Quote Originally Posted by Coelho

Yes... some people calls it mind, some calls it soul, spirit, whatever... but surely its real, and also non-physical.
Is it real? Do people really have a soul? I am beginning to think the correct answer to that is no. What we consider to be our soul, our "I" , is really just a relation and collection of ideas. This relation of ideas produces an identity so that easy transition between other thoughts and ideas can be had. Basically your soul (identity) is discovered by your memory of past cause and effect relations.

I know this probably makes little sense, so bear with me through my attempt to give an example. Lets say a baby is born. This baby has no idea what it is or what is going on. The baby looks at its hands, legs, and torso. The baby realizes that he has control over all these things, and that they can move positions but they stay relatively the same, and attached. The baby can conclude then from what he is able to sense that these parts are part of him and he identifies them as such. PARTS of HIM.

Now the baby is put face to face with his mother. He perceives his mother with all his senses as she gently strokes his head. He realizes that his mother is not part of him, so she must be something else...but what? The baby glances over to his right and sees his father. Again the baby does not know what to think. What are these things? Are they related?

Now that the baby has gotten a good look at the room he is in he realizes that he is surrounded by unknown objects. The hospital bed, paintings on the wall, the wall itself, everything the baby can percieve, it is all unkown to him. He has not ascribed a specific identity to anything, barley even himself. Besides the fact that he seems to have control over a mass or sensory objects that sits right under his field of vision, he has no idea who or what he is. How then, is the baby able to distinguish one thing from the other? How can he assign anything an identity if he doesn't know what anything is?

The answer is the baby is able to assign identities to certain things based on 3 relations; resemblance, contiguity and causation. To explain a little, the baby can begin to identify his mother because when he looked back at his mother, after he looked away, he noticed the object he was looking at (mom) resembled the object he was looking at before he turned his head (mom). Each time the baby looked away, then back at his mother, she remained relatively the same. Maybe her body position shifted a little, but she remained relatively the same. This is where contiguity comes into play. Causation helped the baby to understand that objects can change appearance, but still be the same object. For example over time the baby will be able to recognize that the thing he is looking at is his mother even if she changes positions or adds makeup. The baby realizes that cause of these changes is related to the environment.

So how was the baby able to identify objects, and why would he want to? And what does this have to do with not having a soul? The baby was able to assign an identity to objects because his memory stored past observations of certain objects. Over time these observations grow and they all effect eachother. The baby is able to tell a wall from a person because they are not observably similar, and he is able to tell the difference between people because certain individuals remain relatively similar over time. He is able to identify a pizza as the same pizza even after 3/4 of it have been eaten because he understands there must have been some kind of cause to make most of the pie disappear.

Because the baby is able to assign a certain identity to everything, he is able to transition between ideas so smoothly that he doesn't even realize he is transitioning. For example, wave your arms in the air. Notice anything strange? Of course you didn't, your brain is so good at transitioning between sensed objects that you don't even realize that whenever you move your arm (or whenever you move period), you are creating a whole new form or object, a object that needs to be interpreted by your brain so it can still be identified... and identified it is, as your arm. Think about it. You sitting in that chair is a totally different object than you standing or walking away from the chair. Your brain makes this transition between those two forms smooth and without any gaps so that you can keep your identity, or what many people like to call a soul.

If you read down this far I am proud of you, and if you understand what I was trying to say, well then I love you. Not just because of how hard this idea is to grasp if you have never been exposed to it before, but also because I feel that I do a horrible job of trying to explain it. If you did read down this far and don't understand, please just ask me to clear things up where they are a little hard to understand and I will be happy to try to explain it to you a little better.

So is it so bad that we don't have a "soul" or some kind of invisible entity that represents our individuality? I don't think so. In fact, this whole idea just further extends my beliefs to the idea of everything being one single collective conscience. By one conscience I mean that we (all living things, not just humans) share one common bond, and that is the bond of life, of consciousness. This single consciousness is manifested in different ways in different organisms. In essence; I am you and you are me and we are everything. The only difference between one manifestation to another is the impressions that have been made on specific manifestations' brains due to our environments. We are all one consciousness experiencing itself in many many different ways.

Quote Originally Posted by Coelho

Also, i think "energy" is a general term... i think there are several "kinds" of energy... like the "physical" energy in the physical "plane", and also non-physical energies in the non-physical "planes", so our mind, soul or whatever would be made of non-physical energies as well.
(I wonder if my physics teachers heard me talking such things... they would be VERY disappointed... )

But what is physical energy if there is no mind to perceive it? To feel it? It's just energy.