# The Soul - A second level of conciousness **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 18, 2008, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-soul-a-second-level-of-conciousness/456975 "2008-07-18T17:53:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![epb5007](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/0ea827/32.png) [@epb5007](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epb5007)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-soul-a-second-level-of-conciousness/456975/1 "2008-07-18T17:53:51Z")
Descartes once said “I think therefore I am”, which he thought was the only credible belief that existance was real. The fact that he could think and use his mind was the ultimate proof that he was alive. Later there was a man by the name of Sartare about 300 years after Descartes who analyzed this phrase, “I think therefore I am”. He believed that the level of conciousness that does the thinking is completely different from the level of conciousness that knows you are thinking. So in essence the fact that one is thinking may not be the ultimate truth as to why they are alive, perhaps there is a deeper level of conciousness that knows you are alive, thinking, dreaming and so on, which is also known as the soul? Cecil - What is your take on this notion of the soul? ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-soul-a-second-level-of-conciousness/456975/2 "2008-07-18T18:24:54Z")
This looks like one for Great Debates. Moved from General Questions to Great Debates. **Gfactor** General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-soul-a-second-level-of-conciousness/456975/3 "2008-07-18T18:49:44Z")
[QUOTE=epb5007] Later there was a man by the name of Sartare about 300 years after Descart Cecil - What is your take on this notion of the soul? [/QUOTE] That would probably be \* sartre\*. And, just as an information point, Cecil has no soul. So, you’re barking up the wrong tree. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-soul-a-second-level-of-conciousness/456975/4 "2008-07-18T19:00:38Z")
Nobody knows how consciousness works, but it’s pretty reasonable to doubt that there’s only one level of it. (If there were, what of the so-called “sub-conscious”?) So maybe there’s dozends of levels of it all shifting around; nobody knows. But to merit the label “soul” I’d imagine it would have to have some sort of permanence past death. And there is _no_ evidence that that occurs at all, for _any_ part or layer of the consciousness. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-soul-a-second-level-of-conciousness/456975/5 "2008-07-18T19:16:15Z")
Sure, we have both awareness, and self-awareness. Do you have evidence that the latter arises from non-physical processes, instead of just being another brain process? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-soul-a-second-level-of-conciousness/456975/6 "2008-07-18T19:23:15Z")
[This](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-paul_sartre#Thought) might be what the OP is talking about: > [@](#): > > The basis of Sartre’s existentialism is found in The Transcendence of the Ego. To begin with, the thing-in-itself is infinite and overflowing. Sartre refers to any direct consciousness of the thing-in-itself as a “pre-reflective consciousness.” Any attempt to describe, understand, historicize etc. the thing-in-itself, Sartre calls “reflective consciousness.” There is no way for the reflective consciousness to subsume the pre-reflective, and so reflection is fated to a form of anxiety, i.e. the human condition. The reflective consciousness in all its forms, (scientific, artistic or otherwise) can only limit the thing-in-itself by virtue of its attempt to understand or describe it. It follows, therefore, that any attempt at self-knowledge (self-consciousness - a reflective consciousness of an overflowing infinite) is a construct that fails no matter how often it is attempted. Consciousness is consciousness of itself insofar as it is consciousness of a transcendent object. > > The same holds true about knowledge of the “Other.” The “Other” (meaning simply beings or objects that are not the self) is a construct of reflective consciousness. One must be careful to understand this more as a form of warning than as an ontological statement. However, there is an implication of solipsism here that Sartre considers fundamental to any coherent description of the human condition.[10] Sartre overcomes this solipsism by a kind of ritual. Self consciousness needs “the Other” to prove (display) its own existence. It has a “masochistic desire” to be limited, i.e. limited by the reflective consciousness of another subject. This is expressed metaphorically in the famous line of dialogue from No Exit, “Hell is other people.” > > The main idea of Jean-Paul Sartre is that we are “condemned to be free.”[11] This theory relies upon his atheism, and is formed using the example of the paper-knife. Sartre says that if one considered a paper-knife, one would assume that the creator would have had a plan for it: an essence. Sartre said that human beings have no essence before their existence because there is no Creator. Thus: “existence precedes essence”.[12] Note that these are observations/conjectures in pure philosophy – not psychology or theology. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-soul-a-second-level-of-conciousness/456975/7 "2008-07-18T19:36:36Z")
It’s not a “second level” of consciousness - the “first” level is a precis, an executive summary, a _Dummies Guide to You_. There is no “real you” homunculus watching what the outer you does like [in a theatre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_theater). What you are is a committee, or a mini-Great Debates forum (!). Each of us is [Legion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_Drafts_Model), for every “one” is many.