61 thoughts on “on the soul”

  1. mchapus@rocketmail.com says:
    March 27, 2023 at 11:02

    ‘The soul as ideas are as unsupported, ridiculous and even downright harmful?’ The writer obviously has no idea what the term idea implies.

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  2. ladysighs says:
    March 27, 2023 at 12:39

    If you can’t make a case for the soul in 10 words or less, it doesn’t exist.
    Case closed.

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  3. renudepride says:
    March 27, 2023 at 16:42

    The soul is nothing without religion and the religion is nothing without soul. Don’t they cancel out one another?

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  4. Nan says:
    March 27, 2023 at 18:24

    My opinion of this article? Hogwash! The “soul” is nothing but a tool used to promote other religious drivel.

    P.S. As I’ve stated before, I’m not a fan of long articles so I scanned most of it (I’ll try to read it all later), but what I did read confirms my initial opinion as stated above.

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    • makagutu says:
      March 27, 2023 at 20:16

      The article does question why the idea of a soul is so ubiquitous. You should read it. I think it is generally good.

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    • Silence of Mind says:
      March 28, 2023 at 19:51

      The existence of the soul is obvious. It is as obvious as the difference between a living body and a dead body. The living body is animated by the soul. The dead body isn’t. Aristotle, wrote his work, De Anima, On the Soul, which examines the idea of the soul. De Anima is not religious literature.

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      • rautakyy says:
        March 29, 2023 at 14:33

        Correct me, if I remember wrong, but was it not Aristoteles who also made the claim, that the soul must reside in the heart, because the brain is obviously just a cooling element of the body? He may sound like an authorative source, but was sorely limited by the scope of medical science in his time. It is difficult to make reliable conclusions, if your source information is minute, or flawed.

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        • Silence of Mind says:
          March 29, 2023 at 15:47

          rautakyy, the existence of the soul is obvious as I proved in previous comments. The obvious is neither medical science nor rocket science. Any dummy can see the obvious and understand it.

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          • makagutu says:
            March 29, 2023 at 16:10

            SoM, greetings. Been ages since I last read from you.
            Did you prove anything or made assertions?

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            • Silence of Mind says:
              March 29, 2023 at 18:00

              Makagutu, The soul animates the body. A living body has a soul. A dead body doesn’t.

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              • makagutu says:
                March 29, 2023 at 19:48

                You know this is not proof. It is a tautology. And a circular argument but this was one of your strengths, iirc.

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                • Silence of Mind says:
                  March 29, 2023 at 23:48

                  Makagutu, It is obvious that the soul animates the body, and a body without a soul is dead.

                  What more proof do you need than the obvious staring you in the face? Why do atheists have such a hard time understanding what is so obvious?

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                  • makagutu says:
                    March 30, 2023 at 07:46

                    It is obvious that ice is cold. There is no discussion about it. Had the same been true for the soul, the discussion would have ended with the Greeks. Repeating it is obvious a million times doesn’t make it so.

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                    • Silence of Mind says:
                      March 30, 2023 at 08:15

                      Makagutu, That ice is cold is true. It is obviously true. That the soul animates the body is true. It is obviously true. What is so damned hard about that? What is your problem?

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          • rautakyy says:
            March 30, 2023 at 07:08

            @Silence of Mind, you may claim to have proven the existance of a soul, but to me you have failed to demonstrate anything exept your personal obviously fairly loose perception of proof. The problem is, that things are often not at all as they appear to “any dummy”. Infact, we should not take as granted anything at all by how obvious “dummies” take them. Should we? Or do you think Aristoteles was right about the brain being merely a cooling element of the body? He took it as obvious, but was evidently wrong. How to determine when are “dummies” right or wrong? I suggest the scientific method. When it is a question of anatomy, like in the speculations of Aristoteles about the brain, turn to medical science. In case of the soul, to wich we have no other handle exept the cultural perception of it, hence it is a matter of cultural and psychological research, wich demonstrate adequatly the obvious reasons for humans to imagine the concept of a soul to fill in the gaps in their medical knowledge – Aristoteles among others.

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            • Silence of Mind says:
              March 30, 2023 at 19:25

              rautakyy, My “loose perception of truth” is not the topic of discussion. The existence of the soul is the topic of discussion. The existence of the soul is obvious. If the obvious is not proof enough for you, well then you must be an atheist.

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              • makagutu says:
                March 30, 2023 at 19:26

                I have been waiting for when you would say this.
                Obvious to who?

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              • rautakyy says:
                March 31, 2023 at 06:23

                @Silence of Mind, yes that is our topic and I meant no insult, but I only brought your perception of proof up, because it was you who made the bold claim of having proven the existance of a soul, while the evidence you offer seems to be limited into how “obvious” you find it and on the ramblings of Aristoteles on a subject he “obviously” had a limited access to information about, as he clearly contradicts what we today know through medical science. But the existance of a soul is no more obvious than a claim, that the moon is made of cheese. The body is clearly animated by chemistry of the cels and electromagnetic impulses. You may of course call those, or their result of self that does exist within the realm of brainchemistry, the soul, if you prefer to be poetic, but nothing we know about the subject matter today suggests it survives the death of the body, exept as memories in the brainchemistry of others and as physical objects and other reprecussions of our deeds. That is plenty, but not enough to some fearfull of death in the extent of denialism. Why? Certainly there is nothing to suggest anything super- or otherwise unnatural is in play.

                Yes, I am an atheist, as my parents before me and their parents before them. It is not a feat of mine to have reached this exalted state, but at least in my case it means I have a certain level of expectance of evidence before I call anything “proved”. It does not include what “any dummy” would call “obvious”. Should that not be the case for you, or do you fear of becoming an atheist, if you set your standard for proof a little higher?

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  5. Ubi Dubium says:
    March 27, 2023 at 21:12

    “Is there such a thing as a soul?” is a pretty-much settled question for me, I don’t think souls exist. But there are lots of people who believe in the idea, and why human brains are like this is an interesting thing to try to figure out.

    The best thoughts I have heard on the subject relate to “theory of mind”. Apparently the part of our brain that processes information about the physical aspects of a person is not the same part as the part that thinks about what another person is thinking. And of course we are capable of thinking about what another person is thinking even when they aren’t present. So, when someone has died, and we no longer have their physical presence, we are still capable of thinking about their mental processes. Which can lead to the illusion that their mind still exists in some form.

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    • makagutu says:
      March 27, 2023 at 21:15

      You and I on the same group on the existence of the soul.

      I should read on it. That sounds interesting.

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    • Nan says:
      March 27, 2023 at 21:33

      Huh? we are capable of thinking about what another person is thinking even when they aren’t present

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      • Ubi Dubium says:
        March 27, 2023 at 22:13

        It’s a skill humans are particularly good at, especially when we know somebody well. Imagining the mental state of another person is a crucial ability for functioning in groups. Great apes are pretty good at it too, but not quite up to our standards. (My cat sucks at it. He is horrible at figuring out what I am thinking, or how I will react to some random thing he does.)

        For instance I can think about what my husband’s opinion on some subject will be. I can also consider what his opinion about my opinion on the subject will be or his opinion on what he thinks my opinion will be. And so on for many iterations. (We can even do this with fictional characters.) And the brain circuitry we use to do that is in a different location in our brains from the circuits that we use to think about people’s physical appearance.

        What would my dad think about my kids? He’s long dead and never met my kids. But the fact that I can still consider what he would have thought creates the illusion that he’s not gone.

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  6. rautakyy says:
    March 28, 2023 at 15:08

    How was the Colt 45 an “equalizer” in the “old west”? That must be one of the weird myths of the US folklore. Similarly, I did not quite get how the concept of a soul was supposed to be some sort of an equalizer?
    I am a bit annoyed at this notion, that we humans are somehow special in our knowledge of our own mortality. I have known a bunch of, especially young, dudes who were not at all aware of their mortality (I may have been one of them at some point), while animals in general – perhaps not so many apex predators, like us – are painfully aware of their mortality. This can be seen in how easily an animal takes flight at the slightest sign of possible danger.

    I do not know how it would feel like, if I had a soul, and I bet people who think they have one, have no idea what it would be like if they had none. Yet, what they feel about this issue seems best evidence they can put up in defence of this phenomena. There is no way we can verify any of us has one, let alone, that all had it. It can be seen as a poetic term for self, but otherwise it is just superstition and the thought of an afterlife is hardly anything but wishfull thinking. Either to avoid the thought of one’s own mortality, or the hope for some universal justice. However, the concepts of this universal justice are fairly skewed in religions. Hinduism offers future lives as insects = animals that do not have the brainpower to know their existance is some sort of punishment – a conclusion hardly any animal apart from us hominids has ever reached. Christianity offers hell, that can be awoided by joining the club, but non-members will suffer for an eternity. How is that supposed to be just on any level?

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  7. maryplumbago says:
    March 31, 2023 at 15:08

    Mumbo jumbo BS

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  8. Deviant Yoga says:
    May 17, 2023 at 15:30

    The beauty of sitting on the fence, without judgement, is that you get to witness the truth if and when it reveals itself. Taking one side or another limits our capacity to see the whole..all I know is that we are energetic beings, and energy doesn’t die, it transforms. Personally, I find this notion intriguing. Forget religion, think quantum physics, thats way more on-point. Well orchestrated Makagutu, for creating these highly animated web-waves. Whatever actually happens after the death of the physical body, we are all in this together. 🙂

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