Types of Soul?

[mbartelsm]

I was thinking on dividing the concept of soul in three parts:

Ri, Heart, Emotion: Dictates personality and feeling
Ba, Mind, Logic: Controls thought, decision-making and identity
Ke, Life, Vitality: Binds the soul to a body, gives life.

Depending on what concepts the soul has, it will fall within one of the following types of soul:

Animula (Ri) (name suggestions?): A soul that wanders aimlessly, only guided by it's emotions.
Ghost (Ba): A soul that thinks but does not feel, oftentimes it is the identity of someone who's dead
Plant (Ke): A soul that lives but does not think of feels
Spirit (Ri, Ba): A soul that thinks and feels but it's not alive
Animal (Ri, Ke): A soul that feels and is alive, but is not self aware
Golem (Ba, Ke): A self aware, alive soul capable of thinking but not feeling
Person (Ri, Ba, Ke): A full fledged soul, alive, with feelings and awareness

A soul may gain or loose these characteristics over time (a golem may learn to love or a person loose it's life)
What do you think, have you ever used a similar system or know of someone who did?

 

[Chilari]

Interesting idea. I'd associate what you've called Animula with a poltergeist - acting up and being angry or playful, etc.

 

[Zero Angel]

That's an interesting way to break them up!

I feel like I'm reading game mechanics--which is a good thing in my opinion.

 

[mbartelsm]

I was actually trying to classify creatures based on their souls, inspiration came after reading wikipedia's article on the egiptian soul. After that I realized this has so much potential for so many things

 

[MystiqueRain]

I really like this idea. Haven't seen anything quite like it before so kudos to you for that. I do like how you classified things we know simply as "ghost" or "golem" into these categories, and thinking more into it, they do make a lot of sense.

 

[battlestar]

To me, your classification of soul is reminiscent of ego, id, and superego as well as an age long dispute of what is human nature by chinese philosophers. Kudos for trying to tackle some very interesting, deep and philosophical stuff here.

You probably already heard of ego/id/superego so I'll only explain the chinese philosophy part. It was also an attempt by the chinese philosophers to distinguish humans from animals.

Confucius explains that human nature is good, but does not go into details. One of his disciples and a later leader of confucianism of that era explained that human nature has two parts: half is primal evil instinct while the other half is bound by teaching of society which is good, so when combined the human nature is good. Legalism argues that human nature as a whole is evil so it must be bound by rules.

In our reality, the boundary between humans and other animals is blurred. Higher primates such as apes and chimps do have emotion and self-awareness. However, a fantasy world can play by a different set of rules.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I like your idea of classifying the souls using different building blocks. It gives some insight into what can be expected of a certain type of being.



In my WIP souls aren't very well explored yet. Almost everything that's alive and some things that aren't have a soul. Though in some cases groups or colonies may share a single soul - like an anthil or a behive. There's also something I refer to as a composite soul, which is basically the sum of all souls in an area - like a forest or a city.

 

[mbartelsm]

In our reality, the boundary between humans and other animals is blurred. Higher primates such as apes and chimps do have emotion and self-awareness. However, a fantasy world can play by a different set of rules.

I was thinking the same, but for the sake of self consistency I made it so that animals lack "Ba" completely, if an animal develops it, it stops being an animal and becomes something else (person isn't really quite the term, but I think you got it), within the category of person I also included trolls, which are slightly smarter than your average ape.

In my WIP souls aren't very well explored yet. Almost everything that's alive and some things that aren't have a soul. Though in some cases groups or colonies may share a single soul - like an anthil or a behive. There's also something I refer to as a composite soul, which is basically the sum of all souls in an area - like a forest or a city.

I have to explore them completely because magic, and all that relates to it, uses souls as the medium, if someone wants to use magic, it has to go trough their soul first.
I really like your idea of composite souls, I use another system where a Daemon (ascended spirit) acts as the leader of an area, such as a mountain, so that if the mountain is ever in danger it can summon all souls within his grasp to defend it, this way it becomes a shared consciousness during extreme circumstances.

 

[S.T. Ockenner]

Let's see here...
Classic Soul, Neo Soul, Motown, Philly Soul, Psychedelic Soul, Cinematic Soul, Smooth Soul, Yacht Rock (smooth soul+soft rock), Soul Blues, Hip Hop Soul, Latin Soul, Quiet Storm, Pop Soul, Chicago Soul, Southern Soul, Memphis Soul, New Orleans Soul, Northern Soul, City Pop (offshoot of Yacht Rock), Sophisti-Pop, Soul Jazz, Hard Bop (Soul Jazz+Bebop)
Funk also has its roots in Soul, but I count it as something separate.