The Man who found the Soul.(Kevin Hughes) It is hard to believe that someone so stupid won the Nobel Prize.

At least that is what the naysayers, haters, trolls, and newspapers all said.

But Nigel was not stupid. Just determined.

Here is the Interview that Nigel granted the BBC the night after he was awarded the Nobel Prize (some editing for brevity was done).

“Congratulations, Nigel. It is a great honor to win the Nobel Prize. “

“Oh, I know that. Thank you.”

“Let’s go back to the beginning of your research. Can you tell us how it all started?”

(Nigel turned a bit red, and the hint of a frown crawled up to replace his normally lopsided smile.)

“Well…as you know, I didn’t have much support at the beginning.”

(There was a quiet chuckle from Nigel, and an actual laugh from the Presenter.)

“Nigel, that may be one of the biggest understatements I have ever heard.”

(That comment brought Nigel’s lopsided smile back to his face, and lifted his mood too.)

“Yes. Right. I suppose I really shouldn’t blame them for all the protests, ridicule, and derision. I mean, after all, the basic premise is right there in front of you- and yet nobody stopped to think about it.”

“Until you.”

(Nigel blushed)

“I am not sure I am the only one who thought about it, but I am the only one who made it their life’s career to find out why Life exists, especially intelligent life."

“Other folks have tried to explain life through Religion, or Spirituality, or Philosophy… you were the first to hammer home the obvious. Why do you think that those other disciplines couldn’t find what you found?”

“Well, I do hope this doesn’t get me in more trouble (and they both laughed again). But all of those other inquires made three major false assumptions.”

“Which were?”

“Well first of all, they failed to recognize that Life is an emergent property, independent of the chemical or physical components. Second they assumed that there was a “life force” …

(The Presenter interrupts Nigel)

“You mean a Soul?”

“Yes. I believe that is what most folks call it. But the common belief was that the “soul”, or Life force, entered your body somehow. Funnily enough, they didn’t seem to feel the same way about animals, or plants, or anything else that was living, but not intelligent. As if souls only went into thinking beings.”

The Presenter leaned back a bit, and chewed her lip.

“So you are saying hubris played a major part in our world view, and the fact that you couldn’t get funding for your work.”

“Yes. Oh my, yes. I mean if you can be blind to the fact that all living things are alive, then assigning a special place to humans doesn’t take much effort at all. Especially if you don’t bother to think about it.”

“I can see why you made so many enemies.“

(The Presenter leaned over and gave Nigel a light touch on his arm to lessen the sting of her words. In his shy absent minded way, he patted the back of her hand in a “That’s okay, I have heard it all before" way.)

“Oh that came from the shock of reason. You see all of life uses just electrons, and protons, and photons to build their structures, fuel their energy needs, and reproduce. We all know that, we all knew that. Yet we all managed to misunderstand that unless those basic particles had “life” within them, it couldn’t emerge. The general consensus was, and for most people still is, that life comes from outside the system. For inanimate things cannot make animation. Otherwise we would all be Frankensteins. That’s a joke, by the way.”

This time the Presenter smiled a lopsided smile of her own.

“I know Nigel. I got it. I do want to come back to this point, but what is the third false assumption before we come back to this one.”

“The third false assumption was actually just another misunderstanding. A misunderstanding, or interpretation of the Law of Conservation.”

“I am not a Scientist, but a journalist. As I understand it the Law of Conservation is fairly simple: matter and energy have to always balance out. There is no remainder.”

(Nigel almost jumped out of his chair.)

“Brilliant! Exactly. Perfect. There is no remainder! Lovely. Right. Very clever. Very clever indeed!”

(This time it was the Presenter that blushed.)

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you, but that is exactly the correct interpretation. If you convert mass into energy, or freeze energy into matter, for all matter really is …is stable energy... there is always the same amount that you started with. There is no remainder. Nothing is added or subtracted, the total energy or mass of the system always balances out.“

“Why is that important? And what does it make obvious?”

“Well, the soul can’t be added, because it had to be there to begin with, or the balance would be off. You would violate the Law of Conservation, The equation would no longer have the same total of energy and mass, with either quantity being balanced out by the other. So life is contained in everything in our Universe.“

“Everything?”

(Her eyebrow over her left eye shot up in that high arch that she was famous for. That little bit of body language that dared you to go on with what you were saying, but let you know both her skepticism and her intense listening.)

“Everything. You see, quarks are alive. They have to be. Because your body is moving, thinking, feeling, right now… it is alive, because of a simple use of energy. A single proton is shuffled along to find the right place in the mitochondria to provide the energy for all of the life processes going on in your body. And before my Nobel Award, nobody believed that. Somehow they believed that protons, electrons, and photons were just particles. Not particles of life.“

(The Presenter heard the Irony in Nigel’s voice, but she didn’t become famous by backing down to a superior intellect, backing off of sensitive issues, or begging the question.)

“Really, particles of life?”

(Nigel sighed. He hoped he was reaching her, and her question was just for the General Audience, and not her personally.)

“Yes. Think about it for a second. Nothing living has a living component in it. Energy and Matter are simply two forms of the same thing, and can be converted from one into the other. Einstein was right. E=MC2. Nobody wondered why acceleration, the speed of light, was included in that equation.“

“Nigel … (she put her hand lightly on his arm again, in a friendly reminding way) you are losing me, and our viewers now. Can you get back to your points?”

(Nigel blushed. A furious red flaming blush. He hated getting so passionate he forgot most folks can’t follow his logic. He patted her hand in a “thank you, I will, that was so kind of you"…kind of way)

“Okay, so if you remove those false assumptions you are left with this: Everything in the Universe was already here. It can be converted but must always be conserved. That means that all life that can live, is living now. It is only converted into other living things. Individuals die…Life goes on living. Life is emergent from non living things like particles, compounds and molecules- none of which have signs of Life, but all of them are living.

There can be no more Life, but there can be an infinite number of combinations - as long as Life is conserved in both matter and energy. And that leads to the obvious conclusion- there is only one Soul. Everything adds up with no remainder.”

(Nigel leaned back in his chair. Smiling that satisfied smile that made people mistakenly believe he was smug. He wasn’t. He was happy that there was no remainder.)

“We…we…you mean…well, we are all part of the same Soul?”

“Yes. There can’t be any more…or any less, it always has to add up with no remainder as you so cleverly put it a moment ago. You cannot subtract any Life, nor can you add any. Life is here. And that is all of it there is.“

“Oh. My. God.”

(This time Nigel’s smile wasn’t lopsided at all, but filled his entire face.)

“You might say that. Yes.”

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