What is the soul, what was the soul, what will it be?

"definjitions" in paragraph 2, was mispelled. Correct spelling "definitions."

I did not mean to create a link to www.indymedia.com

I intended the link to be to www.indymedia.org

1. The 'soul' doesn't exist! All your thoughts and feelings are chemical reactions to your material environment.
2. You are a survival machine for your genes.

You offer an interesting perspective.

Can you provide any evidence for this claim?

Or can you cite any trained authority who has studied the issue?

I have not stated in this article what the nature of the soul or the psyche may be. I have only begun to trace the early history of the notion.

Certainly modern notions, such as those of Freud, Jung, and Adler can be used to advance the debate.

Furthermore, I would ask, what is the relationship of the question of the existence of the soul (whether defined materially, as Hobbes defined it, or immaterially, as Rousseau defined it) to the question of collective social action?

Neon Black, you state:
2. You are a survival machine for your genes.

This basic axiom, theory, or whatever, of yours, or whomsoever you nicked it from, or whatever toss of a university taught you it - is incorrect. Consequently, it to drawing completely erroneous conclusions - bullshit in , more bullshit out.

It is wrong on several levels. I am only clever enough to explain 2 in the corrected statement, as follows:

The correction is:
2. Your genes are one of the survival mechanism for you.
E.g Others are your brain, which in a human being is able to crate conciousness. E.g You can use the ideas and thoughts you have to control your destiny. Conciousness is not just chemical reactions - the whole is not just a sum of the parts.

Look, accept Feud et al. are mostly scientifically bollocks, but are interesting if viewed as pseudo-scientific friction, move on. If you want something more useful, more fun, and with a stronger scientific basis in this area look at astrology. If you want to really know what’s happening, study physics. Phyics does not exclude a spiritual world where ghosts from the past can enter the present day, or even a God of creation.


Hope this helps.

Yours as ever

Harold Hamlet

Dan - sorry if I came off as a bit of an arsehole there, I'm having a bad day!

For the first part, no I can't state any particular authority on it, though some philosophers have thought along these lines for centuries. Science describes the universe in terms of Newton's 3rd law of motion: to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (the only exception being quantum physics, which is only in its infancy). Pierre-Simon Laplace took this to what I see as a logical conclusion: "We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future". It seems counter-intuitive to apply this to ourselves, but scientifically why not do this? Marx's idea of economic determinism came close to doing so.

For the second part, Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene set out this theory. Very briefly, since the first single celled replicators were created billions of years ago, genes have 'selfishlessly' behaved in their own interests in directing our behaviour. This means our genes are our 'nature', and our environment is the 'nurture'.

As for the idea of collective action, I actually believe 'enlightened selfishness' is the way forward. Revolutionary struggle is in the 'selfish' interests of the international working class, so it will happen when enough working class people perceive this on an individual level. Co-operation occurs when peoples' 'selfish' interests overlap. In fact I don't normally use the word 'selfish' these days, I've replaced it with 'individualistic'.

The notion of 'souls' seems to me like the creation of societies that a) needed to believe in an afterlife, and b) needed to divide the living into 'deserving' and 'undeserving'. From what I've read, the first mention of 'souls' occurred in the classical, often town-dwelling, slave-based economies.

Harold - my genes are not survival mechanisms for me, because my genes existed before I did. And as for your other theories, though they may be comforting, I won't give them any credence until you show some cause and effect.

Thanks for your well reasoned comments.

I will simply let your statements stand as they are. Let me just say this:

I can appreciate what you say with regard to Newton, Laplace, Marx, and Dawkins.

I believe you are suggesting a sort of determinism that leaves little place (or perhaps none) for a free mind; much less room does it leave room for a free human soul.

Marx himself was not a determinist (as some 'Marxists' claim to be).

Marx said, among other things "I am not a Marxist," and "History makes men and men make history." This implies that we are born into specific cultures and socio economic circumstances AND that men can change them through individual and collective action. Nature and Nurture do not determine your existence; they give it context and a platform upon which you are free to act. You choose your actions within a set of historical circumstances.

Newton did believe that individual material bodies (planets, apples, and stones, for instance) were governed by fixed physical laws. Yet he also believed in the existence of the human soul. (He wrote theological works, in fact). Laplace's own conclusions, however deterministic, did not reflect Newton's beliefs in any way.

The idea of the 'selfish gene,' I think, is superseded by the facts themselves. Kropotkin, a rather radical mutualist (anarcho-communist), was a biologist who studied evolutionary theory. He proposed that it was not survival of the fittest individual which was the key concept. It was the survival of the species.

Thus, species which evolved social orders, (herds, packs, and flocks) tended to survive as species, even when the individual was often sacrificed. From this he deduced that the survival of humanity was based on cooperative and collective association, rather than on so called "social darwinism", seflishness, or even individualism. The potential for self sacrifice and for SELFLESSNESS is encoded into humanity.

The "genetic code" does not determine behavior; it merely provides some parameters which make choices possible.


As regards the soul, it does not matter where the idea originated (I don't think we can know, because this was was probably before recorded history). What matters is what our notion of soul has been in history, what it has become, and what it will be.

In modern thinkers, who examine the question (thinkers such as Henri Bergson, Carl Jung, Telhard de Chardin) we may find answers that can clarify our current understanding of the relationship between the individual and the collective. Sandino believed in cooperativism, in God, and in the soul. (Hugo Chavez speaks of socialism and God and the soul, as well).

Gandhi believed in the free cooperation of peoples, in socialism, and in God, and in the soul. So was Martin Luther King. We may wish to ask why, and contemplate the relationship between conceptions of the soul and conceptions of the social order. Or we may not. I suggest it can be useful.

I cannot understand the advocacy of determinism amongst cooperativists or advocates of free thought. If we are not indeed free, what would be the point of any political proposal?

All of that depends on what you mean by 'freedom'. I certainly don't believe in 'free will'. But that doesn't mean I can't propose political change. And when I propose it, other people will react, agreeing me or not depending on what they consider to be their best interests.

In capitalist society, I have to constantly fight my impulses and drag myself to my job (or the job centre), just so I can exist. In a free society, I would be able to indulge my impulses, and truly live. That's what freedom means to me.

As for what you said about the other thinkers, you are right on almost every count. However, I've taken the bits I like from those that seem to fit, and I'm creating my own philosophy.

I've read Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, and it doesn't contradict Dawkins at all. Dawkins himself points out that individualism is often a poor evolutionary strategy. His speaks of the gene's need for selfishness, not the individual organism's. If you haven't read The Selfish Gene, I'd recommend it.

The individual and the collective are ultimately linked by the part of the mind we call the Id, which is indeed common to everyone and essential for our survival as it controls our basic drives.

When an individual does something to threaten the survival of another we sense a deep subconscious awareness that such behavior is wrong (i.e. because we feel threatened at the prospect of it happening to ourselves).

Some people may seek to further enhance that sense of subconscious awareness, other will seek to deny or indeed repress such feeling - most probably depending on the individual circumstances.

So that moral or gut feeling people get or the so-called sixth sense we sometimes experience ultimately comes from the Id. In which case, if we are to worship anything we could do worse than worship the Id.

Apparently I am told my philosophy is at least partly compatible with Krishna Consciousness.