I define the soul as the seat of free will. It may be many things, and the fact that it is the seat of free will may only be a secondary characteristic, but all of those aspects of us that give us free will comprise the soul.
I consider the existence of the soul to be self-evident -- not because of my faith, particularly, but because without it we cannot trust anything we ever say. In other words, since the soul is the seat of free will, someone who thinks that they have proved that there is no free will has just effectively denied the very method of proof that they have used. Why? Because they are choosing between competing theories, and if they cannot choose, then choosing between competing theories is meaningless. The person who believes that there is no such thing as free will essentially puts, say, the Pope's or Muhammad Atta's thought processes on the exact same footing as his own.
2007-07-20
22:31:53
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9 answers
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Anonymous
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Philosophy