The “Soul”

There’s a lot of (mostly very obscure) talk about “the soul” here and elsewhere. (Is it supposed to be different from you, your “mind,” your “ego” etc.? Is it some combo of [some of] them, or what?)  A friend recently passed along the following quote from psychologist James Hillman that I thought was nice–and maybe demystifying–at least a little bit.

By soul I mean, first of all, a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself. This perspective is reflective; it mediates events and makes differences between ourselves and everything that happens. Between us and events, between the doer and the deed, there is a reflective moment — and soul-making means differentiating this middle ground.

It is as if consciousness rests upon a self-sustaining and imagining substrate — an inner place or deeper person or ongoing presence — that is simply there even when all our subjectivity, ego, and consciousness go into eclipse. Soul appears as a factor independent of the events in which we are immersed. Though I cannot identify soul with anything else, I also can never grasp it apart from other things, perhaps because it is like a reflection in a flowing mirror, or like the moon which mediates only borrowed light. But just this peculiar and paradoxical intervening variable gives one the sense of having or being soul. However intangible and indefinable it is, soul carries highest importance in hierarchies of human values, frequently being identified with the principle of life and even of divinity.

In another attempt upon the idea of soul I suggest that the word refers to that unknown component which makes meaning possible, turns events into experiences, is communicated in love, and has a religious concern. These four qualifications I had already put forth some years ago. I had begun to use the term freely, usually interchangeably with psyche (from Greek) and anima (from Latin). Now I am adding three necessary modifications. First, soul refers to the deepening of events into  experiences; second, the significance soul makes possible, whether in love or in religious concern, derives from its special relation with death. And third, by soul I mean the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image, fantasy — that mode which recognizes all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical.”

James Hillman — Re-Visioning Psychology

776 thoughts on “The “Soul”

  1. Erik: See, that’s the problem with you two. You limit yourselves to epistemology (well, you do epistemology, walto does logic exercises in nominalism). I do ontology. I cross-check “the order of understanding” with how things must be given certain natures, kinds, categories, and levels of existence. “The order of being” is quite approachable, but we will never get to discuss this as long as people deny it.

    You “do” flim-flam.

    (When did I become a nominalist–or a logician–btw?)

  2. Robin( to Eric): Don’t blame me for your inability to define “immaterial” succinctly!

    People seem to be obsessed with definitions, but definitions do what they are supposed to do, they set limits. This is fine for physical entities but it is inappropriate for anything to do with soul and spirit. Attributes of the soul such as love cannot be defined in the same precise way that a physical object can.

    Through the mouth the body feeds on physical substance, through the senses the soul feeds on that which affects our feelings. James Brown and Shakespeare both knew this – “If music be the food of love, play on”. The spirit is fed by using the mind to “see” connections.

    Steiner had this to say about body, soul and spirit.

    …man is citizen of three worlds. Through his body he belongs to the world which he also perceives through his body; through his soul he constructs for himself his own world; through his spirit a world reveals itself to him which is exalted above both the others.

    It seems obvious that because of the essential differences of these three worlds, a clear understanding of them and of man’s share in them can only be obtained by means of three different modes of observation.

    We cannot access the soul by means of physical senses. We can perceive the effects of pain on a person’s body but we can’t perceive their actual pain. A group of people can know that they are listening to the same piece of music but they cannot know the feeling it engenders in each other person. But we can train ourselves to observe our own feelings.

    Steiner not only tells us that there is such a thing as a soul, he even goes into detail about its triple aspect. According to him it can be thought of as consisting of three components in the same way that a body can be separated into the skeletal system, the cardiovascular system and the nervous system. There are the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and the consciousness-soul. Through the sentient soul we live within our sense impressions and feelings. In the intellectual soul we have more of a thinking consciousness, we make more use of memory and we have more control over our feelings. Developing the consciousness soul must be carried out by our own efforts. Following Buddha’s eightfold path is one way of doing this. Development of the soul is an ascent from consciousness through self-consciousness to an expanded consciousness.

    Owen Barfield

    If civilization is to be saved, people must come more and more to realize that our consciousness is not something spatially enclosed in the skin or in the skull or in the brain; that it is not only our inside, but the inside of the world as a whole. That people should not merely be able to propound as a theory . . . but that it should become more and more their actual experience. . . . That, and also the overcoming of the total obsession there is today, with the Darwinian view of evolution–of consciousness or mind having emerged from a material, but entirely unconscious universe. Putting it very shortly, to realize, not simply as a theory but as a conviction of common sense, that in the history of the world, matter has emerged from mind and not mind from matter.

    I believe that materialism is a very comfortable dream that many do not wish to wake up from. He saw the importance of getting beyond this materialistic dream that modern society seems to be stuck in.

  3. CharlieM: People seem to be obsessed with definitions, but definitions do what they are supposed to do, they set limits. This is fine for physical entities but it is inappropriate for anything to do with soul and spirit. Attributes of the soul such as love cannot be defined in the same precise way that a physical object can.

    I’m not obsessed with definitions myself, but I will note that (logically speaking) if you (or, more importantly, people in general) have difficulty coming up with words to define something succinctly, it does imply that the subject is not well-understood and not easily explained. If you’re fine with the term “soul” being an enigma, great, but I personally have no use for such concepts. If “soul” to you is a term that is more a feeling or emotion for you, I can kind of understand that perspective too, though I have no such feeling myself.

    My issue with defining the term arises from the tendency for some to use the term “soul” in a context that implies concrete, established, contingent existence. That I must reject outright unless those persons can give a definition to said “soul” in such a way that it can be understood in context.

  4. CharlieM: People seem to be obsessed with definitions, but definitions do what they are supposed to do, they set limits.

    I’d say you have that wrong.

    What’s really happening, is that some people make ridiculously strong claims using vague terms. So the natural reaction is to demand precise definition for the terms and evidence for the claims.

    If people stop making ridiculously strong claims, or at least make clear that they are expressing personal opinion and not actually making claims, then the “problem” will go away.

  5. Neil Rickert: What’s really happening, is that some people make ridiculously strong claims using vague terms. So the natural reaction is to demand precise definition for the terms and evidence for the claims.

    Well said.

  6. Neil Rickert:: What’s really happening, is that some people make ridiculously strong claims using vague terms. So the natural reaction is to demand precise definition for the terms and evidence for the claims.

    walto: Well said.

    I agree.
    And undisciplined minds, hearing those claims, fill in their own details via confirmation bias, and accept the claims without ever asking for a meaningful definition.

    We used to call this “buying a pig in a poke”

    (edit: After writing this I saw that Walto mentioned pigs and pokes in another thread. Yep, some folk wisdom is actually useful)

  7. Neil Rickert: What’s really happening, is that some people make ridiculously strong claims using vague terms.

    Claims like “everything is physical” or “everything is material.” Claims like those, using vague terms like “physical” and “material.” I agree.

  8. Mung: Claims like “everything is physical” or “everything is material.” Claims like those, using vague terms like “physical” and “material.” I agree.

    Just curious Mung, but who on TSZ has made such claims?

  9. The names Pedant and Robin come to mind. Patrick. In fact, I know of very few “anti-ID” posters here who are not die hard physicalists/materialists.

    Do they come right out and assert that everything is physical or everything is material, though perhaps not in those specific words (sort of like Robin claiming that because he didn’t actually write the word “compare” but instead wrote of a lack of any reference point).

    Pedant, what non-physical and/or non-material entities exist?

    Robin, what non-physical and/or non-material entities exist?

  10. Mung:
    The names Pedant and Robin come to mind. Patrick. In fact, I know of very few “anti-ID” posters here who are not die hard physicalists/materialists.

    I believe you’re missing the point here. I’ve never posted (and never will post) “everything is physical” or “everything is material”. I certainly believe that, but I’m not about to claim that it’s a fact. The universe is stranger than what I (or anyone for that matter) can imagine, so my belief regarding there being nothing more than matter is provisional. If someone comes up with a better model, I’m open to analyzing it.

    But hey…feel free to tilt at that straw windmill if it gets your juices flowin’…

    Do they come right out and assert that everything is physical or everything is material, though perhaps not in those specific words (sort of like Robin claiming that because he didn’t actually write the word “compare” but instead wrote of a lack of any reference point).

    Ahh…no. In this case you made a specific reference to some people make ridiculously strong claims using vague terms like “everything is physical” or “everything is matter”. But no one here has EVER made such a claim, strong or otherwise. So you’re just plain wrong. Not our fault that some of you DO make ridiculously strong claims using vague terms like “soul” and “immaterial”. If religious/superstitious people can’t help looking silly, it’s not the non-believers’ fault.

    Pedant, what non-physical and/or non-material entities exist?

    Robin, what non-physical and/or non-material entities exist?

    None of which I’m aware.

  11. Mung:
    The names Pedant and Robin come to mind. Patrick. In fact, I know of very few “anti-ID” posters here who are not die hard physicalists/materialists.

    Do they come right out and assert that everything is physical or everything is material, though perhaps not in those specific words (sort of like Robin claiming that because he didn’t actually write the word “compare” but instead wrote of a lack of any reference point).

    Pedant, what non-physical and/or non-material entities exist?

    Robin, what non-physical and/or non-material entities exist?

    If someone said there’s a parallel dimension, very much like our own (with a physical/material reality), but completely detached from ours in terms of a mechanism to detect anything that’s going on there, what would it take for you to believe it? And considering that it’s supposed to be (at least partially) physical and material, should a physicalist/materialist believe it exists? What if this parallel dimension was claimed to affect our reality somehow?

  12. dazz, what non-physical and/or non-material entities exist?

    Physicalists/Materialists. Not the entire lot of you, granted. But that’s the obvious majority view espoused here at TSZ. All one has to do is look at the questions you ask and the dismissive snark when it comes to any alternative.

    It’s blatantly obvious.

    But it’s like Patrick and his “atheism.” You don’t want to take a position you would have to defend, so you don’t just come out and say that anything that exists is physical and/or material.

    Well, I don’t blame you, really.

  13. Robin: I’ve never posted (and never will post) “everything is physical” or “everything is material”. I certainly believe that, but I’m not about to claim that it’s a fact.

    And that fact that you believe it to be so can be seen by the things you write here, even if you don’t know it to be a fact. What a silly dodge. You certainly act as if it’s a fact.

    So one down. I got one right. How about you Pedant?

  14. Robin: But no one here has EVER made such a claim, strong or otherwise. So you’re just plain wrong.

    That claim here is made consistently. So you’re just plain wrong. You even admit to believing it is so. But you want the rest of us to believe that what you believe isn’t actually reflected in what you write. But it is.

  15. Mung:
    dazz, what non-physical and/or non-material entities exist?

    Physicalists/Materialists. Not the entire lot of you, granted. But that’s the obvious majority view espoused here at TSZ. All one has to do is look at the questions you ask and the dismissive snark when it comes to any alternative.

    It’s blatantly obvious.

    But it’s like Patrick and his “atheism.” You don’t want to take a position you would have to defend, so you don’t just come out and say that anything that exists is physical and/or material.

    Well, I don’t blame you, really.

    Take a position on what? I have no reason to believe there’s any parallel physical dimension, so I don’t believe it exists. How about you?

    Same goes for the “supernatural”, or the “soul”

  16. Mung:

    But it’s like Patrick and his “atheism.” You don’t want to take a position you would have to defend, so you don’t just come out and say that anything that exists is physical and/or material.

    Mung, this is pretty simple: I freely admit that I believe that there’s nothing more than material components and effects in this universe. What would you like me to defend about that?

  17. Mung: And that fact that you believe it to be so can be seen by the things you write here, even if you don’t know it to be a fact. What a silly dodge. You certainly act as if it’s a fact.

    Of course I act as it’s a fact; I believe it to be so. Why would I act otherwise? How would I act otherwise?

    So of course my POV is reflected in everything I write here. I’d be worried if it weren’t.

    And yet, I’m not about to claim it’s a fact since I don’t know that it is. So your claim about is erroneous.

    So one down. I got one right. How about you Pedant?

    LOL! Not so much…

  18. Mung: That claim here is made consistently. So you’re just plain wrong. You even admit to believing it is so. But you want the rest of us to believe that what you believe isn’t actually reflected in what you write. But it is.

    …and there it is: the big old Mung equivocation. Nope…sorry. You’re wrong Mung. A claim about one’s belief is simply not the same thing as a claim that something is a fact.

  19. Mung:
    . . .
    But it’s like Patrick and his “atheism.” You don’t want to take a position you would have to defend, so you don’t just come out and say that anything that exists is physical and/or material.
    . . . .

    Some of us simply don’t make claims without evidence. I am an atheist because I have never been presented with any evidence or logical arguments that convince me that gods exist. If you come up with something compelling, I’ll change my mind. Until then I’ll act as though such things don’t exist.

    The same applies to the “immaterial”. If you find it frustrating that some of us hold knowledge to be provisional, that’s your issue.

    Speaking of actual claims though, where’s your support for your assertion that Avida is “rigged”?

  20. Patrick: Some of us simply don’t make claims without evidence.I am an atheist because I have never been presented with any evidence or logical arguments that convince me that gods exist.If you come up with something compelling, I’ll change my mind.Until then I’ll act as though such things don’t exist.

    The same applies to the “immaterial”.If you find it frustrating that some of us hold knowledge to be provisional, that’s your issue.

    Speaking of actual claims though, where’s your support for your assertion that Avida is “rigged”?

    But why should they be the only ones who take strong positions that can’t be supported by the evidence?

    Are you trying to make UD’s accusations out to be wrong somehow?

    I guess the idea of just making claims that can be justified is too foreign…

    Glen Davidson

  21. Patrick: Some of us simply don’t make claims without evidence.

    If only you were one of us. You make claims without evidence all the time. There’s no evidence, for example, that you can read minds. Yet you often claim to be able to do so.

    Another way I know that you make claims without evidence is when you fail to support your claims.

  22. Robin: Mung, this is pretty simple

    Yes, it is pretty simple. Because you do not use the exact words that I used, you think it follows that you don’t make any claim about the non-physical or the non-material, even though you believe there are no non-physical or non-material entities, and it is evidenced in every claim you make here.

    So either you’re making such claims, or I’m a mind reader.

  23. Robin: I’m not obsessed with definitions myself, but I will note that (logically speaking) if you (or, more importantly, people in general) have difficulty coming up with words to define something succinctly, it does imply that the subject is not well-understood and not easily explained. If you’re fine with the term “soul” being an enigma, great, but I personally have no use for such concepts. If “soul” to you is a term that is more a feeling or emotion for you, I can kind of understand that perspective too, though I have no such feeling myself.

    My issue with defining the term arises from the tendency for some to use the term “soul” in a context that implies concrete, established, contingent existence. That I must reject outright unless those persons can give a definition to said “soul” in such a way that it can be understood in context.

    I don’t consider my soul to be an enigma. It is my inner being, the seat of my feelings, the source of my thinking. I do not believe that I am communicating here with an undisclosed number of neurons in close proximity to each other. I believe I am in communication with fellow souls. If you believe that your reply to me was instigated by a committee of neurons then maybe you should be using the non-royal we instead of I when referring to yourself.

    I would say that although I know my own soul directly I can only infer that other people possess souls. I do believe that if you study the face and body of person (especially an old person) you can get an idea of how the soul has affected it. Watch a person’s mannerisms, the way they walk, their posture, even the way they write, can give an indication of their soul life.

    I can say that, even though my body has changed radically over the past several decades, I have experienced myself as the same I since it came into my (soul’s) consciousness as a small child. Do your experiences differ in any way from mine? If you believe that the sense of an ego is an illusion then what is it that is falling for the deception? How would you define the I?

  24. Neil Rickert: What’s really happening, is that some people make ridiculously strong claims using vague terms. So the natural reaction is to demand precise definition for the terms and evidence for the claims.

    If people stop making ridiculously strong claims, or at least make clear that they are expressing personal opinion and not actually making claims, then the “problem” will go away.

    Agreed!

  25. One issue I find somewhat interesting is whether “soul,” “mind,” and “consciousness” are being used interchangeably.

    My students usually have no trouble accepting that cognition is just neurocomputational functioning. If they were more perplexed by rationality or ought-ness, they might be troubled by this, but they aren’t. The idea that cognition is just something that brains do is not a problem for them.

    But they are occasionally troubled by consciousness, as distinct from cognition. And they really want to make some distinction between soul and mind, somehow, because they are not happy at the thought that the death of the body/brain is the termination of the existence of the self.

    Being undergraduates, I don’t expect them to have fully consistent system of beliefs. But I am curious whether “soul” and “mind” are being used interchangeably by anyone here.

  26. Patrick: If you find it frustrating that some of us hold knowledge to be provisional, that’s your issue.

    Now that’s funny, I don’t care who you are.

  27. Mung:

    Pedant, what non-physical and/or non-material entities exist?

    Are abstractions or memes “entities”? They sure do exist, because we generate them and use them as tools for thought and communication, but they’re not “out there” in the sensible world. One can talk about “courage,” or “compassion” but they’re noun forms of qualities observed in people.

    Souls and gods and angels are non-material abstractions.

  28. Kantian Naturalist: One issue I find somewhat interesting is whether “soul,” “mind,” and “consciousness” are being used interchangeably.

    Yes, Patrick started out making claims about the mind, then later changed to claims about consciousness.

  29. Pedant:
    Souls and gods and angels are non-material abstractions.

    I meant to add that such entities are anthropomorphic myths extrapolated from observed human qualities. (See Homer, epic poems, Bible, etc.)

    That’s my sincere belief, yes it is.

  30. Pedant: Souls and gods and angels are non-material abstractions.

    So you believe that abstractions exist, but they do not exist as anything material or physical? So no one is ever going to find an abstraction anywhere in your brain, because abstractions are not located in brains. That’s your position?

  31. Mung: So you believe that abstractions exist, but they do not exist as anything material or physical? So no one is ever going to find an abstraction anywhere in your brain, because abstractions are not located in brains. That’s your position?

    Of course they are located in brain processes, and in speech. They are represented there, and in print, or in electronic communications.

  32. I think Wikipedia (to whom I’ve just contributed 20 bucks) tells it well:

    An entity is something that exists as itself, as a subject or as an object, actually or potentially, concretely or abstractly, physically or not. It need not be of material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is animate, or present.

    The word is abstract in intention. It may refer, for example, to Bucephalus, the horse of Alexander; to a stone; to a cardinal number; to a language; or to ghosts or other spirits.

    The word entitative is the adjective form of the noun entity. Something that is entitative is considered in its own right.

    In philosophy, ontology is about the recognition of entities. The words ontic and entity are derived respectively from the ancient Greek and Latin present participles that mean ‘being’.

  33. I want to say that Walto’s earlier point about the confusion between de dicto and de re ascriptions is similar to a worry I have: a confusion between sense and reference.

    Since I know Husserl better than Frege, I’ll use “intentional object” instead of “sense” (whether the two are equivalent is fiercely debated). Put that way: when I am thinking of Zeus, Zeus is the intentional object of that thought. (What I am thinking about.).

    Does Zeus therefore “exist”?

    The puzzle here, what we call since Brentano “intentional inexistence”, is that we can intend objects that don’t exist. (A golden mountain is the standard example.)

    Husserl, famously, thought we had to abstain from all ontological commitments in order to clarify and describe intentional objects as such, along with their correlated intentional acts taken towards them.

    Whether or not a term has a sense, or a thought or utterance has an intentional object, is a question of (take your pick) ordinary-language philosophy or phenomenology. But whether a term with sense also refers is a distinct question.

    I have no problem using “Zeus” as having a sense, and relative to the discourse of Greek myths, saying true or false things about him. It is true that Zeus is the king of the gods and false that Zeus has nine heads.

    One can say that while also thinking that there is no such thing as Zeus; “Zeus” does not refer. “Zeus” has a sense but no reference.

  34. Pedant: Of course they are located in brain processes, and in speech. They are represented there, and in print, or in electronic communications.

    This is perhaps the most productive conversation you and I have ever had. You used to be on my Ignore list. 🙂

    What is it that is located in the brain, is it the actual abstraction that exists in the brain or is it only the representation of the abstraction that exists in the brain?

    Or perhaps neither the abstraction nor the representation of it exist in the brain, or, the abstraction does not but the representation does.

    To follow on to that, would you say that both the abstraction and it’s representation exist on the printed page, or only one of those two?

  35. Kantian Naturalist: The puzzle here, what we call since Brentano “intentional inexistence”, is that we can intend objects that don’t exist.

    Why do you think this is a puzzle?

    I would think an ID supporter (not saying you are one mind you) would have no issue with the fact that we can intend things that do not yet exist. This ability to intend things that do not yet exist, however, seems to be absent from ‘Nature’ as normally presented by the anti-ID crowd.

  36. Kantian Naturalist: The puzzle here, what we call since Brentano “intentional inexistence”, is that we can intend objects that don’t exist.

    Would it be more of a puzzle if we could un-intend objects that do exist?

  37. Mung: This is perhaps the most productive conversation you and I have ever had. You used to be on my Ignore list.

    What is it that is located in the brain, is it the actual abstraction that exists in the brain or is it only the representation of the abstraction that exists in the brain?

    Or perhaps neither the abstraction nor the representation of it exist in the brain, or, the abstraction does not but the representation does.

    You’re asking questions that neuroscience hasn’t answered yet.

    Do you see any reason why further investigation won’t yield better understanding?

    To follow on to that, would you say that both the abstraction and it’s representation exist on the printed page, or only one of those two?

    Please, use your head.

    OK, it’s the representation. You failed that test, but I’m generous, so I’ll give you a B-.

    I’ll be here in the next semester, starting Jan 9. If you trust me, sign up for the class.

  38. Kantian Naturalist: One can say that while also thinking that there is no such thing as Zeus; “Zeus” does not refer. “Zeus” has a sense but no reference.

    You sound like Paul of Tarsus

    Quote:

    Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.” For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.
    (1Co 8:4-7)

    end quote:

    peace

  39. Mung: This is perhaps the most productive conversation you and I have ever had. You used to be on my Ignore list.

    What an honor to pass the Mung qualification test.

    **Humbling**

  40. Pedant: OK, it’s the representation.

    It’s the representation that exists on the page, and not the actual abstraction. So where is the abstraction located?

    But you still want to leave room for both the representation and the abstraction to exist in the brain. But why, given what you’ve just managed to realize about the physical page? You surely cannot reason from both exist on the page, therefore both exist in the brain.

    So you’re reasons for thinking that both exist in the brain are based on what, exactly?

    You’re asking questions that neuroscience hasn’t answered yet.

    Good.

    You know the representation is on the page but the abstraction is not.

    You know even less about the brain.

    Neuroscience has not told us that the representation exists in the brain, much less that the abstraction exists in the brain.

    How certain are you that one or both exist in the brain, and why?

    Do you have a scientific reason for your belief?

  41. Kantian Naturalist: The puzzle here, what we call since Brentano “intentional inexistence”, is that we can intend objects that don’t exist.

    I don’t see that as a puzzle.

    One can say that while also thinking that there is no such thing as Zeus; “Zeus” does not refer. “Zeus” has a sense but no reference.

    This is part of why I am a skeptic of ontology. Of course “Zeus” can refer. That Zeus does not exist is not at all relevant.

  42. Neil Rickert: This is part of why I am a skeptic of ontology.

    LoL! Neil, do you even know what it means to be a skeptic of ontology?

    This explains so much about Neil.

    He is a skeptic about whether he really exists. Neil rejects truth, and facts, and reality, perhaps because he is willing to admit that he cannot tell what is true from what is false, what is fact from what is fiction, what is real from what is fantasy.

    Why is Neil a moderator?

  43. Mung: LoL! Neil, do you even know what it means to be a skeptic of ontology?

    This explains so much about Neil.

    He is a skeptic about whether he really exists. Neil rejects truth, and facts, and reality, perhaps because he is willing to admit that he cannot tell what is true from what is false, what is fact from what is fiction, what is real from what is fantasy.

    Why is Neil a moderator?

    This is complete bullshit. It belongs in guano (IMO), though I’ll leave that for somebody else to decide.

  44. Neil, what does it mean to be a skeptic of ontology, and how is it not the case that to claim to be a skeptic of ontology is not in fact an oxymoron?

  45. Kantian Naturalist:
    One issue I find somewhat interesting is whether “soul,” “mind,” and “consciousness” are being used interchangeably.

    My students usually have no trouble accepting that cognition is just neurocomputational functioning. If they were more perplexed by rationality or ought-ness, they might be troubled by this, but they aren’t. The idea that cognition is just something that brains do is not a problem for them.

    That’s a pity. Do any of them ever question anything?

    But they are occasionally troubled by consciousness, as distinct from cognition. And they really want to make some distinction between soul and mind, somehow, because they are not happy at the thought that the death of the body/brain is the termination of the existence of the self.

    Are they some sort of Borg?

    Being undergraduates, I don’t expect them to have fully consistent system of beliefs.

    Is a university education a requirement for having consistent beliefs?

    But I am curious whether “soul” and “mind” are being used interchangeably by anyone here.

    Not by me.

  46. Neil Rickert: This is complete bullshit. It belongs in guano (IMO), though I’ll leave that for somebody else to decide.

    Your comments belong in Guano. They insult anyone of above average intelligence.

    Anyone with half a mind can investigate what to means to be skeptical of ontology.

  47. Mung: Neil, what does it mean to be a skeptic of ontology, and how is it not the case that to claim to be a skeptic of ontology is not in fact an oxymoron?

    Ontology is a subdiscipline of philososphy. To be a skeptic is to doubt the value of that subdiscipline.

    I am not seeing anything oxymoronic there.

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