That's just it: jumping from discussions of the biological repository of consciousness straight to souls might be missing a whole big area.
These thought experiments got me thinking about how a conscious entity might better be considered as its "world line", not just its instantaneous physical embodiment. Call that a soul if you want, but there's no particular reason to.
I’d considered the situations in the article, but I do wonder - if you replace 10% of someone with identical particles then they are the same. 20%, 30%, etc then yes the same. But. 80%? Sure. Replace limbs and body and I can see that. But what about splitting the brain (as in article) where you don’t even need 50% for continuity.
But we effectively always get back the the ship of Theseus, and circling back to Trek,
Does Data have a soul? I don't know that he has. I don't know that I have. But I have got to give him the freedom to explore that question himself.
TFA talks a bit about that. The short of it is kinda as I was discussing above - if you consider the entity temporally as well as spatially, the Trigger's Broom/Ship of Theseus problem becomes moot.
These thought experiments got me thinking about how a conscious entity might better be considered as its "world line", not just its instantaneous physical embodiment. Call that a soul if you want, but there's no particular reason to.