Science Musings Discussion
:+: :+: (I thought I'd play with the available icons)
As I embrace, develope, study, and settle into my personal brand of Skepticism, I find myself at easy with the concept of "A Soul with no place to go." The idea horrifies the True Believer. For them it is the goal at the end of the game. It is the purpose of the game.
By dismantling the "Clubhouse in the Sky" approch to life, it gives the concept of our "life source-life entity, spiritual fingerprint" new meaning. It becomes a brief, solitary, moment of cosmic brilliance.
I just reread my initial blog, and I am left knowing that there is so much more.
It is such a profoundly meaningful topic. It touches upon that tired, old question "what is the meaning of life." In a recent blog I mentioned science wrestling with the "HOW" and "Why" questions. Well this Sunday's Musing dives right into the deep end of the "Why" pool. Head first! With a very big Splash at the end. The judges give it at score of 9.8, I'm sure I'll be thinking about this one for awhile. Thanks.
I really appreciates Chet's Sunday morning posts which I read regularly. I have been reading the following books which I can recommend on this subject if you are interested:
DIANE ACKERMAN: AN ALCHEMY OF THE MIND
GARY MARCUS: THE BIRTH OF THE MIND
CARL ZIMMER: THE SOUL MADE FLESH
ROY PORTER: FLESH IN THE AGE OF REASON
Thanks to Chet and you the others who blog on this site.
To me, the soul thing is just wishful thiking who's existence can't be proved at all. If a soul lives "forever" then it existed forever - including time past, time present, and time future (whatever this time thing is...). Somehow it seems contradictory to say that a god can interrupt the time continuum to create a soul that will live "forever".
As for the famous philospher: Descartes walks into a bar. "Hi Rene, can I get you a beer?" "I think not" - and then he disappears.
I want to add to Jack's comments about the contradictions inherent in "the soul thing." If all humans have souls, I suppose that arrangement is confined to Homo sapiens sapiens and that souls were denied to our predecsssors and/or our cousins on the evolutionary tree: H. neanderthalensis, H. habilis, H. ergaster, etc. But God's decision to start infusing souls into the primate family must have had a beginning. At what stage in the subtle evolution of H. sapiens sapiens did God implement this momentous plan? Who were the first man and first woman to have souls? (I guess I'm setting myself up for the answer: "Adam and Eve.")
I practice a form of Buddhist meditation (vipassana) in which I spend an hour or so focusing on my breath and observing as well the rise and fall of thoughts, feelings, physical sensations. It becomes easy to accept the process as just that, a process rooted in the body, which will stop when the body stops. The next question, invevitably, is 'who, or what, is the watcher, the observer?' Probably another mind function, but again, I'm comfortable with 'I don't know.' There is certainly a lot of mystery in life -- part of what makes it so interesting.
And a PS
I've always felt that the 'little stones' and boulders sit in their places living a life whose age and energy I would love to understand better. This, in my observing presence, or in the absence of any perceiver at all. I'm probably romanticizing-----
One thing is for sure: If I have to have a soul then so do my cats!
Jack, I feel quite certain that humans do not have souls, but I do wonder about cats...
By the way, I heartily endorse David's book recommendations above. All excellent! Chet
"To me, the soul thing is just wishful thinking who's existence can't be proved at all."
Jack, you've got to be kidding! Wishful thinking for a soul? My former colleagues at Los Alamos, Tom and Bill (not their real names) were devout atheists who certainly did not wish for souls. Souls for them would imply an afterlife filled with damnation and hellfire.
The Calvinists have a doctrine of "Eternal Security." The atheists have such a doctrine also. Eternal security for the atheist - death, extinction, oblivion. No judgement, no hellfire.
Tom and Bill, they're both dead now. I think of them often.
But of course it's wishful thinking, Barry. I understand that your colleagues Tom and Bill didn't wish for souls, but it seems to me that the people who DO wish for souls are seeking reassurance that they will not die. Jack's assertion that there is no objective evidence for the existence of souls rings true for me.
Barry: If you don't mind my asking, do you actually believe in "damnation and hellfire"?
Jack: I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss "the soul thing" simply as wishful thinking. I suspect most believers have more complex reasons and would be rather insulted by such remarks.
Everyone: I'd like to draw your attention to another Mary Oliver poem.
Speaking of souls and Ben Franklin, here's an excerpt from a letter he wrote his niece after the death of her father;
"I condole with you. We have lost a most dear and valuable relation. But it is the will of God and nature that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter real life. This is rather an embryo state, a preparation for living. A man is not completely born until he is dead...We are spirits. That bodies should be lent us, while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or in doing good to our fellow creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of God... His chair was ready first, and he is gone before us. We could not all conveniently start together; and why should you and I be grieved by this, since we are soon to follow, and know where to find him? Adieu, B. Franklin."
Such poignant parroting of received wisdom from one so otherwise wise and skeptical, reminding each of us of our own particular slurry of cant and clarity.
As for my take on souls, let us leave the old fantasies to those who caretake them and take up fresh visions of life and death from the larger patterns within and around us. My operational understanding of 'soul' is the uniquely complex matrix of body/mind of any one organism at any one time. My soul was gene dominant a few days after conception and taking on experience and subjectivity has evolved since, soon to begin diminishing as my memory and other faculties fade prior to the last lights out and my molecular dissolution.
But Jack's assertion rings false for me!
I would never put myself forth as an exemplary Christian. In fact, I have spent the majority of my 65 years in studies of engineering, applied physics, and occasional dabblings in theoretical physics (not religious studies).
However, I have prayed since childhood and received answers to many of those prayers, so the transcendent is very real to me.
Furthermore, I believe recent results from cosmology and particle physics have rendered atheism not only improbable, but totally infeasible!
So, we're back to our standoff. Too bad we can't get a report from Tom and Bill "on the other side."
Anthony, pardon my presumption, but you are a Roman Catholic aren't you? I'm one of those strange hybrids called an Anglo Catholic.
Recall the story of Lazarus and Dives in the Bible. Is that illustration of hellfire real enough for you? It is for me!
I fear it has at last come time for my "Come to Jesus Speech" (as my former missile defense colleagues in Alabama, somewhat irreverently termed a sales pitch).
On second thought, following Chet, I'll leave these transcendent matters as exercises for the student.
Not a bad guess, Barry (How did you figure? - I don't think I've ever articulated my beliefs here before). My father was raised as a Catholic, but both he and my mother are at best indifferent to organized religion. My religious upbringing consisted more or less of having a children's Bible, being taught the Lord's Prayer, and attending Mass at Christmas for a time. At present, I would call myself (with Einstein) "a deeply religious nonbeliever". I'll post further on my beliefs on my own blog someday.
As for the story of Lazarus and Dives (Luke 16:19-31, if anyone else wants to look), it's actually one I remember quite well. When I was younger, I enjoyed seeing the mighty laid low and the meek rewarded. Nowadays, I recoil at the thought of eternal torment for anyone. I'll note that Jesus does seem to be in "parable mode" here. Then again, I've never read any scholarly or theological commentary on the passage, and wouldn't wish to tell anyone what to think in any case. As you say, we must each make our own decisions about the transcendent.
Commenting by HaloScan
