The Soul

The 'soul'... A simple word with massive implications! Does it really exist? If it does, then is it the answer to life's origins? But before we jump to any staggering conclusions, let's ask ourselves this... What is the soul really? Although till date I've thought of it as nothing but merely the energy in living cells, is there something more to it than that? The definition of the soul varies from religion to religion, region to region and person to person, but is it really that complicated?

Right from ancient times generations after generations of people and gurus have tried to unravel the mystery of the soul, never fully giving a scientific base to it. Some say that the soul preserves our true identity using the body only as a vessel to manifest itself in a tangible form. And when the current vessel is no longer able to contain the soul, it simply changes vessels, thus explaining life and death with a cycle of reincarnation. It is an interesting theory that is more akin to science fiction than science, unless backed by some hard evidence and solid data.

There have been cases where people have seemingly remembered who they were in their past births or those who have spoken in languages they've never been taught. Well, keeping the authenticity of such reports aside, can't these be explained in simple medical terms? How about hallucination or paranoia? The mind does work in strange ways and we are just beginning to scratch the surface when it comes down to understanding how the brain works.

In fact, people are so intrigued by the concept of the soul that an experiment was carried out in 1901 by Dr. Duncan MacDougall, who sought to measure the mass lost by a human when the soul presumably departed the body at death. Although his subject did lose about 21 grams, the results as later pointed out, could easily have been explained by fluid loss. A brave attempt nonetheless!

So what are my thoughts on the matter? Looking at it from a layman's perspective, there is one thing that pricks me... All life started from a single cell, for which there should have been a single soul (assuming it to be a little more than just energy). That means as the number of species grew and their populations increased, more and more souls were created... But from where? Divine intervention? Getting past that, logic dictates that whatever can be created can also be destroyed, which goes against the common notion that souls can never be eradicated.

Oh wait! May be some souls just freely float in the vacuum of space! If so, what is their purpose? Can souls fuse or do they split like cells? At this point, I really wonder whether I should call myself spiritual or an atheist. There is no way that we can prove or disprove any of this unless we can grasp the physical significance (if any) of the soul and come up with some sort of measure for it. Until then it is all just wild conjecture and so the goose chase continues... But as far as I'm concerned, we live only once, so let's put our lives to the best use possible!