10 December 2016

Notes - draft 2 of definition / soul mates / names



       Early afternoon. You are waiting for Carol at Carter’s at the VOA on Cox Road off Tylersville. This is the first of several stops for errands; lunch next at Panera/Chipotle. - Amorella

       You are southwest of Macy’s in Kenwood – out in the parking lot which is full. You spent ten minutes driving around looking for a spot after dropping Carol off at the usual south entrance. – Amorella

       1358 hours. Lunch was really good. I have not seen this lot so full since last Christmas. If I was going to do something I have forgotten what it is. – Spiritual consciousness drafting is the focus. (1408)

       You locked the car – too many people around for your immediate comfort. What we can do is on the spiritual consciousness draft. I’ll underline helpful points. – Amorella

       Mid-afternoon. I, the Amorella, have set up for a second draft of ‘spiritual consciousness’ by underlining and bolding particular useful aspects for definition that can be broadened into individual definitions for A. souls; B. hearts and C. minds. The key is the medium in which soulmate exists. Here it is. - Amorella

***
Second Draft  - around 1400 hours. - looking for main points:

Soul (edited from Wikipedia)

Selected and 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; Heart
  • The "intellectual" or "mind soul", internalizing and reflecting on outer experience, with strong affective (feeling) and cognitive (thinking) components; and Mind
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) Heart
  3. the eros, (appetitive, desire, or feminine) Heart

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 [the soul] 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 [soul] 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 [soul]  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.

Severely edited from Wikipedia

***

       2028 hours. I haven’t been on the computer since afternoon.

       After Macy’s you had a Graeter’s then you took Carol home because she didn’t have anything to read to pass the time while you shopped for your Fitbit. You drove to Best Buy found the Fitbit Charge for one hundred and forty-nine dollars, bought it returned home. Watched TV then had supper (three cut up hot turkey dogs with small pieces of melted Velveeta cheese on top), watched ABC and NBC News and an episode of “Blue Bloods”.

       2034 hours. I set up the Fitbit in short order, fully charge it and have it on to check my sleep tonight.

       Carol is watching one of her shows, “Hawaii Five O”. All for tonight, boy. Post. – Amorella

       2037 hours. The time went quickly while underlining and bolding on the edit. I felt like I hadn’t done anything when it was completed. I am getting a clearer notion about how this is more central to the story than I supposed it would be. The story is moving in a different direction than I suspected. More subtle – soulmates – who would have thought.

       It’s a love story, boy. The Soki is going to show a love story. – Amorella

      2051 hours. I have no idea how this is going to come about.


      2104 hours. I am intrigued Amorella. Who are the two characters?

      Yermey and Pyl. – Amorella

      2105 hours. Why, the focus is on the three Earthlings and three Marsupial humanoids?

      The focus is on Diplomat’s pouch. This is the Soki’s choice. – Amorella

       2110 hours. The first thing that comes to mind is Pandora’s Box not Diplomat's pouch.


      This is your consciousness and unconsciousness at work, boy. Post. - Amorella       

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