. Taking them seriously seemed, to the best of my knowledge, to make me feel more whole (I know, vague) and at home with myself. Not because 'Oh, now the universe is peachy' but rather that the experiences helped me throw off bad patterns of self-relation, relation to others and so on. I don't feel like trying to convince anyone of this, but I am taking your question as the focus. How did they influence my life? Well, thinking in terms of a model that includes something like a soul gives me a base to then go ahead and try to have more of those experiences. It's not causal, per se, but it's part of the whole direction. It's the thinky portion, the mulling portion, the part where I talk to others about what we are doing/experiencing. There are practices or explorations and these could be engaged in without the word or other words that you might have a similar reaction to. But it's just convenient and I think natural to include them, especially in dialogue with others. Sort of like how 'community' (in the sense of a shared group sense amongst a number of people and the details of that the relations and connections) might be used. It's not easy to point to a physical correlate for community (though I am not making a case that soul and community are ontologically equivalent or as easily demonstrated as each other, just focusing on where a word comes in that you could, in fact, leave out of a neigborhood discussion). But using the word community can be useful.

[Harbal]

For me the belief is part of a model, loosely held, that fits experiences I have had that do not fit with the physicalist model of things, including of us. I can't isolate out the idea 'soul' in my life and then look for effects. But given experiences that some would brush off as merely coincidence or say I have confused interpretations, it actually seems better to consider that something does continue on after death and reincarnates or does other things. Of course most skeptics consider my interpretations false/confused. But given what I experienced I began to take seriously a model that is different from the physicalist one. (I don't have some monolith model that I adhere to at all times, I notice that I shift between different models or paradigms). So, this idea of 'soul' is part of a model that has facilitated me actively seeking experiences because I found some of these experiences, that I did not seek but which just sort of happened, useful. Taking them seriously seemed, to the best of my knowledge, to make me feel more whole (I know, vague) and at home with myself. Not because 'Oh, now the universe is peachy' but rather that the experiences helped me throw off bad patterns of self-relation, relation to others and so on. I don't feel like trying to convince anyone of this, but I am taking your question as the focus. How did they influence my life? Well, thinking in terms of a model that includes something like a soul gives me a base to then go ahead and try to have more of those experiences. It's not causal, per se, but it's part of the whole direction. It's the thinky portion, the mulling portion, the part where I talk to others about what we are doing/experiencing. There are practices or explorations and these could be engaged in without the word or other words that you might have a similar reaction to. But it's just convenient and I think natural to include them, especially in dialogue with others. Sort of like how 'community' (in the sense of a shared group sense amongst a number of people and the details of that the relations and connections) might be used. It's not easy to point to a physical correlate for community (though I am not making a case that soul and community are ontologically equivalent or as easily demonstrated as each other, just focusing on where a word comes in that you could, in fact, leave out of a neigborhood discussion). But using the word community can be useful.

Thanks for that. I suppose we all try to make sense of existence somehow, and while I couldn't really describe my way of doing it, I can say there is nothing "spiritual" about it; I'm not that sort of person. Even so, I can respect what you and seeds have to say because you both seem to have figured things out for yourselves, rather than adopting an off-the-shelf set of beliefs.

I have never experienced anything in my life that has led to my considering the possibility of the existence of anything that could be called a soul; other than metaphorically, of course. Nothing has ever happened to me to make me wonder if there might actually be a spiritual realm of any kind. Maybe souls really do exist, and I just don't happen to have one.

[attofishpi]

For me the belief is part of a model, loosely held, that fits experiences I have had that do not fit with the physicalist model of things, including of us. I can't isolate out the idea 'soul' in my life and then look for effects. But given experiences that some would brush off as merely coincidence or say I have confused interpretations, it actually seems better to consider that something does continue on after death and reincarnates or does other things. Of course most skeptics consider my interpretations false/confused. But given what I experienced I began to take seriously a model that is different from the physicalist one. (I don't have some monolith model that I adhere to at all times, I notice that I shift between different models or paradigms). So, this idea of 'soul' is part of a model that has facilitated me actively seeking experiences because I found some of these experiences, that I did not seek but which just sort of happened, useful. Taking them seriously seemed, to the best of my knowledge, to make me feel more whole (I know, vague) and at home with myself. Not because 'Oh, now the universe is peachy' but rather that the experiences helped me throw off bad patterns of self-relation, relation to others and so on. I don't feel like trying to convince anyone of this, but I am taking your question as the focus. How did they influence my life? Well, thinking in terms of a model that includes something like a soul gives me a base to then go ahead and try to have more of those experiences. It's not causal, per se, but it's part of the whole direction. It's the thinky portion, the mulling portion, the part where I talk to others about what we are doing/experiencing. There are practices or explorations and these could be engaged in without the word or other words that you might have a similar reaction to. But it's just convenient and I think natural to include them, especially in dialogue with others. Sort of like how 'community' (in the sense of a shared group sense amongst a number of people and the details of that the relations and connections) might be used. It's not easy to point to a physical correlate for community (though I am not making a case that soul and community are ontologically equivalent or as easily demonstrated as each other, just focusing on where a word comes in that you could, in fact, leave out of a neigborhood discussion). But using the word community can be useful.

Thanks for that. I suppose we all try to make sense of existence somehow, and while I couldn't really describe my way of doing it, I can say there is nothing "spiritual" about it; I'm not that sort of person. Even so, I can respect what you and seeds have to say because you both seem to have figured things out for yourselves, rather than adopting an off-the-shelf set of beliefs.

I have never experienced anything in my life that has led to my considering the possibility of the existence of anything that could be called a soul; other than metaphorically, of course. Nothing has ever happened to me to make me wonder if there might actually be a spiritual realm of any kind. Maybe souls really do exist, and I just don't happen to have one.

Ya, nice post Iwannaplato.

Pff. A soul and how to contemplate what it IS?

I used to think that (since knowing an intelligence exists at the backbone to everything)..that perhaps there is something material within our being that gets repositioned, re-implanted (reincarnation)...

I guess I still do, but I think a lot about our POV within REALITY...that, perhaps in a similar way to how a pointer works within a computer program, that there indeed is this link (pointer/place-holder) that can recursively (when we die) drop off and be re-assigned to another material body.

Just some food for thought Harbal

[Dontaskme]

I have never experienced anything in my life that has led to my considering the possibility of the existence of anything that could be called a soul; other than metaphorically, of course. Nothing has ever happened to me to make me wonder if there might actually be a spiritual realm of any kind. Maybe souls really do exist, and I just don't happen to have one.

There is no one experiencing what it is like to be or have a 'soul'.
The 'soul' is simply a subjective experience, no one is having.. So no, you haven't got an actual 'soul' that can be experienced as an objective reality, the idea of being a 'soul' is purely subjective. There is no objective reality of 'soul', because objective reality works the same for everyone regardless of what they believe, and the belief in 'soul' obviously doesn't.

A subjective experience refers to the emotional and cognitive impact of a human experience as opposed to an objective experience which are the actual events after they have been defined and quantified.

What is the definition of 'exist' the experience of existing? The answer is to have objective reality or being, which is dependent on us humans, who invented the words, to say so in this conception, aka objective reality. If nobody does that with an object, the object can't even be talked about, imagined, conceived of. If the existence of 'soul' weren't dependent on an observer to say whether it existed or not, then it seems that everything and nothing exists. And no one would be needed to believe or not believe that.



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