Soul Paradox

[JakeHero]

Now, to enjoy this question you must, for the duration of this thread, assume the Judeo-Christian concept of the soul is the correct one. Whether you're a transcendentalist, atheist, hindu, or polytheist shed the ideas you hold for the afterlife during this thread.

Now, the Abrahamic idea of the soul is that only humans possess one. It is given by the time of conception(varying on the denomination) that once a human dies his soul carries them to the afterlife. But the final question is what happens to people with multi-personalities or rather what happens to the personalities themselves. Once the individual dies do their unnatural personalites also have individual souls or do they not have this due to them not being born in the natural sense, and thus descend into nothingness once the person dies?

[cold-as-hell]

Well there is medication for muti personalities so isnt that killing them into nothingness as well?

I dont know the answer. Yes they go into nothingness

[JakeHero]

At 1/2/07 05:44 PM, cold-as-hell wrote: Well there is medication for muti personalities so isnt that killing them into nothingness as well?

I won't pretend to be an expert of psychology, but I believe the other personalities are aspects of your subconsciousness, so technically, you're not killing them, more the fact they're being assimilated back into the subconscious.

I dont know the answer. Yes they go into nothingness

Thanks for the contribution.

[The-evil-bucket]

Now for a moment suppose there is no soul that lives on, isn't this thread pointless?

[LazyDrunk]

At 1/2/07 05:41 PM, BanditByte wrote: But the final question is what happens to people with multi-personalities or rather what happens to the personalities themselves. Once the individual dies do their unnatural personalites also have individual souls or do they not have this due to them not being born in the natural sense, and thus descend into nothingness once the person dies?

I think schizophrenic people still only have one, indivisible soul. The schizophrenia arises from the souls need to define itself, manifesting in several distinct personas. However, the basal commonalities that lend creedence to the schizoid person also lend creedence to the righteousness of their individual soul.

God also has a really good Bullshit detector, I've heard, so it's shoulda really be a high priority for us to define.

Interesting topic :)

[Sigma-Lambda]

First of all, schizophrenia is not multiple-personality disorder, just to clear that up.

Second, it's very difficult to answer the question. Seeing as how the soul can not be proven scientifically (I'm not endorsing, or denying the possibility), you can't really answer any questions about it scientifically. But, as best I can, I'll try to answer as best I can. Multiple Personality Disorder is not simply different people in the same mind, it's a vague mental condition, it's exact causes are unclear, but it is often times seen following, either shortly, or up to many years after a traumatic experience or experiences. Rather than being separate personalities in one mind, it's more along the lines of different aspects of one personality split, like of a brave personality, a social personality, a depressed personality, the different emotions and feelings that make us human are split apart. It's often seen as a form of coping method, in certain cases in which it was incurable, it was at least put into control. I recall one true story of a police officer who's different personalities took over depending on the situation he was in. All of the pieces are unified at at least a basic subconscious level. Again, this isn't a completely understood condition in modern psychology, so the specifics are sketchy.

Really, trying to answer if the personalities in a person with multiple personality disorder go to heaven or disappear upon death is like trying to answer if a person with depression is depressed in heaven, or if a person who goes insane, (not insane due to a problem in the brain, but truly insane like due to loneliness), is insane in heaven. Something can not confidentially be answered with science when one of the parts of the question has no scientific basis behind it.

[Leeloo-Minai]

At 1/2/07 07:34 PM, Sigma-Lambda wrote: First of all, schizophrenia is not multiple-personality disorder, just to clear that up.

What's the difference? Other than the spelling of course. I'm just curious how it affects the topic at hand.

Second, it's very difficult to answer the question. Seeing as how the soul can not be proven scientifically (I'm not endorsing, or denying the possibility), you can't really answer any questions about it scientifically.

Do you think scientific testing of a soul should be authorized? If not, what if consent was given from the subjects being tested? Should soul-extraction and experimention become a new field of scientific study?

Science relies on definitions and proofs verifying them. Nobody is bold enough to define a soul, then carry out the necessary steps in providing a stable environment in which to test it upon, because the human soul is thought to live long after the body dies. The right to life trumps science, unless science approves of the making of "soulless" humans, like clones, manufactured from non-biological donor material. Until that point in time, the concept of soul will remain sketchy as best, and ignored by the scientific community.

[Begoner]

Why can't the soul go into heaven while still retaining its multiple-personality disorder?

[Leeloo-Minai]

At 1/2/07 07:51 PM, Begoner wrote: Why can't the soul go into heaven while still retaining its multiple-personality disorder?

Theoretically, one part of the person committed atrocities and didn't repent, while the other was steadfast and upright.

[Neoptolemus]

The fact of the matter is multiple personality disorder (dissociative identity disorder (DID)) is a form of mental "defense" which may occur when a person (most notably children) go through a traumatic or overwhelmingly stressful event in which the easiest option for them to cope is to form a second (or more) personality in order to protect the original.

The problem is with the whole soul business is that sure only humans possess it. However, it is a physical aspect of us or is the soul our consciousness? If it is the latter then it would ultimately be closely linked to the personality and thus each personality of a sufferer of DID would possess a soul. Although, if you take into consideration of the soul being created by God then would that make the "souls" of the alternate personalities pseudo-souls which wouldn't exist in the first place?

Ultimately it doesn't matter as all this pretending to follow the Abrahamic view of the world is whimsical and goes against Ockham's razor.

[Sigma-Lambda]

At 1/2/07 07:43 PM, Leeloo-Minai wrote:

What's the difference? Other than the spelling of course. I'm just curious how it affects the topic at hand.

Schizophrenia is a completely different condition, it has nothing to do with multiple personalities at all. It seems to have been confused with multiple personalities by much of the public. I wasn't even correcting the OP, just one of the posters.

Do you think scientific testing of a soul should be authorized...

I don't really understand why you just went on with that. All I said is that souls have not been proven or studied scientifically. And as a result, I could not explain how a soul would react with something scientific like multiple personality disorder. It's sort of like asking if chocolate would be poisonous to a dragon, you have some basic arguments, but you don't have any information about a dragon's biology, so you can't really do much in the way of answering the question.

[Leeloo-Minai]

At 1/2/07 09:32 PM, Sigma-Lambda wrote:

At 1/2/07 07:43 PM, Leeloo-Minai wrote:

What's the difference? Other than the spelling of course. I'm just curious how it affects the topic at hand.

Schizophrenia is a completely different condition, it has nothing to do with multiple personalities at all. It seems to have been confused with multiple personalities by much of the public. I wasn't even correcting the OP, just one of the posters.

Oh, I thought you'd be able to explain the difference to someone like me, layman-style, instead of forcing me to research both on my own and draw my own conclusions based on the premise that they are completely different.

Do you think scientific testing of a soul should be authorized...

I don't really understand why you just went on with that.

I'm just trying to expand a little on the conversation, and since you'd decided to give input from a scientific perspective, I figured asking you to expand on your position wasn't out of the question. I apologize if it was.

It's sort of like asking if chocolate would be poisonous to a dragon, you have some basic arguments, but you don't have any information about a dragon's biology, so you can't really do much in the way of answering the question.

Well, what makes up a soul? Moral fiber? Consciousness? Ego? Sometimes studying the components that assemble into the whole give you a better picture than a chocolate-eating dragon. For example, what is love? Scientifically, love is the triggered release of certain chemicals meeting certain receptors producing a profound feeling, described using the common understanding of other feelings, like happy and contented, or fulfilled.

What I mean is, we've never landed a robot on a star in the Magellanic Cloud, but by studying it's interactions within it's environment, we're able to determent what it's made of, how it's moves and other fine things of great importance.

Ya understand what I'm trying to get at?

How do you interpret the soul?

[TonioMiguel]

I agree with many of the others already posted.

DID seems to be a way for a person to protect themselves or even hide away things or memories that a pain. As a Christian too, I do not believe the person has multiple souls but is the same soul at war with ones self. I am not saying either that DID is a demonic disorder because I do not fully understand its purpose.

To me, it sounds similar to the battle of the Flesh and Spirit although Christians feel that the if the flesh wins the soul goes to hell and the Spirit wins the soul goes to heaven which I do not feel is the same as DID. The other problem is DID is not mentioned in the Bible. There are people with multiple spirits or even legions of demons in their body but I find this hardly the same as DID.

This sound sort of like the widow with multiple brother-in-laws that continually die and she continues to have no children. The Pharisees ask Jesus who will be her husband in heaven and he answers their will be no giving of husbands and wives in heaven. Does this mean that the personalities will be no more in heaven. I feel no. Since I do feel that most split personalities are one in the same person. I feel it is an imbalance of the persons mind meaning that each personality is indeed part of the individual. Just as sociology is the study of how the self changes given different people so the personalities are still part of one individual. This means most likely a split personality or soul will be whole in heaven.

So my answer is a split personality will most likely be whole in heaven rather than disjunctioned as he or she behaves on earth.

[Sir-S-Of-TURBO]

Your soul goes to the spirit healer and you ask for a respawn.

However, the 25% equipment damage is a pain in the ass, why can't you just run to your corpse?

[Altarus]

Multiple personalities is a physical disorder, not a spiritual one. This disorder will perish with the physical body, and the soul will have a single personality.

As for the dillemma about one personality being saved and the other being not saved, you could really ask this about any mental disorder. If the mental disorder is rendering the person incapable of seeking salvation, does God hold it against them? Nah, I doubt it.

[Imperator]

Oh, I thought you'd be able to explain the difference to someone like me, layman-style, instead of forcing me to research both on my own and draw my own conclusions based on the premise that they are completely different.

In other words, you want someone to do the work for you while you reap the benefits. Fine, I'll do the honors, but next time, do your own damn homework....

"Skitzo" is a medical condition wherein the individual's concept of reality is skewed, altered, or otherwise dyfunctional. These are the people who see purple elephants and wonder why other's look at them strange. They hallucinate, hear voices, etc. It can also affect their moods or cognitive abilities, although each case is different. I'm no expert, but I had an uncle who was schizophrenic (as well as bi-polar), so I've got a little first hand experience with it.

The Greek of schizophrenia means "split mind", which is the common reason why it is often confused with multi-person disorder.

Back to the main question:

The problem with the whole thread is that we have defined "Soul" already. We have defined it as containing our personalities, at the very least. That's a debate in and of itself, therefore we cannot rationally discuss a Soul Paradox relating to multiple personalities if we do not agree on a definition of "Soul" in the first place.

[Leeloo-Minai]

At 1/3/07 04:00 AM, Imperator wrote:

Oh, I thought you'd be able to explain the difference to someone like me, layman-style, instead of forcing me to research both on my own and draw my own conclusions based on the premise that they are completely different.

In other words, you want someone to do the work for you while you reap the benefits. Fine, I'll do the honors, but next time, do your own damn homework....

Hey smartass, if I wanted your opinion on the matter, I'd have asked it. Being a cunt is fun, eh?

The only difference I've managed to gleen is that one can be caused by drugs while the other is not.

MPD - The presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states. The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., blackouts or chaotic behavior during Alcohol Intoxication) or a general medical condition (e.g., complex partial seizures).

Schizophrenia - People with schizophrenia suffer from problems with their thought processes. These lead to hallucinations, delusions, disordered thinking, and unusual speech or behaviour.

That kinda leads me to believe that the two are NOT mutually exclusive. I simply asked for the difference in laymen's terms, since the scientific definition was too vague for me discern.

"Skitzo" is a medical condition wherein the individual's concept of reality is skewed, altered, or otherwise dyfunctional . . . They hallucinate, hear voices, etc.

So the difference would be that one merely "hears" voices in their head, and the other "is" the voice in their head that the afflicted person has unconsciously created? Again, the two still seem remarkably similar, if not for all intents and purposes of this thread, the same.

The Greek of schizophrenia means "split mind", which is the common reason why it is often confused with multi-person disorder.

Indeed.

[JakeHero]

At 1/3/07 01:24 AM, Sir-S-Of-ROFL wrote: Your soul goes to the spirit healer and you ask for a respawn.

However, the 25% equipment damage is a pain in the ass, why can't you just run to your corpse?

Best post so far. Kudos to you.

[MortifiedPenguins]

MPD (Multiple personality disorder) is usually seen as complete and different people in one bodies and at times, that is correct.

But mainly, these personalities are all just one personality. The all just represent different aspect of that personality.

Say, If I was cut up into a artistic personality called Bob, a depressed, cynical and sarcastic personality called Tom and a friendly outgoing and happy personality called Jake.

In one way, it's a split but in reality it's just different versions of my own emoitions and personalities.

There all part of one.