What is the soul?

So it's physical. Can you see it?

"Love everyone, question everything and look up!"

After a fashion. Every sensation you have is a consequence of your soul. Take this, there is a person typing called thoughtmanifest. There is a person typing called DumbTeen. Your soul is the reason you are feeling the keys on your fingers only when ThoughtManifest types. Your soul is the reason you are experiencing everything through the body of ThoughtManifest, and not through DumbTeen's body.

If your soul were different, and you saw out of DumbTeen's eyes, you would CERTAINLY know the difference! You would perhaps feel more skeptica, criticall and have a whole host of different memories. But there is no physical soul, no proof for it which can be verified by anyone. But you, yourself, know that you are stuck with thought manifest.

The soul is a piece of information, it says "you (the counsciousness) are bound to ThoughtManifest's body.

"Durch Nacht und Blut das Licht"

I don't disagree with you on what you believe the soul's function is. But you still haven't defined the nature of what it is made up of. You said there is "no physical soul", that it's a "piece of information". If it exists it has to be made up of something. If it's not a physical thing like our hand is a physical thing, then wouldn't the only other way to describe be as more "electric" or more "energetic" in nature?...

"Love everyone, question everything and look up!"

No, no. The universe exists for EVERYONE, that's why it is physical.

The soul, what piece of information does your soul have?

"Durch Nacht und Blut das Licht"

What piece of information does my soul have? Was that the question? If so my soul has many pieces of information, you'll have to be more specific.

You still didn't answer my question. Do we agree that if something exists it has to consist of or be made up of something? If physical matter is not what the soul consists of then what does it consist of?

"Love everyone, question everything and look up!"

" If physical matter is not what the soul consists of then what does it consist of?"
Something only exists physically if everyone can see it, or be affected by it. As I have defined it, the soul only affects YOU. It therefore does not exist in the traditional sense.

I'm going to ask you a question, and with your answer I hope I can express myself.

Who are you? (don't give me the most obvious answer)

"Durch Nacht und Blut das Licht"

I am a unique individual with unique experience, perspective and ideas. I am also connected to everything that exists, human consciousness, the planet and the universe.

"Love everyone, question everything and look up!"

Good. The part about the individual, experience and ideas in particular. These are all things in your brain, probably chemicals, you can call them spiritual if you wish, it doesn't matter. The part about how you are connected to the universe is good too.

Let me try to explain, your body is subject to the laws of the universe, it is inseperable from the universe. Thus in a sense, it is obviously connected to the universe.

But I think you are something else beyond that. Specifically, you are the conscious *thing*. IE you are receiving information and sensations with every moment. Sure we may be man, woman, dog. That's a part, but your body is inseperable from the universe. What seperates you from everything else that exists, is the fact that you are a conscious being.

How do you know you are a conscious being? Its self evident, you feel, see and think. Does consciousness have any energy? Anything scientifically verifiable? No, it does not, the human brain does not give off magical waves.

So here is a paradox, you *know* that you are conscious, but you cannot prove it to anyone. me least of all. It is something absolutely obvious to you, and absolutely subjective and unproveable to others.

Its the same with what I call soul. Soul is something non-existant except for you, except for each conscious being. Because you *know* which body you are tied to, yes? That is a piece of information only you know or can possibly know.

You must seperate, your body from *you*. And by *you* I don't mean to say anything intelligent, immortal or that has free will, by *you* I mean that *thing which is experiencing*. God this is hard to express.

"Durch Nacht und Blut das Licht"

What seperates us as individuals, is that none of us have experienced the exact same things. We have not all existed at the same place, at the same time, at any point in time. As my quote says "That all knowledge begins with experince..." , its from certain events in our lives, that have allowed us to form opinions, and ideas, and beliefs. Our ideas, opinions,beliefs, ect., are what make us individuals. Having a sense of self, doesnt constitute the existence of a soul. Realizing that I, as myself, am in my body, does not presuppose a soul, it only proves my consciousness, and my sense of self. By assuming there is a completely different realm of our own humanity,that we have no comprehension of (a soul) does that not remove the meaning of individuality all together? Taking away what is rightly deserved to your own consciousness, and attempting to portray it as something that was given by a supreme being, removes the sense of self. By laying all basis of individual existence into the hands of a supreme being, we take away from our own individuality. We do this because we strip our own destiny and our own self away from our own hands, and assume that we were put here for a predestined reason, that all thought points, and events we may encounter, were already decided. Basically, i don't think souls do exist, and if they did, they do not exist in any way that we could possibly define, because the idea of a soul, is in direct contradiction to its self. A soul, as I see it, is nothing but an attempt to define ourselves, to lump all of our feelings, emotions, ideas, views, and opinions, into one big category. The mind, is incredibly deep, and as humans, being naturally inclined to search for knowledge, and have some sort of order, and logical reasoning for ourselves, and our lives, and all phenomena that may exist internal, and externally, we may sometimes have the tendency, to go out and beyond what we know. "The light dove in free flight the thin air, whose resistance it feels, might imagine that her movements would be far more free and rapid in airless space" We may sometimes abandon the world of sense because of the narrow limits it sets to the understanding, venture upon the wings of ideas beyond it, into the void space of pure intellect. We have problems defining our emotions and thoughts, and it is the natural human inclination, to hurry along and finsih problems as rapidly as possible, and then for the fisrt time, begin to examine whether the foundation was a solid one or no. Arrived at the point, all sorts of excuses are sought after, in order to console us for its want of stablility.

""That all knowledge begins with experience, there can be no doubt...""

I would like to add this also..

To assume that something can or cannot have the ablility to be in existence, presupposes the fact of existence. Too assume someone could possibly be concsious, proves that they have the ability. To recognize your own consciousness, affirms the being of consciousness. It therefore, would be hypocritical,and narcissistic, to deny anothers consciousness...

""That all knowledge begins with experience, there can be no doubt...""

I would agree with you, any definition of the soul in terms of thoughts, feelings, personality etc.. Are probably wrong.

"Durch Nacht und Blut das Licht"

The great equalizer: It balances life's good and bad events by adding or taking away from either side of said scale scale. It is an extenral force that responds to the scale tipping too far to one side or the other. Life is a constant persuit of balance. Diet, excersize, faith, honor, honesty, dishonesty, shortcuts, and cheating are all underlieing means to an end. It is belived that acheiving balance in one's own life will remove the need for an external force to guide it. Do the job of the great equalizer and it will not exist. The ultimate example of proactivity. It confuses me how without even thinking about it, we are always working so hard to take control of somthing that is bigger than we are. maybe I call it the great equalizer, maybe you call it God. Either way our creator is allowing outside influences to impact our life systematically for the good of a bigger picture. One humans are often too small in this universe to see. One that we often ignore because we are so caught up in running our own lives into the ground. It makes sense why we do this - see adam and eve in genesis.Just let go and let God. - It's not in our nature to understand, but it is a good place to start when life gets tough.

"none"

How can you say the soul is an equalizer...an universally agreed theory on anyone who believes in souls, is that we all have one, and the idea of the soul is that it encompasses your entire being. You are your soul; your soul is you...

If it were an equalizer, everyone would have to have the same soul. If two people had souls from the opposite end of the spectrum, and they each experienced the same difficulties in life, how could they each find balance?

And if they did find balance, it would be contradictory to one another; one persons balance would be completely thrown off by the others balance, and an endless succession of metaphysical inequality...

Now i suppose you could bring in two other parties: lets say one at the direct right of the spectrum, and one at the direct left of the spectrum. Combining the two of them, you get a horizontal balance. Combining the top and bottoms, to come with a diagonal balance. Going further to combine the two solutions, and having an isotonic balance of the souls...sounds a little far fetched...

Consider this; wouldnt combining all of our souls, into some form of isotonic solutions, take away from the true meaning of a soul? A soul is suppossed to define you, but it is undefinable, the theory that it is given by the Deity, the One whom we can have no possible way of accurately forming a cognition of, gave them to us...

How much meaning, could the soul possibly have, if we all have totally neutral souls? With knowledge a posteriori, I can confirm, that with a neutral solvent, and through diffusion (the natural tendency of any substance to move to an area of lesser concentration,) the solution will eventually become isotonic, so based on this, i can accurately confirm, that naturally the same thing must happen outside of the physical world. Even with out experiencing it, this is as far as knowledge will take us.

Furthermore, we live on the same planet, in the same universe, so naturally we would all at some point in time be affected by external forces, quite likely, on very frequent occurences, very similar forces, so naturally, our souls would have to be just alike, to deal with them. Having the exact same soul, as the person walking down the street, your third grade teacher, and the milkman, not take away from the meaning of a soul? Being that water, with a pH of 7, being the universal solvent, our souls are H2O? And, if not H2O, something compltely neutral?

So with all of this, I stand firm in my theory, that souls do not exist, because the idea of a soul, contradicts itself...only a philosophical kind of spirituality can be happily in existence ( if any).

""That all knowledge begins with experience, there can be no doubt...""

I am not sure what the reasons for very existence of soul should be. My reason and perception could be result of neural activity in my brain, I am fully satisfied by this theory. Any other theories are usually only wishes of its authors. Why shall man trust fully science in matters of his everyday life and yet deny any of its attempts to say whatever against some cherished and untested (too often they cannon be tested at all) ideas passed to us from ages long gone??? The word SOUL itself means in fact only UNKNOWN. What does it explain? Nothing, I say. Brain as neural network is the theory of certain value, it can say us what to expect or not to expect from it, it helps us anvance in medicine and in construction of machines using similar principles. These are the merits that cannot be easily denied. Opposing "soul idea" is silly; it cannot give us "anything"; I would like say "nothing" as it is usual in my native language because one negative seems to be insufficicient. The only purpose of soul is the thought of "life after death of body". If we were mere physical entities doomed to die after few years of existence why shall we live? I would like to live forever, I would like to try anything worth of trying in the world. But it is not THIS case. We are capable to improve life of people, to lengthen it, but not to make it eternal. I wonder if the idea of soul could persist in world of immortal human beings. I suppose not. Even though I cannot expect to live forever I do not need such comforting tales. In his last book Carl Sagan wrote that he was happy for this opportunity of life and bold enough to look in the eye of death and rejoice of the days gone and yet to be gone. He did NOT need soul. Why shall we?

Most likely the soul is just a romantic notion meant to abate fear provide an avenue for some to feel there is purpose in life, but as I've mention in other threads being a "special" entity made by god that has a little life on a little planet only to simply rejoin god for a grand ol' tea party isn't a very purposefull purpose. It is a romantic notion.

Everything would have to be of god and his creation under such beliefs involving god, a soul is just another thing.

Speaking as a human myself, as far as I know (there has been debate on this in the past), I can understand the profound sense of amazement of the seemingly unique and complicated make up of life and the human experience as lived and seen from the human mind and or soul, this doesn't however just make me believe that there is anything special about us, we still kill destroy and act selfishly to no end. If we do good we usually enough bad to counter it, and that just isn't special.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"