The Soul does not exist (note to Mods at beginning)

So soul, or consciousness, or whatever you want to call it does seem to have some sort of ability to survive biological death of our bodies.

I could not agree more... There are numerous leading edge physicist that claim that our physical existance comes about beacuse of consciousness.

A favorite thought experiement of mine is a simple question.

Does consciousness arise from matter? Or does matter arise from consciousness?

And if one answers the former please show me on instance in nature where this is so.

Dalen, I read your story and I find it fascinating. This thread has been very mind opening for me.

I realize in reading this that we all use soul and spirit as buzz words. The range of what these words can mean is quite wide. So I will try not to use these much.

Here are some more thoughts

If nothing were to survive from us in death, life being all that we experienced, according to our own perceptions would be infinite, because in death we would not percieve time or anything. There would be no reference point, relatively if this life is all that we have, then it is everything... I think?

We do know that after we die the world goes on... or do we? Anyway even if everything remains in existence after we die, it is still not going to be (according to our perception, because we will be dead). So when we die, is it really that we died, or just that we stop perceiving the universe (and time)? It ceases to exist (from our point of view)!

I guess this is borrowed from the occult, I don't know what religion it really belongs to, but I have been thinking about the belief that the universe is "created" the moment it is realized by you. Of course we understand that it has been around before we were born and will go on long after we die, but this frame of mind is something I can relate to. In fact, it could be literally true... nobody can prove it wrong just like anything else!

So anyway I guess I am just musing about what it would be like if we truly did lose our perception and concept of time when we die. I mean, we know that our bodies will turn to dirt, and thus we will exist as dirt eventually. But like it was said, we aren't well aware of our cells, they certainly aren't aware of us. We wont be aware of ourselves as dirt, but we will exist.

And that is what I was talking about infinity! If this life is all we have, and if when we die we lose our ability to feel, and we lose our concept of time, then this life will be our infinity. This will be our very own infinity, because outside of life there will be nothing to measure time with! Outside of life things will be timeless and imperceptible, and it will not apply. Does that not make the period of our life infinity relative to our own mind?

Is the universe even aware of itself? Haha

Thanks Dalen

Originally posted by Or_Die_Trying
actually science is starting to lean towards to existence of some sort of life after death. Many studies have been done by ER doctors who hear claims of NDE's and tested them. Furthermore, physics is slowly unveiling the mysteries of the interconnectedness of everything in the universe, and as we all know, you cannot destroy energy, it simply changes form. So soul, or consciousness, or whatever you want to call it does seem to have some sort of ability to survive biological death of our bodies.

The question that I have concerning NDE's is simply this.
What if its just the mind projecting an image?
I say this because Im not sure that any of the subjects were brain dead.
Heart stops, etc, your not dead till the brain goes.
I say this because I saw my father-in-law die just last Oct.
When they said his heart stopped, and my brother-in-law told them not to bother restarting it (long story), this is the point where most NDE's happen.
But there was a point when his color changed, his whole body swelled up, etc. and you could tell...no one was home, and there was no coming back...true dead...brain dead.

Im proposing, based on my experience with watching death, and my own personally NDE, as well as my out-of-the-body experience , this is apart from the NDE separated by over 10+ years...and also what I have read about peoples experience with '___', etc. I am leaning to the fact that the mind is projecting, in each instance, a picture. To prove this wrong, we need a brain dead person to come back to life I suppose. (putting aside the pictures they had after the heart stopped, right before the brain stopped.)
(yes, I was hit by a car while riding a bike and have about a 3 inch scar on the top side of my head for proof. I wont go much into my NDE now, as I believe its somewhere on the ATS forum already, and the point is, I believe its all projected images by a living mind.)

Why do I say this? Think of what sees. I have mentioned this a couple of times in this thread, but your mind sees...not your eyes..it sends the electrical signals to the brain which is encased in darkness. The image is made in the brain from interpretations of what information is sent to the brain. Thats how some people see magical creatures, etc. the information that goes in, gets interpretated differently etc.

So, again, Im not against soul..but as of now, the brain is a little more involved then we seem to give credit for.

Thanks for the post.

Peace

Dalen

Originally posted by Novise
I realize in reading this that we all use soul and spirit as buzz words. The range of what these words can mean is quite wide. So I will try not to use these much.

Is the universe even aware of itself?

Exactly, thanks for bringing that up, because it is easy to get lost in the words themselves.
The use of the term God and Soul have somewhat been drenched with centuries of misuse.
They were, I believe, guiding points to something bigger then themselves.

I enjoy the speculative nature of your post. Again, it is this type of thought line in which I am and have been pondering the nature of life after death.

You bring up a valid question, at least one I pondered. Is the unviverse aware of itself.
I know that its a kabbalistic teaching that the universe is trying to become aware of itself, or they say God. (Ayin Sof, nothingness, the unknowable, etc.)
It seems that everything is a microscopic version of the greater...it seems this goes on infinitely.
Some will say why ponder this, its the same as trying to understand how someone could have always existed. To that I say, the answer will come, and when it does, it will make sense once you go beyond our constraints...go beyond time...etc.

Again, thanks for your line of speculation, I feel it helps when contemplating matters such as this.

Peace

Dalen

- back to something you mentioned about the cells not being aware of us.
That goes back to everything being a mircoscopic version of the universe.
We are like God to our cells, yet we are unaware and seemingly cannot control them. (except through meditation, one can argue that you can work in harmony to correct illness.)
The point is, maybe as the universe, or God is trying to know itself, we model that when we 'listen' to our bodies, and 'feel' it, etc. And then our bodies "know" us, and the cells stop splitting to cause cancers, after acting on their own accord. Now Im just quickly outlining a thought, so you will have to run with it yourself if you want.

[edit on 18-11-2006 by dAlen]

The soul is your entire neuro-net....... spirit is your thought, the word made manifest is your body.

the outside world is the language your INNER-SELF uses to communicate with you, a language of symbols.

Dreams and sleep, is taking your day, as 'new stimulus' and associating it with your 'soul' or neuro-net and relating everything to past events, which is why dreams are odd, because sometimes the way we percieve things is quite odd, not to mention dreams are caused by nn-'___', a natural neuro-peptide that is necessary for everything to be en-graphed into the neuro-net / soul. .. thru symbolism and relations.

Take it or leave it.

[edit on 11/18/2006 by PuRe EnErGy]

Originally posted by PuRe EnErGy
The soul is your entire neuro-net....... spirit is your thought, the word made manifest is your body.

the outside world is the language your INNER-SELF uses to communicate with you, a language of symbols.

Dreams and sleep, is taking your day, as 'new stimulus' and associating it with your 'soul' or neuro-net and relating everything to past events, which is why dreams are odd, because sometimes the way we percieve things is quite odd, not to mention dreams are caused by nn-'___', a natural neuro-peptide that is necessary for everything to be en-graphed into the neuro-net / soul. .. thru symbolism and relations.

Take it or leave it.

Take it, or leave it...or ponder it.
Thanks for your post.

One thing I will say briefly is concerning the idea of spirit, soul, mind, and body.
Finding the soul is hard enough, now we have the introduction to spirit.
However, in your explanation I do see where you are coming from...you did not leave the terms just loosly hanging out there.

I am very interested in the whole neuro-net thing, and as you mentioned '___'...see my post on this page with a link...it talks about a natural occuring '___' experience. (again, I attribute this, as well as my NDE experience to brain projections...)

But I want to see if I understand how your approaching this.

The soul is the neuronet, basically creating your reality?
So, if I understand, do you believe that when the body dies, its because the soul (neuro-net) is dead. (i.e. someone is brain dead). ?
That is kind of where I am at, though I still ponder if somehow this neuronet cannot somehow connect into other neuronets...if the quanutm theory of entanglement is true...then there may be something to the 'soul' concept if indeed the 'soul', as you put it, is the neuronet.

Thanks

Peace

Dalen

Originally posted by etshrtslr
Does consciousness arise from matter? Or does matter arise from consciousness?

If we are looking at the soul as consciousness, i.e. a neuro-net as PureENergy pointed out...then we can look at other possibilities of how the soul may act upon death.

If the quantum theory of entanglement, as mentioned in my previous post, is true...and if our neuro-net produces the reality we know...is it possible for neuro-nets to cross over into other neuro-nets.
This would explain a lot of things, such as how you can feel sometimes what someone else is thinking, and even the legends in the Bible of possesion.

I dont know...interesting concepts.

Peace

Dalen

Ill Throw this into the mix.

Last week I listened to Professor Ronald L. Mallett on C2C. www.physics.uconn.edu...

He stated, and this is not a new concept in physics (multiverse) that every time we make a decision a new parallel universe is created.

So to draw a conclusion from the premise...we could be dead in some universes and alive in others. Then every decision we make it continues the cycle.

So we end up making millions, billions or trillions of decisions some are fatal some are not but the net result is we create another parallel universe for every decision we make and as a result we keep multiplying ourselves in differnt parallel universes.

So in effect we never die...we exist in some parallel universes and are dead in others.

Edit: I must add he did a much better job of explaining it than I did an I would encourage all the listen to the show.



[edit on 18-11-2006 by etshrtslr]

Originally posted by dAlen

Originally posted by PuRe EnErGy
The soul is your entire neuro-net....... spirit is your thought, the word made manifest is your body.

the outside world is the language your INNER-SELF uses to communicate with you, a language of symbols.

Dreams and sleep, is taking your day, as 'new stimulus' and associating it with your 'soul' or neuro-net and relating everything to past events, which is why dreams are odd, because sometimes the way we percieve things is quite odd, not to mention dreams are caused by nn-'___', a natural neuro-peptide that is necessary for everything to be en-graphed into the neuro-net / soul. .. thru symbolism and relations.

Take it or leave it.

Take it, or leave it...or ponder it.

Thanks for your post.

One thing I will say briefly is concerning the idea of spirit, soul, mind, and body.
Finding the soul is hard enough, now we have the introduction to spirit.

However, in your explanation I do see where you are coming from...you did not leave the terms just loosly hanging out there.

I am very interested in the whole neuro-net thing, and as you mentioned '___'...see my post on this page with a link...it talks about a natural occuring '___' experience. (again, I attribute this, as well as my NDE experience to brain projections...)

But I want to see if I understand how your approaching this.

The soul is the neuronet, basically creating your reality?
So, if I understand, do you believe that when the body dies, its because the soul (neuro-net) is dead. (i.e. someone is brain dead). ?
That is kind of where I am at, though I still ponder if somehow this neuronet cannot somehow connect into other neuronets...if the quanutm theory of entanglement is true...then there may be something to the 'soul' concept if indeed the 'soul', as you put it, is the neuronet.

Thanks

Peace

Dalen

Very excellent question...

Yes, the body dies, the soul goes to "GOD" (Humanity as a whole) everything can be traced back, one person would lead to the memory of another person, etc.

The soul 'never' dies therefore.. (plus its hard-wired into our DNA/RNA, thru the nuclear mutations caused by thought.

BUT The REAL question is... is there REALLY anything 'OUT-THERE' ???

We can never really know... because we are always the observer (of past events, that have already entered the nervous system) and everything that has entered the nervous system has been instructed from 'with-out' the body... mommy says that apple is red, and apple is associated with a whole array of different connections in the neuro-net to actually make it an apple.. Like the texture, the sound and vibration of biting into it, the taste sensations, the texture on a direct muscle the tongue, the smell, in communion with the taste and texture. millions and millions of assocations we take for granted. That are NO different than a Webpage.. that looks like this (coded)

[LIFE]
[BIRTH]

Originally posted by etshrtslr
So in effect we never die...we exist in some parallel universes and are dead in others.

Edit: I must add he did a much better job of explaining it than I did an I would encourage all the listen to the show.

Dont worry, you did the topic justice.
If this is possible, which I dont doubt, parallel universes and realities is something intriguing to me and I would like to understand it better...I wonder if there could be a way to 'consciously' traverse between them.
In other words, the me in this life...I wonder if I could go throughout all the various possibilites at will. Now hypothetically, Im sure Michio Kaku would say you "hypothetically could" as there would be no "grandfather" effect if you knocked off your grandpa in a parallel reality so to speak.
That is not exactly where Im going for.
Im looking at somehow uniting the various "me" forms of consciousness, which could then act, at will within any of those parallel existences. I know, kind of far fetched to what we are used to.
For now, I suppose it is up to "dreamtime" mind projecting projects to get close.

But if the mind, neuro network is the "soul" and the quantum theory of entanglement is true...then I suppose we would be able to entangle or engage our neurons in multidimensions...or in other words, the mind is the time/space travel machine.
In saying that, Im briefly reminded of Contact where the lady space traveled, though everyone else thought the project failed, and thought she was mad.
Again, she didnt use the limted means to travel...The mind, this neuronetwork, may be key.

What do I konw...Maybe we are all stuck in our minds.
Funny thing is, I was watching some video...It said if our minds were taken out of our body and hooked up to a computer, which was fed images, it would believe it was there.
Sounds matrix like to me.
But in saying that...we must remember that the mind sends signals to the arm to reach out and touch with the fingers, or else the electrical impulses that go to the fingers to send to the brain to send the sign that your touching a wood chair, would not be there.
So a matrix like environment wouldnt be that straight forward. Not impossible for someone who has mastered physics, etc. Yes farfetches as we only konw what our sense perceptions tell us, and we trust that our mind, which sends signals to recieve signals, is telling us the truth...but if someone could master that, who would konw.
Clear as mud?
Im sure there was a coherent thought, hopefully, in there somewhere.
Anyone who can decipher my babble is doing good.
I speak and write as if I expect the other person to fill in the blanks...though I am trying to be more attentive to filling in the blanks to make my ramblings seem a bit more sensible.

Peace

Dalen

Originally posted by PuRe EnErGy
But keep in mind if a person doesn't build a nice website, no ones gonna visit it, and they might even petition to have it removed from the internet.
[/LIFE]

Thats just horrible.
Then I will have to be like the programs in the "matrix" who go into exile.

Now concering the whole concept of "is anyone really out there", this is interesting.
To a certain degree, it is a valid argument.
But I believe only to the degree that we can be certain that indeed our brain is not sending out signals to interact with the stimulus trying to get in.
Im really not sure if Im expressing this in a way that is clear, I tried in the above post in trying to convey this concept...but who knows to what extent of success.

But for those, like yourself, who are familar with the whole concept of perception, and the observer, and can we trust that anything is out there...perhaps this may make some kind of odd sense, if not, maybe it will later.

What Im trying to say is that it can be argued that we dont know if the sense perceptions are real or like a computer hooked up to the brain playing a holograph that we believe to be real.
If this is the case, then something would have to also cause our brain to actually react and make choices to reach out and react with the stimuli being introduced to the brain...in effect being similar to possesion. Or in a scenerio that others can grasp, a true matrix, or even dreaming, where the person feels that they chose to reach out and therefore interact with the stimuli that is then produced in the mind.

Peace

Dalen

Originally posted by dAlen

Originally posted by PuRe EnErGy
But keep in mind if a person doesn't build a nice website, no ones gonna visit it, and they might even petition to have it removed from the internet.
[/LIFE]

Thats just horrible.

Then I will have to be like the programs in the "matrix" who go into exile.

Now concering the whole concept of "is anyone really out there", this is interesting.
To a certain degree, it is a valid argument.
But I believe only to the degree that we can be certain that indeed our brain is not sending out signals to interact with the stimulus trying to get in.
Im really not sure if Im expressing this in a way that is clear, I tried in the above post in trying to convey this concept...but who knows to what extent of success.

But for those, like yourself, who are familar with the whole concept of perception, and the observer, and can we trust that anything is out there...perhaps this may make some kind of odd sense, if not, maybe it will later.

What Im trying to say is that it can be argued that we dont know if the sense perceptions are real or like a computer hooked up to the brain playing a holograph that we believe to be real.
If this is the case, then something would have to also cause our brain to actually react and make choices to reach out and react with the stimuli being introduced to the brain...in effect being similar to possesion. Or in a scenerio that others can grasp, a true matrix, or even dreaming, where the person feels that they chose to reach out and therefore interact with the stimuli that is then produced in the mind.

Peace

Dalen

I know exactly what you mean... and my answer would be, ... there are other humans out there, for sure.. (me's and you's) but we are just HUMANS in a superposition, ... and a human is just a bunch of complex vibrations, chaotically ordered vibrations.... Everything is a vibration....... but we've wandered away from the natural vibrations and created other vibrations..
Meaning we moved out of NATURE and our resonance with it, and created a different quite repetitive, 'stimulating' 'SUB-NATURE' that suited a pattern of control, of almost a switched off brain functioning on chemical stimulus (peptide addiction) caused by outter effects, like beautiful red stop signs, or stupid red stop signs.. in other words, caused by our PRE-CEPTIONS our pre-measured experiences..
We become addicted to 'being right' or being corrected in our assumptions and experiences. Its our horrible thinking that we are GOD and our sole experience is the only one there is. But GOD is much larger than us... it is HUMANITY Spread out, and those superposition/entangled experiences have varying vibration frequencies. and all of them are a whole, are ONE, because of entanglement.

The soul is the poem in the end of your life.

Poetry - Is a result of an soul i think.

dAlen,

There are so many things in your last post that Ronald L. Mallett addressed on the C2C show. I wish I could hang around and try and answer them but its saturday night and I must take the wife out.

Namaste to all.

An exercise that I have shared with my friends goes a little something like this;

Hold your hand in front of your eyes and REALLY look at it. Now look up, look down and then left and right. Notice that your field of vision has a border of blackness, that which you cannot see past.

Now look at your hand again. Notice how beautiful and colourful it is. Look at all the little hairs and the nails. It's almost like a cartoon in some respects. It is made out of shapes and colours.

Now look around you and really take it all in. You are seeing a world. People have told you that it is 'outside' of your head. Now reverse that point and think of it as if it was inside your own head. It becomes rather surreal, even if the world IS outside of your body.

What we are all experiencing as life is simply amazing. We are all in a world that is a rich tapestry of light, shapes and colour. Nothing becomes physical until you touch it.

Next time you invite over a friend or go and visit a family member, keep in mind what I have just said. Try to think of them as a beautiful moving picture that resides inside your mind because you need it and want it there.

That to me, is the soul of existence.

In a book entitled Megashift by James Rutz, several documented and some reported cases of being raised from the dead are mentioned. A few quotes:
"Friday Fax #7, 2002, tells of a team of five who prayed to bring back a decomposing body. Also, Friday Fax #20, 2002, gives accounts of two girls, ages three and one, who died of malaria and were resurrected....The site for Rolland Heidi is www.irismin.org." (page 52) Also on page 52: "This is the only case I've found in which the person was dead more than three days. Emanuel Tuwagirairmana, who is now a pastor in Kenya, died in the
Rwanda civil war in 1994 and was dead for seven days. See photos at a non-Christian website, www.near-death.com/forum/nde/000/45.html."

There is also a video entitled Raised from the Dead from the CfAN Web site, (www.cfan.org) of amateur video footage of a man named Daniel Ekechukwu who was reportedly raised from the dead and it was expanded to include on-site interviews with the doctor, the mortician, a state security officer, and two other pastors who were present and prayed for Ekechukwu.

There is a Biblical verse that intimates that the meaning of "soul" is "sentient being". Genesis2:7 says, "So then Yahweh God formed man [of the] dust of the ground, and breathed in his nostrils the breath of life-and man became a living soul." (Rotherham's emphasized bible) Man was formed; all put together, "human" but not yet "alive". Like when we die, all of our parts are there (usually), our body/physical self is still "human" but that which made us sentient beings is gone.

The soul/sentient being is not immortal. Obviously sentient beings can die. The bible clearly states that "the soul that sins shall die" and "the dead know not anything." See Ecclesiastes 9:10; Psalms 6:5; Isaiah 38:18; Ecclesiastes 9:5; Psalms 115:17; Job 14:21; Isa. 63:16; 1John 3:15; 5:12. There are other verses if you're interested but these should give you an idea of what the Bible says about death and the soul. Sorry I'm not computer literate enough to know how to do proper links but you should be able to type in the site addresses and check out the info anyway.

Originally posted by dAlen

Originally posted by denythestatusquo
I believe in reincarnation myself so the idea of living once is considered 'Luciferic' to me and not acceptable. The soul is perfected while living trials and tribulations whilst in the flesh.

My question is:
Reincarnation to what level? (and whats reincarnated...particles)
Technically when a body rots and feeds worms its particles, or whatever, are recycled.

Seriously though, Its like a water drop going into the ocean...it spreads to the ends of the world in billions of tiny particles never associating with the "group" drop again.

In Judaism, there are 5 levels of soul (some people have less, supposedly).
Again, this level thing is suspect. Although one may claim that the higher self guides us.

In just normal reincarnation scenerio, I have an issue, where we die off, and the entire us comes back...as we dont remember squat. That sounds like a conspiracy so that wont learn anything and remain "slaves" of the earth system.

Dalen

My understanding is that everything is energy at some level. The material that makes up the atom which makes up everything else is nothing by itself. What is the soul it is energy that has an intelligence and was part of the initial creation of the universe.

When we learn our lessons we graduate to the next level which is a semi-physical state of existance.

Differing belief systems claim differing levels of existance. I cannot see where this is a big problem as divisions are interpretations in themselves.

You pose a good question: if we reincarnate then why do we forget between lives? The answer I came across is this: if we remembered every life we lived then we would tend to focus on the pain of each life and the accumulation of that pain and suffering would have the effect of stopping our development. Thus, a lifetime is about learning certain lessons and not trying to grapple with hundreds or even thousands of years of pain.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

Originally posted by denythestatusquo
What other things can the weight loss be attributed to?

I would like to see the data that shows a loss of weight at death that is attributable to the soul's leaving the body.

I'm putting up some links for your own investigation because there is a number of sites dealing with this issue both pro and con (of course..). You can decide for yourself since the arguments are made for the conclusion offered.

ghosts
soulsweight

Originally posted by etshrtslr
dAlen,

There are so many things in your last post that Ronald L. Mallett addressed on the C2C show. I wish I could hang around and try and answer them but its saturday night and I must take the wife out.

Namaste to all.

I guess I need to take a listen to the link you provided, sounds like it might be interesting. Just woke up.

Peace

Dalen

Originally posted by Unrealised
Hold your hand in front of your eyes and REALLY look at it. Now look up, look down and then left and right. Notice that your field of vision has a border of blackness, that which you cannot see past.

Next time you invite over a friend or go and visit a family member, keep in mind what I have just said. Try to think of them as a beautiful moving picture that resides inside your mind because you need it and want it there.

That to me, is the soul of existence.

You know, the last paragraph brings to mind something interesting I have heard.
It concerns the entanglement theory...kind of.
In essence people are jerks if you want them to be, and nice if you want them to be.
Now on one level this sounds superficial and not plausible, but I promise you, I have tried it, and when I accept what is, even allow the other person to be, and choose to love that person...that person changes. You could say that its my attitutde that has helped them to change, not me wanting it. Well my wanting it caused the effect of me changing my patterns, which in effect changes the others...even if its subconsciously...and if they dont change, thats when you split paths.
Thanks for sharing...

Oh, as far as the experiment, it sounds like the auror experiments where you try to see you own auror...I have always kind of sucked at those.

Peace

Dalen