The chimera: More refutation of the existence of a soul

Humans, though less often and less mixedly than marmosets, have "chimeric" offspring. A bit of a twin's body material, from embryonic stage, may be in your body. That's especially true since uterine research show that many human "singleton" births, probably around one-quarter, started as twin conceptions, and one embryo was partially absorbed by the other.

So, if, as many conservative Christians claim, a soul begins at conception, what happens to it at the time of a chimeric absorption? While I'm not a Gnu Atheist or a village idiot atheist, issues like this must be raised, not just of fundamentalist and conservative evangelical Christians, but of all Christians, all Jews, all Muslims, and all metaphysical dualists in general.

Period.

Update, May 2, 2021: Fascinating Smithsonian piece here. If you're familiar with what chimeras are, namely a human fetus that has absorbed another in the womb, the discovery that moms can become chimeras from their fetuses is ... fascinating.

Do animals have souls?

The headline is facetious, of course. I'm a materialist, a philosophical as well as methodological naturalist.

But, in reference to ontological dualists, there's more good reason to be facetious.

Dogs and cats, even, and certainly other primates, might experience out of body experiences and near death experiences? Very interesting, and, neuroscience argues, likely true. Now the headline was fluff; dogs and cats, at least, surely don't have anything close to what we call "spiritual experiences."

But, a chimpanzee dancing himself or herself into a trance at the base of a waterfall? That's a different thing.

That said, of course, it doesn't have a soul, either.

If ensoulment happens at conception, what about identical twins?

I’ve written elsewhere on how the human conception and development process is so fragile that (not counting abortions), only about 50 percent of conceived embryos wind up developing into human babies, and how this ought to cast doubt on the metaphysical validity of the “conception at ensoulment” idea, officially held by the Roman Catholic Church, among others, that a human soul is created at the moment of fertilization of a female egg cell by a male sperm cell.

So, what about identical twins? There’s only one conception.

Do they share a soul? Is that why some people believe twins have (quasi)-telepathic communication with each other?

Or did the “original” soul split when the embryo did? If so, can each “half-soul” develop into a full soul, or do souls need to undergo only mitotic division? But, if a “half-soul” can become a full soul, what’s the smallest bit of soul division that can become a full soul?

What about conjoined (“Siamese”) twins? Does that original soul fully divide, or is it only a partial, incomplete division, like that of the embryo?

What if one conjoined twin is good and one is bad? If the soul doesn’t fully split, can a god send half to heaven and half to hell?

Those of you who regularly read my blogs know I’m a materialist, so I personally don’t think there’s anything to worry about. But maybe Pope Benedict needs to worry about this in between antagonizing Muslims (and don’t tell me he was clueless about what he was reading and what provocation it might seem to be).

And, we haven't even talked about chimeras; go here.

Update, May 2, 2021: Fascinating Smithsonian piece here. If you're familiar with what chimeras are, namely a human fetus that has absorbed another in the womb, the discovery that moms can become chimeras from their fetuses is ... fascinating.