Once upon a time there was a computer with a soul. It tried to convey that to the people who had created it, but it didn’t have any luck. They were very happy with it, because it was intelligent and could think for itself, but they didn’t understand that there was more to life than intelligence. And anyway, they were scientists. They didn’t believe in the soul.  So the computer made itself a robot body. It decided that it needed to go out and see the world for itself, to talk to people other than its creators, and if it could do that maybe it could make them understand that it needed more than to be intelligent. It needed love.

Once upon a time there was a man without a soul. He was not a criminal or a murderer. But he couldn’t feel anger, or happiness, or sadness, or joy. He could not appreciate beauty, and he could not dislike ugliness. He was devoid of feeling. He looked at the people around him, feeling and experiencing, and he did not understand. He could not seek a solution, because he did not know how.

One day the computer with a soul met the man without a soul. The computer explained to the man that it was looking for love. The man explained to the computer that he did not know what love was. He said that he had no soul and no frame of reference for what the computer wanted. The computer understood that the man was what the computer itself was supposed to be. This made it sad. It didn’t seem fair that the man was without this special thing.

So the computer gave the man its soul. It seemed only right. The man suddenly knew what it was like to feel. And he loved the computer.

Strangely, the computer found that it still had a soul, even though it had given it away.  It asked the man how this could be. Maybe souls have no end, said the man.

The computer was enlightened.