Just a fun philosophy question. I have an opinion, but I was wondering what people think. I love discussing deep stuff like this.
Some philosophers, scientists, etc., believe that our consciousness is the result of all of our physical pieces put together in a certain way. The brain cells, the sensory organs, the neurotransmitters, etc. People who believe that tend to believe they can someday download consciousness into a computer, or even make a computer that is truly conscious and alive (like Data on Star Trek).
Others, however, like a different group of philosophers, theologians, religious leaders, and scientists, believe that our consciousness is more than the sum of our physical parts. Some say it is completely separate from our body, and some say it's an emergent property...kind of like a community is something more and different than the parts that make it up. It takes on it's own spirit. Those people would say there's something special about humans, and all living beings, that is fundamentally different than machines. We are not just biological machines, they would argue--we are greater than that. They might say...we have a soul. Or they might say, we have a...something...that survives and ends up in Nirvana after many lifetimes. Some people would point to mystical encounters, psychic phenomena, dreams, and things we can't explain. There are many forms that this opinion takes but it is basically, in a sense, "humans are more than just the sum of our parts."
So what I want to know, is what do you think, and why?
I will read and respond tomorrow when I've got my phone back. I look forward to reading your deep thoughts and respectful arguments for those of you that feel like answering this! Thank you!
Some philosophers, scientists, etc., believe that our consciousness is the result of all of our physical pieces put together in a certain way. The brain cells, the sensory organs, the neurotransmitters, etc. People who believe that tend to believe they can someday download consciousness into a computer, or even make a computer that is truly conscious and alive (like Data on Star Trek).
Others, however, like a different group of philosophers, theologians, religious leaders, and scientists, believe that our consciousness is more than the sum of our physical parts. Some say it is completely separate from our body, and some say it's an emergent property...kind of like a community is something more and different than the parts that make it up. It takes on it's own spirit. Those people would say there's something special about humans, and all living beings, that is fundamentally different than machines. We are not just biological machines, they would argue--we are greater than that. They might say...we have a soul. Or they might say, we have a...something...that survives and ends up in Nirvana after many lifetimes. Some people would point to mystical encounters, psychic phenomena, dreams, and things we can't explain. There are many forms that this opinion takes but it is basically, in a sense, "humans are more than just the sum of our parts."
So what I want to know, is what do you think, and why?
I will read and respond tomorrow when I've got my phone back. I look forward to reading your deep thoughts and respectful arguments for those of you that feel like answering this! Thank you!
Ooh this is interesting.
In my eyes, it's easier to accept life and death if you believe that death isn't the end to everything that is you. That means defining consciousness as something that exists outside of your body, as an unseen entity, energy or force.
Death is scary, and the idea that there is nothing after death can make life feel meaningless. What's the point if we're forgotten? Believing in something that means existence will continue, helps to soothe the fears we have of death. After all, death isn't the end if consciousness isn't a physical thing. It's a new beginning of something that our physical bodies can't comprehend.
I personally don't believe in religion and consciousness as a non-physical thing for this reason. I can only see this belief as a coping mechanism of a really scary reality that we're essentially insignificant in a universe that is more vast than our brains can even begin to understand. It helps us feel more important and significant by imagining that there is more after our electric signals cease to function.
I also believe that as a species, we have the potential to indeed download our consciousness at some point and exist perpetually, but we only imagine this because of our limited knowledge of the human body and brain. We don't even know why the brain does half the things it does, so even though it seems rational to imagine downloading our consciousness into a computer, a thousand years from now we might not even need computers and instead have advanced medical science to a point where we can grow a new brain. Who knows?
Either way, I understand why people believe in more beyond death and therefore consciousness on a spiritual level. Reality is hard and cold compared to the lure of if you believe hard enough, you don't just stop existing after death. I don't fault anyone for finding comfort in this, really. I just can't really believe it myself.
In my eyes, it's easier to accept life and death if you believe that death isn't the end to everything that is you. That means defining consciousness as something that exists outside of your body, as an unseen entity, energy or force.
Death is scary, and the idea that there is nothing after death can make life feel meaningless. What's the point if we're forgotten? Believing in something that means existence will continue, helps to soothe the fears we have of death. After all, death isn't the end if consciousness isn't a physical thing. It's a new beginning of something that our physical bodies can't comprehend.
I personally don't believe in religion and consciousness as a non-physical thing for this reason. I can only see this belief as a coping mechanism of a really scary reality that we're essentially insignificant in a universe that is more vast than our brains can even begin to understand. It helps us feel more important and significant by imagining that there is more after our electric signals cease to function.
I also believe that as a species, we have the potential to indeed download our consciousness at some point and exist perpetually, but we only imagine this because of our limited knowledge of the human body and brain. We don't even know why the brain does half the things it does, so even though it seems rational to imagine downloading our consciousness into a computer, a thousand years from now we might not even need computers and instead have advanced medical science to a point where we can grow a new brain. Who knows?
Either way, I understand why people believe in more beyond death and therefore consciousness on a spiritual level. Reality is hard and cold compared to the lure of if you believe hard enough, you don't just stop existing after death. I don't fault anyone for finding comfort in this, really. I just can't really believe it myself.
I don't believe in an extra thing beyond the body and the material things, mainly because I don't like to believe at all when it's about things existing or not. I only like to know and have proofs about this.
According to the scientific method, the burden of proof is on the shoulders of the persons claiming that something exist, because it is impossible to prove that something doesn't exist. So, it's on the shoulders of the religious people to prove that their god exist. Unfortunately, no actual proof has been given so far and not been disclaimed by scientists.
It's the same with the immaterial "soul". There is no strong enough proof for now, so I tend to not believe in it.
However, if the existence of such "soul" is found, I will accept it as a truth, because that's how it works.
In my mind, there is actually a soul, but it is as material as our bodies, since it is part of it. It would be created by our memories and experiences, stored in our memory through electric pulses and chemical reactions. Like a program in a computer. It means that computers can indeed have souls as much as we do. Humans aren't special at all on that side. We are just very complex machines.
Well, not "just", because that's not nothing. We are one of the few very complex machines out there to evolve through culture, and that's kinda cool. We sprouted wings in the span of ten years, our claws are made out of the best metal out there, we can kill our preys beyond the curvature of the earth, we can breath in any environment, and something I think no animal can do at this scale, we can share our evolutionary traits (again, through culture).
According to the scientific method, the burden of proof is on the shoulders of the persons claiming that something exist, because it is impossible to prove that something doesn't exist. So, it's on the shoulders of the religious people to prove that their god exist. Unfortunately, no actual proof has been given so far and not been disclaimed by scientists.
It's the same with the immaterial "soul". There is no strong enough proof for now, so I tend to not believe in it.
However, if the existence of such "soul" is found, I will accept it as a truth, because that's how it works.
In my mind, there is actually a soul, but it is as material as our bodies, since it is part of it. It would be created by our memories and experiences, stored in our memory through electric pulses and chemical reactions. Like a program in a computer. It means that computers can indeed have souls as much as we do. Humans aren't special at all on that side. We are just very complex machines.
Well, not "just", because that's not nothing. We are one of the few very complex machines out there to evolve through culture, and that's kinda cool. We sprouted wings in the span of ten years, our claws are made out of the best metal out there, we can kill our preys beyond the curvature of the earth, we can breath in any environment, and something I think no animal can do at this scale, we can share our evolutionary traits (again, through culture).
LeDuc wrote:
I don't believe in an extra thing beyond the body and the material things, mainly because I don't like to believe at all when it's about things existing or not. I only like to know and have proofs about this.
According to the scientific method, the burden of proof is on the shoulders of the persons claiming that something exist, because it is impossible to prove that something doesn't exist. So, it's on the shoulders of the religious people to prove that their god exist. Unfortunately, no actual proof has been given so far and not been disclaimed by scientists.
It's the same with the immaterial "soul". There is no strong enough proof for now, so I tend to not believe in it.
However, if the existence of such "soul" is found, I will accept it as a truth, because that's how it works.
In my mind, there is actually a soul, but it is as material as our bodies, since it is part of it. It would be created by our memories and experiences, stored in our memory through electric pulses and chemical reactions. Like a program in a computer. It means that computers can indeed have souls as much as we do. Humans aren't special at all on that side. We are just very complex machines.
Well, not "just", because that's not nothing. We are one of the few very complex machines out there to evolve through culture, and that's kinda cool. We sprouted wings in the span of ten years, our claws are made out of the best metal out there, we can kill our preys beyond the curvature of the earth, we can breath in any environment, and something I think no animal can do at this scale, we can share our evolutionary traits (again, through culture).
According to the scientific method, the burden of proof is on the shoulders of the persons claiming that something exist, because it is impossible to prove that something doesn't exist. So, it's on the shoulders of the religious people to prove that their god exist. Unfortunately, no actual proof has been given so far and not been disclaimed by scientists.
It's the same with the immaterial "soul". There is no strong enough proof for now, so I tend to not believe in it.
However, if the existence of such "soul" is found, I will accept it as a truth, because that's how it works.
In my mind, there is actually a soul, but it is as material as our bodies, since it is part of it. It would be created by our memories and experiences, stored in our memory through electric pulses and chemical reactions. Like a program in a computer. It means that computers can indeed have souls as much as we do. Humans aren't special at all on that side. We are just very complex machines.
Well, not "just", because that's not nothing. We are one of the few very complex machines out there to evolve through culture, and that's kinda cool. We sprouted wings in the span of ten years, our claws are made out of the best metal out there, we can kill our preys beyond the curvature of the earth, we can breath in any environment, and something I think no animal can do at this scale, we can share our evolutionary traits (again, through culture).
A couple of things here!
Quote:
According to the scientific method, the burden of proof is on the shoulders of the persons claiming that something exist, because it is impossible to prove that something doesn't exist. So, it's on the shoulders of the religious people to prove that their god exist. Unfortunately, no actual proof has been given so far and not been disclaimed by scientists.
This is incorrect. Scientists prove negatives all the time. There's even a term for it: Evidence of absence.
"Burden of proof" is mostly a legal and philosophical term, but it is used in science inquiry. It generally applies to scientists and professionals or people of influence, making any kind of scientific claim. Here's the thing: generally a scientist won't ask you for "proof" unless you're actively attempting to make a scientific claim. If you're just saying something that's incorrect, a good scientist would instead attempt to engage and educate you.
Quote:
So, it's on the shoulders of the religious people to prove that their god exist.
There are religious scientists. In fact many scientists will tell you that they have no issue with religion whatsoever. They will fight tooth and nail when religious influences enter the political and scientific realms, but otherwise do not require that people prove their faith and do not consider science and religion mutually exclusive.
I want to take a moment to remind everyone that determining the validity of a person's faith or religion is neither the purpose of this discussion, nor is it an appropriate topic to discuss on the RPR at all.
I am religious...
I believe that we have souls and they are not just parts of us put together. Our soul is separate from our body. Our body is like a glove for our spirit it covers and protects them.
I believe that we came to earth to receive a body and be tested so we can learn and become like God. After death our body and spirit will be speperated and we will be judged for our actions here and then our bodies and spirits will be reunited and we will live with God and Christ as gods/goddesses ourselves.
I believe that we have souls and they are not just parts of us put together. Our soul is separate from our body. Our body is like a glove for our spirit it covers and protects them.
I believe that we came to earth to receive a body and be tested so we can learn and become like God. After death our body and spirit will be speperated and we will be judged for our actions here and then our bodies and spirits will be reunited and we will live with God and Christ as gods/goddesses ourselves.
I'm going to attempt to answer the question at hand, without bringing in any of my religious views, namely because I don't think that they would contribute anything to my argument, as it were.
I'll start with saying that I would consider the soul and the consciousness of a person to be two separate items. Related and connected, sure, but notably separate, and today we are talking about consciousness.
I'd like to, for the moment, focus on this item right here:
"More than the sum of our physical parts" indeed. A long time ago, I read a passage in a book, the name of which has faded from memory, but the passage itself is fairly well seared into my mind. In short, an older, wiser man is talking to a younger, and they speak of things being greater than the sum of their parts. In that case, an apple pie. It's argued that a fool can take the ingredients for an apple pie and render them completely worthless, whereas a talented chef or baker can take the exact same ingredients, and through skill and knowledge, turn them into something far greater than the sum of its parts.
Equally today, just by looking around, we can find things in everyday life which are greater than the sum of their parts. Rubber, steel, copper, plastic, and silica? Separately you have heaping piles of nothing, but together, in the right way, you have a car, worth far more than the piles of nothing. Sweat, rocks, water, and sand? Individually worthless, but collectively it's a retaining wall to hold up a garden.
So the same is our consciousness. It is the culmination of a billion billion different inputs, each adding its worth to the whole, and in such becoming more valuable. That rock you found in 1st grade that skipped over the pond forty-seven times affects how you look for rocks now, one or two or four decades later. That place that had the perfect heuvos rancheros that's kept you ordering it from every restaurant in effort to find something like it. That twinge that you get when someone mentions that one viral video. All of these things are the result of the inputs from the physical world. Even emotions have roots in the physical. Dopamine, endorphins, adrenaline, bile, vascular response, all of these are cause physical sensations that lead us to make decisions, or color our perceptions.
I believe that not just human beings are capable of having consciousnesses. Animal most certainly do. I challenge anyone to find a pet owner who does not know the little ticks and tricks that make their dog or cat or iguana unique. Inanimate objects too have their own personalities. My mom's old Trailblazer ran like garbage below 40 mph, but purred like a kitten and sorted itself out the more gas it was given. An old pistol of the my family's has the unerring ability to drop hot brass right where it's guaranteed to burn you every time, but I've never heard of anyone else that owns the same pistol having that problem. And while I admit that the personality of a stump is not the same as the consciousness of a human being, they are not as far apart as some might think.
The last point I have is that a consciousness ends with a single iteration of a being. Download/upload, cloning and implantation of data/memories, none of these things are the continuation of a consciousness. They are the beginnings of new consciousnesses. If I were to have my mind completely copied (without going into the moral issues of such), that copy would not be me. It would be like me, have my memories and knowledge, but from the very instant of separation, it would cease to be me and instead would be it's own consciousness. I would still be walking around, doing my thing, and it would be stuffed in a box, doing its own thing.
To make an extreme example, if I were to upload my brain into a computer, and made two identical copies. Let's say that it's the most impressive computer in existence, capable of storing the two copies and providing them with identical input and run-time. The differences between the two might be too minute for even the greatest computer in existence to calculate. At first.
But if only a single instance of input had only a picosecond of delay (0.000000000001 second), then with every passing picosecond, the degree of difference between Copy A and Copy B doubles. Sounds like a crock of dog's eggs, I'm sure, but it is precisely these minuscule differences, completely random and unable to be stopped, that have taken us from a slimy puddle of bacteria to the most cunning and dangerous creatures in the world.
TL;DR: Consciousness is the sum of all the experiences of a single instance of a being.
I'll start with saying that I would consider the soul and the consciousness of a person to be two separate items. Related and connected, sure, but notably separate, and today we are talking about consciousness.
I'd like to, for the moment, focus on this item right here:
Abigail_Austin wrote:
Others, however, like a different group of philosophers, theologians, religious leaders, and scientists, believe that our consciousness is more than the sum of our physical parts.
Equally today, just by looking around, we can find things in everyday life which are greater than the sum of their parts. Rubber, steel, copper, plastic, and silica? Separately you have heaping piles of nothing, but together, in the right way, you have a car, worth far more than the piles of nothing. Sweat, rocks, water, and sand? Individually worthless, but collectively it's a retaining wall to hold up a garden.
So the same is our consciousness. It is the culmination of a billion billion different inputs, each adding its worth to the whole, and in such becoming more valuable. That rock you found in 1st grade that skipped over the pond forty-seven times affects how you look for rocks now, one or two or four decades later. That place that had the perfect heuvos rancheros that's kept you ordering it from every restaurant in effort to find something like it. That twinge that you get when someone mentions that one viral video. All of these things are the result of the inputs from the physical world. Even emotions have roots in the physical. Dopamine, endorphins, adrenaline, bile, vascular response, all of these are cause physical sensations that lead us to make decisions, or color our perceptions.
I believe that not just human beings are capable of having consciousnesses. Animal most certainly do. I challenge anyone to find a pet owner who does not know the little ticks and tricks that make their dog or cat or iguana unique. Inanimate objects too have their own personalities. My mom's old Trailblazer ran like garbage below 40 mph, but purred like a kitten and sorted itself out the more gas it was given. An old pistol of the my family's has the unerring ability to drop hot brass right where it's guaranteed to burn you every time, but I've never heard of anyone else that owns the same pistol having that problem. And while I admit that the personality of a stump is not the same as the consciousness of a human being, they are not as far apart as some might think.
The last point I have is that a consciousness ends with a single iteration of a being. Download/upload, cloning and implantation of data/memories, none of these things are the continuation of a consciousness. They are the beginnings of new consciousnesses. If I were to have my mind completely copied (without going into the moral issues of such), that copy would not be me. It would be like me, have my memories and knowledge, but from the very instant of separation, it would cease to be me and instead would be it's own consciousness. I would still be walking around, doing my thing, and it would be stuffed in a box, doing its own thing.
To make an extreme example, if I were to upload my brain into a computer, and made two identical copies. Let's say that it's the most impressive computer in existence, capable of storing the two copies and providing them with identical input and run-time. The differences between the two might be too minute for even the greatest computer in existence to calculate. At first.
But if only a single instance of input had only a picosecond of delay (0.000000000001 second), then with every passing picosecond, the degree of difference between Copy A and Copy B doubles. Sounds like a crock of dog's eggs, I'm sure, but it is precisely these minuscule differences, completely random and unable to be stopped, that have taken us from a slimy puddle of bacteria to the most cunning and dangerous creatures in the world.
TL;DR: Consciousness is the sum of all the experiences of a single instance of a being.
I would like to thank everybody that responded for taking the time to write out their opinions. It made for mentally stimulating reading for me and I love it that I can be in the same "room" with folks that can talk about these things at my level...that will say something more than just "Uh...I dunno...look at that car...it goes fast...let's order pizza." <--not that I know anyone like that NOW, but when I was in high school, I found that those were the only kinds of things people were interested in talking about and any deep question got blank stares or, simply, "what's the point of thinking about stuff like that?" Which is okay, and some people never think about weird topics like this, and nothing against them at all, but it's neat to be able to converse with people that have an opinion and who have some thoughts about these topics and are able to put those thoughts into words, so, thank you. And I commend you.
Now, for my take on it. This is coming from a place of humility, because definitely none of us know everything, and humanity as a whole knows less than we think we do.
When I said "consciousness," I guess I did kind of mean "soul," although I agree with Jaybird than those two words are not necessarily synonyms. I have often wondered if the soul is like a passenger on a roller coaster ride, fully participating in all the twists and turns, but with no power to change things. Like a Go-pro camera clipped to our life's helmet, recording the experience for later. But my default way of thinking is that the soul has some control over things. Yet it can't have much, considering how much control the brain has--how a traumatic brain injury can change a personality, for instance. But then again, from my experience, it has to have some control over decisions. There must be an intermingling between the physical body and the soul and where the one ends and the other begins, we just don't understand. Maybe there are exact parallel systems, one physical and one spiritual. I don't know.
I guess you can tell by now, I believe in a soul that is seperate from the body. However, I have complete respect for everyones' beliefs and I think the world would not be the same if everyone were alike. Some peoples' realities are very firmly grounded in the physical world, and that gives them an understanding that benefits other people. My reality has never been that firmly grounded in the physical world (it's why I get lost all the time and am late for everything and would be a terrible witness to a crime because I hardly notice physical attributes of people, like what they're wearing, and I'm clumsey), but in my intuition, beliefs, imagination, dreams, and thoughts.
It's true, it is a comforting thought to imagine an afterlife, but I wouldn't believe it only for that reason. There are a lot of thoughts I wish I could believe, that would be comforting, that I cannot believe, because they are unlikely to be true or they seem unbelievable to me. The after-life and the existance of a consciousness seperate from the body are two things that are not that way for me.
The reason I think that we're more than the sum of our parts is because our actions cannot always be explained by science. Now -- I know -- science enthusiasts are going to say that they can, and that science just hasn't figured out a way to explain these things yet. Maybe. But, for right now, they can't be explained. For example, altruism. Even in animals it has happened. A dolphin headbuts a shark in order to save a human scuba diver. A gray whale calf that has lost its mother gets adopted by a cow that has lost her calf on the migration back (BTW...I whales).
People do it too. I know we don't always do it, but why do we ever do it? Where does that comes from if not somewhere beyond the physical world? There's a book called Man's Search For Meaning, written by Viktor Frankl, a guy who spent time in two concentration camps during World War II, and became a psychologist after. He created a psychotherapy based on finding meaning called Logotherapy. He wrote about what he saw and heard in the concentration camps. He said that the popular scientists of the day predicted that men would turn into beasts if put in an environment where they have to fight for resources or die, but he wrote that that is not what he observed. He said some people did turn into beasts...literally he called them demons...but some people did the opposite and defended the defenseless from those people.
This is my favorite quote from that book:
"In the concentration camps...in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself" (Viktor Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning)
But my point is, he believed that the scientific model of human behavior couldn't explain the variation in how people behaved under extreme circumstances. The scientific explanations aren't enough to explain it all. Not to say they're not correct, but there's an additional ingredient, I believe. A secret sauce. Something that makes us more than a fantastically-organized jumble of elements.
The dolphins, the whales, the people giving soup to children in those camps when they're already starving, themselves...alturism. Why do we do it?
It makes no sense if our main goal is survival to risk our own lives to help those who are not related to us...or not even the same species as we are. (I am open to alternate arguments that could explain this). Also...warriors risking their lives for a principle makes no sense to me if we are simply biological machines, and martyrs (or, even socrates) dying for a spiritual truth (or in socrates' case, an ethical princple he believed in). Now there are some explanations put forth by materialists, most of them being that, well, basically, that martyrs are crazy (assertions about Joan of Arc's "schizophrenia," for instance), but those can't be proven and seem hard to believe given how successful they actually were (she did save France and get her guy crowned). So, my opinion is that we must be more than the sum of our parts.
Also, I don't believe there will ever be a computer that can hold human consciousness. I don't believe that whaever that "spark of life" is will ever be able to be contained in or transferred to a machine. What does scare the bejezzus out of me, though, is the possibility that humans will be able to create a very, very convincing machine-- one that is so convincing that it makes people believe that machine is sentient, and has independent thoughts, when in fact the thoughts will be the result of a program. That's scary. Governments could manipulate that, people could start to think of them as alive and make sacrifices for them, people could live in completely fake worlds where androids give them the attention and emotional feedback they need that are so alluring they forsake the company of other humans beings altogether, only to realize one day that the energy they invested went to a recepticle that wasn't capable of returning their affection, in fact. Yeesh...creepy. I had a dream about that once. Anyway. Science fiction/horror story. Knock yourself out. Your welcome. LOL.
N-E-waaaaay...
The thing about science and spirituality is that the scientific method is designed to gain a certain type of knowlege...the knowledge of things that can be repeated. Repetition of an experiment is a requirement to prove a hypothesis. You cannot prove anything without repetition. Now take the few times in our lives that the spiritual really crashes into the world in an observable way. Those experiences are few and far between! Even people, like me, or like others, who say they have spiritual experiences...some people call them "mountaintop" experiences because they rarely ever happen, and they are treasured, but most of the time you're plodding your course across the plains or you're struggling through the valley. But even people that say that happens to them...occasionally, it's the exception rather than the rule. And it's rarely provable. Because you can't go to sleep at night and say to yourself, "tonight, I'm going to have a prophetic dream," then write it down, put it online, and chart how many times the events come true. Because most of the time, you're going to dream about...giant cotten candy monsters or scary androids or whatever ya'll dream about at night LOL. But there might be one time...that one time when you're about to drop out of high school because you've missed 50 percent of it, because your parent was sick and passed away during that year, and the counselors have told you there's no way you can pass, you will not graduate. And so you're furious at them, and about to drop out and then...you have a dream. In your dream your mom who passed away brings you your class ring and tells you that, actually, you're going to graduate. You wake up, and you're not as mad anymore. And then a few weeks later you get granted a waiver, and you graduate (This happened to my friend). He had a prophetic dream. There is no doubt in his mind that it was a miracle. But how does science measure once-in-a-lifetime events like that? It can't. It won't. It will never be able to. By definition, a scientific fact is one that can be repeated, by many people, in many circumstances. Encounters with the spiritual world are not predictible. They are subjective, not objective. But that doesn't make them any less real. In fact, it might make them more real, or more meaningful.
To explain my opinion, to really get you to see it how I see it, I want to put a few quotes here by psychologist Carl Jung. By no means a guy that is accepted as not crazy, he does have some ideas that are universally accepted as useful (the words "introvert" and "extrovert," the idea of unconscious archetypes shared by all people subconsciouly like the hero, the trickster, the mother, the child, the shadow, the Flood, the wise old man or woman, and on and on). His work was continued by Joseph Campbell whose work influenced Star Wars (most Star Wars characters are Jungian archetypes).
I think a lot like Carl Jung. His book Memories, Dreams, and Reflections makes so much sense to me. Maybe that means I'm a litte crazy. (crazy like a fox!
) It's possible. But here is what he wrote that I agree with:
"Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. It's true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away--anephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux. What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains."(Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, p. 4)
"And if we happen to have a precognitive dream, how can we possibly ascribe it to our own powers?" (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 406-410)
"Naturally, one can contend from the start that myths and dreams concerning continuity of life after death are merely compensating fantasies which are inherent in our natures all life desires eternity...However, there are indications that at least a part of the psyche is not subject to the laws of space and time. Scientific proof of that has been provided by the well-known J. B. Rhine experiments. [2] Along with numerous cases of spontaneous foreknowledge, nonspatial perceptions, and so on of which I have given a number of examples from my own life--these experiments prove that the psyche at times functions outside of the spatio-temporal law of causality. This indicates that our conceptions of space and time, and therefore of causality also, are incomplete. A complete picture of the world would require the addition of still another dimension; only then could the totality of phenomena be given a unified explanation. Hence it is that the rationalists insist to this day that parapsychological experiences do not really exist; for their world-view stands or falls by this question. If such phenomena occur at all, the rationalistic picture of the universe is invalid, because incomplete. Then the possibility of an other-valued reality behind the phenomenal world becomes an inescapable problem, and we must face the fact that our world, with its time, space, and causality, relates to another order of things
lying behind or beneath it, in which neither "here and there" nor "earlier and later" are of importance. I have been convinced that at least a part of our psychic existence is characterized by a relativity of space and time. This relativity seems to increase, in proportion to the distance from consciousness, to an absolute condition of timelessness and spacelessness." (Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung, p. 366-368)
"During my first years at the university I made the discovery that while science opened the door to enormous quantities of knowledge, it provided genuine insights very sparingly, and these in
the main were of a specialized nature...[Then, after discovering a book on Spiritism]...what was of burning interest to me was null and void for others, I and even a cause for dread. Dread of what? I could find no explanation for this. After all, there was nothing preposterous or world-shaking in the idea that there might be events which overstepped the limited categories of space, time, and causality. Animals were known to sense beforehand storms and earthquakes. There were dreams which foresaw the death of certain persons, clocks which stopped at the moment of death, glasses which shattered at the critical moment. All these things had been taken for granted in the world of my childhood. And
now I was apparently the only person who had ever heard of them. In all earnestness I asked myself what kind of world I had stumbled into. Plainly the urban world knew nothing about the country world, the real world of mountains, woods, and rivers, of animals and...plants and crystals. I found this explanation comforting. At all events, it bolstered my self-esteem, for I realized that for all its wealth of learning the urban world was mentally rather limited. This insight proved dangerous, because it tricked me into fits of superiority, misplaced criticism, and aggressiveness, which got me deservedly disliked. This eventually brought back all the old doubts, inferiority feelings, and depressions--a vicious circle I was resolved to break at all costs. No longer would I stand outside the world, enjoying the dubious reputation of a freak" (124-135). <--I love how he called himself a freak. Oh, Carl Jung. I'm such a nerd. I love his bluntness.
Well anyway! Hope I didn't offend anyone! I am not offended by anyone's beliefs...you can feel free to counter my arguments, or we can call it a day. I enjoyed reading everyone's opinions! Thank you for this intelligent discussion!
The entire book:
http://www.venerabilisopus.org/en/books-samael-aun-weor-gnostic-sacred-esoteric-spiritual/pdf/200/265_jung-carl-memories-dreams-reflections.pdf
Now, for my take on it. This is coming from a place of humility, because definitely none of us know everything, and humanity as a whole knows less than we think we do.
When I said "consciousness," I guess I did kind of mean "soul," although I agree with Jaybird than those two words are not necessarily synonyms. I have often wondered if the soul is like a passenger on a roller coaster ride, fully participating in all the twists and turns, but with no power to change things. Like a Go-pro camera clipped to our life's helmet, recording the experience for later. But my default way of thinking is that the soul has some control over things. Yet it can't have much, considering how much control the brain has--how a traumatic brain injury can change a personality, for instance. But then again, from my experience, it has to have some control over decisions. There must be an intermingling between the physical body and the soul and where the one ends and the other begins, we just don't understand. Maybe there are exact parallel systems, one physical and one spiritual. I don't know.
I guess you can tell by now, I believe in a soul that is seperate from the body. However, I have complete respect for everyones' beliefs and I think the world would not be the same if everyone were alike. Some peoples' realities are very firmly grounded in the physical world, and that gives them an understanding that benefits other people. My reality has never been that firmly grounded in the physical world (it's why I get lost all the time and am late for everything and would be a terrible witness to a crime because I hardly notice physical attributes of people, like what they're wearing, and I'm clumsey), but in my intuition, beliefs, imagination, dreams, and thoughts.
It's true, it is a comforting thought to imagine an afterlife, but I wouldn't believe it only for that reason. There are a lot of thoughts I wish I could believe, that would be comforting, that I cannot believe, because they are unlikely to be true or they seem unbelievable to me. The after-life and the existance of a consciousness seperate from the body are two things that are not that way for me.
The reason I think that we're more than the sum of our parts is because our actions cannot always be explained by science. Now -- I know -- science enthusiasts are going to say that they can, and that science just hasn't figured out a way to explain these things yet. Maybe. But, for right now, they can't be explained. For example, altruism. Even in animals it has happened. A dolphin headbuts a shark in order to save a human scuba diver. A gray whale calf that has lost its mother gets adopted by a cow that has lost her calf on the migration back (BTW...I
whales).People do it too. I know we don't always do it, but why do we ever do it? Where does that comes from if not somewhere beyond the physical world? There's a book called Man's Search For Meaning, written by Viktor Frankl, a guy who spent time in two concentration camps during World War II, and became a psychologist after. He created a psychotherapy based on finding meaning called Logotherapy. He wrote about what he saw and heard in the concentration camps. He said that the popular scientists of the day predicted that men would turn into beasts if put in an environment where they have to fight for resources or die, but he wrote that that is not what he observed. He said some people did turn into beasts...literally he called them demons...but some people did the opposite and defended the defenseless from those people.
This is my favorite quote from that book:
"In the concentration camps...in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself" (Viktor Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning)
But my point is, he believed that the scientific model of human behavior couldn't explain the variation in how people behaved under extreme circumstances. The scientific explanations aren't enough to explain it all. Not to say they're not correct, but there's an additional ingredient, I believe. A secret sauce. Something that makes us more than a fantastically-organized jumble of elements.
The dolphins, the whales, the people giving soup to children in those camps when they're already starving, themselves...alturism. Why do we do it?
It makes no sense if our main goal is survival to risk our own lives to help those who are not related to us...or not even the same species as we are. (I am open to alternate arguments that could explain this). Also...warriors risking their lives for a principle makes no sense to me if we are simply biological machines, and martyrs (or, even socrates) dying for a spiritual truth (or in socrates' case, an ethical princple he believed in). Now there are some explanations put forth by materialists, most of them being that, well, basically, that martyrs are crazy (assertions about Joan of Arc's "schizophrenia," for instance), but those can't be proven and seem hard to believe given how successful they actually were (she did save France and get her guy crowned). So, my opinion is that we must be more than the sum of our parts.
Also, I don't believe there will ever be a computer that can hold human consciousness. I don't believe that whaever that "spark of life" is will ever be able to be contained in or transferred to a machine. What does scare the bejezzus out of me, though, is the possibility that humans will be able to create a very, very convincing machine-- one that is so convincing that it makes people believe that machine is sentient, and has independent thoughts, when in fact the thoughts will be the result of a program. That's scary. Governments could manipulate that, people could start to think of them as alive and make sacrifices for them, people could live in completely fake worlds where androids give them the attention and emotional feedback they need that are so alluring they forsake the company of other humans beings altogether, only to realize one day that the energy they invested went to a recepticle that wasn't capable of returning their affection, in fact. Yeesh...creepy. I had a dream about that once. Anyway. Science fiction/horror story. Knock yourself out. Your welcome. LOL.
N-E-waaaaay...
The thing about science and spirituality is that the scientific method is designed to gain a certain type of knowlege...the knowledge of things that can be repeated. Repetition of an experiment is a requirement to prove a hypothesis. You cannot prove anything without repetition. Now take the few times in our lives that the spiritual really crashes into the world in an observable way. Those experiences are few and far between! Even people, like me, or like others, who say they have spiritual experiences...some people call them "mountaintop" experiences because they rarely ever happen, and they are treasured, but most of the time you're plodding your course across the plains or you're struggling through the valley. But even people that say that happens to them...occasionally, it's the exception rather than the rule. And it's rarely provable. Because you can't go to sleep at night and say to yourself, "tonight, I'm going to have a prophetic dream," then write it down, put it online, and chart how many times the events come true. Because most of the time, you're going to dream about...giant cotten candy monsters or scary androids or whatever ya'll dream about at night
LOL. But there might be one time...that one time when you're about to drop out of high school because you've missed 50 percent of it, because your parent was sick and passed away during that year, and the counselors have told you there's no way you can pass, you will not graduate. And so you're furious at them, and about to drop out and then...you have a dream. In your dream your mom who passed away brings you your class ring and tells you that, actually, you're going to graduate. You wake up, and you're not as mad anymore. And then a few weeks later you get granted a waiver, and you graduate (This happened to my friend). He had a prophetic dream. There is no doubt in his mind that it was a miracle. But how does science measure once-in-a-lifetime events like that? It can't. It won't. It will never be able to. By definition, a scientific fact is one that can be repeated, by many people, in many circumstances. Encounters with the spiritual world are not predictible. They are subjective, not objective. But that doesn't make them any less real. In fact, it might make them more real, or more meaningful.To explain my opinion, to really get you to see it how I see it, I want to put a few quotes here by psychologist Carl Jung. By no means a guy that is accepted as not crazy, he does have some ideas that are universally accepted as useful (the words "introvert" and "extrovert," the idea of unconscious archetypes shared by all people subconsciouly like the hero, the trickster, the mother, the child, the shadow, the Flood, the wise old man or woman, and on and on). His work was continued by Joseph Campbell whose work influenced Star Wars (most Star Wars characters are Jungian archetypes).
I think a lot like Carl Jung. His book Memories, Dreams, and Reflections makes so much sense to me. Maybe that means I'm a litte crazy. (crazy like a fox!
) It's possible. But here is what he wrote that I agree with:"Life has always seemed to me like a plant that lives on its rhizome. It's true life is invisible, hidden in the rhizome. The part that appears above ground lasts only a single summer. Then it withers away--anephemeral apparition. When we think of the unending growth and decay of life and civilizations, we cannot escape the impression of absolute nullity. Yet I have never lost a sense of something that lives and endures underneath the eternal flux. What we see is the blossom, which passes. The rhizome remains."(Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, p. 4)
"And if we happen to have a precognitive dream, how can we possibly ascribe it to our own powers?" (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 406-410)
"Naturally, one can contend from the start that myths and dreams concerning continuity of life after death are merely compensating fantasies which are inherent in our natures all life desires eternity...However, there are indications that at least a part of the psyche is not subject to the laws of space and time. Scientific proof of that has been provided by the well-known J. B. Rhine experiments. [2] Along with numerous cases of spontaneous foreknowledge, nonspatial perceptions, and so on of which I have given a number of examples from my own life--these experiments prove that the psyche at times functions outside of the spatio-temporal law of causality. This indicates that our conceptions of space and time, and therefore of causality also, are incomplete. A complete picture of the world would require the addition of still another dimension; only then could the totality of phenomena be given a unified explanation. Hence it is that the rationalists insist to this day that parapsychological experiences do not really exist; for their world-view stands or falls by this question. If such phenomena occur at all, the rationalistic picture of the universe is invalid, because incomplete. Then the possibility of an other-valued reality behind the phenomenal world becomes an inescapable problem, and we must face the fact that our world, with its time, space, and causality, relates to another order of things
lying behind or beneath it, in which neither "here and there" nor "earlier and later" are of importance. I have been convinced that at least a part of our psychic existence is characterized by a relativity of space and time. This relativity seems to increase, in proportion to the distance from consciousness, to an absolute condition of timelessness and spacelessness." (Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung, p. 366-368)
"During my first years at the university I made the discovery that while science opened the door to enormous quantities of knowledge, it provided genuine insights very sparingly, and these in
the main were of a specialized nature...[Then, after discovering a book on Spiritism]...what was of burning interest to me was null and void for others, I and even a cause for dread. Dread of what? I could find no explanation for this. After all, there was nothing preposterous or world-shaking in the idea that there might be events which overstepped the limited categories of space, time, and causality. Animals were known to sense beforehand storms and earthquakes. There were dreams which foresaw the death of certain persons, clocks which stopped at the moment of death, glasses which shattered at the critical moment. All these things had been taken for granted in the world of my childhood. And
now I was apparently the only person who had ever heard of them. In all earnestness I asked myself what kind of world I had stumbled into. Plainly the urban world knew nothing about the country world, the real world of mountains, woods, and rivers, of animals and...plants and crystals. I found this explanation comforting. At all events, it bolstered my self-esteem, for I realized that for all its wealth of learning the urban world was mentally rather limited. This insight proved dangerous, because it tricked me into fits of superiority, misplaced criticism, and aggressiveness, which got me deservedly disliked. This eventually brought back all the old doubts, inferiority feelings, and depressions--a vicious circle I was resolved to break at all costs. No longer would I stand outside the world, enjoying the dubious reputation of a freak" (124-135). <--I love how he called himself a freak. Oh, Carl Jung. I'm such a nerd. I love his bluntness.
Jung on consciousness - I'm collapsing this
By virtue of his reflective faculties, man is raised out of the animal
world, and by his mind he demonstrates that nature has put a high
premium precisely upon the developmerit of consciousness.
Through consciousness he takes possession of nature by
recognizing the existence of the world and thus, as it were,
confirming the Creator. The world becomes the phenomenal world,
for without conscious reflection it would not be. If the Creator were
conscious of Himself, He would not need conscious creatures; nor
is it probable that the extremely indirect methods of creation, which
squander millions of years upon the development of countless
species and creatures, are the outcome of purposeful intention.
Natural history tells us of a haphazard and casual transformation of
species over hundreds of millions of years of devouring and being
devoured. The biological and political history of man is an elaborate
repetition of the same thing. But the history of the mind offers a
different picture. Here the miracle of reflecting consciousness
intervenes the second cosmogony. The importance of
consciousness is so great that one cannot help suspecting the
element of meaning to be concealed somewhere within all the
monstrous, apparently senseless biological turmoil, and that the
road to its manifestation was ultimately found on the level of warmblooded
vertebrates possessed of a differentiated brain found as if
by chance, unintended and unforeseen, and yet somehow sensed,
felt and groped for out of some dark urge.
By virtue of his reflective faculties, man is raised out of the animal
world, and by his mind he demonstrates that nature has put a high
premium precisely upon the developmerit of consciousness.
Through consciousness he takes possession of nature by
recognizing the existence of the world and thus, as it were,
confirming the Creator. The world becomes the phenomenal world,
for without conscious reflection it would not be. If the Creator were
conscious of Himself, He would not need conscious creatures; nor
is it probable that the extremely indirect methods of creation, which
squander millions of years upon the development of countless
species and creatures, are the outcome of purposeful intention.
Natural history tells us of a haphazard and casual transformation of
species over hundreds of millions of years of devouring and being
devoured. The biological and political history of man is an elaborate
repetition of the same thing. But the history of the mind offers a
different picture. Here the miracle of reflecting consciousness
intervenes the second cosmogony. The importance of
consciousness is so great that one cannot help suspecting the
element of meaning to be concealed somewhere within all the
monstrous, apparently senseless biological turmoil, and that the
road to its manifestation was ultimately found on the level of warmblooded
vertebrates possessed of a differentiated brain found as if
by chance, unintended and unforeseen, and yet somehow sensed,
felt and groped for out of some dark urge.
Well anyway! Hope I didn't offend anyone! I am not offended by anyone's beliefs...you can feel free to counter my arguments, or we can call it a day. I enjoyed reading everyone's opinions! Thank you for this intelligent discussion!
The entire book:
http://www.venerabilisopus.org/en/books-samael-aun-weor-gnostic-sacred-esoteric-spiritual/pdf/200/265_jung-carl-memories-dreams-reflections.pdf
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