When did anyone demand that sprituality be proved through scientific means? Fessie implied that science is no more valid as a way of discovering objective truth than spirituality. SHE made the claim; we refuted it. All I can say is, if you don’t want your claims refuted in a debate, it would be best not to make the claims. I have conceded that spirituality is useful as a means of illiciting positive feelings, for the third time now. But if you feel the need to make scientific claims about the soul, then I will refute the claims scientifically. I wish no ill-will toward religious people; just don’t expect me to believe the same thing as you if you can’t give me a valid reason to do so.
Depends what you mean by “valid”. I think sprituality is valid to you (or whoever), but what we have been talking about so far is not objectively valid. But then, it’s not supposed to be objective, is it? I don’t think that’s arrogant; in fact, I think you’re the one being arrogant. Rather than acknowledge that others disagree with you, you instead claim that we do not “understand” spirituality, the implication being that we only disagree with you out of ignorance.
And Apos is right; this “flow” of discussion you are imagining is simply the way you wish the discussion to go.
Azael:
Hee hee - Yeah, you can only be open-minded by turning a deaf ear to anyone who disagrees with you, right?:dubious:
That’s just one of the profound mystical truths you will find in my new book “The Profound Mystical Truths of Lekatt.” Order now and get a free set of homeopathic crystals! Guaranteed to cure any disease - mental or physical! No matter what those closed-minded sceptics have to say about it!
THAT’s what I said. I don’t believe I ever said that spirituality is the way to know objective truth. What I said is that measurable observations lead to one kind of knowledge, and spiritual experiences to another. Both are constructs, one based on empiricism, one based on personal connection with a higher power. Neither of them is puregrain 100% objective “truth” because it’s all filtered through our human understanding as it exists in a given point in time.
I wasn’t insinuating that none of you have love lives, merely that emotions are equally powerful yet unprovable. Emotions are also “true”.
Now if you’re going to pooh-pooh a field of endeavor without having studied it yourself, doesn’t that sound somewhat presumptuous? I don’t mean academic study, I mean personal study of the subject in its own medium; extracting analytical threads doesn’t count, it’s just more of the same empiricism you’re already comfortable with. Fer cryin’ out loud, how do you explain an orgasm to someone who won’t have sex?
In addition to which, and just for the record, waaay back in the days when Reagan was in charge I was a philosophy undergrad for several semesters, until fine art reclaimed its place in my life. The fact is I can relate to your assertions because I pursued philosophy specifically out of my desire to know objective truth. My goal was to have a sure-fire way of being right. I believe it was Kant in metaethics that cured me of it - I realized that objective truths carry no meaning. The sky is blue - so what? Objective truths don’t tell you what to do with your empirical knowledge.
I’m not saying you should design buildings based on spiritual knowledge - but I’d betcha those ironworkers walking the beams have got it. Us artists are guided by it. I may never understand calculus and may never need to, but I respect it and its users; perhaps you could grant spiritual issues the same.
Here’s a quote from Robert Henri for you to consider, this is from his teachings in about 1917 (The Art Spirit):
"There are many craftsmen who paint pleasantly the surface appearances and are very clever at it.
There are always a few who get at and feel the undercurrent, and these simply use the surface appearances selecting them and using them as tools to express the undercurrent, the real life.
If I cannot feel an undercurrent then I see only a series of things. They may be attractive and novel at first but soon grow tiresome.
There is an undercurrent, the real life, beneath all appearances everywhere. I do not say that any master has fully comprehended it at any time, but the value of his work is in that he has sensed it and his work reports the measure of his experience.
It is this sense of the persistent life force back of things which makes the eye see and the hand move in ways that result in true masterpieces. Techniques are thus created as a need."
The problem is that you seemed to be attempting to bridge these two types of knowledge by asserting the existance of the soul, when existance of “things” is something that lies in the realm of observation and the emperical. Specifically, you said
Would you mind clarifying how you are aware of your soul? I mean, it’s easy enough to be aware of your own thoughts and feelings, but a soul is a different matter. Unless, of course, you’re defining the term “soul” differently from what people normally think of.
Actually, emotions are proovable. An MRI can easilly show the brain activity associated with different emotions. Likewise, it can be shown that changes to the brain (via injury, stroke, chemicals, etc) can cause changes to one’s emotional response, personality, and thought processes. This leads to the obvious conclusion that even “internal truths” such as emotions and thoughts are actually externally observable and testable. Thus, “internal truths” are ultimately emperical in nature.
And how would suggest that a person go about doing that? Personally, I actually tried to be religious at one point in my life. I didn’t get anything out of it, though. Certainly, no “mystical, unproovable truths” were revealed to me.
Again, how would you suggest that someone study spirituality firsthand? Is it something that some people just “get”?
And you believe that these “spiritual truths” do tell you what to do? I could just as easily state that, since thought processes, emotions, and everything internal to you is simply a result of complex chemical reactions in your brain, objective truths do tell you what to do with your emperical knowledge.
There’s a big difference between those two scenarios, Namely, you believe in the existance of calculus, but I do not believe in the existance of the spiritual.
Now, lest you begin to think that I’m some sort of fatalist who believes that everything that I do has already been decided by natural laws, you should know this: I believe in the existance of free will (I just chalk it up to quantum uncertainty), and I have no problem with people being introspective or trying to find meaning to life. The only problem I have is when people start confusing belief with existance, as tends to happen with “spiritual” matters. Now, if I may, I’ll attempt to get this discussion back on track by asking you the following:
Why do you believe that souls exist? You say that you’ve always been aware of you soul. Can you elaborate? How do you know that what you’re aware of is a soul? How do you know that it exists in actuality rather than just being an internal concept? What makes you believe that, just because you “know” that you have a soul, everyone has a soul?
And most importantly, what, exactly, is a soul? What is its purpose, its function? How does it differ from the mind and the brain?
I’m seriously interested in the answers. You see, the concept of the soul is not well defined, and different people have different ideas as to what a soul actually is. There’s always the possibility of a misunderstanding if your definition of a soul is not the one I’m used to hearing.
fessie, let me ask you a question. The LSD-popping mind-expanders of the 60s, did they reach this “other” truth you speak of? They certainly thought they did, as you do.
Not in any meaningful way, and by the way, they’re provable.
So why aren’t you a leather-clad masochist taking daily whippings down at the local S&M club? You’re not going to pooh-pooh it without trying it, right?
“It feels really good. You’ll know it when it happens.”
Wasn’t so hard, was it? Besides, we’re debating the existence of a soul, not the experience of it. Orgasms have been shown empirically to exist.
If you’re saying every ironworker and artist is guided by spirituality, I call “bullshit”. I’m a kind of artist in that I’m a writer. Pricegal paints pictures. We’re both familiar with the feeling of awe when you get something right, but we’ve never invented a spiritual excuse for that feeling. One isn’t necessary.
I don’t know any ironworkers, but I can’t imagine you’ve interviewed them all.
Calculus has some practical applications and can be empirically shown to do what it says it does.
Furthermore, this has nothing to do with respect. You claim that you know about the soul. We challenge you to show how you got that knowledge, and instead you redefine the word “knowledge”. If I said I knew all women are bloodsucking reptile aliens, I don’t think you’d just accept that assertion without a teensy-weensy bit of evidence.
But why the need to remind us of these things so vociferiously? They aren’t the things that we are denying, and yet you continue to imply that they are.
I’m not even sure I know what you mean by “emotions are… unprovable.” Emotions are subjectively experienced, not proven. They are neither provable nor unprovable: they proove nothing but themselves, and are proved by nothing but themselves.
I do know that the sense of word “true” is different in your sentance (closer to “feels authentic”), than the sense of “true” that we are discussing when we talk about the existence of a soul (an existential and objective truth).
What field of study are you reffering to, or implying that we are deficient in? Explain clearly, so as not to confuse something like subjective experience and appreciation with existential issues like the existence of a soul, which was the topic of discussion.
Can you explain what you’re getting at here? Because it just sounds very much like you harping on the same saw you denied harping on before: we just don’t understand, because we’re lacking in some way. It’s simply wrong of you to assume that. Frankly, the reality could be, for all you know, that I have not only more analytical skills than you claim to be interested in, but also have a much greater depth of emotional and artistic experience as well. I’m not trying to imply that I do, or start some war over it, but you are assuming far too much, and lumping far too much into what you call “spirituality” when you then imply that we lack it or insight into it simply because we apply reason to arguments about objective existence.
I guess you never gave up that goal, because you’re being just as pompous now about whatever you think you are defending. Mostly knowledge is about learning when you’re wrong, not when you’re right. It about relevative certainty, not being solidly right.
So everything. So starts the begginning of an incredible journey into the mystery of reality, which in the end is almost always far more wonderous and poetic than anyone can imagine.
And you’ve got it muddled again by using two senses of a word at once, and assuming a denial of one equals the denial of the other. Statements of objective truth do carry truth meaning. They don’t carry interperative or value meaning, for the simple fact that they are not interpreters or valuers like we people are.
Of course they don’t, because objective truths don’t “tell” anyone anything in the sense you’ve used that word (truths aren’t actors, they don’t perform actions).
But searching for objective truths does help you better understand what’s going on all around you, and how to most effectively do things you do decide that are important to do.
Perhaps you could explain what you mean by “it” and by “spiritual issues” and how either or both are different or similar to questions about the existence of a soul.
Not true. I am an artist, and it should be obvious by this point that I am not “guided by spiritual knowledge”, whatever that means. What guides me in my art? Human knowledge and human emotions. As already pointed out, these are empirically measurable as electrical impulses and chemical reactions in the brain. There’s no big mystery there. We haven’t figured out exactly what the mechanism is by which emotions are generated, but we know they come from the brain. It’s not necessary to increase the number of entities required to explain emotions. And I don’t think that knowing what causes emotions “ruins” them in any way. In spite of your protests, fessie, I still get the impression that you somehow think we are “missing out” on things like beauty, love, wonder, etc., by not subscribing to this yet-to-be-defined regimen of “spiritual knowledge”. I mean, I’m really racking my brain trying to figure out what you could have possibly meant by “We artists are guided by it”, other than insinuating that one cannot be an artist unless one believes in a soul. If that’s not what you meant, I would be grateful if you would explain exactly what you did mean.
Around 2,200 years ago Erastothenes(spelling?)not only discovered the world was spherical, but was able to deduce the circumfrence of the earth as well using only two sticks.
Science has been around for longer than man has when you think about it.Predatory animals use a sort of scientific methodology when stalking or trapping prey.
If there were a “soul” and this soul were the seat or housing of conciousness/mind, then a blow to the head or alzheimers would not affect a man’s thinking.Narcotics would(for the most part) not work and the brain itself would be a useless organ.
If the soul is where the mind resides then why are we not aware of this as a self-evident truth in the same way we are aware of our physical bodies?if the soul itself is NOT physical then how is it contained by the physical body?Why are we not able to take our souls out for a joy ride through the ether before we die?
If the soul leaves the body upon death and goes to whereever souls go then it must be able to “see” where it is going, correct?Then why are there any blind people?When a person’s eyesight fails could not their soul take over the observational functions?
Rules of inference suggest that no soul exists in the same way that automobile engine failure is not indicative of gremlins’ existence.
One other thing:a lot of people here use two different usages of “existence”(or somevariation) interchangeably.When using the common, objective/physical/material “existence” we are not talking about things such as “thoughts”, “beauty”, “logic” or even actions such as “walking”.None of those things “exist” objectively.“Walking” only exists as a function of legs or an action performed by legged & ambulatory things.In the same way, “mind” or “thinking” does not exist objectively but rather as a function performed by creatures with brains.Logic, like math is a bit different.These things do not exist physically but do exist whether there are any thinking entities around to use them or not, but these things exist in the same way that “distance” exists.That is to say that if ANYTHING exists at all then these things, these characteristics of existence will also exist.
If one argues that the soul or God exists as a metaphor or ina poetic sense, i would not argue.The problem is that many try to qualify the soul’s material existence under this subjective usage of the word.
Things which exist in a material and/or objective sense can be demonstrated.We can use logic to deduce things about our existence.We can demonstrate the soundness of logic.We can use math to quantify things and demonstrate the consistency of that method.When asked “How many jelly beans are in that Jar?” we could use other methods to measure the quantity of jelly beans, such as guessing but these other methods would lack consistency/reliability(unlike math).
What is the “soul” used for?How does “faith” or “spirit” enable us to determine anything about our existence and how can the reliability of such things be demonstrated?
The reason why we do not all laugh at the same things or find the same things appealing/revolting has nothing to do with any soul.It is partly genetics and partly experience.We all have different experiences.I laugh every time I see a cat poking around near a grocery bag because of an experiecne I had years ago.I have yet to meet someone else who starts giggling everytime they see a cat near a grocery bag.
Be honest - the other things I’m really fighting here are that saying “Religion is the people’s opiate” (which Russian said that?) and the crazy fundamentalists who’ve co-opted all spiritual experiences in the name of their particular causes. Oh, and the atrocities that have been done in the name of religion for millennia (and continue to this day). I’m claiming spirituality as a personal experience that exists outside of those things; I’m saying you don’t have to be stupid, fanatical, or serving of a religion in order to have spirituality.
There are a lot of wonderful books on religion and spirituality, if you’re interested in having a spiritual experience of life. If you prefer not to, that’s fine. Plenty of ironworkers and artists don’t - I wasn’t speaking for everyone.
There are many practicers of religions who help their followers find a spiritual existence. And some people have spiritual experiences in their contact with nature, art, music, science, knowledge, children, serving humanity. Death - some people find a God then, either in anticipation of their own, or while dealing with someone else’s. There’s no one “right” way of doing this.
Here are some of my favorite books:
Illusions by Richard Bach Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him by Sheldon Kopp Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch Four Noble Truths by the Dalai Lama Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
No, my soul does not exist in a jar with jelly beans ;). My soul is the conduit through which the Infinite Is reaches me, guides me, answers my prayers. My soul is also my individual spirit, the truth about which my life exists. My soul is how I know that I am a part of this world - it’s my experience of “self as other” and that lets me know that when I die I’ll still be.
I always sought church and religion since I was a small child; I’m the one who insisted on going to a Catholic school for first grade. When I pray, I’m aware of an “other” presence; that has been the case since I was 8 years old. And this isn’t a result of training I received - my parents aren’t spiritual, and I only went to that Catholic school for a year & didn’t learn much (for first graders it mostly consisted of drinking 7-Up and singing “Cum Bah Ya”).
When I’m lost, when I’ve let my fears overrun my life, my soul guides me back. When I quiet all of the thoughts in my mind, most days I can hear my soul. When I pray, I get answers - sometimes in the form of a dream, sometimes in the form of a resource; a book, a remark, a TV show I just happen to turn on the next day that covers exactly the questions I was asking. When I was a teenager I’d get my response within about 3 days, but now I think I’m getting better at this because it’s usually within 24 hours.
As I’ve described before, I feel an inner sense of self that’s not the same as my ego (or id/ego/superego, to be more specific). I experience it as an energy. And I already detailed one recent dream on that “witnessing” thread, so I’m not going to copy it here.
There’s too much text & not enough time for me to respond to every remark.
. Yes, I guess I’m saying yes to that. And isn’t it the case that most drug abust counselors are themselves former addicts?
Yes, I’ll agree that spirituality doesn’t lend itself to materialistic/empirical descriptions that can be effectively debated in this forum. So what? That’s the point - not everything that’s knowable is explainable in this forum in your terms. To argue that you’ve set forth the criteria for all real knowledge, to argue that something doesn’t exist because you don’t know how to look for it, to pooh-pooh spirituality without having studied it yourself; I believe you’re mistaken in your approach. Yes, there are rules to this game, but it’s only a game and not life itself.
blowero I guess we look at art differently, too; I thought that Robert Henri quote was absolutely fantastic, it really spoke to me. I hope you won’t suggest that a quote has to be true for everyone in order to exist ;).
I may be misunderstanding your argument, but isn’t it possible that life itself is the thing that exists whose existence proves the soul? I realize that’s bad philosophical form, very tautological, but it does describe my experience - and I won’t let my life be defined exclusively by good philosophical form.
You guys keep trying to get me to put this in your terms, and I have tried but apparently I can’t. That’s okay. Your terms, your logical way of looking at things, is not all there is. It works for you, you like it; fine. If you go through your whole life doing things that way, great. Personally I don’t.
Be honest - the other things I’m really fighting here are that saying “Religion is the people’s opiate” (which Russian said that?) and the crazy fundamentalists who’ve co-opted all spiritual experiences in the name of their particular causes. And the horrible atrocities that have been done in the name of religion for millennia (and continue to this day).
I’m claiming spirituality as a personal experience that exists outside of those things; I’m saying you don’t have to be stupid, fanatical, or serving of a religion in order to have spirituality.
And I don’t understand why you posters refer to the soul as an “excuse”. What’s so wrong w/having a soul? How is it a bad thing to feel connected to a higher power? I don’t want to be aggressive about it, I just don’t understand why the subject raises your ire. If you don’t believe, why do you care? If you’re not threatened by the concept, why attack it so strongly? Frankly some of you guys really sound defensive, as if you suspect that you’re the ones missing it. I don’t know, that’s a question you have to ask yourselves.
There are a lot of wonderful books on religion and spirituality, if any of you are interested in having a spiritual experience of life. If you prefer not to, that’s fine. Plenty of ironworkers and artists don’t - I wasn’t speaking for everyone. None of you have said that you used to believe but now don’t; the impressions I’m getting are that you can’t find anything to believe in, but you would like to. I would suggest that you change your methods of search.
There are many practicers of religions who help their followers find a spiritual existence. And some people have spiritual experiences in their contact with nature, art, music, science, knowledge, children, serving humanity. Death - some people find a God then, either in anticipation of their own, or while dealing with someone else’s. There’s no one “right” way of doing this. It requires opening your heart and mind and being vulnerable.
Thanks - you reminded me to put Aldous Huxley on my list. Not that I’m condoning illegal use of drugs ;). And I’m not even going to go into my knowledge of leather-clad S & M bars.
Here are some of my favorite books:
Illusions by Richard Bach Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him by Sheldon Kopp Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley Four Noble Truths by the Dalai Lama Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
No, my soul does not exist in a jar with jelly beans ;). My soul is the conduit through which the Infinite Is reaches me, guides me, answers my prayers. My soul is also my individual spirit, the truth about which my life exists. My soul is how I know that I am a part of this world - it’s my experience of “self as other” and that lets me know that when I die I’ll still be.
I always sought church and religion since I was a small child; I’m the one who insisted on going to a Catholic school for first grade. When I pray, I’m aware of an “other” presence; that has been the case since I was 8 years old. And this isn’t a result of training I received - my parents aren’t spiritual, and I only went to that Catholic school for a year & didn’t learn much (for first graders it mostly consisted of drinking 7-Up and singing “Cum Bah Ya”).
When I’m lost, when I’ve let my fears overrun my life, my soul guides me back. When I quiet all of the thoughts in my mind, most days I can hear my soul. When I pray, I get answers - sometimes in the form of a dream, sometimes in the form of a resource; a book, a remark, a TV show I just happen to turn on the next day that covers exactly the questions I was asking. When I was a teenager I’d get my response within about 3 days, but now I think I’m getting better at this because it’s usually within 24 hours.
As I’ve described before, I feel an inner sense of self that’s not the same as my ego (or id/ego/superego, to be more specific). I experience it as an energy. And I already detailed one recent dream on that “witnessing” thread, so I’m not going to copy it here.
There’s too much text & not enough time for me to respond to every remark.
. Yes, I guess I’m saying yes to that. And isn’t it the case that most drug abust counselors are themselves former addicts?
Yes, I’ll agree that spirituality doesn’t lend itself to materialistic/empirical descriptions that can be effectively debated in this forum. So what? That’s the point - not everything that’s knowable is explainable in this forum in your terms. To argue that you’ve set forth the criteria for all real knowledge, to argue that something doesn’t exist because you don’t know how to look for it, to pooh-pooh spirituality without having studied it yourself; I believe you’re mistaken in your approach. Yes, there are rules to this game, but it’s only a game and not life itself.
blowero I guess we look at art differently, too; I thought that Robert Henri quote was absolutely fantastic, it really spoke to me. I hope you won’t suggest that a quote has to be true for everyone in order to exist ;).
I may be misunderstanding your argument, but isn’t it possible that life itself is the thing that exists whose existence proves the soul? I realize that’s bad philosophical form, very tautological, but it does describe my experience - and I won’t let my life be defined exclusively by good philosophical form.
You guys keep trying to get me to put this in your terms, and I have tried but apparently I can’t. That’s okay. Your terms, your logical way of looking at things, is not all there is. It works for you, you like it; fine. If you go through your whole life doing things that way, great. Personally I don’t.
I’m not going to write any more on this, I just want to point out one last thing. Note that I haven’t at any point suggested that a particular church or religion is the key - there’s no proseltyzing in my posts. I’m just telling you about something powerful in my life, sharing that information. I’m not telling you that you have to agree.
I agree insofar as I understand what you are saying. And indeed, as I’ve implied, the cheif problem is that the word “spirituality” has multiple meanings. On one hand it means something like “feeling of deep emotional connection to everything” and on another it means “belief in various supernatural phenomena.” I am very spiritual in the first sense. But I don’t use the word because it almost always gets me into trouble with the second sense.
I’m not clear on that line of thought, but I gather the argument is that the concept of a soul is used as a sort of cheap out to a number of philosophical mysteries.
None of it is bad. But whether these things are true are important existential questions.
Again and again we return to this: missing what?
Like all people trying to describe mystical experiences, you are running into a self-defeating paradox: without wanting to, you are trying to set up rules and gradients and ranks that define what a true or appropriate experience is. You are implying that you have it, and we don’t, and that we are closed off to it. But that’s wrong and insulting. We all have our powerful internal experiences, and they are all important to us. If you left it at that, everything would be fine, and it would be a process of sharing. The problem is that you conclude from YOUR experiences some claims about objective reality, and this in turn impinges not only on difficultly of supporting objective truth, but also all our own experiences (I don’t “feel” like there are things called souls: therefore, is my internal experience deficient in some way).
What really bothers me is the way you put this down to some lack of openess or spiritual instruction. In reality, I’ve spent tons of times with deeply religious people, listening to them, learning from them, having fun with them. I’ve meditated, prayed, communed with nature, been part of countless art projects and religious services. To argue that I don’t know “how to look” or that I haven’t studied spiritual belief (1st and 2nd sense) is absurd.
To say that something is knowable is imply a certain thing: that there IS an intelligible explanation for why it is true and not false. I certainly have no desire to limit you to any particular system of common verification, but as I’ve said time and time again, you DO still have to suggest some alternative form of verification. “Because that’s what I feel” is not a system of common verification. I cannot feel what you feel to confirm it, and almost certainly if I experienced the things you do, I would feel very different about it because I am a different person. Worse, it is precisely our beliefs and feelings that we are comitted to recognizing are faliable. That’s the whole POINT of needing some system of verification to subject them to: if our feelings and beliefs were infaliable (which is essentially what you are demanding we accept for YOUR feelings, but not for OURS) then we wouldn’t even need empiricism: we’d just be right about everything.
I am not arguing that anything does not exist. I am arguing that I see no good reason to think THAT a soul exists, and indeed that the concept is so poorly defined that we can barely even tell what we’re talking about.
If you have some way to offer to look for it that includes some system of verification, rather than simple belief, you can offer it. As of now, all you are really saying is “here, try believing that it’s true: that’ll show you that it’s true!” Well, yes, sort of. But what we were talking about is knowledge, not belief. Whether or not I believe something is true is not particularly helpful in getting to the truth of the matter.
Hmmmm…I’m not sure what you’re trying to say; is that a joke of sorts?
I actually suspect that we both have similar experiences with art; the only difference is that you attribute the experience to a supernatural entity, whereas I attribute it to humanity. The end result is really the same. Some religious people have an unfortunate tendency to fear and loathe non-religious people because of the mistaken impression that they are robotic and unfeeling. They seem to think that because all of their feelings are channelled through their god-belief, that this must necessarily be the only possible way to experience feelings. But nothing could be further from the truth. If you’ve only come across me in GD, you aren’t going to know how I feel about art, for example, because that is the province of Cafe Society. So don’t make the assumption that everyone in GD is a “Spock”, without emotions. Also, non-religious people tend not to “witness”, so you aren’t going to get a lot of people saying “If you reject God, you will experience great joy just like I do.” But that doesn’t mean we don’t experience these things.
I actually didn’t say anything about your Henri quote, so I’m not sure why you brought that up. But since you did bring it up, I object to the implication you seem to be making. As Apos pointed out, I think you’re conflating the meaning of “spiritual” that we are using in this debate (belief in spirits) with the much broader sense of being artistic. Your use of that quote suggests that you think the former is required in order for the latter to exist. It’s like you’re saying “Well you may be an artist, but you don’t understand art as deeply as I do”. I disagree.
Besides which, none of this reflects on the ultimate, objective truth of the matter. Just for the sake of argument, even if your belief in souls did give you a deeper understanding of art, it still has so bearing on whether souls objectively exist as physical entities.
Wow, nice dodge of the question. I hardly even saw it. How about answering now?
Serious? I can’t tell my son that he shouldn’t get addicted to heroin if I haven’t been addicted myself? I’m not allowed to have an opinion about heroin legality without having tried it? You seriously say these things?
I find this interesting. I hope you’ll allow me to relate my own experience without feeling like it’s any sort of attack on yours, but rather so that you can get an idea of what other people with differing opinions have found on their own…
Only so far as a few years ago, I didn’t need any waiting period such as you describe. My spirituality was more of the direct hotline variant. Most of the time, I just knew what God wanted of me, but on relatively rare occasions when I felt particularly weak about life in general or perhaps in holding up my own responsibilities, I could ask God about things, and the voice was right there in my mind if I wanted it. Not as “hearing voices”, you understand, but like a conversation you might mentally have with yourself. Only with God.
Anyway, I had this ability for a good portion of my life… from early childhood (4 or 5-ish) up to around age 24 or so, when I began to doubt it, to wonder about my assumptions of things in general. And I came to realize that I could make that voice say anything I wanted to. I could make it evil. I could make it James Earl Jones. I could make it say, “Luke, I’m your father!” The questions that I didn’t know the answers to… well, coincidentally enough that was God’s will. Father knows best. Thy will be done. So I realized that it was far less probable that I had a direct mental connection to God, and far more probable that it was simply the very involved construction of God in my mind that I had created as a child.
Sure, it was very nice to understand the world in that way. Beautiful in some respects. Who doesn’t want to have access to the mind of God? But I’m pretty sure it wasn’t real. It’s not that I hadn’t questioned my faith in God/souls/etc. before, but it just so happened I had never done so in that manner.
Now, I’m not saying your experience is invalidated by this story. My personal experience doesn’t disprove God in general… it might go a long way toward disproving the very specific version of God I believed in, the one that I thought talked directly to me, but it’s anecdotal and therefore doesn’t necessarily say anything definite about metaphysics. Yet it does, I must admit, say something about my own potentiality for self-deception. Either I was right in my conclusions before or I’m right now, but one way or the other, I’m know I’m capable of leading myself astray–as a result it’s something I’m very conscious of now.
So you see, some of us have experiences that lead us in opposing directions. I don’t know if you’re deceiving yourself or if your connection is an existential one–I’m not trying to suggest either. As you can imagine, I could formulate an opinion on your account based on my own experiences and perceptions, just as I expect you could do the reverse on my little tale. But, considering that experience again, I’m guessing that wouldn’t really get us anywhere, would it?
Our own personal revelations most often mean more to us than do stories from others. It seems to me a fairly reasonable conclusion that most adults with sufficient experience usually can not be argued one way or the other on whether or not souls (or God(s)) exist. And mocking in either direction is probably only counter-productive.
I wasn’t going to respond but I feel compelled - apos and blowero I haven’t claimed superiority in any way, shape or form. I have described my experiences, spent a great deal of time composing posts to share with you, and granted you YMMV. The OP question was, does the soul exist, and my answer is Yes. From there all hell broke loose.
Yes, blowero, I was teasing you. Of course you don’t have to have the same experience I do in order to be an artist. I never even said people had to have spiritual experiences similar to mine in order to be spiritual. You’ve got me coming & going - if I don’t describe my soul & experiences, then I’ve failed to show that anything exists; if I do describe it, then somehow you see that as exclusionary. How does that work?
I’ll grant you this - no, I don’t think souls exist as independent physical entities. I’ve never seen one walking down the street, I can’t weigh it in the lab; these are points I’ve granted all along. My point is that one can know things that don’t walk down streets or lend themselves to laboratory observations - such as love, emotions, spirituality, etc. Hold an infant & feel; it’s amazing.
Apos I don’t even know what you’re arguing about at this point.
I addressed the nature of knowledge earlier, that it is a construct. If you’re already spiritual & you’re comfortable with that, then what is it you want from me? “Verification” is a personal matter & it’s up to you.
You want things explained in a way that makes perfect sense to you, that doesn’t challenge any of your assumptions about life - well guess what, if it could be done that way it wouldn’t need to be done because you’d already know. If you want to know something that you don’t already know, then you have to change your assumptions. That’s the case with all learning, isn’t it?
You’re the ones who said you didn’t have a soul, not me!
No, my claims are about my experiences; you guys are the ones who want me to turn it into your version of objective reality because only then can it be “believed”. My argument is that empiricism isn’t the only form of/source of knowledge; my only assertion is that you don’t know everything. No one does.
WTF? No, I never said you were deficient; I said that our experiences are different. You’re the ones telling me I can’t have a soul because they don’t exist. I don’t agree.
And priceguy I didn’t say you couldn’t have an opinion about drug addiction, or contain knowledge (in the form of the construct shared by society) - you asked if you could “know” it, which I took to mean direct, experiential, personal, gut-level knowledge. You want to really know something, yeah, you’ve got to do it yourself. I don’t think mountain climbers would disagree.
mrblue92 I found your story quite interesting and I’m glad you wrote; I’m feeling much calmer from having read your post. And I really don’t mean to mock people - I guess I sound more aggressive than I feel, I’m actually quite shocked to find so many people taking up the gauntlet against my view & have the sense that I’m quite outnumbered. I don’t care if people hold views different from my own, and it puzzles me that they deny me mine. What’s so wrong with someone saying “yes, I have a soul”? How does that take away from anyone else? Nobody had to argue, they could have just given their views.
I have wondered about the distinction between spirit & conscience, because I believe they serve similar purposes. I agree it can be a slippery slope; I can make an internal voice say whatever I want to hear, too. But it’s not the same, for me, as being guided by my soul.
Personally I’ve experienced dissonance between the two, conscience and spirit - the difference is my parents helped train my conscience, so it reflects some of their neuroses. My soul is my own.
The big thing I experience that convinces me of the distinction is the “art spirit” as described by Robert Henri. Or Aldous Huxley, for that matter - yes, Priceguy I think he got there in his way, too. Frankly I’ve wondered if kids (& adults) who do drugs aren’t on that journey sometimes. Mere coincidence that drug use is up & church attendance down? That AA & NA & CA & recovery programs use steps with a God component? I realize it’s controversial, but clearly for a lot of people it works.
And mrblue92 I can understand what you’re saying about losing faith - when you lead yourself astray, where do you go back to?
One of the exercises I enjoy, it’s described in Illusions is to ask a question and then open a book to any page, at random, and see what’s there. My husband, the one who earns his living empirically, gets spooked when he does that one.
I will share one more anecdote. I had an experience once in which God’s voice became in my head, when I was seriously considering suicide. I didn’t “hear” it, it wasn’t my internal voice or the voice of anyone I knew. I was 14 years old, alone, & quite hysterically upset, making plans for how to do the deed. And a presence said in my mind “Now is not your time”. Suddenly I calmed down, and went to sleep.
But you are still conflating belief with empirical knowledge. Your wording of our point is that only objective reality can be believed. NO, that’s not it at all. You can believe anything you want. BELIEF and OBJECTIVE REALITY are 2 different things. But I choose to believe only what is objective, whereas you choose to believe other things. That’s fine, as long as you don’t say that the two are the same.
Please stop saying that. There is no censorship going on here.
But that’s not all you said. You might want to take a look at some of Polycarp’s postings; he usually does a good job of explain his own POV without implying that others are wrong. And notice that he almost never gets “piled on”. The reason people keep disagreeing with you is that you keep saying things that spark disagreement. There’s nothing wrong with that; just don’t be so surprised when it happens.
That’s called a poll. This, on the other hand, is a debate.
Yes… but the answer is that these are different sorts of “knowing” than the “knowing” that is relevant to a question about the existence of a soul.
You’re playing the same game. When we say that we see no reason to think we have souls, we are talking about the definition used by the OP: an actual existential entity. But then you twist the meaning of the word “soul” to mean “some sort of important emotional connection to and awe of the world around around us” and assert that THAT is what we said we don’t believe we have. I cried foul about this several times, and yet it comes up again and again and again.
Yet again, you retreat to something we all obviously agree upon, making it seem as if anyone disagreed with you here. All I said was that if you want to knowledge, you need to justify it somehow: you can’t just willy-nilly claim something like “there is a soul” and say that it’s true because of some inexplicable system of “knowing” that you’ve never explained.
The problem with our faliability, our very limited range of knowledge, is that it is VERY hard to really know or be sure about things. What’s problematic is that you are both asserting this to pre-emptively discard our arguments, but then ignoring it when you inexplicably claim to know that a soul exists.
We are arguing over whether or not there is any good reason to think that such an entity as a soul exists. You alternatively claim to not be claiming anything, just sharing, and then turning right around and claiming that souls DO exist. Can you at least understand how confusing that behavior is?
The key issue moving from here on out is this: a) what do you mean by a soul and b) how do you know it exists?
