You’re an Individual….just like Everyone Else.

I’ve often wondered about the nature of souls.
Can there be a consciousness separate from that which DNA and experience create?

So much of us seems shaped by forces beyond our control.
Is a soul that kernel of being which is eternal when you strip away everything nature and nurture have given you?

Examples:

Nature: Studies of twins show that even when adopted into separate families from birth, identical twins often prefer the same foods, choose the same careers, even marry similar spouses.

Nurture: Everyone knows the old trick of finding out what one’s husband or wife will be like in old age: look at their father/mother. We unconsciously absorb and emulate our environment.

Both: Other studies illustrate how physically attractive babies are smiled at more frequently, causing the baby to smile more often, causing it to be played with/smiled/praised more often - an effect which spirals, often into much later stages of development.

What evidence is there for an element independent of such forces being present?

You may say that I’m asking two different questions.
1) Is there a divine hand in our creation, and 2) Do we have a hand in our creation or are we merely the inevitable conclusions of the lines of probability created by our genes and our upbringing? Very well. Since faith is dependent on lack of proof and I am seeking “proof,” I would like to table that line of thought for the time being. In other words,

Save religious faith, how can the earnest zetetic make a case for individuality?

You may say that I am asking for the impossible: a secular answer to a religious question.

The story of the manticore offers one. (A Spell for Chameleon, Pierce Anthony)

There was once a hero who in his quest for truth happened upon a manticore. The beast had spent a year in the service of a wise wizard in exchange for the answer to one question. Plagued by the idea that his beastly form might mean that he could not enter the afterlife as humans did, the manticore’s question was simply, “Do I have a soul?” To this the wizard answered that only those with souls could concern themselves with such a question.

The idea of this story seems to be that sentience is self-evident; souls likewise.
But does mere sentience a soul make? The quintessential existentialist “I think, therefore I am” seems a bit useless, (sorry Descartes). I know I exist. I am looking for something more. What I’m wondering is, beneath genetic and social programming, is there a ghost in this shell?