You Should Think You're a Soul. Here's Why w/Dr. Joshua Farris

In episode 246 of the Parker's Pensées Podcast, I'm joined by Dr. Joshua Farris to discuss his work on souls and the mind in his new book, The Creation of Self.
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[@AlexADalton]

Nice...reading his new book now. Loving it so far...

I really like his range of source material

[@vigilant_2731]

LET'S GOOOO, just in time for the weekend

Hope you enjoy!!

[@Achrononmaster]

@1:22:00 this is _hugely_ interesting Parker! You have no idea! What I take from Descartes is that God is not arbitrary (not "cruel", and the words "cruel" can be very liberally interpreted here, as in "not clownish" or "not capricious"). So it can certainly be a valid theological view that the universe of spacetime was not created with physical laws plus initial conditions to permit arbitrary objects to have conscious thought without some functional organization that a science could discover was a basis for the expression of a non-physical soul. That's, in my mind, one of the things phenomenal qualia give us evidence for --- the mental qualia simply cannot be conceived of as physical, since they're not physical (probably not! --- in faith there is always room for doubt, otherwise it's not much for faith).

[@JohnnyHofmann]

Awesome video

[@theresolutemind9538]

Can someone recommend an up-to-date Handbook of Philosophical Terms? I’ve owned The Oxford Companion to Philosophy for decades, but it’s not handy and concise. Anyone please. Philosophy textbooks often have a Glossary, but I’m looking for something more.

[@CoranceLChandler]

Here you guys are going on about donkeys but what I really want to know is, what did the fox say?

Hahaha dang it. I shoulda thought of that!

[@CoranceLChandler]

@ ( ಠ‿↼) 👍🏽

[@Achrononmaster]

@28:00 history is important. But so are definitions. Why not make a useful distinction? Say Soul is metaphorically "the Lamp" and Mind is the light that shines from the lamp? It's a nice metaphor, the process of the mind illuminates the state of awareness of the soul. Another is the Mirror metaphor. A soul oriented towards "The Good" shines more brilliantly. Poetic metaphors are not bad, and you do not have to kill philosophy by converting every single argument into an analytic proposition. Analysis is great, but it's for exactness, and logically cannot ever be complete.

[@Achrononmaster]

ok intro. but it's more interesting for starters. There is in fact a pretty hard split at the outset, since one can believe either (A) when we die we die, the whole lot gone. (B) when our body dies, the soul does not (not necessarily, since by defn it's not a material "substance"). So before you even have a theory of consciousness, you've got a duality in theory to overcome. It's always struck me as not something one can hedge about! And very difficult to avoid and be agnostic about, unless you put your head down and stick to pure empirical science and go all dumb-dumb Humean. But in the latter case you can never even talk about subjective phenomena (at least not honestly or non ironically).

[@ReverendDr.Thomas]

spirit/Spirit: This term is generally used in reference to the ESSENTIAL nature of a human being (and also of a non-human animal or even of a plant in some religious traditions and metaphysical systems). Although some Theologians use the terms “soul” and “spirit” interchangeably, those from the Abrahamic traditions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) usually consider “soul“ to be a living being (a human person) whilst the term “spirit" is that part of the person that is non-temporal (the essential self). The lower case form of these words (spirit and soul) is approximately equivalent to the lower case form of the Sanskrit word “ātman”, and obviously, the upper-case form (Soul) refers to “Ātman” or “Paramātman” (“Supersoul“ or “Over-soul“, in English). Cf. “ātman/Ātman”. Therefore, in the considered opinion of this author, the various terms denoting the realm of eternality, such as “The Ground of Being”, “The Unified Field”, “Ultimate Reality”, “Brahman”, and “The Tao”, are fundamentally SYNONYMOUS with those terms referring to the essence of the human being, such as “soul”, “spirit”, “self/Self”, and as mentioned already, “ātman/Ātman”, and “Paramātman”. In fact, one of the four so-called “Great Sayings” (“mahāvākya”, in Sanskrit) of the Upanishads, “ayam ātmā brahma”, very succinctly says as much: “this self is The Unlimited”, or “the soul is The Supersoul”, or “the person is The Totality of Existence”. However, it seems that the overwhelming majority of religionists who use the words “spirit” or “soul”, use them in reference to a separate OBJECT (e.g. “The spirit of man”, “The human spirit”, “We are spirits in the material world”, “I am not a body, but a spirit/soul”). According to my research, most religionists believe that this OBJECT (call it what you will) joins with the human body at the time of conception (or sometimes at birth) and that, upon the demise of the body, this OBJECT travels to another location (either heaven, hell, or purgatory) or else enters into the body of another living being (either a human, non-human animal, or a plant). Some Theologies postulate that the soul and/or the spirit may be mortal and, depending on the moral disposition of the particular person in question, can perish at the time of death (or even during one’s lifetime, known as a spiritual death, or sometime after death, known as “death by hellfire”). Depending on their unique theologies, religionists assume that this OBJECT is located in various places in the human body, even though at conception, there are no developed body parts in which this fictitious OBJECT could possibly be positioned! Some believe that the entire body is pervaded by the soul/spirit, some that it is located in the pituitary gland, or situated in the heart. The word “spirit”, along with the terms "soul”, “truth”, “ego”, and “love” (among others), is undoubtedly one of the most misunderstood and misused words in the English language. In at least ninety percent of the instances in which the word “spirit” (and especially the term “spiritual”) is used in common discourse, a more apposite word could be (and should be) used in its stead. “Spirit” simply refers to the SUBJECT, as opposed to objective reality, and more accurately, the Subject of all subjects (and objects).

[@Achrononmaster]

Those are some definitions. But it's also fairly common to take "spirit" to mean a platonic essence. Whereas "soul" is (can be defined to be) an actual reality, not just an abstract concept. Ex. the "number 2" is nothing concrete, it's a pure mathematical abstraction. Whereas "these two stones here" is a concreta. Concrete realities do not logically _have_ to be physical. It is nice then to define "mind" as distinct to both soul and spirit, you can usefully (and fruitfully I think) define mind as an emanation form a soul, a process, a state of flux of the soul (indeed an essential property of a soul, I would say), which people also refer to as "thinking" or "thought". I'll not patent these so feel free to use them! ;-) Note that physical-materialists are forced to conceive of the "soul" as an abstraction, not a concreta. Which makes their concept of soul a lot more like a particular kind of spirit (abstract essence). But they can then still have dialogue with a person of faith or a dualist or other philosophers who do not subscribe to physical materialism.

[@adamschaafsma5839]

I have had a thought that maybe the reason God will not forgive the angels is that they don't have a capacity to be forgiven. We are 3 part beings like God as we are created in His image, I think it is implied or we could infer that angels are not and so I think it might be that they are spirit only and have no soul. Is this possible. I have wondered many time what the role of our spirit is, I think it may be our interface with the spirit world as our physical body is our interface with the physical world. Which then makes me wonder if our new bodies are a merge of physical and spirit so we have a unified body instead of 2 separate bodies to interact with 2 separate worlds. Would love to hear what you think, I hope this doesn't sound stupid.

[@quixodian]

I have respect for ‘substance dualism’ BUT the nature of ‘substance’ in this context is very important. The original Aristotelian term that substance was translated from was ‘ousia’, nearer in meaning to ‘being’ than what we normally think of as ‘substance’. I paraphrase it as ‘substance(subject)’ as that conveys the connotation of ‘being’ as distinct from ‘stuff’.

[@Achrononmaster]

Good nuance. Also, "physical substance" can be considered _not the only logically possible type of 'substance'._

[@quixodian]

But 'immaterial substance' seems oxymoronic - like something from Ghostbusters @@Achrononmaster

[@whitecrow1583]

The villain from lost!

[@mkl2237]

Great series until… the ending. Felt cheated by that crappy ending

[@whitecrow1583]

yeah@@mkl2237

[@Achrononmaster]

@1:11:00 it's a bit weird to ask for a defense of a theory of "origins of souls". It presumes there can be a theory. Some humility is needed when it comes to metaphysics. You have to think about *_purpose_* when it comes to morality and spirituality. Not competition and sports debates point-scoring. The purpose is to illuminate the human spirit, to help people find meaning in life. Any model or theory helping with this, which is not completely stupid, can be considered "correct" because it is fit for purpose. I liked it back when Joshua talked about his prior work as offering a "model". That is entirely appropriate. But there is no need to defend such metaphysics models, it's a fruitless endeavour in some senses, since it is not talking about something rigidly platonistic like mathematics. There can be a truth to know, about such matters metaphysical, but it is hubris and sort-of dumb self-idolatry to think you've got the truth.

[@Achrononmaster]

I won't offer a theory of origins of souls, but I'll give you s moral stance on it that could serve as a starting point --- which is that the core idea should be that the spiritual realm is more fundamental than the physical. So you could begin by asking why the heck there is a physical spacetime our soul gets manifested within? Look to the purpose. Then the origin of the soul becomes an uninteresting question (comparatively). Or a largely irrelevant question. Like asking, why do Numbers exist? Where tf do numbers come from?

[@Achrononmaster]

It is maybe a touch insensitive to add this: > So you might upon mature contemplation _start_ from, "OK, I think therefore I am a soul (by definition, duuh)." Now why tf am I in a physical spacetime for heavens sake? What's the meaning of that!

[@alanlaxton2084]

What books do you recommend for science and religion? 😁

[@TheVeganVicar]

“A Final Instruction Sheet for Humanity”.

[@Achrononmaster]

Best ever (imho) is William Hatcher. _The Science of Religion_ (1980). _Logic and Logos: Essays on Science, Religion and Philosophy_ (1990). Hatcher also wrote one of the best introductions to mathematics, _The Logical Foundations of Mathematics_ (1982). Though I prefer my Kiwi professor, Rob Goldblatt on the mathematics.

[@plastic2666]

For just a backround in scince I love the book: the evolution of physics by albert einstein and leopold infeld, it gives a good timeline and a qualitiavie analisis of the history of physics.

[@petromax4849]

1:17:32 Consciousness seems to depend on the functioning of the body, so even if a soul were "in" an inanimate object like a desk, it wouldn't be conscious or alive.

[@Achrononmaster]

@1:18:00 lovely moment. But you have to sometimes "un-ask the question." The question here is nonsensical. Philosophers have asked such questions all down the ages, like "Could God declare Itself not to be God" or "Could God make a Rock so heavy God could not lift it." Mathematicians, like myself, are very familiar with such conundrums. They result from ill-defined terms. You realize you've not asked a meaningful question. So stop trying to answer it! Otherwise it becomes idle and vain imaginings, or what I call philosophical sport (has some entertainment value, but is otherwise frivolous).

[@Achrononmaster]

The more boring trivial answer is that God (probably) does not want to imbue a rock or Ai machine with a soul. Or more coherently put: God has not done so (the atemporal view). Why not? Because God chose not! It really is as banal as that. We do not get to tell Perfection what or what not to do. A free mind, or free will, that is not the Absolute, is always constrained. Hard core Idealism is false. I can imagine walking on water unaided, but I cannot walk on water unaided. Whereas for The Absolute it is "I have no need to walk on water, thus I will not." Spirituality is all about intent and morals, not physics. If it is physically impossible then in a trivial sense it is immoral (that's no doubt a weird statement to many, almost a category blend error, but it's just a triviality).

[@Achrononmaster]

BTW, what I wrote there , "... that God (probably) does not want to imbue a rock or Ai machine with a soul..." is nicely in line with Descartes, who often leaned on the axiom "whatever God is, God is not cruel and malicious". I think we're supposed to _morally_ work backwards from that, not forwards like a dumb-dumb logician who utterly ignores the moral dimensions to some reductio absurdem .

[@mkl2237]

@@Achrononmaster dude I like your thoughts … but it’s funny to see you reply to yourself even before anyone else chimes in.

[@Achrononmaster]

omg. lmao. Numbers 22:28. @1:28:00 have you guys not ever hard of allegory? What about koans? Buridan's ass. Goso's ox through the window. Look to the spiritual purpose, not the literal rendering.