Do you think you have a soul?

[The man in black]

Do you think/know/suspect you have a soul? Why?

I don't think so based on lack of any evidence. I am certainly open to evidence but likely couldn't view it without think it was bat shit crazy. That being said I used to believe a soul was a real thing because so many other people believed so how could everyone be so wrong, combined with never having a reason to question the concept.

[Blaidd Drwg]

those that think they do have some assplaining to do....

[DikTracy6000]

Seeahill should be able to verify, he was dead a couple of times.

[Shapecharge]

Do you mean like being hip and cool or some metaphysical concept of self? I'll answer both...yes, no.

[Pinky]

Ask me when I'm dead.

[nafod]

If it helps me get laid, then yes

[Thud]

That whole "I think therefore I am" didn't cover this, or are you guys talking about something else, like an afterlife, etc?

[JimZipCode]

I got soul, but I'm not a soldier.

[Testiclaw]

That whole "I think therefore I am" didn't cover this, or are you guys talking about something else, like an afterlife, etc?

Descartes' quote doesn't actually refer to a soul, only to the question of self-solipsism.

To answer the question of the thread, I must ask:

What is a soul?

How do you detect it?

If it isn't physical, by what means does it interact with the physical world?

Have we ever been shown an example of a mind being separate from a brain?

The soul is fantasy.

[Shapecharge]

According to some Asian ladies, "black soul brother too beaucoup." I'm not certain this is the same "soul" you're referring to.

[dead man walking]

only a honky motherfucker would ask this question

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fS9-Yimdhw[/youtube]

[DrDonkeyLove]

Whether I have one or not those in my little world are probably best served by living with the belief that I do and that they do.

[Turdacious]

those that think they do have some assplaining to do....

But to be fair, so do those that don't.

[Testiclaw]

those that think they do have some assplaining to do....

But to be fair, so do those that don't.

In what way?

[Turdacious]

those that think they do have some assplaining to do....

But to be fair, so do those that don't.

In what way?

Two reasons:
1. Similar to Pascal's Wager, you're making a bet either way and the stakes are high.
2. The long established argument(s) in the Western tradition (Plato, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, etc...) are that the soul exists, although they use inferential proofs. Simply demanding a higher standard of proof from the other side is lazy.

[Blaidd Drwg]

Oi.


When will people stop using the word to define the word?

There is no more objective evidence that a soul exists. It leaves no trace, makes no
Mark, assumes no form and presents no tangible evidence of itself in any measurable way.

Absent evidence, That's your problem to overcome logically.

We haven't found a way to measure everything.
That's my problem to overcome. If the wager is expressed in terms of which
Is most likely correct, my position is irrefutably superior. If the wager is based around the philosophical and theological consequences of disbelief...i.e. How well your position comports with any one of a hundred belief systems is not at issue.

[seeahill]

Yeah, I do. I think we all have something near to whatever your definition of a soul is.

And this is about as mystical as you'll ever hear me get.

Because I tell stories for a living, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the concept of story. On those occasions where I'm paid to teach writing, I teach story. A story is a lens through which we apprehend our world, our circumstance. Everyplace I go --- and I've gone to well over 100 countries --- I ask about the local creation myth. It is always, of course, a story.

We Homo sapiens told stories --- I'm assuming --- from our earliest days on earth. We told stories around the campfires, Homer spoke his epic poems, Guttenberg allowed us to widely disseminate stories and we read stories on the internet.

Telling stories is what humans do to make sense of our world. Your ancestors were good hunters and gatherers, otherwise, you wouldn't be here. And if we listen to the stories of hunter-gatherers --- those of the Australian Aboriginals, for instance --- we hear explanations of why we exist, why certain trees bloom in certain parts of the year, and how a geological formation came to be.

Stories are baked into our DNA.

In my mind, I have always envisioned a blinding curve of energy, a great story arc in the sky.

When I write, the first 20 minutes or so is generally throw away stuff. But as my friend Richard Wheeler (author of 60 novels) says, "it is like a rusty old outdoor water pump. You work the handle and all you get at first is rusty muddy water. But if you keep pumping, the water runs clear and clean."

So it is with writing. If you are working well, sometime in that first 20 minutes you forget yourself. The prose becomes cleaner, the story sharper, elements you hadn't even considered in your outline enter the flow and those annoying loose ends begin the tie themselves up into neat little knots.

Meanwhile, you may have been sitting there for 3 hours, but it seems like you've only been working for 30 minutes. You went somewhere for a while and there you consulted the Great Story Arc and it was there that the stories of our history on earth lit you up and informed the best of your writing.

I know you've all had roughly similar experiences writing, even for some essay project in school. Couldn't get the damn thing started and now it's four in the morning and, damn, this isn't bad.

I think the act of losing yourself in the work is much akin to Eastern Meditative states.

I am not alone in this thought. In 1990, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the Hungarian psychologist, and (at the time) University of Chicago Psych professor wrote a book entitled Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience. He found that painters, for instance, experienced flow states while working. A musician writing a passage on paper may not hear the doorbell ring. A neurosurgeon may experience a complex five hour operation as 15 minutes of work. A ballerina, on the other hand, may sense that two seconds of movement have slowed down to two minutes. An athlete in the flow is said to be "in the zone."

Csikszentmihalyi described the flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."

Some folks use meditation to get to that state of ego-less flow and what I think of as "creatural" thinking (rather than thinking in the ordinary brooding mode). Without self critical thought or ego, these folks may feel they've begun the perceive the meaning of life.

I think a basketball player in the zone shares some of that comprehension. I mean, I guess you can get there doing a Buddist "stare at the wall for a day" exercise. Some of us just need a little harder bump.

Which brings us back to the soul.

When I'm writing and in the flow, I often have no idea where that element of the story just came from and why the piece wants to finish the way it demands to finish. I just pulled that stuff down out of that blinding curve of energy, the Great Story Arc.

And what that has to do with the soul is this: you are part of it. I am part of it. Every human being is part of it. As soon as you are born, your parents start telling your story. And as a child, you will skin your knee or walk naked into your parent's dinner party, you'll suffer a broken heart, hit the zone in your chosen sport, have children of your own. And that all becomes part of the human story. It folds into the Great Story Arc and alters it if only very slightly. And there it is --- in that blinding curve of energy that lasts forever --- that is where your soul resides.

[Turdacious]

Oi.


When will people stop using the word to define the word?

There is no more objective evidence that a soul exists. It leaves no trace, makes no
Mark, assumes no form and presents no tangible evidence of itself in any measurable way.

Absent evidence, That's your problem to overcome logically.

We haven't found a way to measure everything.
That's my problem to overcome. If the wager is expressed in terms of which
Is most likely correct, my position is irrefutably superior. If the wager is based around the philosophical and theological consequences of disbelief...i.e. How well your position comports with any one of a hundred belief systems is not at issue.

As pretty much every great classical argument will point out-- life isn't fair and we don't have all the facts. We all make our bets with partial information.

[seeahill]

Oi.


When will people stop using the word to define the word?

There is no more objective evidence that a soul exists. It leaves no trace, makes no
Mark, assumes no form and presents no tangible evidence of itself in any measurable way.

Absent evidence, That's your problem to overcome logically.

We haven't found a way to measure everything.
That's my problem to overcome. If the wager is expressed in terms of which
Is most likely correct, my position is irrefutably superior. If the wager is based around the philosophical and theological consequences of disbelief...i.e. How well your position comports with any one of a hundred belief systems is not at issue.

As pretty much every great classical argument will point out-- life isn't fair and we don't have all the facts. We all make our bets with partial information.

Pascal's bet? I am reminded of one of my fav New Yorker cartoons: a guy is standing at the pearly gates. Saint Peter says to him, "I'm not going to argue with you about it. You picked the wrong religion, period."

[buckethead]

Yeah, I do. I think we all have something near to whatever your definition of a soul is.

And this is about as mystical as you'll ever hear me get.

Because I tell stories for a living, I've spent a lot of time thinking about the concept of story. On those occasions where I'm paid to teach writing, I teach story. A story is a lens through which we apprehend our world, our circumstance. Everyplace I go --- and I've gone to well over 100 countries --- I ask about the local creation myth. It is always, of course, a story.

We Homo sapiens told stories --- I'm assuming --- from our earliest days on earth. We told stories around the campfires, Homer spoke his epic poems, Guttenberg allowed us to widely disseminate stories and we read stories on the internet.

Telling stories is what humans do to make sense of our world. Your ancestors were good hunters and gatherers, otherwise, you wouldn't be here. And if we listen to the stories of hunter-gatherers --- those of the Australian Aboriginals, for instance --- we hear explanations of why we exist, why certain trees bloom in certain parts of the year, and how a geological formation came to be.

Stories are baked into our DNA.

In my mind, I have always envisioned a blinding curve of energy, a great story arc in the sky.

When I write, the first 20 minutes or so is generally throw away stuff. But as my friend Richard Wheeler (author of 60 novels) says, "it is like a rusty old outdoor water pump. You work the handle and all you get at first is rusty muddy water. But if you keep pumping, the water runs clear and clean."

So it is with writing. If you are working well, sometime in that first 20 minutes you forget yourself. The prose becomes cleaner, the story sharper, elements you hadn't even considered in your outline enter the flow and those annoying loose ends begin the tie themselves up into neat little knots.

Meanwhile, you may have been sitting there for 3 hours, but it seems like you've only been working for 30 minutes. You went somewhere for a while and there you consulted the Great Story Arc and it was there that the stories of our history on earth lit you up and informed the best of your writing.

I know you've all had roughly similar experiences writing, even for some essay project in school. Couldn't get the damn thing started and now it's four in the morning and, damn, this isn't bad.

I think the act of losing yourself in the work is much akin to Eastern Meditative states.

I am not alone in this thought. In 1990, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the Hungarian psychologist, and (at the time) University of Chicago Psych professor wrote a book entitled Flow, the Psychology of Optimal Experience. He found that painters, for instance, experienced flow states while working. A musician writing a passage on paper may not hear the doorbell ring. A neurosurgeon may experience a complex five hour operation as 15 minutes of work. A ballerina, on the other hand, may sense that two seconds of movement have slowed down to two minutes. An athlete in the flow is said to be "in the zone."

Csikszentmihalyi described the flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."

Some folks use meditation to get to that state of ego-less flow and what I think of as "creatural" thinking (rather than thinking in the ordinary brooding mode). Without self critical thought or ego, these folks may feel they've begun the perceive the meaning of life.

I think a basketball player in the zone shares some of that comprehension. I mean, I guess you can get there doing a Buddist "stare at the wall for a day" exercise. Some of us just need a little harder bump.

Which brings us back to the soul.

When I'm writing and in the flow, I often have no idea where that element of the story just came from and why the piece wants to finish the way it demands to finish. I just pulled that stuff down out of that blinding curve of energy, the Great Story Arc.

And what that has to do with the soul is this: you are part of it. I am part of it. Every human being is part of it. As soon as you are born, your parents start telling your story. And as a child, you will skin your knee or walk naked into your parent's dinner party, you'll suffer a broken heart, hit the zone in your chosen sport, have children of your own. And that all becomes part of the human story. It folds into the Great Story Arc and alters it if only very slightly. And there it is --- in that blinding curve of energy that lasts forever --- that is where your soul resides.

I know I rag on you, but that was sublime

[Blaidd Drwg]

Oi.


When will people stop using the word to define the word?

There is no more objective evidence that a soul exists. It leaves no trace, makes no
Mark, assumes no form and presents no tangible evidence of itself in any measurable way.

Absent evidence, That's your problem to overcome logically.

We haven't found a way to measure everything.
That's my problem to overcome. If the wager is expressed in terms of which
Is most likely correct, my position is irrefutably superior. If the wager is based around the philosophical and theological consequences of disbelief...i.e. How well your position comports with any one of a hundred belief systems is not at issue.

As pretty much every great classical argument will point out-- life isn't fair and we don't have all the facts. We all make our bets with partial information.

Fairness is a null concept. It Has no bearing on your argument. Whether you frame it as a bet or not, there's no evidence anyone or anything in the universe gives a fuck one way or the other.

[Turdacious]

Oi.


When will people stop using the word to define the word?

There is no more objective evidence that a soul exists. It leaves no trace, makes no
Mark, assumes no form and presents no tangible evidence of itself in any measurable way.

Absent evidence, That's your problem to overcome logically.

We haven't found a way to measure everything.
That's my problem to overcome. If the wager is expressed in terms of which
Is most likely correct, my position is irrefutably superior. If the wager is based around the philosophical and theological consequences of disbelief...i.e. How well your position comports with any one of a hundred belief systems is not at issue.

As pretty much every great classical argument will point out-- life isn't fair and we don't have all the facts. We all make our bets with partial information.

Fairness is a null concept. It Has no bearing on your argument. Whether you frame it as a bet or not, there's no evidence anyone or anything in the universe gives a fuck one way or the other.

Fundamental difference between how you and I view it-- I accept that there's a good chance that somebody out there will judge me on their terms, not mine; you don't. Neither of us has the perspective to say which side is right. You're making your bet, so am I.

I'm not talking about the specifics of the bet (which particular concept of God or set of values is the best one to align with), but the broader concept. Dismissing the idea that it's reasonable that there could be more that you don't comprehend seems silly.

[Thud]

Fundamental difference between how you and I view it-- I accept that there's a good chance that somebody out there will judge me on their terms, not mine; you don't. Neither of us has the perspective to say which side is right. You're making your bet, so am I.

Forgive me for butting in, but what's so good about it? Not that you like the idea of it or not, but based on evidence?
You seem to be making an equivalence between belief and skepticism that isn't realistic.

Lets just change your argument from the metaphysical to the physical:

"Fundamental difference between how you and I view it-- I accept that there's a good chance that the universe will explode tomorrow; you don't. Neither of us has the perspective to say which side is right. You're making your bet, so am I."

Without evidence your reasoning isn't so great.

Anyone can throw any old concept out there as a lark and say "well you don't know, it could be true." But don't expect it to fly.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Fundamental difference between how you and I view it-- I accept that there's a good chance that somebody out there will judge me on their terms, not mine; you don't. Neither of us has the perspective to say which side is right. You're making your bet, so am I.

Forgive me for butting in, but what's so good about it? Not that you like the idea of it or not, but based on evidence?
You seem to be making an equivalence between belief and skepticism that isn't realistic.

Lets just change your argument from the metaphysical to the physical:

"Fundamental difference between how you and I view it-- I accept that there's a good chance that the universe will explode tomorrow; you don't. Neither of us has the perspective to say which side is right. You're making your bet, so am I."

Without evidence your reasoning isn't so great.

Anyone can throw any old concept out there as a lark and say "well you don't know, it could be true." But don't expect it to fly.

Evidence doesn't make sense here. We can measure when a body dies, but the body is the same chemicals before and afterward, just no electricity. How would you prove a soul doesn't exist? It's a meaningless question.

When you think of love, joy, friendship, beauty, why we care about people after they lose their minds or are even comatose, why there's something rather than nothing, the strangeness of consciousness, the belief in human dignity and rights based solely on being human, (for me, the rebirth of Israel after 2000 years of exile and immediately following the holocaust), the (partial) success of reason over power, you can,rationally, believe that we are more than the sum of our chemicals and electric force. I find it the better explanation, but there's no empirical proof one way or the other.

[Turdacious]

Fundamental difference between how you and I view it-- I accept that there's a good chance that somebody out there will judge me on their terms, not mine; you don't. Neither of us has the perspective to say which side is right. You're making your bet, so am I.

Forgive me for butting in, but what's so good about it? Not that you like the idea of it or not, but based on evidence?
You seem to be making an equivalence between belief and skepticism that isn't realistic.

Without evidence your reasoning isn't so great.

If I was making an equivalence between belief and skepticism, I wouldn't have used Pascal's Wager as an example.