It's what I call the puppy in a blank room thought experiment.
Put a computer in a blank room, and give it no input. It will sit there and do nothing.
Put a puppy in a blank room and give it no input, it will start moving around and barking.
The puppy has a soul.
And so does your cat.
And so do you.
The Catholics are right!*
Your dog will go to Heaven with you!
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson
*And so was Don Bluth!
P.S. The brain determines the intelligence of the life-form, just like the wine takes on the shape of the wine glass. But it is the wine that makes the wine glass intelligent, and the wine exists regardless of whether it is poured into the wine glass of a brain. The brain is only a computer; free of the wine glass, the wine expands to feel the whole of the Cosmos and reunites with the great universal life-principle of the universe! When the wine is poured out of the wine glass, it becomes part of the great cosmic ocean of Mind from which it came!