My thoughts on spirit/soul

I personally believe that the soul and the spirit are at once different and yet the same.
The soul is the part of us which keeps the current body alive. Its the part which learns the lessons we come across during the current life. Once the soul has processed all the lessons, it passes it onto the spirit. The spirit is part of the soul in so much that it can communicate with it, but the spirit ‘lives on’ after death.
The spirit is constant, it is in a kind of stasis whilst we are alive, it passes on its knowledge once we are re-born, where the soul takes over. Each soul is finite, different, only coloured by the learnings of the spirit, it is a blank sheet…
Each soul fills the spirit with the knowledge it needs to carry on into the next life. At the point of data upload, the soul dies. I get a feeling having said that, that the soul doesn’t just fade away, but perhaps it too becomes part of the spirit. Yes, it fades into the spirit, that is how it downloads the data.
For instance. Last night I was feeling my ‘power’. I knew that Priestess and I had spirits which were EXTREMELY close. We have been physical siblings a number of times (to the point where this is one of the few times our spirits have not had that link). My soul however has no incling towards her, other that it has strong feelings, it has no memory of her.
My spirit is aware of a strong link between subbie girl and Myself, unsure as to what it is other than my spirit feels ’ About time’. My soul has no link… I don’t know why My spirit can communicate to Me, I believe that is the difference between ‘guides’ and ‘normals’ (I know, no such thing as normal, however you understand My useage of the term).
So to summarize, My thoughts are that the soul is a recording medium, a way that experience is recorded and downloaded into the spirit after death. The spirit sits in overall stasis until physical death occurs, it then processes the experiences and hands them (and I believe not all of them) onto the next soul.

What do you think ?

I consider the soul to be the subconscious, and the spirit to be ‘a plaything of the intellect’ as Nietzsche puts it.

I used to try to define them, body, mind, soul, spirit, conscious, etc. I find that words like soul and spirit are used so interchangably, in so many different ways, and by so many different languages, that it really depends on what context you are talking about them in. I would hope that you would read up on some philosphy of mind, such as John Searle, and then we’ll talk about spirit or soul. I don’t think the soul or spirit extends beyond our body nor beyond its death.

Beware of the Cartesian Dualism prevalent in our culture and thinking.

Regarding Cartesian dualism (but straying a little from the initial thread), here is a quote from Nozick which I found particularly illuminating:

This seems more complicated then it needs to be, why does there need to be a soul to download to the spirit, if the spirit can receive this information then why does it need the soul? Why does the soul have to die with the body, I mean, how could you tell if all the information from the soul is passed on to the spirit? IOW, what makes you think the soul dies?

I think we are a Spirit and we live in a body and we have a Soul.

The Soul is comprised of the mind, emotions and will, which make up our personality from the information we have chosen to keep. The Spirit is simply the life force from the creator and lives forever but the Soul is married to the Spirit at conception and never is separated. If the Spirit is separated from the Soul then the Spirit is a blank slate once again and all the experiences during life are pointless in the big picture. I could break it down further if need be, but for now that’s what I think on the subject.

Interesting quote “soph”. Please elaborate on how Nozick’s cogito quote is illuminating for you. :slight_smile:

Below is some of what Wikipedia has on criticisms of the cogito.

One reason that leads me to personally believe the soul, or spirit, or whatever you want to call it, dies when your body dies is found in Hamlet’s “To be or not to be…” speach:

“But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?”

Hamlet said it for me… No one has returned to tell me about it. :smiley:

Why, does Shakespeare have some special insight on death that he alone is privy to?

What is referred to in most discussions as soul or spirit is an example of physical potential not yet corroberated by evidence. This does not mean it never will be. Physicality includes all we are and all we will become. Physicality is not, except in very shallow minds, a polar opposite of anthing considered soulful or spiritual.

i guess it threw light on an aspect of the problem which i had never before seriously considered in this context, namely this: that even if Descartes’ ‘cogito’ can, as has been hotly debated, be thought of as entailing that he exists, the nature of this existence, or subsistence, is still under question - not even his thinking can free him from the rock of scepticism in all cases.

Nope, I just thought it was a very artistic way of saying that nobody has come back to tell me (personally) of life after death. All those that have told me about life after death are either still alive, or died and have not yet had the decency to come back and tell me that there is life after death. It’s just one small reason why I struggle to believe in life after death.

Sounds like a pseudo definition of metaphysics. :slight_smile:

For sure. :slight_smile:

What do you think of Wiki’s criticisms of cogito?

What happened to MasterApoc?

I think they are clarificatory, but not very revealing. Williams just restates the problem - namely, the fact that we are epistemologically limited and can seemingly never escape the bubble of our own subjectivity; Umansky identifies the real disappointment in Descartes’ argument, that is, his reluctance to include God in the set of things which are able to be doubted. I have always found it really quite frustrating that, after such an audacious, incisive stretch of sceptical reasoning, the great Rationalist begins the solution to his problem by helping himself, unconvincingly, to God.

Nice analysis. =D>

We “can seemingly never escape the bubble of our own subjectivity”. YES!

So?

We may be epistemologically limited …

… But relevantly we are not ontologically limited.

Please elaborate. :slight_smile:

on·tol·o·gy /ɒnˈtɒlədʒi/ Pronunciation[on-tol-uh-jee]
–noun

  1. the branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such.
  2. (loosely) metaphysics.
  3. Of or relating to the argument for the existence of God holding that the existence of the concept of God entails the existence of God.