Just as Jens has pointed out... when I said 'Rethink this question' I meant rethink this question...
that being my understanding of what a soul is. We have made progress because now I can say souls are some times people and a inference of loneliness is meant when the word is used that way.
When the media release says 'All 97 souls were lost.' That is not lost, but dead.
These are foible's of the language we use not the meaning of or explanations of a soul. I think use of this word soul is corrupted by this usage. It is little wonder we find confusion explaining a soul when it can be construed so simply to mean different things.
The core entity might be called the soul, but is it real. Can science show and tell.
I think not.
I am a directly effected by my circumstance. I have used programming as a good way of demonstrating this clearly. Every thing I say and think is as a direct result of the ever changing world I am part of. I learned that getting so close as to burn my clothing around a fire is a little foolish. This small fact I carry with me until death. It is not saved. It does not go, some place. The library is closed. decay and destruction are now at work... Can we as a scientific community tell people that their dream is a fiction., and Untrue. Only ever created by the scholars of society to frighten the ignorant masses into tithing for their after life insurance premiums.. No, that sounds a little unfair and will not serve my argument well. Could it be true,?
When we die. Do we.?
This is my problem. I am unwilling to concede that some form of entity might survive me. No, death is the final act. The secession of life. When it goes so to does all that memory and knowledge. No more active neural pathways. Dead.