The Human Soul Is Immaterial

International Journal of Complementary & Alternative Medicine

The present paper explored a thorny but needful field, the possibility of the existence of the soul and the resulting implications for medicine. Authors do not have the audacity to exhaust the subject and to bring an ultimate true. The text listed some baffling reports about consciousness phenomena that cannot be fully explained on a material basis. In order to fill the gap in knowledge, the authors venture an informed statement about the possible nature and characteristics of the soul. Lastly, the text cogitates the implications for medicine from the assumption of the existence of the soul. The authors excelled on the effort to avoid religious or philosophic vices that could pervert the reasoning. Disagreement from some readers is naturally expected, thus collaboration to improve this construct is more than welcome.

Dialogo, 2020

The Soul is considered, both for religions and philosophy, to be the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being, conferring individuality and humanity, often considered to be synonymous with the mind or the self. For most theologies, the Soul is further defined as that part of the individual, which partakes of divinity and transcends the body in different explanations. But, regardless of the philosophical background in which a specific theology gives the transcendence of the soul as the source of its everlasting essence – often considered to survive the death of the body –, it is always appraised as a higher existence for which all should fight for. In this regard, all religious beliefs assert that there are many unseen battles aiming to take hold of the human soul, either between divinity and evil, or between worlds, or even between the body and the soul itself. These unseen battles over the human soul raging in the whole world made it the central item of the entire universe, both for the visible and the unseen worlds, an item of which whoever takes possession will also become the ruler of the universe. Through this philosophy, the value of the soul became abysmal, incommensurable, and without resemblance. The point for making such a broad overview of the soul in religious beliefs is the question of whether we can build an interfaith discourse based on the religions’ most debated and valuable issue, soul? Regardless of the variety of religious beliefs on what seems to be the soul, there is always a residual consideration in them that makes the soul more important than the body. This universal impression is due to another belief or instead need of believing that above and beyond this seen, palpable, finite life and the world should exist another one, infinite, transcendent, and available all the same after here. This variety stretches from the minimum impact that soul has on the body, as being the superior essence that inhabitants and enlivens the matter (as in the early Hebrew religious view, in particular of Sadducees’ view), to the highest impact in which soul has nothing to do with matter[1] and is only ephemeral linked to it, but its existence is not at all limited, defined or depended on the matter (as in the Buddhism)[2], or even placed to the extreme, as the very life of the matter thus this seen universe is merely a thought in the soul/mind (as in the belief of Solipsism, Nihilism or Brahmanism)[3]. In this extensive variety of soul overviews, the emphasis of the soul’s importance gives an inverse significance to the body/matter, from being everything that matters to a thin, dwindle item that has no existence at all outside consciousness.

The subject of this article, i.e. the mystery of soul, is not at all a matter of concern to those who do not believe in soul. But many people of the world believe in soul although they do not have clear idea regarding the mystery of soul. Soul is connected with body. Modern medical science has made miraculous progress to know the process of intricate functioning of the different organs of man but could not tell anything regarding the dilemma of existence or non existence of soul. That is the reason among scientific minded people there is a tendency to deny the existence of soul. It is true that the existence of soul cannot be proved by the sheer method of science. Still, being inquisitive to know if anything remains after death people of different countries of the world have been making experiments on the subject over centuries. Almost everywhere the method of this experiment is planchette. In America in the year 1885 a society on the name Society for the Psychical Research was formed to investigate in a rational way what happens after death. All their experiments affirmed existence of soul after death. Many books have been written on the subject. Dr. Thomas j. Hudson, writer of the book Law of Physic Phenomenon, has said, ‘if in the present times someone does not believe in the existence of soul he is not even fit to be called a non-believer, he may simply be called ignorant’. To get support of existence of soul mention may be made of those people who remember the incidents of their past lives or many other rare incidents of human life which cannot be explained without projection into previous birth. In this article our motto is not to search proof of existence of soul. Taking for granted that soul exists after death we like to throw light on some intricate problems related to soul. The following issues have been dealt with in the present article: a) Origin of Soul and its Continuation through a Chain of Births: b) Whether Soul is Doer or Non-Doer of Action: c) The Final Devolution of Soul d) The Consequence of Soul according to Hindu faith: e) What Happens to Soul after Death? f) Why Memory does not sustain? g) Some reflections of the author’s mystic experiences

In this paper I would like to evaluate the real philosophical value of Mull adrā's doctrine about the created-ness of the soul. This inquiry requires the researcher to investigate the soundness of Mull adrā's novel psychological findings. "Substantial motion" (al-arakah al-jawharyyah) and the "gradation of existence" (al-tashkīk fī marātib al-wujūd) are the two main philosophical principles formulated and implied by our philosopher regarding the elaboration of his theory on the soul's developmental process. Unlike other Muslim philosophers Mulla Sadra attempted to prove that human soul comes into existence and develops within the corporeal realm and then switches into immateriality. He is therefore faced with the challenging question of link and unity of material and immaterial substances.

Review and reinterpretation of soul concept, 2024

In this work, 7 concepts of the soul of various religions and philosophers were reviewed. Based on this, a conclusion was made about the general nature of the interpretation of the soul, and the differences in the concepts of different countries and times were also investigated. The definition of the soul and its property of eternal existence were critically reinterpreted.

Phenomenology of Space and Time, 2013

Phenomenology of life develops an essential transformation of the positioning of life, human being, soul and life horizons. Human soul refl ects the passions of the earth and of the skies. There are two directions characteristic for the soul-upward and downward. Life horizons are closely connected with life forms, styles of living. It has been described in rather different cultures including post-modern culture. This paper deals with A.-T. Tymieniecka's ideas about the New Enlightenment and critique of too narrow an explanation of human subjectivity and body and discusses the need for balance between soul's directions and decreasing of materialistic, consumerism life form, orientations to primitive feeling of the world and Cosmos. Concept "Soul" in Phenomenology Concept "soul" is diffi cult to explain because it is multi-meaningful. From ancient times in old Greek language soul meanspsyche. But it does not mean that todaywhen we are using the term "psyche" in the psychological sense-it is the same as the philosophical concept " psyche as soul". Soul is described as living essence or inner force of living beings, as the distinguishing feature of all living creatures, as the subject of emotional states, force that is responsible for acting, planning, doing. Brittanica online describes "soul" as the immaterial aspect or essence of human being. Soul can be explained as a bearer of moral qualities because ancient poets and philosophers spoke about courage souls, wet and dry souls, responsible souls, rightful souls and so on. The Italian philosopher Angela Ales Bello characterizes

The purpose of this article is to present some key arguments for the existence of the human soul as an immaterial or “spiritual substance” (jawhar ruḥānī). Human soul and consciousness are neither identical to nor reducible to material objects such as brains, neuron firings, biochemistry, fundamental particles, etc. Of course, some materialists will claim that these arguments only leave us with a “body-soul dualism” in which spiritual substance and material substance are irreducibly different and unable to have interactions without violating the laws of physics. Therefore, we will conclude by offering a coherent model of soul-body interaction based on quantum physics by drawing on the work of physicist Henry Stapp.

Perspektivi, 2024

The nature of the soul and its relationship with the body have always been a matter of concern for philosophers throughout the history of philosophy. Today, this and other related issues are discussed within the philosophy of mind under the name of mind-body problem. The issue of the mind-body problem, or the soul and its relation to the body, has received special attention in Islamic philosophy. One of the Muslim philosophers who extensively wrote on this issue was Sadraddin Shirazi, widely known as Mulla Sadra. This paper examines Sadraddin Shirazi's approach to the mind-body problem. It is known that historically, most philosophers regarded human beings as a composition of a material body and an immaterial soul. Although this dualistic approach to human beings has a long history, it became more popular due to French philosopher René Descartes' endeavors. Generally, Muslim philosophers were also dualists, like Descartes. However, Sadraddin Shirazi, who was Descartes' contemporary, rejects earlier philosophers' theories on human nature. He claims that a human being, when it comes into existence, is material, while this material being gradually evolves into an immaterial being. The soul's journey from material being to immaterial one becomes possible thanks to substantial motion. Shirazi's famous theory on this issue is known as the soul's corporeal origination and spiritual subsistence. Though this paper acknowledges Shirazi's theory's originality and coherence, it remains skeptical about the issue that whether his theory corresponds to dualism or monism. Now, after discussing Sadraddin Shirazi's view on the issue, I can make the case that his corporeal origin soul theory is quite a revolutionary idea. In terms of the mind-body problem, even at the beginning, it solves the issue. Shirazi considers the soul bodily at its early stage. If the soul is not spiritual, then there is a material body and a material soul, and they can interact and unify. Therefore, there is no mind-body problem. However, then spirituality emerges, as do the mind-body problem.

soul-substance and they believe that the soul is immortal. But they never raise any argument to prove soul's immortality. Immortality of the soul is not a problem for the Indian philosophers. But in the west Plato for the first time raised questions regarding soul's existence and immortality. He is the first philosopher in the history of philosophy who tried to philosophize on the concept of soul. He raised so many impressive arguments in his dialogues namely Phaedo, Phaedrus, Meno etc. Among his various dialogues composed in different periods his concept of soul can be best found in his dialogue Phaedo. In Phaedo, Plato put forward four impressive arguments to prove soul's immortality. His concept of soul is also found in Phaedrus, Meno, Republic etc. Though Plato's concept of soul has similarities with that of the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita He presented so many new ideas by analyzing and synthesizing which we could come to know that the concept of soul is quite significant and has an impact on human life and society. In this research paper, an attempt has been made to analyze and synthesize Plato's concept of soul found in his dialogue Phaedo. An attempt has has been also made to highlight how far the concept of soul is relevant in present days.