If Heraclitus was anywhere correct when, in about 500BC,
he reportedly commented on this matter by saying ...
"Divine things for the most part
escape recognition because of unbelief."
"The limits of the soul woudst thou not discover
though thou shoudst travel every road:
so deep a logos has it."
Thus Mr. Daniel Benbenisty, one could be waiting
until the proverbial cows come home with conditions
such as the above placed upon the appearance of such
a definition of the soul of a living being.
Nevertheless, for whatever it is worth to future readers
and the furtherance of such threads, despite the trollish
overtones apparent in the staves of your post, here below
is my own personal observations in this matter:
The soul is part of an eco_system of inner being which
in todays world is often clouded, unknown, undefined and
often regarded as a non_scientific subject, due to the
seeming restriction of (western traditional) science to
consider only the specifications of the outer world of
nature, and indeed (according to Maxwell) to precude the
consideration of the complex systems of living beings.
I cannot tell you what the soul is but to say it shares
a relationship with the heart and the mind of a living
being in a specific manner, which I would outline
as follows:
The nature of the Heart:
A living being existent within the terrestrial environment
has a relationship to the terrestrial planet known as earth.
The earth provides the necessary elements of life.
It provides them with air that they might continue to breath.
With water, that they might not perish with thirst.
And with food that they might not perish with hunger.
In response to the (4 billion years of) evolutionary life
manifest on this terrestrial island,
in this cosmic ocean of light fed by the tributary suns.
It is in the nature of living systems to set up internal controls
and regulatory systems in response to their environment.
Positive and negative feeback systems, etc.
The heart was set up in response to the earth.
The nature of the Mind:
Once a living being is grounded (such as the plants) in the
terrestrial environment, the emergence of any furtherance of
understanding concerning the real nature of the environment
is only obtained when the hinterlands of that environment are
recognised and explored. Evolution - transcendence - of this
terrestrial environment required a capacity to develop a
capacity to reflect on the nature inherent therein, to be
able to view the diverse nature of the planetary realms
from a detached (almost objective) perspective, to be able
to gain mastery over some form of mathematical calculatory
faculty, to be able to use a non_terrestrial reference and
to be able to reason beyond the season.
In response to the (4 billion years of) evolutionary life
manifest on this terrestrial island in this cosmic ocean of light,
it is the nature of living systems to set up internal controls
The emergence of the ancient mammalian ancestors was nocturnal.
This extended the living hours of consciousness out of the day.
It slowly shed light on the quantized action of being known as
sleep and wakefulness, over and above that experienced
by the creatures which were 'dead_to_the_world' during the night.
It exposed them to the contemplation of the Light of the Night.
The mind was set up as an extension to the faculty of heart.
It emerged in response to the awareness of things cosmic.
It emerged as a recognition of a different center of processing,
and by way of the transcendence towards the understanding of
subtle phenomena.
The mind was set up in response to the moon.
The nature of consciousness:
Consciousness is a binary system of heart and mind.
It has recognition of the terrestrial aspects of existence
through the faculty of the heart, and of the cosmic aspects
of existence through the exercise of the faculty of the mind.
We feel feelings and we think thoughts.
We think about feelings, and we feel about thoughts.
Matters seem easily to assume emotional and intellectual import,
seem drawn to both observation of intuition and reason.
As a tightly coupled dual system, consciousness has arisen
from the binary systematics of the earth/moon (heart/mind) system.
And where is the center (barycenter) of this binary system?
It is located within the heart - within the mantle of the earth.
But are all things therefore terrestrial?
This question prompts us to elucidate the nature of the soul.
The nature of the soul:
At the center of the earth/moon system is the sun - sol.
In terms of eco_systemics, the sun is the center of life.
It is the cosmic fire in the central hearth
of our local cosmic environment ... warming life itself.
In evolutionary terms it was the mandatory originator & provider.
All emergent life responded to the ecosystemic engine of the sun.
The sun is a cosmic fire - a fouth state of matter - a plasma.
It is the sun which provides the light/energy for the new growth
of life, for the sustenance of the environment.
It is the sun which turns the great water_cycle
It is the sun which provides the light for the moon to shine.
About the sun orbits the earth/moon system.
The sun neither rises or sets, but for terrestrial horizons.
At the center of being there is a life_force, an emanation
which continues to generate the manifestation of life
as long as it is destined to so continue .....
The soul of individual life was set up in response to the sun.
The nature of spirit:
It is said that we dwell in a materialistic world, and that
material things are the substrate of nature, but this is not so.
For it is clearly seen that it is the nature of the sunshine
which has been responsible for the emergence, sustenance and
continuance of life upon this terrestrial planetary environment
in which we have been born and into which we shall pass away.
The sun is the "spring" or "fountain_head" of this sunshine.
Sunshine is as yet unable to be specified by the intellectual
theories of man's scientific reasoning other than to classify
it into 'the electromagnetic spectrum' - open_ended ...
It is contentiously both a wave and a particle bearing energy.
It is duplicated by technologies in small ranges of its aspects,
but it cannot be seen - YET it makes manifest all things.
Unseen unsung - often unremembered in our cloistered rooms
and within the artifical environments of the non_living,
in no uncertain terms was the 'spirit of life' set up
in response to the sunshine.
Which of all these things discussed above came first?
The question is simplistic - for the observation of nature
would answer that all things were created together ...
is a living being not born to this world all at once?
As such, is the ecosystem of the soul.
And so to conclude my response to your trollish question,
in your activity of 'waiting for a definition' that ....
1) is not tautological
I would argue that the one above is stretched tightly
and is very much TAUT - not slack, and involves the full
gammut of our environmental awareness, from our indigenous
roots to our cosmic aspirations - as a natural process.
2) can actually be tested (imagine that!)
Imagination is not barren of life, for surely children use
it to wholesome and educational ends. The scientific testing
of all the above must await the scientist whose ontology extends
beyond that of the mind, and into the roots of the heart, for
it is within the living heart of a living being that the nature
of life is most primal - to a cosmic depth.
3) is not a fraud (recall the "leaf" and "aura" thread)
Unless in the tautologous topolgies of intellectual circularites
known as every_day reporting via this or that media, one would
call NATURE itself a fraud, then the above is self_evidently
a non_fraudulent observation of the natural and evolutionary
processes which are evident in the terrestrial and cosmic
environments in which we have co_evolved and co_exist.
Hope this provides food for thought,
and substance for reflection.
All the best for now,
Pete Brown
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