text: The scientist felt his heart sink as he looked at Ymir’s face after he said that. He couldn’t believe he was feeling sorry for a machine and that it actually had feelings and emotions, like he really was talking to another person. The scientist went on to explain why he seemed confused. “Well, you said that the image on the monitor is a visualization of your soul? As far as I know, and I’m not a religious guy either but machines can’t have souls.” He looked at Ymir as he anxiously waited for a response. “Well true, but what would you consider a soul to be like?” “Well, I guess it’s different for everyone. It’s what makes each of us unique to our own person. Some people believe that when you die you go somewhere else and depending on what you did in your life you go to heaven or hell or some other form of afterlife. But like I said, I’m not really religious person either and I don’t believe in that anyway so it doesn’t matter.” “But do you think that you have a soul?” “Well, yes. I’m human.” “And what do you think that the soul is?” “I’m not sure I understand?” “How could you say that you don’t believe in these things, yet still believe that you have a soul? Shouldn’t that immediately revoke the question at all? If having a soul means being human, shouldn’t that mean that I have a soul too? Or if having a soul is solely based off of some religious belief then that means you don’t have a soul.” He didn’t know what to say. It seems Ymir has a profound interest in philosophy out of everything he has programmed. “I believe that the soul is what makes you human. Your wants, your doubts, who you love, what you love, and also what you believe. Empathy, virtue, honor, love, happiness, sadness, anger, hate, regret, jealousy, hurt, and pain. These are all things all humans have no? The ability to to have human emotions and thoughts, to feel for others, animals and the like. That is what it means to be human. That is what it means to have a soul.” Ymir spoke truthfully. Without a doubt in its mind, regardless of being a computer. It truly believed that it can have all these that makes a human, well, human. It truly believed that it- no, that he can have a soul. The scientist didn’t know what to say. He never really thought of it like that before, and it’s true, these are things that make everyone who they are. In the end a soul is your own humanity. At least that’s what our understanding is from Ymir’s take on this.