Do we have a soul?

Think about it — By Ryan on March 17, 2010 3:13 am

I received this question in an email today and for whatever reason my fingers became possessed into typing up this massive piece on the subject that I thought it would be good to post it up to the public and hopefully hear some of your thoughts on the matter..

Do the question put forth was:

I am curious, in your gravitation to the science/sprituality combo do you believe in souls?

Do we have a soul? I think the problem with that question inherently lies within the word ‘soul’. There are 100 definitions for soul based on 100 different religious, philosophical and traditional schools of thought. There are not enough specifics to the word to even ask the question the first place. I’ll take it that when you think of the word ‘soul’ you think of a nebulous term that encompasses an eternal ‘life-force’ of sorts that exists outside of our physical realm and makes us what we truly are, something so that we aren’t simply the sum of our parts so to speak. In some schools of thought the soul is almost painted as a parasite, hitching a ride in this body to have new experiences in order to grow and expand. People refer to the ‘universe’ in the same way and that we are fractal pieces of it in an attempt to learn more of it’s existence or about existence itself. But in the same breath these people will say the soul exists outside of time, it’s eternal and at that point everything falls apart as something that exists outside of time can’t exists in a linear time line at the same time.

I won’t flat out deny the possibility that there is a part of us that exists outside of our ‘perceivable ‘ physical world because we just don’t have the understanding, technology or theories to conceptualize the place this ‘soul’ lives right now. What I do do however is to seriously question the logic behind any dogma based on something so nebulous as a soul. My problem lies not within the idea’s themselves but the assertion of certainty which most of the ideas are put forth with. I’ve never once heard any spiritual teacher, although the D-man was close, ever say “I don’t have a clue at all what the soul actually is but this is what I think it might be and keep in mind I could be totally wrong on this because this is only my, or my orders completely unprovable theories”. Never once have I heard that, and that itself turns an ‘idea’ of the soul from a simple idea to near religious dogma – at which point I will run as fast as I can the other direction because it leaves absolutely no room for real exploration. It is at this point that I can say with near certainty that all theories being put forward aren’t there to further our understanding of souls, or to help us towards enlightenment, they are there to comfort someone’s fears of the unknown or to prop up our human need for self-importance or lastly to secure a position of power for those with this ‘knowledge’ in the eyes of those without it.

For me, I don’t feel that there is anything in this universe that exists in a ‘spiritual’ realm, or a meta-physical realm. What I believe is that all of these things exist in realms we just don’t understand Yet. This is because of either theoretical, scientific or technological limitations and I am completely content right now saying ‘I don’t know what a soul’ because of this. So if I don’t know what a soul is, and no one in the world can, with even the smallest degree of actual certainty, know what a soul is, how can anyone possible know what they believe about the topic? To that conclusion I feel that anyone who definitively believes in the existence of a soul, not to be taken personally here if you do, is doing so out of another long standing need for humans to feel like they are a part of something greater. Or that we as humans, in a world where science is demystifying the ‘magic’ of nature by explaining nature’s true nature will grasp onto anything that still cannot be explained with science. It’s almost like we need to hold onto romantic notions of magic or mysticism. On a side not I personally feel that understanding the true nature of nature unlocks such a greater magnificence than anything our limited imaginations could have ever come up with on their own.

Why we are drawn towards the mystic? Why do some humans long to sit and steep themselves in a place of ignorance, which is exactly what all theories of the soul, god, the afterlife, etc etc are. They are something that, currently, no one can possible test or find out with certainty. There is nothing that can be deduced with an empirical or theoretical method that would lead to anything conclusive whatsoever. So why are people drawn to this place, and more importantly why do people want to stay in this place? I understand why the argument of the soul is so attractive, that’s no mystery, but it is far more interesting to look at why people willing and vehemently desire to live with any theory that not only is completely untestable but worse yet with some beliefs has been tested and completely debunked. If the theory was testable, even in a rudimentary level and progress could be made towards actually understanding its true nature then that is one thing however that doesn’t exist even in a small part with any of the mystic or spiritual idea’s floating around out there. So I’m left with simply saying ‘I don’t know’ about 99% of them and relying on what personal experience has shown me in situations that I was able to verify with other people not of the same mindset.

My answer, after all of this of whether I believe in the soul is: I don’t know. There could be part of us that exists outside of our current realm of understanding, and I’m sure there is but what that is I don’t know. How it works, I don’t know. Where it exists, I don’t know and I am completely content with that.

I was watching an amazing talk yesterday where a scientist described what we know of the universe. 73% of the universe is comprised of ‘Dark Energy’. 85% of what’s left is composed of ‘Dark Matter’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SiGujnfDVc – watch to see the difference). That means that what we know of the known universe, what we can see, hear, touch, smell but more importantly detect and measure with scientific instruments is a mere 4% of the actual universe. The hubris of our arrogance to say we know anything about anything is beyond measure and so with that fact I am very content to sit back and simply confess my ignorance at anything that lies within that 96% until someone far more qualified than me can give me something, anything at all to begin a journey of discovery on. And that would start with someone simply telling me in an independently verifiable way what the hell a soul actually is

Tags: dark energy, dark matter, ignorance, magic, mystic, nature, soul, universe