Do we have souls?

[GliderGuider]

120. Interesting you should mention acid.

I have always felt that the title of Huxley's book "The Doors of Perception" was very well chosen. IMO psychedelics like LSD, mescaline and psilocybin do sometimes open the doors and let you look through rather than just paint a pretty picture for you.

You're right, many of us have similar experiences. We each attach personal interpretations and meanings to them, meanings that are inevitably coloured and shaped by the psychological filters of our experiences, our cultural setting, our education and our physiology. If I interpret an experience in a particular way, that doesn't mean that the meaning I give it must be universally shared. Quite the contrary - the more personal an experience is, the more personal and less transferable its meaning becomes.

If I say that I have experienced something I interpreted as "soul-like", that has nothing to say about how you might interpret a similar experience. The fact that I give it one meaning and you another doesn't make either of us wrong, just individuals.

If I'd started the thread, I might not have asked the OP's question, "Do we have souls?" as that phrasing implies the objective nature and universality of something called a soul. Perhaps I might have asked "Do you think you have a soul?" or "Have you ever experienced anything you would call a soul?" or something similar.

My best answer to the original question is, "I have no idea whether we do or not." But I can (like a good politician) answer the questions I would have asked instead, in which case the answers would be "Very possibly" to the first and "Yes" to the second. But clearly I can only speak for my own thoughts and experiences. They have no bearing on yours.

OTOH, my questions wouldn't have stirred up nearly so much interesting conversation as the OP did...