What is a Soul?

What is a soul? What is life? The Bible says that humans are created in the image of God. I don’t think the writers of the Bible were speaking of the flesh and blood physical image, but rather the consciousness and/or soul of humans. I believe that when we speak of a human life we are mainly speaking of human consciousness rather than the physiologic functioning of the various tissues and organs that make up a human being. In the art and science of Medicine, we have a term “brain dead.” Brain dead means the brain has stopped functioning and the person has permanently lost all consciousness, but the heart continues to pump blood, the lungs continue to breath, and some form of food and water can be brought to the body intravenously. In other words, the machinery of the body continues to function unconsciously (usually aided by artificial support). In my opinion this is no longer a human being in the image of God but rather a left over support machine on loan from God. So for us humans, consciousness is the life which we care about. The rest is just needed to support consciousness.

Then what is a soul? I think of a soul as a human consciousness plus all the accomplishments of that consciousness. Those accomplishments might include all the words spoken or written or in any way communicated to others, all the physical creations of that person (directed by the consciousness), the children and future generations descended from that person. I am sure there are also other types of accomplishments. When the consciousness dies, the accomplishments part of the soul live on at least for a while. But you can also say that the consciousness and its accomplishments have made an imprint on the history of existence, and that history has occurred even when all consciousness and the physical universe have expired.

Now in the age of computers and artificial intelligence it has become apparent that computers can appear to think the way flesh and blood humans can. This brings up the idea that perhaps one day scientists will figure out what it is that makes consciousness occur and how to artificially create and reproduce consciousness. Perhaps one day artificial consciousness will make flesh and blood consciousness irrelevant. Perhaps humans will figure out how to create consciousness that will last forever and how to control time and space in which those conscious humans can live. Perhaps scientists will even figure out how to look into the past and recreate the consciousness of those of us who have already departed. It all sounds impossible, but think of what a person centuries ago would think of the science of the world of today.

To a believer in fundamentalist religion, this might all sound like heresy. But I think rather it is perfectly consistent with religion and belief in God. It is what religion strives for. It fits with the ideas of the Bible because the authors of the Bible were intelligent humans who looked at existence with what was available to them in their time, just as scientists and other rational people of today view existence with the tools available to them, and future people will do the same with their as yet unimagined tools. In that way, humans might some day create the time of the Messiah.