Aside from the faith-based belief that there exists a soul, is there any good reason to suppose that a soul does in fact exist? [Spirituality & Religion]

@Celine [quote]I believe the complexity of matter arises from consciousness.[/quote]

I'll try.

The "main line" view is that classical mechanics can not explain how consciousness arises, and that only quantum mechanics can. This is particularly attractive as it is an integrate part of QM (quantum mechanics) that a conscious observer impacts matter at a quantum level. So thoughts and memories are really just like QM wave functions in the brain. That's a super big gloss, but let's stick to it...

The problem is there's no physical evidence that QM works in brains that are hot, wet, and messy in a creature's skull. So there needs to be another approach to consider.

One is that the interpretation of QM is inverted. Some physicists have started to consider that perhaps QM works the way it does because that's how consciousness works, not matter. Well, one ends up with the same physical phenomenology and the fact that consciousness is fundamental-- not materially created. That's a super big gloss, and rests in part on cognitive psychology, but so be it... let's stick to it...

That would be this "soul" thing. Something fundamental and non-material.

As for the complexity. If one looks at the complexity of objects in nature, the simplest bacterium is orders of magnitude more complex in the systems or dynamical sense than any rock or chemical or chunk of geophysical stuff. So there is a "complexity gap" from geophysical and geochemical stuff to living things, and within living things, orders of magnitude jumps in complexity from primitive creatures to fish, lizards, and then mammals. Those jumps in complexity seem to correlate with jumps in cognitive function.

So if we assert that consciousness is fundamental, then we must have consciousness manifesting matter in an increasingly complex fasion as that consciousness becomes more evolved.

Now where that consciousness comes from? I don't know. That's like asking what started the big bang. God. Reincarnation. Some random fluctuation of something.

I don't see consciousness as a chicken [or] egg situation..

Regardless of whether or not complex physical system creates beginnings of consciousness (which is the widely accepted scientific proposition),
Beginnings of consciousness back-influences complex physical processes (QM).
Complex physical system receives feedforward which further refines consciousnes, which then influences complex physical system again...etc

There is more than the body, yes. But it is still unknowable.

Islam is the religion I am familiar with the most. The concept of soul is not this at all.

@Miram I wasn't suggestion a chicken & egg paradox as much as whether consciousness is "fundamental". Consciousness is something that's been with modern physics since Dirac and Heisenberg. Raises its head again with the anthropic principle in cosmology. People say gravity is the crisis in physics. I say it is consciousness. There's a fork in the road. We either assert that QM works as we believe, and then we get consciousness out of it. OK. Mental states come from quantum coherence-- but those states would have to decohere in picoseconds in a wet warm brain. Or we take the other fork and QM is as it is because that's how the consciousness of the observer works. Then consciousness is "fundamental".

A trick here is that when we talk about "consciousness" we're generally talking about some conceptual or perceptual apparatus. I'm talking about a more fundamental consciousness. An "intrinsic awareness" as opposed to that parts of mind that think, remember, feel. These distinctions are well fleshed out in the Buddhist tradition, certainly not in the Abrahamic traditions.

@CopperCicada

If I remember correctly, Buddha declared the Self ([i]Atman)[/i] and the soul [i](Jiva)[/i] to be illusions.

The consciousness is called [i]Vijnana or Chaitanya[/i]. The consciousness, soul, and self are all different things in Dharmic philosophy. Buddhism can be seen as a subset. Is it what you are relating here?

[i]Patisandhi-citta or patisandhi-vinnana[/i] is the actual term for the consciousness that survives death and is reborn. Those are terms that my Sāmkhya mentor and friend uses frequently. I am just a noob who is yet to make any clear correlations between that and QM.

@Miram In QM there is always an observer, which is a consciousness. The traditional view is that observing a quantum system puts the system into a particular state. There is a type of algebra that is peculiar to QM measurements. That's generally attributed to the physical world, but an alternative explanation is that it is how the observer of the quantum system works. If we take the first road, that QM works the way it does because that's how matter works, then we can engage in Penrose's project of figuring out how consciousness bootstraps from complex matter. If we take the second road then consciousness is fundamental and extra-material. That's one. point.

Correct. Buddhism doesn't believe in a permanent soul or self. I am more familiar with Tibetan Buddhism, in which case there is a differentiation between perceptual and conceptual forms of consciousness, and simple innate awareness. Innate awareness is something inseparable from all experience. I'm making the jump and connecting that to fundamental consciousness above.