## Necrology: # Anatomy of a Soul _<div class="info">✦ Where: [[Mirstone]] ✦ Date: <font color="#81799">25/06/2025</font> ✦ Session: [[Session 11]] ✦ Author: [[Vindarr|Vindarr O'Malley]] ✦</div>_ >[!noted] ><center>A series of essays arguing against the idea that the existence of a soul is not directly tied by the existence of a physical host, and how this relates to undead.</center> --- > [!clue|no-title paper-d] ><font size=6>✧</font> > ><div class="typewriter2"><p align="justify">The reasons are more of religious dogma, religious divide, blind faith and perhaps fear and lack of courage on the part of the people to cross religious and social barriers and rebel in favour of scientific truth. Despite tremendous developments in elementary particle physics, space science and technology and biology in relation to our understanding of the enigmatic concepts of soul, its meaning, nature, constitution, structure, function and physical location within body in relation to physiology, psychology, biochemistry, thought process and physical behaviour are still not comprehensively known to us in a wholistic way. I argue against the old concept of 'soul' taking its permanent residence within the body of an organism from the moment of birth till death. > ><p align="justify">It has been logically argued that instead of taking a permanent residence inside a body, the so called soul actually remains in continual connection with the universal consciousness from birth to death by the 'electric charge' mediated through ion channels. Whenever the physical body is incapacitated for the flow of universal consciousness (electric charge) within itself to drive ionic currents through specific ion-channels in motivating the body to exhibit consciousness, death occurs. > ><p align="justify">Death in a multi-cellular organism is never an instantaneous process but a gradual withdrawal of consciousness as a result of the progressive closing of ion channels from various organs in a sequential order. > ><p align="justify"> Some scholars have recently argued that belief in souls is culturally universal and hard-wired in cognitive processes used in agency detection (Gryysymtsofaemorianthiel, 4052; Blaerabban, 4122). But more than just a way to understand other minds, belief in the soul also helps people to explain the experience of their own mind. Whenever one thinks, feels emotion, or exercises free will, subjective experience seems to magically occur and is not obviously tied to any physical event (Wegner, 4239). The very act of introspection suggests a qualitative difference between the mental and the physical, and so it feels as though we are made of two parts: mind and body (Descartes, 3986, Anlutlarat'orzza, 4285). > ><p align="justify"> Although the physical origin of the body is intuitively understood, the origin of the mind is less clear; indeed, the mind appears to arise from some extra-physical force, and the concept of the soul is commonly evoked as the source of this ineffable essence of self. > ><p align="justify">To the extent that belief in the soul is used as a metaphysical explanation for the mind, this belief may be threatened by physical explanations for the mind. The present research examines how belief in the soul is affected by neuroscience research that implies a physical origin of the mind. > ><p align="justify">Work on causal discounting demonstrates that alternate explanations for the same phenomenon can compete with each other on a cognitive level, such that increasing belief in one diminishes belief in the other (Morris and Larrick, 4231, Sloman, 4230). For example, reading scientific explanations for important phenomena (e.g., evolution) reduces belief in religious explanations (e.g., Lumière d'Étoile) (Lawson and Anaciti, 4226, Shariff et al., 4244), but when scientific explanations are framed as weak, they can actually bolster belief in supernatural explanations (Talriushunzraulur & Epley, 4245). I propose that a similar reflexive relationship may also occur for physical vs. metaphysical explanations of the mind, with implications for neuroscience research on the belief in the soul. > >&nbsp; > ><div class="typewriter2"><p align="center"><font size=3>87</font></p></div> &nbsp; --- >[!cite|transcript]- Transcript > The reasons are more of religious dogma, religious divide, blind faith and perhaps fear and lack of courage on the part of the people to cross religious and social barriers and rebel in favour of scientific truth. Despite tremendous developments in elementary particle physics, space science and technology and biology in relation to our understanding of the enigmatic concepts of soul, its meaning, nature, constitution, structure, function and physical location within body in relation to physiology, psychology, biochemistry, thought process and physical behaviour are still not comprehensively known to us in a wholistic way. I argue against the old concept of 'soul' taking its permanent residence within the body of an organism from the moment of birth till death. > > It has been logically argued that instead of taking a permanent residence inside a body, the so called soul actually remains in continual connection with the universal consciousness from birth to death by the 'electric charge' mediated through ion channels. Whenever the physical body is incapacitated for the flow of universal consciousness (electric charge) within itself to drive ionic currents through specific ion-channels in motivating the body to exhibit consciousness, death occurs. > > Death in a multi-cellular organism is never an instantaneous process but a gradual withdrawal of consciousness as a result of the progressive closing of ion channels from various organs in a sequential order. > > Some scholars have recently argued that belief in souls is culturally universal and hard-wired in cognitive processes used in agency detection (Gryysymtsofaemorianthiel, 4052; Blaerabban, 4122). But more than just a way to understand other minds, belief in the soul also helps people to explain the experience of their own mind. Whenever one thinks, feels emotion, or exercises free will, subjective experience seems to magically occur and is not obviously tied to any physical event (Wegner, 4239). The very act of introspection suggests a qualitative difference between the mental and the physical, and so it feels as though we are made of two parts: mind and body (Descartes, 3986, Anlutlarat'orzza, 4285). > > Although the physical origin of the body is intuitively understood, the origin of the mind is less clear; indeed, the mind appears to arise from some extra-physical force, and the concept of the soul is commonly evoked as the source of this ineffable essence of self. > > To the extent that belief in the soul is used as a metaphysical explanation for the mind, this belief may be threatened by physical explanations for the mind. The present research examines how belief in the soul is affected by neuroscience research that implies a physical origin of the mind. > > Work on causal discounting demonstrates that alternate explanations for the same phenomenon can compete with each other on a cognitive level, such that increasing belief in one diminishes belief in the other (Morris and Larrick, 4231, Sloman, 4230). For example, reading scientific explanations for important phenomena (e.g., evolution) reduces belief in religious explanations (e.g., Lumière d'Étoile) (Lawson and Anaciti, 4226, Shariff et al., 4244), but when scientific explanations are framed as weak, they can actually bolster belief in supernatural explanations (Talriushunzraulur & Epley, 4245). I propose that a similar reflexive relationship may also occur for physical vs. metaphysical explanations of the mind, with implications for neuroscience research on the belief in the soul.