Conciousness in relation to the "soul".

[Rhath89]

What is consciousness? What makes ones mind individual? Are the processes that make a person's mind unique, essentially what is known as a soul? Are they two separate things altogether? There are people out there who claim to have felt some form of consciousness while they were pronounced legally dead, so that would lead me to believe that consciousness (and sub-conciousness) are something more complex than human knowledge can really describe. Of course everything is relative, so in that sense what use is contemplation, one way or another? Perhaps the harder we try to understand it, the more we distort what is ultimate truth.

 

[King sns]

What is consciousness? What makes ones mind individual? Are the processes that make a person's mind unique, essentially what is known as a soul? Are they two separate things altogether? There are people out there who claim to have felt some form of consciousness while they were pronounced legally dead, so that would lead me to believe that consciousness (and sub-conciousness) are something more complex than human knowledge can really describe. Of course everything is relative, so in that sense what use is contemplation, one way or another? Perhaps the harder we try to understand it, the more we distort what is ultimate truth.

I don't know how the consciousness and the soul are interrelated. Seems like a lot of people's minds are a product of their environment. Minds have experiences and can think of a few possible reactions/ integrate experiences and you end up with a person. Seems like a soul would have more to do with the energy people carry since birth. I'm sure it's related to the conscious mind somehow, but I think there is a whole other feature to the soul that is just unidentifiable to the human eye. Maybe we're calling something the "soul" which will have a perfectly logical explanation someday, like another body part. Maybe the soul does have something to do with the subconscious mind, but since we don't know about that yet, we don't know about the soul yet.

 

[gromit]

I always thought soul and consciousness were kind of the same thing, whatever makes you YOU, and also not dead. Either when we die it disappears, or it else it goes somewhere else, who knows where? Heaven?

 

[Ginkgo]

If the soul is what makes an individual unique and responsible for his identity and choices, but that individual is unaware of these things, then consciousness does not equate to the soul. Consciousness demands awareness. Finding meaning defines your soul.

 

[INTP]

Consciousness is one area of the brain communicating with another. Dunno what soul is, but one definition for the word is persons total self. How do these two things relate? Well.. take the personal unconscious, collective unconscious and body away from self/soul and you end up only with the consciousness. Or not, there is no brains if there is no body and without the brains there cant be different parts of it communicating and forming the consciousness. Only way to get any good answers would be not to ask questiona like this, with vague/none at all definitions..

 

[Rhath89]

I've been talking with other people about this topic, and we've come to the realization that what I think I'm starting to understand and ask questions about, has to do with Jungian theory, and will be vague just because of the nature of it.

 

[Lark]

I dont think that the closer mankind examines and questions things the further from the truth it will get, exactly the converse is true if anything. I also dont believe in statements like "everything is relative".

There are good accounts of consciousness, examining observation, perception and sensory function which suggest that a great deal of decision, choice, comprehension and other traits associated with consciousness are actually tricks of the mind. Now I say good accounts because they are evidenced well and coherent but I'm not entirely persuaded that men and women are just some sort of mechanical construct.

That physcial-behaviourist thesis has been pretty much wiped out, its the whole reason cognitivism had to be developed, and even cognitivism abhors concepts like depth psychology, unconscious or subconscious but there are a lot in the neurological schools of thought which would like to see its return.

Near Death or Out of Body experiences are insufficient evidence for to account for consciousness seperate to physical existence, although they all seem to have similarities despite epoch, culture or other divisions.