Abnormal Interests

Hi Duane
Short and sweet - soul for me is the sum total of the 4 dimensional space-time life of a person. No essence - every little bit of the whole. I.e. it is an abbreviation for such in my reading. I don't use 'soul' in any of my translations of nephesh. But I don't have a better alternative. I usually use being - sometimes life (as long as chai is not in the same part of the poem).

Consequences: eternal life is not a long straight line, but a quality of the redemption of 'that being' in a dimension independent of space-time - call it glory. As to the life of the world to come - well that's could be termed speculative. That it is is by my hope, true - that it is definable in our language is not true or complete but may not be entirely false either. That I have learned what I have learned through Christ is I think - true for me.

There are enough dimensions of string theory and enough uncertainty in physics and enough incompleteness in mathematics that I am able to live with these as working definitions.

What I think I know of life, redemption, and לעולם ועד is somewhat inexpressible - a bit like Schrödinger's paradox.

Bob,

Thanks for the comment. All I need to do now is assign you to one of the reporting teams. :-)

If soul is "the sum total of the 4 dimensional space-time life of a person" how is that different from just saying a person lives in time and space. If that is all there is to it then we are in agreement but I do wonder then where your consequences came from. At first, I thought you were in the metaphor camp and was going to assign you to that team. "Soul" as the source of a metaphorical target "4 dimensional space-time life of a person." But as I read on, I became less sure of what team to put you on.

I do agree that language has certain inadequacies. But, if an idea is important enough to communicate then I think it incumbent on anyone who wants to communicate that idea find a way to do so.

I love speculation. I'm pleased that you think in those terms also. But I doubt that most other people would see these things as speculative in any important way. And as far as they are speculative, I don't think it appropriate to associate the words "true" or even "hope" with them.

I also worry about the, shall I say, informal use of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is an extremely formal system. While I haven't studied if at great depth or even looked at it in detail since reading through most of Peebles' book a few years ago, I have never seen any hooks in the formality where one could hang something like the soul. If I am wrong, the please direct me to the place in Schrödinger's equations or elsewhere so I can see exactly where those hooks are found. Speaking of Schrödinger, Schrödinger's paradox is expressible with great rigor in terms of measurement theory. As such, I think it an uninviting metaphor for much of anything other than help in understanding a curious side issue in quantum mechanics unless, of course, there is a way to tie into the formality. In the case of string theory, in its current several incarnations, it is barely a theory. Some physicists would even say it isn't a theory or even close to correct. String theoreticians currently have one major problem that theologians also have. It is highly speculative. Having only speculation in common is an untenable basis for a marriage between any two, otherwise unrelated, sets of ideas. But within the context of the speculation, all the ideas that make up the various string theories are expressible with rigor. Again, within one of the "theories" I would like to see the formal or informal hooks that lead to an eternal soul. I submit that they just aren't there and further if we need to go there, then the soul is not what anyone things it is. The real questions for all string theories are, "Does any of it match anything in nature and is it testable?" And not "how does it help us understand the soul?" If I shared your speculation on this issue, I would be very concerned that my soul lived in quantum gaps. Some of these gaps can be shown to be unoccupiable and others will likely close as we learn more. Not a very happy place in my view. And I'm not sure I'd want to spend my eternity within some set of infinitesimally short and/or tightly curled dimensions. I need my space (and time).

One reasonable answer to the question of eternal life is to say, "I'm alive now." But that would be true, or false, independent of a soul or even eternity. If it is possible for something to be true of one person and false for another, as I infer from part of your remarks, then there is no way to define truth that doesn't reduce to a hopeless relativism. I for one sure don't want to go there.

Well, after going through all that maybe you should be the leader of your own team. Let me know you else will be on your team. :-) I await your team report.

Great comeback Duane - In a few words I can hardly be as rigorous as those science guys. But I think they are all in the metaphor camp (a book I once read had that title - Physics as Metaphor).

>>But, if an idea is important enough to communicate then I think it incumbent on anyone who wants to communicate that idea find a way to do so.

I have been trying to do just that since I started writing. More recently I have begun to think that the Bible is trying to do it also and still requiring us to read between the lines - as you note it is quite subjective as a result. When we sing psalms in plainchant, we pause in the middle of the verse - for the 'meaning' is in what is not said.)

>>Schrödinger's paradox is expressible with great rigor in terms of measurement theory

not as I remember in terms of macro items like cats. I have used some science metaphorically to the pleasure (or perhaps it was polite surprise) of John Polkinghorne at one lecture - but it would not bear too much stress - something like the old-man - new-man being 'like' a refraction pattern from a split beam experiment. Rather vague if you press it too far.

>>And I'm not sure I'd want to spend my eternity within some set of infinitesimally short and/or tightly curled dimensions.

Why not - such curvature is invisible to our dimensions only because of its orthogonality - why I bet you could easily drive a bus through it (in 'real' time).

>>"I'm alive now." But that would be true, or false, independent of a soul or even eternity.

alive, soul, and eternity - troublesome to define. Aquinas notes that the eternal has "no term either end". I cannot say that in the course of normal human experience, such a concept is testable - only inferrable - even in mathematics - where asymptotes and so on define the strangeness of forever approaching and never touching.

As for soul - my definition is quite concrete - but it does not explain the sense of continuity of 'I'ness that I and you know of ourselves. If I am the same I that was as soon as I became sufficiently conscious to remember, the wholeness of my experience - with all its fractures and repairs - is a concrete definition but may not be very useful.

As you can see, I am not turned on by the speculation of the 'eternal soul'. I could make something of it - e.g. Job 36:7 kings established on a throne - many kings, one throne. Perhaps 'the throne' can be read in and taken as meaning several as we might in English. So am I a king of many enthroned with Christ - yes, theologically speaking. Does this make me eternal? I am not like the angels having beginning but no end, or like God having neither beginning nor end. I must be mortal then. Eternal does mean something else to me - but it must be read between the lines. It is a quality of being that transcends and transforms - trance-like without the trance - for the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet. What little I know I have learned and learn through my faith in Christ. I don't think of this as exclusive but I am aware as well as wary of it. Lest I deceive myself. But psalm 34 applies - taste and see... Perhaps this is the only way to 'define' life. Experimentally.

I have a modest suggestion…

To eat the theologians? Right on!

…two reports. One would clearly indicate that "soul" is an entity…[t]he other report would indicate and discuss the target of the metaphorical source…

Oh. Surprisingly to me, that’s even better. I remember a professor who demanded exactly that of students who would write autobiographically of such spiritual experiences as “I heard God say X to me.” If literally true, what precisely were the properties of that voice? If a metaphor, try to describe precisely the tenor-experience toward which that vehicle points. On the whole, students didn’t express anger about this inquisition (well, maybe some) so much as genuine surprise that they were critically called upon to work out the distinction.

Bob,

Even if the work product of science is metaphorical, the target of those metaphors is a set of approximately true statements about nature. I do worry that there are serious remnants of logical positivism in the science as metaphor meme. Worse, I worry that the science as metaphor meme moves a little too fluidly between metaphysical realism and metaphysical anti-realism. As I'm sure you know, I have both feet firmly planted in the realist camp.

Brooke,

I've fire up the barbie and only await agreement among the chefs as to the most appropriate marinade.

Duane - realism I am all for - realism need not be ungodly nor is God necessarily unrealistic. I am just about to begin the speeches of Yhwh in Job - my translating you might find amusing - there will be 100 posts on Job by the time I am finished. It is quite a learning experience. Yhwh's speeches have always struck me as the ultimate realism in the OT - creation in poetry.

Bob,

You are correct. The question "Is there a god or gods?" is a well formed question of which there is a fact of the matter. On the evidence, or lack of it, the best approximation to an answer to this question is "no." "No" is a fact of the matter in many matters. Since there are many things that were once answered with reference to a god or gods are now explainable without reference to a god, I find no reason to think that there is anything, in principle, including my own experiences that I once attributed to God, that cannot be explained without a god or gods. Does this mean that it is an absolute certainty that there is no god or gods? Of course, not. The probability just seems too low to worry much about it.

On the question of YHWH being the ultimate realism in the OT, one could as easily say the Baal and Yam were the ultimate realism in Ugaritic mythology. But I'd guess that both of us are rather hardcore atheists when it comes to Baal or Yam. :-)