[ExI] The Soul

[Will Steinberg]

In my opinion, I define the soul and the mind differently, and I am not
sure if they are the same.

The mind: we all know what this means, I think.  An organized, conscious
thing.  I will withhold my views on consciousness because I don't think
they are necessarily relevant.  Suffice to say that if it can think, it is
a mind.  I will leave it up to the reader to determine for themselves what
thinking is.

The soul: this one is tougher.  Let me see if I can devise some 'axioms of
the soul':

1. Presence: It must exist
1 --> 2. Permanence: It must exist for non-trivial periods of time
3. Integration: Its parts must be part of a clearly defined system with
boundaries.
2 + 3 --> 4. Closeness: given a permanence period A to B, the probability
that the parts of the system are integrated in the same manner at B as they
were at A must be much higher than the probability that they are integrated
with foreign parts at B.

By this definition, an atom is a soul.  Does it HAVE a soul?  I am not
sure; that is a kinda philosophical monist/dualist question.  A solar
system is a soul.  A molecule is a soul.  A body is a soul.  What do these
things have in common?  There is something about angular momentum here.
Whether it is spatial or chronological angular momentum.  For example, I
think something like the Krebs cycle is 'soulish'.

Due to this, I don't think I can believe, in good conscience, in
transmigration of the soul.  In my opinion, souls are rather leaky.
Something I do believe in is some kind of archetype-sharing-resonance
taking place of transmigration.  Sort of like Wheeler's One Electron
Universe.  The idea is that, for parsimony, things that are formed
similarly are the same (at least to their degree of similarity.) So for
every archetype within my pervasive, integrated system, I have experienced
transmigration from many souls.  I guess I believe the universe can't
really tell the difference between things that are the same or extremely
similar.  I believe this is somehow connected to spooky action at a
distance, and, if true, would provide some sort of mechanism for many
'supernatural' occurrences--telepathy, ancestral memories, ghostly things,
in particular.  If telekinesis exists it is probably not by this mechanism.

Perhaps if 2 brains across history are very similar, the universe can't
quite distinguish the 2, and so their waveforms leak between one another
and possibly cause ancestral memories in the newer and premonitions in the
older.

For ghostly things--these are said to usually be engaging in some kind of
repetitive motion: stuck in one place doing one thing.  I think it is
possible that there is some kind of resonance effect: if you walk up and
down the stairs in a similar way every day, perhaps whatever way you are
consistently altering the reality field (cellular automaton?) can have some
kind of cumulative effect.  So even in the future, your shadow may be seen
to be engaging in this action.  If there is enough resonance to muster your
mind, perhaps this being could even do things that were not part of its
training, because they have begun to actively think and decide.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20200426/df9c51fc/attachment.htm>