Are Some Humans “NPCs”? A Biblical, Psychological, Historical & Methodological Examination of the “Spiritless Human” Theory
UPDATED BY VCG ON 9/2/2026 @ 01:11 EST
Soli Deo gloria.
I went through this as an argument, not merely as a collage of interesting screenshots.
The central conclusion is fairly clear:
The infographic contains several genuine phenomena—MBTI preference differences, aphantasia, variation in inner speech, terminal/paradoxical lucidity, and an authentic historical Gnostic threefold anthropology.
But none of those phenomena establishes that some biologically human people are “NPCs,” lack souls, or are literally Matrix-generated automata.
The jumps connecting those facts to that conclusion are unsupported, often methodologically invalid, and in several places directly contrary to the biblical text.
One limitation matters at the outset: the uploaded copy is only 832 × 2048, so some of the microscopic source text and red handwriting cannot be read word-for-word with confidence.
I can identify and audit the major panels, sources, captions, highlighted propositions, and the principal red annotations. I will not invent wording that the pixels do not preserve. A genuinely literal sentence-by-sentence audit of every microscopic underline would require the original-resolution image/PDF.
1. The argument the infographic is constructing
Read from top to bottom, its reasoning appears to be approximately this:
Infographic step |
What is actually established |
What the infographic appears to infer |
Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
MBTI: most people are Sensing, minority Intuitive |
Different self-reported information preferences |
Sensors may be “NPC-like” while Intuitives are more inward/spiritual |
Unsupported |
Aphantasia exists |
Some people have little/no voluntary visual imagery |
They may lack an inner/spiritual component |
False inference |
Some people report little inner speech |
Inner experience varies dramatically |
No monologue = no real internal consciousness |
False inference |
Terminal lucidity occurs |
Unexpected lucidity can occur in severe dementia/end of life |
Mind must therefore be independent of brain |
Interesting but not demonstrated |
Malanga hypnosis claims ~20–25% are “souled” |
A paranormal researcher obtained such reports under hypnosis |
This is a measured human prevalence |
Not scientific evidence |
Gnostic hylic / psychic / pneumatic classes existed |
Yes, especially in Valentinian traditions |
Ancient Gnosticism confirms modern “NPCs” |
Historical category error |
“Spiritless Humans” says some people are empty |
An esoteric webpage asserts this |
Independent corroboration |
Circular sourcing |
Mandela-effect discrepancies |
Shared false memories are empirically real |
“Spirited” people remember old Matrix scripts; NPCs get updated |
No evidence for the Matrix premise |
Similar-looking percentages occur |
Several unrelated studies happen to contain numbers around 20–30% |
They are measuring the same hidden population |
Numerology / denominator error |
That last point is especially important. The infographic creates psychological force by putting 26.7%, ~25%, ~20–25%, “one quarter,” etc. beside one another. But those numbers come from completely different constructs, populations, denominators, sampling methods, and definitions. Similar numbers are not evidence of a common latent cause.
2. MBTI: Sensing vs. Intuition ≠ NPC vs. conscious person
The graphic's basic MBTI material is substantially real. In the U.S. national representative sample cited in MBTI technical materials, 73.3% preferred Sensing and 26.7% preferred Intuition. (The Myers-Briggs Company)
But what do those categories actually mean? The Myers & Briggs Foundation defines Sensing and Intuition as preferred ways of taking in information. Sensing emphasizes concrete facts, specific details, present reality, and experience. Intuition emphasizes patterns, possibilities, connections, and the big picture. Crucially, the official explanation says everyone uses both processes; preference concerns which one tends to feel more natural or trusted.
MBTI Preferences: How Do You Prefer to Be?
So this move:
Sensing → literal/concrete → unable to imagine → NPC
does not follow.
Even within Myers-Briggs theory itself, an S-preferring person still uses intuition. The framework explicitly describes nonpreferred processes as available, not absent.
MBTI Type Dynamics—How Your 4 Letters Interact
There is another problem. The classical MBTI claim that humanity divides into genuinely discontinuous psychological “types” has long been challenged psychometrically. McCrae and Costa found that the MBTI scales behaved more like continuous personality dimensions, not distinct natural kinds separated by categorical boundaries. Their paper did find meaningful correlations with broader personality traits, so the responsible conclusion is not
“MBTI says nothing,”
but rather: MBTI preference scores do not establish ontologically different sorts of human beings.
Methodological error
This is a category error.
A questionnaire measuring information preference cannot silently be converted into a test for metaphysical personhood.
To validate “Sensing = soulless/NPC,” one would first need:
an independently operationalized measure of “having a soul”;
blinded assessment;
demonstrated association with S/N after controlling for confounders;
replication;
predictive power substantially above chance.
None exists in the infographic.
Scripture correction
Scripture never classifies humanity as “concrete thinkers without souls” versus “intuitive thinkers with souls.”
Genesis says:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” — Genesis 1:27 KJV
And James warns precisely against speaking of human beings in a way inconsistent with their God-given likeness:
“Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.” — James 3:9 KJV
Different cognitive styles are perfectly compatible with one human nature.
3. Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: real science, wrong metaphysics
This is one of the infographic's strongest factual sections and one of its weakest inferential jumps.
Aphantasia is real. It refers to markedly reduced or absent voluntary conscious imagery; hyperphantasia is unusually vivid imagery. Adam Zeman's 2024 review estimates roughly 1% extreme aphantasia and 3% extreme hyperphantasia, while a later multinational analysis estimated around 0.9–1.2% aphantasia, depending on definition and scoring.
Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes - PubMed
Researchers have also found objective correlates. For example, people with aphantasia show little imagery-related binocular-rivalry priming, while sometimes scoring above average on spatial imagery.
The blind mind: No sensory visual imagery in aphantasia - PubMed
Physiological work has also found differences in imagery-related pupil responses.
So, the infographic is right to reject the crude idea that aphantasia is simply people
“lying about not seeing pictures.”
But notice what the literature itself says:
the effects on ordinary functioning tend to be subtle, and, in Zeman's review,
lack of imagery does not imply lack of imagination.
That is a crucial distinction.
Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes - ScienceDirect
“But maybe they don't feel things internally?”
No. One elegant fear study found that aphantasic participants had a much weaker skin-conductance response while imagining frightening written scenarios, but when they actually viewed frightening photographs, their physiological fear responses were comparable to controls. The authors specifically concluded that this was not a general emotional deficit; visual imagery normally amplifies emotion during imagined scenarios.
That result cuts directly against the “empty inside” insinuation.
Aphantasic people may think propositionally, verbally, spatially, conceptually, emotionally, or through other sensory modalities. Absence of one representational format is not absence of a mind.
The “apple test”
The 1–5 apple/head diagram shown in the infographic is useful as an illustration, but it is not a soul test and not a definitive clinical diagnostic instrument. Research typically uses validated imagery questionnaires such as the VVIQ and, increasingly, behavioral or physiological measures.
The central logical mistake
The infographic equivocates between these statements:
“I cannot voluntarily generate a picture of an apple.”
“I have no imagination.”
“I have no inner world.”
“I have no consciousness.”
“I have no soul.”
Those are five radically different propositions.
Only the first is what aphantasia directly concerns.
Scripture correction
Genesis does not define a “living soul” by imagery vividness:
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” — Genesis 2:7 KJV
The text says nothing about visualization ability as the criterion.
4. Inner monologue: absence of constant words is not absence of thought
This panel is another case where a surprising psychological finding is turned into something it does not mean.
Russell Hurlburt and colleagues used Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES): participants were randomly beeped during daily life and later carefully interviewed about what was occurring in their experience at that precise moment.
In one influential study of 30 participants and 10 sampled moments each, five phenomena appeared frequently:
inner speech,
inner seeing,
unsymbolized thinking,
feelings,
sensory awareness.
Each occurred in roughly a quarter of sampled moments, with enormous differences between individuals.
The phenomena of inner experience - PubMed
The crucial denominator is:
approximately one quarter of sampled moments
—not—
only one quarter of humans possess inner consciousness.
Those propositions are not remotely equivalent.
Some participants experienced inner speech very frequently; others rarely. Moreover, the researchers explicitly identify unsymbolized thinking—thinking that is experienced without words or images.
So
“I don't hear a narrator in my head”
cannot validly become
“I don't think.”
There is also a measurement lesson here. Later work found that questionnaire estimates of inner experience can be two to four times higher than estimates obtained with high-fidelity DES. People's retrospective beliefs about how often they “think in words” are imperfect.
Measuring the Frequency of Inner-Experience Characteristics - PubMed
Methodological correction
If the infographic aligns:
- ~25% Intuitives,
- ~25% “souled” in Malanga,
- ~25% inner speech,
it commits a severe denominator fallacy.
One number describes a personality preference distribution.
One is an esoteric hypnosis claim about people.
One describes moments of experience, not people.
They cannot simply be overlaid.
Biblical correction
Paul actually writes:
“For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?” — 1 Corinthians 2:11 KJV
Notice that Paul's contrast is between the human spirit knowing human things and the Spirit of God knowing God's things. It is not “some humans contain inner persons and others do not.”
5. “The natural man” in 1 Corinthians 2 is not an NPC proof-text
This deserves special treatment because Gnostic/NPC material often appropriates Paul's contrasts between “natural,” “carnal,” and “spiritual.”
1 Corinthians 2:14 says:
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God…”
The Greek translated natural is psychikos (ψυχικός), related to psychē. Lexically it means natural, animate, pertaining to ordinary creaturely life—not
“a human-shaped biological machine without a soul.”
And the immediate context destroys an ontological NPC reading.
In the very next chapter Paul writes to the Corinthians:
“And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.”
Then he says their envy, strife, and party spirit show that they are “carnal.”
These people are:
brethren,
in Christ,
yet behaving carnally.
Therefore “carnal” is not a separate biological species of soulless human.
Paul's categories concern spiritual condition, maturity, discernment, and conduct, not neurological visualization style or metaphysical NPC status.
6. Terminal lucidity: genuinely fascinating—but it does not prove the infographic's theory
The infographic cites the Psychology Today article
“Why Some People Rally for One Last Goodbye Before Death.”
That article is real and accurately describes the phenomenon usually called terminal or paradoxical lucidity. It also explicitly says that scientific investigation has been limited and that spiritual interpretations are speculative possibilities, not established mechanisms.
Why Some People Rally for One Last Goodbye Before Death | Psychology Today
The Anna Katharina Ehmer case is also real as a published case study. Ehmer was a 26-year-old woman with profound disability who was reported to have never spoken, yet allegedly sang coherently for about half an hour shortly before death. Importantly, the authors themselves state:
the case is difficult to authenticate definitively in retrospect.
That caveat matters.
The death of Anna Katharina Ehmer: a case study in terminal lucidity - PubMed
Modern research has moved beyond historical anecdotes. A 2024 NIA-described caregiver study documented 34 episodes of unexpected lucidity among people with severe dementia. Most lasted seconds or minutes, and importantly, some occurred months before death, showing why “paradoxical/unexpected lucidity” is often a better category than assuming every event is terminal.
A 2024 scoping review concluded that lucid episodes in advanced dementia are sufficiently documented to deserve serious investigation while emphasizing the still-limited state of mechanistic knowledge.
Lucidity in the Deeply Forgetful: A Scoping Review - PubMed
And a large prospective investigation reported in 2025 enrolled 151 caregivers/patients from a much larger eligible pool; 93 caregivers reported 267 episodes regarded as lucid. That is significant, but the study itself does not establish extracerebral consciousness. It is observational caregiver-report research designed to characterize the phenomenon.
What can legitimately be concluded?
Terminal/paradoxical lucidity presents a genuine puzzle concerning how cognitive functions can transiently re-emerge despite severe impairment.
It is reasonable for philosophers and theologians to ask whether such events have implications for theories of mind.
It is not reasonable to say:
terminal lucidity occurs → therefore consciousness is conclusively non-neural → therefore some humans have souls and others do not.
Nothing in terminal-lucidity research provides the last step at all.
And even if one someday demonstrated that consciousness cannot be reduced to brain function, that would still provide zero evidence for the claim that only 20–25% of humanity possesses consciousness or a soul.
Scripture
A Christian does not need terminal lucidity as an improvised proof of spirit.
Scripture already speaks of death in personal/spiritual terms:
“Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was:
and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” — Ecclesiastes 12:7 KJV
That theological assertion should not be confused with what a medical case study can empirically establish.
7. Corrado Malanga and “only 20–25% have souls”: the weakest evidentiary bridge
The green annotation in the infographic summarizes a claim circulating from Corrado Malanga-related UFO-abduction material:
a researcher supposedly used hypnosis to communicate with “souls,” learned that only about 20–25% of humans are souled, and connected soul compatibility with DNA.
That is indeed what Malanga-related secondary material says; the 20–25% figure and alleged “DNA compatibility” are not inventions of the infographic.
Alien Interference: Dr. Corrado Malanga's Insights | PDF | Alien Abduction | Soul
But authenticity of attribution is not validity of the claim.
The methodology cannot establish a population prevalence of souls.
Why regression hypnosis cannot do this
The hypnosis literature is unusually relevant here. Kihlstrom's review concludes that hypnotically induced “hypermnesia” can increase false recollection and confidence in both true and false memories, and that age regression does not genuinely restore a past mental state.
Hypnosis, memory and amnesia - PubMed
Research specifically involving people reporting recovered alien-abduction memories found greater susceptibility to false recall/recognition, with hypnotic suggestibility among the significant predictors. That does not prove every extraordinary report false, but it demonstrates exactly why hypnosis cannot be treated as a transparent recorder of external historical or metaphysical reality.
Memory distortion in people reporting abduction by aliens - PubMed
A broader review of UFO-abduction, past-life and ritual-abuse narratives likewise notes that hypnotic and structured interview procedures can provide expectations and demands around which elaborate experiences are constructed and later interpreted as memories.
The Malanga method fails several basic tests
There is no independently validated operational definition of “soul.”
There is no assay identifying
“soul-compatible DNA.”
There is no blinded control group.
There is no known representative sampling frame from which “20–25% of humans” could be estimated.
The supposed entity being measured is itself the thing speaking under hypnosis.
The interpretation depends on already accepting the investigator's metaphysical model.
And because alternative explanations—suggestion, imaginative construction, expectation, dissociation, confabulation—are already empirically documented under hypnosis, extraordinary ontological conclusions require independent evidence.
This is a textbook case of circular validation:
“How do we know a soul is speaking?”
“Because the hypnotized subject says it is the soul.”
“How do we know what the soul says is true?”
“Because it is the soul speaking.”
The premise is being used to prove itself.
8. The Forbidden Religion: this is modern Gnostic theology, not biblical anthropology
The infographic explicitly cites José María Herrou Aragón's The Forbidden Religion.
The book is real.
Its own published contents include chapters titled:
“Matter is evil”
“The creator god”
“Body, soul and Spirit”
“Three kinds of man”
“Satan, the oppressor”
“Lucifer, the liberator”
“The Serpent of Salvation”
Those are not neutral titles; they disclose the theological system being presented.
The Forbidden Religion | Herrou Aragón, José María
Its body/soul/spirit chapter argues that:
body and soul were created by the demiurge;
an additional uncreated Spirit originates in another realm;
this Spirit is imprisoned in created matter;
matter is fundamentally corrupt;
salvation consists in liberation from the creator's material order.
That is what the text actually teaches.
The Forbidden Religion by Jose M. Herrou Aragon | PDF | Gnosis | Cain And Abel
This is therefore not simply
“a forgotten interpretation of Christianity.”
It reverses fundamental propositions of Genesis and John.
Biblical collision #1: creation
The Gnostic scheme says matter is evil.
Genesis says:
“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” — Genesis 1:31 KJV
Those propositions cannot both mean the same thing.
Biblical collision #2: the Creator
The Gnostic scheme separates a lower creator from the supreme divine reality.
John says of the Word:
“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” — John 1:3 KJV
John then adds:
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…” — John 1:14 KJV
That is profoundly anti-Gnostic in implication. The divine Word does not come merely to free spirit from inherently evil embodiment; the Word truly becomes flesh.
Biblical collision #3: the “uncreated human Spirit”
Genesis says God formed the man, breathed into him, and:
“man became a living soul.”
Ecclesiastes says the human spirit returns:
“unto God who gave it.”
That is a very different anthropology from an eternal uncreated spiritual substance trapped in a body by a lower creator.
9. But the hylic / psychic / pneumatic classification really is ancient
This is where we should not overcorrect.
The infographic is historically right that a tripartite human classification exists in ancient Valentinian material. The Tripartite Tractate distinguishes humanity as pneumatic, psychic, and hylic. Modern scholarship on Valentinianism discusses precisely this threefold anthropology. (Gnosis Study)
The Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia likewise situates the Tripartite Tractate in Valentinian Christianity and notes its treatment of pneumatic and psychic Christians.
Tripartite Tractate - Claremont Coptic Encyclopedia - Claremont Colleges Digital Library
So, the proper rebuttal is not:
“The three categories were invented on the Internet.”
They were not.
The correct rebuttal is:
An ancient sect taught those categories.
That historical fact does not establish that the categories correspond to neurological groups such as aphantasics, MBTI Sensors, people without internal monologues, or a literal population of modern soulless humans.
That bridge is entirely modern.
There is also no warrant for collapsing all “Gnosticism” into one standardized anthropology. Ancient movements differed substantially. The infographic treats a particularly Valentinian framework as though it were a universally agreed ancient discovery of human biology.
It wasn't.
10. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 does mention spirit, soul, and body—but it does not teach three human castes
The KJV says:
“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:23 KJV
Christians have historically interpreted passages like this in different ways.
Trichotomists see spirit, soul, and body as three distinguishable components.
Dichotomists generally see “soul” and “spirit” as overlapping descriptions of the immaterial person, while body is material.
That theological debate is legitimate.
What the text does not say is:
some humans have only body;
some body + soul;
some body + soul + Spirit.
Paul addresses the whole congregation and speaks of “your whole spirit and soul and body.”
So even a trichotomous interpretation does not rescue the infographic's NPC taxonomy.
11. “All souls are mine”: a very difficult text for the 25%-souled theory
Ezekiel 18:4 says:
“Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.”
In Hebrew/Biblical usage, “soul” can refer to the living person and should not always be imported into later philosophical substance categories. That qualification matters.
But that very fact creates an even greater problem for “NPC theory.” Scripture routinely speaks of human beings as souls/persons/living beings; it does not introduce a hidden biological majority who merely simulate personhood while lacking the relevant human reality.
Acts likewise says God:
“hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth…” — Acts 17:26 KJV
The biblical default is common human descent and common creaturely status—not two visually identical species, one ensouled and one empty.
12. “Spiritless Humans”: what kind of source is this?
The dark webpage in the graphic is Montalk's 2009 “Spiritless Humans.”
Its opening words are revealing:
“Empty people.
Puppet people.
Cardboard cutouts.
Drones.
Organic Portals.
Background characters.”
It then argues that some apparently normal people show “no indication” of higher consciousness.
Spiritless Humans | Transcending the Matrix Control System
This is an esoteric metaphysical essay, not experimental psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, or a demographic study.
It offers observations filtered through its own theory and then interprets those observations as confirmation of the theory.
A person seems shallow? Possible NPC.
A person follows convention? Possible NPC.
A person reacts defensively when called an NPC? That may itself be interpreted as NPC programming.
A person denies NPCs exist? The infographic's red annotation effectively turns that into further evidence: they defend the Matrix because they are the Matrix.
That creates a serious epistemological defect:
The claim becomes self-sealing
A valid empirical theory must permit observations that would count against it.
But under a self-sealing NPC theory:
agreement can prove you're awake;
disagreement can prove you're programmed;
conformity proves you're NPC;
eloquent objection proves sophisticated programming;
lack of imagination proves NPC;
vivid imagination proves spirit;
failure to remember a Mandela effect proves automatic Matrix updating.
What observation could show the hypothesis false?
If the answer is none, it is not functioning as an empirical theory.
13. Why “NPC” language is psychologically dangerous even before theology enters
There is a technical psychological concept directly relevant here: mechanistic dehumanization.
Nick Haslam's influential review describes one form of dehumanization as denying ordinary human nature to others and representing them as objects or automata.
Dehumanization: an integrative review - PubMed
That does not mean every joking use of “NPC” is morally equivalent to severe historical dehumanization. Context matters.
But the infographic isn't merely joking. It asks whether certain people literally lack an inner spiritual subject.
That is almost a textbook example of the automaton form of dehumanization.
The psychological danger is straightforward: once I classify another person as an unensouled simulation, their testimony about their own inner life becomes irrelevant. Their objection is discounted in advance. Their emotions can be reinterpreted as programming.
That makes empathy and correction progressively harder.
Biblically, James gives the opposite discipline: the person before you is not to be cursed as an empty object because human beings bear God's likeness.
14. The Mandela-effect / “Matrix update” annotation
The lower-left red annotation is readable enough to reconstruct its main claim:
the effect allegedly
“only seems to affect spirited humans,”
while NPCs are supposedly updated to the new Matrix script and therefore perceive no discrepancy between memory and present physical facts.
This is a hypothesis built on top of a hypothesis.
The Mandela Effect itself is real as a psychological phenomenon:
multiple people can confidently share the same incorrect memory.
Researchers demonstrated a “Visual Mandela Effect” in which particular familiar images reliably elicited the same specific false memories across participants.
The Visual Mandela Effect as Evidence for Shared and Specific False Memories Across People - PubMed
But shared error does not require a changed timeline.
Human memory is reconstructive. Social transmission can also spread and stabilize incorrect memories across individuals and groups. A review of false-memory transmission summarizes substantial experimental evidence that memories can be socially propagated through networks.
Therefore:
shared anomalous memory = demonstrated.
reality was rewritten = not demonstrated.
only spiritually conscious humans retain the previous timeline = not demonstrated.
people who remember the canonical version are soulless NPCs automatically patched by the Matrix = wholly unsupported.
There is also an elegant circularity problem. If remembering the “old” version proves you are spiritual while remembering the documented version proves you were “updated,” then every possible response confirms the model.
That is not a test. It is an immunity mechanism.
15. The collage's most serious methodological flaw: percentage matching
This deserves its own section because it is doing enormous rhetorical work.
Imagine these numbers:
- MBTI Intuition: 26.7%
- a hypnosis-derived “souled” claim: 20–25%
- inner speech: roughly one quarter of sampled moments
- some other imagery/memory category: another minority percentage
Placed beside one another, they feel as if they must describe the same hidden people.
But scientifically they have virtually nothing in common.
The denominators differ.
The sampling frames differ.
The measures differ.
The variables differ.
One measures questionnaire preference.
One measures moment-to-moment phenomenology.
One is an unvalidated metaphysical hypnosis interpretation.
Aphantasia itself is nowhere near 25% under contemporary prevalence estimates; extreme aphantasia is around 1%, which substantially breaks the numerical narrative.
Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes - PubMed
This is essentially a Texas-sharpshooter pattern: collect many numbers first, circle the ones that happen to cluster afterward, and treat the cluster as though it had been predicted.
A serious test would instead preregister something like:
“Before gathering data, we predict that the exact same individuals who score N will also exhibit strong visual imagery, frequent inner speech, anomalous-memory persistence, specific terminal-lucidity-related traits, and an independently measurable soul-marker.”
Then test it.
The infographic does nothing comparable.
16. Why the infographic nevertheless feels persuasive
This is worth understanding rather than mocking, because several genuinely surprising facts are involved.
First: qualia shock
People often assume everybody's interior experience resembles their own.
Then they discover:
some people have no voluntary visual imagery;
some visualize almost photographically;
some think constantly in words;
some rarely do;
some experience strong spatial cognition without pictures;
some have very different autobiographical-memory styles.
That discovery is genuinely disorienting.
The right conclusion is:
human consciousness is more heterogeneous than intuition suggests.
The infographic instead proposes:
therefore some people may have no consciousness at all.
That is precisely the unsupported leap.
Second: false-consensus reasoning
“I think in pictures and words; therefore thinking itself must consist of pictures and words.”
Once someone discovers another person lacks those features, it can feel as though the other person lacks thought.
But that confuses one's personal representational format with the essence of cognition.
Third: pattern completion
Once “NPC” is entertained, independent curiosities become pieces in a single story:
MBTI → aphantasia → internal speech → Gnostics → UFO hypnosis → Mandela effect → terminal lucidity.
The human mind is extremely good at finding coherence.
Research on illusory pattern perception shows that people can perceive meaningful causal structure where events are actually unrelated. Some studies find associations between this tendency and paranormal or conspiratorial belief, although later work emphasizes that effect sizes and mechanisms require nuance.
This should not be used as an insult against believers. Pattern detection is a normal and essential human faculty.
The correction is simply:
A perceived pattern becomes evidence only after competing explanations, chance, selection effects, and measurement problems have been tested.
17. The biblical categories the infographic is partly confusing with NPC theory
Scripture does make sharp distinctions among people.
There are:
wise and foolish;
righteous and wicked;
believing and unbelieving;
natural and spiritual;
carnal and spiritually mature;
children of light and children of darkness;
regenerate and unregenerate.
We should not erase those distinctions.
But they are not equivalent to:
biologically human person with soul versus biologically human automaton without soul.
A spiritually blind person in Scripture remains a morally accountable human person.
A wicked person remains a human person.
A “natural man” remains anthrōpos—man.
A carnal Christian remains a brother.
A sinner remains someone to whom repentance may be preached.
This distinction is foundational.
The Gospel is addressed to human beings as accountable creatures, not to an elite minority secretly possessing the metaphysical hardware required to hear it.
18. A particularly important biblical counterexample: Adam
Paul says:
“The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” — 1 Corinthians 15:45 KJV
The context concerns Adamic humanity and resurrection.
Notice what Paul does not say:
“Adam produced two biological lines, some living souls and some human-looking entities devoid of soul.”
Indeed, his whole Adam/Christ argument depends upon a common humanity.
The infographic's model therefore requires adding a hidden anthropology the apostolic argument never states.
19. What terminal lucidity can legitimately contribute to Christian discussion
I would not dismiss this material. Terminal lucidity is one of the infographic's genuinely worthwhile research directions.
A Christian philosopher may reasonably say:
“These events caution us against simplistic assumptions that observable neurological impairment exhaustively measures the surviving capacities of a person.”
That is careful.
One may also say:
“They are compatible with a non-reductive account of mind.”
Also, fair.
But one should stop before:
“Science has proved the soul leaves the brain,”
because the available evidence has not done that.
And one certainly cannot move from terminal lucidity to:
“therefore only some humans possess souls.”
In fact, terminal-lucidity observations ordinarily reinforce something much more humane: the severely cognitively impaired person remains a person even when ordinary outward access to cognition is obscured.
That lesson points almost exactly opposite the NPC framework.
20. Source hierarchy of the infographic
The infographic visually gives all screenshots similar weight, but their evidentiary status is radically different.
Strongest tier: peer-reviewed cognitive/neurological research on aphantasia, inner experience, memory, and lucidity.
Middle tier: MBTI technical literature—useful for describing the instrument and its normative samples, but disputed as a theory of categorical personality types.
Historical/theological tier: Tripartite Tractate and scholarship on Valentinianism—valid evidence for what certain ancient groups believed, not for whether those beliefs are scientifically true.
Popular tier: Psychology Today articles—useful introductions, not primary proof.
Esoteric tier: Montalk's “Spiritless Humans,” Malanga-associated soul/DNA theories, The Forbidden Religion—evidence that these doctrines are asserted, not independent verification of the doctrines.
The collage repeatedly commits a source-leveling error: a peer-reviewed neuroscience paper and an esoteric metaphysical essay are placed beside each other as if each supplied one equally weighted piece of a single evidentiary puzzle.
They do not.
21. The strongest Scripture correction in one chain
Put the biblical texts together:
Creation:
“God created man in his own image…” — Genesis 1:27
Human life:
“man became a living soul.” — Genesis 2:7
Human unity:
God
“hath made of one blood all nations of men…” — Acts 17:26
God's claim upon persons:
“Behold, all souls are mine…” — Ezekiel 18:4
Human spirit:
“the spirit of man which is in him…” — 1 Corinthians 2:11
Human dignity:
men
“are made after the similitude of God.” — James 3:9
Death:
“the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” — Ecclesiastes 12:7
None of those texts teaches an invisible majority class of biologically human but metaphysically vacant organisms.
22. Final verdict on the infographic
The infographic's best insight is:
People do not all experience their minds in the same way.
That is true and scientifically fascinating.
Its second-best insight is:
Consciousness, memory and severe neurological disease still contain major unresolved questions.
Also, true.
Its historical observation is:
Ancient Gnostic systems sometimes divided humanity into material, psychic and spiritual classes.
True, with important qualification.
But its central synthesis—
MBTI Sensors + aphantasics + people without inner monologues + people who do not notice Mandela effects + Malanga's “unsouled” majority + ancient hylics = one literal class of NPC humans—
has no demonstrated evidentiary basis.
The scientific errors are chiefly:
category error, denominator confusion, post-hoc percentage matching, cherry-picking, unfalsifiability, circular evidence, source leveling, and mistaking correlation/analogy for identity.
The psychological error is:
mistaking unfamiliar forms of consciousness for absence of consciousness.
The historical error is:
turning a specific ancient theological anthropology into a modern biological classification.
The theological error is deeper:
substituting a Gnostic creator/matter/spirit framework for the anthropology actually stated in Scripture.
And the pastoral/moral danger is:
giving ourselves permission to regard certain neighbors as literal automata whose testimony, conscience, suffering, or personhood can be discounted.
The more defensible synthesis of all the genuine research in this image is almost the reverse:
Human inward experience varies far more than we intuitively expect. Lack of visual imagery is not lack of imagination; lack of constant inner speech is not lack of thought; cognitive impairment is not necessarily extinction of personhood; behavioral conventionality is not evidence of soullessness; and unexplained phenomena should produce humility and investigation, not a hidden caste system of humans.
The Berean standard remains the better method:
“they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” — Acts 17:11 KJV
And Paul's corresponding evidentiary principle is concise:
“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:21 KJV
That means we do not have to dismiss the genuinely strange findings in this infographic. We simply refuse to make them say more than the evidence—or the Scripture—actually says.
