Analysis of the soul.

[YesNo]

I sometimes have problems with performance on the site as well.

What I am describing is a work-in-progress model or theory that makes sense to me at the moment. I keep changing my mind although the direction away from dualism and materialism remains more or less intact. I assume reality is more interesting than any model I'll be able to make of it.

[YesNo]

I view soul as a traveler playing a "Choose your own adventure" -game. After the first game is over, he moves on to another game. The traveler grows through the decisions he makes playing the game, and the ultimate meaning of the traveler's journey is the journey itself - the development he goes through. The ultimate end goal of the traveler's journey is a mystery - and in my opinion, it's irrelevant.

I think I agree with that about the end goal being irrelevant. Or, in terms of religious groups that believe in heaven and hell, we all go to heaven in the end although some of us do it with more unpleasant adventures along the way than others.

[YesNo]

Part 2:

1. The soul can exist apart from the body after death. Because the soul is spiritual, it is immortal.

2. But there is an incompleteness in this until reunited with the body at the end of the world i.e. our salvation and resurrection.

I would hopefully look forward to being reunited with my past body of 21 years old, but am quite prepared to accept the mental state of my 73 years !!

3. It is the condition of our soul at the end of mortal life that determines our eternal lot.

• It raises the existence of a transitional test during our mortal coil.

• Another interpretation that I came across, (A Jesuit I believe, teaching Grahame Greene) is that it’s not a question of what God forbids, but what he tolerates. This would be more in line with a forgiving God dealing with struggling mortals.

I hope there will be a Part 3.

Regarding what happens after life, I look to what people who report near-death experiences have to say. I think out-of-body experiences have been demonstrated scientifically, that is, one can stimulate the brain to trigger such experiences. So the soul can exist apart from the body. The body may also be a kind of soul at another level and there may be souls without bodies.

[Mohammad Ahmad]

Soul and body are integrated parts…how
Of course everyone has his unique character and for instance if a family is composed of many brothers and sisters it is hardly to see all of them having the same characteristics of a similar habits and sense but they are maybe similar into more bodies shape, face shape, epidermis colour and so on….
Are all the dissimilar or the similar characteristics of bodies due to chromosomes? If we accept on this theory and it is altogether correct but the difference relating to nature between one person to another or between one brother to another is not related to chromosomes but it is rather related to another thing is hidden on heart or in blood or on any part of the body. Perhaps someone will reply that this factor you mentioned is hidden on brain and the brain is responsible to all the human moral constitutions like hate, love, greed, rancor and every good or not good morality temperaments attributed physically or non-physically.
Of course, the material of soul cannot be touched by hand or it can be seen by eyes or by microscope but it can be felt while, for instance, we sometimes have a feel that we are not ourselves asking inside soul are we or not.

[Tammuz]

Of course, the material of soul cannot be touched by hand or it can be seen by eyes or by microscope but it can be felt while, for instance, we sometimes have a feel that we are not ourselves asking inside soul are we or not.

Very interesting location where you are posting from...

To my knowledge, in Islam the soul is thought to be composed of two ingredients: naf (person, ego) and ruh (spirit). This corresponds to the soul model in Judaism (nephesh = person, ego) and ruach (spirit). In both cases, the ego-part is mortal while the spirit-part is immortal and something like a connection to the divine. In Indian Vedanta, there is the Subtle Body (Suksma sarira) what corresponds to person/ego, and the Causal Body (Karana sarira) as sort of spirit (similar to ruh and ruach in Islam and Judaism). Of course there is a big difference between the concept of the divine in Indian non-theistic Vedanta and in Islam/Jewish monotheism: the Indian divine has no ´will´ and no personality while Yahveh and Allah bear strong traits of personality and intentionality. In Islamic Sufism, the connection to the divine seems to bridge the gap between the divine (Allah) and the human mind to a degree that human spirit is able to unite completely with the divine (Allah) what corresponds to the mystical ideas in, among other things, Brahmanism, Vedanta, Neoplatonism and Christian mysticism.

The US philosopher Emerson about the soul:

From Ralph Waldo Emerson, ´Essay IX The Over-Soul´:

All goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light; is not the intellect or the will, but the master of the intellect and the will; is the background of our being, in which they lie, — an immensity not possessed and that cannot be possessed. From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. A man is the fasade of a temple wherein all wisdom and all good abide. What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself.
(...)
Of this pure nature every man is at some time sensible. Language cannot paint it with his colors. It is too subtile. It is undefinable, unmeasurable, but we know that it pervades and contains us. We know that all spiritual being is in man.

[Mohammad Ahmad]

For Tammoz and all other readers:

Regarding to Koran, many verses of Koran referred to the essence of soul taking it into a sacred halo of respect so I am perplexed into choosing the easy understandable one but let me focusing on this one:
Allah almighty said in the Sura ( Thariat); " Into their souls and you are not enough aware, beyond the skies is your living reason and everything you would be promised taken it; so it is obvious as much as you pronounce a word".
If the last phrase we reasonably read it, no doubt, we shall find out so much compression was made between soul and passing one's lips, which it is sensible to compare with the substance of soul. Therefore, it is no doubt that soul is a material like any material but it cannot be diagnosed for eyes.
2- another verse is not less important of the previous Allah mentioned in Sura ( Fusslat) " We shall show them our miracles in horizons and inside their souls". In the last example it is very obvious that the Creator could show people as they could see something by their naked eyes as to look for a feature or a phenomenon that can be seen as for example, the rainbow or any natural feature that does happen in sky or earth.

[YesNo]

Of course there is a big difference between the concept of the divine in Indian non-theistic Vedanta and in Islam/Jewish monotheism: the Indian divine has no ´will´ and no personality while Yahveh and Allah bear strong traits of personality and intentionality. In Islamic Sufism, the connection to the divine seems to bridge the gap between the divine (Allah) and the human mind to a degree that human spirit is able to unite completely with the divine (Allah) what corresponds to the mystical ideas in, among other things, Brahmanism, Vedanta, Neoplatonism and Christian mysticism.
[/I]

When I hear the word "non-theistic" used in English spiritualist or New Age contexts I have to ask myself how this non-theism relates to "materialism"? In an eastern context this might have been a way to move beyond multiple local dieties. In the west, I see it as a way to embrace materialism.

I don't trust New Age spiritualism. It is too easy for it, in a western context where English is spoken, to be either a sugar-coating of atheistic materialism or a sugar-coating of Christian dualism. I have to see this spirituality explicitly reject both materialism and dualism and promote "consciousness" or some other term representing what we experience through our subjectivity.

[YesNo]

Therefore, it is no doubt that soul is a material like any material but it cannot be diagnosed for eyes.

That is sort of how I see it. However, the word "material" in English suggests that this is unconscious matter.

When one says the "soul is a material like any material", this could be interpreted in two different ways:

1) The material world is like the soul and hence there is no unconscious matter. Everything is soul-like although we may not see matter in this way. I agree with this idealist position.

2) The soul is just as unconscious as the material world. The soul can be reduced to unconscious matter although we may not see the soul in this way. I do not agree with this materialist position.

Dualists would like to have both unconscious matter and soul.

[Mohammad Ahmad]

That is sort of how I see it. However, the word "material" in English suggests that this is unconscious matter.

When one says the "soul is a material like any material", this could be interpreted in two different ways:

1) The material world is like the soul and hence there is no unconscious matter. Everything is soul-like although we may not see matter in this way. I agree with this idealist position.

2) The soul is just as unconscious as the material world. The soul can be reduced to unconscious matter although we may not see the soul in this way. I do not agree with this materialist position.

Dualists would like to have both unconscious matter and soul.

OK, you are right in some views:
No, indeed, it is conscious because everybody has unique soul as God said ' Every soul should have death" and He did not say everybody or every person so that if we agree that it is unconscious, we shall give it out of the body senses, yes in this view I accept with you to say, "Soul is not related to physical body senses and reactions. Supposing it is a part of a body essence, whether to say it is located on brain or any part of the body, however, as we are not able touching it or to see it, we cannot say it is found in such part of a body. Material thing or substance is not always related to a materialism theory. Indeed the viewpoints that I brought and you comment under are a part of Islamic Sufi views. In return, to your views, I accept with you as much as you meant the worldly views.
Now I want asking one question dear YesNo:
If you are tempting to do some of devilish sins, do you follow these sins by your soul or by your body?

[Tammuz]

When I hear the word "non-theistic" used in English spiritualist or New Age contexts I have to ask myself how this non-theism relates to "materialism"? In an eastern context this might have been a way to move beyond multiple local dieties. In the west, I see it as a way to embrace materialism.

"Non-theistic" in the context I mentioned means denying a personal nature of the divine and instead emphasizing the non-personal nature of the divine, that is, the divine is thought to be empty of all human-like characteristics which are ascribed to the divine in theistic concepts. In the Indian Upanishads and in Vedanta, the plurality of deities in the Vedic hymns, that is, the magical-mythical world of numerous anthropomorphic representations of the divine, as well as the complexity of the material world becomes reduced to the state of being a ´illusionary reality´ (maya), deceiving the mind and the eye of man and conceiling the true dimension of existence, that is, the unchangeable formless divine. ´Atman´ is thought to be the mostly unconsioucs core of the human subject, which on the one hand lives with the illusion of existing as a mortal individual and being isolated from the rest of the world, while on the other hand - as Atman - being identical with the dimension of true existence, the Brahman, which beyond time and space emanates and absorbs all elements of the illusionary phenomenal world in kind of a circular movement. Thus Brahman, the non-personal divine, is at once transcending the phenomena and pervading them, since it is thought to be the only reality. Accordingly, the authors of the Upanishads draw the conclusion that to escape the tragic-comedy of the maya world man has to recognize his identity (that is, the identity of Atman, the soul core) with Brahman.

I don't trust New Age spiritualism. It is too easy for it, in a western context where English is spoken, to be either a sugar-coating of atheistic materialism or a sugar-coating of Christian dualism. I have to see this spirituality explicitly reject both materialism and dualism and promote "consciousness" or some other term representing what we experience through our subjectivity.

´New Age´ spiritualism is a very wide field and full of diverging teachings. Could you say in more detail to what or whom you are referring?

As to the other topics I intend to shortly continue the debate in a separate ´philosophy of mind´-thread in the philosophy department of this forum.

[YesNo]

Now I want asking one question dear YesNo:
If you are tempting to do some of devilish sins, do you follow these sins by your soul or by your body?

If you think about what kind of things the body would tempt you to do, they might fall into wanting (1) food, (2) sex, or (3) sleep. There might be others. It would be counterproductive for the body to tempt us to eat so much that obesity occurs. We have to tempt the body or override its normal behavior to get obesity. So, the soul does the tempting.

However, to say it is the soul suggests it is some "individual" soul and I don't think the soul is completely individuated. So where the temptation could actually come from may be neither the body nor the individuated aspect of the soul. Some call this culture, but it could go beyond culture. Culture is too mechanistic a solution for the source of temptation.

[YesNo]

"Non-theistic" in the context I mentioned means denying a personal nature of the divine and instead emphasizing the non-personal nature of the divine, that is, the divine is thought to be empty of all human-like characteristics which are ascribed to the divine in theistic concepts. In the Indian Upanishads and in Vedanta, the plurality of deities in the Vedic hymns, that is, the magical-mythical world of numerous anthropomorphic representations of the divine, as well as the complexity of the material world becomes reduced to the state of being a ´illusionary reality´ (maya), deceiving the mind and the eye of man and conceiling the true dimension of existence, that is, the unchangeable formless divine. ´Atman´ is thought to be the mostly unconsioucs core of the human subject, which on the one hand lives with the illusion of existing as a mortal individual and being isolated from the rest of the world, while on the other hand - as Atman - being identical with the dimension of true existence, the Brahman, which beyond time and space emanates and absorbs all elements of the illusionary phenomenal world in kind of a circular movement. Thus Brahman, the non-personal divine, is at once transcending the phenomena and pervading them, since it is thought to be the only reality. Accordingly, the authors of the Upanishads draw the conclusion that to escape the tragic-comedy of the maya world man has to recognize his identity (that is, the identity of Atman, the soul core) with Brahman.

Whatever maya we experience can be derived right from physics. We don't have to go to eastern traditions. For example, the only reason I feel the table and chair I sit on as solid is because my body is not made out of neutrinos. If it were I would move right through the table and chair. All that I see as solid is mostly empty space. The only kind of maya that I am willing to acknowledge is this sort of maya that has been experimentally validated by modern physics.

The reason for that is because I have to be careful of pseudo-science speculations in the modern west. I have to be careful not to assume that our consciousness itself is maya. It is not. If it were there would be no ground for science.

We are in a far worse cultural situation today regarding the "divine" than Indians were in the past with anthropomorphic dieties. The reason it is worse, is because our cultural view of maya is dehumanizing. So, I would claim that any modern conception of the "divine" has to be explicitly characterized as super-personal, not "non-personal" to make sure I am avoiding a cultural dead-end. The divine is not less than we are. It cannot be reduced to a Higgs field, for example.

´New Age´ spiritualism is a very wide field and full of diverging teachings. Could you say in more detail to what or whom you are referring?

As to the other topics I intend to shortly continue the debate in a separate ´philosophy of mind´-thread in the philosophy department of this forum.

I distrust western Buddhist spiritualism. In particular, Stephen Batchelor's "Buddhism Without Beliefs".

[Mohammad Ahmad]

A good subject to deal with yet...
O, users, you made it further extent of argument.
Soul and body can be united for one reason, any person has a private soul and private instincts; those private things are not wholly followed by body desire but to something are still not recognized.
One thing, man would die yet his heart still palpating for 3-4 seconds after the occasion. I don't know why but I heard from doctors who were present while following someone at death. It maybe the that brain yet is not responded so that I may absolutely think why this does happen and perhaps I think the reason is beyond brain so soul it maybe also is found in human brain.

[YesNo]

Maya is not something objective in the world around us. It is an illusion, but there is no illusion unless someone is having the illusion as a subjective experience. Maya is a form of subjectivity. Without consciousness of some sort capable of having illusions there would be no maya.

Take the idea of "brain" and "heart" that Mohammad brings up. Is the soul in the brain? Perhaps it is in the heart? Perhaps it is in both? Perhaps it is beyond both but our experience focuses it in our body? Perhaps it is a cultural delusion reducible to some random or deterministic configuration of hypothetical unconscious atoms? Perhaps the belief that it is such a cultural delusion is itself a mad delusion?

[YesNo]

I'm still trying to make sense of the idea of maya (a Hindu-Buddhist word meaning "illusion"). I could get it wrong. That would be another sort of maya, perhaps a derived illusion. So I have to be careful. Not just everything I come up with (nor what others come up with) is true.

I will let this be my starting part: the universe is good. This comes from Genesis in the Jewish Tanakh. Christians accept this text and perhaps Muslims do as well. I wonder if Hindus or Buddhists accept it? If they accept it they should have no problems with reincarnation. It doesn't matter. It is my first assumption and it makes sense, even without the approval of Genesis, to accept it.

I have enough subjectivity to be aware that I am within this universe. This means I am not the whole universe. There is reality outside of me and so my subjective experience will be from only my perspective. That is where maya (illusion) starts. In order to be me as a subject, I must have this maya. I don't see all the space in the atoms in the table, but my perspective lets me see the table as something solid. It is my perspective on reality and since I am part of a good universe, this subjective experience of maya (illusion) must be good as well. I don't see anything wrong with being in the universe and having, because of that, a perspective.

Knowing that I don't see everything completely as it is, I go about trying to find out what is true beyond my perspective. This leads to evolutionary change where I try to get closer to what is true by objectifying through words and art (modifying the world around me). The objects I create have two features.

(1) These objects lack subjectivity and so they cannot represent the whole of reality because they do not even represent my whole perspective. They are only objects (texts, pictures, tools, machines, robots) coming from my (our) subjective perspective of reality and to make sense out of them I (we) have to experience them through our subjectivity again.

(2) These objectifications of subjective reality also objectify my illusions or maya. I have to be careful with these texts and objects.

So, I can't escape maya and I can't completely find out what is really real, but I can get closer. Is it worth doing that? Sure it is. I'm here. I have nothing else to do. I'll go as far down the rabbit hole as I can before getting stuck on something and I will do my best not to get stuck on stuff that makes no sense.