Different in degree or kind (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, November 13, 2013, 16:33 (4028 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Interesting. If you wish to limit the soul to humans, you certainly have to believe in your "difference in kind".
DAVID: I believe animals have one kind of soul and we another. Another gap.-That fits in perfectly with my pansychist scenario below.-dhw: Following my pet panpsychist hypothesis, and if I believed in a soul, I would argue that energy is contained within all organisms, and as life forms become more complex, so the individualized energies become more complex too (i.e. evolve). All individualized energies. That might be the source of your species consciousness too. I don't suppose you'll like the idea, though. Not anthropocentric enough, eh?-DAVID: Fits the ideas of many of the thinking quantum theorists:-http://www.uncommondescent.com/physics/what-great-physicists-have-said-about-immaterial...-Ah, then there's hope for me yet!-QUOTE: "It is also interesting to note that he retained a 'finite sense of self-identity', as Theism would hold, and did not blend into the infinite consciousness/omniscience of God, as pantheism would hold."-Presumably this was a reference to Eben Alexander. Yes, it all fits in well with the panpsychist hypothesis above, although we wouldn't necessarily need any kind of theism. (Trust me to spoil it, just when we were getting along so nicely!)