this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2024
83 points (84.3% liked)

Asklemmy

43761 readers
1165 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

And do believe that I, this random guy on the internet has a soul

I personally don't believe that I anyone else has a soul. From my standup I don't se any reason to believe that our consciousness and our so called "soul" would be any more then something our brain is making up.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Why wouldn’t you have a “soul”? Mind you, I’m not speaking from a religious perspective (because I’m not religious).

In each of our heads is a brain. I’m no doctor or scientist, but I’m reasonably confident that no two brains are a like – we each grow and learn differently due to our surrounding environments. But one thing we have in common is some sort of inner dialogue or thought process (some people have a narrator, while some see motion pictures).

These are all formed based on how our brains develop neural pathways. These pathways are used by electrical signals that traverse the brain and cause us to be who we are (ie our personalities).

All of this to remind you that the first law of thermal dynamics is that, “Energy cannot be created or destroyed…”, which also goes on to explain, “but it can be transformed from one form to another.”

So who is to say that the general concepts of “reincarnation” or “life after death” are not real? That our essence or “soul” doesn’t simply manifest beyond our physical forms long after our physical forms have stopped working?

But also, you could be right that once our brain stops working and the energy used by our brains then transforms into something else that would no longer be considered a soul.

It’s these types of questions that we cannot reliably answer with any certainty that make life precious and unique. Because no one can honestly say they know what happens after we die, so in turn we should live the best possible life we can just in case. And it’s up to each of us to determine what “best possible life” means, because we are all different.