What is a Soul?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Indeed. But yours was very illuminating as well, vison.

I still plan to respond in more detail with my thoughts, jumbled though they might be, but it probably will not be until next week.

[Maria]

It's also occurred to me that it doesn't really matter. If I do blink out, what's wrong with having been comforted up until that moment by beliefs that turn out to be untrue? It's not as if I would be around to feel angry or sad about it. Blink.

I used to think it didn't matter, until someone linked me to this synopsis of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. http://buddhism.about.com/od/vajrayana/a/Dead.htm

Stripped of the cultural metaphors- what if your mental outlook as you die really does matter? What if they are right, and there is a very strong pull towards reincarnation, and you can only get out of the cycle with strict mental discipline?

That is an amazing thought to me, and something I'd never really considered before. It might be very, very important to be calm about death, and to keep your wits about you. Going into it like a scared animal might just get you recycled again.

I haven't read the actual book yet, and am just trying this on for size- but it's a very thought provoking idea.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, it is.

[Primula Baggins]

But if we all "blink out," there is no reincarnation either, so it still doesn't matter.

[Maria]

True enough.

[axordil]

Not necessarily. Consciousness and a soul need not be in any way conflated. One could easily have a system in which an essential spiritual essence got "recycled" as it were without any aspect of the former self carrying over. So you would have a "blink" loss of consciousness and end of self, but one's "soul" could then end up somewhere else.

[Cerin]

But I think Prim was talking about a blink -- end of everything.

[vison]

We are stardust.

That is comforting, somehow. Once we were stardust, and will be again.

[MithLuin]

My students - teenage girls - certainly enjoy being told that all the matter they are made of was born inside a star. (I realize that only holds up until about iron, but close enough).

I'm not sure we will be again, though. The universe's recycling timescale is quite long, and a lot could happen in between.

[Primula Baggins]

Actually, Mith, you're quite right that all matter was made by stars.

The elements heavier than iron all were formed in supernova explosions.* That's every atom of everything after element 26, including gold, silver, lead, tin. . . .

As for whether we will be again, infinity (if that's the time we've got) is a very long time.

That's another reason for my emotional conviction that it's true that we're eternal in some way.

*Some heavy elements through lead can be formed inside very old red giant stars, bit that's a slow process.

[River]

I remember when my dad told all us kids we were star parts one night at dinner. I thought it was the coolest stuff ever. I still do. We are the collected dust and ash of an ancient sun. One day, we will be dust again, and so the cycle goes. It awes me.

[axordil]

But I think Prim was talking about a blink -- end of everything.

mmm--you're right.

But of course, there could be other universes with a soul shortage too. After all, since we're not talking about something that can ever be empirically confirmed to exist at all, there seems little reasons to limit it to our little corner of provincial space-time.

[Primula Baggins]

There's that nonmaterialist untidiness again. Once open that door, and anything might get in.

If only nonmaterialists had some sets of rules or systems they used to narrow down the kinds of nonmaterial things they are willing to believe in . . . oh, wait.

[axordil]

Yeah, but all the rules and system are materialist.

[Primula Baggins]

All the materialist ones, anyway.

Last time I checked, say, the Bible, I remember running across a few rules.

[Maria]

But of course, there could be other universes with a soul shortage too. After all, since we're not talking about something that can ever be empirically confirmed to exist at all, there seems little reasons to limit it to our little corner of provincial space-time.

But... but... that would be like jumping across from game to game instead of playing the same game and leveling up as experience accumulates!

[Padme]

I really like the physical is made of stardust...but I don't think souls are made of stardust. I think souls or spirits are made of elements and such (yikes this is going to be way out there) stuff that we can't understand. I also believe that everything has a soul, including the stardust we are made of, and it all blends together at some point. And that at some point we will all come around again, be it in a few years or millions of years after our deaths. Maybe not in the same family or same place, but if space and time warp overthemselves, somehow we will be back.

I like the Tibetan Book of the Dead too. It sort of reminds me of a navigation tool to help navigate the universe. Of course I have been called a Tim Leary person before....

[narya]

If our souls get recycled at death, into a new body that has no memory or connection to the previous life, does it matter what I do in this life? It won't be me that gets a second, better chance. It will be someone (or something) else completely disconnected from the me I am right now. I may as well be earning a better life for some future perfect stranger.

I'd rather live like this is my only chance, and make the best of it.

I was struck by the way that karma has been used to justify callousness, when I read Amy Tan's "Saving Fish From Drowning". In that book, the people who were in great misery did not engender much sympathy or help. After all, they must have earned all that bad karma in a previous life, right?

Sorry I can't tell you what a soul is, V, because I haven't been able to find mine and get a good look at it.

[axordil]

All the materialist ones, anyway.

Last time I checked, say, the Bible, I remember running across a few rules.

The Bible, whether as concept or object, is materialist too. So are all scriptures. They have real, empirical existence, even when they discuss things that may or may not share that status. It's almost a paradox.

[Primula Baggins]

Then all communication systems and all intelligent beings are paradoxes.

You may be onto another metaphor here—that a book, say, can have a meaning and importance beyond what kind of paper and ink went in to making it.