What is the soul?

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by DarkDaimon, May 24, 2016.

  1. DarkDaimon

    DarkDaimon Well-Known Member

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    What is the soul/spirit? Is it something tangible? Can it be measured? Where does it come from? Where does it reside when you are alive? What does it contain?

    The reason I am asking this question is that I know someone who had a terrible head injury that gave her total amnesia and totally changed her personality to the point where she if not the same person she was before. For all practical purposes, the person she was is dead and new person took her place. If her body was to die, which personality would her soul be? Does a soul even have a personality?

    Before you answer, there is one assumption that I insist on, and that is the soul is real, if only to stop certain people from spamming this thread with "the soul is not real" posts.
     
  2. Gorn Captain

    Gorn Captain Banned

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    Poses more and more of a question as medical science progresses.

    Is the soul in the "entirety of the living body"?.....so do amputees have "amputated souls"?

    Is it in the brain? If so, what happens to the "soul" in a hemispherectomy, where one cerebral hemisphere (half of the brain) is removed or disabled. (used to treat a variety of seizure disorders.)

    Is the "brain soul" "cut in half"???
     
  3. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    'Soul' is the concept and term devised to explain how a person keeps living when the body is self-evidently finished. The primitives viewed it somewhat like a smell, an 'essence', which wafted up from the dying or decaying corpse to dwell in the clouds. It's simple stuff, necessitated by the believe in an afterlife in a reality in which corpses don't get up and walk away.
     
  4. cupid dave

    cupid dave Well-Known Member

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    Yes,... the soul survives in the genes.
    It will again be born again into the world, at some time in the future.

    "Soul" is the English word used for pyske,'... in the Greek Bible, and for nesphesh, or mind, in the Hebrew.

    Soul refers specifically to the Unconscious mind,... which is genetically recordedvin our genetic coding.
     
  5. Judicator1

    Judicator1 New Member

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    If you insist that the soul is real, then I would say that the soul is roughly equivalent to the mind. If you destroy/alter the mind, you do the same to the soul.

    To address your questions:
    - The soul is an emergent property of the brain, just like the mind
    - It can be measured in the sense that someone who is braindead has no soul
    - The soul changes and forms as the brain forms. There is no specific moment a soul appears, just more of one and less of one.
    - The soul doesn't "reside" in any one place since it is an emergent property.
    - The soul contains your personality, memories, thought patterns - everything that makes your mind your mind.
     
  6. cupid dave

    cupid dave Well-Known Member

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    - The soul is genetically encoded in the genes and is born again into the world,... again and again.
     
  7. DarkDaimon

    DarkDaimon Well-Known Member

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    So kind of a genetic reincarnation. Sounds kind of like Jupiter Rising.
     
  8. DarkDaimon

    DarkDaimon Well-Known Member

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    That's what I was taught when I was younger, and it makes sense, but then what about those who have personality changes, do their souls change too?
     
  9. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The soul has a natural state that never changes. If you believe in heaven or reincarnation the soul always stays the same. Think of it as a beam of energy rather than a physical being.
     
  10. Gorn Captain

    Gorn Captain Banned

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    So would genetic engineering....."re-engineer the soul"?

    - - - Updated - - -

    Where is it?
     
  11. DarkDaimon

    DarkDaimon Well-Known Member

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    So, what happens to our experiences and memories? Does the soul store them? If it does, what happens if you lose your memories? Does a copy still reside on your soul?
     
  12. Alien Traveler

    Alien Traveler New Member

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    Speaking about reincarnation: as I understand it is not the same as resurrection in a new body. A person is defined by memories. Reincarnation does not transfer memories. Then does not reincarnation is close to heart transplant, when one person is dead, the other person is alive thanks to heart of first person (and no traits of dead person is inherited by the alive one)? And the same is true for reincarnation - one person is dead, another is born thanks to soul transplant (and no traits of the dead person is inherited by the alive one).
     
  13. Jonsa

    Jonsa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Where does all this "information" concerning the nature of the "soul" come from? Seems to me to be long on speculation and desire and short on facts and evidence.

    Perhaps the "soul" as I understand its meaning in a christian religious context is merely an intellectual artifact of sapience, since we humans appear to be the only earthly species that can imagine and create abstractions.
     
  14. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Nobody knows except those that have passed.
     
  15. Spooky

    Spooky Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I am a Christian and believe in the tenants of the bible but that does not mean reincarnation could not exist. It's silly to assume God has told us everything in detail.

    There has been a lot of people under meditation who speak of former lives and I prefer to keep an open mind. How the soul would transfer is something we just cannot comprehend.

    This is the realm of God and something he probably does not want us to know yet.
     

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