Knowledge isn't the word I'd use; it's a tad ambiguous.MrFlibble wrote:So "awareness" = 'knowledge of oneself'? How do you define "knowledge"?Leto Atreides II wrote:Awareness. Not merely to see, but to be aware of seeing.MrFlibble wrote:What's your definition of "consciousness", then?
Do we define 'knowledge' as the 'possessing of information'? Then I would equate 'knowledge' with data storage, memory, etc.
Do we define 'knowledge' as 'consciousness'/'awareness'? Then perhaps I could use it as a synonym for these.
I see the soul as sitting in the mind observing the thoughts and sensations and data... while a small construct in the mind, the 'ego', cries out "I! Me! I! Me!" and the incautious soul assumes that the ego is itself... and thus also the mind and the body and all else directly connected to the ego... encaged in flesh, sundered from the Universal consciousness, the soul, believing that the fleshly body is itself, fears death and struggles to serve the needs and desires of the body. But then death overtakes it, and the rubber soul snaps back into the greater Universal consciousness, until desire for experience draws it once more into the womb to wear flesh again...
A fleshly animal, such as a human, is an animated chemical reaction, ridden by an appreciative entity which observes and experiences. Our body and our life are the art; the soul is the critic.
Can a human live without a soul? I suspect it would be possible on life support. But it would sit and stare blankly, and exert no volition. Left to itself, animation would cease and biodegradation would set in.
If steam is life and water is death, heat is the soul that drives life. Heat also exists without water to be driven by that heat; so the lack of steam is not the lack of heat (analogue: If an animal is life and rotting meat is death... Life exists without flesh, so the lack of an animal is not the lack of life).
Sorry about rambling. I have a hard time expressing my views on this particular subject.