Thesis: There’s three distinct coherent notions of “soul”: sideways, upwards and downwards.
By “sideways souls”, I basically mean what materialists would translate the notion of a soul to: the brain, or its structure, so something like that. By “upwards souls”, I mean attempts to remove arbitrary/contingent factors from the sideways souls, for instance by equating the soul with one’s genes or utility function. These are different in the particulars, but they seem conceptually similar and mainly differ in how they attempt to cut the question of identity (identical twins seem like distinct people, but you-who-has-learned-fact-A seems like the same person as counterfactual-you-who-instead-learned-fact-B, so it seems neither characterization gets it exactly right, yet they could both just claim it’s a quantitative matter and correct measurement would fix it).
But there’s also a profoundly different notion of soul, which I will call “downwards soul”, and which you should probably mentally picture as being like a lightning strike which hits a person’s head. By “downwards soul”, I mean major exogenous factors like ecological niche, close social relationships, formative experiences, or important owned objects which are maintained over time and continually exert their influence to one’s mindset.
Downwards souls are similar to the supernatural notion of souls and unlike the sideways and upwards souls in that they theoretically cannot be duplicated (because they are material rather than informational) and do not really materially exist in the brain but could conceivably reincarnate after death (or even before death) if the conditions that generate them reoccur. It is also possible for hostile powers to displace the downwards soul that exists in a body and put in a different downwards soul; e.g. if a person joins a gang that takes care of them in exchange for them collaborating with antisocial activities.
The reason I call them “sideways”, “upwards” and “downwards” souls is that I imagine the world as a causal network arranged with time going along the x-axis and energy level going along the y-axis. So sideways souls diffuse up and down the energy scale, probably staying roughly constant on average, whereas upwards souls diffuse up the energy scale, from low-energy stuff (inert information stored in e.g. DNA) to high-energy stuff (societal dynamics) and downwards souls diffuse down the energy scale, from high-energy stuff (ecological niches) to low-energy stuff (information stored in e.g. brain synapses).
I’m having trouble following whether this categories the definition/concept of a soul, or the causality and content of this conception of soul. Is “sideways soul” about structure and material implementation, or about weights and connectivity, independent of substrate? WHICH factors are removed from upwards (“genes” and “utility function” are VERY different dimensions, both tiny parts of what I expect create (for genes) or comprise (for utility function) a soul. What about memory? multiple levels of value and preferences (including meta-preferences in how to abstract into “values”)?
Putting “downwards” supernatural ideas into the same framework as more logical/materialist ideas confuses me—I can’t tell if that makes it a more useful model or less.
I’m having trouble following whether this categories the definition/concept of a soul, or the causality and content of this conception of soul. Is “sideways soul” about structure and material implementation, or about weights and connectivity, independent of substrate?
When you get into the particulars, there are multiple feasible notions of sideways soul, of which material implementation vs weights and connectivity are the main ones. I’m most sympathetic to weights and connectivity.
WHICH factors are removed from upwards (“genes” and “utility function” are VERY different dimensions, both tiny parts of what I expect create (for genes) or comprise (for utility function) a soul.
I have thought less about and seen less discussion about upwards souls. I just mentioned it because I’d seen a brief reference to it once, but I don’t know anything in-depth. I agree that both genes and utility function seem incomplete for humans, though for utility maximizers in general I think there is some merit to the soul == utility function view.
What about memory?
Memory would usually go in sideways soul, I think.
multiple levels of value and preferences (including meta-preferences in how to abstract into “values”)?
idk
Putting “downwards” supernatural ideas into the same framework as more logical/materialist ideas confuses me—I can’t tell if that makes it a more useful model or less.
Sideways vs upwards vs downwards is more meant to be a contrast between three qualitatively distinct classes of frameworks than it is meant to be a shared framework.
Excellent! I like the move of calling this “soul” with no reference to metaphysical souls. This is highly relevant to discussions of “free will” if the real topic is self-determination—which it usually is.
The word ‘soul’ is so tied in my mind to implausible metaphysical mythologies that I’d parse this better if the word were switched for something like ‘quintessence’ or ‘essential self’ or ‘distinguishing uniqueness’.
What implausible metaphysical mythologies is it tied up with? As mentioned in my comment, downwards souls seem to satisfy multiple characteristics we’d associate with mythological souls, so this and other things makes me wonder if the metaphysical mythologies might actually be more plausible than you realize.
Thesis: There’s three distinct coherent notions of “soul”: sideways, upwards and downwards.
By “sideways souls”, I basically mean what materialists would translate the notion of a soul to: the brain, or its structure, so something like that. By “upwards souls”, I mean attempts to remove arbitrary/contingent factors from the sideways souls, for instance by equating the soul with one’s genes or utility function. These are different in the particulars, but they seem conceptually similar and mainly differ in how they attempt to cut the question of identity (identical twins seem like distinct people, but you-who-has-learned-fact-A seems like the same person as counterfactual-you-who-instead-learned-fact-B, so it seems neither characterization gets it exactly right, yet they could both just claim it’s a quantitative matter and correct measurement would fix it).
But there’s also a profoundly different notion of soul, which I will call “downwards soul”, and which you should probably mentally picture as being like a lightning strike which hits a person’s head. By “downwards soul”, I mean major exogenous factors like ecological niche, close social relationships, formative experiences, or important owned objects which are maintained over time and continually exert their influence to one’s mindset.
Downwards souls are similar to the supernatural notion of souls and unlike the sideways and upwards souls in that they theoretically cannot be duplicated (because they are material rather than informational) and do not really materially exist in the brain but could conceivably reincarnate after death (or even before death) if the conditions that generate them reoccur. It is also possible for hostile powers to displace the downwards soul that exists in a body and put in a different downwards soul; e.g. if a person joins a gang that takes care of them in exchange for them collaborating with antisocial activities.
The reason I call them “sideways”, “upwards” and “downwards” souls is that I imagine the world as a causal network arranged with time going along the x-axis and energy level going along the y-axis. So sideways souls diffuse up and down the energy scale, probably staying roughly constant on average, whereas upwards souls diffuse up the energy scale, from low-energy stuff (inert information stored in e.g. DNA) to high-energy stuff (societal dynamics) and downwards souls diffuse down the energy scale, from high-energy stuff (ecological niches) to low-energy stuff (information stored in e.g. brain synapses).
I’m having trouble following whether this categories the definition/concept of a soul, or the causality and content of this conception of soul. Is “sideways soul” about structure and material implementation, or about weights and connectivity, independent of substrate? WHICH factors are removed from upwards (“genes” and “utility function” are VERY different dimensions, both tiny parts of what I expect create (for genes) or comprise (for utility function) a soul. What about memory? multiple levels of value and preferences (including meta-preferences in how to abstract into “values”)?
Putting “downwards” supernatural ideas into the same framework as more logical/materialist ideas confuses me—I can’t tell if that makes it a more useful model or less.
When you get into the particulars, there are multiple feasible notions of sideways soul, of which material implementation vs weights and connectivity are the main ones. I’m most sympathetic to weights and connectivity.
I have thought less about and seen less discussion about upwards souls. I just mentioned it because I’d seen a brief reference to it once, but I don’t know anything in-depth. I agree that both genes and utility function seem incomplete for humans, though for utility maximizers in general I think there is some merit to the soul == utility function view.
Memory would usually go in sideways soul, I think.
idk
Sideways vs upwards vs downwards is more meant to be a contrast between three qualitatively distinct classes of frameworks than it is meant to be a shared framework.
Excellent! I like the move of calling this “soul” with no reference to metaphysical souls. This is highly relevant to discussions of “free will” if the real topic is self-determination—which it usually is.
“Downwards souls are similar to the supernatural notion of souls” is an explicit reference to metaphysical souls, no?
um, it claims to be :)
I don’t think that’s got much relationship to the common supernatural notion of souls.
But I read it yesterday and forgot that you’d made that reference.
What special characteristics do you associate with the common supernatural notion of souls which differs from what I described?
The word ‘soul’ is so tied in my mind to implausible metaphysical mythologies that I’d parse this better if the word were switched for something like ‘quintessence’ or ‘essential self’ or ‘distinguishing uniqueness’.
What implausible metaphysical mythologies is it tied up with? As mentioned in my comment, downwards souls seem to satisfy multiple characteristics we’d associate with mythological souls, so this and other things makes me wonder if the metaphysical mythologies might actually be more plausible than you realize.