CONVERSATIONS IN THE PANTHEON - The Truth about God and Religion

What is the Soul?

Mary: As we have already discussed, to achieve immortality, humans needed two things – the spirit (soul) and the spirit world – both invisible and both unknowable. To this day, they remain items of faith, and that's why they have persisted. But what can we say about them from a science-based perspective? 

Thomas: Let's start with the spirit. In some of the creation stories, the spirit is the breath of life that the creator breathed into the clay figures of the first humans. In others, the spirit enters the womb after conception. In neither case do we really know what it is? Is it matter or energy?

Mary: It's hard to imagine how breathing on a piece of clay could have turned it into human bones and flesh, let alone being imbued with a spirit. As to the spirit entering the womb, it's very doubtful. Assuming that it's a ray of invisible light, how could it penetrate the mother's belly to enter the womb? Sunlight doesn't penetrate the skin. It just burns the outer layer. If, on the other hand, it's a high-energy ray, like x-rays, it would penetrate the body and continue on. So, how does the spirit enter the body?

Entering the body is only part of the problem. The other part is leaving it. Our ancient ancestors believed that, when a person dies, the soul enters the spirit world and lives there forever. It's something they imagined rather than something they observed. They fancied it to be an invisible thing, not made of the same substance as the body. However, all that exists in the universe is either matter or energy. Therefore, if the spirit exists, as many believe that it does, then it must be energy, otherwise it would perish with the body.

It is well known that the human body has an electrical field, which medical experts can monitor to learn about the health of our heart, for example. Everyone has seen heartbeats on an electrocardiogram in a hospital or examination room. When a person dies, this electrical field disappears – no more heart beats.

It may be possible, although highly unlikely, that at death this electrical field could release some photons – the energy stored in the field – which could be called the soul. However, the photons have to be in the invisible part of the electromagnetic spectrum because no one has ever seen the soul depart a dying person. If we assume that to be the case, what happens to that burst of energy?

According to belief, that burst of energy (invisible photons) would travel to the spirit world, wherever it may be, and live there forever. In reality, that pulse of invisible light, would not get very far, as it would be absorbed by the air and the walls of the house or hospital, where the person dies. Some of it might escape through an open window or door, but the air molecules outside would quickly absorb it. Therefore, death is final for both the body and the soul.

Mathew: But what if some small part of that burst of invisible light doesn't get absorbed? Isn't that a possibility to consider?

Mary: As unlikely as that possibility might be, it would continue to travel in outer space until it gets absorbed by cosmic gas, a star or cosmic dust particles. Moreover, it would not know where the spirit world is located, and even if it did, it would not be able to navigate to it and stop there. It has neither a steering wheel nor brakes.

Furthermore, what knowledge of the dead person would a few photons carry? Nothing. Those few lucky photons that evade capture would be no different than all other photons in the universe, of the same wavelength. Therefore, the knowledge of the person's past life is lost forever.

Mathew: What about those who believe in reincarnation? Clearly, they believed not only that the soul would survive death, but also that all knowledge gained in past lives would be retained and imparted to the new body.