Does "Soul" exist?

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Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Jun 2, 2018 - 04:00pm PT
It started a process that at first I could only consciously have glimpses of. Now I would call it an overlapping cascade effect like the currents in a flowing stream.


I understand your reluctance but the way I've gotten over it is to merely describe, not explain, or try to explain.

That's a good start.
Wayno

Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
Jun 2, 2018 - 04:47pm PT
nice shot but you missed
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Jun 2, 2018 - 05:16pm PT
Wayno, it's not possible nor yet reasonable to try and control someone else's thinking or to even influence. But you started with the cascade image and that, ime, is a solid start.

The reluctance to describe is a strange kind of resistance seeming that's what science does all day long. But when we turn the same lens to phenomenological reality, people tend to consider the exercise as far riskier than an external investigation, though this tends to get fobbed off with various fey or too-cool-for-school guff. Strange thing is we're all doing new things and having to find new solutions all day long. Merely observing the process hardly seems that tall of an order - till you do it and try and describe the "cascade."

Wayno

Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
Jun 2, 2018 - 05:54pm PT
John, remember this was second grade. At some point you lost me. I just get the impression you are reading more into this than I am trying to say. Mike does this too and I wonder where you get this. I'm not trying to impress anyone and obviously I have failed to understand something you think is really important because you keep repeating these things like a mantra. Please try to tone it down. If I'm bothering you, I will shut up. I really don't have much of an investment here.

If you are trying to be a teacher, I'm not a good student. I pissed off a lot of teachers. Class clown and all that. One even accused me of being an iconoclast. I had to look that up. Maybe. Maybe not. I certainly wasn't trying to be.
Wayno

Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
Jun 2, 2018 - 09:04pm PT
It's been a weird day for me. I'm sick with allergic crap like hay-fever which I have never had. I've had scratchy eyes and a little sneezing intermittently now and then but this has been a week-long dopey snot-fest of a nature I have only witnessed. My heart goes out allergy sufferers. I'm wrangling with Largo on the interwebs, my energy levels are unpredictable, appetite shot, with what's going on in the Valley on El Cap Today, I could go on...
... there is something palpable in the air. How could you not have a soul?

I know that's just me but don't give me any crap about souls.

PEACE OUT.
MikeL

Social climber
Southern Arizona
Jun 3, 2018 - 06:20am PT
Wayne,

Language is ill-specified, and writing skills are rarely up to the task. We should all expect to be mis-read constantly. If you’re interested, it’s worth second, third, and fourth tries. I like you.

Weird is good. Weird tends to show us consciousness, awareness, soul, and the mechanisms of mind. Weird gets us out of our ruts, automatic pilot mode, and our belief in predictability. I’m all for it. It’s mostly about all I see these days.

Wayno: How could you not have a soul?

Yeah, the El-Cap falls jolts one into self-reflection--at least for a while. Such things open us up. Who isn't feeling soul now?


Be well.
Marlow

Sport climber
OSLO
Jun 3, 2018 - 08:19am PT

As a young child I watched "Pumpel and Pilt", a TV series said to have been made by two talented Norwegian acid heads, and sent as children's TV. "Pumpel and Pilt" scared and annoyed a whole generation of Norwegian children. I guess that is why I later came to appreciate Samuel Beckett and why I am able to see what is going on in American politics and The Mind thread. This video is specially posted for Largo who is trying to heal himself by healing others with his till now obviously non-working two-point-cure. And in the name of absurd theater... it's entertaining and annoying at the same time...

[Click to View YouTube Video]
Wayno

Big Wall climber
Seattle, WA
Jun 3, 2018 - 09:45am PT
Looking back at yesterday, I have to laugh at my self. I don't feel well at all. My decision making processes, which I have considered often are totally wacked. I wouldn't trust them at all. I can't really focus well either. My mind seems like a pinball machine. I only have moments of clarity but I am still actually enjoying the ride. I probably should not have been posting but I did and I let it stand.

I actually like just about everyone that posts on this and the mind thread. The inter play of ideas is fascinating when you step in and out of participating. No one person has it figured correctly but there is a thread of connectivity lurking under the efforts. Everyone has piece of the puzzle. I can look at two guys arguing and see they are both right and both wrong at the same time. What is there to argue about? And then there is that thing we call ego. A force to be reckoned with?

I don't know crap but I enjoy puzzles. Now I feel foggy again. I wish I had an appetite. I'm probably going to stay away until I feel better.

Over and out.
Trump

climber
Jun 3, 2018 - 10:36am PT
Rather than asking the brain, one can let his heart show them what “soul” is. Ask the heart the question.

Do whatever it is that you think you choose to do. We’re free to invent whatever arbitrary distinctions help us do this brain thing to our best advantage.

Personally I prefer asking my dog. I’m better at being able to tell when he’s bullshitting me about myself.

But seriously, I really am as great as my heart tells me that my dog thinks I am. Nice day for a walk today.

too-cool-for-school

Yes, all hail the righteous intelligentsia. My dog tells me that’s me. My heart tells me that I sure do love that dog!
pa

climber
Jun 3, 2018 - 12:10pm PT
Ran across an intriguing statement in a translation/interpretation of the Vedas by Roberto Calasso. The book is called "Ka", which means "Who" in sanskrit.

"The fundamental difference between the atman (the Self) and the aham (the ego) is that the Self looks at the ego, the ego does not look at the Self. The ego eats the world, the Self looks at the ego who is eating the world."
Largo

Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
Jun 3, 2018 - 12:42pm PT
Wayno, I'm not the teacher. I'm don't know enough. And I'm not reading anything into your process other than a cascade of things happened once you put a question to your brain. The exercise is to look at that cascade and try and put some tentative words to what is involved in said cascade. And go from there.

But frankly, after those deaths on El Cap, I don't have much gusto for the work just now. When I went to the meditation hall this morning I was done after the first 30 minute session and spent the rest of the talking to a friend. Trying to wrangle mind, and going back and forth about it feels like two bald guys arguing over a comb. I'm going to get on my bike and burn off the static.
Trump

climber
Jun 3, 2018 - 01:11pm PT
We make up these distinctions and then believe that our made up analysis is true. That’s great that we’ve determined the fundamental difference, but what’s the teeniest tiniest difference between the two that we can accurately identify? How committed are we to our made up analysis of our imaginary distinctions?
Ashrogers

Gym climber
Arizona
Jun 26, 2018 - 09:40am PT
Do we need to know If it exists or not?
JohnnyDontDoit

Ice climber
Bozeman
Jun 26, 2018 - 12:36pm PT
"the soul resides in the heart"
awesome to know. is it in a ventricle or an atrium? or maybe in the electricity powering the pump. inquiring minds want to know. interesting to me that it exists with zero proof. just think of all the magic crap we can make up if there is no proof necessary. the soul is a fallacy propagated throughout centuries by religious zealots trying to control the masses. without a soul, there cannot be religion, hence the fervor for this idea among the indoctrinated. interesting but useless philosophical discussion.
NutAgain!

Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
Jun 26, 2018 - 07:20pm PT
Mathematicians invented imaginary numbers to solve math problems that required them. Some human experiences in the non-analytical domain are most tractable to explain by introducing the concept of soul. Why does one need more than that in terms of justification?

Our perception of souls, and the possibility of their actual existence, does not depend on the existence of organized religion.

If one finds a topic useless, it does not necessarily make it useless for others.
MikeL

Social climber
Southern Arizona
Jun 27, 2018 - 10:22am PT
Johnny: interesting but useless philosophical discussion.

You're an interesting but useless philosophical discussion.
Don Paul

Social climber
Denver CO
Jun 27, 2018 - 10:42am PT
Did every internet philosopher in this room get religious indoctrination as a child?

I did. Religions rely on brainwashing children. Adults could never be made to believe any of it. I view my own indoctrination as a kind of mental child abuse.
JohnnyDontDoit

Ice climber
Bozeman
Jun 27, 2018 - 01:12pm PT
I was brainwashed into Catholicism as a child. it fell apart for me in the 5th grade when the nun compared believing in god as the same as believing in Australia. "has anyone been to australia, well how do you know it exists? it's on faith, same as god."
uuuuhh, no it's not the same at all. my aunt has been to australia and has pics. there's tons of evidence for australia and i can go there. her response probably would have been, "you're going to hell", which would be scary if i believed in that. when a 5th grader can pick apart an argument, you know you have problems.

As I got older and studied other religions, I realized that they mostly all thought everyone else was going to hell. that did not compute as reasonable. if you are going to hell based on geography, that seems pretty wonky.
WBraun

climber
Jun 27, 2018 - 01:15pm PT
JohnnyDontDoit -- "I was brainwashed...."

You poor soul, you are STILL brainwashed ......
JohnnyDontDoit

Ice climber
Bozeman
Jun 27, 2018 - 01:41pm PT
It's ok, I overcame it with logic. I don't feel anger about it, my parents were doing what they thought best.

also I am not a soul. just an electric meat bag.
Messages 321 - 340 of total 401 in this topic << First  |  < Previous  |  Show All  |  Next >  |  Last >>
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