Do you believe in a soul?

[Jasper]

No, seriously. What the fuck is a "soul"?   

I don't think anyone's satisfactorily answered that yet.  I tried, but I doubt anyone likes my idea.

[Payne]

I've had some time to think on this a bit deeper now. I don't believe in any kind of "Spiritual" soul, and I have grave doubts on any "pure" extra sensory spiritualism (ie; a God or spirit world or ghosties). I refuse to say outright that these things do NOT exist, but I have yet to come across any examples that cannot with reflection be attributed to several different phenomena (Tiredness, Starbucks Pebbles, whatever).

I always remember that the "weight of the soul" has been measured by the ancients. The difference in weight between a living and dead body, which of course consists of their last breath. Some see this as evidence of a soul, seperate from our mundane and frail human bodies. I do too, kinda of, but do not fel the need to attach any extra baggage such as "Heaven" or "Pure Spirit" to it.

For me, we all have a soul. It's a nice mental "hook" on which to hang the impossile or very hard to explain facets of Human Existance on. For example:

Life is an awesome concept,

Yeah, but what is "life"?

We can only incompletely explain what it is and how it started,

We'll stick that in with the soul until we can, then.

I guess what I'm saying is that, cutting out all the spirtual crap, the soul is an extra "In-Box" of unfiled and unreadable mail, that may or may not eventually be cleared.

or:

Y'all are making James Brown cry.

James Brown: Godfather of Soul, and general A Soul.

[Cramulus]

I would accept souls as defined:

"The memeplex that originates from a given entity."

I like that

my personal definition of soul (which I've been lugging around for about 6 months now):

the part of you that the rest of the world experiences

[Jasper]

Thanks

I think about how people's narratives about a person survive beyond the person himself, and how the ideas and complex memes that described that person still exist as extant information.

In that sense, the soul is slightly less mortal. 

Unless you've done a lot of radio broadcasts.  Then you'll pretty much exist for a long ass time, even if the world forgets you.

[Cramulus]

why... I think our ideas are extremely complimentary!

NOW LET'S SCHISM

[Freeky]

THAT'S HAWT, OH YEAH.

[Jasper]

OUR IDEAS MESH WELL UNDER MATTER/INFORMATION DUALISM.  SCHISM THAT.

SCHISM IT ALL OVER YOURSELF.

[Phox]

OUR IDEAS MESH WELL UNDER MATTER/INFORMATION DUALISM.  SCHISM THAT.

SCHISM IT ALL OVER YOURSELF.

[Freeky]

OUR IDEAS MESH WELL UNDER MATTER/INFORMATION DUALISM.  SCHISM THAT.

SCHISM IT ALL OVER YOURSELF.

I came.

[Don Coyote]

OUR IDEAS MESH WELL UNDER MATTER/INFORMATION DUALISM.  SCHISM THAT.

SCHISM IT ALL OVER YOURSELF.

I came.

Where from?























OHWAITTHATWASASEXUALINNUENDOWASNTITYOUDIRTYGIRL.

[Psychonomaly]

Do you believe we are physical manifestations of spiritual energy?

I believe that we are physical manifestations and that all energy is spiritual energy.  I believe that souls are thoughtforms of Brahman or the "Ultimate Source" or whatever you want to call it/him/her.

"A thoughtform is a manifestation of mental energy, also known as a tulpa in Tibetan mysticism. Its concept is related to the Western philosophy and practice of magic."

Ember: "A homunculus of awareness: an instantaneous observer / observed duality. They are created by everyone every moment (in some formulations they are everyone every moment); and they possess wills of their own."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoughtform

Food for thought (side effects may include zealous "rationality"):

"The Soul is a spark of light similar to what you see in the periphery of your field of vision from time to time. Everything comes through the eye, I, the lens of time. It is electricalmagnetic (blue/white) energy 'spiraling' forth from the creational source to experience, then returning in the Now. It is consciousness from the collective, who you are, and where you are going after shedding the physical body at Zero Point. It is not ruled but physical limitation or emotions. It is you . . . set free to experience the grids of reality and become your natural state of being. Imagine yourself complete within this program . . . soaring into the endless possibilities that exist outside . . . rejoining a family you may already miss."
http://www.crystalinks.com/whatisasoul.html

Dr. Rick Strassman, the researcher who conducted a 1990 study on the effects of DMT through the University of New Mexico, advanced the thesis that DMT could be the "spirit molecule," linking the physical brain to as-of-yet unknown domains of the afterlife. A practicing Buddhist, Strassman made this proposition based on an intriguing correspondence between fetal development and Buddhist scripture. According to Buddhism, the soul reincarnates seven weeks after death. The pineal gland—that singular organ in the brain that Descartes had considered the seat of the soul—develops in the embryo forty-nine days after conception. Strassman hypothesized that the pineal gland might act as a receiver for the soul, and that DMT could function as the conducting medium. "The pineal gland of evolutionarily older animals, such as lizards and amphibians, is also called the 'third eye,'" Strassman wrote. "Just like the two seeing eyes, the third eye possesses a lens, cornea, and retina." In the event of a cataclysmic shock or at death, the pineal gland might release a flood of DMT into the brain, causing the "life review" and the intense visionary phenomena reported in numerous near-death experiences.
— 2012, The Return of Quetzalcoatl, Daniel Pinchbeck

"Just as our own matter system can be created, other matter systems—which like our own, or unlike our own (like our own in that they are made from subatomic particles)—can be made as well. Provided that they are not tuned to the same matter frequencies as ours is, then we shan't be able to relate to them, but they can interpenetrate our own, without our knowledge, simply because our matter system isn't solid. It looks solid only because our atoms can't interpenetrate each other.

I'm saying we don't move into another dimension. You're using the same dimensions, but the quanta interpenetrate each other. So, it's like, to use one of Michael's expressions (very good simile), if you're tuned into BBC1 on the television, you can't see BBC2, but the radio waves which are coming in from the stations are still there, in the same space, but you're not tuned into them. And so, you can tune into the Earth matter system by being alive in this world. Discard that overcoat if you like: You've got another overcoat, made of another matter system. So the mind isn't left stranded just in the ether alone; it can exist in a whole number of different matter systems."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibPls...eature=related

"If true a "supermind of space" could create a whole set of matter-systems all co-existing in the same space but tuned to different quantum-wave frequencies. Then fragments of the supermind structure, the "sub-minds", could only tune into one matter-system at a time. Consequently the only reality apparent at any one time would be the one to which a sub-mind is temporarily tuned. When that matter-system became outworn, this sub-mind, being part of the structured sub-quantum fluid, would simply tune into one of the remaining matter-systems and continue to survive. On this basis our brains could well be mere interfacing mechanisms needed to enable the real minds to pilot the body."
http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/rdp/...alphysics.html

[Doktor Howl]

"Just as our own matter system can be created, other matter systems—which like our own, or unlike our own (like our own in that they are made from subatomic particles)—can be made as well. Provided that they are not tuned to the same matter frequencies as ours is, then we shan't be able to relate to them, but they can interpenetrate our own, without our knowledge, simply because our matter system isn't solid. It looks solid only because our atoms can't interpenetrate each other.

OH, ALPHAPANCE...QUANTUMZ!

[Doktor Howl]

Food for thought (side effects may include zealous "rationality"):

[LMNO]

Another one?  How do they keep getting in here?

[Doktor Howl]

Another one?  How do they keep getting in here?

Their matter is at the right frequency for their atoms to interpentrate.