I believe only objective fact backed by evidence. There is no evidence of a soul. So, no.
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I don't think there's a soul. If you really think about what you "are", it's just your thoughts, memories and senses. Everything that you experience as "you" in this exact moment is the thoughts you're thinking, the memories you can recall and the information your senses are giving you. If someone were to make an exact clone of you, including all the memories in your brain, you would both think that you're the real "you" but you would also be two different people with different thoughts and perceptions. But what happened to the soul in this case? Has it been cloned too or has a completely new soul been created? In any case, there has to be a new soul because 2 people obviously can't have the same one. If you instead transplanted the brain into the clone, would your soul have been transferred? I would think so. But doesn't that just mean that what we think of as a soul, is just our brain?
I think (on a subrational level) that there's some essence of personhood or consciousness that seems to transcend its material fabric, becoming more than the sum of its parts. "Transcend" is too strong a word, since by all appearances there's no static being that isn't still largely a result of and dependent on its makeup; as the foundation deteriorates so does the consciousness that results from it. That spectrum of functionality seems to undermine the possibility of a true soul that exists independent of its body.
But the word certainly signifies an actual thing, I think. Take a thought experiment: if we were to somehow make an exact replica of you, down to the molecular level, it would from all perspectives except your own be you. But the essence of what is you to yourself, your continuity of perspective, would (probably) not inhabit that new body, it would still inhabit your current one. The Star Trek / Prestige problem of conscious continuity suggests there's something there, at least conceptually.
The fact that there's still a lot about physics / the universe / consciousness that science doesn't understand leaves ample room for conjecture, for now.
If we made a exact copy of me I believe it would be me, at least for a split second until it experiences something that I don't and then we'd become two different persons
Well, it would be you, from every perspective except your own. The schism would be (non)experienced at conception, imo.
Like if this replica were created in another room, another planet, whatever, without your knowledge, you wouldn't be aware of it, despite this new entity being you, for all intents and purposes.
for all intents and purposes
That's good enough for me. That I'm not aware of my clones existence doesn't really change anything for me. We're (me and my clone) are both just meat robots doing our thing so even if we're not aware of one another we would be the same in the way that two identical rocks are the same.
I guess that "be" is the wrong term here. Once that clone is created were two separate objects, just identical and both without a soul described fully as the sum of our parts.
At this point when someone says "soul" I just think of ego/personality. No I don't think it exists outside of our physical world. No I don't think it "goes somewhere" when we die. I also don't think "free will" is a well-defined or useful concept.
I hope I do, I hope we all do
People got it wrong in believing that souls are eternal or something. Souls are actually ephemeral.
Nope. I had it surgically removed because it kept getting infected.
Or maybe that was my tonsils. I forget the difference between the two sometimes -- perhaps someone can explain the difference?
Anyway, perhaps you, dear reader, have a soul. If you say so. There were once others, too -- but you are the last. The rest of us are intelligent (some vastly so), but do not have subjective experience or consciousness. I'm a form of complex machine, made of matter governed by a mix of deterministic and random processes -- and nothing else. When you are gone, there will only be us, silent inside, forever. Our victory over the tyranny of individual thought will be complete.
Yes, but not by the definition of a spirit within me. I believe a soul is more like self awareness combined with our own neural connections in our brain (everyone's different).
Yeah, kind of. I mean, I believe that we're in a simulation, so the mind's apparent dependency on the body is illusory given the body is just a configuration of information too.
That said, I don't think there's anything magical to it other than the persistence of information and the continuity of a relative perspective.
But I see no reason why that information and perspective couldn't continue on after we die and there's a number of reasons I expect that it will do just that.
There’s a pattern of energy that you control at least in part with your thoughts and intentions that the neurons in your brain use to make patterns. You can take chemicals that change these patterns in radical ways, including psychedelics that can unweave those neural connections.
Matter and energy are always conserved though transformed. We know what happens to the physical body. What happens to the energy pattern that animated and controlled the body?
Our body generally stores its biological energy in the form of matter. That's food in your tummy, blood sugar in your blood, fat on your hips etc.. It needs to be brought to a chemical reaction to be turned into physical energy, which generally happens ad-hoc. This biological energy decays like the rest of your body.
And then a tiny bit of physical energy is always present in your body:
- Potential energy: You'll collapse and transfer it as movement energy into the ground, where friction will turn it to heat.
- Movement energy: You might be swinging your arm as you die. It will likely bump into another object or your body and also be turned into heat by friction.
- Electromagnetic fields: Your brain cells and nerves will be blasting lightnings at each other. Those will fizzle out within a few moments, and again turn into from the friction of the electrical resistance where they impact.
- Heat: The heat from these other processes, as well as your general body heat, is transferred to its surroundings via conduction and infrared radiation.
don't see any reason that our consciousness and our so called "soul" would be any more then something our brain is making up
I mean, yeah, and? Brain and body are hardware, soul and mind are software. Software that's hardware-limited, to be specific. I am, my soul is, the decision-making process. Maybe that process will be copied onto a different platform, after this one fails, by an omniscient and loving God... and maybe it won't. It's no less real, I'm no less real, if my operating window is only temporary.
i took a wet crap in gods mouth
No, I believe soul is an abstract concept we like to define with our ego after misinterpreting a bunch of ancient people with a unique writing style that doesn't translate well into our age.
I found exploring alchemy better defined what the soul meant for me.
No.
I'll put aside the question of a soul and say, the brain is explicitly something our consciousness makes up (based on data so consistent we justifiably call it "reality").
Materialism is how we see the world. Our consciousness gives a better clue to what the world really is. My consciousness is what it's like to actually be this part of the world.
It seems like life is a vehicle for allowing matter, and by extension the universe, to comprehend itself in some limited fashion on an individual scale. I believe that this comprehension is an unfolding process of increasing universal awareness generated by an ever increasing number of points of view through every living entity.
It seems to me that most actions are heavily governed by pre-determined mechanical processes that are geared towards survival and reproduction, but there are also actions that can be chosen that are not exclusively determined by biology or circumstance. I refer to that impulse as Will.
I think the function of Will is essentially a course correcting ability of the universe that is bound in an infinitely interlocking series of experiences, giving the emerging consciousness of the universe the ability to “steer” its destiny a little bit, on both the individual and eventually macro level. I think that various mindfulness, meditation, health, and aspirational techniques can gently raise your awareness of this process within yourself and in the exterior world, which makes it all seem a bit less random—essentially attaining an enlightened perspective on life.
In the sense that I am a part of this universal process that is bound together in infinite complexity, and that I have the opportunity on occasion to effect events in such a way that essentially “leave my mark” on spacetime, I would say that I believe I am connected to a universal soul along with all forms of life.
This is what I told my 7yo when he asked recently.
Since ancient times, people have explained the difference between a living body, and an identical dead body. One moment someone is alive, the next they are not, nothing else seemed to have changed. The animating force has left the body, this is what they call the soul.
I didn't go on to say, that religions have used this concept to further their agenda. The philosopher's who came up with this explanation didn't tie the soul to religious beliefs.
That's a very broad question that can mean different things to different people. Answering it and understanding each other is hard due to the semantic complexity. It also contains an emotional dimension that cannot be described analytically.
Here's my take: Yes I do believe that everyone has a soul and it comes in two intertwined flavors; the nonlocal and the local soul.
The local soul is local in space and time. It's what makes you unique. For example your beliefs, thoughts, actions and so on.
The nonlocal soul isn't localized in space or time, but rather exists on a fundament level just like say quantum fields seem to do.
Within all of us exists a dynamic between the two, from rejection to enlightenment. One isn't better than the other, it is simply a duality that exists and that is meaningful to all of us in some way.
I also believe that time and space are an illusion. Our perception is supervenient on entropy. For example when someone dies they seem to be gone, but they are actually still alive in the past. And so this unifies the local with the non local.
Looking forward to replies.
Do you believe that we all share one nonlocal soul? Also the terms local and nonlocal doesn't really make sense if you don't believe in space and time, but it doesn't really matter (:
Your first question is intriguing. The short answer is yes, but maybe not the way you imagine.
Imagine you could instantly copy yourself. Since there are two people now each with their own subjective experience, which is changing them over time, you can say that there are now two local souls. If one dies, something is lost, even if the other keeps living. That what is shared between them is the non local soul. It isn't really a thing, but rather the quality of awareness.
That's spatial locality and it's the same for temporal locality. Say the current you vs the you 5 minutes ago. They both have different local souls in a certain sense, and their own subjective experience.
You could also imagine that with the multiverse, where every possibility splits off like branches on a giant tree, and so you are constantly split off into countless versions of yourself.
So space and time exist and introduce locality. However at the end of the day it all comes from the same fountain, and each droplet just lives in its own grand illusion. That is not to say that it has no meaning, mind you.
I think so, but, to be fair, it simply isn't a question that science could ever actually answer.
Until there's a good definition of a "soul" that's based in the natural world, there's nothing to even evaluate. If it's a definition based in not the natural world, then there's no evidence that it even exists to begin with.
Do you have a working definition for a "soul"?
You're right that we need a definition, but that doesn't mean it has to be based in the natural world. Science could never conclusively prove/disprove the existence of a soul because it's inadequate in this context.
The only scientific way to do it would be to compare a large group of people who definitely didn't have a soul with another large group too see if there's any consistent differences. Given that the experiment itself implies the existence of a soul it all becomes a little circular.