Describe the soul or the mind as an immaterial thing, and
the body as a material thing, then you will have to explain how these two
entirely different entities ever get to interact, if they ever did. Is the soul
‘inside’ the body? A pencil is in the box. That makes sense. I see that. Both
pencil and a box are material things that take up space. As an immaterial
thing, the soul does not take up space. So, it does not make sense to say that
the soul is ‘inside’ the body. Where is the soul? That question, too, does not
make sense because only material things can be located in specific areas.
Stumped by this problem, you’re forced to make a choice
between being a materialist or an immaterialist. An immaterialist believes that all that exist
are ideas. While a materialist believes that all that exist are material
things. That is, you will either deny the existence of a thing outside the
mind, or affirm the existence of a thing outside the mind.
But we don’t have to be ruled by those terms and
definitions. We needn’t be. We shouldn’t be. I would like to free ourselves from
these definitions and experience for myself what it means to exist.
Indeed I do experience the world as existing outside of me,
at the same time, I do experience something in me that is not of material
texture. I do not have to assume that the material thing such as my body, and
the immaterial thing such as my soul as two entirely different entities. Why
can’t I acknowledge the physical pain and pleasure that I derive directly from
my experience of material things, while recognizing the fact that I feel joy
and suffering without the accompanying physical pleasure or pain? Indeed, I
can. And, that’s because you and I do encounter such experiences.
Does not the body sense something other than what is
experienced by any or all of the five known senses? Do I not experience the
‘beauty’ of the waterfall or the sunset? Don’t I experience suffering through
the body by way of physical aches, as I suffer through, for example, the loss
of hope or a loved one? Certainly, I encounter these experiences through the
body and my soul. These experiences cannot be denied. The body feels what I
think; and the soul thinks what is felt through the body.
Are we still going to get enmeshed in the problem of
interaction? Not unless, we rectify the description of soul and body. How? The
way out of this abstract, misconstrued problem is to describe the soul as a
certain kind of experience. When we watch the musician play his instruments, do
we not say “He plays with so much soul”? Compare him to someone who is great
with techniques but lacks soul in his rendition of a song or music.
A murderer is said to be a man without soul? How is ‘soul’
taken here, but as a state of being or experience? We read his body language
and we pick up something that none of the five senses can ever perceive. For
example, the look or the stare or the ‘angry’ eyes of a father, who said not a
word.
The ‘soul’ is an adjective, a state of being. We describe a
person (or, ourselves) as being soulful by the way he moves, he understands, shows compassion,
radiates a light of hope when everything seems to be lost. Soul is not a thing
like a table or a chair; but the experience of a carpenter who carves wood in a
way the admirer remarks, “this table has character.”
Ought we then long for the life after this life? Is the soul
immortal, immune to physical mortality? Perhaps, when we speak of a person
‘having soul’, or is a soulful being, it is telling us how a life is lived. For that, it does not matter how long one has lived, but how well he has lived.
