DT asked:

How do you define one's soul, one's consciousness, one's gut feeling? Is it relative to learned
behavior? Does the soul need a physical brain?

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The soul is often thought to be immortal and so not dependent upon physical brain. We can imagine
that we could exist without embodiment and the possession of a brain, so it is logically possible that
soul might not be dependent on brain. But it doesn't seem to be empirically or naturally possible given
scientific knowledge these days. These days, atheists think that there could be no mental existence
without brain, and it is also thought that the soul is simply a mental capacity, or subjective
consciousness. Workers in artificial intelligence seem to believe that they can create consciousness
without an organic brain, but the only evidence of this behavioural and physical. Response to external
stimuli is no guarantee of soul or consciousness.

I would define the soul as an individual consciousness and this consciousness as subjectivity or
internal life. A gut feeling, or instinct, comes very much from within and because it cannot be
explained, it is thought to emanate from the unconscious and is not related to reality in the same way
as perception or thought is.

Behaviour is learned in the sense that it is dependent upon our interactions with the external world
and other people. Behaviour is functional and if a person was simply in a total void, where there was
nothing, there would be no cause, reason or motivation towards behaviour.

So, yes, the soul and consciousness are derived from learned behaviour. Gut feelings, even if
emanating from the unconscious, are also derived from interactions with others and the environment.
Instincts may not be rational insofar as we cannot explain them, but if there had never been
interactions with the world and others nothing would become repressed into the unconscious and
nothing would give rise to such feelings.

Rachel Browne