Animula vagula blandula... Reflections on the Soul, Death, and Behavior
Edoardo Fiorino
OSF Preprints 2026 preprint DOI: 10.17605/osf.io/xthuz (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that a naturalistic "middle way" between belief and non-belief in the soul can be framed through Contextual Behavioral Science's "self-as-context," and that dying involves a progressive waning of relational frames in which self-as-context may sharpen before dissolving into pure awareness. Proposes that after death, awareness persists only in a subjective sense, as an ever-present timelessness, and concludes that lived experience rather than any third-person criterion of reality has primacy regarding death. |
Abstract
This essay explores a naturalistic "middle way" between the traditional approaches to the existence of the soul—believing versus non-believing—and focuses on the related, ultimate question: what happens when we die? It navigates between the metaphysical assumptions of Cartesian dualism and the reductionism of strict scientism, utilizing the framework of Contextual Behavioral Science and Steven C. Hayes’s conceptualization of the "spirit" as “self-as-context.” Moving from that, this essay examines—through the lens of ego dissolution in meditation, high-dose psychedelic states, and near-death experiences—the process of dying as a progressive waning of relational frames. Within this transition, self-as-context may be sharpened before dissolving into pure awareness. To resolve the Mortality Paradox, it is argued that once one is dead for the external observers, awareness persists—exclusively in a subjective sense—as an ever-present timelessness. These pages are informed, as much as possible, by scientific knowledge on altered states of consciousness, but the extreme regions explored—timelessness, dissolution, and the quiet thresholds that bracket life and death—can only be approached through analogy and speculation and do not, of course, pretend to be evidence-based. Hence, out of intellectual humility, the natural question is: “What if I am wrong?” In keeping with this, and acknowledging that the author’s opinions may possibly shift toward either an Epicurean view of cessation or a traditional faith in survival, the essay distinguishes between “mild” changes, where only mind-content shifts, and “deep” changes, in which the entire mentality—both content and context—is transformed. The author concludes that while the soul’s ontological reality remains a source of intellectual anxiety, with regards to death an "open-eyed" approach suggests that it is the individual’s lived experience that has primacy and not any third-person criterion of what is real. Keywords: Soul Beliefs, Contextual Behavioral Science, Self-as-context, Phenomenology of Dying, Pure Awareness, Mortality Paradox, Near-Death Experiences (NDE), Altered States of Consciousness, Ego Dissolution, Transformative Belief Change.