this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
84 points (93.8% liked)

Asklemmy

49304 readers
289 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
 

If you do, then what exactly defines a soul in your view?

(page 3) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] object_Object@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago
[–] Ixoid@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

No. If you can't find it in an autopsy, did it ever exist in the first place? Too many people confuse 'soul' for 'mind' (IMHO)

[–] BendyLemmy@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I think 'soul' is not something which exists in itself - it is the idea of the essence of a thing, the thing which causes an individual life.

So theories go around that there are spiritual beings separate from the physical (debatable) and I personally think that it extends to all life, such that trees can have awareness which can also extend beyond their physical bodies.

As such, they obviously exist - but their exact definition and nature is quite hard to grasp. I don't think they can survive physical death.

[–] novibe@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

“Soul” is just consciousness. Which many people seem to equate to the brain here.

There is 0 scientific evidence that consciousness has anything to do with our brains. Much to the contrary actually.

Consciousness truly is one of the biggest mysteries of life. We all experience it, but the more you observe it, the less you can find it.

It may feel at first as it’s a phenomena of the brain, of the mind. But soon after you start paying really close attention to it, you realize that consciousness is behind the mind. It’s underneath it.

It observes the mind. It observes everything. And that’s what it is. Perceiving. Aware of everything.

Its the only indivisible and irreducible thing in the universe that we ever found. Consciousness just is. It is the awareness in you. It is the awareness in everything.

When we crack consciousness, all these talks of “souls”, “god”, “atheism”, will seem just silly tbh.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I don't believe it, but I some times wonder if some kind of self is preserved as energy within the universe somehow. Effectively being a soul, but in a sense of physics more than spirituality. Much like how the physical body will decay and return to the earth, the energy that makes up consciousness could simply return to the universe.

[–] kyub@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 years ago

No. Soul = personality, nothing magic.

[–] PeWu@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

I don't think humans have souls. When we die, we do just that. I don't think we are so special to have something other species don't, so if we (humans) have them, then other species also can.

[–] megane_kun@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Agnostic here.

I do not think what people refer to as 'souls' has to have a physical existence nor a spiritual existence (whatever that means). What I think is that the word 'soul' refers to the sum total of a person's feelings, thoughts, and actions. That entity, even though it doesn't have any physical existence, could have effects that can be argued to be immortal.

[–] Hexadecimalkink@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Curious, why did you group agnostics together with atheists?

[–] Celivalg@iusearchlinux.fyi 1 points 2 years ago

No, I wanted to explain why I don't believe in their existance, but I couldn't write something without comming off as an asshole, so sorry.

[–] ram@lemmy.ramram.ink 0 points 2 years ago (4 children)

It really depends on what you mean? It's a purposely, nearly obtusely, intangible concept. I'm not unwilling to talk about it if I get a proper definition, but my opinion would be a mere opinion formed from the facts I have on hand. I have some suppositions that are outside the realm of what science has been able to dig in to, but without actually factual backing, I also acknowledge that my ideas are conjecture that line up with how I perceive the world.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] TurnItOff_OnAgain@lemdro.id 0 points 2 years ago (3 children)

No. We are nothing but bags of meat that, over millions of years, evolved a way to think. We feel so high and mighty about ourselves that we made up "something special" about ourselves to set us apart from every other bag of meat on the planet.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] PeWu@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

I don't think humans have souls. When we die, we do just that. I don't think we are so special to have something other species don't, so if we (humans) have them, then other species also can.

[–] PeWu@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

I don't think humans have souls. When we die, we do just that. I don't think we are so special to have something other species don't, so if we (humans) have them, then other species also can.

[–] PeWu@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 years ago

I don't think humans have souls. When we die, we do just that. I don't think we are so special to have something other species don't, so if we (humans) have them, then other species also can.

[–] Blamemeta@lemmy.world -2 points 2 years ago

Im agnostic, and kinda yeah. When my grandpa died, i was there when they pulled the plug, and i could've swore that something left the body.

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›