define soul

[Cerrax]

i take a dualist approach, the soul is yoru consciousness, our essence, our appreciation for aesthetics - and i believe that it is only "residing" in your physical form for the time being.


do animals have souls.... are we animals? i would say yes, so yes, animals, in my oppinion, have souls

My belief is pretty much the same. Gaia is one gigantic soul from which all of our souls are spawned (that includes animals and plants). Our souls are our essence of life, our source of talent and emotion. However, our personality is a separate entity that develops during our time on Earth and upon death, we take it with us and it becomes part of our soul.

 

[Opethian]

Our souls are our essence of life, our source of talent and emotion.

Ah so a study has been done that has suddenly refuted all genetic science developed until now? Please show me.

However, our personality is a separate entity that develops during our time on Earth and upon death, we take it with us and it becomes part of our soul.

Ah so a study has been done that refutes that we have memory storage inside our brain and proves that instead there is a separate spiritual entity that stores this information that influences our personality? Please show me.

 

[Nehustan]

My belief is pretty much the same. Gaia is one gigantic soul from which all of our souls are spawned (that includes animals and plants). Our souls are our essence of life, our source of talent and emotion. However, our personality is a separate entity that develops during our time on Earth and upon death, we take it with us and it becomes part of our soul.

I'm not sure the modern scientific paradigm deals with matters of 'the soul', nor does Cerrax's post deal with the modern scientific paradigm to be fair.

 

[Mike182]

Ah so a study has been done that has suddenly refuted all genetic science developed until now? Please show me.



Ah so a study has been done that refutes that we have memory storage inside our brain and proves that instead there is a separate spiritual entity that stores this information that influences our personality? Please show me.

these are not theories supported by evidence, so do not treat them as such - they are beliefs, beliefs that you asked to hear,non the less:sarcastic

so, lets talk science - how is "stuff" stored in our memory then? what form do memories take?

 

[may]

I know I told someone earlier not to give me definition, but to give me what they think... what do you think a soul is... myth? Why?.... reality?... then what is it? How do YOU define it?

i define it as the bible defines it, as my religious beliefs are based on bible teaching, i do not lean on my own understanding as that would lead to false reasoning.

 

[Opethian]

these are not theories supported by evidence, so do not treat them as such - they are beliefs, beliefs that you asked to hear,non the less:sarcastic

Of course, I just find it unacceptable for someone to believe that memories are part of some entity outside of our body when it has been proven that parts of our brain function to store memory.

so, lets talk science - how is "stuff" stored in our memory then? what form do memories take?

A part of our brain called the hippocampus plays a role in relating memories to where and how we learned something, but the storing of the memory itself relies on learning mechanisms in the perirhinal cortex underneath the hippocampus.
The hippocampus receives information from the surround cortex, and can combine a lot of different aspects of our experiences, because it receives different kinds of information. It works like a switch which directs impulses to the neocortex, where our memories are stored. Some experiments in which the hippocampus was removed in a patient (necessary to control seizures in the patient), caused the patient to retain all memories he had since then, but he could no longer make new memories. The storing of the memories is based on the strenghtening of connections (synapses) between the billions of neurons in our brain. Now I myself am not an expert on this, so I can imagine that there are other people who know much more about the exact processes and who can go more in depth, but this should be enough basic information to convince people that memories are stored in the brain, and not in some separate spiritual entity.

Edit: I found an interesting link:

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f97/projects97/Warren.html

 

[Opethian]

I'm also quite interested to hear an explanation for how a soul could be the source for life, talent, and emotion, because that would mean that respectively all biology, genetics and biochemistry would have become useless.

 

[Mike182]

Of course, I just find it unacceptable for someone to believe that memories are part of some entity outside of our body when it has been proven that parts of our brain function to store memory.

who said the soul is outside the body? :areyoucra

A part of our brain called the hippocampus plays a role in relating memories to where and how we learned something, but the storing of the memory itself relies on learning mechanisms in the perirhinal cortex underneath the hippocampus.
The hippocampus receives information from the surround cortex, and can combine a lot of different aspects of our experiences, because it receives different kinds of information. It works like a switch which directs impulses to the neocortex, where our memories are stored. Some experiments in which the hippocampus was removed in a patient (necessary to control seizures in the patient), caused the patient to retain all memories he had since then, but he could no longer make new memories. The storing of the memories is based on the strenghtening of connections (synapses) between the billions of neurons in our brain. Now I myself am not an expert on this, so I can imagine that there are other people who know much more about the exact processes and who can go more in depth, but this should be enough basic information to convince people that memories are stored in the brain, and not in some separate spiritual entity.

thanks, that was not quite what i was after - that is the process through which memories are stored, but what form are they stored in? are they energy waves? what?

Edit: I found an interesting link:

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/biology/b103/f97/projects97/Warren.html

i will read that later, i'm in college now.

 

[Nehustan]

I'm also quite interested to hear an explanation for how a soul could be the source for life, talent, and emotion, because that would mean that respectively all biology, genetics and biochemistry would have become useless.

I think that I will refer you to my previous answer about the fourfold concept of the person (by the way the word 'synapse' gives me chills as a result of a neurobiology course I had to do) combined with the 'fifth element'. Here the 'source of life' would be the infinite and absolute beyond creation, commonly described as spirit (divine) breathed into clay/earth. The four mundane 'elements' (alchemical) are then Fire, Water, Air, with these three combining to give Earth/clay, thus four. As delineated the four elements are though to represent Spirit (mundane), Soul, Intellect (Mind), and Body. It is then not that the soul is the source of life, rather when clay returns to clay (i.e. ashes to ashes, etc.), it was commonly thought that the part of self that continued after physical death (i.e. clay) was the soul/water. There is a strong connection between the soul (water) and the divine (as opposed to mundane) spirit. I think (paraphrased) in the bible it says something along the lines of 'unless you be reborn of water and of the spirit, you cannot live'.

 

[Mike182]

I'm also quite interested to hear an explanation for how a soul could be the source for life, talent, and emotion, because that would mean that respectively all biology, genetics and biochemistry would have become useless.

it isn't, at least in my oppinion. the soul is the connection to the divine, which is the source of life, emotion etc

 

[Opethian]

who said the soul is outside the body? :areyoucra

Sorry, that was a misphrasing of me. I meant apart from the body, thus, something that isn't part of our material structure. Something spiritual, not matter or energy.

thanks, that was not quite what i was after - that is the process through which memories are stored, but what form are they stored in? are they energy waves? what?

That was already included in my previous post, but it wasn't really clear:

storing of the memories is based on the strenghtening of connections (synapses) between the billions of neurons in our brain

Thus, because of the changing (strengthening, weakening) of the links between our brain neurons, our memory changes. Because of this, impulses sent through will take different paths and have different effects. It's a bit like coding actually (on a CD for example).

I think that I will refer you to my previous answer about the fourfold concept of the person (by the way the word 'synapse' gives me chills as a result of a neurobiology course I had to do) combined with the 'fifth element'. Here the 'source of life' would be the infinite and absolute beyond creation, commonly described as spirit (divine) breathed into clay/earth. The four mundane 'elements' (alchemical) are then Fire, Water, Air, with these three combining to give Earth/clay, thus four. As delineated the four elements are though to represent Spirit (mundane), Soul, Intellect (Mind), and Body. It is then not that the soul is the source of life, rather when clay returns to clay (i.e. ashes to ashes, etc.), it was commonly thought that the part of self that continued after physical death (i.e. clay) was the soul/water. There is a strong connection between the soul (water) and the divine (as opposed to mundane) spirit. I think (paraphrased) in the bible it says something along the lines of 'unless you be reborn of water and of the spirit, you cannot live'.

What good is this in the real world?

it isn't, at least in my oppinion. the soul is the connection to the divine, which is the source of life, emotion etc

So the chemicals, on their biochemical pathways in my body, that give me emotions, are divine? Or are you saying that a soul is somehow a connection to the primal source that started the universe, and is thus connected to everything it caused, including these molecules reacting in my body?

 

[Nehustan]

I think that I will refer you to my previous answer about the fourfold concept of the person (by the way the word 'synapse' gives me chills as a result of a neurobiology course I had to do) combined with the 'fifth element'. Here the 'source of life' would be the infinite and absolute beyond creation, commonly described as spirit (divine) breathed into clay/earth. The four mundane 'elements' (alchemical) are then Fire, Water, Air, with these three combining to give Earth/clay, thus four. As delineated the four elements are though to represent Spirit (mundane), Soul, Intellect (Mind), and Body. It is then not that the soul is the source of life, rather when clay returns to clay (i.e. ashes to ashes, etc.), it was commonly thought that the part of self that continued after physical death (i.e. clay) was the soul/water. There is a strong connection between the soul (water) and the divine (as opposed to mundane) spirit. I think (paraphrased) in the bible it says something along the lines of 'unless you be reborn of water and of the spirit, you cannot live'.

What good is this in the real world

Well if we are talking about this world nearly all the natural sciences departed from this point, biology, physics, and of course chemistry. So I'd say that they have been very 'good' in the 'real world', science progresses through paradigm shift. For instance one cannot learn advanced physics without learning classical physics, and yet classical physics as we know it is limited in its ability to explain the 'real world'. Does this negate its relevance as a mode of thought which is developing and has elements of truth for inhabitants of Terra?. Foundations of a house are just that, play with them (or deny them) and your house might just fall down.

By the way I was trying to recall what these 'elements' were called by Arabic doctor's considered on the 'cutting edge' in the (christian) medieval world, but I'll see if i can find the word.

Found it....they were called the humours....​

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_medicine​

4th paragraph​

 

[Opethian]

Well if we are talking about this world nearly all the natural sciences departed from this point, biology, physics, and of course chemistry. So I'd say that they have been very 'good' in the 'real world', science progresses through paradigm shift. For instance one cannot learn advanced physics without learning classical physics, and yet classical physics as we know it is limited in its ability to explain the 'real world'. Does this negate its relevance as a mode of thought which is developing and has elements of truth for inhabitants of Terra?. Foundations of a house are just that, play with them (or deny them) and your house might just fall down.

Well yes of course, but what you described has absolutely nothing to do with science, and is certainly not the foundation for anything in science. It's just seems like a bit of a weird philosophy to me.

 

[Nehustan]

Well yes of course, but what you described has absolutely nothing to do with science, and is certainly not the foundation for anything in science. It's just seems like a bit of a weird philosophy to me.

You might like to view the wiki link (which I admittedly added as a postscript) concerning the 'weird philosophy' and the origins of medical science. Also, you are wrong, the alchemical sciences are very much the foundation of at least chemistry in the modern paradigm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemy​

 

[Opethian]

you might like the wiki link (which I admittedly added as a postscript) concerning the 'weird philosophy' and the origins of medical science.

Very interesting, but I do hope you do not consider this science. The use of herbs may have been a start of medical science, but the underlying philosophy which you are talking about can't really be called science. Like many times in the past, spiritual ideas are used here as a means to simplify and explain things people could not yet explain through science.

 

[Nehustan]

(I just added another wiki link)

The operative word here is 'paradigm'. For instance Alchemical sciences explained the world around at that time. Subsequently more was dicovered revealed and the paradigm shifted. We now call our developed Alchemical science, Chemical science (see wiki link in previous post). Science at whatever time and at whatever the level of knowledge has sought to explain the world around it, that is what defines science, and it is by no means an answer, rather a set of explanations that appear by observable phenomena to be true at that time (i.e until 'proved' false). At all times a paradigm must operate with the premise that it is not an absolute truth, but a theory backed up by observation that is the most parsimonius explanation given the data at that time. There are many things we cannot currently quantify (and thus could be argued not to exist scientifically), however it doesn't mean they don't. It does however mean they are unquantiable, thus unreproduceable, and thus unable to be falisified as required by the current criteria for scientific theory.

 

[Nehustan]

Found some links from the alchemy page I posted​

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_four_humours​

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alchemical_symbol​

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology_and_alchemy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alembic​

 

[Nehustan]

Coincedentally, I just thought actually science does allow for things unproven. I was just thinking about things inferred but as yet not quantified by for instance Quantum theory. Scientists hypothesise about many things that are unproven, in fact this quest for the unproven could in fact be considered the engine of science.

 

[Nehustan]

What good is this in the real world?

Do you know this statement of yours has continued to echo in my mind. One might even say that the resonance of the phrase reverberates throughout history, certainly in the past (I'm thinking Gallileo talking to his defence prior to his hearing), quite often in the present (i.e. A father to his son 'This science is all well and good, but what use is it in the real world....get a real job like me'), but let's hope it won't be used so much as we proceed into the future :sarcastic .

 

[Opethian]

Coincedentally, I just thought actually science does allow for things unproven. I was just thinking about things inferred but as yet not quantified by for instance Quantum theory. Scientists hypothesise about many things that are unproven, in fact this quest for the unproven could in fact be considered the engine of science.

I agree, but I don't really see how the link between an element and some form of spiritual entity could relate to science at all.