The notion of a soul

Recently my mother had a discussion with me related to spirituality. As usual it ended with none of us getting anywhere. I could not convince her of the futility of God and she could not convince me otherwise.

During this conversation she said some thing which once put in perspective led me to a thread of thought which I had previously not percieved.Let us do a thought experiment.

Imagine two worlds where nobody has introduced the notion of a Soul.
In one world(A) people are immortal. In the other(B) they die.

World B sounds like ours. When a person dies what is it that tells us that they are dead? Is it inactivity? If so then how is it different from paralysis? Is it brain function? Whatever the case may be it leads us to ask another question of ourselves. What is the difference between a dead person and a living person? I believe it is this question which gives rise to the notion of Soul. That unquantified thing which is added/removed upon death is what we call soul. It may/maynot exist. This is what we use to explain death.

In world A however nobody ever dies. Hence we may say that no terminal illnesses take place. Thus in world A the concept of death does not occur. Hence if the concept of death does not occur it implies that the concept of soul has no existance as it is not needed to explain anything.

In order to completely explain death one must first answer the question of describing life. When do complex chemical reactions begin to be called life?

All religions have gods or beliefs which may be explained using the interactions of that community with it's environment. For example there may be agod of the desert in the desert but not in the jungle.Since all religion of the world have some or the other concept of a soul they must all have derived it from a situation prevailent everywhere, namely death. All religions prepare us for some form of afterlife. Thus all of them condition us mentally to keep on living. They take the example of the Soul. In my opinion the soul itself is an explanation needed to explain death.

Willpower

I was watching a cutscene from bioshock. He said "Imagine the will it took to build this place". That caught my eye. Will.

What is so special about that one thing. He did not say money or time. He said will. I began to dig deeper into this word and found that a lot of people who did amazing things came up against odds that were overwhelming. Tense situations either strengthen or break the will of a person. To quote from the monk who sold his ferarri "getting up in the morning takes will"

Hence I began my experiments with will.
I have not eaten anything since last night. That would make it 18 hours. For a guy like me who has three meals a day this is verry difficult.

The night was ok since I was sleeping most of the time. I usually have a breakfast of parathas. Pretty heavy. Hence by noon I was a little squeamish.
I had my first stomach growl at about lunch time. Since then lions have been roaring in my stomach regularly.

I try to dring water and settle them but it does not work. Ill eat dinner tonight at about 9pm. That will make it 24 hours of hunger. For the first time in my life I will have tested my will. The interruptions in attention when your stomach growls is very stark. It makes you stop whatever you are doing ang pay attention to it. Ill try to make this a habit. Delay the first growl to about 6pm. That ways I can go two days without food on my next test.

Lets see how long i last. Adios.

Lost in death

 

Are we as lost as this stream of water? 

No body remembers if the plants were watered but only if the rock was worn.

Life, lost in death.
In death, lost to life.

 

Our life lost in escaping death. Trying to live longer and betray this truth.
We tend to live as if there were nothing that could kill us.Our plans span years and even lifetimes while in a single breath, death can put us to sleep.

All we ever try to do is to live long  lives. With comfort and little pain. After death it is only action that lives on. The deeds of our life are what live on after we are put into the earth. If that is all that counts then it is not surprising that we do not account for a lot. Maybe I should start living every day as it comes.

Life, lost in death.
In death, lost to life.