Due to the fact that the "Spirit has departed" still shows up for the soulless, and that a representation of the deceased shows up with the boatman, it is safe to say that the soul and the spirit are separate entities in Fallen London. We know plenty about souls, but what about spirits? They seem to be the conciseness of a person, but what are they? Is there any information on this subject anywhere?
In old removed FL, there was an option to visit someone on the surface from the boat. Take that as you will. But I’m not sure spirit was ever mentioned.
In Sunless Sea, there’s a bit of text referring to a scholar who theorised that the soul is actually just a gas contained within the body. My private theory is that souls are indeed the seeds of beings like the Judgements - who are, themselves, something like a collection of gas, after all. In either case, it would indicate that souls are not identical to human consciousness, and that human consciousness itself does have a metaphysical aspect that can exist independent of the body.
There’s a joke to be made here about internal gasses, but I’m not going to be the one to make it.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the farts, as I’m pretty sure the Epigrammatic Irishman once said.
Interesting of you to bring that up, as I just recently stumbled upon a mention of Kierkegaards “Sickness unto Death” which makes a distinction between soul, spirit and material body.
From what I can remember, he differantiated it as follows:
Every living being is composed of three components - The [Material Body], the [Astral Body], and the [Ether Body].
The [Material Body] is what you would expect, and a part of nature onto which he returns upon death.
The [Astral Body] is what you might call the “Spirit”, but is maybe easier to discern as the “body of the consciousness”. Basically, your personality and everything has its own matter, like water in a glass, and makes up who you are. Upon death, this is removed from the body and, again like water, loses its form, returning to the “the Astral plane” which, for simplicity, can be imagined as a great sea of all consciousness…-es?
The [Ether Body] is what you would call the “soul” and poses the life force in a living being. In death, it is recycled into a new life, now sustaining it.
Given Fallen London has a knack for such esoteric stuff, it is very likely that they are deliberatly working it in. It would also explain the somewhat-docile nature of non-player soulless.