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

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.