What the hell is a 'soul' anyway?

[Ronkonkoma]

The soul, like math, has no weight or mass, you can't see it and it doesn't alter light.

Like math, you can study its effects because the soul gives human life its fundamental essence and value.

This concept became more refined after Christian teaching met the philosophies of Plato, Aristoteles, and Socrates.

The human soul houses the core of human desire, and as such is an important basis of our understanding of personhood.

This has implications on human dignity, human rights, responsibilities, and freedom. If you ignore these things, you see important implications, the culmination of which are the Gulags of the Soviet Union for instance, or the Holocaust, or the carpet bombing of Dresden and perhaps the destruction of Hiroshima.  

All these things (dignity, rights, responsibilities, freedom), like the soul, are immaterial.

Value, like the soul, is also immaterial.

I can sign off on all of this except for the portion I lined out, and I only lined it out because I think it is a little presumptuous to assume the soul is a purely good thing.  

But look at all the additional assumptions you make about the soul based on Christian dogma.  There is no other reason to think it is eternal or the handiwork of a god.

Here is an alternative way to attach meaning to "soul" along with "god".  When a woman becomes pregnant a new on-board god is also born (gods are not eternal except collectively).  As the brain develops it becomes organized first in ways which are generic for chordates, mammals, primates and finally humans.  Somewhere early along the way the mind develops dual processors with the capacity to monitor separate things.  In humans and quite possibly earlier than that, one of those processors becomes specialized as the conscious mind.  Now the "soul" is earlier than the conscious mind and therefore carries the vast majority of the information which makes you a mammal, a person and a particular self.  But the conscious mind in the human is separated from the innate, earlier and more vast processor to a much greater extent than in other animals.  The processor not associated with the conscious mind can be thought of as the "soul".  Our conscious minds experience enormous independence but alas that means they are subject to becoming far more alienated from the soul.  Perhaps religion exists to ritually connect the conscious mind to the soul of i

Sure Boss, well let me talk a little about neurodevelopment and personality... My sources are; "neurodevelopment and the origin of the self" - by Dr. Allen schore, UCLA Davis

we are all born with our set of genes, but that is only part of the story of personality and identity.

The expression of those genes strongly depends on the environment.

At birth, the human brain is quite immature, and during the first three years of life there is an explosion of brain growth. By the end of those first three years, 80% of the adult brain mass has already formed.this is a called a "critical period" where the brain RETAINS the environment but does not RECALL specific memories. Whatever happens during this time is unconscious. Events happenings in the uterus are also retained including, the heartbeat ? of the mom, her voice, ect...

How is personality aquired? It all happens in the context of mother- infant bonding at a time of critical period of brain growth. This happens by the liberation of neurohormones in the infant brain as a response to mother-infant bonding. That alters neuronal gene expression and the physiology of the brain.

This is done through visual interactions during which emotions are passed on from mother to infant. These are JOYFUL interactions that release dopamine in the limbic system (that is one of the most primitive parts of the brain) that alters neuronal genetic expressions and fosters the outgrowth of neurons in the more advanced outer cortex. (i.e. The right paramedial cortex (the area responsible for attention, motivation, moral thinking, and juditial reasoning)....

the point is, the infant brain's genetic expression and anatomy is directly influence by the mother's (joyful!) gaze. Believe I or not, it is JOY that is essential for the development of personality, interacting with genes and gene expression. During this period of brain growth, infants DON'T UNDERSTAND RELIGION, only in terms of the joyful moments ? of mother- infant bonding. After the first three years, personality is already very much formed, and gene expression and brain growth slow ? down. It is only after this time that children are ale to begin thinking abstractly to understand religion.

why,do I stress joy? Because developmental neurobiologists stress it, and it seems to be at the core of religious experience. It is communicated universally between mothers and infants of all cultures. Bonding and desire. Love that gives of itself. caring and affection... A thirst for God, much like the primitive brain thirsts for water and is hungry for food, and we are fed in the Eucharist as a mother who feeds ber infant by giving a part of herself. Be it the icon of the Virgin and child, to the Eucharist where we are fed like a mother who gives of herself... The similarities are not coincidental since the language of religion speaks to,us at the core of,our longing and desires.

Our understanding of the soul is related to this but different. It is related to personHOOD, not necessarily personality. Its an abstract concept that looks at you in its entirety from conception onward. It looks into the future from the point of conception, when a world of unique possibilities related to you are created by the biological happening of conception. It looks at all of you in the future, the present and the past. As life goes on, possibilities exist in the future, choices are made in the present based on learned values and a unique personality, and those values are made real and irreversible in the past. The past can't be undone, and no matter what happens with the universe, reality itself was altered by your choices.

Personhood comes first. Personality can only happen in the context of personhood.

---

I can sign off on all of this except for the portion I lined out, and I only lined it out because I think it is a little presumptuous to assume the soul is a purely good thing.  

But look at all the additional assumptions you make about the soul based on Christian dogma.  There is no other reason to think it is eternal or the handiwork of a god.

Here is an alternative way to attach meaning to "soul" along with "god".  When a woman becomes pregnant a new on-board god is also born (gods are not eternal except collectively).  As the brain develops it becomes organized first in ways which are generic for chordates, mammals, primates and finally humans.  Somewhere early along the way the mind develops dual processors with the capacity to monitor separate things.  In humans and quite possibly earlier than that, one of those processors becomes specialized as the conscious mind.  Now the "soul" is earlier than the conscious mind and therefore carries the vast majority of the information which makes you a mammal, a person and a particular self.  But the conscious mind in the human is separated from the innate, earlier and more vast processor to a much greater extent than in other animals.  The processor not associated with the conscious mind can be thought of as the "soul".  Our conscious minds experience enormous independence but alas that means they are subject to becoming far more alienated from the soul.  Perhaps religion exists to ritually connect the conscious mind to the soul of i

Sure Boss, well let me talk a little about neurodevelopment and personality... My source is: "neurodevelopment and the origin of the self" - by Dr. Allen schore, UCLA Davis

we are all born with our set of genes, but that is only part of the story of personality and identity.

The expression of those genes strongly depends on the environment.

At birth, the human brain is quite immature, and during the first three years of life there is an explosion of brain growth. By the end of those first three years, 80% of the adult brain mass has already formed.this is a called a "critical period" where the brain RETAINS the environment but does not RECALL specific memories. Whatever happens during this time is unconscious. Events happenings in the uterus are also retained including, the heartbeat ? of the mom, her voice, ect...

How is personality aquired? It all happens in the context of mother- infant bonding at a time of critical period of brain growth. This happens by the liberation of neurohormones in the infant brain as a response to mother-infant bonding. That alters neuronal gene expression and the physiology of the brain.

This is done through visual interactions during which emotions are passed on from mother to infant. These are JOYFUL interactions that release dopamine in the limbic system (that is one of the most primitive parts of the brain) that alters neuronal genetic expressions and fosters the outgrowth of neurons in the more advanced outer cortex. (i.e. The right paramedial cortex (the area responsible for attention, motivation, moral thinking, and juditial reasoning)....

the point is, the infant brain's genetic expression and anatomy is directly influence by the mother's (joyful!) gaze. Believe I or not, it is JOY that is essential for the development of personality, interacting with genes and gene expression. During this period of brain growth, infants DON'T UNDERSTAND RELIGION, only in terms of the joyful moments ? of mother- infant bonding. After the first three years, personality is already very much formed, and gene expression and brain growth slow ? down. It is only after this time that children are ale to begin thinking abstractly to understand religion.

why,do I stress joy? Because developmental neurobiologists stress it, and it seems to be at the core of religious experience. It is communicated universally between mothers and infants of all cultures. Bonding and desire. Love that gives of itself. caring and affection... A thirst for God, much like the primitive brain thirsts for water and is hungry for food, and we are fed in the Eucharist as a mother who feeds ber infant by giving a part of herself. Be it the icon of the Virgin and child, to the Eucharist where we are fed like a mother who gives of herself... The similarities are not coincidental since the language of religion speaks to,us at the core of our most engrained and fundamental longings and desires.

Our understanding of the soul is related to this idea but different. It is related to personHOOD, not necessarily personality. Its an abstract concept that looks at you in its entirety from conception onward. It looks into the future from the point of conception, when a world of unique possibilities related to you are created by the biological happening of conception. It looks at all of you in the future, the present and the past. As life goes on, possibilities exist in the future, choices are made in the present based on learned values and a unique personality, and those values are made real and irreversible in the past. The past can't be undone, and no matter what happens with the universe, reality itself was altered by your choices.

Personhood comes first. Personality can only happen in the context of personhood.