Mind matters.

Brock Harding

The concept of what our beings consist of is an ageless debate and one that has become confounded by modern society which takes elements of ancient philosophy to form a view of themselves. The problem, as I see it, is that concepts of the soul and spirit were first postured thousands of years ago without the insight of modern science.

If you ask others what their being consists of you will get varying answers dependant upon their religious and self belief. This aside, I think most people would agree that we all have a mind.

I posture that early ideology concerning the soul and spirit was simply an attempt to categorise what we now know as the human mind without the benefit of informed science.

This is where it becomes interesting. If you suspend your current beliefs of what your being is made of, if only temporarily, and consider that your mind is the physical manifestation of your soul and/or spirit, then what are the consequences when this knowledge/self awareness is applied to yours and others contemporary theologies/beliefs.

As you have a mind you have a soul or spirit. By regarding the mind itself as a soul/spirit you can now revisit current theologies with a fresh perspective and the certainty that your soul/spirit is undeniably real and has always existed within you whatever your beliefs or doubts.

I have done this and found the experience to be quite profound. The underlying presumption for this can be simply expressed in what I call the 'mind equation':

Mind=spirit=soul=thetan (if you are a scientologist).

Manuel

I'm sympathetic to certain strands of idealism, but I think there might be something unclear here.

As you have a mind you have a soul or spirit. By regarding the mind itself as a soul/spirit you can now revisit current theologies with a fresh perspective and the certainty that your soul/spirit is undeniably real and has always existed within you whatever your beliefs or doubts. — Brock Harding

What would be the difference between a mind and a soul? Could you explain that a bit more? As far as I can see, I think soul is another word for mental phenomena, likely encapsulating certain physiological aspects too, but I'm unclear as to why the soul is something distinct from mind...

Brock Harding

Hey, it takes a little while to sink in but what I am saying is that the soul is the mind. I think these days we get so focussed on the details and mechanics of how things work that we lose sight of the bigger picture I.e. the 'observer effect'. Do we really need to know how the mind is created to know it works? Of course how it works is also interesting but doesn't precludes it's existence.

Manuel

Hey, it takes a little while to sink in but what I am saying is that the soul is the mind. — Brock Harding

That looks like different words for the same phenomena. Which is fine.

Do we really need to know how the mind is created to know it works? Of course how it works is also interesting but doesn't precludes it's existence. — Brock Harding

No we don't. We just have experience, with little clue as to how it works at all.

But it seems you might be wanting to say something more about the soul than this?

Brock Harding

I do have more to say but I am conscious not to limit the perspectives of any readers. I prefer to let readers form their own minds.

Manuel

↪Brock Harding

And that's perfectly fine, but you need to give some argument as to why mind is fundamental or everything we need.

Stating this to be the case does not seem to say much as to why the soul is important. It's only a postulate at this point.

Brock Harding

The idea is that readers come to their own realisations.

Brock Harding

I guess the point is that the mind forms how we perceive ourselves, others and reality. It determines our reactions and behaviour. It is our soul. By the way I'm still undecided what the title for this post should be. Any suggestions?

Manuel

Any suggestions? — Brock Harding

I'm not sure. If you give arguments as to what your arguing for or against, then you could say something like "Mind is fundamental, not matter." Something like that.

Brock Harding

Thanks. I will work up the content over time to better express what I want to say.

Gnomon

As you have a mind you have a soul or spirit. By regarding the mind itself as a soul/spirit you can now revisit current theologies with a fresh perspective and the certainty that your soul/spirit is undeniably real and has always existed within you whatever your beliefs or doubts. — Brock Harding

The notion of "having" a mind, reminded me of Peter Pan, who "had" a shadow. Unfortunately, like some Souls, it kept wandering away from his body. So Peter, in order to control his unruly possession, tried to sew it onto his feet.

A lot of the confusion about Minds & Souls is due to the mistake of treating them as real physical objects that can be possessed (reification). Yet, Minds are not "undeniably real", but imaginatively Ideal. However, the metaphors we use to describe Minds & Souls are analogies to physical things. Which some people take literally. So, I prefer to think of the Mind as the metaphysical Function of the Brain. When the brain is processing information, it is Minding, or Thinking. Conceptual Functions and dynamic Processes are like fluids, and shadows, when you try to grasp them, they slip through your fingers. :joke:

Reification : to consider or represent (something abstract) as a material or concrete thing : to give definite content and form to (a concept or idea).

Enrique

As you have a mind you have a soul or spirit. — Brock Harding

I think it might make sense to view "soul" as the total psychological phenomenon, including physical correlates that exist beyond the body, which I expect researchers to eventually model in the context of a quantum consciousness theory (I'm not sure how controversial that is in academia), and "mind" as the interface between soul and brain.

Brock Harding

Love the Peter Pan analogy. I guess one of the points I was trying to make is that the spirit and the soul do not exist and are merely artificial constructs or concepts. The mind, a result of complex brain function, and body is all we have to play with.

Joshs

↪Brock Harding

the spirit and the soul do not exist and are merely artificial constructs or concepts. The mind, a result of complex brain function, and body is all we have. — Brock Harding

The mind and the brain are also the result of artificial constructs. It’s not a question of getting beyond our constructs, but of deciding which ones appear more
useful to us in navigating our world.

Joshs

↪Enrique

I expect researchers to eventually model in the context of a quantum consciousness theory — Enrique

This would be of interest mainly to physicists. My impression is that for most psychologists a
quantum theory of consciousness would be almost useless. The most promising theories of consciousness deal with such issues as empathy, affectivity and self-awareness These make uses of an intentional account of motivation, not a physically causal one.

Brock Harding

'Getting beyond our constructs' reminds of that scene in the movie 'The Matrix' where Morpheus offers Neo the blue or red pill. It appears you want the blue pill.

Joshs

↪Brock Harding

You’re thinking idealism, I’m thinking phenomenology. Constructs aren’t ‘all in the mind’ , they are products of mind-world interaction. Our constructs make direct contact with reality, but reality is always perspectival.

Enrique

My impression is that for most psychologists a
quantum theory of consciousness would be almost useless. The most promising theories of consciousness deal with such issues as empathy, affectivity and self-awareness These make uses of an intentional account of motivation, not a physically causal one. — Joshs

But psychologists do make use of neuroscience, and quantum consciousness will be an aspect of this discipline. My opinion is that most processes we know of in the body and a rangy amount we don't all involve quantum phenomena, the only way that biochemical pathways can function at the massively fast rates they do.

Joshs

↪Enrique

I dont disagree. My point is just that we need different empirical accounts to explain different phenomena. A quantum account of consciousness wouldn’t be ‘wrong’, but I don’t think it would address what psychologists need it to in their approach to consciousness.

Enrique

My point is just that we need different empirical accounts to explain different phenomena. A quantum account of consciousness wouldn’t be ‘wrong’, but I don’t think it would address what psychologists need it to in their approach to consciousness. — Joshs

Me, I think I subscribe to a combination of strong and weak supervenience: every subjectively reported state has a physical correlate, but subjective states cannot be fully and adequately explained in a physical way. So psychology and neuroscience complementarily explain consciousness from differing perspectives or rather different realms of intuition. A psychologist needs some neuroscience background to determine the most appropriate treatment in many cases, and a neuroscientist needs psychology to comprehend the therapeutic significance of what is being studied, its complete range of effects.

Brock Harding

Appreciate your comments but the original post was more about shifting perspective on how we view what our 'being' is more broadly comprised of. I find it odd that some people belive that they have a distinct soul and spirit seperate to the body.

Tom Storm

I find it odd that some people belive that they has a distinct soul and spirit seperate to the body. — Brock Harding

I don't know why this would be odd, it has been a dominant belief for centuries.

Brock Harding

It certainly has, perhaps postulating otherwise is futile but I think it is worth considering other perspectives if only as an intellectual exercise.

Enrique

I find it odd that some people belive that they have a distinct soul and spirit seperate to the body. — Brock Harding

Maybe soul is comprised of or identical to bodies with physical properties, just not in its totality a physiological body.

Brock Harding

The idea of the body having a distinct soul is certainly a wide spread contemporary assumption. If you do some cursory google searches on Ancient Greek views of the soul and spirit you will quickly realise that early ideologies on the soul and spirit were merely an attempt to classify the mind which would have seemed an ethereal form in those days without informed science regarding brain function. It would seem that civilisation, only later in it's development, changed this conceptualisation into an immortal soul.

By going back to Ancient wisdom of the soul/spirit we can see what the intent of their true meaning was. I have no doubt of this. Trying to convince others is another matter. Hence I postulate my initial theory that the mind is the soul and to have a soul is to have a mind. This would certainly bring us closer to our true selves and opens the way to a fresh perspective on contemporary beliefs.

Gnomon

If you do some cursory google searches on Ancient Greek views of the soul and spirit you will quickly realise that early ideologies on the soul and spirit were merely an attempt to classify the mind which would have seemed an ethereal form in those days without informed science regarding brain function. — Brock Harding

The ancient Egyptians, who taught the Greeks a lot about spirituality and magic, associated the Soul with the human Heart, not the brain. They had no idea what the function of brain was (e.g. abstract reasoning), but the heart was clearly associated with Life and physical Emotions. Despite the "primitive" state of their physical science, they developed a sophisticated epistemology of the metaphysical Soul. Ironically, their ideology placed little value on the brain. So, when their Pharaohs were mummified, the brain was removed through the nose, perhaps because, like the guts, it quickly rotted after death. :smile:

Heart & Soul :
The ancient Egyptians believed that a soul (kꜣ/bꜣ; Egypt. pron. ka/ba) was made up of many parts. In addition to these components of the soul, there was the human body (called the ḥꜥ, occasionally a plural ḥꜥw, meaning approximately "sum of bodily parts").
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_conception_of_the_soul

Soul Ideology :
The ancient Egyptians believed the soul was divided into five parts Ren, Ba, Ka, Sheut, and Ib.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_concept_of_the_soul

Brock Harding

↪Gnomon

If you think of the 'Soul Ideology' as referring to the mind then I guess you have an early iteration of psychology.

Gnomon

If you think of the 'Soul Ideology' as referring to the mind then I guess you have an early iteration of psychology. — Brock Harding

I'm not an Egyptologist, but my impression is that they didn't have a concept of abstract "Mind", in the modern sense, as associated with the brain. Their Ib (heart) was the seat of visceral Emotions & Feelings, but not of Reason. Ba (personality) was the generator of characteristic behaviors. Sheut (shadow) was a sort of impersonal essence or identity. And Ka (life force) was the living soul that departs upon death. But none of them were directly related to Reasoning. I suppose the Greek philosophers pioneered the notion of abstract logical reasoning, as a way of thinking not motivated by knee-jerk impulses. Modern psychology (Rational Emotive Therapy) only recently began to focus the rational mind inwardly in order to gain control of unruly emotions, just as rational Science learned to control unruly Nature. :smile:

Gnomon

Appreciate your comments but the original post was more about shifting perspective on how we view what our 'being' is more broadly comprised of. I find it odd that some people belive that they have a distinct soul and spirit seperate to the body. — Brock Harding

As far back as the Egyptians, people have analyzed their "being" into various categories : Emotions, Personality, Essence, and Life Force. But Descartes boiled it all down to just two categories : physical Body and metaphysical Soul. This was, in part, a way for scientists to avoid addressing the "hard problem" of how Conscious Mind is related to Material Body. And it was an important "shift of perspective" that allowed empirical Science to flourish for centuries, without the encumbrance of Magical Thinking and Spooky Spiritualism.

But in the 21st century, Materialism began to founder on the shores of Quantum im-materialism. So, I think we are in the process of another "perspective" or paradigm shift -- to give scientists permission to get involved in questions that have been the proprietary purview of religions for eons.This will require taking philosophical Meta-physics seriously though, as it is the only aspect of Reality we know directly : our personal consciousness -- the realm of ideas (Idealism). :smile:

Mind matters.

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