Writing Soul and mind

[NotaNuffian]

I often hear about mind, body and soul. Body is something physical but the relation between mind and soul always baffles me.

SOUL:

1. the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal.

2. emotional or intellectual energy or intensity, especially as revealed in a work of art or an artistic performance.

MIND:

1. the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.

2. a person's ability to think and reason; the intellect.

So the soul portion is not defined well, but often in stories it is said to be the energy that keeps the body alive and the mind active.

The human trinity is vital as missing one element is dangerous, such as missing the mind and you will get me for posting this on a New Year when people are celebrating and not giving much hoots on this age old question. Missing the soul and it's me once again, but this time angsting over all the cool ideas I have but on a lazy Sunday. Missing the body and basically it is my dead granparents and ancestors facepalming at the sight of their crooked loinfruit typing all this while on the shitter.

Then what is the mind? Is it nothing at all? Nothing but neurons flashing?

If the soul is an energy pack and the body being the hardware, that will make the mind into a software. Then when the person is dead, the soul and mind forms an entity called a spirit (or ghost) and somehow getting transfered into the afterlife, where the mind might get scrubbed off in order for the soul to get reincarnated or send off to eternal rest.

Then how does that person retains his personality? Inside of a software with no server room to keep the backup? Does the mind resides in the soul, not the body and the body is just a carcass running on ATPs?

I am posting all these is because I got bored and need to eat more fibre and drink less coffee. And also the brain is the most important part of the body by Wolverine's standard because the mind resides in the organ.

Why and how the mind exist in both hardware (body) and cloud (soul) is my next question.

In western and eastern fantasy, there are methods affecting the mind and the soul, most of the time they are separated entities and the soul itself is often removed/ merged with the mind (and in some cases the body as in life force). All of them are different works and rolling their different concepts together is a headache...

My legs are numb.

Tldr: what is the mind, what is the soul.

 

[Amok]

I hold a more atomic view of reality, where the body is the universe rendered sentient for a time. Mind and body are part of a complex whole. We consume matter, shed matter, consume ideas, create ideas etc. For instance, is the eye part of the body or the mind? What we sense shapes the mind, and the mind can shape what we sense.

So the soul can be whatever the author chooses it to be: Godstuff, The Force's mitchocondriandoodads, Electrons loaded into a machine, a noble semi-divine spirit that gets reincarnated etc. etc.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

I imagine that souls are on an almost separate plane of existence. The mind and body are the playthings of the soul. The world we live in is a way to meet other souls and decide if we want to merge with them, kinda like a dating app. My vision of the "afterlife" is a place where our soul merges with all the souls of people we love in a network of pure bliss. We can choose to go through life again to meet new souls if we are somehow discontent/bored in the afterlife. Starting over may or may not sever our souls from the ones we love. I don't know all the rules.

 

[ThrillingHuman]

In my story I took Plato's ideal world idea and put the soul in there. It's what allows you to be even possible.
In this world, soul is a doofus idea by cringe religious people (I kid pls don't stone me cringe religious people)

 

[Cipiteca396]

You're gonna hate me, lol.

I severed it into five parts. Body, Heart, Mind, Spirit, and Soul.

Spoiler: The Four Facets

The Body is an instrument, the material vessel that a Soul may inhabit. Bone, Blood, Muscle, Skin, Brain, all of that is the Body.

The Heart is the emotional center, where complex emotions interact with each other. Some emotions come from the Soul, and some are a result of external stimuli like an adrenaline rush or an anxious Mind. The point of conflict is the Heart.

The Mind is the interface between the Soul's record and the Body. It stores and processes information. It also uploads information to the Soul from the Body.

The Spirit is the- absolute deviation... The Soul enforces its Will on the world instead of reacting and recording. Faith, Luck and Intent are the keywords here. If you believe in something enough, it will happen.

Spoiler: The Soul

Finally, The Soul. This is 'you'. Everything has a Soul, and it exists in a constant state of curiosity. It constantly searches for new experiences and records that data.
Since it wouldn't be a new experience if an individual retained their memories, the Soul limits the Mind's ability to view the Soul's memories.
Since it wouldn't be a new experience if the Body was always the same, the Soul reincarnates instead of just resurrecting or being immortal.
Since it would be boring if the Soul was forced to feel the same emotions all the time, it chooses a Destiny that will spark conflict in the Heart.
And when the Soul finds itself unwilling to accept the reality before it, the Spirit is the tool it uses to alter its Fate. Because sometimes, improvisation is so much more interesting than a preplanned Destiny.

 

[Zirrboy]

It really depends on what you want to use it for.

If all your characters live their lives in one body respectively and have little influence over both, the line turns blurry because the distinction is ultimately unimportant.

If reincarnation is a thing, mind and soul could be used to explain why some parts stick while others don't.
Memory is a likely candidate of things to lose, but you could also make talents and mental capacity transient.

And if characters can train both, you'd decide what grows alongside.
Mind could make you "smarter" and improve your memory.
Going with the notion of "you" for the soul, it could improve your mental resilience, willpower and presence. (though I often see that called spirit, the question was about soul)
Alternative boons could be how much you can keep if your body (and by extension mind) kicks the bucket.

 

[CheertheDead]

I agree with @Zirrboy that

It really depends on what you want to use it for.

For me, I hold a Buddhist view about this matter.
As Buddha explained, you are only you because you have a mind and a body. Therefore, traditional view of a separated body and mind is foolish, and placing mind / soul above the body is a misguided teaching.

I believe you are aware of the debate of "what is you?" There were speculations from scientists and philosophers about this. First of all, it is impossible to say that you are the total of the cells/ the atoms that made up you. The reason is your body replacing dead cells, and with it the atoms that are your constituent, during every moment of your life. If that the case then when we replace your organic body with synthetic organs and structures, at what point would you stop being you?

Traditional and religious view said that you are the soul but since science can't prove the existence of soul let's talk about personalities. Often personalities are traits that define a person. This is again a problematic definition because if that's the case then what differentiate you from other people? If two persons have the same set of personalities would that mean both of you are one entity? There were also problem similar to the body because your personalities changed over time. Almost no body has the same personalities as their younger age. They retained most but they are not completely unchanged. This raises the same question. Assuming you can live for millions of years, at what point, or more specifically, when will you stop being you?

You see both your personalities that are the most apparent property of yourself, and the cells and atoms that constitute your body are not eternal.

To Buddha, losing either of them would result in you not being you. If you are just a mind, you will not be able to experience the physical world as when you still have the body. The same for when you are just a body without a mind. In both scenario, you will develop into different beings because of the difference in input of information. This is why Buddha considered the traditional view of the holy, eternal soul/mind and the gross/sinful body to be misguided. To Buddha, you should take care of both the mind and the body because they are both equally important to yourself.

That's for Buddhism. Now for fiction writing purpose, I have my own list of thing, not the best but I think it understandable.

Body
The physical body. It receives and analyses physical stimuli (light, heat, sound, taste...). Your instinct is also part of the body as it is integrated knowledge that your body picked up without the acknowledgement of your mind.

Spirit
This thing is the life force of a body. It is not a real thing. It's how others perceive your life force. Someone could drain your life force and your body would die even though there is no wound to be found on your body. This is because when you lose your soul or your mind, your body is still alive. Soul, mind and body have connection but inflicting damage on any of them doesn't mean you cause the same damage to the others. Lastly Aura is the radiation of your spirit.

Mind
This is what makes sense of the analyses of the body. The two same people might make different meanings of the same stimuli that the body receive. This allows the dynamic of personalities between characters. Someone said this is cold does not mean the other guy will also feel the same.

There are layers within the mind.

• Conscious level is defined as what you are aware of.
• Subconscious level is thought and feeling that appeared without consciousness but could be traced back. For example, you can feel certain hatred toward someone or something before you even understand why. Then you sit down and think about it. You discovered that the reason for your hatred is because in the past that something/someone did something you didn't like. Your consciousness didn't picked up the reason of your hatred as fast as your subconsciousness alerted you to stay away from that someone/something.
• Unconscious level is unknown feeling that you completely can not recall the reason. This is often because you lost the memories that hold the reasons. Like you forget that scare of cats because you were too small to remember.

Unconscious and subconscious level are different from instinct because instinct does not need you to have a mind to learn. Instinct can be passed down by genetic information which at that time you are just a mindless egg and sperm.


Soul
Some weird thing that records the information about your being. Think of this as the blackbox. It is not immortal or eternal in the sense that it is undying. Just that it is the same as information and energy, it can not be destroyed. Soul is formed as residual information of a being by the activities of the mind and body. You can think of soul as your hair or skin. You replace them with new ones all the time.


Astral Body
The projection of the soul outside the body. Not everyone can do this and there are different degree of information being projected outside. If the astral body is captured and can't return to the body, a part of the soul is lost to the captive force but the soul can be replenished through daily activity of mind and body.

 

[AryaX]

Fantasy
-Soul is the immaterial and immortal part of the human that is the actual human... and which, after the body dies, goes to heaven or hell, or gets scrubbed back to a clean blank slate and then attached to a new body...

-Mind is the thinking, planning, deciding part of the soul...

Reality
-Mind is the information processing and decision making subsystem of a human... or the process, depending how one uses the word... located or taking place inside the skull, where its physical nature is hidden from sight, and thus perceived as being immaterial and magical, etc...

-"Soul" is You... The Actual You... And very much a real part of a human... A human, you likely believe yourself to be (but if so... that is a mistake)
Take the Soul and strip away all the non-sense, delusions, and magical thinking, and you're left with "something"... You... And nothing but You... If not... You've made a mistake somewhere along the way...

 

[LilTV1155]

Energy and program.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Soul: Server
Mind: Connection
Body: Interface

Or if you want fantasy then: The body provides the vessel, the soul provides the contents and the mind connects everything.

 

[SakeVision]

Soul, in Christian theory, is separate from the mind and the body. Mind is like being able to think, calculate and analyze stuff. It's every thought we have, including language. It's every process that happens in the brain. While the body is the physical corpus through which we exist in the world, and also our physical senses.

God can only be understood with the soul. God can't be put into words, calculated, or proven or disproven using reason. He can't be touched or tasted. He can only be sensed with that divine spark that humans, angels, and demons have, but not animals. Because animals weren't created in god's image and didn't eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Animals are only mind plus body.

This divine spark enables humans to understand the Word and receive the Holy Spirit, and after death, hopefully, become one with God again.

This has nothing to do with creative writing tho.