Body-Mind-?
We all are Body-Mind-(Unknown Spirit/Soul/atma)?.
- We know very little about Body.
- Trying to know something about Mind.
- There seems to be something beyond Body-Mind. Popularly called as Spirit/Soul/atma.
We practically know nothing about Spirit/Soul/atma.
The idea of soul is central to most religions of the world like Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, many indigenous religions among others. Different cultures have different understanding on Spirit/Soul/atma.
The Sanskrit word atman (can be translated as soul or the spirit) refers to the self-existent essence of all beings (the true Self). Though the body is temporary and eventually dies, the soul is eternal. After death, the soul is reincarnated, taking birth in another physical body or form. African Traditional Religion holds that the soul of the dead person enters into the ancestral world from where he stages a come back to the physical world.
Some ancient Greeks used the same word for both breath and soul. Aristotle thought different kinds of living beings have different kinds of souls. Pythagoras had described the soul as consisting of three parts–intelligence, reason and passion.
Many philosophers believed that the body is mortal and the soul is immortal. Some philosophers have considered that the soul is identical to the mind, and, whenever a person dies, their mental contents survive. Some believe, the soul is the life-force, the principle of life in all living beings. Hence, whatever has life has a soul.
Whatever the soul is, its existence can’t be proved or disproved by natural science
Physical Atma
The idea that Atma is the size of a thumb is a metaphor found in Indian scriptures, though it may not be a literal physical size. (or Purusha). Some describe the Atma as even more infinitesimal, like the hundredth part of a hair's tip, emphasizing its pure, non-physical nature. A thumb sized atma can not weigh more than 20gm. The idea that the soul has a measurable weight, often cited as 21 grams, originates from a disproven 1907 experiment.
An average person consumes around 900 kg of food or 15 times his/her weight per year. If atma is physical and very small, needs very small amount of food or energy.
The soul is a concept rooted in spiritual, religious, and philosophical beliefs, not in empirical science. It may be a non-physical entity, that can not be measured by scientific instruments.
Can soul be a Virus like organism?
Can soul be a Virus like organism? Let us call it atmaVirus.
Life forms are systems
Life forms are systems, basically body components, information Processor Mind and life atma.
Each human system like heart can work independently and as part of human body. All componenets like heart, stomach make up human body. Death is a process and occurs when there is failure of total systems, though some components may be in working condition. (These are proven in human transplants and reviving the failed body before the whole system goes to beyond return state)
Number of cells in the human body is around 30-40 trillion.
Microbes - 300-400 trillion. Microbes are single cell. We like plants/animals are complex forms with many cells.
A virus is a specific type of microbe that is acellular (not made of cells) and requires a host to reproduce. Viruses consist of genetic material (DNA or RNA) inside a protein coat called a capsid. They are not considered living because they can't reproduce independently, but instead, infect host cells to hijack their machinery to make more copies of themselves.
Normal virus have few thousand base pairs (coronavirus genome comprises around 26-32 thousand base pairs). Mimivirus has million base pairs. The coronavirus genome comprises around 26-32 thousand base pairs. Quite large for a virus, but small compared to the 3 billion base pairs that comprise the human genome. around 20,000 genes comprise only about 1-2% of the 3 billion base pairs of DNA.
Proposed model:
1) Each human has few hundreds of atmaVirus. (all life forms has atmaVirus). atmaVirus ensures that body as the system can function. Stops working when dead, as it needs host living cell.
2) atmaVirus like many viruses are friendly with the host. It does not multiple in large numbers. If few in number, immunity cannot identify.
3) atmaVirus can be inherited from mother. When gets in to baby's body, foetus gets soul/atma.
4) atmaVirus may be able to store information, like experiences
5) atmaVirus will be able to spread from one life form to other life form
6) Difficult to isolate atmaVirus and identify, because it does not multiply fast
