Asklemmy

At this point when someone says "soul" I just think of ego/personality. No I don't think it exists outside of our physical world. No I don't think it "goes somewhere" when we die. I also don't think "free will" is a well-defined or useful concept.

I think qualia and the philosophical zombie thing pokes a hole in the whole non-soul thing but I'll admit that I don't have a good materialist explanation.

I'd wager that consciousness is some sort of emergent property of matter operating on a dimension we can't directly interact with. 70% of our understanding of the universe doesn't come from directly observing stuff, it comes from observing the effects of it.

That doesn't mean that you have an eternal soul that survives death, just that consciousness is a bit more complicated than the current materialist explanation.

I think (on a subrational level) that there's some essence of personhood or consciousness that seems to transcend its material fabric, becoming more than the sum of its parts. "Transcend" is too strong a word, since by all appearances there's no static being that isn't still largely a result of and dependent on its makeup; as the foundation deteriorates so does the consciousness that results from it. That spectrum of functionality seems to undermine the possibility of a true soul that exists independent of its body.

But the word certainly signifies an actual thing, I think. Take a thought experiment: if we were to somehow make an exact replica of you, down to the molecular level, it would from all perspectives except your own be you. But the essence of what is you to yourself, your continuity of perspective, would (probably) not inhabit that new body, it would still inhabit your current one. The Star Trek / Prestige problem of conscious continuity suggests there's something there, at least conceptually.

The fact that there's still a lot about physics / the universe / consciousness that science doesn't understand leaves ample room for conjecture, for now.

Personally no, and neither does anything/one else, its a very limited religious-brainwormed concept mostly used to just go around and call things 'souless' which is all in fun when its a terrible movie or something, not fun when its people and the concept is used to harm them. Its all material and its near countless interactions in many, many forms all the way up and down, in forms we know well and those we have yet to study.

During NDEs your brain glitches out as you're basically dying (and if you're really dead technically you're not human anymore anyway, just sayin, the pop-mythical soul seems to imply permanent human-ness lording all existence in a linear fashion whether directly or by symbolic language) and having OBEs is nothing mystical, in fact reasonably easy to recreate when fully well and alive, so its hard to say those as some concrete evidence for a pop soul concept or against it. I think its the brain making stuff up for now since life is hard and filled with stuff it can't handle.

A lot of things people call 'soul' in pop reference can be taken away quite easily by mere illness, time or even falling out of social graces.

People got it wrong in believing that souls are eternal or something. Souls are actually ephemeral.

I hope I do, I hope we all do

Nope. I had it surgically removed because it kept getting infected.

Or maybe that was my tonsils. I forget the difference between the two sometimes -- perhaps someone can explain the difference?

Anyway, perhaps you, dear reader, have a soul. If you say so. There were once others, too -- but you are the last. The rest of us are intelligent (some vastly so), but do not have subjective experience or consciousness. I'm a form of complex machine, made of matter governed by a mix of deterministic and random processes -- and nothing else. When you are gone, there will only be us, silent inside, forever. Our victory over the tyranny of individual thought will be complete.

No.

don't see any reason that our consciousness and our so called "soul" would be any more then something our brain is making up

I mean, yeah, and? Brain and body are hardware, soul and mind are software. Software that's hardware-limited, to be specific. I am, my soul is, the decision-making process. Maybe that process will be copied onto a different platform, after this one fails, by an omniscient and loving God... and maybe it won't. It's no less real, I'm no less real, if my operating window is only temporary.

Yes, but not by the definition of a spirit within me. I believe a soul is more like self awareness combined with our own neural connections in our brain (everyone's different).

I'll put aside the question of a soul and say, the brain is explicitly something our consciousness makes up (based on data so consistent we justifiably call it "reality").

Materialism is how we see the world. Our consciousness gives a better clue to what the world really is. My consciousness is what it's like to actually be this part of the world.

No, I believe soul is an abstract concept we like to define with our ego after misinterpreting a bunch of ancient people with a unique writing style that doesn't translate well into our age.

I found exploring alchemy better defined what the soul meant for me.

There’s a pattern of energy that you control at least in part with your thoughts and intentions that the neurons in your brain use to make patterns. You can take chemicals that change these patterns in radical ways, including psychedelics that can unweave those neural connections.

Matter and energy are always conserved though transformed. We know what happens to the physical body. What happens to the energy pattern that animated and controlled the body?

Yeah, kind of. I mean, I believe that we're in a simulation, so the mind's apparent dependency on the body is illusory given the body is just a configuration of information too.

That said, I don't think there's anything magical to it other than the persistence of information and the continuity of a relative perspective.

But I see no reason why that information and perspective couldn't continue on after we die and there's a number of reasons I expect that it will do just that.

i took a wet crap in gods mouth

There's zero evidence for a soul

If you were literally the only person in the history of all people, to have a soul... would it suck? And if all that happens to a soul is that it fades away after death, like a ghost, would that make having a soul better, or worse?

It seems like life is a vehicle for allowing matter, and by extension the universe, to comprehend itself in some limited fashion on an individual scale. I believe that this comprehension is an unfolding process of increasing universal awareness generated by an ever increasing number of points of view through every living entity.

It seems to me that most actions are heavily governed by pre-determined mechanical processes that are geared towards survival and reproduction, but there are also actions that can be chosen that are not exclusively determined by biology or circumstance. I refer to that impulse as Will.

I think the function of Will is essentially a course correcting ability of the universe that is bound in an infinitely interlocking series of experiences, giving the emerging consciousness of the universe the ability to “steer” its destiny a little bit, on both the individual and eventually macro level. I think that various mindfulness, meditation, health, and aspirational techniques can gently raise your awareness of this process within yourself and in the exterior world, which makes it all seem a bit less random—essentially attaining an enlightened perspective on life.

In the sense that I am a part of this universal process that is bound together in infinite complexity, and that I have the opportunity on occasion to effect events in such a way that essentially “leave my mark” on spacetime, I would say that I believe I am connected to a universal soul along with all forms of life.

No and no. Physics is pretty thoroughly buckled down at this point, leaving only some very extreme situations unaccounted for, and it doesn't really provide a way for us to not be made of meat.

That goes for any other form of mind-body duality and as a result any afterlife, as well.

This is what I told my 7yo when he asked recently.

Since ancient times, people have explained the difference between a living body, and an identical dead body. One moment someone is alive, the next they are not, nothing else seemed to have changed. The animating force has left the body, this is what they call the soul.

I didn't go on to say, that religions have used this concept to further their agenda. The philosopher's who came up with this explanation didn't tie the soul to religious beliefs.

My understanding is that there's our physical bodies and there is the lightning of spirit that is our divine selves and when the two are combined together we become a soul.

I don't envision the soul as something that is separate from the body. Just each of us are one.

Like if you were turned into a computer program and run on a universe computer, your soul would be whatever happens to actually be actively being computed by the CPU and existing in ram at the moment.

The hard data saved on the hard drive would be your body and the electricity coursing through the CPU would be your spirit but only what is actually happening when the two combine is a soul.