How does a disembodied soul experience reality?

[Layp3rs0n]

When we die we experience Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. But before the General Judgement in what way will we experience Reality? We will lack sight, hearing, the sense of touch, neurons, a brain, etc. Will our souls experience reality in a completely different manner? What will our souls experience?

 

[empther]

First of all,
the soul can do nothing by itself. It needs God’s constant assistance.

Aquinas says we cannot even have a thought unless God “moves” that thought for us. This does not mean God chooses our thoughts. We do that. But God makes it possible.

Likewise, we cannot do an act of will unless God moves our will. Again, God does not determine what we will. We do that. But God makes it possible.

It’s like the analogy of a computer. A computer can do marvels of moving and organizing information,
but only if some hydroelectric dam or nuclear reactor or other kind of electricity generating plant provides the electricity the computer needs.

Having made that point clear ( I hope. )
it’s not hard to understand that God can make the disembodied soul be aware of reality,
since he does that for us on Earth anyways.

 

[WmJackP]

When we die we experience Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. But before the General Judgement in what way will we experience Reality? We will lack sight, hearing, the sense of touch, neurons, a brain, etc. Will our souls experience reality in a completely different manner? What will our souls experience?

Does the human personality survive death? I think that is the more basic question. Because if the personality is the product of physiological and cultural influences (as most psychologists would claim it to be) then doesn’t it follow that the “personality” ceases to exist at the time of death. If this is so, then there is no “self” (or what you may call a soul) to experience any phenonomen, much less, the sensory mechanism by which experience is achieved.

 

[Ad_Orientem]

I’ve wondered this, too. Surely for disembodied souls to experience anything at all is a miracle, since the soul is not an angel, nor a complete person, but rather the “form of the body” (cf. St. Thomas, S.T. I, Q76). But they must indeed experience something; otherwise we are left with “soul sleep,” a doctrine of heretics.

 

[Layp3rs0n]

Thank you. Maybe I should rephrase. I mean not, how is it possible we will experience things, but in what way?

 

[TomD123]

Thank you. Maybe I should rephrase. I mean not, how is it possible we will experience things, but in what way?

Certainly through the rational intellect…beyond that, in other words, whether or not imagination and memory plays any role I don’t know. Probably imagination does not but through our intellect memory does. After we get our bodies back of course sensation and imagination and everything is complete

 

[Aelred_Minor]

First of all,
the soul can do nothing by itself. It needs God’s constant assistance.

Aquinas says we cannot even have a thought unless God “moves” that thought for us. This does not mean God chooses our thoughts. We do that. But God makes it possible.

Likewise, we cannot do an act of will unless God moves our will. Again, God does not determine what we will. We do that. But God makes it possible.

It’s like the analogy of a computer. A computer can do marvels of moving and organizing information,
but only if some hydroelectric dam or nuclear reactor or other kind of electricity generating plant provides the electricity the computer needs.

Having made that point clear ( I hope. )
it’s not hard to understand that God can make the disembodied soul be aware of reality,
since he does that for us on Earth anyways.

If this is your position fair enough, but that is not how I would characterize the movement of the soul according to Aquinas. In his case it is necessary not only to distinguish between First Cause and Secondary Cause but also to recognize them both as true and complete causes of any given effect. The First Cause should not be thought of as just a necessary precondition for any number of possible secondary causes just as secondary causes are not to be stripped of their identity as causes by insisting exclusively on the immediate effectiveness of the First Cause. That kind of oversimplification, reducing the real specific movement of something to either the primary or secondary mover exclusively, has probably been the root of most of the errors on the subject of divine causation and human free will.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Thank you. Maybe I should rephrase. I mean not, how is it possible we will experience things, but in what way?

I don’t know if anyone living can really answer you without some private revelation. My speculation, which is probably a bit different from what scholastic philosophers would have told you for instance, would be that since the soul is the form of the body everything we do in this life involves both, and that after the soul is separated from the body it may invisibly function very much as it did before.

 

[Steveabrous]

Does the human personality survive death? I think that is the more basic question. Because if the personality is the product of physiological and cultural influences (as most psychologists would claim it to be) then doesn’t it follow that the “personality” ceases to exist at the time of death. If this is so, then there is no “self” (or what you may call a soul) to experience any phenonomen, much less, the sensory mechanism by which experience is achieved.

I’m sorry but I believe it is quite a stretch to say that the soul is merely a persons personality. The soul is our self awareness, or simply being alive as I see it

. Are you saying that if I move to a different region of the world, get new friends, develop new attitudes, and develop a new personality I have lost my soul and cease to exist?

 

[JerryZ]

Does the human personality survive death? I think that is the more basic question. Because if the personality is the product of physiological and cultural influences (as most psychologists would claim it to be) then doesn’t it follow that the “personality” ceases to exist at the time of death. If this is so, then there is no “self” (or what you may call a soul) to experience any phenonomen, much less, the sensory mechanism by which experience is achieved.

There are hundreds of cases of people that have died (clinical death) No heartbeat, ECG, pulse etc. that resucitated and refer they could see the people around them and report seeing a very bright tunnel.
Where they allucinating? As you stated there was NO brain activity.
So how could they have memories of these events if their brain AND neurons where NOT working.

There was a case which was peculiar the guy was calling to thank a particular nurse, he described the person in all detail, how was dressed, height, complexion. The doctors recognized the nurse in question from the description.
The problem? THE GUY WAS BLIND from birth. Had never seen anything in his entire life.
Maybe God allows these experiences to testify to an increasingly incredulous generation.
Hopefully people can take advantage of these “chances” God gives them to convert and become truly what God intended for us.

Peace

 

[Aloysium]

When we die we experience Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. But before the General Judgement in what way will we experience Reality? We will lack sight, hearing, the sense of touch, neurons, a brain, etc. Will our souls experience reality in a completely different manner? What will our souls experience?

:twocents:

I would suggest that if you pray and meditate on the experience of reality in which you exist within this moment, the miracle and mystery of its very being, you will be far on the way to answering your own question. Asking others will only give you ideas which may or may not make sense. How odd that one’s own nature is such a mystery.

 

[empther]

Thank you. Maybe I should rephrase. I mean not, how is it possible we will experience things, but in what way?

All right.

Consider how we experience reality in this life.

We experience reality through the five senses of our body. Right?
Wrong, dinosaur breath.

Sensory (name removed by moderator)ut is just that: raw data.
An ant feels and smells, but doesn’t have a clue what going on. It’s all reflex.
A dog sees, hears, smells, and feels, but does he know the difference between his loving pet owner and the owner’s cousin who visits for the first time? No. Either one could be his worst enemy, even his owner who loves him. He simply recocognizes his owner and can’t conceive that his owner will ever be cruel to him, but he doesn’t know that! He doesn’t know reality.

We process sensory (name removed by moderator)ut and from it learn a lot about reality. This is largely about our ability to universalize classes, something that animals like the dog can’t do.
We see a man going from door to door with papers in his hand. Before he gets to our door, we know that he’s probably a salesman or politician seeking votes or something like that. We know he’s probably harmless. We know he probably speaks English.
We know he probably has a pleasant manner, real ( or faked to sell us something ),
We know he has or had parents and probably has a family of some kind. We know all this although we’ve only seen him from a distance because we universalize ideas.

In other words, the senses are nothing more that tools that give us knowledge and understanding of reality. The senses themselves do not give us reality except in a limited sense, such as seeing the man going door to door.

Since God “moves out thoughts” as I discussed above, he can also move our thoughts as if we were getting sensory (name removed by moderator)ut. And so, the disembodied soul can experience reality.

 

[WmJackP]

I’m sorry but I believe it is quite a stretch to say that the soul is merely a persons personality. The soul is our self awareness, or simply being alive as I see it

. Are you saying that if I move to a different region of the world, get new friends, develop new attitudes, and develop a new personality I have lost my soul and cease to exist?

You seem to be saying that the soul is “consciousness” or, perhaps, you might say the soul is the “experience” of being. However, one cannot experience being in the abstract. It is always within a context of place, person, circumstance of memory and maybe other mental functions. Hence, a person or, if you like, a personality.

Hope that makes my perception clearer.

 

[WmJackP]

There are hundreds of cases of people that have died (clinical death) No heartbeat, ECG, pulse etc. that resucitated and refer they could see the people around them and report seeing a very bright tunnel.
Where they allucinating? As you stated there was NO brain activity.
So how could they have memories of these events if their brain AND neurons where NOT working.:

Yes, I am aware of pop culture’s response to Dr. Moody’s NDE model which was introduced to the public in the mid 1970’s.

While I agree certainly that NDE are phenomena which deserve investigation and study, still these antidotal reports do not convincing establish that a “person” (or if you prefer, a “soul”) survives death. There are too many competing explanations each as compelling or more compelling than the ambitious followers of the Moody model might suggest.

The problem, of course, with placing one’s whole confidence in such antidotal episodes is that, in order to be consistent, then you will have to seriously entertain the existence of “bigfoot”, the “Loch Ness” monster, acknowledge that Elvis yet lives ,or, if one is impressed by sheer numbers of reports, that alien abductions have taken place.

I would think that the wise man or woman forms beliefs on reality based criteria rather than reports unsupported by empirical or testable observation. Otherwise, I am afraid, we are hostage to superstition and fanciful thinking.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

When we die we experience Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory. But before the General Judgement in what way will we experience Reality? We will lack sight, hearing, the sense of touch, neurons, a brain, etc. Will our souls experience reality in a completely different manner? What will our souls experience?

Whatever we can say on this is speculation. However, we do know that Christ descended into " hell " to preach to deceased souls. At the Transfigureation we know that Jesus was seen speaking to Moses and Elija, who were disembodied souls. We also know that at the moment of death, each soul undergoes judgement, so they must have some sort of personal awareness.

Linus2nd