Question for Cris and James R.,if possible...

[Cris]

Thefountainhed,

From your DEF – SOUL -

The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.

Thoughts, actions, and emotions, are material attributes experienced by the material body. It seems from this definition that the immaterial soul must interact with the material body if it is the animating influence as the definition states.

Do you want to dispute your quoted definition?

 

[thefountainhed]

The animating and vital principle in humans, credited with the faculties of thought, action, and emotion and often conceived as an immaterial entity.

Thoughts, actions, and emotions, are material attributes experienced by the material body. It seems from this definition that the immaterial soul must interact with the material body if it is the animating influence as the definition states.

Do you want to dispute your quoted definition?

*sigh*
It is merely thought of as the source, the originator, or the reason why we have thought, action, and emotion --- something animals supposedly lack. This must not be construed as something that is constantly exacting an influence on our actions, emtions, or thought. It can be the origin of said attributes and be 'immaterial' because it is part of the fundamental.

Oh and no, just your interpretation.

Also, realize not to confuse cultural uses of soul that have came to being as a result of usage, and do not represent the philosophical or religious meaning.

 

[Canute]

fountainhead

I must say I don't understand your notion of 'soul' either. The idea that our souls don't come into existence until we die seems logically odd. Is this really what you mean?

What would you consider evidence for the existence of souls?

 

[Cris]

Thefountainhed,

It is merely thought of as the source, the originator, or the reason why we have thought, action, and emotion..

And how are these influences propagated to the material reality without some form of interaction between the immaterial soul and the material body?

This must not be construed as something that is constantly exacting an influence on our actions, emtions, or thought.

OK but that implies intermittent interaction then, either way it will involve an interaction with the material at some point, agreed?

It can be the origin of said attributes and be 'immaterial' because it is part of the fundamental.

What is meant by ‘fundamental’?

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Originally posted by Cris
Thefountainhed,

And how are these influences propagated to the material reality without some form of interaction between the immaterial soul and the material body?
----------
M*W: They are not. The material body and the ethereal soul are congruent. One and the same. For all eternity. It's only xians that believe they are separate.
----------
OK but that implies intermittent interaction then, either way it will involve an interaction with the material at some point, agreed?
----------
M*W: The material and the spiritual are one and the same.
----------
What is meant by ‘fundamental’?
----------
M*W: The basic truths are fundamental. The mind, the body, the spirit, are one and the same.

 

[Cris]

M*W,

The material and the spiritual are one and the same.

Then why make a distinction and identify them separately?

The basic truths are fundamental.

That statement conveys no useful or meaningful information. What are the basic truths? What is meant by fundamental in this context?

The mind, the body, the spirit, are one and the same.

OK so when the body dies then the spirit dies, right? So the soul can’t be eternal as you claim.

 

[thefountainhed]

Cris, all,


I’ll try and see if I cannot do better next time around, but for now…

The soul is essentially the conceptualization of all the unknowns that govern our existence. In others words, that the causes of consciousness, etc are unknown, we attribute this unknown to a soul. We deduce that this soul is “outside” the body or “immaterial” specifically because this “cause” is an abstraction. We attach an intrinsic ‘specialty’ to this “cause” as it is not physically ‘observed’, etc. This specialty is thought to “extend” beyond the physical death of the body because it “lives” outside the body.

If one has not been paying attention or paying too much attention to irrelevancies, they will ask, well then isn’t there a connection because the body is built upon the soul? Actually, no. The soul is the body conceptualized, and the body cab be thought of as merely a transient state in the life of the soul.


Now. Shake your head to clear it, and read it again, as I am sure you were intent on not understanding what you just read.


And for this…

And how are these influences propagated to the material reality without some form of interaction between the immaterial soul and the material body?

Why do you keep bringing up ‘interaction”, you corrupt the whole definition. There is no interaction because they are the same.

OK but that implies intermittent interaction then, either way it will involve an interaction with the material at some point, agreed?

No

What is meant by ‘fundamental’?

The body and the soul. Again, think of it this way, as I think it is easier to conceive: The soul is one true state and the ‘body’ is merely a transitory phase of one entity. You can of course use the reverse and replace transitory/temporary with eternal, but then the logic becomes hard to follow…



Canute..

I must say I don't understand your notion of 'soul' either. The idea that our souls don't come into existence until we die seems logically odd. Is this really what you mean?

No, it is not what I mean, and I hope expansion above will make it clearer.

What would you consider evidence for the existence of souls?

I think I have already asserted that souls are inferred. Others who hold a more spiritual view claim to be able to access their true nature—experience the eternal self true fasting, praying, meditating… etc

 

[Cris]

Thefountainhed,

I am afraid your attempted explanations do not really explain anything, despite my intense concentration. I find your ideas quite bizarre and undecipherable.

I think the difficulty is that you are attempting so hard to describe the properties of something that does not exist that the result becomes just gibberish.

Your text is full of paradoxical statements like the body and soul is the same thing and then other statements that assert they are different and separate. The entire argument similarly displays extensive logical incongruence. In short you are tying yourself in knots.

Have fun while you are here but I’m not pursuing this discussion any further for the moment.

Take care
Cris

 

[thefountainhed]

Cris,

LOL. You keep talking of a paradox when one exists only if you imagine a "connection", or an "interaction". There is no connection or interaction between that which is one. There is nothing complicated here, you simply do not want to see, because it conflicts with your beliefs. You may also even ask if I believe in souls. Anyone who cannot entertain a thought they donot believe in is well, ah fuck it.



Lets view this from one perspective for any interested.

Let's say there is only the soul. Every human is merely a soul. The soul goes through a phase we call the body. This body 'state' is transient. This is as simple as it gets.

 

[Canute]

Fountainhead

I also think that there is more to a human being than a body. However I can't go along with your idea of a soul.

When I asked about evidence I wasn't trying to catch you out, or asking if you had proof. I just wondered what leads you to believe in souls as you define them.

 

[thefountainhed]

Canute,

However I can't go along with your idea of a soul.

Where am I losing you?

When I asked about evidence I wasn't trying to catch you out, or asking if you had proof. I just wondered what leads you to believe in souls as you define them.

Two things:

1. From philosophies and religious doctrines and my attempt make some sense out of them

2. Deduction:

The notion of the soul or its like is ubiquitous to all human populations/societies. Therefore there must be a source or sources that can originate this shared notion, and this source(s) must also be ubiquitous.. The one common thread is death-- and how it is not an end of the mind; how it carries unto the next 'world' in the form of a soul. I stop here and do not attach the 'embellishments' at this stage.

Then I think, how and why would man think his physical death is not his end? I come to two major conclusions:

a. Denial.
A thread that may or may not help with understanding this: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29750

b. A realization or determination that there is more to the body. The only most likely reason for this belief it seemed to be self awareness and consciousness.


I conclude therefore that the human is at his essence a "soul" (attachments like "immaterial" simply mean that its true form is unexplainable within this context--it says nothing about the composition), and that this soul in essence is accountable for the unaccountable-- awareness and consciousness. If the body dies and the soul still remains, the body and the soul are the same thing. The body is merely a transient state in the "life" of the soul. To me this seems simple.

It's like the lavae and the emergent butterfly... abstractions of one entity. The larvae cannot realize itself as a butterfly....

 

[Canute]

I don't think you're losing me. I just don't agree with your concept of soul.

I asked about evidence because I wondered why you think there is a 'soul', rather than just consciousness, the thing that we know for certain exists. I don't see the need for an extra entity.

For instance you say that consciousnes arises from soul. But why is there a need for a soul in addition to consciousness? Why not just say that consciousness is fundamental? (Albeit not the everyday human variety). It seems to me that most Christian mystics arrive at this conclusion, asserting the oneness of self and God beyond the world of appearances, even though they go on using the traditional term 'soul'.

By your definition a 'soul' seems (to me) to be a bit implausible, (and everyone seems to have a slightly different definition). But it seems inarguable from the writings of Christian mystics (I would say the only Christians that have a right to be trusted on this issue) that the 'soul' of Christian mystical experience is the same as the fundamental non-dual consciousness of Eastern meditative experience. The descriptions of their experience of it are identical, even though their language and interpretation may vary a little.

Adopting this view gets around some of the reasonable objections (such as Cris's imo) to the existence of a soul that is somehow kept hidden until we die.

What do you think?

 

[spookz]

canute

Why not just say that consciousness is fundamental?

i kinda adopted the same line of thought without really understanding the implications. tho i am assuming you mean it in a monistic sense (advaita), i had previously adopted chalmers line of reasoning (see below) in addition to the "advaita" there seems to be an apparent contradiction tho i havent looked into it in any depth yet. how do lloyd's arguments strike you?

Some people, such as Chalmers himself, want to integrate consciousness into the natural sciences by making it out to be another fundamental element of reality, alongside mass and space. This misses the point. Consciousness is an ontologically different kind of thing from mass or space. We know this because words that denote things in the conscious world (including the word "consciousness" itself) perform a function of a different kind from words that denote physical things. The former can be given only ostensive definitions, the latter only formal definitions. Consequently, as I have argued above, the physical terms are incapable of bearing any referential meaning: the only meaning they have is a formalistic meaning constituted by their use as tokens within a closed language-game. Hence, the things they denote cannot exist. Contrariwise, the terms that denote things within the world of consciousness can and do bear referential meaning, and what they denote can exist. So, for Chalmers to suggest that consciousness could be a basic part of reality alongside mass and other physical primitives is to make a category-mistake (in Ryle’s celebrated phrase). The physical world is, necessarily, derived by construction from the conscious world. (Peter B. Lloyd)

the good bishop is quite the guy

 

[Canute]

Re: canute

Originally posted by spookz
i kinda adopted the same line of thought without really understanding the implications. tho i am assuming you mean it in a monistic sense (advaita), ..

I know what you mean here but it's dangerous to associate Advaita non-dual affirmation with monism. It's a mixing of terms that doesn't quite work since Adavaita is not monist, it is just not 'two-ist'. (Just being picky).

i had previously adopted chalmers line of reasoning (see below) in addition to the "advaita" there seems to be an apparent contradiction tho i havent looked into it in any depth yet.

I'm missing something here. What contradiction and why in addition to Advaita?

how do lloyd's arguments strike you?

You always have good references to post, and this is great. This is the sort of stuff that would be taught and discussed in schools if I was Ubergruppenfeurher in charge of early education. A pox on naive realism.

A few spurious and overlong comments.

His discussion of the definition of 'existence' is very good. It is hard to get this point across to physicalists, that what exists and what doesn't depends on ones definition of 'exist'. It is too often assumed that it must always mean what physics means by it.

"Language is, nevertheless, the medium in which we articulate and then examine our thoughts, and it is therefore possible that an incorrect use of our language could have led us to an incorrect understanding of reality. This, in turn, could have created the mind-body problem... My claim is that our misunderstanding of what we are actually doing when we talk about the mind and the brain has trapped us into holding an incoherent metaphysical view."

Bang on imho. I think this is why Wittgenstein said somewhere or or other that he could imagine a religion that had no language. It is why Buddhism has no language, despite its attempts to make the most of whatever we normally use. Language entails dualism, and thus inevitable errors of communication and conceptualisation.

The crux of the difference concerns reference. In short, with mental statements we can succeed in referring to things, whilst with physical statements we cannot. Thus the functioning of mental statements is much closer to our expectations of how language serves us. The terms of physics do not - and cannot - succeed in reaching out of the symbolic, self-contained system of physics and engaging with some self-subsistent reality.

Brilliant.

"Likewise, consider Frank Jackson’s thought-experiment of the neuroscientist Mary: she somehow lives, studies, and works in an exclusively black-and-white world. There, she studies the neurophysiology of human vision, and acquires all physical facts about human colour vision. She knows all about different wavelengths of light, and how they are labelled as "red" and "green", and so on, by people with colour vision. Then, one day, she escapes and sees colours for the first time. Now, she has acquired some new knowledge that she did not previously possess: what the colour red looks like. This, as Chalmers argues, shows that the world of conscious experience contains facts other than those of the physical world."

Not everyone accepts that argument, but I don't think it can be refuted. The famous Mary shows that experience brings knowledge, and that knowledge derived from reasoning has strict limits.

"Consequently, as I have argued above, the physical terms are incapable of bearing any referential meaning: the only meaning they have is a formalistic meaning constituted by their use as tokens within a closed language-game. Hence, the things they denote cannot exist."

I wouldn't go that far. Something exists, even if it's not what we think it is. I think this is where Advaita differs from strict idealism.

"Although Berkeley himself retained the term ‘God’ (which, in any case, he could hardly avoid without jeopardising his career in the church), it is interesting that he rarely ever makes any reference to the religious aspects of God.

It seems to me that most Christian mystics end up having trouble with the term 'God'. Their experience tells them that they are one with the 'meta-mind'. But their orthodoxy tells them that to say one is identical with God is blasphemous. How they avoid this difficulty in their writings is interesting. However it is clear that, like Berkeley, most would rather give up the notion of God as a seperate being to themselves.

"In set-theoretic terms, the mental universe or ‘metaverse’ is defined as the union of all existing minds. So, it contains the conscious minds of all human beings and all animals in the world we see around us.
I also like to think of the 'metaverse' (cosmos) as the set of all sets. It raises all the problems of infinite self-reference that Russell ran into (Russells paradox) and calls for the same solution, namely self-creation and dependent existence.

"One question that I shall leave open for the moment is whether the metamind is a single mind or a collection of minds. At one extreme, we could envisage the metamind as being a unitary stream of consciousness, much like a normally operating ordinary mind, or we could envisage it as split up into a number of personalities. Or there could be huge numbers of independent streams of thought within the metamind, even down to the level of Liebniz’s monads. We could even envisage, at the other extreme, the metamind as isomorphic to the physical world at some level of description"

Have you come across Indra's Net? It is an old metaphorical answer to this question, drawn from introspective experience. (I think you may have given me the link to this description, can't remember).

FAR AWAY IN THE HEAVENLY ABODE OF THE GREAT GOD INDRA, THERE IS A WONDERFUL NET WHICH HAS BEEN HUNG BY SOME CUNNING ARTIFICER IN SUCH A MANNER THAT IT STRETCHES OUT INDEFINITELY IN ALL DIRECTIONS. IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE EXTRAVAGANT TASTES OF DEITIES, THE ARTIFICER HAS HUNG A SINGLE GLITTERING JEWEL AT THE NET'S EVERY NODE, AND SINCE THE NET ITSELF IS INFINITE IN DIMENSION, THE JEWELS ARE INFINITE IN NUMBER. THERE HANG THE JEWELS, GLITTERING LIKE STARS OF THE FIRST MAGNITUDE, A WONDERFUL SIGHT TO BEHOLD. IF WE NOW ARBITRARILY SELECT ONE OF THESE JEWELS FOR INSPECTION AND LOOK CLOSELY AT IT, WE WILL DISCOVER THAT IN ITS POLISHED SURFACE THERE ARE REFLECTED ALL THE OTHER JEWELS IN THE NET, INFINITE IN NUMBER. NOT ONLY THAT, BUT EACH OF THE JEWELS REFLECTED IN THIS ONE JEWEL IS ALSO REFLECTING ALL THE OTHER JEWELS, SO THAT THE PROCESS OF REFLECTION IS INFINITE

THE AVATAMSAKA SUTRA
FRANCIS H. COOK: HUA-YEN BUDDHISM : THE JEWEL NET OF INDRA 1977

"Moreover, consciousness itself is never an object of direct awareness, and therefore a fortiori we cannot have an illusory awareness of personal consciousness. We infer our consciousness from what we are conscious of: for instance, if I have a conscious awareness of the red colour of a rose, then I infer that there is a consciousness but I do not have a conscious awareness of the consciousness itself. The point of the Hindu and Buddhist doctrine is that we habitually make a mistake when we carry out that automatic inference: we infer the existence of a private, personal consciousness instead of a universal consciousness.

Brilliant again. And it raises the issue of infinite self-reference, of how we can be conscious of being conscious in the absence of intentionality, of any object of consciousness.

"We have become accustomed to thinking in words and this makes it difficult to think analytically in ways that are inexpressible in our natural language.
Right on.

Thanks for pointing me at this article. What do you think of Lloyd? Is it what you think?

Regards
Canute

 

[spookz]

What contradiction and why in addition to Advaita?

chalmers proposes (lloyd) that consciousness gets an equal footing with the other fundamentals. this actually contradicts sankara who holds that it is atman/brahman alone that is real and the rest an illusion. (it really doesnt offer much of an explanation to simply leave it at that.)

there is a debate tho in vedanta as to whether atman possesses attributes/aspects or not. in anycase, some do postulate atman as having them and in this case i imagine chalmer's fundamentals (consciousness/mass/space) might make sense (Vishistadvaita Vedanta or qualified monism)

i guess in order to worship, attributes have to be assigned. however in order to directly apprehend or know, none are needed

*since these hindus seem to have a theistic impulse, sankara (if i remember correctly), was accused of being a buddhist



ok, i muddle. i cannot comment on lloyd as i have only skimmed

 

[thefountainhed]

Canute,

For instance you say that consciousnes arises from soul. But why is there a need for a soul in addition to consciousness? Why not just say that consciousness is fundamental?

Because it seemed to me that this was not the case, there was more to it.

Consciousness is merely an effect; this effects allows us the ability to realize this context-- reality, and ourselves within this context. But what causes this ability to be conscious seems to lie outside the 'observable'-- 5 sense, as it is what allows is the ability to 'observe'.

But it seems inarguable from the writings of Christian mystics (I would say the only Christians that have a right to be trusted on this issue) that the 'soul' of Christian mystical experience is the same as the fundamental non-dual consciousness of Eastern meditative experience. The descriptions of their experience of it are identical, even though their language and interpretation may vary a little.

Not 'inarguable', but from most accounts, I'd say pretty close. Read anything by Johannes Eckhart?

Adopting this view gets around some of the reasonable objections (such as Cris's imo) to the existence of a soul that is somehow kept hidden until we die.

I am not saying that the soul gets hidden until we die. I say we are the same and the body is merely a transient state of the soul. If one within this life were able to reach a state where they could experience their "oneness", I suppose they could realize their soul. I suppose even further that the emergent soul upon birth could be thought of as a metaphor to further distnguish the soul from the body?


P.S. Yea, nice "quote" spookz. I'm gonna read the article some time tonight

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by spookz
[Bchalmers proposes (lloyd) that consciousness gets an equal footing with the other fundamentals. this actually contradicts sankara who holds that it is atman/brahman alone that is real and the rest an illusion. (it really doesnt offer much of an explanation to simply leave it at that.)

there is a debate tho in vedanta as to whether atman possesses attributes/aspects or not. in anycase, some do postulate atman as having them and in this case i imagine chalmer's fundamentals (consciousness/mass/space) might make sense (Vishistadvaita Vedanta or qualified monism)

i guess in order to worship, attributes have to be assigned. however in order to directly apprehend or know, none are needed[/B]

This is always a debate. There are two different Brahmans, one with attributes, one without, two aspects of one thing. (I think there are names for these two tradtions of thought but I can't remember them). In the same way in other mystical traditions there is a distinction between the the ideas of 'emanation' and 'immanence'.

The first is the idea that all things emanate from a transcendent God with attributes who is beyond all things. The second is that of a God with no attributes who is not beyond, but can be realised as implicit in the self and the universe. This God is said to be closer to oneself than ones 'self', did we but realise it, and thus quite the opposite of transcendent.

In all traditions these two views seem to co-exist as two aspects of reality, neither judged more true but just two ways of seeing. A contradiction, but one that is reconciled in the actual truth, which is neither (or both), but which must be called one or the other for communication purposes.

In Christianity the 'emanation' view is the orthodoxy among clerics for doctrinal reasons, (as you say 'in order to worship') but not among mystics.

The consistency of the assertions about this dual nature of God/Brahman (and also the corresponding dual nature of something/nothing, fullness/emptiness etc) among mystics of all traditions is astonishing.

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by thefountainhed
Consciousness is merely an effect; this effects allows us the ability to realize this context-- reality, and ourselves within this context. But what causes this ability to be conscious seems to lie outside the 'observable'-- 5 sense, as it is what allows is the ability to 'observe'.

If you said 'human consciousness' is merely an effect... then I'd pretty much agree. Would a compromise be to say that the 'soul' is a fundamental state or aspect of consciousness, from which arises the everyday variety and the phenomena it observes?

Not 'inarguable', but from most accounts, I'd say pretty close. Read anything by Johannes Eckhart?

Not a lot, but enough to see where he's coming from on this one.

I am not saying that the soul gets hidden until we die. I say we are the same and the body is merely a transient state of the soul. If one within this life were able to reach a state where they could experience their "oneness", I suppose they could realize their soul.

It seems to be possible to do this by all accounts.

I suppose even further that the emergent soul upon birth could be thought of as a metaphor to further distnguish the soul from the body?

I don't know. I don't agree anyway. I see human beings (roughly) as consciousnesses with a physical brain added with which to misunderstand the nature of reality. Are you assuming that only humans have souls/consciousness?

 

[thefountainhed]

Canute,

If you said 'human consciousness' is merely an effect... then I'd pretty much agree. Would a compromise be to say that the 'soul' is a fundamental state or aspect of consciousness, from which arises the everyday variety and the phenomena it observes?

I suppose that could be a compromise, yes.

I don't know. I don't agree anyway. I see human beings (roughly) as consciousnesses with a physical brain added with which to misunderstand the nature of reality.

hmmm. Expand some more if you. Why do you see it this way?

Are you assuming that only humans have souls/consciousness?

It gets real tricky here, and I have yet to fully develop to expand to animals. So yes.

 

[Canute]

Originally posted by thefountainhed
I suppose that could be a compromise, yes.

Great.

hmmm. Expand some more if you. Why do you see it this way?

It's was a jokey way of putting the view that it is our thinking, perceiving and conceiving that prevent us seeing the truth about our true nature and that of underlying reality.

It gets real tricky here, and I have yet to fully develop to expand to animals. So yes.

We disagree on that then. At the least I feel they should be given the benefit of the doubt until there's some counter evidence.