Suction, ladies and gentlemen, is how we begin our philosophizing today. Gentlemen, quit smirking.

I’m sure you all had some level of physics classes in your lifetime. Whether determining current and voltage in a circuit or simply being told a story about Isaac Newton getting conked on the noggin with an apple, you are all at least thinly aware of physics.

I assume also that you are all at least thinly aware of the idea of air pressure. You don’t have to know that much about it, just be aware of the idea that there is air can provide pressure and its reverse, suction.

Now, physicists seem to enjoy being smartasses, because they like to say things like "adding yellow to blue does not, in fact, make green", "there is no such things as centrifugal force", and "there is no such thing as a suction cup".

"There is no such thing as a suction cup," they say, "because the illusion of suction is created by positive air pressure on the outside of your so-called ‘suction cup’. Therefore, nothing is actually sucking (i.e. pulling) from the inside, it is only air pushing from the outside."

"Yes," you contend, "but didn’t Albert Einstein, a physicist no less, claim that everything, including time, is relative to your frame of reference? Therefore if I am in a pressurized frame of reference, something at a lower pressure could be said to be sucking (pulling) when I perceive (which is exactly what I do) my pressurized world to have zero air pressure?"

Or you respond, "It does not matter from which direction a force is acting, there merely needs to be some force acting on it. So, for all practical purposes, there is no reason to define which direction the force is coming from and, in fact, it would be impossible to tell from which direction it came, as the net force in that direction could be considered the same no matter if it was a push or a pull."

And there is also, "Couldn’t we just as easily define a suction cup to be something requiring a push on the outside by air pressure to hold it onto a surface, since it would then be simulating suction?"

More than likely the physicist would then pull out a sheet of paper and write the relevant equations for no other reason than writing enough equations quickly enough will either sufficiently impress or confuse to just concede the point and get him to shut up, but not before he asks you if you would like to go out again next weekend, to which you respond that you will be washing your hair.

The simple point is, definition and perception are much more important toward explaining an experience than the preconceived baggage that comes along with any concept.

From there, we move to the soul, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, yes, I know what you people in the categories of agnostic through atheist are getting angry at the very idea that I should bring up the idea of a soul and you are now denying to yourselves that they got angry at the idea of a soul. "No, honestly," you now respond, "I was not angry, I was calmly and rationally thinking to myself why the whole idea is stupid, and why anybody who thinks there is a God or a soul is fooling themselves." Either way, calm down, I am referring to the awareness about those things around us, not all theological ramifications of the soul. "No, there is no such thing as a soul," you continue and thus will argue at me that there is no such thing as a soul, because without ramming it through your head that I am using a different definition of the word "soul", you are going to miss the whole point so read the next paragraph very carefully until you understand what I am talking about.

As far as I can tell, I have the same consciousness from day to day. To my knowledge, I wake up every single day with the same consciousness I had when I went feel asleep on my bed, couch or floor. We shall, for the purposes of simple clarity, define that continuous consciousness as being the soul. I use the loaded word "soul" because it gives a rough approximation of the concept and, more importantly, it doesn’t take as long to type as "continuous consciousness". I am asking questions about a 100% physical world, here, not one with a mental state. Although I suppose the mental state could just as easily be explained in a material world as a layer of abstraction, much like an operating system in a computer, but that is simply another change in definition and will only confuse you materialists further, especially those of you who are simply skimming and busily composing arguments about the invalidity of Cartesian dualism, Christianity, religion, the pope and God in general.

Now then, we continue our rambling from there. The crux of our concern is this: attempting immortality. For instance, putting my brain inside a jar to be put into a suitable human donor at a later time, cryogenically freezing myself for later reanimation, or just copying my brain information onto a hard drive somewhere so that I can live on within a robotic exoskeleton or something like that.

On a much more manageable level, I ask about near-death-experiences, people who have gone temporarily brain dead and revived, that sort of crap.

My question is, under what circumstances would the brain build a new soul, or does the same soul continue throughout a brain’s physical existence? Does the soul exist in the structure of the neurons in the brain, or is the soul a property of the continuous firing of the neurons?

I suppose the obvious extension of that is the question as to whether I wake up with the same soul as I went to sleep with (as I mentioned earlier), whether through nightly sleep or getting gassed for surgery or simply getting knocked out or receiving a concussion. In fact, do I even the same soul from one incremental unit of time to the next? What with the fact that Decartes proved that the presence of consciousness proves the self’s existence to itself, ("I think, therefore I am.") actually its existence can only be assured of consistency for one incremental time unit. After all, I only perceive one instant in time, everything previous is memory and everything future is expectation and conjecture. However, I would neither be able to stop, slow down or even notice this happening, neither am I paying anybody to have time pass or make me tired or conk me on the head, so I am not going to lose sleep over the possibility, figuratively or literally.

Obviously, if I copy my brain onto a computer, I doubt there will be a copy of my present soul accessible to my original brain (though it certainly would be interesting if I was also aware of being inside a computer). More than likely, if that is even remotely possible, there will be a different soul in that computer than the one in my brain. Therefore, doesn’t that defeat the point of copying my brain onto a computer? The whole point is to experience everything and see everything for the rest of time and I’m not going to do that if only a copy of my soul lives on and not my original soul.

The next question is whether people who had their head or whole body frozen will be able to experience everything with the same soul as before. Does that soul revive or is it simply an identical copy of the original? For those who think this doesn’t really matter because it still looks, acts and appears to be completely the same, try counterfeiting currency and explaining your theory to the Secret Service.

The fact is it won’t matter to anybody else, that person would appear to be the same. It won’t matter to the new soul, it would believe it had continued without interruption, as it would have access to the same memory store that I currently access. However, the old soul that wanted to see everything would have disappeared and merely created another soul that will see everything. Even I am not egotistical enough to believe it is important there be a copy of me around for the rest of time. I would want to be immortal so that I (my present soul) would be around for the rest of time. However, nobody would give a rat’s ass either way because they have no way of knowing it is not me (my original soul), you would merely continue to treat the carbon copy like it was the original me, you lousy, disloyal bastards, so fuck you all.