What Is a Soul – From a Technical Point of View?

[Siemens]

I want to discuss the question of this thread based on the premise that:
1) I am an immaterial soul that deliberately incarnates in material dimensions in order to experience itself and in order to develop.
2) I, as a soul, have the ability to feel, perceive, and think* when I’m in the beyond in a similar or probably extended way as I can feel, perceive, and think as a human being here on earth.

I use the term “soul” to denote that thing that generates my conscious experience (as which I understand myself), that underlies my eternal identity, and that outlast my biological existence over any incarnation.

What is a Soul – from a Technical Point of View?
Based on the assumption that I’m more than a human being, that I am an eternal immaterial soul, I wonder what a soul actually is. What does a soul consist of? What is it made of? Is it made of energy? From which building components is it composed? What are these building blocks, and how did they evolve?

My current view
My current view is, that I, as a soul, originated as a clump of energy which has originally been a part of all-that-is. I, as a soul, somehow became able to separate myself from all-that-is and became an individual identity. Since I’m able to deliberately chose my incarnations, I, as a soul, have to be able to think even when I’m in the beyond. This would imply that the soul has the form of an information processor like a computer or brain. A soul must have building components that are able to store, receive, and process information.

A vision I often see is that the soul is a column out of an infinite number of infinitely fine fibers of energy. Energy fibers are vibrating in different frequencies creating thereby feelings, perceptions, and thoughts. These fibers of energy are the building components that carry information in the soul like the transistors does so in a computer. Fibers of energy might be arranged in a way so that information (the content of conscious experiences) can be processed and experienced consciously in form of feelings, mental images, perceptions, and thoughts.





*The second part of the premise is based on my own experience that my life follows an intelligent plan and takes place under optimal circumstances, what requires a thinking soul in the beyond, and reports of medial communication with souls in the beyond (e.g. communicaton with deceased people, Seth Material,…) what again implies that souls can think in the beyond. Since it is clear for me that souls can think even in the beyond, I don’t want to discuss this in this thread.

[HITESH SHAH]

To me soul is the energy spirit that drives the Mind-body-apparatus (MBA). If this energy / spirit goes from body we are declared dead biologically .
It's connected to super-soul in the that the nature of energy power is similar.
This soul gets connected to the source effortlessly in sleep and get re-charged every day in the morning. It also can establish connection with source through meditation. Like energy , soul too can be felt in meditation.

In the course of life soul acquires lot of experiences while inter-acting with world . Soul develops with development of spiritual qualities in the course of life. At the end soul leaves its body for its further journey onwards with whatever spiritual attributes gained.

Science has the "hard problem of consciousness", and it would seem spirituality has the "hard problem of the soul". Perhaps they are the same.

When we think about what arises or comes from what, we might want to start with the question of whether one is a materialist, or idealist. Personally I tend toward the later, and so do not believe the soul is made of any sort of physical material or even of energy. I believe that spacetime and matter, as we experience them in this life, are creations of the soul/consciousness so I can't appeal to them to define the soul as it precedes them. IMO, to talk about the soul having spacial dimensions or material properties does not make sense unless we are talking about the physical illusion the soul creates within itself along with that space and time. One might think of the soul taking on the properties of its own created reality as part of the incarnation.

I do suspect time may have a 'deeper or wider' root then the one manifested by the soul in the life experience. Time is hard to get rid of completely in any conception I can create and understand. Now what is beyond the 4 dimensional reality we construct and experience as life, I don't know. Some versions of string theory expand reality to 10 dimensions.

As far as thinking goes, I expect there is some sort of thinking that goes on within the soul, but it would be rather different then the limited thinking that the human mind is capable of. Some NDE accounts talk of direct knowing that is similar but much more complete and instantaneous then what we in our human limited mind think of as thinking.

Finally, I don't envision the soul ever truly separating from God, just that it perceives separation during the life experience. I think of the soul in relation to God as similar to the cell in relation to the body. Except I like to think I don't get replaced by a new cell, like happens in the body, I go on as a part of God eternally. There are of course interpretations that do see even the soul as temporary, but I like to think at some level I retain an individual I in whatever form it may be, or at least I can recapture it, otherwise I feel that I would truly die as an individual even though God goes on. One way around that is that I one day wake up and find I was just God all along and had created billions of different first person viewpoints from which to view and explore myself. This so called soul is just one of these eyes I was using.

I could be down with that last one as if I am really God the almighty, then there are a few individual viewpoints I might like to smite given the chance. That stupid smug happy tail for one.

[iamthat]

From the perspective of the Alice Bailey teachings.

We are each a Monad, a unit of pure Being.

The Monad expresses as individualised Consciousness on the higher spiritual planes. This Consciousness is the Soul.

The Soul expresses as personality in the three worlds of form (mental, astral and physical), using a mental body, an emotional body and an etheric/physical body.

We cannot explain the nature of the Soul in terms of any kind of measurable energy of this physical plane.

Peace

Interesting question.

First of all, a soul isn't physical, it's metaphysical. I think that's something a lot of people haven't thought all the way through, either from unfamiliarity or misunderstanding of the subject. I say this because of all the people who say, "If only psychic phenomena was repeatable, then I would believe in it." In other words, they insist psychic phenomena should follow physical laws, instead of metaphysical laws. Explains why they are always disappointed.

I think a lot of responses here are on the right track. A soul is spiritual, it is Being, it is energy, it is feelings, perceptions, and thoughts. The way I look at it is as a pattern of energy - but what is energy? Inquiries like these often lead down a rabbit hole of recursive definitions, much like the child who continually asks "Why?" to every answer given.

Energy, in the physical sense, isn't actually any 'thing', but is actually defined as 'power derived from a transition of states'. What does that mean? When you burn wood to keep warm, you are taking advantage of the chemical components of the wood giving off heat energy as it 'transitions' from it's 'wood' state into it's component chemical parts. In a steam engine, you are taking advantage of the expansion of water vaper as it cools and condenses back into liquid water, giving up it's 'energy' by pushing against the piston. In nuclear energy, we are taking advantage of the heat energy given off as the atoms split into smaller atoms.

These transitions of states can all be seen in the context of 'change', and we take advantage of the side effects of that change. So how does this translate from physical energy to metaphysical energy?

Simply enough, metaphysical energy is not physical energy. It is mental energy, emotional energy, spiritual energy, and related interactive energies which are also beyond the physical.

Now, the point must be made that a soul does not experience time like a physical consciousness. It cannot, other than how it interfaces with existence in it's reduced cognitive capacity as a physical being. In it's normal 'spiritual' capacity it experiences all time as a single moment - past, present and future all at once. How it does this and yet we still have free will is an ineffable mystery - perhaps the soul's experience of the future is simply the past and present 'echoing' into the future, meaning the 'future' the soul knows is malleable - the actual future is not written until it occurs. My personal belief is that is why we reincarnate - to 'reshape' the future to a spiritual goal.

But the point is that the soul is aware, it has cognition and responses, there is an energetic process, but without time it cannot make change occur. This is why the soul undergoes incarnation and life - to enter time and make change occur to it's future (and by extension all interactive others) and it's self.

That is what I think the soul is.

[green1]

Your subconscious mind is your soul.

You are your soul.

Cheers,
green1

[Rah nam]

What is a Soul – from a Technical Point of View?
Based on the assumption that I’m more than a human being, that I am an eternal immaterial soul, I wonder what a soul actually is. What does a soul consist of? What is it made of? Is it made of energy? From which building components is it composed? What are these building blocks, and how did they evolve?

No, the soul is not energy, it is that energy derives from.

Originally Posted by Rah nam

No, the soul is not energy, it is that energy derives from.

The problem arises when the term energy is used in so many different ways. We get our bill from the power company and talk about how much energy we consumed, but we don't really consume energy, we just utilize it's change of state from low to high entropy to make a lessor amount of energy go from high to low entropy. Energy is always defined in terms of what it is doing or what form it is in, but there is no definition that I know of for energy as a substance in and of itself. Personally, I would agree with what you said about energy being derived from the soul.

When we move from Newtonian to relativistic physics, energy is no longer conserved, yet information is still conserved in all current physics systems that I am aware of. That gives me a hint that perhaps it is information that is being conserved by the soul as it uses it internally to create forms and action. We have noticed this conservation going on and decided that there must be some "substance" called energy that is being conserved as it transitions between forms. Yet it is really just consciousnesses that is forming and transitioning parts of its own awareness. This is similar to electronic money. We still talk about dollars moving between accounts, but really it is just information about those accounts that is changing, there are no actual dollars being circulated in electronic transactions.

[Siemens]

Originally Posted by Kioma

So how does this translate from physical energy to metaphysical energy? Simply enough, metaphysical energy is not physical energy. It is mental energy, emotional energy, spiritual energy, and related interactive energies which are also beyond the physical.

Yes, if I understand you correctly, you have a similar understanding of the term “metaphysical” than I have: Metaphysical things are not made of nothing, but do consist of another kind of substance, particles, or energy that is just above or beyond atomic substance.

Originally Posted by Kioma

A soul is spiritual, it is Being, it is energy, it is feelings, perceptions, and thoughts. The way I look at it is as a pattern of energy - but what is energy?

Yes, if we accept the idea that we are reincarnating beings, than there has to be a “thing” that exists independently of our physical body and brain. This “thing”, I call it soul, has to have to ability to store our memories about past lives. This soul has to have other functions too. So, a soul can’t be idealistic in the sense of being made of nothing.

It exists beyond our physical matter, but it still has to be made of a kind of substance or energy.

Originally Posted by Kioma

Energy, in the physical sense, isn't actually any 'thing', but is actually defined as 'power derived from a transition of states' … These transitions of states can all be seen in the context of 'change'.

If we consider energy as 'power derived from a transition of states' than there has to be something whose states can be transformed. You could also see energy as power that is not the consequence but the cause of transition of states. E.g. electrical energy has the power to move the rotor inside an electric engine. If energy should be able to exert its transforming influence, there, again, must be something that can be transformed, moved, or changed. That would mean: For energy to exists, there have to be particles or a substance between or within energy can manifest and take effect. Energy is the power of change between particles.

Does this mean that my soul is both: a set of infinitesimal fine particles and transformative power between these particles?

Originally Posted by Siemens

Does this mean that my soul is both: a set of infinitesimal fine particles and transformative power between these particles?

That is a very EXCELLENT and DIFFICULT question. If it were not difficult, there could be no debate - but there is plenty of debate!

This is the hard part of any discussion about metaphysics and spirituality, which is the part about words. Obviously we are trying to describe and understand something which is very hard to describe and understand, otherwise they would not fall under the umbrella terms of 'metaphysical' and 'spiritual'. SO, when trying to be so specific about very unspecific and nebulous concepts such as these, it become very difficult not only to convey ideas, but to understand them as well, making true communication very difficult, simply because we are trying to make the ethereal concrete, and describe the transcendent in earthly concepts.

That said, let me try to explain how I look at it - for what it is worth...

'Substance' implies materiality. The soul is not material, therefore has no substance - but you are right, that does not mean it is 'nothing'.

Imagine a soul in it's natural environment: Eternity. I have established that the soul has an 'energetic process', but how does a soul have 'thoughts' when the past present and future are all experienced as a single moment -the 'moment' of eternity? All past, present and future thoughts would need to be experienced as a single 'feeling' - it would all be as one. A soul then would quite likely exist in a static state of consciousness.

Consciousness without time would be like looking at a painting in a museum -a painting that depicted ALL of time in one single picture. How else would you describe it? It truly boggles the imagination - yet mystics have often described just such an experience, and the consciousness experience of it, for millennia. It most certainly would be nothing like consciousness as we experience it, but one would still be 'conscious'.

The point is...Chakras. Are you familiar with chakras? Let me tell you what I know about them... 'Chakra' is Sanskrit for 'wheel'. What does that mean? I am an engineer, and I can tell you that many machines and other automated processes operate on a simple repeating process - a cycle of operations, if you will, that accomplish a certain end. An automobile engine, for example, operates by repeatedly accomplishing a small set of mechanical operations which result in... the turning of the car's wheels.

Chakra means wheel.

So I see a chakra as a small engine of sorts. But, it does not process mechanical energy, or substance, or anything physical at all, it processes egoic, emotional, mental, loving, expressive, psychic and spiritual energies, in that order. Each chakra has a specific function, a specific 'reactive process' for each type of energy - it is an overall energetic process which interfaces the spiritual and physical aspects of a particular individual.

Do you have to believe that it must have some substance to be real? Because, to totally throw you off, I don't think chakras even exist except in the cognition of the observer. The cognitive manifestation of a 'chakra' is a psychic metaphor for what is otherwise known as a soul.

But it is this overall energetic process, when animating a physical being, that makes itself known by what it does, how it acts, who it is. The 'energetic process' is the result of many iterations of existence, of many reincarnations. Specific memories that make it what it is may or may not be 'remembered' - but the reactions and aspirations, the actual working parts of the chakras which make it who it is, that is what is expressed in it's existence and operation.

So, to answer your question, it is not particles and the transformative power between particles that is going on in the soul - it is emotion, it is thoughts, and love and lust and consciousness transformation that is occuring.

Sorry about all that - but you asked.