The Soul?

[l33tminion]

Do people have souls? Do things other than people have souls? Does nothing have a soul?

What is a soul? Where is the soul located? What is the soul made out of? Can the soul be examined empirically, or is it something supernatural? Is it silly to talk about the soul like it is an object with location and composition?

Discuss.

x-posted to atheism, antitheism, heated_debate, religiousdebate, philosophy, and my personal journal.

Comments

[l33tminion]

I've never heard anything about something like that being empirically observed. I could point out all sorts of flaws with that, but it seems like such a ridiculous rumor (especially since you know it would be the sort of research that would be all over the news, reliable or not) that I won't believe this one without some kind of a citation.

I define the soul as the difference between consciousness and unconscious behavior. Of course, that definition doesn't make it any easier to tell if something has a soul or not (although, by that definition, I believe that humans have souls). However, I think that it's as absurd to try to assign a location (much less a weight) to an abstract concept like the soul or the self.