I don’t believe it, but I some times wonder if some kind of self is preserved as energy within the universe somehow. Effectively being a soul, but in a sense of physics more than spirituality. Much like how the physical body will decay and return to the earth, the energy that makes up consciousness could simply return to the universe.
I like Douglas Hofstadter’s concept of the soul as a self referential mechanism. His book: ‘I am a strange loop’ expands on this, which is a bit more spiritual (for lack of a better word) expansion of his ideas in Gödel, Escher Bach.
It also explains how your own loop incorporates and curates the memories of the people you love and how you’re able to live, and see though their ‘eyes’ after they have died.
So the soul of others finds an explanation in yourself, and allows you to live in in other people’s minds, without any super natural constructs.
Always glad to find another student of Hofstadter in the wild. GEB blew my mind wide open when I read it in my early 20s.
I Am a Strange Loop is far more accessible and I recommend it to anyone who wants a better grasp on how something seemingly infinitely complex like a human mind can emerge from mere atoms dancing around one another.
Well, I use the word “soul” to sum up what makes a person a person, their base values, moral standpoint, what they love and hate etc. The warmth of a person. In the same way I would say that somebody forfeits their soul because of their acts. And I’d argue that our soul “lives on” after we die in the people we’ve made an impression on or in general through the effects of our actions. But some magic person-container? No. We die and then we’re dead.
I don’t think humans have souls. When we die, we do just that. I don’t think we are so special to have something other species don’t, so if we (humans) have them, then other species also can.
I don’t think humans have souls. When we die, we do just that. I don’t think we are so special to have something other species don’t, so if we (humans) have them, then other species also can.
I don’t think humans have souls. When we die, we do just that. I don’t think we are so special to have something other species don’t, so if we (humans) have them, then other species also can.
No. I believe soul is a human construct that is meant to be self defense mechanism to feel like we are special instead of bunch of meat with chemicals.
I think ‘soul’ is not something which exists in itself - it is the idea of the essence of a thing, the thing which causes an individual life.
So theories go around that there are spiritual beings separate from the physical (debatable) and I personally think that it extends to all life, such that trees can have awareness which can also extend beyond their physical bodies.
As such, they obviously exist - but their exact definition and nature is quite hard to grasp. I don’t think they can survive physical death.
It really depends on what you mean? It’s a purposely, nearly obtusely, intangible concept. I’m not unwilling to talk about it if I get a proper definition, but my opinion would be a mere opinion formed from the facts I have on hand. I have some suppositions that are outside the realm of what science has been able to dig in to, but without actually factual backing, I also acknowledge that my ideas are conjecture that line up with how I perceive the world.
I mean, ya, if that’s how you wanna define a soul, I’ll say that exists.
As for the more common definitions which tend to extend to moving that software around and that software moving to the cloud in the case of a system failure, I have no reason to believe the brain has wifi, gps, or satellite functionality.
But if we simply describe it as “the software on the brain”, I hold no objection and can comfortably say it exists.
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