However you personally define a soul, do you believe something

>>367874
It's simple, a soul is an immaterial life force that interacts with your material body while somehow still being immaterial. Also consciousness, just because brains are complicated.

Souls do not exist. The mind is a collection of processes, but it is not a thing itself.

>>367887
>somehow

There is no soul. What we refer to as our "selves" are purely emergent patterns that repeats itself till the death. It changes and molds itself depending on our memories/our senses/our body/etc. Never once staying the same. The basic pattern may or may not survive death.

>>367891
You still need to explain why the specific concept of a spirit exists. There is either no reason why the brain would or no way that the brain could fabricate such an idea.

>>367906
>The basic pattern may or may not survive death.
What are you implying here?

>>368001
>You still need to explain why the specific concept of a spirit exists. There is either no reason why the brain would or no way that the brain could fabricate such an idea.

That is complete nonsense. Why does the specific concept of alien abduction, bigfoot, and gods pulling the sun with a chariot exist?

>>368010
>alien abduction
Repressed incidents of sexual abuse in somebody's past suddenly come back in a twisted form, causing a vivid dream-like delusion.
>bigfoot
People see big hairy animals and think it's something new.
>and gods pulling the sun with a chariot exist
Because that's how all stories were back then. Anthropomorphized and involving current technology.

>>368039
What is he's saying is, just because you can think of it does not mean it exists.

>>368001
>You still need to explain why the specific concept of a spirit exists. There is either no reason why the brain would or no way that the brain could fabricate such an idea.
What about like, dead people? People don't look physically different when they die, but they stop moving. A simplistic folk explanation of this would be that "something you can't see has left the body" and that's like, the basic concept of the soul right here.

>>368001
You can trace it back to animism.

I have also heard an idea that the idea of soul exists because unlike other subjective experiences like pain or pleasure, thoughts do not seem to be located anywhere on us. It is as if they are "floating".

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>>368039
Then the concept of the soul exists because people want to feel special

>>368049
But there has to be a reason WHY somebody thought of it in the first place. When one observes the spirit, they see something that is constant in its form, something that is present in all measured places, and is behind every measured motion. If the spirit is the color blue, then people like
>>367891
claim that humans have a "blue filter" over all of their senses. They cannot, however, explain why this filter exists, what it does in practice, or why it is impossible to see past.

The soul is the energy that tells our cells to absorb nutrients or to tell where the neurons in our brain move. Basically, a powerhouse for everything in your body.

>>368076
>When one observes the spirit, they see something that is constant in its form, something that is present in all measured places, and is behind every measured motion.
That's not true, that's a pretty specific conception of a soul. Some conceptions don't even give animals souls. The one universal is that the soul is the force behind human life.

>>368085
>The soul is the energy that tells our cells to absorb nutrients or to tell where the neurons in our brain move. Basically, a powerhouse for everything in your body.

Did you hear that one down at the healing crystals shop?

>>368001
Patterns do not exist except through a medium/person seeing the pattern. They are conceptual things. a^2+b^2=c^2 survives as long as you have a person knowing that shit.

>>368091
It is the most primal conception, derived entirely from observation before trying to work it into any systems. The human sees the world emerge from the spirit while the spirit remains fixed.

This is my shot at it, but I'm not a philosophy major or anything, so feel free to tell me I'm full of shit:

The soul is a construct that humanity has devised as a means of explaining mental and instinctual processes that we cannot yet explain through more scientific means. Much in the same way as how people throughout history have made myths to explain natural phenomena that they had no way of explaining otherwise, the idea of the soul as we know it exists as a way for us to understand and acknowledge certain deep, extremely personal aspects of the human experience without knowing exactly what's going on behind the scenes.

>>368104
>The human sees the world emerge from the spirit while the spirit remains fixed.

Care to clarify what you mean by this? What is the "spirit remaining fixed" like in this context? If I take LSD does my spirit change?

>>368140
It means the spirit does not change. It does not exist in any particular location and is unaffected by time.

>>368104
No, that's dumb. You just made up a whole bunch of shit. Abrahamic cultures don't believe in spirits of inanimate objects. Explain that.

>>368136
>we cannot yet explain
Neuroscience has a general gist of what makes a "soul" thing or rather our "self". Many philosophers these days agree with the science as well. They seem to be moving towards a buddhist/hume/parfit view of things. Even many of the "new atheists" seem to come to similar enough conclusions.

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Are your clothes a living entity? This means they are only material.

Are you a living entity? This implies a life force.

What about a bag of chips? They are impermanent just like pur bodies, they pass away, but the chips don't have a life force (but maybe they do they were potatoes) but where does our life go?

We can percieve life and breathe in and we are conscious entities. Without our bodies we are pure spirit.

>>368150
>It does not exist in any particular location and is unaffected by time.

Then nothing emerges from it in any meaningful sense.

>>368183
>Are your clothes a living entity?

Yes.

Define "alive", you moron.

>>368183
>Without our bodies we are pure spirit.
Ghosts aren't real bub

>>368183
Do bacteria have a life force, do viruses have a life force?

>>368195
>>368183

what even is a life force?

yall niggas are just saying words that don't mean anything

>>368172
Guess I'll have to do a little digging if I ever get curious.

I looked up the two philosophers you mentioned, and they both seem interesting, as well.

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>>367874
Videos refuting ideas of non-physical minds:

Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS4PW35-Y00

Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZTCK8ZluEc

>>368199
I'm just seeing if the other anon can come up with a plausible definition of life force

>>368189
Your clothes can tear and be thrown away. Our bodies die.
>>368190
Because another skeptical athiest says so no
>>368195
Yeah how else would a virus attack us and a white blood cell fight against diseases obviously they know what they are doing.

>>368219
>obviously they know what they are doing.

It's just chemical reactions. That's like saying LSD knows what it is doing because it bonds with receptors in our brain.

>>368212
You percieve life and live it. A broom isn't alive, shoes aren't alive, a desk isn't alive but YOU. YOU ARE ALIVE A REAL PERSON LOOK AT YOURSELF.

You have a conscious, you have a house, you have internet for Christ's sake you have a great situation (this goes out to anyone) and for the love if God the is wrong with you people? LIFE FORCE GET IT?

>>368219
>Your clothes can tear and be thrown away. Our bodies die.

Bodies can also be ripped and thrown away.

You still haven't defined "alive"

>>368228
The body is a living unit. If these receptors are not alive then we are not alive and are dead and have no conscious we are not that because we are alive

>>368166
>spirits
There is only one. Also, just because a culture is old doesn't mean its concepts are more pure.

>>368187
So does nothing emerge from time in any meaningful sense?

>>368219
>Yeah how else would a virus attack us and a white blood cell fight against diseases obviously they know what they are doing.

If H2O 'knows' how to become a liquid or a solid, does it have a life force?

Does a tornado know how to uproot trees?

>>368229
>You percieve life and live it.

Ah, so a smoke detector is alive as well. It can perceive things (smoke) and live (go into alarm mode)

>>368231
So your clothes can just walk to the store and get a 6-pack of Heineken when it gets paid on Friday?

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>>368219
>Yeah how else would a virus attack us and a white blood cell fight against diseases obviously they know what they are doing.
Spoken like somebody who doesn't know what receptors are

>>368245
No, why? Is that what it takes to be alive? In this case dogs are not alive. Neither are babies.

>>368234
>There is only one.
I'm sorry I thought we were talking about soulS. Everybody has a different soul, right? What's the difference between spirit and soul, by the way?

>>368236
H20 could be solid liquid or has depending on the temperature around it. Does it have blood and a brain and a heart? Not that we can see, so let's say no. Do we need it to sustain our life? Yes.

>>368239
I am not talking about electronics I am talking about the living entity behind the computer screen who could easily grasp this. You don't run out of electronic batteries you are a living unit with a conscious.

>>368247
Oh because you can become small enough to see the receptors and cells in your body and know they are also not living entities? If they were lifeless you would also be.

>>368256
A dog and a baby eat food and take smelly shits, but your clothes don't they don't consciousness

>>368271
>You don't run out of electronic batteries
We run out of carbon batteries and oxygen batteries

>>368271
>I am not talking about electronics I am talking about the living entity

Define "living entity" then.

>>368280
>A dog and a baby eat food and take smelly shits, but your clothes don't they don't consciousness

Consciousness is a pretty complex feature of an advanced brain. Most animals don't have it, they don't even have a brain. Would you say most animals are not alive?

>>368001
Because human nature likes to believe that we exist as individual entities.

Collective consciousness makes the most sense to me.

>>368258
Spirit is a more general term and thus a more appropriate label for this concept.

>>368285
We also run out of life and die and everything we did here in this life means nothing
>>368288
You are breathing and when you are not breathing you are dead
>>368294
Animals are still conscious to some degree we just don't speak their language.

You think the grass smells good when you cut it, but actually that smell is the grass and its distress signal. Is the grass alive?

>>368210

lol no

>>368353
>You are breathing and when you are not breathing you are dead

Oh my goodness, I guess I die whenever I hold my breath? No? Well what about all the plants, mushrooms, and bacteria that don't breathe? What about a robot that has lungs, it is breathing.

>Animals are still conscious to some degree we just don't speak their language.

What the hell does consciousness have to do with language? Also, like I said, plants, bacteria, etc. don't have brains and are not conscious. Do you classify them as not alive?

>You think the grass smells good when you cut it, but actually that smell is the grass and its distress signal. Is the grass alive?

Yes, the grass is alive because of how biologists define alive. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Biology

Consciousness is not a derivative of material process.

In fact it is the opposite case in reality, the material is secondary to the immaterial. There must first be space before there is matter.

>>368394
Why are you concerned with my opinion, it is your life.

>>368387
Why?

>>368413
Are you saying consciousness is space?

>>368072
Top kek, let's not pretend you don't consider yourself a member of some euphoric internet tree house club because you're one of the enlightened ones

>>368435

idk it's an analogy.

Consciousness is more like a potentiality matrix from which reality can be drawn into actuality.

>>368435
He's saying there must be something for matter to "adhere to" because matter cannot account for its own existence

>>368453
So we exist through consciousness? Consciousness exists outside of life?

>>368484
>we exist through consciousness

We are not equivalent with our physical bodies. We are first and foremost conscious entities.

>Consciousness exists outside of life

I don't like the term "life" here because of what I think you mean by it. The physical processes of metabolism and homeostasis that mark biological life are present in the bodies that are manifestations of consciousness in temporal reality, and so I would say that consciousness is "within" life, though not by necessity.

There is a difference between conscious life and unconscious life. Not all living creatures are necessarily conscious.

>>368542
>Not all living creatures are necessarily conscious.

Actually, thinking about that now it seems to clash with the previous claim that consciousness itself gives rise to those material creatures and objects.

In this way I guess there can be some distinction drawn between those things that are conscious and those that aren't, but again that belies the unity of conscious substance that those things share.

I am conscious of the body that I can be said to possess, but not of those other bodies that appear to be like mine, nor of those that do not appear similar. I suppose it's possible that the rest of material reality fades from actuality to potentiality and back dependent on the lens of the particular body that this conscious entity is possessive of, but I can't really know for certain.

What is consciousness? Is it made of anything or is it that base substance which other things are made?

Was Spinoza right?

>>367874
a soul is what the living thing has that the corpse lacks

>>368295
You're a racist aren't you?

>>368585
>In this way I guess there can be some distinction drawn between those things that are conscious and those that aren't, but again that belies the unity of conscious substance that those things share.

Do you think it would it be appropriate to describe consciousness as existing along a gradient? eg bacteria are not conscious, ants can communicate using chemical signals, reptiles have a different (not better or worse) type of consciousness than mammals, and humans have the most unique form of consciousness.

And would this suggest that consciousness is to change due to evolutionary pressures?

>>368687
*is able to

>>368687
Schopenhauer describes our inner being as the thing-in-itself, the exact, ultimately unknowable experience of what it feels like to be that thing. So my own consciousness is the thing-in-itself of my body, the thing-in-itself of a flower is it's consciousness, but at a level far dimmer than human consciousness.

Many mystical traditions believe consciousness exists everywhere from humans to spirits to minerals and plants

>>368713
I can see the point, but doesn't this almost correlate existence with consciousness, I don't think the terms are synonymous

>>368687
>appropriate to describe consciousness as existing

Not as a property of material objects, no. And besides, you can't truly determine the presence of consciousness via it's physical correlates (ie, chemical signals, language, behavioral response).

It's primary to those correlates, and cannot be said to interact in a causal or deterministic way with them. For that matter I'm close to rejecting causality as a thing in the physical world itself, and instead thinking about material relationships as a purely correlative state.

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>>368713

love this guy

>>368728
If you believe consciousness is not solely a property of physical systems like the brain, then you're not too far from believing reality is predicated on consciousness, even if the details might be iffy. Mystics hold that matter is just frozen spirit anyways.

>>368773

I do think that consciousness being solely a property of physical systems is the most likely option

>then you're not too far from believing reality is predicated on consciousness

Not a physics major, but I think that reality exists independently of consciousness, eg earth existed before life arose ~3.5bya as an extreme example

>>368815

>I think that reality exists independently of consciousness

Try to separate the real from your perceptions of the real. All those "real" things like space and time, causality and interaction, are first and foremost ideas or tools that preoccupy the human mind, and which are utilized to make sense of the phenomenal battery of sensation.

I hold that they almost certainly do not reflect the true nature of existent things. I think of those actually existent things as being more of a unity of mass, of which we derive our experiences from a infinitesimally small portion, and after which we rationalize and attempt to categorize those experiences in such a way that they achieve some mental cohesion.

>>368908
Sure, human consciousness is not capable of perceiving reality perfectly as it exists, couldn't this just indicate the limitations of an evolved consciousness.

How would you explain the difference between the perception of colour for a colour-blind and non colour-blind person?

>>368931
>explain the difference between the perception of colour for a colour-blind and non colour-blind person

precisely the point.

>evolved consciousness

How is it that the phenomenological event could change? What is it that could change? It's content or focus seems to change from moment to moment, but in itself it remains the same. We cannot even describe it or it's subject without self reference (see color). It is isolated in this from physical reality and is without change.

>>367874
The interesting question is not whether or not there is any soul, but why we even have the faculty of language to talk about souls in the first place.

>>368988
>We cannot even describe it or it's subject without self reference (see color).

But we can describe colour as different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, even wavelengths outside of the perceptible range of humans.

>It is isolated in this from physical reality and is without change.

So your conciousness is identical after drinking a coffee, after not sleeping for three days, from when you are 5 years old to when you are 50 years old?

>>369014
>why
Probably because hominins that could communicate abstract ideas outbred ones that couldn't

>>369035
This does not explain why we have the faculty, this just explain the process of natural selection.

>>369044
Sorry, what kind of "why" are you looking for? Something like a purpose that implies design or interference by a 3rd party intelligence?

>>369044
One idea related to the development of abstract thought is, to track and hunt an ability to imagine conditions not immediately present would be beneficial, eg understanding that that tracks of one species overlapping with another means that the 'top' imprint was more recent

>>369051
Look, humans are at their core, simply atomic material.

It doesn't make any more sense that we have consciousness and the ability to communicate and conceptualize than it makes for a rock to do so.

Form of the body.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hylomorphism

>>369062
What if I told you that energy beings from another dimension shaped human development so that they could possess babies at birth for their own amusement like a big RPG? Would that be ok

>>369073
I wouldn't believe you if you said it, but if you wanna believe that, go ahead.

>>369066
>Aristotle evidently thinks that a human body is essentially enformed by the soul whose body it is. That is, unlike bronze, a body, the matter of a human being, cannot lose its form, its soul, and remain in existence. This, at any rate, seems to be a direct consequence of Aristotle's insisting that a body which has lost its soul is not a body at all, ‘except homonymously’ (De Anima ii 1, 412b10-24). In appealing to homonymy in this connection, Aristotle means to suggest that a body without a soul is no more a body than an eye in a sculpture of a human being is an eye.

>Now, whatever Aristotle's motives for appealing to homonymy in this connection may be, it should first be appreciated that it has immediate and problematic consequences for his hylomorphic analysis of soul and body. For it entails that no human body is contingently ensouled; rather, every human body is essentially ensouled and goes out of existence at the moment it loses its soul, that is, at the moment of death. This will seem counterintuitive, insofar as it seems peculiar to speak of a human body as ceasing to exist at the moment of death.

cont.

>>369017
>conciousness is identical after drinking a coffee, after not sleeping for three days, from when you are 5 years old to when you are 50 years old

Not the contents of consciousness certainly, but of itself it is the same.

>we can describe colour as different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation

Whether you call the thing "red" or "wavelength at the xth degree", you're just switching out one name for another for the same sensation.

>>369090
Perhaps, though, one might agree that all this is just a manner of speaking, that a body embalmed and laid out for viewing or a body carted around to various museums for display is more like a statue than it is like the breathing organism belonging to a live human. This is not, however, the real problem noticed by Ackrill. It is rather that the hylomorphic account of change seems to require that bits of matter are only contingently enformed; the bronze is not made the bronze it is by gaining this or that shape. Instead, the bronze is the bronze it is because of its being an alloy of copper and tin, something it was before it was enformed by the shape of Hermes, something it remains while enformed by that shape, and, of course, something it is still after that shape has been lost. If human bodies are not bodies when they are not ensouled, and if the souls of bodies are, as Aristotle claims, their forms, then human bodies are not amenable to a hylomorphic treatment. The application of a general hylomorphic framework to the case of the soul and body does not even seem possible. Matter, according to hylomorphism, is contingently enformed; so, bodies, treated by Aristotle as matter, should also be contingently enformed.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-psychology/suppl1.html

>>369091
>Whether you call the thing "red" or "wavelength at the xth degree", you're just switching out one name for another for the same sensation.

And does this exist regardless of the terminology used?

>>367874
The soul is the result of spirit molded through physical experiences in this life.

In other words, it's the ego whereas spirit is the subconscious.

>does this mean if I lose my sense of ego i have no soul?

No, it means your soul has become one with nature/God and moves on the same frequency, for lack of better terms.

>>369091
>Not the contents of consciousness certainly, but of itself it is the same.

If the contents of consciousness changes, then would 'itself' not temporarily change in form (and potentially not revert back to an identical previous form). I would suggest that the form of consciousness changes while the potential for a form of consciousness does not (and I mean for a lifetime)

>>369101

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

>the form of consciousness changes while the potential for a form of consciousness does not

I don't get it.

What do you mean by "form" and it's potential?

>>369125

also for you

>>369114

>>369125
Such as your current consciousness differs (In the amount of time it has existed, experiences 'experienced' if you get what I mean) to the form of your consciousness after being away for three days straight, yet you still are conscious, your body still provides the potential for a form of consciousness

>>369136
*awake

>>369136
So do you mean something like consciousness only changes its attributes and not fundamentally

i.e. you can be tired or drugged up but you're still thinking and perceiving

>>369136
>experiences 'experienced'

Memory? Because it is my imagining that while one can be conscious of a memory, the consciousness itself does not actually record or encode any experience.

>current consciousness differs from the form of your consciousness after being awake for three days

I agree that sleep deprivation and it's like changes the nature or quality of the experience, yet for that cannot touch that which is experiencing "experience".

>>369143
>consciousness only changes its attributes and not fundamentally

Pretty much, but what would you consider to constitute a 'fundamental' change?

>>369155
Good question, probably something like being able to perceive things from the perspectives of two people at the same time

>>369160
>being able to perceive things from the perspectives of two people at the same time

That's only a change in it's phenomenological nature or complexity, it's like having another pair of eyes.

That said, would two people looking at the same object perceive it in the same way? Maybe there's some sort of depth perception that we lack in this regard.

I think that a true fundamental change in consciousness can't really be conceptualized.

>>369160
That's an interesting perspective

I would also suggest that perhaps conciousness rather than being fundamentally static, is fundamentally dynamic/fluctuating (not the best terms ) and that perhaps there is no stable state

I've always thought of consciousness as your brain running an emulator of sorts or a virtual environment.

>>369169
Anyone who has tried a psychotropic drug in their life, will know very well that consciousness can be perturbed, and in sufficient doses even completely shattered, and that the form of consciousness that you experience day to day while not intoxicated is just one form out of a myriad that it can take.

>>369175
I agree, and personally I have tried a variety of drugs including LSD, DXM, and many others.

From LSD alone you realise that the human mind has the ability to perceive colours (as Closed Eye Visuals or OEV's) almost regardless of external inputs

>>369175
>>369181
I might disagree on the shattered part, but i've never had high a high enough dose of LSD to experience 'ego death'

>>369184
>ego death

I have experienced this, but it was mostly just a change of self identification from the body that lies in the perceptual field to another object within that field.

That trend continues until you realize that you are not actually anything particular within the field itself, but rather the unified whole.

>>369174
In relation to >>369181

That seems interesting, if your consciousness is able to perceive vivid colour in the absence of a majority of visual stimuli (electromagnetic waves, and having your eyes closed) then would this mean that the while the ability to perceive colour evolved (I'd claim this at least) the mechanism facilitating this is activated with a form of drug analogous to serotonin, such as LSD/mescaline etc

>>369216
>you are not actually anything particular within the field itself, but rather the unified whole.

Or are you a part of the unified whole (everything in existence) while functioning distinctly from the whole?

>>369226

dude I don't even fucking know anymore

The soul's existence and eternity are evinced by the fact that we display immaterial aspects of thought.

Reason is a faculty of the soul which allows for the power of intellection by which we form abstract concepts which lead us toward judgments. This of course is in tandem with corporeal faculties such as imagination.
E.g.
All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Socrates is mortal

>>367874
>However you personally define a soul, do you believe something called a soul exists?
Nah, it's just a conceptual crutch to help us grasp the intangible concept of consciousness.