Soul

[da]

What's the word "soul" mean to you? What associations does it bring up? Is the word fraught with baggage... smelling partly of brimstone? Does it have deep connection for you? Is it ineffable and abstract? Is it like a Platonic ideal of a thing, not to be pinned down? Is it boring? Is it a handy fiction?

I'd love to have a conversation about that, to the extent we can in an online journal. Anonymous comments are fine. My hope is to have common referents to continue in another post.

I invite you to make your first comment here, that is to say without reading the previous comments before-hand. Of course feel free to read other comments too, and discuss with others, but after your first comment. :) Thanks!

[Edit to add:

I can say: the breadth of peoples' responses is pretty darn cool.

So, I suggested a dialogue. What now?

It would be one thing if we were in the same room, and could look at each other and be clear that we're going to treat this with the respect it deserved. In that situation, I would say we could just ask each other open, honest questions; questions that don't try to convince the other of our own understanding; but help the other person to articulate their truth for us. And take it from there.

We could try something like that. I'd participate. Why don't we try that?

It might go without saying, but I'll say it anyway: you're welcome to not reply to someone's question, or to reply telling them you won't reply (and that's final; challenges are not OK).

]

Comments

Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

The soul is the spiritual part of a person. It allows people to interact with the spiritual part of the world just as the body allows people to interact with the physical part of the world and the mind allows people to interact with the world of ideas.

The soul is immortal, unlike the body, but it is not a complete person in itself. Although angels are by nature beings of pure spirit, humans are by nature both physical and spiritual. During the time between physical death and final, general resurrection people are in an odd state of existence--they are not perfected by the absence of a body, but rather crippled. Angels are beings of pure spirit, and calling a human soul without a body an "angel" is a reasonable analogy but technically incorrect.

It would probably be incorrect to say that anything but a human has a soul. To say something has a soul means it is capable of conscious interaction with other spiritual things. It's possible that other things besides humans have a soul, but that their intentional use of it is limited. However, likely the spiritual aspects of non-human physical objects and animals are dim and unorganized enough that we would not call them souls, but something else.

Spiritual interaction is the perception of and communication with other spiritual objects. This kind of communication is very different than that done through the body, and because of this spiritual experiences are often discounted as imaginary. It is true that spiritual interactions are very difficult to reproduce precisely, which means that coming to a collective, objective agreement on them often requires a large sample size, a common frame through which to view them, and generations of discussion. Imagine how much easier it would be to understand the soul if you had the same response to prayer or meditation every time, or could call up a vision or transcendental experience on demand. Instead the experience changes from day to day or even moment to moment with no obvious context for those changes.

This makes it easy for a charismatic individual or a group in authority to subvert the process to their own ends by claiming to give people an easier or quicker path to a collective understanding of their soul and its operation. But that doesn't mean these interactions are imaginary, nor does it mean that all bodies dedicated to the study of this question intend to manipulate people for their own agenda. Self-reflection, reading, and participation in communities dedicated to the honest investigation of this subject are imperative to avoid fooling yourself or being fooled by others.

Re: Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

Now that I read the other comments, I see a lot of comments about the soul being fundamentally good. Just for the record, I think the soul as a part of the person is as fundamentally good as a person is--which is to say, by nature good but capable of choosing evil at any point.

Mencius points out that anyone walking by a child who is about to fall in a well will catch that child by instinct--this is the fundamental goodness in our character. It would take conscious decision or training to ignore the child and let him fall, and to not feel bad about doing that would require serious damage to our nature. But we are completely capable of perverting ourselves that way--either as a personal choice or as a result of medical problems or damage done to our psyches by others. And that perversion pervades our entire being--the spiritual and physical are holistically connected with regard to the consequences of those choices. A deep connection to the absolute Divine Good is established through the soul but it is present to our entire being. Good and evil are principles that are present in all parts of our existence--spiritual, intellectual, and material.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I think I need to sit with this and ask you some questions... But for the moment:

I'm replying to everybody with the following: I added a bit to the post, with thoughts about how this might be a conversation with open, honest questions; and also that nobody feels attacked for their beliefs. So please check the post before commenting; I might need to add to it again as we go on. And you're welcome to comment with open, honest questions.

Re: Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[sqrt-joy.livejournal.com]

If the soul is the spiritual part of a person, can choose evil at any point, what is spiritually evil?

(Your posts have lots to think about in them, thank you.)

Re: Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to distinguish between spiritual evil and physical evil... not really. If someone does an evil act, the consequences of that act fall on the soul just as they fall on the rest of a person. The consequences are primarily (but not exclusively) an increase in self-loathing and losing connection with other people. Of course, it's not a strict rule, like "Ooh, for insulting that person you're getting +3 self-loathing and a -2 penalty to all relationships." But something happens to you, and I think those consequences have a real spiritual impact.

But your question also brought this to mind, which might have been your real intention: what can a soul do that is evil?

To answer that I would say the soul is responsible for deep, close relationships (as many others have also said) and it's definitely possible to use those relationships to harm people. It's also possible to be so negative that you impact the ability of those around you to reach out--that seems like an example of using your soul for evil.

Re: Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[peaceofpie.livejournal.com]

I'd like to raise a question with you about something you've said here, since it's the only thing I've read in this thread with which I feel some disagreement, and so I'd like to try to understand your perspective better. You say that it seems unlikely to you that animals have souls, and that something which has a soul is "capable of conscious interaction with other spiritual things". That confuses me, because I've never met an animal whom I would describe as being incapable of conscious interaction with other spiritual things. So I'm wondering if we are defining "conscious interaction" differently, or if your experience of animals is different from mine, or where else exactly the difference in our views on this may be.

Re: Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

You may have noticed a bit of stepping around that question in the original comment, as it's the part that I'm most uncertain of. But I think for the point of discussion it's easier to make assertions and run with them, so I'm going to do the same here and see if it holds water.

So here's my stab at a justification: In my experience, animals can perceive spiritual things and react to them. In particular we know that pets can bond with people, which I'd call a spiritual thing. But I don't think animals can make choices about their spiritual interactions, they merely have reactions. So I guess they can have conscious interactions meaning they are aware of their interactions, but they can't have... ah-hah!

Conscious was, on reflection, a poor word choice. How about "intentional interactions" meaning they are choosing when and how to interact spiritually.

I don't think they're choosing the kind of spiritual presence they have in the world, be it comforting, exciting, feral, aloof, etc. I think part of having a soul is the ability to make changes to how you are spiritually present--humans can choose to reach out or close off, or have different spiritual impact on the world. Though it's true many folks don't operate with spiritual intentionality, I think anyone could given enough effort and practice. For animals I don't think that possibility exists.

Now, having said all that, what do you think?

Re: Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[dpolicar]

Can animals make choices about their interactions with one another, or with inanimate objects?
Or do they merely have reactions in those cases as well?

Asked another way: are you claiming that animals don't have intentional interactions in general, or just that they don't have intentional spiritual interactions (e.g., interactions with humans)?

Re: Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you dig into it pretty well because in order to answer that I'm forced to question what I mean by intention. My first response is to say that no, they don't really make choices about anything the same way we do. But an example of this would be sacrificing a short-term desire for a long-term desire... if you could demonstrate an animal doing that (and I have a vague memory of this being demonstrated rather recently) then that animal is clearly acting with intention, not just reflexively.

Anyone have more info on that? As to my point, I was talking about spirituality but I'd say that demonstrated intentionality in physical areas would imply the ability to act intentionally in spiritual ones.

Re: Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[dpolicar]

Well, my experience of free-will sorts of conversations (which is the path we're on here) is that being specific helps, and you are admirably willing to be specific.

I'm not quite sure what "short-term" and "long-term" mean here. For example, I've certainly observed my dog sitting still for several minutes while showing signs of eagerness to do something else (e.g., squirming and straining and looking around and sometimes whimpering) in situations where she might eventually be rewarded for sitting still.

Is that an example of sacrificing a short-term desire for a long-term desire?

Re: Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[ng-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

Well, it depends. If you're in the room, the the immediate goal of pleasing you is competing with the other immediate goal, and that's a pretty simple competition that obviously animals have to deal with all the time (eat the food in the open vs. hide from predators, etc.) And if you've done a ton of training, then the desire to behave might be there even if you're not there.

An example of human behavior related to this that I'm not sure I'd see in animals: a decision to give a non-family-member food even when it means you go hungry.

Re: Unsurprisingly technical and lengthy

[dpolicar]

Fair enough. And I also am not sure whether hungry animals give away food to non-relatives.