If you believe in souls

[Veovis]

Do you think that they can hurt?

As in, ache?

Do you believe that something can hurt you so profoundly that it affects your very psyche; that which makes you you? Causes you a sort of metaphysical pain?

I dunno. I had some fucked up shit happen to me over this past month, and my innards, not my guts but like, my inside insides have been giving me crap lately. I feel all mopey and such. I know its nothing silly like depression or anything, though I wont go so far as to say that being depressed isnt a factor in it. But I've been depressed before, and this feels different.

So I got to thinking..

Maybe my soul hurts.

The part of me that will always be me, unchanging, sustaining a tiny speck of damage. But that speck is enough to like, make my whole system feel like its running on low batteries, or in safe mode.

I guess the closest thing I can relate the feeling to is a lack of motivation. I just dont feel like doing anything anymore after all this stupid stuff I went through. I'm better for it now that its over, but the journey through it was tough. Totally lame. And by the end of it, I was feeling like this.

Rambling is fun sometimes.

Just venting here. Dont mind me.

Maybe it's because I keep having these ups and downs..

I get a new job. Decent pay, good hours, friendly work enviroment, all the chemicals I could hope for.

My girl leaves me the day before I start.

I get my first paycheck and decide to fix up my car.

That morning, I get a letter from the city saying my car has been considered a junk vehicle because it hasnt moved in a few months and is getting towed.

How lame is that.

I guess so far it's doing better. I got my FF back. That was a plus that didnt have a downfall.

But back to the main thing I was talking about..the soul, and what affect it can have on the rest of your body. To answer my own question; yes, I do think that the soul can be hurt, and it in turn can hurt you. Maybe thats what depression is, the soul contorting and twisting in mute protest to the goings-on of your life. Maybe thats what butterflies in the stomach are.

Then again, maybe theres no such thing as a soul.

But I know one thing for sure:

I dont feel well.

Seacrest, out.

PS. This is just me talking. If it doesnt make sense to you, dont worry. Just jibber jabber trapped inside my brain.

 

[Reeve]

Some events that occurred in my life were traumatic and left me feeling as if my soul was left shattered and broken.

I was very depressed for a while and even my memories of that time are in various shades of gray. I'm lucky, I was able to pull myself together and rebuild life and myself.

Even though those events are many years behind me, emotionally and otherwise, I still feel the occasional 'soul ache' but I work on it, work on myself as a person, and the "cracks" become less and less over time.

If you makes you feel any better, I was dating a girl who ended up cheating on me with our manager. How sad is that! lol

 

[Valcristiel]

Damn >< Veo lol I understand where you're coming from. Reminds me of what I'm going through right now hmmmm ....

 

[Legomyeggo]

After my dad died I didn't really feel like doing anything. I'd just stay on my roof listening to music. I wouldn't bother eating or sleeping. I still haven't had much to eat or sleep in awhile. On top of that I was making too many mistakes that were threatening relationships with my friends and family. Fuckin' sucks when your whole world collapses and shit keeps piling on, but there's nothing else to do except for keep moving on.

 

[Odon]

Fuckin' sucks when your whole world collapses and shit keeps piling on, but there's nothing else to do except for keep moving on.

This is a fact. My world collapsed about a month ago not much you can really do besides sit there and let more bullshit build up or start getting your life back together..

 

[Shaunessy]

C-130 rolling down the strip.
Airborne ranger on one way trip.
mission top secret destination unknown
don't even know if I'm going home.
Stand up, Hook up, shuffle to the door.
Jump right out and count to four.
One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four.
if my shoot don't open wide.
I've got a reserve by my side.
If that one should fail me too
Look out below because I'm coming through

Drive on soldier.

 

[Kaliea]

C-130 rolling down the strip.
Airborne ranger on one way trip.
mission top secret destination unknown
don't even know if I'm going home.
Stand up, Hook up, shuffle to the door.
Jump right out and count to four.
One thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four.
if my shoot don't open wide.
I've got a reserve by my side.
If that one should fail me too
Look out below because I'm coming through

Drive on soldier.

Well put

 

[Tymon]

I don't think there could be anything that could actually HARM your soul. But yes, I do believe that your situation could cause you to have a type of ache that wouldn't happen otherwise.

 

[Raesylil]

I do believe that souls do exist within us. What exactly is the soul made of or constituted of may be of debate to some people.

I think the human soul is made of the heart(not the organ but the place where it feels things), and the consciousness. I don't know a different way to put it.
When either one of these is hurt in some way, it affects the body and the body can produce symptoms. It can be stress, trauma, etc.
The result could be deterioration of health, depression...

I don't know but that's how I feel about that.

Medicine's won't help if the problem is within your heart and soul. Only way to fix that (if possible) is to pick your feet up and move on forward. Time will pass and the soul would heal and you'll feel like you again.

I don't know lol. I'm just rambling myself >.<

 

[sirivalin]

I do believe that souls do exist within us. What exactly is the soul made of or constituted of may be of debate to some people.

I think the human soul is made of the heart(not the organ but the place where it feels things), and the consciousness. I don't know a different way to put it.
When either one of these is hurt in some way, it affects the body and the body can produce symptoms. It can be stress, trauma, etc.
The result could be deterioration of health, depression...

I don't know but that's how I feel about that.

Medicine's won't help if the problem is within your heart and soul. Only way to fix that (if possible) is to pick your feet up and move on forward. Time will pass and the soul would heal and you'll feel like you again.

I don't know lol. I'm just rambling myself >.<

But what if...you, is no longer you. I have thought long and hard about these same questions, wondered....is my soul so badly damaged, it may never heal? What of others, can they drift so far, they are no longer them anymore, lost to pain. I know how emo this sounds, but you take a look at people nowadays…ride the bus, look in the eyes of those who are nothing more than robots, doing the same tasks day in and day out, no joy, no emotion…just exist. They weren’t always like that.

Life is rough, it is supposed to be. Some deal with more crap than others, everyone has their breaking point. Can the soul break, and just become a dim light in a persons eyes, no way to ever see the beauty life can hold. Time heals all, or does it?

Soldier on people say…and this is true. But if you’ve ever looked into the eyes of Veterans, who have seen a lot of combat, gruesome combat…there is nothing there anymore. You can talk to them, carry conversations, they can laugh, cry…but in their eyes, they are gone.

Funny I should come across a thread, on here, the day I was pondering the same thing. I don’t want to be one of those lost ones, I want to feel life is beautiful again….but what if the crap you deal with, never stops, piles and piles and piles, for years. Every cloud has a silver lining, there is a light at the end of the tunnel…and when I see it, why does it move further away.

Lol, sorry, my Rambling /emo off

Continue <.<

 

[Raesylil]

But what if...you, is no longer you. I have thought long and hard about these same questions, wondered....is my soul so badly damaged, it may never heal? What of others, can they drift so far, they are no longer them anymore, lost to pain. I know how emo this sounds, but you take a look at people nowadays…ride the bus, look in the eyes of those who are nothing more than robots, doing the same tasks day in and day out, no joy, no emotion…just exist. They weren’t always like that.

Forgive me if I sound like an eccentric or something >.> but here goes...

The thing is there is a basic "you" in everyone, in my opinion...It doesn't mean that "you" is lost forever if your soul has undergone so much pain and distress. No matter what you may go through, there is always the "blueprint." It's always going to be there.

It's just that I think some people let things get to them so much that it overshadows their inner selves. Now I know there are some things you would rather forget than remember. I know I do. But maybe there are some things you could never ever forget.
Maybe there is a breaking point...but I believe once you hit rock bottom and you still have the will to live then you would be able to pick yourself up and move on forward again.
I dunno...maybe there is a point where the soul can literally break and not heal. A part of me doesn't want to believe that though. I'd rather live through the trials that life gives me than lose hope and fall into despair.

When you do things that are in a routine...like a full-time job or taking care of kids or going to school, I think it doesn't let "you" spread your wings as often. I mean, you can relax your body by doing some things...but not exactly your soul. That may change who you are in society or in life, yes.
Responsibilities and priviledges come at a price in life. Such things can restrict a person's soul, I think.
I think that sometimes when things become too monotonous or repetitive...some people tend to lose sight of the other things in life.

The soul does get weary and tired. When that happens, I think it just goes dormant for a while until it's ready to come out. Heck people go on vacations or take breaks...it's because they need it to get out of their repetitive lives and step out and look around and smell the roses once again.

I'm rambling again aren't I? lol >.<

 

[Araelus]

This thread has some amazing insights in it. I especially like your points, Raes.

I wanted to put some of my considerations of the matter here, if they help any. Or if it helps some of you speak to your more empirically minded friends about the matter at hand. (Bad philosophy pun, sorry. I didn't mean to say it that way.)

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Understanding that we have souls - better stated, are souls - allows for the recognition that each of us has a deep stability and purpose.

It seems that academics, officials, and even (or especially) philosophers have lost sight of (and need to find again in order to really understand) whatever it is that makes us ... us ... on a deep level. Whether we call this missing concept the “self,” the “I,” or the “soul,” many existing theories fail to identify this strange essence, especially in psychology and science. The soul must be something that is not reducible to the mind, but also not a dualism. It has to have some impact on the rest of the system, or else it becomes epiphenomenalism.

So we have to say the soul is somehow an essence which arises from the physical and mental system which also contains it. It is as if when you peel off the layers of an onion, the center vanishes before you finish. That is, I have a soul, it is unique to me, it is something inseparable from my body, and even if certain changes were made to my body, mind, or environment I would have that same soul. Perhaps it is more accurate to say: I would be the same soul.

We can thus not fear some kind of duality arising out of the soul. Aristotle comments, “we can wholly dismiss as unnecessary the question whether the soul and the body are one: it is as meaningless to as whether the wax and the shape given to it by the stamp are one, or generally the matter of the things and that of which it is the matter.”(1) That is, the notion of duality is a modern one – if the soul arises from the complex system of world, body, and mind; if it is integral to understanding the system; then it is inseparable from that system (to iterate an important point). The mistake of thinkers like Putnam is that they use Aristotle to dismiss the soul entirely, instead of recognizing the error he wants to address.

Something fascinating herein is the way we talk about morality and ethical conduct. In much the same way that people use terms from propositional attitude psychology without understanding all the implications, many people today have some kind of notion of the soul, independent from religious views. Even some staunch atheists have a notion that they have a soul, or act in accordance with such an idea even if they deny it.

Our everyday ethics often views the soul as something that can be “lost” or “harmed” through action or inaction, on our own part or by others or in a group (though no discernable change to the body can be detected). This soul is often the reason that humans are held apart from other animals, especially in the utilitarian calculus. People have, for a long time, had the notion that there is a soul, an individual, persistent “I” that while affected by a person’s actions is so affected because it represents who that person is at a fundamental level. This ethics, disparaged by the academic elite, should not be thrown away so lightly, in the same way "folk" psychology has an important story to tell despite how much material elimitivists hate it.

William James’ ideas about “the right to believe” are helpful in answering how we can have the concept of soul without what most would consider necessary logical proof. James says that people can decide to value the temporal or the eternal as more important, and not both. Furthermore, James talks about how people view different worlds as more or less real. Whatever world exists as “most real” for a person defines all their other actions, beliefs, and habits. It changes how they perceive everything. A proponent of the soul has to maintain that the spiritual and moral life is the “deepest” behind all others. This is “an affirmation which obviously cannot yet be verified scientifically at all,” since we have not so much as fully described the brain, to say nothing of things more complex.(2)

If the physical life is “deepest”, then we can be defined in terms of the world, body, or brain and there is no ethical dilemma to ignoring the soul.

If the spiritual life, which tells a continuous story about each of us, is true and deepest, then it cannot be reduced to a list of beliefs. Instead, as who we truly are is not just data, the spiritual life becomes the context in which all of who we are should be understood.

The soul offers a continuity of the self and a better understanding of what makes us human. Perhaps the reason it has been ignored by those researching the mind is because it is such a clear threat to reductionism and eliminativism. If it is real, then those who dispense with the soul are disregarding an important part of the humans they are trying to describe. To understand how we think, how our minds operate, one cannot ignore who we are, on the deepest level, as people.

(1) Aristotle, De Anima, 412 a6-b9, quoted by Hilary Putnam in “Philosophy and Our Mental Life,” Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, ed. Ned Block. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1980. Pages 134-143, footnote 6.

(2) c.f. "The Will to Believe" from William James, William James: Writings. New York, NY: Library of America Publishing, 1992.




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Of course all of this comes under attack by people claiming that any idea of soul is just trying to get us to ignore our worldly problems.

The response was thus well stated:

“Treating the human body as a raw datum… [contradicts] the unity of the human person, whose rational soul is per se et essentialiter the form of his body. The spiritual and immortal soul is the principle of unity of the human being, whereby it exists as a whole — corpore et anima unus — as a person…

“In fact, body and soul are inseparable: in the person, in the willing agent and in the deliberate act, they stand or fall together.”
– Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor

In my estimation, you are correct to hold in the highest concern, focus, and attention the state of your soul.

I'm quickly moving from philosophy to theology, and that's dangerous on an online message board.

So - please, all of you, when dealing with these issues, because they are so serious: remember to never, ever bury your head in the sand and just listen to what someone tells you to think. My words and the words of others in my post are one perspective on the subject.

I think people seriously need to sit down and figure out, one way or the other, on that dichotomy James wrote about. Each of us lives in a way that reveals how we have been deciding already.

If we have souls, eternal, then "Do you value the eternal or the temporal?" suddenly means a lot more.

"You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit — immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."
- C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

 

[Arctyrael]

I've always thought of the soul as kind of an emotional rallying point. It handles joy, anger -- everything. You stack on top of it, a whole shit pile, and it has to deal with it based on prior experience and observation. You'll feel out of touch with surrounding circumstances based on the degree of your situation. Winning lottery - euphoria. Murder - paranoia. etc...

If you start finding situations you can't handle, thats when shit gets explosive -- ie, Columbine and other such disasters. Find an outlet, such as music, that you can really relate to. I know personally, listening(really listening) to my favorite songs, honest to God gives a sense of relief for *something* (anything). It doesn't matter what, I just know that I enjoy listening to good music ^-^;