I understand what you mean when writing of your late wife. I sat with a very dear friend for hours before she died, and there was a point at which I felt that the essence of her had gone, even though her body was still just about functioning. That might well have been the point at which her central nervous system ceased to work on a conscious level, and was only generating auto-responses (I don't know the medical term) to make her breathe and process the fluid being drip-fed.

@Red_Cat Exactly. There was a point far into where she was beyond help and her brain was becoming far too damaged to function - she had a brain tumour. At that point she no longer responded to music and was in essence gone. Just the final parts of her brain stem providing the last autonomic functions keeping the heart beating and lungs drawing air. She wanted me at that point to end it for her. She was a veterinary surgeon, and understood such matters deeply. But even if I could, I wanted to hold onto her until the last, and besides, 'doing time' wouldn't have been good for me or our daughter, friends and family. June died in the early hours of a Sunday morning, but the point where 'she' disappeared happened on the Thursday afternoon, suddenly no longer musical, her internal dialogue gone.

@Sofabeast Two of my close friends went to Dignitas to die, within about two years of each other. But it's a costly business, and I look forward to the day when people in the UK, and anywhere else, can choose to die with dignity in their own home, without loved ones risking a prison sentence.

Everything we are writing in this thread is reinforcing my belief that the concept of a "soul" as a somehow separate entity to the rest of one's body is an outdated notion. It is useful to religious folk as an imagined means of becoming immortal, but is about as real as their gods. It seems to me that there is nothing as desirable as to keep one's capacity for wonder, empathy, companionship. There's plenty more, like the love of family and friends, but I don't see the value in hoping for heaven when we already inhabit it. The job that confronts us all is to prevent this heavenly place from becoming some kind of hell.

My point is that we now increasingly understand the brain's functions, so there is now less "unknown side of human knowledge". I am increasingly drawn to the idea that "Soul" is a neurological function.

I seem to vaguely remember watching one of Attenborough's documentaries in which he was claiming a particular species were exhibiting a sort of "group" consciousness. That would indicate empathy.

Will do...

I'll buy that, LenHazell53, and add that whatever relates to emotion, and the expression of it, derives from the electrical impulses going round a/some neural network(s).

Would that include gut feelings and appreciation?

@Red_Cat Gut feelings are just thoughts so is appreciation then it is all part of the sole.Music or art composed under the influence of drugs or insanity could not be classed as sole or we would all take the right drug to induce a response.

@Xanadutoo ...or deliberately go crackers?