Understanding of the soul
The soul more or less means the totality of all emotions throughout life, as a whole.
So it can be said one has fear in the soul, love in the soul, eventhough one was frightened previously and in love previously.
Choices are made out of emotion, and in the end a soul is judged for the choices it made.
By logic, there can be no evidence whatsoever of the agency of a choice, consequently there is no evidence whatsoever of emotions, or the soul. It is a matter of chosen opinion.
When 2 souls join as one in holy matrimony, it means the husband and wife decide as one. Either husband or wife can take up leadership in some matter, to take up leadership does not neccesarily preclude deciding as one.
When it is said someone lacks a soul, as a matter of chosen opinion, it either means someone lacks emotions, or it means someone lacks unity of emotions. If someone is angry one minute, and nice the next minute, he or she lacks the unity of soul.
My guess about the start of someone's soul is when God first likes someone, which may be pre birth or after birth, and only known by faith.
So it can be said one has fear in the soul, love in the soul, eventhough one was frightened previously and in love previously.
Choices are made out of emotion, and in the end a soul is judged for the choices it made.
By logic, there can be no evidence whatsoever of the agency of a choice, consequently there is no evidence whatsoever of emotions, or the soul. It is a matter of chosen opinion.
When 2 souls join as one in holy matrimony, it means the husband and wife decide as one. Either husband or wife can take up leadership in some matter, to take up leadership does not neccesarily preclude deciding as one.
When it is said someone lacks a soul, as a matter of chosen opinion, it either means someone lacks emotions, or it means someone lacks unity of emotions. If someone is angry one minute, and nice the next minute, he or she lacks the unity of soul.
My guess about the start of someone's soul is when God first likes someone, which may be pre birth or after birth, and only known by faith.
Comments (56)
Why? I don't understand.
I'm not saying my body isn't eternal.
An opinion, like to say something is beautiful, has the logic that it is chosen, and expresses what it is that makes a choice. So opinions are in reference to what it is that makes a choice, and the soul is one of the things that makes choices.
Fact has the logic that, a fact is obtained by evidence of a creation forcing to produce a 1 to 1 corresponding model of it in the mind. So facts only apply to chosen things. Such as the human body.
Therefore the soul and the body are in completely different categories, but connected by choosing.
Well traditionally the soul is defined as everything required to constitute you.
In other words the soul is the minimum amount of property's to be recognized as you.
Note "you" can be replaced with any person, it just easier to express that way.
Yes. A set of conditions that makes ones life possible but are not "your" conditions if you accept the premises of the explanation.
One has to give up the desire to connect our experiences to accept the grounds of experience.
It is a tough sell.
Sorry, I should have said in the Christian/Jewish traditions.
I'm more familiar with the theology or the soul than that.
The soul refers to an agency of choices but also to what makes it possible to make them. The arguments about free will versus determinism are interesting up to some point but don't really struggle with why it is even a topic we talk about. When one walks around with one answer or another, what does it change?
Why not?
Then we gather evidence in order to establish a fact of what made the decision turn out A, and come to the conclusion that it was in fact X which made the decision turn out A.
But then X being a definite factual thing, we are saying X forced A, and the decision could not have turned out B. So then there is an error of contradiction between the premise that alternative future B was available, and the conclusion that B could not have been chosen.
The solution is then to choose the answer to the question, resulting in a subjective opinion on it. Then no definite factual thing is established, and then it is still true that the decision could have turned out B.
Free will vs determinism makes a lot of practical difference. Determinists generally leave no room for emotion / personal opinion, and objectify emotions.
To say behaviour is forced by race in the blood, and the content of someone's character is a matter of biological fact, belong together.
See the logic of determinism always goes together with objectifying emotions, character, because the emotions must be factual things in the determinist chain of cause and effect.
Back up a hair. Here's what you're presuming to explain:
Quoting Syamsu
I see this as a no-go theorem on having evidence of agency (of a choice). So I would ask you to define agency. I would also ask about choice, but then, I think you're implicitly defining choice sufficiently.
Quoting Syamsu
What if X is equivalent to the agency?
Quoting Syamsu
Is an agent not a definite, factual thing?
Quoting Syamsu
Let's introduce tags for times; T1
...but I would hope not in an ontic sense; i.e., a sense in which we can say that at time T1, Y is a puppy murderer. So the sense in which B is possible has to be a sense that doesn't make Y culpable for B. And unless we're all puppy murderers, then it should be possible for Y to "force" A. If Y can force A, how come X can't be Y? Can we not at least evidentially confirm that Y is not in a general sense a puppy murderer?
The ways I was taught the soul was ether a spirit (Greek as a understanding)
or one entire beings (Jewish play on the word throat) and thus the one protestant should use (not suprises if some don't).
And we'll it is interesting the that it was a catholic,
us protestant have the Armenian teachings rather than the Calvinism teachings. (But this is not what you wanted to talk about here.)
I cannot really follow your argument. I am guessing you want it to be a matter of fact that Jack chose to go left, instead of right. Then Jack being agent of the decision, and agency therefore fact.
But then I must refer you back to the explanation why it can never be the case that agency is factual.
No, that was by no means clear. In fact, that makes this less clear, because:
Quoting Syamsu
...there can be no question about whether the thing that made a choice is an agent or not if by definition anything that makes a choice is an agent. At best, there's a question of if the choice is made by something.
Quoting Syamsu
Want it to be a matter of fact? What a curious phrasing!
But at this point we don't even care. Something chose to go left, instead of right. That thing is by definition an agent. Who cares if it's Jack or not?
Quoting Syamsu
...what explanation? I certainly may have missed something, but I searched for "agen" on this page, and just saw your original post, a response to hachit, Valentinus's post, and your reply. Your reply doesn't make sense. At best there's an opinion as to whether a choice has the properties you specify (essentially Principle of Alternate Possibilities). But if it does, by definition, whatever made the choice is an agent. I have a suspicion whatever argument you're referring to you simply forgot to give it. The closest I have seen is your original statement, which simply says that by logic, there can be no evidence of an agent, but does not say anything about what logic that is.
The argumentation is about whether agency can be established as fact forced by evidence, or if agency can only be identified with a chosen opinion.
And then it is demonstrated that establishing agency as fact, leads to an error of contradiction. Therefore it is wrong, which means there are no facts about agency.
And then it is shown that identifying agency as a matter of chosen opinion works, it does not lead to error.
The physical body - Jasad
The lower Self - Nafs
The higher Self or Soul - Rouh
The physical body needs shelter, food, water, physical activity, medicine, and sleep to survive.
The lower self is used to refer to physical desires that go beyond the basics needs. Some may be justified while others are not. Sex, specific food preference and napping are justified physical wants. While alcohol, drugs, food binging, or over sleeping aren't. We refer to these desires by saying my lower self wants to sleep now, my lower self would kill for some pork chops, and/or my lower self wants to bone this person.
The higher self is used to refer to the ethereal needs. What does your soul need ?
1. To connect with our creator through meditation, prayer, visions, dreams, or astral projection. In Arabic we say my soul is being called upon, or missing a part, when referring to needing to pray or meditate.
2. To love and be loved by those around you. We literally say in Arabic as a figure of speech my soul is in my son, in describing the unconditional love of a parent, and how placing my most valuable component in him to feel his pain and joy instantly. We say my soul has parted, when a loved one passes. We also say my soul is wondering to my living mother, in describing how I miss her.
3. To serve a purpose. This purpose could be learning, creating, clearing, building, crafting, understanding, simplifying, uncovering or teaching anything. This validates the meaning of our highly vibrating soul withing this weak and dying physical shell. We say my soul is driving this need, ill stop when it stops, to describe the unstoppable force taking over.
4. To keep vibrating at high frequencies by maintaining good ethics. Staying virtuous keeps the soul vibrant; while breaking values by lying, cheating, or acting evil thickens the pressure on your soul slowing down the vibrations, causing sadness, depression and melancholy to eat away at you.
Of course it is also believed the more you feed and satisfy your lower self it prevails as the dominant driver over you. And the more you feed and satisfy you higher self the more it dominates your beliefs, choices, and actions. It's also understood that with our death; both the physical and lower self end. Leaving only our higher self to pass on.
Nice post Rania, I'm happy to welcome you here on the forum.
Very similar to Egyptian ideas of ka, ba, and ptha
The soul chooses, and only a chosen judgement can identify what emotions are in the soul. That are the rules which logic dictates. To make the soul material, means to make the soul factual. Facts are forced by evidence, not chosen. Which means to throw out chosen judgement based on human emotions, the human spirit, and throw out chosen judgement by God the holy spirit.
Any materialization of what is properly spiritual dilutes the purity of emotions, faith. And especially in view of the powerful materialistic culture at present in academics, it should be forbidden.
I think this is the reason that Islam has stopped to function for many muslims, especially in the West. It doesn't work emotionally anymore, because materialistic objective notions have crept into what is properly spiritual and subjective. Even the idea of what is subjective has been corrupted with materialist notions of dopamine chemistry in the brain.
And when Islam stops working, then a typical response is to hardline the whole of Islam, to get it to work again. But I think just education on the difference between fact and opinion, would get it working again.
I would say that facts are forced by time. As time passes, whatever has occurred, has occurred, and those are the facts which cannot be changed, set in stone you might say, to emphasize the materiality of facts. But a freely choosing human being can make some decisions as to what will come to be fact.
No, it doesn't.
Your definition of soul is quite different from what I found on the internet: 'the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal.'
Perhaps you could call your 'totality of emotions .. etc' something else.
The facts about planet X, are essentially a model of it. The planet is covered in ice. It is twice the size of earth. etc. And so on, to make a 1 to 1 exhaustive model of it in words, forced by the evidence of it.
Why?
Quoting Syamsu
Then the soul is not just one's emotions, but also one's choices. Hence you will need to enlarge your definition.
Quoting Syamsu
Ah. So your real interest here is not in philosophy but the defence of your invisible friends.
Just what the forum needs - more theologians.
In a way reminds me of the Golden Compass. Haven’t read the book but I liked the movie. It's why I mention it.
How do you feel about the Latin concept of anima as soul – in contrast to the animus as mind? The anima, to my understanding, is at least in part that which causes one to be endowed with breath, quite literally. It’s there even when you’re in dream-devoid sleep and hold no consciousness. Whereas animus, mind, tmk is at least in part that which deals with conflicts at a conscious level, as in conflicting ideas and drives that one as consciousness has to contend with.
Then again, there’s the Buddhist stance of no such thing as a permanent self, the stance of no-soul, as it’s sometimes translated. Still, in fairness to the Buddhist platform, here there’s still something of semi-permanence that persists lifetime to lifetime. I take it this up to the time Nirvana is obtained.
Really?
Quoting Syamsu
I guess it must be because God doesn't like me.
Is that your reply to everyone who disagrees with this stuff you have made up?
What do you mean by "force"? If you mean evidence proves something (forces conclusions), you're simply mistaken. Evidence always suggests; it never proves. Nothing inferential in nature is ever certain. If we see evidence of choices, we have evidence of agency. I think you're confusing determinism with induction. We induced the Born Rule in Quantum Mechanics; now there are still deterministic interpretations of QM, but, this betrays your imagined rule that specific outcomes are the only thing evidence can suggest. So the rule is definitely not globally applicable; if you think it should still apply to agency, you're going to have to give a good argument for why. A sketch of what you're arguing isn't what I asked for... rather, I'm asking for the actual argument.
Quoting Syamsu
There's nothing contradictory about this form of agency, though. You have possible alternatives (PAP), and original causation by an agent. Again, I think you're conflusing determinism with induction.
Quoting Syamsu
But if agents employ this non-contradictory mechanic (original causation selecting an outcome from alternate possibilities), then choice creates real effects in the world; namely, the actions taken as a result of choice. That's enough to possibly establish that choices are a thing using inference; for example, one may study all known effects and look at the residues, in a manner similar to how we discovered the Higgs Boson not too long ago. And if we establish that choices are being made, we can easily infer agency, since you're saying that agents are by definition what causes choices. The fact that this can possibly happen in a realistic manner conflicts with your assertion that logically it cannot. Because of this conflict, I'm afraid you're going to have to justify why you think logic dictates we cannot establish factually that agents exist.
You cannot make a model of agency, like for instance fear. It's just not factual.
I see your point that if it is established that a choice is made, then there would also be an agency of that choice.
Still, it is simply not factual, because agency cannot be modelled.
Facts are, as I understand it, bits of information we can consider to be true. I don't know what you mean by 1 to 1 corresponding models of creations. The Born Rule via Bell's Theorem, however, establishes a type of model... that predicts purely random results... which do not have counterfactual definiteness.
Quoting Syamsu
We can make models of pain, a subjective experience, using the Wong-Baker Pain scale and use it to perhaps measure the efficacy of pain medications. I don't know if this is a contradiction or not, because I still can't quite decode your words.
Quoting Syamsu
Either I've rebutted this, or I have no idea what you mean by factual and modeled.
I devoured those books as a kid, and the daemon idea is, I agree, very much along these lines. I don't know very much about anima, but everything you've said feels very much aligned with the (admittedly only vaguely thought out) idea of a soul I'm interested in.
That the soul isn't equivalent to consciousness (or mind) especially seems important - there are constantly changes being wrought in us that we only become 'aware' of, after the fact. The process of becoming 'aware' of something some part of us already 'knows' (but 'know ' seems wrong, that part of us already 'is'?) is the source of dreams, spiritual growth, emotional maturation, 'epiphanies', artistic creation and so forth.
I think you could potentially square this with the buddhist 'no-soul' (I'm not sure, I know only the very basics of Buddhism) by seeing the soul less as a fixed thing (as the parameters of thought often our in our 'minds' if we've grown sclerotic) than a kind of ephemeral unfolding its own right - ephemeral, but with continuity
Quoting javra
Or the anima is the force that animates all things. For animals it sees, hears, and feels. For humans, it grieves and loves. So when you feel like crap, this is what the whole world feels, maybe.
The ego is a kind of psychic structure that emerges (?) from the world soul. It expresses the world's potential to cling protectively to a single vantage point.
Cubists thought that through art they could convey what's really happening.
I do find the notion of soul to be somewhat arbitrary when comparing different cultures, but not altogether meaningless. I’m guessing there might be something that, however imperfectly, is being referenced in all cultures by the notion of soul. As a very simplistic metaphor, that to which the conscious self is tethered across the timespan of an entire life as though by a rubber-band – such that one’s character can be more this or that but will always come back to some general, core attributes of character – could be likened to a person’s soul. Can’t currently think of an interpretation of soul where this wouldn’t be the case. Would be interested to find out about such.
As to the soul being that which makes choices, it might make choices, but even in common Christian theology it is held that the soul can be sold (and bought) by the choices of conscious selves. So, even here there is maintained a distinction between soul and the conscious self which chooses – although not necessarily one of otherness.
Quoting csalisbury
I like this interpretation. Likely because I happen to agree with it. :wink:
Quoting frank
I (too?) have an affinity to the world soul. On a more analytical note, this concept seems to me to then necessitate some form or other of panpsychism. But, while I like the concept of a world soul emotively, I can’t yet make heads or tails in relation to panpsychism intellectually – this once details are gotten into.
So the ego develops, but after a while becomes limiting (evolved for old circumstances that no longer hold) and the only way forward is to 'remember' by making contact with the soul (for instance, how meditating will sometimes shake loose or let bubble up totally forgotten memories that tow with them whole lost worlds)
Or such is the idea, anyway.
It's basically making a 1 to 1 corresponding picture of what occurred. In pictures, words, mathematics, it is all about making a 1 to 1 corresponding model.
You cannot make a 1 to 1 corresponding model of fear. You can make a painting to express what fear is. Not the same thing as a model.
To model decisionmaking or randomness, then the model would also have randomness at the same points, where the thing modelled has randomness. And then you would just have to record every decision made, and copy it to the model.
Because the soul is all emotions throughout life, as distinct from emotions now, as being agency of a choice.
Meaningless for God to judge the soul, if the soul does not choose.
I don't take issue with this definition, but is it meant as the working definition of "soul" for the rest of the post? It's difficult to see how one gets from this to judgement, or to union of "the totality of all emotions throughout life" through a ceremony. Other invisible characteristics seem to get bolted on ad hoc, which is not conducive to "understanding the soul".
In terms of the definition, which has a point of contact with my feeling of "me-ness" which I guess you would describe as the soul or its aspect, emotions are potent experiences, but there are others. I would probably agree that who I am owes more to my emotional history than anything else; nonetheless, however I responded to Schubert the first time I heard him, my direct experience of Schubert's music had some bearing. Music and smells are also potent experiences that impact my "me-ness". (Memories associated with emotions, music, and smell have been shown to be more easily retrievable by the brain than others, e.g. https://www.livescience.com/8426-brain-link-sounds-smells-memory-revealed.html .)
There is an life-energy, found in all living things, there is a There is a progressive state of memory and physiological states that together create 'self' or 'I'. This excludes plants.
There is intelligence (mental and emotional) and sensory perceptivness also found in all living things to varying degrees.
All three of these together are necessary for life, however remove either statement 2 or 3 and you do not necessarily negate statement one.
The closest to a soul I can think of is this life energy that I mention, but it is not a personal energy that constitutes you. How could it, it is energy, it could just have well randomly been light, gravity or sound, but the randomness of the universe meant that. energy in the form of 'life energy'.