Below is the fallacy that I came up with.

Humans and animals that are alive and not asleep are all comprised of a soul and a body. The soul means consciousness, namely the ability to feel, to experience or to sense, and also can be called the real "self", similar to the concept of All-encompassing foundation consciousness in Buddhism.

When being asleep or dead, the soul leaves the body. The outside soul lost all connections with the old body, including the memory inside the old body. Then, the outside soul progresses to recombine with another asleep body (an empty body). When the soul and the new body combine, the new body wakes up. When the soul combines with the new body, it gains all of the new body, including the brain (the brain also includes thoughts and memories).

Therefore, although every time when falling asleep, the self (soul) leaves the old body and enters a new body, it will never know, and believes that this is itself (because it has lost all the memories inside the old body, and received all the memories inside the new body).

Being dead is the same as being asleep - they both mean the soul has left the body. The difference is that the dead body has lost the ability to carry any soul, so it is impossible to wake up after death.

Welcome Kaichen,

There is some sense in your ideas.

However, souls are not part of humans or animals: humans (and animals) are just bodies.

If souls could swap bodies as they sleep, then why not as they are awake? then why not even hold several bodies all at once? or even cycle and quickly scan round through all bodies, perhaps for one femtosecond each?

Our consciousness and experiencing does not stop when we sleep, not even when our body dies - the only difference is that the memory function of our brain is partially impaired in the dream state, then completely stops in the state of deep sleep. As a result, our thoughts are not connected and associated with previous thoughts, nor stored for future reference, so when we wake up we don't remember our experiences during sleep. In death of course, the brain's memories are lost forever, so our thoughts can never again be connected with the past.

For example, there are three people X, Y and Z. X has the soul "A" and the body "a"; Y has the soul "B" and the body "b"; Z has the soul "C" and the body "c". If the three people X, Y and Z are all asleep, then when X wakes up, the combination of its soul and its body can be "Aa", "Ba" or "Ca". If X and Y are asleep, and Z is dead, then Z's body "c" can no longer combine with any soul, but Z's soul "C" continues to try to combine with another body.

The reason why you can have your current thoughts and memories, and can sense and control your current body, is because "you"(your soul) sojourn in this body. Once the body falls asleep or dies (namely losing consciousness), "you"(your soul) leave the body and go to sojourn another body.

The "soul" and the "consciousness" in this article refer to the ability to feel, to experience or to sense. I have my memories and thoughts, and control and sense my body. You have your memories and thoughts, and control and sense your body. Assuming when bodies are asleep, your soul and my soul transfer, then after waking up, I no longer have my memories and thoughts, and can no longer control or sense my body, but have your memories and thoughts, and can control and sense your body; you no longer have your memories and thoughts either, and can no longer control or sense your body either, but have my memories and thoughts, and can control and sense my body.

You currently control and sense your current body (including the thoughts and the memories), and your consciousness can transfer. Your consciousness can transfer to another body, controlling and sensing another body, and completely losing connection with the body you used to have. For example, now using a needle to prick your body, you feel pain, but using a needle to prick other people's bodies, you don't feel pain. This is because your soul is inside your current body. After the transfer of souls, the body in which your soul stays has been replaced. At this time, using a needle to prick your new body, you feel pain.

Below is refutation against the fallacy above.

(I)

If a creature can control and sense itself (have the ability to feel, to experience or to sense), then we can say this creature has consciousness. A creature's consciousness is merely an ability of this creature. The reason why this creature has this ability results from the evolution of the natural selection.

Creatures evolved the simple nervous system from no nervous system, and then evolved the more complicated nervous system. Whether a creature has a nervous system decides whether this creature has the ability to feel, to experience or to sense; the complexity of a creature's nervous system decides the strength of this creature's ability to feel, to experience or to sense. In other words, a creature's consciousness is merely an ability of this creature's nervous system. Your consciousness is an ability of your nervous system. An earthworm's simple responses to external stimuli are also an ability of its nervous system. Only because your nervous system is much more complicated than an earthworm's, you have the ability to feel, to experience and to sense, but the earthworm can only make simple responses to external stimuli (but it itself doesn't have very strong feelings because its nervous system is not complicated enough).

Every single creature is unique. "You" are you this creature (more precisely, the nervous system of you this creature), not something like "your soul".

(II)

A creature's consciousness was produced by this creature's brain, and cannot exist when leaving this creature's brain.

Many kinds of general knowledge can also prove that a creature's consciousness is just an ability of this creature's nervous system.

For example,

1) When a person is asleep, if his brain has not got a complete rest, he can still have weak consciousness (such as dreams).

2) When a person's brain does not have enough supply of blood (for example suddenly standing up after crouching down), his consciousness will weaken, or even temporarily die (fainting).

3) If some important structures of a person's brain get damaged, his consciousness will weaken, or even permanently die (brain death).

4) A newly born baby barely has consciousness (research has proven that a newly born baby barely has pain sense); with the development of its brain, its consciousness gradually comes to existence.

(III)

This fallacy also has the error of inverting cause and effect. It is not the soul (or the consciousness) that controls and senses the body, but the body that controls and senses itself (this phenomenon is called the soul or the consciousness). But why a body can control and sense itself? Just a result of the evolution of the natural selection.