I agree that “soul” has more ‘real’ meaning than “florepti xor bobble.” There’s another point to consider, though, which is that many of us will privilege claims about souls with more credence than they realistically deserve, as an effect of having grown up in a certain kind of culture.
Out of all the possible metaphysical constructs which could ‘exist’, why believe that souls are particularly likely? Many people believing in souls is some small indirect evidence for them, but not an amount of evidence commensurate with the concept’s prior improbability.
So there’s a specific thing of “the immortal part of you that goes to heaven”, which is just false.
But I think plenty of people draw a mind/soul/body, where the mind/soul distinction is pointing at a cluster that’s sort of like:
System 1 (as opposed to System 2)
strongly felt emotions
the core of your being – the things that make you distinctly you, vs the parts of your algorithm that any ol’ person could easily implement (i.e. design by committee, paint by numbers). your central identity.
When one says “that artistic piece has soul” or “they poured their soul into a project”, one is saying (something like) “they invested their identity into it” or “they made it out of creative pieces that would be hard for someone else to replicate” or “they worked extremely hard on it, because they deeply cared about the outcome” (where if they had not deeply cared about the outcome they would have worked less hard).
I think people that talk about immortal souls are usually also talking about the cluster of properties that have to do with the above. And they’re just-plain-wrong about the immortal part, and they don’t have super great abstractions for the other parts, but the other parts seem like they’re trying to engage with a real thing.
FWIW I’m pretty sure people have historically used words that get translated to ‘soul’ and not believed that it was immortal or went to heaven. I don’t have time to read this at the moment but I guess this SEP article is relevant.
OK, if we’re talking about central identity, then I very much wouldn’t sign a contract giving away rights to my central identity. I interpreted the question to be about selling one’s “immortal soul” (which supposedly goes to heaven if I’m good).
I agree that “soul” has more ‘real’ meaning than “florepti xor bobble.” There’s another point to consider, though, which is that many of us will privilege claims about souls with more credence than they realistically deserve, as an effect of having grown up in a certain kind of culture.
Out of all the possible metaphysical constructs which could ‘exist’, why believe that souls are particularly likely? Many people believing in souls is some small indirect evidence for them, but not an amount of evidence commensurate with the concept’s prior improbability.
Because there are good candidates for what a soul might be. E.g. the algorithm that’s running in your head.
I guess I feel like this is a significant steelman and atypical of normal usage. In my ontology, that algorithm is closer to ‘mind.’
So there’s a specific thing of “the immortal part of you that goes to heaven”, which is just false.
But I think plenty of people draw a mind/soul/body, where the mind/soul distinction is pointing at a cluster that’s sort of like:
System 1 (as opposed to System 2)
strongly felt emotions
the core of your being – the things that make you distinctly you, vs the parts of your algorithm that any ol’ person could easily implement (i.e. design by committee, paint by numbers). your central identity.
When one says “that artistic piece has soul” or “they poured their soul into a project”, one is saying (something like) “they invested their identity into it” or “they made it out of creative pieces that would be hard for someone else to replicate” or “they worked extremely hard on it, because they deeply cared about the outcome” (where if they had not deeply cared about the outcome they would have worked less hard).
I think people that talk about immortal souls are usually also talking about the cluster of properties that have to do with the above. And they’re just-plain-wrong about the immortal part, and they don’t have super great abstractions for the other parts, but the other parts seem like they’re trying to engage with a real thing.
FWIW I’m pretty sure people have historically used words that get translated to ‘soul’ and not believed that it was immortal or went to heaven. I don’t have time to read this at the moment but I guess this SEP article is relevant.
OK, if we’re talking about central identity, then I very much wouldn’t sign a contract giving away rights to my central identity. I interpreted the question to be about selling one’s “immortal soul” (which supposedly goes to heaven if I’m good).
I think part of the lesson here is ‘don’t casually sell vaguely defined things that are generally understood to be some kind of big deal’
I still don’t fully agree with OP but I do agree that I should weight this heuristic more.