How Does The Soul Work (My Theory)

I like the idea of the soul, I think it’s pretty cool.

But what if the Soul really existed? How would it work?

The video “Split Brain Patient Both Atheist & Christian!” by Holy Koolaid inspired me to make this article.

I want to brainstorm a theoretical version of the soul that would work with our reality.

Note, I want to make it very clear that I’m not arguing for or against any religion. I’ll touch on ideas like reincarnation but I won’t say it’s true or false.

The end result probably won’t even fit with most religions anyway.

This is just a fun thought experiment.

With that out of the way, I want to answer most of Holy Koolaids questions(simplified to cover the general ideas he tackles) first before going into my ideas.

I’ll mostly focus on the questions that tackle the soul, not religion. Also skipping ones that are questions to stupid ideas, like the soul having weight.

Holy Kooliad’s Q&A

• Conjoined twins, how do they affect the idea of a Soul? I’m, sadly, going to gloss over the mentions of the afterlife for now and focus on the soul itself.

Since the twins have different personalities (I assume by footage), they would have separate souls connected like the mind is for them.

• When the brain halves are split and start disagreeing, how does this affect the Soul? The soul splits as the mind did. Since the two brain halves developed independent personalities, it makes sense for that to happen.

• Do we have two souls or one soul with two independent halves? Since our two brain hemispheres are in sync almost all the time, I think the soul acts the same. So I’ll go with the second option.

• At death, are the two personalities of split-brain patients merged back into one? No, they would be incompatible at that point. Why not merge random people’s consciousness together at that point?

• How many souls does a Dissociative Identity Disorder have? The number of personalities = the number of souls.

Crazy? A bit, but I don’t see why not.

The soul has no weight or physical form, just like the mind. We have millions of cells in us and they’re physical matter.

Theoretically, we can have far more souls than cells. But I think any person would go mad from that.

• Can the religious efforts of one identity save all of them? I’ll answer this one because it’s easy, no. Just like how a christen mother’s prayers can’t save an atheist daughter.

• How do souls form? I like this one. No, I would say that souls do not form at conception. If it did, that would cause so many problems that Holy Koolaid lays out.

The simplest answer is most likely the right one. We grow souls like we grow a personality.

When I say grow I don’t mean size.

The general idea of the soul covers emotions, memories, and personality. The ability to be introspective is also thrown into the idea.

We don’t get the full scope of those 3 things until we get older. You could say we’re not truly conscious when we’re kids.

• When does the soul leave the body? When brain activity stops or whatever function stops last. Makes the most sense based on the general idea of the soul.

I got this one and the following from the video: "Scientific Proof of the Soul."

• How do Dementia and personality-altering brain injuries affect the soul? Well, I could say that the soul is also affected by these things like the mind is but…that seems silly.

A physical injury affecting something ethereal? I guess, maybe. It does affect our mind which is also ethereal. I’ll go with it affects the soul the same way it affects the mind.

• How does Dementia and the like affect the afterlife? Good luck with those hard questions theists. I got nothing but really out-there ideas to explain this.

• Where does the soul even reside? I don’t know. Where does consciousness exist? My best guess is the brain, it’s intrinsically connected to it.

• If the brain accounts for all functions previously attributed to the soul, then what’s even left for the soul to do? Without adding an afterlife to the equation, nothing. It’s one and the same, just a different name in this case.

• Do psychopaths who lack a conscious lack a soul? I’m assuming you mean morals when you say conscious right?

I could be wrong but I do remember psychopaths having consciousness. They just lack emotion or empathy. So yes, psychopaths have a soul.

• Do souls have souls that think for it? I don’t believe in infinite regression so no. There must be a stopping point, either the soul or the brain. Take your pick.

That’s all of Holy Koolaid’s questions, the relevant ones anyway.

The major conclusion to point is:

If the Soul does exist it would be the same as consciousness. Let’s continue with that idea as we tackle one of the ideas for the afterlife.

Souls and Reincarnation

So assuming you believe in reincarnation(an idea of it removed from religion) and the “evidence” for it.

How would reincarnation affect the concept of the soul?

We know that the soul roughly equals consciousness.

So do our souls get wiped clean after each cycle?

No, apparently some people remember their past memories.

I think of it in 2 different ways:

• Our soul has layers like an onion. Each cycle adds a new clean layer over the last one. One question remains though, why keep the previous layer?

• Maybe there was a mistake in the cleaning process and some memories were left. It’s not like the personality transfers, just some memories. Still, another question pops up; who cleans the souls? Is it self-cleaning? Why?

Well, these methods all have holes.

I could say God, simulation, or something else but that’s a big can of worms I don’t want to open.

So in conclusion, I don’t think a simple idea of the soul can exist with the idea of reincarnation. It would need further explanations that get increasingly outlandish.

Let’s go back a bit, we’ve done a lot of assuming. Can we absolutely prove the soul first?

Anyway To Prove The Soul?

No, not really.

It’s the same problem with proving an A.I has true consciousness. You can’t do it.

The soul, like consciousness, has no weight to measure.

You can’t measure it with our five senses or physical instruments.

It doesn’t even have a notable effect on reality like black holes.

It just is what it is.

We can only feel it.

If you can separate consciousness from a physical body then maybe you got something.

Do Animals Have Souls?

I don’t see why not.

If you believe your dog has some form of consciousness then he/she has a soul. It’s practically the same thing.

Do they have heaven or hell though? I leave that for those poor theists to explain.

Is Having A Soul Even A Good Thing?

Finally, I want to ask a strange question. Why do we even have the concept of the soul?

Isn’t it...bad?

Yes, I think having a soul is overall a bad thing.

Unless you could prove that you need a soul to have consciousness, it offers little benefit.

Even if you did, I could argue that consciousness is not that great either. But that’s a discussion for another time.

The only thing having a soul does is enable access to the afterlife.

Some are good like heaven and some versions of reincarnation but the majority are torture.

In a lot of religions, it doesn’t take much to fall into an eternity of hell. All of that is possible because of an eternal soul.

Even in fiction, many pointless battles and painful eternities are caused by the existence of the soul.

So why even create such a concept?

I believe that the soul is ultimately a way to cope with death, with oblivion. The end of a story that’s likely to have an unsatisfying ending.

It’s nice to tell ourselves that there’s a better place after death. That there’s more to existence than this but, it most likely isn’t.

Maybe, that’s a good thing. I prefer a simple life to risking any hell just to have a soul.

Either that or:

• Non-tortuous reincarnation cycle

• Summerlands afterlife

• The soul is not eternal

• The freedom to choose which afterlife you go to. With some actual benevolent oversight. Can’t have psychopaths in paradise.

I personally like those types of afterlives the best. If those were the only options/possibility then a soul would be appealing.

But I’ve gone off track, let’s bring this thought experiment to an end.

Conclusion

There’s a lot more I could cover, like the collective unconscious and all of Carl Jung’s ideas.

How could those ideas affect the soul? (Hint: It helps the Reincarnation idea a bit)

But this post is long enough as it is and I’m not that interested in covering that.

The concept of the soul would become far more complex than the simple idea I wanted to present.

So instead, let’s go over what the soul is based on this article.

The Soul(Simple version):

• Is equal to the idea of consciousness

• Grows alongside our consciousness

• Refers to and covers memories, emotions, and personality.

• Probably doesn’t reincarnation (Without more outlandish ideas to jump-start it)

• Has no weight and is ethereal like the mind

• Any conscious being can have it

• Can’t be proven

That’s it. That’s the simplest and most likely version of the soul. A neat idea but ultimately without scientific proof.

Remember what Koolaid said: “Answers lacking evidence are nothing more than blind speculation.”

So the concept of the soul, like consciousness, is for the philosophers to discuss. Not scientists.

In the end, there’s no way to prove the soul. We can only have fun and speculate.

I hope you had some fun with this and learned something. Drop a comment telling me if you agree with this idea of the soul. You can also tell me your own idea of how the soul works.

With that, I’m done.