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The Complicated History Of The Concept Of The Soul (1 Viewer)

rockaction

Footballguy
I can't help it. This has to have its own thread. 

Any dilettantes or experts are welcome to chime in with their own version or discussion. I know Tom would dig this. RIP. Unabashed dork-punk. Calling rock and roll the same as soul. Love it. 

Mr. T Experience - The History Of The Concept Of The Soul

Homer didn't have a comprehensive word for mind.
the psyche and the conscious self had not yet been combined.
He understood events as repetition of the past,
and individual consciousness was not a part of that.
But early Greek thought played a role in the complicated history
of the concept of the soul.1

By the time of Plato these ideas had taken shape.
The Phaedo and Timaeus are works which demonstrate
the conscious separation of the knower from the known
and the dual nature of the body and the soul.

Modern thought was possible:
the complicated history of the concept of the soul.

Whoa!

Pythagoras and Orphic doctrines all came into play,
because Plato was a mystic in his own Platonic way.
The pre-Socratic Naturalists saw things in terms of "stuff".
But Plato's metaphysics showed that this was not enough.
This is the incredible complicated history of the concept of the soul.

Rock and roll!2 

1 For an interesting discussion, see E.R Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational, Berkeley, 1953, pp. 45-150.

2ibid.

 
I just read all of that and I have no idea what you are talking about.  It kinda reminds me when I tried to read that Hitchhiker's Guide to Outer Space.  Woosh!

:confused:

 
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I just read all of that and I have no idea what you are talking about.  It kinda reminds me when I tried to read that Hitchhiker's Guide to Outer Space.  Woosh!

:confused:
If it makes you feel any better, I'm about to check out the sources he's citing. I've always been confused about two philosophic concepts. The history of the soul and the modern division between self and soul. Is it Cartesian, the self and soul? How exactly does "I think, therefore I am" and the mind/body separation of that mean the dissolution of the soul into the self. I've never gotten that. 

Anybody want to educate me? It's been a nagging question. 

 
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This thread is a flashback of me reading St. Augustine back in the college days. The soul as a rider on the body or something like that. A fascinating subject for sure.  :thumbup:

 
Had to bump this bc I have been thinking about the mass of a soul. Recently saw an episode of a show called Evil where Wallace Shawn's character was dying and agreed to be weighed pre-death and post-death to determine if there was a difference (i.e. the soul leaving the body). Never thought about it before tbh.
 
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I've never gone down the philosophical rabbit hole of the soul, but from my own anecdotal experience it seems like it's merely a function of brain activity and an awareness of our own existence. Can someone explain how it's any more complicated than that?

ETA - I'm an atheist of the opinion we're nothing more than meat puppets with no free will who ultimately turn into worm food with no afterlife.
 
Had to bump this bc I have been thinking about the mass of a soul. Recently saw an episode of a show called Evil where Wallace Shawn's character was dying and agreed to be weighed pre-death and post-death to determine if there was a difference (i.e. the soul leaving the body). Never thought about it before tbh.

Thanks. This is what the premise of the experiment was
 
ETA - I'm an atheist of the opinion we're nothing more than meat puppets with no free will who ultimately turn into worm food with no afterlife.
Wait, isn't that the pre-game speech the Broncos coach gave last night to inspire the team against the Hawks?
 
Oh, man, I didn't notice the date on this and almost crapped my pants when I saw wikkid's avatar. I miss him.

I'd weigh in on the subject matter, but Dale called me a dilettante, and he was right.
 
I've never gone down the philosophical rabbit hole of the soul, but from my own anecdotal experience it seems like it's merely a function of brain activity and an awareness of our own existence. Can someone explain how it's any more complicated than that?
It's not. Humans cannot imagine the world going on without them, so we have these inventions from 2,000 years ago
 
While I’m likely not too far off your position are these to things conflicting with each other. No free will indicates a grand plan already laid out.
By lack of free will I mean we don't have control over our actions. We simply ping pong off each other according to natural laws. Any control we think we have is just an illusion. That doesn't mean there's something else calling the shots or it's all predesigned. Rather, it's as random as the placement of the stars in the sky.
 
While I’m likely not too far off your position are these to things conflicting with each other. No free will indicates a grand plan already laid out.
By lack of free will I mean we don't have control over our actions. We simply ping pong off each other according to natural laws. Any control we think we have is just an illusion. That doesn't mean there's something else calling the shots or it's all predesigned. Rather, it's as random as the placement of the stars in the sky.
Interesting thoughts.

I’ve always interpreted free will as choice of actions. In that respect I believe we have complete free will. In regards to randomness, I tend to agree.
 
I’ve always interpreted free will as choice of actions. In that respect I believe we have complete free will. In regards to randomness, I tend to agree.
I don't think so. Sam Harris led me down this road with an interesting thought experiment. Think of a city in the US. Once you have the name in mind, ponder how you came to chose that city. Did you tell your brain to choose that result, or did it just appear automatically?
 
I’ve always interpreted free will as choice of actions. In that respect I believe we have complete free will. In regards to randomness, I tend to agree.
I don't think so. Sam Harris led me down this road with an interesting thought experiment. Think of a city in the US. Once you have the name in mind, ponder how you came to chose that city. Did you tell your brain to choose that result, or did it just appear automatically?
I enjoy Sam and listen to him a fair amount. And while I’d like to ponder on this a bit my first reaction is that isn’t a choice of action (how I understand free will), it’s merely a random thought triggered by past experiences. The will to act on a thought is ours to make. Thinking of a city because a question was posed is not the same as choosing to move to the city on a whim. I don’t believe that choice, if someone were to make said choice, to be preordained or destined to happen.
 
Before Sam Harris there was Sam Moore, who had the definitive statement on this subject:

 
I enjoy Sam and listen to him a fair amount. And while I’d like to ponder on this a bit my first reaction is that isn’t a choice of action (how I understand free will), it’s merely a random thought triggered by past experiences. The will to act on a thought is ours to make. Thinking of a city because a question was posed is not the same as choosing to move to the city on a whim. I don’t believe that choice, if someone were to make said choice, to be preordained or destined to happen.
The bolded is the key part. I'd argue that the thoughts that lead to actions are determined by past experiences. While it feels like we have control over "I'm going to move to Phoenix", in reality those thoughts and decisions are a culmination of the various experiences you had up to that moment.

Crude example:

"I'm not moving to Phoenix because my ex lives there and I don't want to be anywhere close to her," is a function of your experience with your ex.
"I am moving to Phoenix even though my ex lives there because I'm not going to avoid her and let her control how I live," is a function of your experience with your ex and some concepts you learned while in therapy.

Obviously this is vastly more simple than the infinite number of variables that go into our behaviors, but hopefully you get the point.
 

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