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Wed 11 Apr, 2007 04:20 am
This was inspired by some debates over the mind/brain dualism. The following is an idea I like to play with, a belief system of sorts, though not one I place all my bets on, so to speak. I think it bears strong resemblance to the hindu ideas of reincarnation, but I am not sure. Anyway, here goes.
The soul is not subject to mortality. And let me hasten to add that the soul is not sentient, intelligent or emotional. The personality of any person is not a matter of the soul. It is a matter of mind/brain.
There is only one soul, and the soul is merely the mystical force that causes cells to divide and reproduce in living organisms. Any living creature is a small part of this one big force.
The soul of a flower is the same as the soul of a human being. The difference in the creatures is physical, and in the more complex creature the soul is more intricately expressed and utilized than in the simpler organism.
The soul is potential, and through incarnation the soul can alter it's potential. But memory, intelligence, personality and sentience are qualities it commands only when it's embodied.
When the body dies all these things vanish. The soul lives on, and the experience in the body has altered the souls potential. When it reincarnates it has no memory of the previous incarnation, but it is altered by the experience so that the next time around is based on the previous.
In short, the life force that molds us is also molded by what we do when it possession of it. When we're done with it, the only trace of us is the alterations made on it during the time we commanded it. These alterations will be the starting point next time the soul reincarnates.
When you use the word "soul", that reincarnates, are you thinking in terms of the totality of everything being manifested a new every time a mind/brain is created or something? In what other ways could a soul re-incarnate, in what other things? How does it "jump" from body to body as it were, rather than a specific thing which jumps from body to body, is it the entirety which is continually re-manifested, of which we perceive aspects? If this makes any sense.
I tend to look & wonder about the levels of animation we perceive, the subsequent categories we create. I see some driving force, a continuous process which has neither beginning nor end in the traditional sense, I would see this "force" in all things though, not just in beings, in rocks and air too. The totality is in continuous movement, all aspects that we perceive have causes and effect, this re-incarnation is the totality re-manifesting itself, in a "world", of which previous things we perceive as living and dying or simply being....have affected. So when you say, the potential of a "soul" is altered through previous incarnations, I agree in the sense that the world or totality is in continuous sway and we perceive change that gives us the impression of development or growth, not necessarily in individuals beyond death, but in the whole, with individuals being mere aspects of a whole. Again, if this makes any sense.
I guess there are so many different ways to approach all of this though. Thinking...
I was thinking of soul as the force that animates living matter. The thing that makes any organism different from a stone or water or vapor.
I see it as something that allows matter to develop into complex configurations that alter by their own metabolisms. I see it as the drive, but not the direction. That is decided by the matter itself. As I said before, the mind and the brain determine personality, but the soul enables it. It is a prerequisite of mind/brain and spirit.
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