Life
Death is primarily defined as the termination of life, as its opposite, and so it is essential to begin our inquiry by establishing a strong understanding of life itself. Specifically, that which gives life to ponies must be known so that the cause of its end can be recognized. Life itself shall remain undefined in a formal sense, as our intuitive grasp of its meaning is sufficient for the purpose of this study.
Historically, few Pre-Equestrian ponies had put forth any thoughts on the essence of pony life. Speculation began roughly a millennium ago with Anaximares' postulation that all life in ponies begins and persists as a form of magic in the body, regardless of the race. This came amid rising conflicts between the three pony factions, though, so the scientific rigor of Anaximares' assertion became questionable in light of potential political persuasion as well. Indeed, Anaximares never provided any argument for her theory, and it seemed likely she only believed that such a statement of unity between the pony races would help to maintain peace.
Apart from Anaximares' initial theory, little else had been said over the course of much of Pre-Equestrian history. Notably, Ponthagoras suggested that the magic Anaximares associated with life manifested itself within the body, and fed off the body's own sustenance while controlling its motions. Significantly, he also thought that the pony consciousness belonged to this magic, and not the body. Thus, Ponthagoras made the first attempt to provide an explanation for the pony phenomenon of mind. However, like Anaximares he was unable to make any arguments in support of these theories, so despite their immediate popularity all pony understanding of life remained unsupported for some time.
Fortunately, in the last years of the Pre-Equestrian era one of the greatest pony scholars took the first steps toward a complete scientific definition of life. Star Swirl the Bearded, creator of over two hundred incredible spells, discovered a method of detecting the presence of magic empirically. This could be done either through his magic-detection spell or through the enchantment of some object with the same spell. When used directly this spell was directed at some entity, and if the entity contained magic the caster would perceive this. In the case of an enchanted object, the object would emit a warm glow whenever it came into contact with an entity containing magic. Various forms of this spell are in common use today in guarding royalty and other prominent pony figures.
With the knowledge of this spell and in consideration of the ancient theories of life, the scholar conducted experiments to determine whether Anaximares could be correct. He found that indeed, all pony races, when subject to the magic-detection spell, were observed to contain some form of magic. Furthermore, when he examined deceased ponies he found that there did not appear to be any magic within them. In one particular experiment, Star Swirl cast the detection spell on a dying earth pony, and discovered that the magic of the body departed or otherwise disappeared at the instant of death. From this, he arrived at the first empirical conclusion on the nature of life, that “those ancient theories are true, that with pony life there is to be associated a magical essence within the body, and that upon death this essence vacates the body.”
Furthermore, Star Swirl determined that this magical essence was likely sustained by the body, as in his experiments he noted that ponies who had not eaten for some time seemed to possess a weaker magic essence upon examination by the magic-detection spell. When fed again, their essence would strengthen to its normal amount. Although Star Swirl initially hypothesized that the magical essence would vacate the body when it simply dissipates from insufficient maintenance, he observed that at the time of death, the magical essence could still be strong. From this, he inferred that “the magical essence leaves the body not when it weakens to nothingness, but rather when it determines that there is no longer any hope that the body can sustain it.”
Unfortunately, Star Swirl was unable to ascertain any further details about the magical essence, leaving unanswered the question of whether this magic was in fact what brought about life, or whether it was merely associated with the presence of life and happened to leave when life itself ended. Limited by the spells he knew, he had no way of determining the relation between the magical essence and the body, nor could he observe where the pony mind originated from. Star Swirl regretted this near the end of his life, lamenting: “there remains but one study to which I am doomed to have dedicated insufficient time: that science of the principles of life.” It is here that all known past inquiries into the nature of pony life ended, and here we began our research twelve years ago.
Initially none of us were aware of Star Swirl's writings on the subject, primarily because there had never been much interest in the study of something so apparently simple as life. Most ponies thought of life as an axiom with little to be investigated and so Star Swirl's observations, though preserved, were not well-known. With the beginning of our project, though, we immediately searched for all prior scientific knowledge on life and found that this consisted solely in Star Swirl's very limited notes.
With this starting point, it was difficult to determine the appropriate path for further investigation. We had established as a goal to first explain the nature of life so that as aforementioned, we could approach the subject of death with at least an understanding of its opposite. However, for some time we remained at a loss as to how to proceed.
Three years into our project, one of our researchers was falling into ill health and was not expected to live for much longer. Simultaneously a young research mare named Zarahoovstra had completed a thesis on a highly abstract spell of her own design. This spell served the general purpose of “magic-transport,” and could transfer any magical essence from one entity to another. The complication in using the spell was that magic rarely desired to move without willing itself to do so and the spell itself was incredibly difficult to cast. Thus it could only be demonstrated in the transfer of simple enchantments from one object to another.
Familiar with Star Swirl's research, though, Zarahoovstra proposed that her spell should be applicable to the magical essence associated with life. It would be dangerous and in fact impossible in difficulty to attempt to remove the magical essence of a pony while they are alive, for it seemed likely (though unproven) that life itself depended upon the presence of this essence. However, the ill researcher suggested that at the time of her own death, as the magical essence was willing itself to leave the body regardless, Zarahoovstra could attempt to quickly transfer this essence to some object. If this experiment proved successful, the behavior of the transferred magic could be observed and we would determine whether it was indeed the source of life and mind or merely a corollary consequence.
For the purpose of storing the researcher's essence we chose a simple crystal sphere, the kind which was often used to hold enchantments such as musical spells. When the moment of her death arrived and we had gathered round, Zarahoovstra cast her spell on the researcher's body. An unexpected effect of the spell was a blinding flash, likely due to the immense effort required to cast it. After this flash, the researcher had stopped breathing, but there was no immediate discernible difference in the crystal ball. However, after a few moments, it lit up and spoke.
“Oh, my,” it articulated with some apparent confusion. Its voice, or rather, her voice was decidedly feminine, although it was undeniably different from that of the deceased mare. This was only to be expected, though, as the voice was a phenomenon determined by the physical properties of whatever was speaking, not by its mind.
In our proceeding conversation with the ball, we observed that her state of mind, from her memories to her mannerisms, was a direct continuation of the mare's state prior to her own death. At that point we concluded (much to the crystal ball's relief) that she was indeed the same mare, and that it would be appropriate to call her by her past name. Her body had died, but her thought remained intact.
With those two first words, and the extended interview that followed, we had demonstrated that the magical essence of life is indeed that which controls the body it inhabits and that it is this essence which harbors the pony mind and personality. The success of the experiment also allowed us to apply to the magical essence a term that has been in common use since antiquity. The discovery that this essence was the cause of life and consciousness allowed us to confidently call it the soul, and to assert definitively that it exists.
Here, a summary is in order. We had known the long established fact that life in all ponies is associated with some magical essence within them, and that this essence is gone from the body when the pony's life ends. With our research came the discovery that more than simply an indication of life, this essence was the very cause of life, and contained within it all the personality, memory, and thought of a pony. Such a complete essence becomes the very being of a pony, so that the body is nothing but a physical container for the commanding essence. If we were to somehow transfer this essence to an entirely different pony body, the person of the pony would be exactly the same as it was prior to the movement. Given this powerful definition of the magical essence, it was appropriate to use the colloquialism “soul” as its title, since the intuitive definition of the soul was virtually isomorphic with that of the magical essence.
Thus we had successfully defined the nature of life. With this foundation, we could now proceed to our primary objective, the investigation of death.