Alright, you guys wanna go in a reaaaaaaally wierd direction here? Well, read on
Well, what comprises the body? Well, skin. That's obvious to us. Then, there's bone underneath. That hardness under the skin HAS to be something. Eyes, and the ears.... not quite bone, not quite as smushy as the tongue. We'll call it cartilage.
Then, our ancestors decided to dissect to see what else could be observed. What lied beneath the skin? More layers of skin. And organs! Organs that make our bodies function. It seemed to be an organ system. And so, we're organisms.
But, the curiosity, as to what made us up, did not end there. We get sick. Why do we get sick? Why do organs fail? Why do sicknesses seem to spread? Then, thanks to the invention of the microscope, we learn that it's germs! Something completely hidden from us for thousands of years. Who thought something so small that you couldn't see would cause something like the Black Plague. But, there's also good germs. A whole world hidden from us, yet so important and necessary to understand.
But, the curiosity did not end there. Oh no. Not for Humans. The scientific inquery only hightened in intensity. There were genes to be discovered, as well as the intricate combination of polypetides and ribosomes that work together to form DNA. But, what composes all of this? Something smaller. Something so small, you can never see it with the Human eye. Something smaller than the shortest wavelength of visible light. The atom.
And thus science entered the realm of the mysterious and outright wierd. Where science could prove through evidence one thing or another, now it has taken a turn of the utmost faith. You have the atom. Then, you have Einstein, who describes the power of the supposed atom with Energy=Mass*The Speed of Light ^2 (which has just recently been proven to be consistently true for all matter and energy). More bazaar is his Theory of Special Relativity, which goes beyond Newton by daring to say WHAT gravity is. According to Einstein (and most astrophysicists today) the universe is a fabric of interwoven energy comprised of the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time. When matter or energy is present in our space-time it warps thus creating gravity. In other words, think of our universe as a trampoline, and a planet, or any body of mass or energy, as a bowling ball. When you put the bowling ball in the trampoline, it warps, pulling everything within it toward the center.
Pretty wierd stuff, eh? Well, scientists aren't done yet. Next comes Quantum Mechanics. Where Relativity describes the gravitational effects of macroscopic objects such as planets, suns, or even people, QM describes the actions of the atomic world, such as electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. Where gravity seems to be rather orderly, that God "doesn't play dice with the universe", the QM world is very chaotic. Want to find an atom? Well, you can't pinpoint it exactly at any moment. You only have a proability of where it may be at any given time. Want to find an electron? Same deal. In the atomic world, you never know for sure what is ever going to happen. What's worse, when you apply the theories and concepts of the atomic world to the real world, you get non-sensical answers, as if the atomic world isn't even part of our reality. It is as if Relativity and QM describe two different realities. Though they do not work together at all, they describe the same reality, just in different terms.
Also, through the study of QM, our scientists have come to conclude that certain odd things must be true because the math and evidence from QM experiments leads us to believe they must be true! These odd new theories include the ideas of other realities existing alongside our own, other alternate timelines, and that our "fabric of reality" exists inside a larger universe, or bulk as it is technically refered to, where there' smore dimensions of time and space. Think of it- you find some way to leave our universe and enter the bulk. There you can travel in other directions that you normally can move in, and there is no causality- no flow of time as we know it. Can't imagine such a thing? Well, dont worry. No one can. It's like imagining a new color that does not exist. It can't be comprehended by the Human mind.
So, what am I getting at here? What does all this talk of science leads to? There isn't very much that we do understand about the true nature of reality. Questions begat answers, which create more questions. No matter how much we learn, there's more to learn. It almost seems as though the universe is infinite. Even it's smallest constituents seem to be infinitely complex, assuming there is a smallest constituent.
What is the soul, you ask? What is a new dimension of space and time? What is a fabric of space-time? What is a reality outside our own? How do you make sense of such?
A complex universe is one that I envision a being as great as God creating. You can't crack open a head and poof! there's the soul. You can't ask "why" and get a definite, absolute answer that does not lead to more questions. Not even the greatest of minds put together can answer definitively the simplest questions of life without there being another "why".
What is a soul? Show me another dimension of space or time first. Then, together, we may be able to begin to answer that very question.
