Searching for Soul
What is it that makes us who we are?
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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it is that makes us who we are on an individual level. What is it that forms our essence?
I think of essence this way: when first meeting identical twins, it can be difficult to tell them apart. Once getting to know them though, it can be much easier to identify who’s who without giving it much thought. Each twin carries themself in a unique way. They may have the same hair color, eye color, and DNA, but they breathe differently somehow.
Religious and spiritual people would probably consider this essence that I’m describing the soul. This is a decent descriptor for this idea, so it’s one of the terms that I’ll use here.
So what is this soul, and where is it contained? Is it a part of our brain, our heart, something else, or is it the combination of many pieces?
We like to think of our bodies as one coherent whole, but that’s not really the case. In Dr. Steven Gundry’s book The Plant Paradox, I first learned about the gut microbiome, which are the millions of bacteria that line the inside of our stomach and intestine and aid in digestion.
According to Dr. Gundry (who I interviewed on the podcast and wrote more about here), our cravings for hunger, our energy level, and our mood are influenced by these gut bacteria, and what we choose to feed them can have impacts on our health. These organisms are completely separate from us, and yet, they live within us. They have some control over our essence, even though we like to think that we are in charge.
As Dr. Gundry told me when he was a guest on the podcast:
“There’s this entire universe living within us that wasn’t known about until 12 years ago when the Human Microbiome Project was finished. We didn’t even know these guys existed… Probably most of what happens to us is controlled by how we treat this set of bugs that live in our gut.”
Pixar’s Inside Out is a movie that gets at this essence in a unique way. The film is set inside the mind of 11 year old Riley Anderson. The personified emotions of Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger control Riley’s actions using a board that resembles the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
Depending on the situation, each emotion has a turn “piloting” the girl. For most of the Riley’s early life, Joy was at the wheel. This changes when her family moves cross country and she has to leave behind her old home and friends. Suddenly, Sadness, Anger, and the other emotions have a turn in the spotlight.
The film sets up a very simple concept: your brain has a control panel and five core emotions. Whichever emotion is sitting at that panel at the moment is what determines your thoughts and feelings. Joy is always happy, Sadness is like a dark cloud.
Except one day, Joy and Sadness get lost and have to find their way back to “headquarters.” The plot of the film is largely about their journey, and both characters show growth and display a range of emotion beyond their one assigned feeling.
When the character Joy cries at the climax of the film, she is no longer an embodiment of a single emotion but is a complex being. Does this mean the Joy avatar inside of Riley’s brain also has her own set of emotional avatars within her that are driving her emotions?
Analyzing this quickly becomes a hall of mirrors, where it’s possible to imagine smaller and smaller emotions existing to infinity. (My daughter used to watch this movie daily when she was younger, so I’ve had a lot of time to analyze it).
In the world of Inside Out, the emotions are part of what form our essence, but if they’re only behaving on the whims of their emotions, it begs the question of who’s really in charge?
Another interesting way to think about essence or soul is to take it completely out of the human realm.
I’ve become a big fan lately of the Bring A Trailer Twitter account. For the uninitiated, Bring A Trailer is a car auction site that lists collectible, custom, vintage, and luxury cars for sale from private owners.
This 1966 Beetle was listed recently, and it caught my eye because it was rebuilt to resemble a Fiat 500 Jolly. The metal roof was removed to make way for a fabric one, and the original seats were replaced with wicker. It’s an impressive reimagining; one that would definitely turn my head at a car show.
The iconic round headlights are still there, as is the distinctive curve of the hood, but with so much of the original car now modified, has it become a different type of car?
I think most people would still consider this a Beetle, even if it no longer looks like it did when it rolled off of the assembly line. Even a Beetle cut in half and used as a retail display is pretty recognizable.
Where the waters get murkier is when the body has been completely altered. Here’s a current listing on Auto Trader for a 1963 VW Beetle, except it looks nothing like the car above.
This is a “kit car,” which allows a car enthusiast to retain the engine, chassis, and other mechanical systems of an original car, but replace the body with something more custom. In this case, it’s meant to resemble a Bugatti from before WWII.
On paper, this is still a Beetle. Its guts are Volkswagen components. Still, I doubt most people would call it one at first glance.
Similarly, my 2006 Winnebago RV isn’t registered as a Winnebago. It’s built on a Ford Econoline chassis, and is registered as a 2005 Ford. When I pay excise taxes on it, I pay based on the Ford van’s value, not the entire motorhome. On paper, it’s only a Ford, but in reality, it’s a rolling house.
So what is it that forms the essence of a car? Is it the shape of the body? If that body is repainted or has major work done to it, is it still the same car? Or is the essence of a car driven by the engine or other mechanical components?
Which one is more a Beetle: a curved car with round headlights that has a souped up engine installed in it, or a chassis and engine from Germany, but a completely unrecognizable body?
Could we ever synthesize the soul?
Modern medicine already keeps people alive long past their natural expiration (I looked at aging here). Somebody with clogged arteries in the past may have died of a heart attack at a young age, but now we can anticipate that problem and perform coronary bypass surgery or install a pacemaker.
Most cars are not still on the road after 60 years, but a handful of Beetles have been lovingly maintained or restored to still run just as well (sometimes better) than when they were brand new.
If we could swap out parts on a human in the way that we repair and customize a car, would we do that? If a human had all of his or her organs replaced with transplants (or maybe even synthetic organs), they may be able to live for 150 or 200 years, but would that person’s soul still be there?
The question of what makes us who we are is a complex one and something that philosophers, scientists, and religious leaders have studied for centuries. New research continues to change our perception of the soul, making its definition murkier rather than clearer.
I’m not quite sure that I fully understand who I am or who the people around me are, but the people I know are easy to recognize beyond just their looks. You sense their essence when you’re around it. It’s how I can often know if my wife is home or not, even if I’m locked away in my attic office and she’s downstairs not making any noise. I can feel her when she arrives. What is that, and is it a function of avatars in my head, bacteria in my gut, or something else?
What are your thoughts? Do you follow a traditional religious model of the soul or do you define it a different way? If you could continually swap your parts to live a much longer life, would you do it? Leave a comment and let’s have a conversation!
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Stay Safe!
Heath