spoiler alert., question, the soul of a pica

I say the Concept of a "Soul" is the result of an organic process that results from the ability to ask "Who am I?"
Thus, some humans found the idea of an immortal part of themselves a comfort, and a goad.
Both PICA's can say "I think, therefore I am."
So they find a soul the same place the new babies in the ever growing human population finds them, they grow one.

After all, how many times can a soul be recycled until Alexander the Great learns not to jump into a bunch of enemies without back up? We are talking Christian not Hindu/Varna etc. concepts here. So new souls are necessary as a result of population increase.

Brain begets mind, mind begets soul.
End.

I've got a better answer for you.

Way back when I objected to the immediate theories on the identity of the apparent PICA on the cover of the book being some second incarnation of Nimue Alban with something like, "He'd never do that with Merlin's existential issues", RFC himself replied with what I recall as "I hadn't thought of that".

That help any?

All,
I'm of the opinion that Merlin - aka Nimue II - looks at the new PICA - Nimue III - as a chance for redemption. He has taken the first, hardest, and most soul-rending choices for her already. She has merely to win the war; it was not hers to start.
In many ways the choices made, especially her height, betray his desire to let the original Nimue endure without so much of the pain and sorrow he has found. She will almost certainly remain a 'she', not be forced into a change of sex and sexual outlook. She will not (hopefully) be forced to lose people like Merlin lost Haarald and the Corisandian reformist and Gwyllym Manthir (sp?) so 'young' in the world.
It seems Nimue II has found a way to remake herself; to truly be 'reborn' and to have that rebirth validate the painful choices she has made to this point.
How many of us would love the chance to have a younger 'us' validate the difficult decisions we have made?
If there is a soul, then there are two (or more) to come.
As for the previous PICA 'souls' the idea is actually not something most are concerned about - the PICA's owner downloads the 'memories' via their interface, in a sense reuniting the disparate pieces of their soul. Until now, the existential question did not matter, because the PICA's essence would shortly return to its originator.
Nimue I lives, if vicariously; her soul and its hope for heaven may not hinge upon the deeds of its far-flung consciousness.
For myself, her soul - if any - is bound for paradise. That is traditionally the destination of martyrs to the faith and those who die that others might live.
One day the Church of Christ - Safehold may have a St. Nimue's. It'll probably be in Tellesburg. She'll pick up part of St. Jude (lost causes), St. Christopher (travelers), and Archangel Michael (soldiers).

Just my two cents.
Dave

Charybdis wrote:

Direwolf18 wrote:The soul question is always a gray area. What is a soul?



To be honest though, I do not view PICAs as having a soul. Neither do I view OWL as having a soul. They are a machine, an Artificial Intelligence. Granted, Merlin and Nimue are very very very good AIs, because they are carbon copies of a human. (who we will assume does have a soul) But in the end they are still AI's. The litmus test is you can make copies.

Hypothetically if they had the resources, to make 200 PICAS we could be mass producing Nimues, now are these AIs the actual possessor of Nimue the person who died a thousand years ago soul? No, they aren't, Nimue the original is in whatever afterlife there is. Merlin and this new Nimue are machines that have Nimue (the original)
memories.

The same thing applies to Nahrmahn. Nahrmahn is dead, we have an electronic entity with his memories, and emotions. They could have made a dozen copies of Nahrmahn when he was still alive, would that have made them HIM. No.


Now here is poking a hole in my own logic, if they took a copy of Nimue's memories and deposited them in a mass produced cloned body, entirely biological, do the clones have a soul? They would be able to procreate so... Whats the difference?

Oh, wow! Good going you all, you are tracking onto the early Christian Orthodoxy and Heresy tree very nicely. Hmmm, What constitutes the nature of a soul was/is one of the biggies along with Jesus' divinity and its effect and presence in a human body (PICA?) and works its way into Trinitarianism where the Godhead is 3 in 1! Next is counting the number of Angels that can dance on the head of a pin and for Safehold, I am sure that we will quickly get to that timeless discussion of the afterlife destination of Langehorn believers in the absence of contrarian knowledge.

Should we call this Nimue's Chest or is Pandora still around? FYI: I think the Drake-Flint Belisarius Opus is excellent as a novice introduction into the world of 5th Century Christianity and its decided troubles. Highly recommended!

Wow! I didn't expect this discussion to take this turn! First of all, let me rather gently point out that none of us really have answers to these questions beyond what we would affirm by faith -- Matt's confession of atheism no less than my affirmation of the creeds of the church. Nor do any of us get to decide what really is arbitrarily. Whatever is simply is independently of us.

Now having said that, if you are interested in the biblical point of view, try N.T. Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God. For church history, try Philip Schaff, Hans Lietzman or Peter Toon. All of this stuff is academically respectable and probably not a whole lot more difficult than one of Weber's info dumps.

To conclude let's remember that this is RFC's universe. Whether you are talking about starships in hyper, PICAs, the Gbaba, or whatever, RFC's rules apply. In order to participate in this universe, the rest of us indulge in some suspension of disbelief and allow ourselves to be drawn in by a master story teller as we enjoy the universe he has created. In this universe, PICAs have souls---maybe. Archbishop Mikel seems to think so. Fun, huh? Yes, but also fiction.

Don

n7axw wrote:Wow! I didn't expect this discussion to take this turn! First of all, let me rather gently point out that none of us really have answers to these questions beyond what we would affirm by faith -- Matt's confession of atheism no less than my affirmation of the creeds of the church. Nor do any of us get to decide what really is arbitrarily. Whatever is simply is independently of us.

Now having said that, if you are interested in the biblical point of view, try N.T. Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God. For church history, try Philip Schaff, Hans Lietzman or Peter Toon. All of this stuff is academically respectable and probably not a whole lot more difficult than one of Weber's info dumps.

To conclude let's remember that this is RFC's universe. Whether you are talking about starships in hyper, PICAs, the Gbaba, or whatever, RFC's rules apply. In order to participate in this universe, the rest of us indulge in some suspension of disbelief and allow ourselves to be drawn in by a master story teller as we enjoy the universe he has created. In this universe, PICAs have souls---maybe. Archbishop Mikel seems to think so. Fun, huh? Yes, but also fiction.

Don

In many ways the answers are not nearly as useful as the process of trying to answer the question. If one believes in a soul, then one believes that God exists and He creates souls. If one does not believe in a soul, the question is purely accedemic. Either way as posters address the question that as you point out can't really be answered, they get a better understanding about how others approach or view the issue. All those other POVs might be assumed to reflect the POVs of the characters in the book.

In any case for those that the question of a soul in PICAs is not academic, the thread helps frame the question so it requires as little suspension of disbelief as possible.

Lazalarlives wrote
I'm of the opinion that Merlin - aka Nimue II - looks at the new PICA - Nimue III - as a chance for redemption. He has taken the first, hardest, and most soul-rending choices for her already. She has merely to win the war; it was not hers to start.
In many ways the choices made, especially her height, betray his desire to let the original Nimue endure without so much of the pain and sorrow he has found. She will almost certainly remain a 'she', not be forced into a change of sex and sexual outlook. She will not (hopefully) be forced to lose people like Merlin lost Haarald and the Corisandian reformist and Gwyllym Manthir (sp?) so 'young' in the world.
It seems Nimue II has found a way to remake herself; to truly be 'reborn' and to have that rebirth validate the painful choices she has made to this point.

Nicely put- and I do not think our friendly neighborhood author will let "Nimue 111 " off that easily. (Regardless of what Merlin may want.) I'm pretty sure she will have some rough bumps along the way.
And I also hope that during her "down time" she does the secret agent thing. And being so much shorter, she will be less remarkable.

I too am of the opinion that the chance for redemption is a possibility and that brings up the question will merlin decide once he is no longer essential, to decide to take himself offline, and let his "less damaged" self continue the battle.

ultimately as I have tried to indicate in my responses my beliefs and those of all of those on these boards are mostly immaterial. I have my beliefs and so I think it is important how it is handled and I know what I would like to happen. however this is a work of fiction and so the rules are dictated entirely by the author so if he says a soul can inhabit two soup cans while waiting on a new body then in this universe it can. In order to make the story realistic it must have some basis in reality but religion is a very fuzzy topic it can have wide interpretation so I am curious how others looked at it.

mustangman wrote:I too am of the opinion that the chance for redemption is a possibility and that brings up the question will merlin decide once he is no longer essential, to decide to take himself offline, and let his "less damaged" self continue the battle.

ultimately as I have tried to indicate in my responses my beliefs and those of all of those on these boards are mostly immaterial. I have my beliefs and so I think it is important how it is handled and I know what I would like to happen. however this is a work of fiction and so the rules are dictated entirely by the author so if he says a soul can inhabit two soup cans while waiting on a new body then in this universe it can. In order to make the story realistic it must have some basis in reality but religion is a very fuzzy topic it can have wide interpretation so I am curious how others looked at it.

I don't see Merlin taking himself off line. For Christians the struggle he is going through is learning how to live with grace and forgiveness. What I expect is that Merlin will become a stronger, wiser person more comfortable in his own skin.

Don

I wouldn't say that someone >>has a<< soul, it would be more correct to say that someone >>is a<< soul, and has a body for that soul, much like he has clothes for that body.

As for the archbishop Maikel, he chose to believe that Merlin is actually Nimue (as in, the same soul, that in ages past used to be Nimue) simply because he wanted to believe that, and/or because it was easier for Merlin, and Maikel wanted to make it easier for Merlin.

But The good archbishop didn't have any proof for it, of either religious or scientific nature, he simply decided to believe what he liked to be truth. And he didn't hide that fact, he didn't say that he has any sort of God-given knowledge.

So, archbishop Maikel's opinion cannot be taken as a proof of anything...

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

PeterZ wrote:The answer is simple. If a being is a moral agent, then it has a soul. By definition a moral agent can either accept or reject God's plan. I believe that ability can only be granted by God through his gift of a soul. So it follows that to exercise the ability to make moral choices is to display the influence of a soul on an intelligence.

Does this mean that the Grand Inquisitor has no soul? He definitely is not a moral being.