What makes people irrational thinkers?

[vulcanlogician]

So what's the genuine distinction between mind and soul, other than there are two different Greek words for the things?

The description I gave above was: 

Soul is more generally about the structure of our animate lives — it is our animation and how our animation functions. The Latin is anima. This includes but is not limited to the actions of the mind. It also includes the activities that the rest of your body is up to right now, including whatever your liver and your gall bladder are doing.

The simplest possible answer is "that which makes us alive." 

Greek philosophers defined the soul in various ways, some of which included some of the actions of the mind. 

As you might expect, Aristotle's answer was the most worked-out, consistent, and hard to argue with: "a system of abilities possessed and manifested by animate bodies of suitable structure." 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/

I carefully read your previous post when you posted it. There are distinctions I didn't really agree with. Or, at the very least, I was apprehensive about having had read Plato wrong after all these years. But I gave it some thought and concluded that I probably wasn't reading him wrong. 

Soul and mind have been colloquialized over the centuries. The average person may think of "soul" as some floating vaporous thing that leaves our body when we die. They may never ascribe to it sensations of desire or the capacity of thought as Plato did. Those things they would say are things related to the mind or brain. Plato packages all these things together. That's how I understand him, anyway. Things psychologists ascribe to the "mind" in their writings, Plato ascribed to the soul.

What I mean by soul is all the experiential things of our inner world. Maybe the unconscious too. Are you familiar with Jung? He used the word "psyche" in his writings. When I use the word soul (or mind), I basically mean what Jung meant when he used the word "psyche." I've always assumed that Plato meant something similar. Unless I am in error as to how to understand Plato, he agrees with Jung except Plato also thinks the psyche is indestructible, eternal, and can recall things it has learned in previous lives under the right conditions. To me, Nous would just be a part of the psyche. How exactly do we understand Plato differently? And, if I'm in error, I would like to be corrected. I looked up Nous on wikipedia and learned quickly that it can have many different interpretations... from intelligence or cognitive activity to awareness itself. As cognitive activity, I'd say nous is a part of the mind. But if it's awareness itself, then I may be conflating nous and psyche.

I've always dug Aristotle's theory of plant, animal souls since I first learned of them in school. It's way more materialistic than Plato's theories. (Perhaps that's why it's an improvement over Plato?) -shrug-