What is a soul? Does it exist? Is it scientifically possible to prove that souls exist? What do all the religions say about souls?

Whether or not the soul exists is undoubtedly to have is to have one of the most fundamental components of being human. The question is, what proof do we have that such a thing as a soul, even though many religions insist they do? A series of recent scientific studies contribute to providing an answer to this age-old philosophical conundrum.

The concept of the soul is inextricably linked to reincarnation and the thought that we will continue to live in some form after physical death. It is thought to be the ultimate animating factor that drives our thinking and feeling, although it is independent of the body’s operation. Many people deduce its existence without engaging in scientific investigation or reflective thought. Indeed, the enigmas of birth and death, the shifting of one’s state of mind during dreaming (or after a few martinis), and even the most common mental operations, such as imagination and memory, all point to the existence of a vital life force, also known as an élan vital, which exists independently of the body.

However, today’s dominant paradigm in scientific thought does not acknowledge the existence of a spiritual component to life. We are informed that we are nothing more than the activity of carbon and a few proteins, that we live for a while and then pass away. What about the cosmos? Likewise, it isn’t very sensible. Everything has been resolved in the equations, so there is no more ample room for a soul. Biocentrism calls this traditional, materialistic concept of reality into question, which is a new “theory of everything.” This archaic way of thinking leads in every direction to mysteries that cannot be solved and concepts that are, in the end, nonsensical. However, information is the prerequisite for wisdom, and very soon, our outlook on the world will catch up to the realities.

Naturally, most people who hold spiritual beliefs see the soul as being far more definitive than the concept held by scientists. It is claimed to be immortal and exists beyond material existence’s constraints. It is also thought to be the incorporeal essence of a person. When scientists talk about the soul, though (if they do so), it is either in a worldly setting or viewed as a poetic synonym for the mind. By analyzing how the brain works, one can understand everything there is to know about what people commonly refer to as the “soul.” Their point of view is that there is only one area of scientific research that can shed light on the nature of the soul, and that is neuroscience.

Historically, the scientific community has either disregarded the human capacity to conceptualize the soul as a thing or relegated it to a psychological idea that influences our understanding of the natural world as we observe it. Therefore, the phrases “life” and “death” refer solely to the more general conceptions of “biological life” and “biological death.” The rules of chemistry and physics are the guiding principles behind everything that happens. You, along with every other poet and philosopher who has ever lived, are nothing more than dust moving about the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

As I look through the stacks of scientific books that fill my office, I have yet to uncover a single mention of the soul or any concept of an immaterial, immortal essence that resides within each of us. A soul has never been observed using an electron microscope, nor has it ever been spun in the laboratory inside of a test tube or ultracentrifuge. These writings state that it would appear that nothing can survive the human body once it has passed away.

The explanation for why our experiences are so personal:

Even while neuroscience has made significant strides in clarifying how the brain works, the question of why humans have a subjective experience still needs to be satisfactorily answered. Realizing that one is the “I” that thinks, feels, and experiences the world, is the key to solving the soul’s dilemma. This is precisely where the problem lies. However, this is not merely an issue for biology and cognitive science; it is an issue for the entirety of Western natural philosophy.

The holes in our existing worldview, which is based on objectivity and naive realism, are becoming more dangerous. Many philosophers and other readers who, while pondering the works of men like Plato, Socrates, and Kant, as well as Buddhists and other great spiritual teachers, including Buddha, couldn’t help but ponder the nature of God and his place in the cosmos consciousness of man, won’t be surprised by this, of course.

The biocentric view and the concept of the soul:

Recently, biocentrism and other scientific theories have begun to challenge the traditional Physico-chemical paradigm and explore some of the more challenging questions concerning life: Does the body have a soul? Is there anything that can withstand the passage of time?

This new perspective on the nature of being, reality, and the cosmos place a significant emphasis on life and consciousness even though the prevailing scientific paradigm is predicated on the idea that there is an objective, observer-independent presence in the world, the results of actual investigations point in the opposite direction. We believe that life is nothing more than the activity of atoms and particles, which revolve for a short period and then vanish into nothingness. But if we include living things in the equation, we may explain some of the most perplexing problems in contemporary physics. These problems include the uncertainty principle, entanglement, and the fine-tuning of the rules that determine the form of the universe.

Consider the well-known experiment with the two slits. If you monitor a particle as it travels through the holes, you will notice that it behaves like a bullet, going through either slit. However, if there is no one around to see the particle, it will behave like a wave and will be able to travel through both slits at the same time. According to the findings of these and other tests, unobserved particles can only exist as “waves of probability,” as the fantastic Max Born, who was awarded the Nobel Prize, demonstrated in 1926. They are just a likely conclusion, yet they are based on statistical projections. Before being observed, they do not have an actual existence; the mind must first construct the necessary scaffolding before conceiving them as having duration or a location in space. Experiments make it increasingly evident that all required to change a possibility into a reality is a single piece of knowledge in the experimenter’s mind.

The ancient Greeks’ perspective on the nature of the soul:

In ancient Greece, the concept of the soul was thought to be something ethereal and intangible. They referred to both the breath and the soul with the same name because they understood both to be intricately connected to the process of life.

This connection is maintained by the fact that we use the term “expiration” to refer to both breathing out and dying; in both instances, the breath or soul leaves the body. In the Bible, the spirit is compared to the wind in that it is thought to flow around unseen but leave visible traces in its wake. A similar connection can be seen here.

It would indicate that Plato and Socrates considered the soul the essential component of every living object, including each human being. Both believed that the soul and the body could be split apart and that the soul could continue to exist long after the body died. According to Aristotle, proper body comprehension cannot be achieved without first appreciating the soul.

Aristotle believed that the souls of various living organisms are distinct from one another. A plant possesses a solely edible essence, and it is this essence that is responsible for the plant’s development and reproduction. An animal also has an appetitive spirit, which means it searches for the things it requires to survive. He thought that every person possesses a rational soul, which is responsible for our insatiable curiosity regarding the inner workings of everything, including other people’s souls. It’s possible that following in the footsteps of his masters Socrates and Plato, Aristotle thought this aspect of the soul existed forever.

Aristotle’s arguments were taken even further by Thomas Aquinas, who held that the soul must be insubstantial because it can know – and, as a result, take the form of – every other kind of thing, regardless of whether or not they are substantial. Aquinas took Aristotle’s arguments even further. Because the soul is not composed of matter, he reasoned, it cannot be damaged by physical forces because it is indestructible. The previous point supports this reasoning. Because of this, he concludes that the soul is immortal and eternal, meaning that it has never existed before and will never cease to exist.

Those who lean toward the materialist position – which asserts that only things with mass can have reality – would do well to give the arguments of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas a great deal of thought before making up their minds. There are many things that we consider to be real, yet not all of them can be characterized by weight, color, size, position, and velocity. For instance, these same thoughts do not display any of these features, but no one would dare to assert that they are not accurate because of this fact.