The Ego Trick (baggini, Julian) / quote 237 of 254
Psuchê as the organisation of living matter
the word ‘soul’ in the New Testament is usually a translation of the Greek word psuchê, which it is generally agreed does not necessarily apply to what Thacker describes as ‘a kind of detachable non-material part of me’. Aristotle, for instance, talks about psuchê and many scholars believe that he did not think it referred to an immaterial object, but a kind of organisation of matter which makes it function as a living thing. It’s somewhat similar to the way we now think about life. Many used to think that life was a kind of separate force that had to be ‘breathed into’ inanimate matter. Now we accept that life occurs simply when matter becomes sufficiently ordered and self-replicating.