Searching questions indeed! I think that if animals were to think like humans then it is logical to argue they must also have a soul, if humans have a soul. However, as animals seem to be programmed by instinct, without free will, then they do not think like humans. The concept of a soul is a human construct to satisfy our search for what makes us alive, what is our physical, emotional and intellectual identity, what gives us consciousness, awareness and autonomy, and what of these, if any, survive after our death. Most of the foregoing is amenable to biological explanation. Even consciousness and awareness, to a degree, could have been programmed into the DNA code as you infer. For example, It might be possible to program these into a computer, if it had the equivalent of human sense organs to connect it to the physical world. I'm not sure though how you would program a computer to react through reason to events for which it is not programmed. Yet the human mind seems to be able to react in this way.Thinking critical wrote:Is the soul biological or spiritual? First one must ask why he or she is convinced a soul exists?
If we are to assume that all humans have souls is it fair to also assume that all living species have souls? If that is not the case then why?
If you infer that the operator or decision maker in the mind has a biological origin then it follows that it must be programmed into our DNA code. Then you have to show how this might be done. It is not easy. I'm not talking about decision logic, but the ability to think outside the box, to go off in a direction for which the mind has not been programmed. I do not know how you would do this for a computer, for example. If you could, then it could be argued that it is not necessary to have a spiritual component of the soul.Thinking critical wrote:I think the soul or spirit is often mistaken for conscious awareness. What is conscious awareness maybe we could think about the two words for a few seconds "consciousness" the minds interpretation of what we percieve through the use of our senses. "Awareness" attentively acknowledging all aspects of life as our senses perceive it.
Good point. Under my definition of what humans regard as a soul {i.e. partly biological and partly physical} then a person born blind would have a different soul than if he were not, as his genes may be different and his life experiences would be different.Thinking critical wrote: For example if someone was born with no sight, his reality would be different to someone who was born with sight. This is a consequence of not having all six senses. Would the blind mans soul still have sight? At the peak of spiritual awareness will he still see the world in the same light as a soul from a being with sight?
If a soul is a seperate entity to the physical being then surely we could state that any loss of senses to the physical body could not effect the non-physical spirit.
Under my definition, the part of the soul in your parallel universe would be in the "field of consciousness, and the part that stored information would be in our universe, in biological form, in the DNA code and the record of life experiencesThinking critical wrote: If a soul exsisted in a parallel universe or in a different dimension and each individual had a soul, how much of that individual is part of the soul? How does a soul store information? If someone was brain dead would the soul still be capable
of functioning the same?
Surely this is how science advances. Some genius comes up with an idea that previously would have been incomprehensible, such as relativity or quantum mechanics, and puts forward an experiment or mathematical proof to prove it correct!Thinking critical wrote:I look forward to veiwing some feed back i would like to leave you with one more piece of insight.
Is it logical to claim that something can exist whilst claiming it requires incomprehensible knowledge to understand how it exists? For one must ask why you make such a claim in the first pace.
PhillipS
