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Souls and Their Emergent Properties

Debater Slayer

Vipassana
Staff member
Premium Member
If you believe in souls, what are the specific properties or qualities that you believe souls provide the organisms possessing them? For instance, is consciousness an emergent property of souls? What about emotions, sapience, etc.?

Where does biology stop being able to explain any specific quality we have and souls start doing so, in your view? Or are biology and the soul synonymous?
 

The Sum of Awe

Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
If you believe in souls, what are the specific properties or qualities that you believe souls provide the organisms possessing them? For instance, is consciousness an emergent property of souls? What about emotions, sapience, etc.?

Where does biology stop being able to explain any specific quality we have and souls start doing so, in your view? Or are biology and the soul synonymous?
In my mind biology stops long before the soul, at psychology, and the soul is who someone is on a deeper level than their psychology.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
If you believe in souls, what are the specific properties or qualities that you believe souls provide the organisms possessing them? For instance, is consciousness an emergent property of souls? What about emotions, sapience, etc.?
Souls are required to make us 'alive' and conscious. Without the soul we can only have a comatose existence.
Where does biology stop being able to explain any specific quality we have and souls start doing so, in your view? Or are biology and the soul synonymous?
Atoms moving about cannot create consciousness. Consciousness is a fundamental component of reality and must incarnate matter for the physical body to appear conscious.
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
We are composed of mind, body and spirit (soul), and, in this world anyway, the three are inextricably linked.

Pity the man who says he has no soul.
 

MikeF

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Atoms moving about cannot create consciousness. Consciousness is a fundamental component of reality and must incarnate matter for the physical body to appear conscious.

Is it a specific type of matter that consciousness must incarnate? Can any atomic configuration be imbued with consciousness?
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Does that mean people lose their souls temporarily when they pass out or enter a coma?
Ah, at times of great physical trauma there is a separation of the subtle/soul body from the physical body (as reported in Near Death Experiences). The physical body is then in a coma-like state until the subtle/soul body returns to the physical body.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Is it a specific type of matter that consciousness must incarnate? Can any atomic configuration be imbued with consciousness?
I'd say at the most abstract level everything is consciousness at play. In our colloquial use of the word consciousness, it is meant as operation through a physical brain with thinking abilities.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
Ah, at times of great physical trauma there is a separation of the subtle/soul body from the physical body (as reported in Near Death Experiences). The physical body is then in a coma-like state until the subtle/soul body returns to the physical body.
Where does it go, and how can we tell it exists and went somewhere?
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
If you believe in souls, what are the specific properties or qualities that you believe souls provide the organisms possessing them? For instance, is consciousness an emergent property of souls? What about emotions, sapience, etc.?

Where does biology stop being able to explain any specific quality we have and souls start doing so, in your view? Or are biology and the soul synonymous?

We are souls, it's not something separate. I don't know much about their property, but I assume it's relatively simple, like a small blob of energy. I think one would have to experience being in their subtle body consciously without awareness being in the intellectual body or physical body, in order to understand it.
PS: You're on a roll today.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Where does it go, and how can we tell it exists and went somewhere?
The subtle bodies reside in astral/mental/causal planes of reality which are in dimensions beyond our familiar three-dimensions (4th, 5th, ?) hence invisible to our physical senses and instruments.

Our only way of knowing is by experiencing through the subtle bodies (as in Near Death Experiences and out-of-body experiences). Maybe in the next generation science will be able to peer into other dimensions.

Most of the matter in the universe is not directly detectable at this time.
 
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dybmh

דניאל יוסף בן מאיר הירש
If you believe in souls, what are the specific properties or qualities that you believe souls provide the organisms possessing them?
'Soul' is a big topic. Without defining it, it's difficult to discuss. But assuming we agree on what a soul is, to me the most important property provided to an organism by its soul is unpredictability.

An organism that can have an epiphany has a survival advantage over one that cannot. An organism which hides in new ways and new places is in less danger from predators. Less predictable mating diversifies the gene pool making the population more robust against illness. Etc.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
If you believe in souls, what are the specific properties or qualities that you believe souls provide the organisms possessing them? For instance, is consciousness an emergent property of souls? What about emotions, sapience, etc.?

Where does biology stop being able to explain any specific quality we have and souls start doing so, in your view? Or are biology and the soul synonymous?

Well, I don't draw the line at souls. I draw the line at what we can't use science for.
Morality, utility, aesthetics and religion. Or if you like as what it feels like to be human.

In philosophy terms I can only get to non-reductive physicalism and there is still something missing.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Hmmmm ... so a physical brain is required.
It’s definitely required for a physical body to be conscious. But there is also consciousness through our subtle (astral) body upon its separation from the physical body (as reported in Near Death Experiences). A working physical brain is not required for that consciousness.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
The subtle bodies reside in astral/mental/causal planes of reality which are in dimensions beyond our familiar three-dimensions (4th, 5th, ?) hence invisible to our physical senses and instruments.
What is an astral/mental/causal plane? How and why are you positing it's existence?
And if such things are undetectable, then how do we know they are there?
What I had asked was how do we know souls exist, and how can we tell if they go somewhere. I mean, if we can't detect them in the first place, how can we say they're going anywhere or doing anything at all?

Our only way of knowing is by experiencing through the subtle bodies (as in Near Death Experiences and out-of-body experiences). Maybe in the next generation science will be able to peer into other dimensions.

Most of the matter in the universe is not directly detectable at this time.
How have you determined that a "near death experience" involves a soul leaving a body if you can't detect a soul in the first place? In other words, how have you drawn a conclusion about something that you can't detect or demonstrate?

My grandfather's heart stopped on the operating table for a few seconds. So he, "nearly" died. I asked him if he experienced anything and he said it he experienced nothing - it was just like he was sleeping. So, did he not have a soul, or .... ?
 
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