Yes, I know, I’ve been awfully quiet.  No posts for two days.  What’s up with that, Rayne rendered speechless?  It’s weird, but I’ve kind of had a lot of stuff going on around the house and also had a lot going on in my head that I can’t organize into a coherent blog entry.  (It’s that Robert Wright stuff I’m reading, he’s a pain to read at times -- he can really clutter up one's head, and he's not particularly concise.)

Now Debating: Existence of the Soul…

But we have plenty to chat about here, that’s for sure.  You’ll need to read Jan’s blog entry which spawned this discussion on the existence of the soul, for starters.  Jan also provided a link to a Political Orientation test in his blog; it was interesting to me that Jan and I could be so close on this test, being center-left/libertarians, and yet we don’t have the same views about the existence of the soul.  (Jan believes the soul does not exist; I believe yes but I’m waiting for more information.)

[Please note: there are multiple potential sub-topics, since there are overlaps between religion and spirituality, soul and immortality – but for the purposes of this blog entry, I’m addressing the soul only.  I'm not even certain that soul = spirit, so I'll stick to soul.  Thanks.]

Jan Haugland’s comments in response to my last post are significant, as is Rob Salkowitz’ blog entry.

Jan said, “…On the soul question, I don't think political orientation in the two dimensions we talk about here is necessary that important. …”

And Rob said, “…Maybe it’s the Y chromosome at work, but I have to come down on Jan’s side here.”

Which leads me to wonder: if values reflect state of consciousness and economic/political choices reflect values, why the schism?  That's interesting...

Rob Salkowitz may be on to something when he says it might be the Y chromosome.  If there is a correlation between state of consciousness (one's perception of reality) and one's gender, then perhaps this explains why many values can be very similar, but opposed on the issue of the soul's existence.  Hmmm.

As a woman, I might be more likely to live in an affiliative state of consciousness -- I'm likely to see connections and relationships between things.  Personally, I see a whole that’s broken, where gaps exist, where perhaps the soul may be the answer.  (Or maybe it's not, but I'm sure there's a gap or two.)

As a man, one might be more likely to live in an achievement state; things are more black-and-white, cut-and-dried, things and events may exist more separately from that perception of reality.  (See my blog entries in September re: states of consciousness.  Note, too, that it's an acknowledged generality to say that a gender may be more likely to live in a different state consciousness; the premise of the separation of conscious states is based on Dr. Jenny Wade's work, A Holonomic Theory of the Evolution of Human Consciousness.)

And achievement-based folks are more likely to expect results, concrete data, to support beliefs.  There’s just not a lot of that available on this subject, so achievement-based folks aren’t going to subscribe.  It’s possible that Jan sees no connection between economic/political values and consciousness-states because there’s little data to show a correlation; perhaps this also explains his disbelief in the soul, there’s no data to support its existence

Affiliatives are more likely to relationships holistically, even when there are gaps in a network of relationships.  It’s possible the gap is defined by the rest of the network – like the square hole where the square peg should go, but the peg is missing.  An affiliative is more likely to look for a square peg and not a round one by virtue of the description of its void.

Each of these two states of consciousness are inherently flawed.  Achievement-based folks demand data ad nauseum as proof of a thing, even when the thing speaks for itself.  Affiliatives looking for a square peg for a square hole may miss the cube that fits, or changes in rules that change the hole; they may be so focused on the rest of the surrounding relationships that they miss the objective. 

That could be the task of our humanity: to develop a comprehensive vision that embraces the benefits of our various perceptions, and responds to correct or compensate for the failures of our visions.

After all, every story has more than one side.  Why only one explanation, one view, if it does not include every variable and every option?

Perhaps until all explanations have been explored, “maybe” is a valid answer to the existence of the soul?

8:44:59 AM    comment []