What Might a Soul Be?
It’s apparent that when people die,
their bodies
decompose. So if something about a person is going
to
survive, what might that be?
If the universe is ultimately made up of only matter and energy (and variants thereof), it seems like we ought to rule out matter, and focus on energy—which, as physics tells us, can’t be destroyed, only transformed. To me, this appears to correspond pretty closely to the characteristics of what we call a soul.
It also seems reasonable that whatever form this continuing post-death energy might take, it’s likely to be quite a bit more complex and subtle than, say, the electrical circuit for a doorbell. And for the same reasons that an electrician’s basic voltmeter won’t detect the more sophisticated electrical energy of a person’s brainwaves, maybe the energy of a soul isn’t physically detectable now only because we haven’t yet developed measuring devices suitable for the task.
If the universe is ultimately made up of only matter and energy (and variants thereof), it seems like we ought to rule out matter, and focus on energy—which, as physics tells us, can’t be destroyed, only transformed. To me, this appears to correspond pretty closely to the characteristics of what we call a soul.
It also seems reasonable that whatever form this continuing post-death energy might take, it’s likely to be quite a bit more complex and subtle than, say, the electrical circuit for a doorbell. And for the same reasons that an electrician’s basic voltmeter won’t detect the more sophisticated electrical energy of a person’s brainwaves, maybe the energy of a soul isn’t physically detectable now only because we haven’t yet developed measuring devices suitable for the task.
(c) COPYRIGHT 2024 ROBERT
WINTER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
