O sole mio!

In my last paper on this important subject, lack of space prevented me from enlarging on the question of the uniqueness of the soul. I hinted that one model, the one that I favour, allows for somatic rearrangements of the soul, permitting the emergence of individuality just like that possessed by the immune system. Professor Dolcecaro of the Istituto di Immunologia in Pesto, has sent me a somewhat naive letter on this subject, proposing a very mechanical approach to this important issue. His view is that if souls could undergo rearrangement we would expect both inverted and deleted souls and, although he is prepared to leave the former to psychoanalysts, he wishes to assert prior claims to the latter, not only to the discovery itself, but also to any practical applications. I surmise that he has some special genetic therapy for deleted souls if, indeed, this unfortunate situation exists. However, he locates the soul quite literally in lymphocytes, and this is certainly wrong. As everybody knows, the soul is in the brain — at least, most of it resides there, although some pieces of it may be located in the heart, the intestine and possibly in the knee joint. One should not think of souls encoded in DNA but, rather, distributed throughout our nervous systems. The cellular localization of the soul is still hotly debated; everybody is agreed that it is definitely to be found in neurons of the central nervous system but there are some who hold that it might also partly reside in glial cells. In peripheral locations it is also in neurons, particularly those of the sympathetic nervous system. The comparison of the soul with the immune system is by way of an analogy and not to be taken too literally. Nevertheless, it is a good analogy and I am happy to say that recent research has allowed me to provide a more complete picture of the process. All souls are used only once. There are what may be called ‘germ-line’ souls and their pristine structures enter the newborn by means of a special receptor, as discussed previously. These souls have a common part and a variable part and only the variable part undergoes rearrangement in the n-dimensional space of the brain, thus generating an individual, unique soul for each of us. It is thought that the common part of the soul resides in glial cells, where it is stable. However, there may be individuals in whom glial cells acquire neuronal characteristics and subject the common part of the soul to variation. This might explain the large number of abnormal states which, in pre-scientific times, were attributed to diabolical intervention. Readers will note that the theochemistry of the soul is not compatible with some religious theories, although it will be welcomed by others. In particular, it rules out the return and subsequent transmigration of souls. Thus, the fear of ending up as a pig in Arizona can be dispelled. There has been a proposal to allow the common part to be returned and used again but this would require elaborate checking to verify that it had not been modified. Minor damage could be repaired but a special place would be needed for the consignment of irreversibly damaged souls. This idea is quite an old one but it seems to me to be unnecessarily bureaucratic and complicated, especially if there is an endless supply of germ-line souls. A small boy has written to me asking where the store of souls is kept and in what form they are retained prior to use. In particular, he wondered if they are frozen or dried and whether they expired after certain dates and had to be thrown away. The interface between theochemistry and theophysics has only recently begun to be explored, and his questions cannot be answered in the form in which they have been put. There are two theories at present: one is that souls are continuously created, thus ensuring a steady-state supply; the other, known as the ‘big binge hypothesis’, is that an infinity of souls was produced at one time and expanded to occupy the entire Universe. We could distinguish between these hypotheses by measuring the ages of germ-line souls; the latter hypothesis predicts that these would all be very old. Unfortunately, there is no rigorous way to perform these measurements but claims have been made — especially by Jurg and his followers — that all souls are very old. Indeed, the connections between modern theories of the soul and those propounded by the psychoanalysts is a very interesting line of research. One need only point to the relationship of the common and the variable part of the soul with the id and ego of Freud. I trust that these modest contributions will stimulate others to take up this new and exciting field of research. Many of my predecessors in this field found it difficult to get their research published and several were subjected to censorship of the incendiary kind, which affected both their writings and themselves. I have to thank Current Biology for its enlightened attitude and for opening its pages to these recent advances in theochemistry. R425