Thought, the soul, and death

[Ishmael]

This series of thoughts were inspired by a thread that aquila (the eagle) started last week. He was trying to get his head wrapped around the thought process. How we think etc.

That got me thinking in other directions.

Thought is an electro-chemical process. We know about specific synapes, and we know about how certain area's of the brain are used for certain thought process's but we don't have our heads wrapped around how the integrated whole works together for thought and memory retention and retreval. Not in detail anyway. Regardless, we can measure the output of the brain as an electric field. We radiate thoughts.

This field is relatively weak, but it exists and will continue to exist forever. It's not a matter of whether it's there or not, just whether we have sensitive enough instruments to measure it.

So you live your life radiating your thoughts. Think of it as one long string of electric impulses from the moment you first quicken in the womb, until your last dying thought.

What if that is the soul? That you are left with your thoughts. You have to live with every thought that you ever had? Total self awareness. You could travel to any point on this string of thought and would relive it as if you were still alive. You would be totally self contained. The ugly thoughts as well as the good thoughts. The guilty thoughts as well as the compassionate thoughts.

And if this were true, then is it safe to say that we create our own heaven, or hell, within the thoughts, actions, and deeds that we perform everyday? That these places that the various religions tell us exist truly do, but in a way never before imagined?

Just a thought.

Ishmael

 

[Guest]

And a very good thought it is, too.

 

[littlekateyes]

What if that is the soul? That you are left with your thoughts. You have to live with every thought that you ever had? Total self awareness. You could travel to any point on this string of thought and would relive it as if you were still alive. You would be totally self contained. The ugly thoughts as well as the good thoughts. The guilty thoughts as well as the compassionate thoughts.

And if this were true, then is it safe to say that we create our own heaven, or hell, within the thoughts, actions, and deeds that we perform everyday? That these places that the various religions tell us exist truly do, but in a way never before imagined?

Just a thought.

Ishmael

That is a pretty powerful thought. Maybe some people will rethink there thoughts, or actions. Some believe in living with no regrets.

 

[weed]

I have thought about this many times and have come up with a theory that fits and makes sense within what I know and have experienced.

The energy fields that surround us have been well documented. Additionally they can be felt by practitioners of such energy therapeutics as healing touch and Reiki. Kirlian photography goes so far as to distinguish the difference of energy amongst the chakras. This energy affects the balance of many aspects of our personal system. It also exists within other systems.

Thought is transmitted by the electrical transmissions across the synapses and is affected by the chemical neurotransmitters that are also involved. It is individualized by the differences in these factors as well as differences in the general constitution and experiences amongst individuals.

When we die our energy is released from our somatic selves and becomes part of what I consider a Universal Energy Field....a field that we all live within and draw off of even though we are also separate from it. This energy is also freed from individual thought as it is no longer tied to the physical restrictions and abilities of the body that individualized it.

I do think that there is a bit of our soul that stays with this energy that is released with our death but I think of it as a flavor rather than a discombobulation (sp?) of the many thoughts of an individual. It joins the energies of others in a union that in itself is Heaven and Hell or any other name you want to put to it.

 

[sigh]

Ishmael, you never cease to amaze me.

 

[MissTaken]

I think in general, this perspective is interesting.

I would ask, however, if our heaven and hell were to be based upon our energy field which is built upon our thoughts, where do deeds come into play?

Many times, our thoughts are pure when the deed gets messed up. (Too tired for eloquence)

How does one determine the value or aura surrounding the deed?
I may have done something I am now ashamed of, but at the time, it was with the best intentions. How does this play into our version of heaven and hell?

This theory of yours sounds lovely.
We are in control our heaven and hell.
The path to heaven could really be paved on good intentions.
Simply feeling sorry about killing 10 people in DC may be enough to preserve yourself in the afterlife.

But, jsut what if, there is a greater energy field that makes your heaven and hell based on your thoughts?

thoughts and deeds?

 

[Aquila]

More to inegrate into my loop.
Cool, get back to you with a long winded response in a bit

 

[Ask For More]

If that's just a though I don't know what you could come up with if you concentrated!

I'd comment but my brain is fried right now

 

[sufisaint]

Your right on track and all the energies together id "God" all connected as one, "you" being a part of it ...

 

[KillerMuffin]

If you're up to the sheer volume of emotional pain you'll get from it, read "When Rabbit Howls." It might change your outlook on how the human mind, soul, basic existence is tied to the body.

 

[Ishmael]

Weed intorduced the concept of the 'universal mind'. While expect that there is some validity there. Two forces interactig to create a third component, the basic component of the "thought string" runs on unhindered and unaltered. Individualism is maintained.

MissT brought up the intent vs result issue. I think that that too is a consideration. How often do we do things with good intentions only to have them result in a disaster? But I think that in our heart we know if we truly did these things in an altruisitic manner, or for selfish reasons. Putting someone elses welfare in jeopardy to satify our own inner desires. But rationalizing the deed at the time. I suspect with the luxury of time and wisdom we all come to know the difference.

However my thoughts are of a more individual soul. Freed of earthly bonds and the constraints of time, but as individual as our bodies make us in this realm of existence. The difference being that there would be no "new" experiences at all. You are trapped with yourself and while you can experience every facet of your phyical existance, there will be nothing more than what you already know and have experienced. Like a CD, you can replay but you can't record.

We all have known joy and terror, love and hate, contnetment and remorse. They are all on the CD. And you can't pass from one place on the CD to another without passing over all the in between.

What would your CD look like? Would there be more spots that you wouldn't replay than you would? Are there places that seemed fine when you were living them that you would not want to return to. Are there more tracks that you wouldn't listen to than you would? How full is your CD with those things that you would, and could, listen to for all of eternity?

Ishmael

 

[Ishmael]

If you're up to the sheer volume of emotional pain you'll get from it, read "When Rabbit Howls." It might change your outlook on how the human mind, soul, basic existence is tied to the body.

I'll check it out KM. Same series as "Run Rabbit, Run"?

BTW, I don't think I 'un-coupled' it at all. As a matter of fact, I think I've made the bond a little stronger. Ya think????

Ishmael

PS I'll get to your PM in a bit, OK? Not ignoring you, just other issues to deal with.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Rabbit Howls is about Truddi Chase and the Troops. She's a multiple with 92 other personalities. If this is the one I'm thinking of, they never "merge" the personalities.

Apparently, they no longer consider integration to be the necessary "cure" or desired end in MPD because they aren't sure how the mind, the "person", is connected to the physical person. Multiples don't necessarily want integration because they are whole people, they just live in one body.

Personality is formed through childhod and it's intrinsic to who we are, to the "soul" of the individual. But what if the personality fragments? Do we have one soul or two? If we can have mroe than one, how do we get the second? Where does it come from? Was it always there? Is it an actual second person or is it just the same person with a different, highlighted facet of a persona?

I think it's Rabbit Howls that talks about a sort of "conduit" to some other place where the personalities come from. One of them--an older male I believe--is sort of the wise gatekeeper to the this other place. The personalities come in from this other place and leave to it when they "die."



No big thing on the PM, whenever you get 'round to it!

 

[Ishmael]

Rabbit Howls is about Truddi Chase and the Troops. She's a multiple with 92 other personalities. If this is the one I'm thinking of, they never "merge" the personalities.

Apparently, they no longer consider integration to be the necessary "cure" or desired end in MPD because they aren't sure how the mind, the "person", is connected to the physical person. Multiples don't necessarily want integration because they are whole people, they just live in one body.

Personality is formed through childhod and it's intrinsic to who we are, to the "soul" of the individual. But what if the personality fragments? Do we have one soul or two? If we can have mroe than one, how do we get the second? Where does it come from? Was it always there? Is it an actual second person or is it just the same person with a different, highlighted facet of a persona?

I think it's Rabbit Howls that talks about a sort of "conduit" to some other place where the personalities come from. One of them--an older male I believe--is sort of the wise gatekeeper to the this other place. The personalities come in from this other place and leave to it when they "die."



No big thing on the PM, whenever you get 'round to it!

Understood on the MPD Killer. But instead of the CD being a solo work, is it possible to think of it as an anthology and still not contradict my thought train here?

Ishmael

 

[peachykeen]

This is a good thread. I am sorry I am still feeling too much like something you might scrape off the bottom of your shoe (owing to a long lovely evening of good conversation, great company and copious amounts of wine) to make any rational, thoughtful contributions, so I'll just read. Keep going, though.

 

[MissTaken]

Along the same discussion as "Rabbit"

What about the "cd" that is damaged before birth?

I am thinking of Fetal Alchol Syndrome children.

In the MOST extreme cases, (all due respect to bc), a person with FAS may never develop a concience. What is the future for such a person?

No concience?
No regrets?
No remorse?

Complete self absorption.

As for my cd, take it all. All of my thoughts belong there.
There are few I would edit out as I generally have the best of intentions regardless of the outcome. Anything that I might otherwise not want to include, it is likely that I have felt deep remorse and still do.

Of course, Jeffrey Dalmer's cd?

 

[claude_moveml]

Thought is an electro-chemical process. We know about specific synapes, and we know about how certain area's of the brain are used for certain thought process's but we don't have our heads wrapped around how the integrated whole works together for thought and memory retention and retreval. Not in detail anyway. Regardless, we can measure the output of the brain as an electric field. We radiate thoughts.

This field is relatively weak, but it exists and will continue to exist forever. It's not a matter of whether it's there or not, just whether we have sensitive enough instruments to measure it.

Wrong: black holes, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

There is too much physics.

Firstly, Einstein's Special Relativity: time slows to a stop when you travel at the speed of light. These radiated thoughts would cross the universe instantly from their perspective - no hope of eternity of the soul there. You can't catch up with light to read the information in it, once it's been sent on its way into the void it's gone forever from us.

Secondly, Quantum Theory, specifically Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: you can never know all the information about a particle, more specifically the act of measuring one property more accurately means you can't measure other linked properties as accurately. Moreover measuring something changes the linked properties. The CD you described can only be played once.

Thirdly, black holes: black holes destroy information, where once was some helium or some water or some light is now an object described entirely by three numbers: mass, charge, angular momentum. As there are black holes in this universe, and radiation is radiated in all directions, eventually some of the information will be lost irretrievably.

Trapped on my own for eternity with no new experiences sounds very much like non-existence. The very act of thinking is a new experience. You are gone forever if you cannot think. The very essence of life is change, the very essence of consciousness is self-modifying processes of thinking.


Edit: quoted way too much, sorry people

 

[Ishmael]

Re: Re: Thought, the soul, and death

Firstly, Einstein's Special Relativity: time slows to a stop when you travel at the speed of light. These radiated thoughts would cross the universe instantly from their perspective - no hope of eternity of the soul there. You can't catch up with light to read the information in it, once it's been sent on its way into the void it's gone forever from us.

Light travels at a finite speed. Just like radio waves. The time lag is measureable. What difference does 'relative' time make to a soul?

Secondly, Quantum Theory, specifically Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: you can never know all the information about a particle, more specifically the act of measuring one property more accurately means you can't measure other linked properties as accurately. Moreover measuring something changes the linked properties. The CD you described can only be played once.

From an external observers position you are entirely correct. Within the energy pattern itself the same principle says you cannot know.

Thirdly, black holes: black holes destroy information, where once was some helium or some water or some light is now an object described entirely by three numbers: mass, charge, angular momentum. As there are black holes in this universe, and radiation is radiated in all directions, eventually some of the information will be lost irretrievably.

Only that radial pattern that encounters the event horizon.

Trapped on my own for eternity with no new experiences sounds very much like non-existence. The very act of thinking is a new experience. You are gone forever if you cannot think. The very essence of life is change, the very essence of consciousness is self-modifying processes of thinking.

I'm not talking about life as we know it.

Ishmael

 

[claude_moveml]

Re: Re: Re: Thought, the soul, and death

I'm not talking about life as we know it.

You are. You are saying, take fragments of life as we know it, "experiences", and do something with them.

You seem to be missing the essential role of the observer (consciousness) in controlling reactions to the sensory input. "Experience" encompasses everything - sensory input, emotional reaction, conscious thought, all reacting to each other in real time. Experience is a process, not data.

 

[Ishmael]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Thought, the soul, and death

You are. You are saying, take fragments of life as we know it, "experiences", and do something with them.

You seem to be missing the essential role of the observer (consciousness) in controlling reactions to the sensory input. "Experience" encompasses everything - sensory input, emotional reaction, conscious thought, all reacting to each other in real time. Experience is a process, not data.

You are thinking linearly my friend.

Ishmael

 

[horny_giraffe]

...Regardless, we can measure the output of the brain as an electric field. We radiate thoughts....

The electromagnetic field that we are able to measure is so weak that it is completely overwhelmed by solar radiation, cosmic radiation, and the earth's magnetic field. If this electrical field was once our thoughts, outside of our brains it is quickly dissipated into an undifferentiated field. I doubt that these electrical fields have any discernable affect on anything. Some have argued that very strong EM fields can cause cancer, etc. But the field that a brain and body produces is much, much weaker. I doubt that we will ever be able to reconstitute thoughts from EM waves any more that one can try to reconstitute whale piss from ocean water.

That's not to say that we don't have an affect on other people. Of course we do. We introduce ideas via conventional communication--ideas which spread exponentially among speakers of a common language. Urban mythology is clearly evidence that this happens.

There are many concepts of collective thoughts--Hegel's zeitgeist, Jung's collective unconsciousness, Dawkin's memes. I am not a mystic. But is a mystical element really necessary in order to create transcendence? Humanity as a whole may be alone in its experience, but humanity is not a unified whole. We are all alone in our thoughts, except that which we are able to communicate. Even this communication to others is uncertain. Isn't it enough that we can create meaning that transcend ourselves by contributing to the cause of humanity? Must we resort to mystic mumbo-jumbo in order to make some sense of our otherwise all-too-mortal lives?

Some day we may discover other dimensions. In fact, some physicists are exploring the idea of the fifth dimension as a way to explain electron tunneling and entangled particles. To say that scientist "know" physics is a gross understatement at best.

Still, in my experience everyone dies. I expect to be one of them.

 

[Ishmael]

Re: Re: Thought, the soul, and death

The electromagnetic field that we are able to measure is so weak that it is completely overwhelmed by solar radiation, cosmic radiation, and the earth's magnetic field. If this electrical field was once our thoughts, outside of our brains it is quickly dissipated into an undifferentiated field. I doubt that these electrical fields have any discernable affect on anything. Some have argued that very strong EM fields can cause cancer, etc. But the field that a brain and body produces is much, much weaker. I doubt that we will ever be able to reconstitute thoughts from EM waves any more that one can try to reconstitute whale piss from ocean water.

That's not to say that we don't have an affect on other people. Of course we do. We introduce ideas via conventional communication--ideas which spread exponentially among speakers of a common language. Urban mythology is clearly evidence that this happens.

There are many concepts of collective thoughts--Hegel's zeitgeist, Jung's collective unconsciousness, Dawkin's memes. I am not a mystic. But is a mystical element really necessary in order to create transcendence? Humanity as a whole may be alone in its experience, but humanity is not a unified whole. We are all alone in our thoughts, except that which we are able to communicate. Even this communication to others is uncertain. Isn't it enough that we can create meaning that transcend ourselves by contributing to the cause of humanity? Must we resort to mystic mumbo-jumbo in order to make some sense of our otherwise all-too-mortal lives?

Some day we may discover other dimensions. In fact, some physicists are exploring the idea of the fifth dimension as a way to explain electron tunneling and entangled particles. To say that scientist "know" physics is a gross understatement at best.

Still, in my experience everyone dies. I expect to be one of them.

The inabilty to measure does not obviate existance.

Ishmael

 

[horny_giraffe]

Re: Re: Re: Thought, the soul, and death

The inabilty to measure does not obviate existance.

Ishmael

Very true. But I'm not about to believe in Santa Claus just because I can't find him.

 

[Ishmael]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Thought, the soul, and death

Very true. But I'm not about to believe in Santa Claus just because I can't find him.

LOL and for your next quip you'll??????

Ishmael

 

[Lancecastor]

You could travel to any point on this string of thought and would relive it as if you were still alive. You would be totally self contained.

Isn't this the same basic premise as "Groundhog Day?"

Trying to figure out the Great Mystery has always been mankind's favorite parlour game.

Heaven is caressing the curve of soft breasts swaying, tweaking nipples rosy red and stiff and hearing the change in her breathing as I enter her from behind.