Eorl wrote:Soul is supposed to be somehow seperate from the body.
We do not know if the body is a product of the soul. Many argue the oposite, that soul is a product of body. We cannot know for sure.
We know nothing of the mysterious driveforce behind all life except that it is there.
Terry
I believe you. Away with the 7 year myth. I still have my tattoo and my childhood scars.
Cyracuz wrote:Eorl wrote:Soul is supposed to be somehow seperate from the body.
We do not know if the body is a product of the soul. Many argue the oposite, that soul is a product of body. We cannot know for sure.
We know nothing of the mysterious driveforce behind all life except that it is there.
Please provide evidence of the existence of this mysterious driveforce?
When an embryo is frozen, what happens to this "force"?
Quote:Please provide evidence of the existence of this mysterious driveforce?
OK. Star Wars one through six..
No evidence. Only abstract thoughts. But a fact is that we do not know the secret of life, which leads me to conclude, for now, that it is a mysterious force...
Concepts like "spirit" and "soul" should have literary reference only to psychological states, not metaphysical entities.
As I see it, spirit or soul precedes psyche.
I do not propose any entity, but the issue is metaphysical of nature.
Spirit, to me, is the force that causes one particular lump of matter to be animate while other similar lumps of matter might not be.
I don't see it the same way Cyracuz. Every living thing depends on a chain of processess, chemical, electrical, whatever...and when a critical part of that chain is broken beyond repair, those processes that depend on it also stop. (Those that don't..... continue.... such as growth of hair and nails). Just because some of those processes are not yet completely understood, doesn't mean there is magic at work.
No evidence exists to support the existence of a soul. It's a magic myth, but one that seems incredibly popular.
Regarding the concepts of soul and spirit: I do not think humans HAVE "souls"; we ARE souls. And I like to think that each soul is a portion of a Cosmic or universal Soul (like a drop in the ocean). As souls we are sometimes more "spirited" (energetic, motivated, creative, intuitive, "alive", loving, atuned or connected) than at other times; indeed, when sick we are dis-spirited.
maybe it's just an invention of the brain, maybe when we get particularly emotional or connected, etc... well who knows what the brain is capable of...
JL
I think I agree with your statement. We are our souls. But I don't know if I think that the traits that make up my personality is of the soul. The way I see it these things are merely the output of material activity.
Cryacuz, I havn't considered that complexity. Personality can be in part a mere product of experience. But the consciousness required to have (or be) experience is what I was referring to.
But is soul consiousness?
Or more precisely, human consciousness?
Personality is a product of experience, both physical and mental. But experience comes only to those worldly things that are in connection to the mysterious lifeforce we like to call soul.
So soul is prior to experience, which comes before personality, self and mind.
After all, prior to me, -a semi intelligent bipedal with opposing thumbs, there lie the total experience of all creatures before me in this long, unbroken line of life that I am, at present, the end link of.
And this is, of course, only my own guesses. :wink:
Perhaps "soul" is prior to "experience." I like to think of them occurring simultaneously. On the other hand, we might imagine that soul GROWS or SHRINKS as a response to experiences of various kinds. I don't know if "soul" has more than poetic value. Although I would not minimize the importance of the poetic perspective.
There seems to be much discussion about where this "mysterious thing X" comes from....I'm still waiting to be shown that it exists. There seems to be no evidence that it does, other than a lack of complete understanding of the biology of consciousness.
Consciousness is produced by neurological pulses between the brainstem, thalamus, and cortex. It IS the soul/spirit/sense of self/personality/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. It grows and changes as experiences enhance some neurological interconnections in the brain while others are pruned by disuse, disease or trauma. That's all there is. No immortal soul is required, detectable, or logically possible.
Terry wrote:Consciousness is produced by neurological pulses between the brainstem, thalamus, and cortex.
Ok, say you're right... What causes neurological pulses? How is it that there are such things as brainstem, thalamus and cortex?
We know that these components of the mind are made from the same substances that make up dirt, among other things.
Btw
Personally I am not convinced the quote above is true. The part I object to is 'produced by'. We do not know if that is the case. Consciousness might be what produces neurological pulses.
And, in a sense,* Cyracuz, the concepts of brainstem, thalamus, and cortex (as well as consciousness) may be manifestations of "soul activity". It could be that "soul" (like awareness and consciousness) are our conceptual presuppositions for the construction of the world we are thinking and talking about.
* "In a sense" is a necessary qualifier for virtually all of my assertions.
JLN, I agree that "we" create the concepts and construct an image of the world, but without a physical world in which physical brains evolved, there would be no souls to suppose anything about it.
Cyracuz, neurological pulses can occur due to baseline electrochemical activity in the brain (if you want more details I will look them up and post it), signals from sensory nerves which have been stimulated by something in the environment (sights, sounds, touch, etc), and output from other neurons. One neuron firing can trigger others and eventually cascade into a coherent pattern representing a thought.
For what purpose would "consciousness" produce neurological pulses? That makes no sense.
Terry, I agree completely that "without a physical world in which physical brains evolved, there would be no souls to suppose anything about it."
At the same time I agree completely that "without a mental world in which consciousness evolved there would be no "brains" to talk about.
No mind, no matter; no matter, no matter. We cannot have yin without yang, and vice versa. The "either-or" dualism is our problem.
Terry wrote:For what purpose would "consciousness" produce neurological pulses? That makes no sense.
For the purpose of evolution.
Imagine a monkey. Early stage evolution, he sees a banana, and neurons fire. This happens again and again, the basic food/eat neurons triggering others, and slowly there grows up a whole world around the banana. The increase of neurons firing gives the advantage of more details, untile there is a whole world in which the monkey becomes aware of itself.
This is how I imagine it. Can't say I know any of this for sure...
But I do know that it is conscious activity that enables the brain to grow and evolve.
http://home.att.net/~meditation/monks.brains.html
From the link above:
Quote:The term refers to the brain's recently discovered ability to change its structure and function, in particular by expanding or strengthening circuits that are used and by shrinking or weakening those that are rarely engaged. In its short history, the science of neuroplasticity has mostly documented brain changes that reflect physical experience and input from the outside world. In pianists who play many arpeggios, for instance, brain regions that control the index finger and middle finger become fused, apparently because when one finger hits a key in one of these fast-tempo movements, the other does so almost simultaneously, fooling the brain into thinking the two fingers are one. As a result of the fused brain regions, the pianist can no longer move those fingers independently of one another.
