Musika:
Are you saying that the soul has no independent agency, then?
Jan Ardena would have it that your soul is you, and that without your soul there would be no conscious you. Both you and he say that you believe that souls migrate from one body to another, retaining some ongoing essence of a person that defies the death of a physical body.
Now you speak as if the soul is merely a passenger in a body, with no ability to affect anything in the body, at least as far as causing action goes. Like clothes, the soul is merely an adjunct, with no independent agency.
What does this soul of yours do, in practical terms? From what you have written, I get the impression that the soul's one and only role is to provide a "spark of life" to a body. You assume that without a soul there is no life. Or, to put it another way, it seems to me that when you say "soul" you are using it essentially as a synonym for "life essence" or some equivalent metaphysical concept. Is that correct?
In the analogy, the article of clothing is the body, and the body is the soul. The soul "wears" bodies. The soul is the most intimate source of agency and identity.
The nuts and bolts of how life animates matter. Using the language of physics to explain life consistently falls flat on its face at a certain point.
I'm inclined to disagree. I doubt that there are many biologists, for example, who think that the processes of life cannot be reduced, at the lowest level, to chemistry, then physics. This is not to say that the organisation of biological systems is not immensely complex. Chemists and biologists are specialists with special expertise, but that does not mean that chemistry and biology aren't grounded in physics.
Biologists/psychologists have a whole bevy of tools they can use for investigation and analysis of their subjects, that physicists can't. I am not talking about a mere inter-disciplinary variation. I am talking about a completely different world view that has no need to be obedient or even subscribe to the reductionist views of physicists, and still remain "good science". Granted, physics has revolutionized science, but there is no need for psychologists/biologists to come to the end of untangling the hubris that surrounds reductionist views of life in order to function as effective biologists .... and by the same token, physicists also don't have to meet the same ends to function in their fields.
You just told me that souls have no agency, did you not?
No, you misunderstood the analogy
I don't think I understand how this example is relevant to your argument. Probably I don't understand why you think this example is a good analogy for the soul in a body. Could you explain further?
Interrupting the electrical flow produces certain behaviour in a light bulb (it goes dim or extunguishes). However, the same behaviour can be mimicked with constant electrical flow by altering the light bulb (so it goes dim or extinguishes).
In the same way, attributing the "lights" of the body to physical correlation in no way establishes life as physically emergent.
When the electricity is cut, fiddling with the bulb has no effect. By the same token, "when our lights go out", fiddling with the body won't turn them back on.
This is why I get the impression that you believe that a soul is a magical "spark of life".
If your view is that having a soul merely means that something is alive, then I have no particular issue with that view. You can call "life" a "soul" if you want to; it doesn't particular bother me if you prefer to use a circumlocution instead of talking directly about what you want to talk about.
Being alive is the symptom of the soul. Its no more "magical" than attributing sunshine to the rising sun.
But I'm fairly sure, based on other things that you have written, that you actually believe that a soul is more than a mere "spark of life". In particular, you said you believed in reincarnation, which implies a continuity of an individual soul from one life to the next.
I agree with you that whether something is alive or dead is detectable, as a general principle. Of course, there are many marginal cases where we could argue the question "Is it alive?" But let's stick to talking about human beings, who are usually fairly clearly either alive or dead.
If "the soul" is merely a substitute term for "living", then "the soul" is detectable. On the other hand, if the same soul is supposed to migrate from one body to another, then I'd say that is completely undetected - and undetectable, as far as I am aware. Correct me if I'm wrong.
The soul has no qualitative connection to matter. Granted we now experience life through the medium of matter, but that occurs through a superior agency ... I think we touched on that briefly in your "what does God do" thread.
The animating force of life is not a material element, hence it doesnt appear in the purview of instruments that record matter.
My concern is with how the rubber meets the road when it comes to your "transcendent" soul.
That discussion involves understanding God. IOW investigating ourselves requires an investigation of God. I understand that you have limited resources of patience in this regard, so I will try and keep it brief and entertaining.
Perhaps its like the life of a nerd who takes shelter of computer games to compensate for their poor social skills. The computer and the game are manufactured by "superior agencies" IRL(the nerd neither manufactured or designed it nor powers it). The nerd is also IRL. The games they play are based on themes and narratives and events IRL. The computer and associated components are IRL But because the nerd has some reservation about real life in regards to their identity or role, they spend all their time controlling a pixelated avatar that is designed, facilitated and maintained by superior agency, IRL. In the state of such immersion, they experience (a shadow) of the full gamut of human experience through the trials and tribulations of a series of pixelated avatars. The pixels are real, the computer is real. The nerd is real (and of course real life, the very medium on which the game is based, is real). The grief and jubilation the nerd feels on account of the exploits of various avatars is real. Yet the only part that is not real is the nerds identification with the avatar. Actually they are not the avatars (that they are controlling through the arrangement of superior agencies). IOW the rubber meets the road through the medium of illusion.
Assuming Jan's position, my question is how the desires or plans of the soul are translated into action in the physical world. What is the chain of causes that goes from the soul wanting to raise the arm, through to the arm being raised?
To get back to the computer nerd, if they desire to move the avatar in a particular way, it is orchestrated by superior agency IRL ... on a very elementary level, from the company providing electricity, to the keyboard and computer manufacturer ... to the more refined, immediate level, namely the game manufacturer who set the rules for playability, etc. Throughout all of this, the nerd is but a disempowered seer, who can merely desire. We are in a position of being unlimitedly limited
... con't
