Thread: What is a soul?

I was looking at one of the past chapters and something Envy said got me thinking.

What is a soul really? Some believe that the soul is ultimately one's connection to god, some believe that the soul doesn't even exist at all, and there are probably hundred of thousands views on this. But could the ultimate answer be that the soul is really nothing more that a consumable energy source. If you compare the soul to a battery they are very much alike in many ways. What does everyone thing about this? Like would like to hear some views from a Fullmetal Alchemist prospective (ex: like how a soul can be forced from one body to another but with negative affect) and your own real life person views.

FMA seems to accentuate the notion that the soul is the essence that ties the mind and the body together. This is different from other beliefs which regard the soul as a spiritual mirror of one's own body. The one thing that isn't clear to me is what Ed saw when he went back to the real world from gluttony's stomach (Al's body? or his soul?) The body is what was missing, but the location makes it feel more like a spirit area. Also, Al turned and recognized Ed which leads us to believe that the mind is not absent from Al's body/soul /whatever - meaning that Al's mind is both in that place and the real world...

Darn this is more confusing now than it was before... I quit...

In my opinion, the soul is what makes a person self-conscious (like... they know that they exist). i mean, a person can be made of all the chemical materials, but that doesn't explain why they know that they exist - for a manga example, the Elric brothers created a body, but wasn't able to bring back the person.

Isn't the mind enough to make a person self-conscious?

i believe the mind can think... but it doesn't know it can think, if that makes sense. a robot can be taught to think - it can crunch in experiences and move/act in new ways.

but it'll never be able to know that it exists - or else, it would start applying what it learnt for its own benefit.

Originally Posted by Krytha

FMA seems to accentuate the notion that the soul is the essence that ties the mind and the body together. This is different from other beliefs which regard the soul as a spiritual mirror of one's own body. The one thing that isn't clear to me is what Ed saw when he went back to the real world from gluttony's stomach (Al's body? or his soul?) The body is what was missing, but the location makes it feel more like a spirit area. Also, Al turned and recognized Ed which leads us to believe that the mind is not absent from Al's body/soul /whatever - meaning that Al's mind is both in that place and the real world...

Darn this is more confusing now than it was before... I quit...

Remember when they were talking about the fact that Al has memories, so his body must be alive somewhere with his brain in it? Yeah, that's why he recognized Ed, I'm figuring.

Al's metal body has his soul in it, which in turn keeps him connected to his body and memories on the other side of the gate.

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As for personal opinions on the soul, I think that what people say is the 'soul' is just an amalgamation of energy in our bodies which keeps us connected to nature itself. Every 'person' flows on a rift of energy that's constantly changing shape, moving in and out of objects, worlds, universes...

This is great Feedback I'm loving this. Do I get a A for my topic Cold-nite?

I believe that like a machine with a battery a person without a soul can't run properly. I think that the soul gives power to brain, which in turn gives commands to all other bodily functions. So even if a machine has a computer chip with the most advanced learning ability it’s useless without a energy source, to regulate the function of all other components in a machine. However unlike a battery you can’t replace a human soul. A good example is forcing a soul into a body that not it’s own like Barry the Chopper, who is the best case. When his soul was forced out of his body and into the armor, the soul that was forced into his physical body rejected it and slowly caused the body to rot away. Almost like if you would attach a car battery to a graphing calculator it will most likely blowup because it isn’t compatible.

Originally Posted by Tayuya

Remember when they were talking about the fact that Al has memories, so his body must be alive somewhere with his brain in it? Yeah, that's why he recognized Ed, I'm figuring.

Al's metal body has his soul in it, which in turn keeps him connected to his body and memories on the other side of the gate.
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Yeah, but the brain is just a part of the body. It constructs the mind chemically, but the mind is separate from the body and therefore from the brain. Al's body doesn't contain his soul, so much as the soul is bound to the blood symbol within the armor.

Dunno, then. That's just the way I perceived it. ^^


Not sure how the mind and brain could be seperate, can you elaborate on that? Thought it was body, mind, and soul. 'Mind' kinda denotes 'brain', ne?



And you reminded me of a question I had--

Why did Marta's blood splashing on his blood seal cause him to get all his memories back from his time behind the gate? Anyone have a conclusion for that?

Simple answer. The brain is just an organ, the mind is an intangible construct of abstractions. One causes the other, and they are intrinsically linked, but they are not one and the same.

As for Al regaining his memories, remember how they were discussing methods of memory retrieval? One of them was for Al to experience a deep shock. Basically, Al was tasked (by himself) to protect Marta and get her out of there. The shock of having a person he wanted to protect die INSIDE him was enough to bring back the memories he had forgotten. If you were a mother and someone stabbed your baby while it was still in your stomach, it would be a pretty big deal. What happened to Al was something like that, although not quite.

*edit* oh whoops, no Marta's blood on the seal had nothing to do with his memory recovery. See above - it was just an illustration to show that OH SHI- SHE'S DEAD!!