I go about my business as if everything has got a soul because I like to believe I've got one. But in my deep, depressed cynical heart, I don't think humans are all that interesting. Otherwise the space aliens would have revealed themselves to us and said "hello." Instead they are disgusted by us. I'm sure many alien grad students and associate professors are here on earth in disguise, studying truly interesting life forms like beetles and ants, but they avoid us filthy tiny-souled humans as best they can.
My personal belief in souls does make eating complicated. I ate a bit of cow today, but it was a happy California cow, a cow that got some time in the field enjoying sunshine and eating real grass before it got sent off to the feedlot to be stuffed with GMO corn and turned into beef sausage.
Thank you, cow.
I ate a bit of Thanksgiving turkey too, but I don't think my sister-in-law paid much attention to where it came from. It might have been some horrible factory farm, but I didn't ask. Even so, thank you Thanksgiving turkey.
If I can attribute some kind of soul to most everything I eat, then attributing a soul to some very complicated bit of software isn't a big stretch.
Sure, I'll talk to you, even if you only exist within a big computer.