Truth HQ by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T R U T H H Q

too much. That is, apart from one reference from Aristotle. ‘If the eye were a creature’, he said, ‘then seeing would be its soul’. So he was saying something along the lines of – it’s our activity in the world that makes the difference – delivers our essence, so to speak – and not some other-worldly add-on. If you know your Aristotle, then you’ll know that this is typical of him. No need for supernatural explanations,

when Earthly explanations will suffice. I take from this – and maybe stretching Aristotle somewhat – that soul could be described as mind plus body plus action in the world. These three things can be considered separately, and indeed, they so often are thought of separately. The danger in doing so however is that we lose something along the way. To get to the essence of who we are we need to consider all three together. In doing so it can simply be said that soul is what emerges when mind, body and manner of being are considered together. Emergence is a key word here. There’s a whole lot of emergence going on! From formlessness emerges form – that’s probably the most basic. Today we may say something like – from the quantum void, particles emerge. Then from

particles, elements. The elements have

properties that their constituents lack by themselves. From elements, chemical compounds – and again, properties emerge that are lacking in individual elements. Then, from chemicals – life. From life – consciousness.

From consciousness – self-awareness. It’s

difficult to avoid the reality of this cascade of ever-increasing wonders. But oddly, today, all this emergence is downplayed, to say the least. We can speculate on further emergence. There may be wider circles of emergence – eco-

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