And do believe that I, this random guy on the internet has a soul
I personally don’t believe that I anyone else has a soul. From my standup I don’t se any reason to believe that our consciousness and our so called “soul” would be any more then something our brain is making up.
I believe that my consciousness is a thing I can point to as being my essence. You could maybe call that a soul, or you could maybe not. Either way, my consciousness is the collective consciousness of countless single-celled organisms all working to make my singular self function. You could maybe call the manifestation of all these processes into a greater thinking singularity as a “soul”, more akin to the way in which a city might have a “soul” made up by the people that live in it. I don’t believe I have a ghost, and I believe that my consciousness is conditional, derived from my biology, but consciousness itself is as good as anything to call a soul
So I guess, in short, no XD
my consciousness is the collective consciousness
THE UNENLIGHTENED MASSES
No.
I self-evidently have a consciousness (cogito ergo sum), but logic, reason and the available evidence all point to that consciousness being a manifestation of brain activity and shaped by my genetics, environment and experiences, as opposed to an entity unto itself.
While I agree with you generally, “I think therefore I am” isn’t the big hitter it’s made out to be. I think it’s even followed in the original by a qualifier (don’t quote me though), and not as self evident as generally accepted.
It’s to do with there being no real way to determine if we are what we think we are. We could be a computer generated entity that’s programmed to experience.
Or we could be a brain in a vat, being fed computer generated experiences. There really is no way of knowing if we are actually humans experiencing life as we appear to be.
I expect that many here are aware of this concept, but my reason for laying it all out is for context of the rather succinct way it was once put to me -
“I think, therefore there is…something.”
Many think that cogito ergo sum somehow says or at least implies something about the nature of existence, when it in fact does not. So in that sense, it’s not the “big hitter it’s made out to be,” but that’s not a failure of the principle, but a failure of people to understand what it in fact says, or more precisely, does not say.
I suspect that the problem is that when people consider “I think, therefore I am,” they think that that “I” refers to the entirety of their self-image, and therefore says that the entirety of their self-image, in all its details, objectively exists.
That’s very much not what it means or even implies. It never did and was never intended to stipulate anything at all about the nature of this entity I call “I.” Not one single thing. All it ever said or intended to say was simply that whatever it is that “I” am, “I” self evidently exist, as demonstrated by the fact that “I” - whatever “I” might be - think I do.
It’s not a coincidence that Descartes himself formulated the original version of the brain-in-a-vat - the “evil demon.” He was not simply aware of the sorts of possibilities you mention - of the ramifications of the fact that we exist behind a veil of perception - he actually originated much of the thinking on that very topic. He was a pioneer in that exact field.
Cogito ergo sum doesn’t fail to account for those sorts of possibilities - it was explicitly formulated with those sorts of possibilities not only in mind, but at the forefront. And that’s exactly why it only stipulates the one and only thing that an individual can know for certain - that some entity that I think of as “I” self evidently exists, as demonstrated by the simple fact that “I” think I do, since if “I” didn’t exist, there would be no “I” thinking I do.
And more to the point, that’s exactly why it very deliberately says absolutely nothing about the nature of that existence.
Thank you for clarifying my clumsy attempt to lay this out, its great when I get a reply from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.
Nah, I’m just a flesh computer.
Define to me concretely what constitutes a soul, and I will tell you. Do cats have souls? What about frogs? Snails? Amoebas? Trees? Or people on life support?
I have a self-aware consciousness. If that’s what counts, then yes. However, this means that many people by the same definition don’t.
Only correct answer here. First define “soul”. So far no human has ever been able to define it, so how do we know if we have one?
Whenever I listen to that old-time 'a rock and roll I feel soothed, so I must.
No. It’s more religion inspired fairy tale magic.
Define “soul” or the answer is entirely meaningless. I’m pretty sure I’m sentient and can feel emotions and think and reason.
You can believe in whatever you want but it won’t make it true. Got to have facts and proof before I’d consider it.
Souls are just faerie tales people tell themselves to avoid feeling angst around death. There is absolutely no evidence they exist and plenty of evidence they don’t.
No, I think that’s an abstract concept of a consciousness invented by religion to transcend death. It’s a comforting thought, but that’s really it.
No. It’s religious quackery.
You’d have to define soul first. I definitely have a subjective experience/consciousness however.
No.
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.
Honestly, rather than a “yes” or “no” I’m just gonna say that I don’t think anybody’s given a clear enough definition of what would constitute a “soul” to even make the question mean anything.
Recent studies suggest that much of consciousness/information synthesis is not in the neurons themselves, but the electromagnetic fields that they generate. Is that a soul?
What about the gut microbiome and how much of an oversized effect it has on a person’s day-to-day experience? If the soul is some manifestation of your non-physical existance, would it be affected by those very physical little buggers, since they can affect your mood so much?
Even if you go to the classic religious context about a conscious experience that exists after death, you still have to answer whether or not they can wander earth, or, as some christian denominations think, they’re all in heaven, hell, or purgatory so you’ll never ever need to care about a non-embodied soul on earth anyway.