The soul vs. The self

[MrBishop]

Some people believe in the soul. The soul being some being which encompases what it is to be you. Your emotions, loves, hates, fears etc etc. It's what drives you to do good or evil. It has no ties to the physical body other than it resides in pretty much the same place.

This seems to be the thinking of many conservatives who refuse to believe that anything happening to the body should have any effect on the soul...and its choices of good vs. evil actions or inaction. (Thus the main thrust of the Con argument when a scientist , psychologist or psychiatrist states that a physical condition can affect the chances that someone could become alcoholic, a rapist etc...)

Basically...any attempt to explain a human action is deemed as seeking an excuse for such an action. (*The same can be said about topics such as homosexuality and choice over nature*).

Some say that there is no such thing as the soul..that the personality lives as part of the brain as a series of synapses, memories, experiences etc... and as such, is affected as easily by whatever illnesses the body has, whatever birthdefects, whatever chemicals exist or are added to the body etc.

The latter position looks for physical stimuli and how it might affect the personality. The former feels that these stimuli do not affect the soul.

If the soul does not exist, then the person dies when his or her body dies or when the brain is damaged in certain parts. A stroke or heart-attack might kill the part of the brain where the emotions, language, memory reside (thus killing the 'self', but leave the body intact, pumping blood and breathing.

Those who esppose the soul theory would say that since the body lives, the soul remains...thus the person is there.
Those who espouse the 'self' theory would say that since the brain is dead, the self is dead... thus all you have is a breathing body with no trace of the 'person' intact inside it.

To make this more difficult...this touches along religious beliefs that once the body dies, the soul (container for all that the person was) either moves onto to an afterlife, gets reborn, stays as a ghost, comes back in dreams, or any combination thereof. If there is no soul...the person dies when the brain dies..period!

Anyone care to tackle this one?

[Rían]

I suppose you could categorize me as "conservative Christian", altho I definitely don't fit neatly into that category in all of its ways. I'm a mix between your two descriptions. I believe in a soul, and that people have choice, but I also believe that the body affects the choice (IOW, people can have physical tendencies towards things like alcoholism, etc. - it's NOT just a simple matter of, "well, just don't drink, then!") But I also believe that God knows that our bodies affect us, and takes that into account.

[Nurvingiel]

Another "Best of Mr Bishop" thread?

I'm not even sure what a soul is though...

Maybe it's a similar concept to the "self", but it lives on after we die. The self refers only to this lifetime.

[Lief Erikson]

I agree with RÃ*an, the body is bound to the physical body in important ways. They aren't completely different or separate from one another. The soul uses the body and lives in the body. The body is the soul's home and the soul's primary means for interacting with the physical realm around it. It isn't simply "in the same place," or "entirely separate from the body." Temptations of the body tempt the soul. Things that wouldn't be tempting if not for the body are tempting because of the body.

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

I agree that your body effects the soul. People might think something different to you if you physical appearence (eg. eye clour, skin colour) was different, but IMO the general feeling of the sould are uneffected by the body and would be almost the same if the soul was housed in a different body.

[inked]

The soul is the body-spirit unity. We are not complete without a body. That's why the doctrine of the resurrection is so critical in Christianity. Any attempt to reduce the soul to the spirit degrades the true nature of man. Any doctrine to limit man to the consequence of materialistic assumptions degrades man. WE ARE amphibians, to recall CS Lewis' great analogy. Both/and NOT either/or. Similarly, one cannot reduce soul to personality, tho'
it certainly includes that. Check out THE GREAT DIVORCE by CS Lewis for an imaginative construction of this reality.

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

The nature over soul Vs. self? Hmm, a lot of what we are is contained within our minds, but are we really here? When we progress through samsara to the next body, do we retain any of that which came before? Of course these questions have puzzled the greatest minds of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy for thousands of years...I would of course like to believe that we can take at least some of ourselves through to the next, but we are told that memory does not follow, perhaps then, personality does? Through Karma the decision of hierachy is made, so how can we progress without a base persona to draw on? Meditation, my friend! Meditation is the key.

[Spock]

James Brown is soul.
Angela Jolie is body.

[Falagar]

I know which one I'd go for.

Some say that there is no such thing as the soul..that the personality lives as part of the brain as a series of synapses, memories, experiences etc... and as such, is affected as easily by whatever illnesses the body has, whatever birthdefects, whatever chemicals exist or are added to the body etc.

As an agnostic I tend to adhere to this explanation.

[Thraxon]

Originally Posted by Spock

James Brown is soul.
Angela Jolie is body.

ha. i belive in the soul as some thing which is affected by or actions and must suffer the full consequnces after we die or get hit by a buss

[Rían]

Originally Posted by inked

The soul is the body-spirit unity. We are not complete without a body. That's why the doctrine of the resurrection is so critical in Christianity. Any attempt to reduce the soul to the spirit degrades the true nature of man. Any doctrine to limit man to the consequence of materialistic assumptions degrades man. WE ARE amphibians, to recall CS Lewis' great analogy. Both/and NOT either/or. Similarly, one cannot reduce soul to personality, tho' it certainly includes that. Check out THE GREAT DIVORCE by CS Lewis for an imaginative construction of this reality.

Very interesting and thought-provoking post, inky. I realized that we'll have resurrected bodies in heaven, but never put it together with the spirit the way you did in your post. I see what you mean - I'll think on it a bit more

I've read Great Divorce many times - great book! - but can't recall the part you mean, unless you mean the man/lizard change to man/horse? And I can't recall his "amphibian" phrase, either - where is that?

[inked]

Rian,

Lewis has Screwtape utter those memorable words:

Letter #8 "Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy's determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time."


And further, fleshing out the concept:

Letter #28 "The truth is that the Enemy, having oddly destined these mere animals to a life in His own eternal world, has guarded them pretty effectively from the danger of feeling at home anywhere else."


Letter #31 "Did you mark how naturally - as if he'd been born for it - the Earth-born vermin entered the new life? ... The degradation of it! -- that this thing of earth and slime could stand upright and converse with spirits before whom you, a spirit, could only cower. ... He saw not only Them; he saw Him. This animal, this thing begotten in a bed, could look on Him. What is blinding, suffocating fire to you is now cool light to him, is clarity itself, and wears the form of a Man."


The latter, the particular judgement, where Wormwood's patient (having been killed in an air raid) meets God "cool light to him, wearing the form of a Man", draws heavily on Dante's vision of God in the final Canto of PARADISIO and drives the point home that the fully human is Jesus, the God-Man.

(Gloria in excelsis Deo! Te Deum gloria!)
*********************************

As to THE GREAT DIVORCE, the entire experience of the outskirts of heaven by the spirits from the bus involves their acquiring bodies (or refusing to acquire them!) to allow them the full experience of heaven. The example of the lust/lizard being killed and transformed into ordered love/horse in congruity of the New Creation models the proper relationship lost by Adam and restored by the Second Adam. Thus, I see the entire construct as a powerful indication of the necessity of the body (in some form) to a full humanity. [And, indeed, the Resurrection Body of Jesus was a body which bore the marks of the Passion, but which was capable of eating and drinking and being examined - though not subject to the restrictions imposed on sinful human bodies as the result of Adam's sin. And it is to this that we are called, as St Paul notes "when He appears, we shall be like Him" in the letter to the Thessalonians regarding the Second Coming.]

[Lief Erikson]

What would a human soul be like without a body?

[Spock]

check with the Astral Plane.

[Rían]

Thanks inky - I had forgotten about ol' Screwtape. I remember the amphibian line now!

I remember how the ghosts in TGD were unsubstantial, but I put it down to different reasons. I see what you're saying, tho - good points!

(and I echo your "Gloria!" )

[EarthBound]

Little things trouble me on this subject, but more to the point, the E factor.

While we have computers thus far that can, in linear fashion (forget multiple gate system being used now) far exceed us in speed and accuracy...we built the machine, so kudo's to us for the missing 'conceptual' thinking which should 'hopefully' redeem us.

My pocket calculator needs only light to compute, but that's all it does. No light = no worky.

I can eat cheese burrito and cram for physics, chemistry, watch the X-files, consider running to the store and back, yadayadayda....again, on a few beans for my energy source...rather impressive IMHO.

So our brain or self-impression runs AT an energy level that is extraordinary...while seemingly on anything I manage to shove done my gullet as edible and somewhat nutritious (no need for variances for discussion). What this leaves me with is the idea that our 'soul' is dramatically energized in some fashion outside of my cup of beans...leading to the seeming separation of soul and body. Perhaps we are something “more� than body chemistry…but what do I know, I’m just an atypical gal with phantom insights.

[Willow Oran]

On the one hand I believe whole heartedly in the idea that soul and body are seperate and that the soul lives on after the body is dead. On the otherhand I study and am fascinated by the physical aspects of the ways in which our minds and personalities develop. In light of that, perhaps the soul is our personal conception of ourselves.

To Clarify:

Our bodies and brains have to work together for us to live and be concious and capable of feeling and all that good stuff.

Modern science holds that what is commonly referred to as the soul or the spirit or the personality... whichever word you prefer, is the result of the extremely complex and sophisticated network of neurons and synapses and all that stuff that goes on in our brian.

However, when asked, many, if not most humans, even those scientists who study the workings of the brain, would admit to believing in a soul that is in some way seperate from the body.

Taking that into account, perhaps our brains have adapted to foster this belief in a soul unconnected with our body. Perhaps the soul is a sub-concious creation that our brain uses as tool. It is often easier for us to contemplate and judge our behavior when we are able to look at it from a distance. Just like we think about our bodies best when we stand in front of a mirror, maybe we think about our minds best when we believe in a soul.

[inked]

I re-iterate #6 and #12. (No Harry Potter influence in the random allocation of these numbers by the poster!)

[Spock]

..you know, you people scare me sometimes.

[MrBishop]

I'm glad to see that my more...er...thought provoking threads live on

Great reading BTW. Thanks!