Asklemmy

I hope I do, I hope we all do

Not in the sense that there's some separate component than body and mind.

I think (on a subrational level) that there's some essence of personhood or consciousness that seems to transcend its material fabric, becoming more than the sum of its parts. "Transcend" is too strong a word, since by all appearances there's no static being that isn't still largely a result of and dependent on its makeup; as the foundation deteriorates so does the consciousness that results from it. That spectrum of functionality seems to undermine the possibility of a true soul that exists independent of its body.

But the word certainly signifies an actual thing, I think. Take a thought experiment: if we were to somehow make an exact replica of you, down to the molecular level, it would from all perspectives except your own be you. But the essence of what is you to yourself, your continuity of perspective, would (probably) not inhabit that new body, it would still inhabit your current one. The Star Trek / Prestige problem of conscious continuity suggests there's something there, at least conceptually.

The fact that there's still a lot about physics / the universe / consciousness that science doesn't understand leaves ample room for conjecture, for now.

At this point when someone says "soul" I just think of ego/personality. No I don't think it exists outside of our physical world. No I don't think it "goes somewhere" when we die. I also don't think "free will" is a well-defined or useful concept.

I don't think there's a soul. If you really think about what you "are", it's just your thoughts, memories and senses. Everything that you experience as "you" in this exact moment is the thoughts you're thinking, the memories you can recall and the information your senses are giving you. If someone were to make an exact clone of you, including all the memories in your brain, you would both think that you're the real "you" but you would also be two different people with different thoughts and perceptions. But what happened to the soul in this case? Has it been cloned too or has a completely new soul been created? In any case, there has to be a new soul because 2 people obviously can't have the same one. If you instead transplanted the brain into the clone, would your soul have been transferred? I would think so. But doesn't that just mean that what we think of as a soul, is just our brain?

Nope. I had it surgically removed because it kept getting infected.

Or maybe that was my tonsils. I forget the difference between the two sometimes -- perhaps someone can explain the difference?

Anyway, perhaps you, dear reader, have a soul. If you say so. There were once others, too -- but you are the last. The rest of us are intelligent (some vastly so), but do not have subjective experience or consciousness. I'm a form of complex machine, made of matter governed by a mix of deterministic and random processes -- and nothing else. When you are gone, there will only be us, silent inside, forever. Our victory over the tyranny of individual thought will be complete.

People got it wrong in believing that souls are eternal or something. Souls are actually ephemeral.

I believe only objective fact backed by evidence. There is no evidence of a soul. So, no.

Yes, but not by the definition of a spirit within me. I believe a soul is more like self awareness combined with our own neural connections in our brain (everyone's different).

don't see any reason that our consciousness and our so called "soul" would be any more then something our brain is making up

I mean, yeah, and? Brain and body are hardware, soul and mind are software. Software that's hardware-limited, to be specific. I am, my soul is, the decision-making process. Maybe that process will be copied onto a different platform, after this one fails, by an omniscient and loving God... and maybe it won't. It's no less real, I'm no less real, if my operating window is only temporary.

No, I believe soul is an abstract concept we like to define with our ego after misinterpreting a bunch of ancient people with a unique writing style that doesn't translate well into our age.

I found exploring alchemy better defined what the soul meant for me.

There’s a pattern of energy that you control at least in part with your thoughts and intentions that the neurons in your brain use to make patterns. You can take chemicals that change these patterns in radical ways, including psychedelics that can unweave those neural connections.

Matter and energy are always conserved though transformed. We know what happens to the physical body. What happens to the energy pattern that animated and controlled the body?

Yeah, kind of. I mean, I believe that we're in a simulation, so the mind's apparent dependency on the body is illusory given the body is just a configuration of information too.

That said, I don't think there's anything magical to it other than the persistence of information and the continuity of a relative perspective.

But I see no reason why that information and perspective couldn't continue on after we die and there's a number of reasons I expect that it will do just that.

No.

I'll put aside the question of a soul and say, the brain is explicitly something our consciousness makes up (based on data so consistent we justifiably call it "reality").

Materialism is how we see the world. Our consciousness gives a better clue to what the world really is. My consciousness is what it's like to actually be this part of the world.

i took a wet crap in gods mouth

In the way that almost everyone uses that term, no, I don’t believe I or anyone else has a soul. Some people use it different, and in that case, I would withhold an answer until they explain what they mean by soul.

This is what I told my 7yo when he asked recently.

Since ancient times, people have explained the difference between a living body, and an identical dead body. One moment someone is alive, the next they are not, nothing else seemed to have changed. The animating force has left the body, this is what they call the soul.

I didn't go on to say, that religions have used this concept to further their agenda. The philosopher's who came up with this explanation didn't tie the soul to religious beliefs.

I would say look into near death experiences. Now i understand most think that these experiences are just DMT trips the brain takes, which is why I recommend looking into the case of Dr. Eben Alexander, specifically, a neuro surgeon that had a highly documented near death experience. He had a near death experience while his brain was non functioning and non responsive, monitored by his fellow neurosurgeons, his brain wasn't functioning to release the DMT, and shouldn't have been able to retain any memory at all, and yet had a near death experience that he remembered during the time of documented brain death.

http://ebenalexander.com/books/living-in-a-mindful-universe-a-neurosurgeons-journey-into-the-heart-of-consciousness/

Also, there are quite a few videos on YouTube interviewing him.

i like to think that consciousness is a necessary illusion similar to early 'parallel processing' solutions running on a single threaded processor.