Personal Identity and the Soul
-
Peace all,
In my university philosophy class yesterday we started discussing the soul. My professor argued that our personal identity (who we consider ourselves to be), is separate from our soul and will not transfer on after this life. His basis for this argument is that our souls are constant but our identities are always changing as we grow and experience. An example he gave was of a person looking at a picture of themselves when they were a toddler, and knowing that is them but also not being able to directly connect themselves to the person they were in the picture, because that toddler identity is lost. So when we die, he was arguing that our souls may live on but that our personal identities won't.
This really made me think. What do you all think? Are our souls and our personal identities one and the same? Or are they separate?
-
I tend to agree with your professor to some extent.
I agree because identity is something we build, and it can change alot.However, I believe we undergo some sort of development in this life, which is not just about identity. We can change identities while not developing, but the development of the soul (whatever that is) is the real achievement in this world.
It also depends on how we define 'soul'. Is it just an energy entity, or is awareness plasticity mixed into it? Perhaps we don't know what 'soul' really is, actually is. We may define it in any way, but maybe we onl?y know a bit of what 'soul' is.
I firmly believe though that when we identify with stuff of this world, we end up in trouble, misconception and blindness. When forget our soul part, that is beyond nationalisty, religion, enthnicity, profession, political affiliation, blood line, clan, tribe, family, education, gender, looks and other preferences, then we forget our true nature, and our connection with Rabb and with our fellow human beings.
-
Hello,
The professor is not fundamentally wrong in his reasoning, he only excludes some intricate details of our existence whereof one is that there needs to be a distinction between body and spirit. He is right that the beastly, animalistic body's identity is not transferred into the soul/(person) and the next cycle of living since that is born by that body. However, memory fragments of the body can be recovered in the spirit and recovered in another body since the spirit has existed throughout all that time. Yet this person cannot regain the identity of the latter one in the bodily, but it can influence the person and his "taste" or characteristics. The identity-/ies are suppressed unless a person cannot know their selves, their person and lasting spirit, when it all comes clear to them because they exist on soul level and they can know who they were, and who they are.
Before I delved more into the subconsciousness I was curious about why I had certain "tastes" and inclinations towards various settings, but by the emerging into my real self I understood the truth behind it. My full scope of existence has emerged to the point I am a blend of all my past identities and I try to make the best of my self and reject the bad influences. I struggle hard to be in the image of Rabb and reject the bodily including mammon.
Who we are is only a summary of what we make of ourselves. If we are a person at all then we are this person no matter what bodily age we are in or even what body we are in. The difference in your person is generated by the influence the body you are in has on you.
Be well
Amenuel -
It also depends on how we define 'soul'. Is it just an energy entity, or is awareness plasticity mixed into it? Perhaps we don't know what 'soul' really is, actually is. We may define it in any way, but maybe we onl?y know a bit of what 'soul' is.
There are a lot of people who could be considered soulless. That is because they have not become persons and they are like an undeveloped seed. Person is Nafs while the Spirit is Naas in Arabic. The word 'self' in Semitic tradition is equal to Nafs and that has a firm connection to the word Naas in itself which could be regarded as the soul. The word Nafs does linguistically and morphologically mean "Integrity Forth Spirit" and implies "the path towards spirituality", i.e. Nafs is like a growing seed. Even if you die in the flesh your Nafs will remain and planted within another flesh, unless you reach salvation of course which is the ultimate aim. Salvation is when you are complete and your seed reached into perfection and "bore fruit" so to say. Otherwise, if you are not complete and released, and you wither and you die, you start over again albeit not empty-handed in your (abstract) baggage since you have the Nafs development with you into the next life. Sadly for those who went the other way and whose living caused them to lose spirit instead they are reborn weaker of course and in a much more disadvantageous situation. What goes around comes around. Giving up and not giving a damned about who you are in your life does not help anyone in any way. It is always better to turn yourself around and reform and rectify yourself even if you feel you messed up too much in your cycle and almost certain you will not reach salvation (nirvana in Sanskrit).
And all the person will have to do to retain their real self (Nafs) is to let go of their bodily identity and separate themselves from it and cut off from its wish to be the "enter in firmly" (al-shaytaan), or more comprehensively "the instinctive drive". When they can work on that detachment they will see their true self emerge beneath that body which is not their true person but works as a fog over their spirit.
I firmly believe though that when we identify with stuff of this world, we end up in trouble, misconception and blindness. When forget our soul part, that is beyond nationalisty, religion, enthnicity, profession, political affiliation, blood line, clan, tribe, family, education, gender, looks and other preferences, then we forget our true nature, and our connection with Rabb and with our fellow human beings.
You are right. You actually do not need gender identity for example, but the instinct entices you to have one and causes you to vainly obsess yourself with your body's looks for a reason you already ought to know, i.e. to attract the other gender to have sex with you in order for you to copulate, and for you to have a higher rank among the people as the specimen with higher attractiveness. It works the same with abstract attractiveness when it comes to hoarding wealth and your profession.
And the same species likes to be best and that feeling of competition causes rivalry to the point wars occur.
Be well,
Amenuel -
Perhaps we don't know what 'soul' really is, actually is. We may define it in any way, but maybe we onl?y know a bit of what 'soul' is.
Hi bro,
How do you define identity? I find this al ready very hard to define.
There is this funny anecdote from a biologist (Daniel Koshland)
"What is the definition of life? I remember a conference of the scientific elite that sought to answer that question. Is an enzyme alive? Is a virus alive? Is a cell alive? After many hours of launching promising balloons that defined life in a sentence, followed by equally conclusive punctures of these balloons, a solution seemed at hand ?The ability to reproduce?that is the essential characteristic of life,? said one statesman of science. Everyone nodded in agreement that the essential of a life was the ability to reproduce, until one small voice was heard. ?Then one rabbit is dead. Two rabbits?a male and female?are alive but either one alone is dead.? At that point, we all became convinced that although everyone knows what life is there is no simple definition of life." -
There are a lot of people who could be considered soulless. That is because they have not become persons and they are like an undeveloped seed.
Hi,
Yes you can consider them soulless but it does not make them soulless, they for sure have a soul.
The person you consider soulless may consider you also soulless not even with his definition but with yours. He can see you as an undeveloped seed based on his standards.
What I try to say is that your definitions are only true in your world. They are not The Truth.Person is Nafs while the Spirit is Naas in Arabic.
I have other definitions for those words and I am 100% sure you can not prove me wrong on my definitions, no one here on earth can, but it does not make my definitions The Truth.
-
This really made me think. What do you all think? Are our souls and our personal identities one and the same? Or are they separate?
An interesting topic...
Many research has been done around it, so far the only mechanism is through the research of "Near Death Experience", because when people already truly become dead he cannot tell us anything...
You can google it or search for the documentary on youtube with the above keyword..
In summary, there is a strong evidence that "consciousness" (self aware) survive the biological death of the brain.
A person can have a vivid and real experience even when his brain is clinically dead / no activity at all.Another intriguing question due to the above is revolved around "Where does living being stored their memory"?
Apparently it's not (entirely) inside the brain.. as person can recall his/her experience even during the time when his/her brain is clinically dead.A similar experiment on rat also yield the same result..
A researcher sliced or removed sections of rat brains after teaching the rats to run through mazes. None of the brain injuries abolished the "maze-running habit," although he tried removing tissue in almost every area that allowed the rat to remain alive.My own personal take at the moment is
Soul / consciousness and biological body (and any social identities that attached to it, including name) is indeed separate.But well... all of us will be dead soon enough right?
No one live forever..
We will found out the truth anyway... when it's time... -
Hey Bender,
Hi bro,
How do you define identity? I find this al ready very hard to define.
I think I approach it a bit from the outside, so I don't need an exact definition of the word.
Instead I can give some examplesA person may call herself Orthodox Christian. She says "I am Orthodox Christian". This is an important part of her life.
Another person may "I am a laywer", or "I am a vegan and animals rights activist", or "I am a Muslim", or "I am Portuguese", or "I am an attractive male", or "I am dyslexic", or "I am gay", or "I am black", "I am intelligent", or "I am an artist", or "I am an historian", or "I am a Londoner", or whatever. It would be better if we let it be just "I am." and nothing added on to it.This is what I mean when people build their identity. They take quite worldy concepts, phenomena, groupings and make it part of their self image. This is what they ARE. They ARE these things. And this is partly a problem. The problem is that we drown in these identities and labels. We fail to see the deeper stuff, the things that unite us, and make us more than just flesh robots in a social interaction construct. We fail to see our true selves, being blinded by worldy labels, and how can we know our Rabb if we don't even know ourselves?
In front of God, it doesn't matter what skin color you have, or political affiliation, or hobby, of ethnicity, or caste, or salary, or education, or achievements, or....
We are ALL just human beings, period. Any labels beyond this are artificial.
What if you are struck by amnesia? Is your identity gone? Yes, the worldy one that you have "collected" may be gone, but the spirit, the soul, the human being is still there! So, all these things that vanished when the memory was wiped, was not part of your REAL self.
These kind of worldy identities is what people use when being fearful and hating eachother. Different religious groups hate eachother. Members of different political parties hate eachother. People of different ethnic groups hate eachother. People of different skin color hate eachother.
We have alienated ourselves from eachother. We appear to ourselves as separate individuals, and at the same time we do the same with God, treat it as a separate individual. Enter war and persecution, especially in the name of God.
(Our brain does this automatically, but we should not be slaves to our mind. Check this video out. Do watch it from start till end.)
Cheers
-
Hi Comrox,
How does your professor define a soul?
Hi Bender and everyone,
I cannot answer this with complete certainty. I'm not even sure if he thinks we have souls--he seems to be a very skeptical, yet curious, person. For the purpose of my question though, I believe he was imagining a soul as a substance that is a part of us and has always been a part of us but its nature is unknown to us. He was making the argument for our personal identities being separate from our souls under the assumption that we do in fact have souls, and that these souls fit the "unknown substance" definition that I provided above.
I hope this answers your question.
Howcan anyone say that souls, whatever they are, do not change?
Salaam
Salaam Huruf,
What's your definition of a soul? Philosophers have debated for centuries about what the soul is exactly. Every person seems to have their own definition and understanding.
I would translate a baby's way to adulthood as evolution.
Was he talking about the identity and soul from religious perspective?
If I'm correctly understanding what you mean by this, then yes, he was. He mentioned that if this philosophical thinking is correct, it shatters a traditional belief about the afterlife that I, at least, have been exposed to. Growing up I always heard when someone passed away "This person is with , and they are enjoying , and they are free from pain." But if we for a moment accept that the soul and identity are separate and only the soul lives on, then the above scenario couldn't make much sense. A person would first have to know who they are (or who they were), know who the other person is (or was), know their relationship to that person, and know what they enjoy (or used to enjoy).
It also depends on how we define 'soul'. Is it just an energy entity, or is awareness plasticity mixed into it? Perhaps we don't know what 'soul' really is, actually is. We may define it in any way, but maybe we onl?y know a bit of what 'soul' is.
If I'm remembering correctly I think I've seen a few philosophers suggest that our soul is tied to our consciousness. If you accept that definition, then awareness must be part of the soul. But I agree it is hard to understand and come to a consensus on what the soul is.
Hello,
The professor is not fundamentally wrong in his reasoning, he only excludes some intricate details of our existence whereof one is that there needs to be a distinction between body and spirit. He is right that the beastly, animalistic body's identity is not transferred into the soul/(person) and the next cycle of living since that is born by that body. However, memory fragments of the body can be recovered in the spirit and recovered in another body since the spirit has existed throughout all that time. Yet this person cannot regain the identity of the latter one in the bodily, but it can influence the person and his "taste" or characteristics. The identity-/ies are suppressed unless a person cannot know their selves, their person and lasting spirit, when it all comes clear to them because they exist on soul level and they can know who they were, and who they are.
Hello Amenuel,
Interesting assessment. Gives me something more to ponder about.
Before I delved more into the subconsciousness I was curious about why I had certain "tastes" and inclinations towards various settings, but by the emerging into my real self I understood the truth behind it.
What do you mean by "various settings"?
Who we are is only a summary of what we make of ourselves. If we are a person at all then we are this person no matter what bodily age we are in or even what body we are in. The difference in your person is generated by the influence the body you are in has on you.
What do you determine exactly to be "the influence of the body"? Could you provide examples? What's the scope of these influences? (Hope this is clear, if not I'll clarify.)
An interesting topic...
Many research has been done around it, so far the only mechanism is through the research of "Near Death Experience", because when people already truly become dead he cannot tell us anything...
You can google it or search for the documentary on youtube with the above keyword..
In summary, there is a strong evidence that "consciousness" (self aware) survive the biological death of the brain.
A person can have a vivid and real experience even when his brain is clinically dead / no activity at all.It's interesting to note that while some people report "after death" awareness when retelling their near-death experiences, there are others who don't report experiencing anything. I wonder sometimes why that is. Is everyone supposed to feel that awareness? What were the individual's states of mind like? Does the state of their mind at the time of their near-death experience influence what occurs (or doesn't occur) during their NDE? Hmm.
But well... all of us will be dead soon enough right?
No one live forever..
We will found out the truth anyway... when it's time...Indeed we will.
Hey Bender,
I think I approach it a bit from the outside, so I don't need an exact definition of the word.
Instead I can give some examplesA person may call herself Orthodox Christian. She says "I am Orthodox Christian". This is an important part of her life.
Another person may "I am a laywer", or "I am a vegan and animals rights activist", or "I am a Muslim", or "I am Portuguese", or "I am an attractive male", or "I am dyslexic", or "I am gay", or "I am black", "I am intelligent", or "I am an artist", or "I am an historian", or "I am a Londoner", or whatever. It would be better if we let it be just "I am." and nothing added on to it.This is what I mean when people build their identity. They take quite worldy concepts, phenomena, groupings and make it part of their self image. This is what they ARE. They ARE these things. And this is partly a problem. The problem is that we drown in these identities and labels. We fail to see the deeper stuff, the things that unite us, and make us more than just flesh robots in a social interaction construct. We fail to see our true selves, being blinded by worldy labels, and how can we know our Rabb if we don't even know ourselves?
In front of God, it doesn't matter what skin color you have, or political affiliation, or hobby, of ethnicity, or caste, or salary, or education, or achievements, or....
What about personality?
We are ALL just human beings, period. Any labels beyond this are artificial.
What if you are struck by amnesia? Is your identity gone? Yes, the worldy one that you have "collected" may be gone, but the spirit, the soul, the human being is still there! So, all these things that vanished when the memory was wiped, was not part of your REAL self.
What do you consider to make up a human being, or make up the human experience?
-
I'd like to add that from the Quran's perspective the nafs (translated as soul) is yourself or "the self" including your identity. There is no you and your soul, the soul is you, there is just yourself. We create our identities, identities dont exist on their own.
Your professor has the christian "soul" concept. A concept where the soul exists inside you as something separate.
-
What about personality?
I'm not sure, but it seems to be something that can be inherited, and probably shaped aswell to certain degrees from experiences.
What do you consider to make up a human being, or make up the human experience?
A soul/spirit confined to the flesh robot which has a brain. The brain is a great tool and its RAM and software is the mind. The mind can contain faulty programming, such as irrelevant phobias etc. The mind can be changed albeit with great difficulty. We need to realise that we are not our mind. Our mind is only the thoughts we think, subconscious or not, but is not the real us. Personality seems to be located in the mind, which means thought patterns, or inclinations for thought patterns, can be inherited.
Peace
-
I'd like to add that from the Quran's perspective the nafs (translated as soul) is yourself or "the self" including your identity. There is no you and your soul, the soul is you, there is just yourself. We create our identities, identities dont exist on their own.
Your professor has the christian "soul" concept. A concept where the soul exists inside you as something separate.
I agree. I do not see how one can separate the person into different compartements, calling something the soul and something else the body does not make them into to separate things.
Salaam
-
Hey Bender,
I think I approach it a bit from the outside, so I don't need an exact definition of the word.
Instead I can give some examplesA person may call herself Orthodox Christian. She says "I am Orthodox Christian". This is an important part of her life.
Another person may "I am a laywer", or "I am a vegan and animals rights activist", or "I am a Muslim", or "I am Portuguese", or "I am an attractive male", or "I am dyslexic", or "I am gay", or "I am black", "I am intelligent", or "I am an artist", or "I am an historian", or "I am a Londoner", or whatever. It would be better if we let it be just "I am." and nothing added on to it.This is what I mean when people build their identity. They take quite worldy concepts, phenomena, groupings and make it part of their self image. This is what they ARE. They ARE these things.
Hi,
That is only the identity of our avatar not our real identity.
And this is partly a problem. The problem is that we drown in these identities and labels. We fail to see the deeper stuff, the things that unite us, and make us more than just flesh robots in a social interaction construct. We fail to see our true selves, being blinded by worldy labels, and how can we know our Rabb if we don't even know ourselves?
In front of God, it doesn't matter what skin color you have, or political affiliation, or hobby, of ethnicity, or caste, or salary, or education, or achievements, or....
I believe there is also a inside identity, the identity how we will be judged by Allah and that is the identity we have to work on I believe.
And that identity is not only "I am" but "I am a liar/deceiver/bragger/egoist/murder/thief/corrupter/haughty, etc"
or "I am a helper, truthful, patient, improver,etc"We have alienated ourselves from eachother. We appear to ourselves as separate individuals, and at the same time we do the same with God, treat it as a separate individual. Enter war and persecution, especially in the name of God.
RED I do not agree with this. According to the quran we are made from 1 soul/entity/whatever but we are now separate individuals but I totally agree that we have to unite and not seperate from each other, that is I believe in the sight of Allah the better way.
GREEN God does not punish Himself and God does not reward Himself.
(Our brain does this automatically, but we should not be slaves to our mind. Check this video out. Do watch it from start till end.)
Cheers
thx for the great video!!! I do not doubt her story, she looks like a wonderful woman who is honest and real.
But I doubt that what she saw really happened, maybe it was a vision.
I absolutely have zero knowledge about biology and how brain works. But somewhere when she was on the otherside she said she was so happy because everything worldly was erased because she had no memories she had to drag with her. But if her side of the brain which stores memories was out of function then how could she remember what happened to her?
Anyway vision or real it is for sure an inspiring story. -
Hi,
Does a dead body have a soul?
Have?
It would be necessary to define soul. The question as posed sets as given tht indeed soul nd body are two separate things. It is aasumed that a body "has" a soul. nd that both things are separate independete things.
My ow feeling is tht I do not know how that works and that other people also do ot know. They just figure and make nice and seemingly logical assumptions.
So for any meaningful discussion difinition of soul first.
I think every human being is a unit, not dissociable into somthig that some call soul, but they could call it whatever, and body, which we think it is very clear because it is materially noticeable.
I think, if we are talking about the nafs, that we have better forget philosofies an Christian figurations and stick strictly to the Qur'an. If we are talking about a soul which is not the "nafs" the quran talks about we should define it.
We do not have to forget that if we r talkig not about the nafs but bout the soul, and we are indeed wanting the Qur'an to throw light we should give what we may consider the equivalent of soul in the Qur'an.
Salaam
-
Is the soul similar to the disposition?
Does the child in the pictures have the same goals or deals with situations the same. It's said in the Quran that we are giving ranks (titles) as judged by our deeds. We still kinda eat the same and sleep the same, maybe the soul is a personage of instinct?
What was your take on the lesson? -
I'd like to add that from the Quran's perspective the nafs (translated as soul) is yourself or "the self" including your identity. There is no you and your soul, the soul is you, there is just yourself. We create our identities, identities dont exist on their own.
Your professor has the christian "soul" concept. A concept where the soul exists inside you as something separate.
I agree with A.W.
91/ 7. And the soul and Him Who made it perfect,
-
Then He inspired it to understand what is right and wrong for it;
-
He will indeed be successful who purifies it,
-
And he will indeed fail who corrupts it.
Anyway, on judgment day, the actions of the person will determine what happens to the soul.
41/46 Whoever does good, it is for his own soul, and whoever does evil, it is against it; and your Lord is
not in the least unjust to the servants.In the end it does not matter what the professor professes it only matter what Allah says hmm
3/145 And a soul will not die but with the permission of Allah the term is fixed; and whoever desires the
reward of this world, I shall give him of it, and whoever desires the reward of the hereafter I shall give
him of it, and I will reward the grateful.peace
-