Late morning. You
were helping Carol rake leaves from the late falling Osage Orange. Your right
knee buckled slightly then the left. You finish what you were doing and came
in. Carol had stopped to talk to a neighbor walking her dog. She has finished up
the bagging which is something you cannot do well. Carol just came in. It is
cold with some wind. -- Amorella
Early afternoon. You are at Performance
Kings Honda waiting to have your key replaced and you are interested in how it
is that the physical is alien. – Amorella
1223 hours. At first I accepted this because
as you are alien or you have been at least consistent with this claim for decades and during the seven years of this
blog. As you are aware, Amorella, I can accept this either way – if you are
spiritual fine, if you are continuing with the role that you are that is fine
too. My intent is to glean a perspective (imaginary or not) that I as a living
human do not have. Do you see the physical (physics/science) as alien because
you are not, that is, you cannot adapt to it or are there other reasons?
A
Betweener such as I can adapt. I have. – Amorella
1232 hours. I did not think the question
through.
What
you mean to ask is; if physics is alien, define the spiritual element that you
are? – Amorella
1238 hours. This is a fair and leading
question.
Consciousness
is the key. I have consciousness and you have consciousness. The souls have
consciousness. The primary spiritual element here is consciousness. – Amorella
1244 hours. Do the heart and mind have a
single consciousness or are each separate?
In
here, the heart and mind have separate consciousness’s for sake of clarity. –
Amorella
1248 hours. Define spiritual consciousness
for clarity and in context of heartansoulanminds, souls-within-their own
context (free of heartsanminds) and Betweeners?
Let’s
go to Wikipedia, copy ‘consciousness’ and will focus on a general spiritual
consciousness from which we can later clarify. – Amorella
1303 hours. I have been reading on
consciousness as well as higher consciousness in Wikipedia. I have already
placed these in the blog earlier. Perhaps if we could come to a simplified base
definition for spiritual consciousness. What comes to mind is what I said
yesterday (it was in reference to human friends; spiritual consciousness is
about an intimate unconscious familiarity) can this be expanded as a starting
point for a definition? (1314)
The
intimate unconscious familiarity is a demonstration of the definition in terms
of, for example, two humanized soulmates. – Amorella
1320 hours. I need a break. I need to think
this through.
We
are in the deep end of the pool, boy. Post. - Amorella
1603
hours. We had an excellent late lunch at Smashburgers then stopped at Lowe’s
for bird food before returning home.
Earlier
today, after getting the new Honda key you stopped at Best Buy to look at an
Apple watch which seemed too expensive. You also looked for Tiles to find your
key and FOB if needed, no luck. – Amorella
1609 hours. We need a specific definition for
spiritual consciousness. Also, I had never thought of consciousness in terms of
a medium of communication before, that is in context with souls, heartsanminds
and Betweeners. I’m glad you brought that up. first. I need a spiritual
definition example.
While
reading you came upon a theme or focus of a definition that will work here.
Wikipedia defines ‘soul’. Let’s work from this. I, the Amorella, will limit the
Wikipedia definition for further thought in a particular direction. – Amorella
For simplification we will work from the
reformed Wikipedia article below in terms of definition of spiritual
consciousness. – Amorella
1658 hours. Good. We could go on forever.
This will make this project easier. I will also put the above in a separate
working document.
We
agree. I will help with this in a separate document then once that is completed
it will go here and the above extracted. Post. - Amorella
***
Soul
[Selected
and severely edited from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, for the specific purpose of
creating a working definition of “spiritual consciousness” for use in Soki’s
Choice. - rho]
In many religions, philosophical, and
mythological traditions, the soul is the incorporeal essence of a living
being. In Judeo-Christianity, only human beings have immortal souls.
Science
The findings of science may be relevant to
one's understanding of the soul depending on one's belief regarding the
relationship between the soul and the mind. Another may be one's belief
regarding the relationship between the soul and the body. One problem with
seeking scientific evidence for the soul is that there is no clear or unique
definition of what the soul is, as it usually varies from one belief to
another.
Neuroscience and the soul
Neuroscience as an interdisciplinary field,
and its branch of cognitive neuroscience particularly, operates under the
ontological assumption of physicalism. In other words, it assumes—in order to
perform its science—that only the fundamental phenomena studied by physics
exist.
Thus, neuroscience seeks to understand mental
phenomena within the framework according to which human thought and behavior
are caused solely by physical processes taking place inside the brain, and it
operates by the way of reduction by seeking an explanation for the mind in
terms of brain activity.
To study the mind in terms of the brain
several methods of functional
neuroimaging are used to study the neuroanatomical correlates of various
cognitive processes that constitute the mind.
Physics and the soul
Physicist Sean M. Carroll has written that the
idea of a soul is in opposition to quantum field theory (QFT). He writes that
for a soul to exist: "Not only is new physics required, but dramatically
new physics. Within QFT, there can’t be a new collection of 'spirit particles'
and 'spirit forces' that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have
detected them in existing experiments."
Quantum indeterminism has been invoked by some
theorists as a solution to the problem of how a soul might interact with the
brain but neuroscientist Peter Clarke found errors with this viewpoint, noting
there is no evidence that such processes play a role in brain function; and
concluded that a Cartesian soul has no basis from quantum physics.
Biology and the soul
Biologist
Cyrille Barrette (fr) has written that "the soul is a word to designate an
idea we invented to represent the sensation of being inhabited by an existence,
by a conscience". Barrette explains, using simple examples in a short
self-published article, that the soul is a property emerging from the complex
organisation of matter in the brain.
Theosophy
In Helena Blavatsky’s Theosophy, the soul is
the field of our psychological activity (thinking, emotions, memory, desires,
will, and so on) as well as of the so-called paranormal or psychic phenomena
(extrasensory perception, out-of-body experiences, etc.). However, the soul is
not the highest, but a middle dimension of human beings. Higher than the soul
is the spirit, which is considered to be the real self; the source of
everything we call "good"—happiness, wisdom, love, compassion,
harmony, peace, etc. While the spirit is eternal and incorruptible, the soul is
not. The soul acts as a link between the material body and the spiritual self,
and therefore shares some characteristics of both. The soul can be attracted
either towards the spiritual or towards the material realm, being thus the
"battlefield" of good and evil. It is only when the soul is attracted
towards the spiritual and merges with the Self that it becomes eternal and
divine.
Anthroposophy
Rudolf Steiner differentiated three stages of
soul development, which interpenetrate one another in consciousness:
- The "sentient soul",
centering on sensations, drives, and passions, with strong conative (will)
and emotional components;
- The
"intellectual" or "mind soul", internalizing and
reflecting on outer experience, with strong affective (feeling) and
cognitive (thinking) components; and
The "consciousness soul", in search
of universal, objective truths.
Philosophical
views
The soul was considered the incorporeal or
spiritual "breath" that animates the living organism.
Socrates and Plato
Greek philosophers understood that the soul
must have a logical faculty, the exercise of which was the most divine of human
actions
Drawing on the words of his teacher Socrates,
Plato considered the psyche to be the essence of a person, being that which
decides how we behave. He considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal
occupant of our being. Socrates says that even after death, the soul exists and
is able to think. He believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually
reborn in subsequent bodies and Plato believed this as well, however, he
thought that only one part of the soul was immortal (logos). The
Platonic soul consists of three parts:
1.
the logos,
(mind or reason)
2.
the thymos, (emotion, spiritedness, or
masculine)
3.
the eros, (appetitive, desire, or feminine)
Avicenna and Ibn al-Nafis
Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Ibn al-Nafis, a Persian philosopher,
both made a distinction between the soul and the spirit. Some of Avicenna's
views on the soul include the idea that the immortality of the soul is a
consequence of its nature.
[Their] argument was later refined and simplified by Rene
Descartes in epistemic terms, when he stated: "I can abstract from the
supposition of all external things, but not from the supposition of my own
consciousness."
al-Nafis concluded that "the soul is related primarily
neither to the spirit nor to any organ, but rather to the entire matter whose
temperament is prepared to receive that soul," and he defined the soul as
nothing other than "what a human indicates by saying "I".
Thomas Aquinas
Concerning the human soul, his epistemological theory required
that, since the knower becomes what he knows, the soul is definitely not
corporeal—if it is corporeal when it knows what some corporeal thing is, that
thing would come to be within it.. Therefore, the soul has an operation which
does not rely on a body organ, and therefore the soul can exist without a body.
Furthermore, since the rational soul of human beings is a subsistent form and
not something made of matter and form, it cannot be destroyed in any natural
process.
Immanuel Kant
In
his discussions of rational psychology, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) identified
the soul as the "I" in the strictest sense, and argued that the
existence of inner experience can neither be proved nor disproved. "We
cannot prove a priori the immateriality of the soul, but rather only so much:
that all properties and actions of the soul cannot be recognized from
materiality". It is from the "I", or soul, that Kant proposes
transcendental rationalization, but cautions that such rationalization can only
determine the limits of knowledge if it is to remain practical.
Hinduism
In Hinduism, the Sanskrit words most closely
corresponding to soul are jiva, Atman,
and “purusha”, meaning the individual self. The term "soul" is
misleading as it implies an object possessed, whereas Self signifies the
subject which perceives all objects. This Self (Ātman) is held to be distinct
from the various mental faculties such as desires, thinking, understanding,
reasoning and self-image (ego), all of which are considered to be part of prakriti (nature).
In Bhagavad
Gita 2.20 Lord Krishna describes the atman in the following way:
[translation]
"For the atman there is neither
birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into
being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever – existing and
primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain".
[Translation by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami
Prabhupada (Srila Prabhupada)]
Srila Prabhupada, a great Vaishnava saint of
the modern time further explains: "The atman does not take birth
there, and the atman does not die... And because the atman has no birth, he
therefore has no past, present or future. He is eternal, ever-existing and
primeval – that is, there is no trace in history of his coming into
being."
Since the quality of Atma is primarily
consciousness, all sentient and insentient beings are pervaded by Atma,
including plants, animals, humans and gods. The difference between them is the
contracted or expanded state of that consciousness.
For example, animals and humans share in
common the desire to live, fear of death, desire to procreate and to protect
their families and territory and the need for sleep, but animals' consciousness
is more contracted and has less possibility to expand than does human
consciousness.
When the Atma becomes embodied it is called
birth, when the Aatma leaves a body it is called death. The Aatma transmigrates
from one body to another body based on karmic [performed deeds] reactions.
In
Hinduism, the Sanskrit word most closely corresponding to soul is Atma, which
can mean soul or even God. It is seen as the portion of Brahman within us.
Hinduism contains many variant beliefs on the origin, purpose, and fate of the
atma.
***
The above fits my base criteria for drawing
out a definition of “spiritual consciousness”. – Amorella
2013
hours. This looks like a good start. I feel I am putting Wikipedia to good use.
This is my second year contributing funds to the Wikipedia cause. Sharing knowledge
is a virtue. - rho
Post. - Amorella
No comments:
Post a Comment