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Leaving aside any religious interpretations and speaking from an atheist/agnostic point of view, what do people think of the concept of 'soul'? Does it exist and if so, how would you define it?

StJohn 6 May 28
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23 comments

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7

The concept of “soul” has been with us for a long time and, like other symbols and metaphors humankind has used for the unknowable and unexplained, is subject to personal definition.

My description of “soul” would be be like an imaginary receptacle (maybe part of our brain?) of all we know to be good, right, beautiful, and truly awesome (to use a word other than spiritual) in our minds.

Our "soul" can recognize these things we hold dear, just like our "conscience" can recognize ethical/unethical actions. We have no problem condemning folks who have no "conscience" but not so much folks who have no "soul" if we don't believe in one?

So, I feel it may be something intangible, but you just know when someone has a warm "heart" or "soul" or a good "conscience" because you recognize it when you see it in someone that you know deeply.

7

It's mystic bullshit, but I'm looking at it from a skeptic's point of view rather than an atheist's or agnostic's. It's a concept that people use to avoid facing mortality.

JimG Level 8 May 28, 2018
6

The soul is what people invented in order to control other people by convincing them that their soul is in danger.

Of course, there's no evidence that a soul exists, but it's become a wonderfully useful marketing device used by con artists to make people believe they need either traditional religion or new age hokum

6

There is no such thing as a soul. It's an illusion from our self awareness. So, what's it like after you die? It's exactly the same as before you were born.

5

I think it's just part of a person's consciousness.

5

Watching people dance from stage most nights my whole adult life, l would have to say very few people have soul.

4

I would define it as the outcome of our thoughts and emotions.

4

I believe in good soul music!

3

As an agnostic i seek truth based on evidence. Here is the evidence as I see it.

There has never been a consistent singular definition of the word soul.

There has never been evidence of a soul in the immortal definition. This thought is a relic of magical thinking. The rapidly advancing science of whole brain emulation (WBE see link) will conclusively prove one way or the other if there is a supernatural component of consciousness.

[en.wikipedia.org]

The definition of soul as a person's moral or emotional sense of identity is a valid psychological construct.

The definition of soul as a qualitative aspect of art, people, and culture is a valid social construct.

3

No. I wouldn't.

3

your brain is your hard drive that includes caring, loving, beliefs right or wrong and it controls the rest of you. your heart is a blood pump and your soul is on your foot.

3

A soul is who you are without the flesh and bone. It is the sum total of your actions and motives. Time is a dimension just as space is. Our actions exist in one position within this time stream. They are infinit and irreprable. In a sense they are immortal. With the possibility of an infinit multiverse and more than the percieved 4 dimensions it is possible that we exist simultaniously in these possible other dimensions; however, we are not able to percieve them until after our 4 dimentional bodies cease to function.

Close your eyes and block all of your senses. Try to think of nothing. What is left should be the soul.

4D enthusiasts are a deal-breaker for me. Sounds like religion.

Sounds appealing though. I like it.

I thought he was asking for opinions, not hard science. I am not looking to weigh the soul leaving the body like some 19th century hack. I am simply taking scientific theory and making a guess based only on my own experience. Before I could even dream of testing this idea I would first need a working knowledge of higher dimensional space and time. Science never starts with knowing how something functions, that's religion. Science starts with an idea of how it might work, then testing the idea to see if it is valid. This is the "idea," but if you have a solid way to test it, I am all ears.

Let me give you what I Do know.

Look up any of the thousands of examples of the double slit experiment and you will find that things can and do exist in a quantum state. This is how we prove that photons act as both a particle and a wave. The observation of these particles is known to change how they act. This is not proof of higher dimensions; however, it is a good indicator that reality is not as cut and dry as it appears.

Higher dimensions cannot be proven; yet, they can be mathematically calculated quite easily such a 4x4x4 cube can be made a 4x4x4x4 higher dimensional cube. It's hard to envision it, but easy to calculate.

We have also known for a long time that time itself is fluid. Time flows more slowly at sea level than it does in space. This has been proven with atomic clocks and it's also why GPS satellites need to be synchronized every year.

Dark Matter and Dark Energy exist. We can't see most of the universe and there is a whole bunch of energy that we know is there, but we don't know what it is.
All of this is easy to find in a 5 minute web search, complete with all experimentation and predictions.

3

I always think about things that have been stated by Einstein, Tyson and other physicists. Also as Tyson has said, I wan't to give my chemical elements to nature to allow it to do its things before our sun becomes a red giant and it will no longer take place.

That stuff depresses me.

2

It is, at best, an overly simplified, ancient, euphemistic and apt way of attempting to describe the phenomenon we call "consciousness."

2

Your essense which dies with you.

Beautifully put.

2

"a kind of music incorporating elements of rhythm and blues and gospel music, popularized by African American culture. Characterized by an emphasis on vocals and an impassioned improvisatory delivery, it is associated with performers such as Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and Otis Redding."
That's how google defines it.

1
1

I see it as nothing more than metaphor. Like Team/School Spirit. Or that elderly person is an Old Soul.

1

I think we're ethereal beings , energy, or if were actually projecting wat we see maybe we can even say It's our life-line like avatar uses to connect to animals we use our etheric ropes to attach to flesh .

What????????

1

Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.​

That means my body is my soul and it dies with me.

Yes...absolutely @Marine

1

I was going to try to post a link to one of my previous posts, but I couldn't figure out how to do it, so I copied it. Here it is...

I was thinking about my old beliefs about the soul, and decided that when I referred to the soul, it was actually a metaphor, or a handy descriptor for something else, and then I started trying to pin down that "something else." I think now, possibly, that what we call the soul is the unified thought, or feeling, or being, that arises from the whole self. Not a fragmented reasoned out thought, not an unthinking reaction of feeling, but a movement that arises from and is consistent with the entire being--body, mind, and emotions. I need to think about this some more and perhaps refine, or even change, my ideas, but I think I'm on the right track. There must be something there that causes people to identify a certain thing as a soul, and I want to try as best I can to define it.
People want to believe in the soul, because by most people's definition, it's the part of you that is not of the body, and if there's a part of you that's not of the body, then it can live on after death. People just have a hard time accepting that we're no different from a tree or a flower or a bird or a bear. We live, develop, grow, and die, and that's the end of us. The only way we can live on after death is either through our works, whatever they may be, or in the hearts and minds of those who knew us.
But the only place we can imagine as the soul that we can see evidence of, is the mind. We, to a certain extent, reside in our minds, and our minds are created by our brains and bodies. A complete and whole being involves all of these, and is indivisible. Your brain by itself is not “you.”
While in our minds it can seem as if we can inhabit different worlds and place ourselves in an almost infinite number of scenarios, it all originates from our physical being. That is truly magical, if you think about it--almost more magical than imagining an infinite incorporeal ghost inhabiting our bodies--that our earth-grown beings are capable of creating and building so much as we have.

A wonderful response: Thankyou!

1

Wish I knew! I'll be following this.

Carin Level 8 May 28, 2018
0

The problem we face is that our English word "soul" is very confusing, one might say it is semantically schizophrenic. The Christians in adopting the Old English terminology could never quite exorcise its pagan roots. All the ancient European cultures believed that the innermost part of a human being persisted after the death of the body. Some, like Pythagoras and Plato, believed this innermost "whatever" is eternal and pre-existed the conception and birth of the individual. Sadly this side of "that goodnight" we have no reliable means of testing the concept, either to validate it or prove it false.

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