# Where Is Your Soul? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 17, 2003, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-your-soul/208042 "2003-10-17T16:13:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-your-soul/208042/121 "2003-11-29T01:28:26Z")
I will answer the OP with a question: Where is Pi (3.14…)? I think when you find Pi you will find the soul. In other words, a soul can be said to exist in the same way Pi can be said to exist. They are both real concepts, but while what Pi represents in generally agreed upon-- what a soul represents generally isn’t. Both are real-- neither is material. Both exist only so far as human thinking exist. So perhaps one way to define a soul would be as “human thinking.” That is why humans are considered to have a soul while animals are not. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_great_unwashed/32/4791_2.png) [@The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-your-soul/208042/122 "2003-11-29T01:45:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by I Love Me, Vol. I \* > \*\*I will answer the OP with a question: Where is Pi (3.14…)? I think when you find Pi you will find the soul. > > In other words, a soul can be said to exist in the same way Pi can be said to exist. They are both real concepts, but while what Pi represents in generally agreed upon-- what a soul represents generally isn’t. Both are real-- neither is material. Both exist only so far as human thinking exist. > > So perhaps one way to define a soul would be as “human thinking.” That is why humans are considered to have a soul while animals are not. \*\* 1)Socrates you are not 2)Assertions that the soul exists mean (and I unapologetically use a technical term here) diddly-squat and, um, 3)Your ultimate paragraph seems to have a certain, um, tartan pattern about it. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-your-soul/208042/123 "2003-11-29T05:04:43Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by GodlessSkeptic \* > \*\*Fat chance unwashed.If it’s one thing I have learned it’s that rabid anti-skeptics do not employ the phrases “I was mistaken” , “I am sorry” and “You(the skeptic) make a good point which I hadn’t thought of.”. > > Remember Lekatt has stated that logic means nothing to him and is inapplicable to existential debates.From this position NOTHING but “I agree with Lekatt” will hold any water to him. > > The funniest thing is that he accuses you of being ‘selective’ with your quoting even while HE is busily quoting out of context and such to support a mischaracterisation of US! \*\* Can you not see quoting a sentence or paragraph out of the context of the full post is changing the flow of the post. Maybe not? Love ---
**Author:** ![TVAA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c57346/32.png) [@TVAA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVAA)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-your-soul/208042/124 "2003-11-29T12:21:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dakravel \* > \*\*I’m saying in a lot of sciences, Occam’s razor has as much chance as being wrong as in being right. This is because in any situation on the bleeding edge of science, we are rarely aware of all information and variables in a situation. \*\* So? A simple but obviously erroneous explanation isn’t validated by Occam’s Razor: quite the opposite. “All things being equal” means that the available explanations must all explain the observed phenomena equally well before the Razor is even applied. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_great_unwashed/32/4791_2.png) [@The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-your-soul/208042/125 "2003-11-29T14:17:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lekatt \* > \*\*Can you not see quoting a sentence or paragraph out of the context of the full post is changing the flow of the post. > > Maybe not? > > Love \*\* No it didn’t **lekatt** , it did not change the “flow of the post”, not one little bit. Your attempted rebuttal of **GodlessSkeptic** ’s assertion that _“(sceptics do not respond) to a supernaturalist’s / paranormalist’s / theist’s claims by simply calling them ‘silly’ or ‘delusional’”_ amounted to a list of supposed instances of such in this very thread. Exactly two of these instances were written by me – I addressed only those. There is nothing about this that is “not being honest and straightforward”, no “flow” was changed, specific items that I was qualified to speak on were addressed. Your description of my post as “not being honest and straightforward” is just a mealy-mouthed way of calling me a liar. I insist that you withdraw that description. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-your-soul/208042/126 "2003-11-29T16:20:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Czarcasm \* > \*\*I think that basing a philosophy on the extremely dubious idea that something without form or substance can posess any attributes at all, let alone the incredible attributes some assign to it, was the silliest concept that ever sprang from the mind of man. > > IMHO, of course. \*\* **Czarcasm** ’s comment from page 1, quoted above, is a very clear and practical approach, from a Materialist viewpoint, to the nebulous spiritualism of religious and New Age metaphysics. (I use “Materialism,” with a capital M, to define the metaphysics, shared by proably a majority of board members, that anything that is “real” is at least theoretically accessible to the senses (perhaps amplified by instruments), quantifiable and measurable.) However, a great deal of what we consider “real” is not material. The laws of physics are not the ink with which they are written or printed, nor even the formulae in which they are expressed, but the regularities of nature which they describe. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction” was a quite real phenomenon long before there were humans to describe and measure it. Even **Czarcasm** ’s post and this response make use of real things that do not have true physical existence. It was composed in MSIE (or perhaps Navigator, Mozilla, etc.) and communicated via vBB. These are software programs which are not identical to the disk space they take up or the computers on which they run. They can be deleted and reinstalled; they can survive the fatal crash of the computer on which they run; and they constitute arrays of electrons, 0s and 1s, positively and negatively charged minidomains, etc., only in the context of where they are stored and run. It would theoretically be possible to “translate” the MSIE program into an array of up and down quarks, magnetically charged asteroids, or even to write it out in Egyptian hieroglyphics. It is the pattern, not the medium, that constitutes the software program. If the term “soul” has a practical meaning, in its use as distinguished from “body,” in a Materialist metaphysic, it would constitute the “software” of the body, the pattern that reasons, reacts, maintains self-awareness and time-binding, that learns, feels, thinks, controlling the operation of the body as the program does the operation of the computer. Like all software programs, it is dependent on the functionality of the hardware on which it runs. A body that has suffered a massive stroke or a fatal heart attack can no more run its “soulware” than a computer whose hard disk has crashed or whose power source has failed can run its software. But this concept allows for some room for non-Materialst beliefs as well. Because a program is not dependent on the particular computer on which it runs; it can be backed up and loaded on another computer, even one with a quite different operating system in some cases. It is quite plausible to view the concepts of salvation and reincarnation (antithetical in their belif systems) in just this regard – that the soul is “backed up” and loaded elsewhere – the “resurrected body” of I Corinthians 15 or the newborn into which the spirit is reincarnated in that metaphysics. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_great_unwashed/32/4791_2.png) [@The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-your-soul/208042/127 "2003-11-29T16:43:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > \*\*But this concept allows for some room for non-Materialst beliefs as well. Because a program is not dependent on the particular computer on which it runs; it can be backed up and loaded on another computer, even one with a quite different operating system in some cases. > > It is quite plausible to view the concepts of salvation and reincarnation (antithetical in their belif systems) in just this regard – that the soul is “backed up” and loaded elsewhere – the “resurrected body” of I Corinthians 15 or the newborn into which the spirit is reincarnated in that metaphysics.\*\* Quite plausible? I don’t think so – when we “back-up” and “download” software there is a wholly explainable and understood mechanism, the electrical highs and lows of the bit-transfer in the physical- (e.g. a data-cable), or, non-physical- (e.g. infra-red connection) pipeline are undeniable. Not so “your” backing up of the soul? How is the pipeline manifested? Can we observe the streaming data? If it is temporarily stored somewhere, then where and in what medium? You write beautifully, btw. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2003, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-your-soul/208042/128 "2003-11-29T17:37:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Great Unwashed \* > \*\*1)Socrates you are not > \*\* Actually, the bit you quoted of **I Love Me, Vol. I** is quite close to one of the theories put forward by ‘Socrates’ in Plato’s _Phaedo_, 78d-79b: > [@](#): > > - Is that idea or essence, which in the dialectical process we define as essence of true existence-whether essence of equality, beauty, or anything else: are these essences, I say, liable at times to some degree of change? or are they each of them always what they are, having the same simple, self-existent and unchanging forms, and not admitting of variation at all, or in any way, or at any time? > (…) > - And these you can touch and see and perceive with the senses, but the unchanging things you can only perceive with the mind-they are invisible and are not seen? > (…) > - Well, then, he added, let us suppose that there are two sorts of existences,one seen, the other unseen. > - Let us suppose them. > - The seen is the changing, and the unseen is the unchanging. > - That may be also supposed. > - And, further, is not one part of us body, and the rest of us soul? > (…) > Then the soul is more like to the unseen, and the body to the seen? I don’t buy the argument, but the comparison to Socrates seems a bit ironic. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-is-your-soul/208042.md?page=6)