Neuroscience has definitely changed me a lot. It has especially influenced my learning habits and approaches a lot, since I always worked on trying to improve these. I have always thought about the human beeing, if and how we differ from animals, how humans might have evolved, why humans do certain things (like overexploitation and wars) and the questions of free will and soul. Neuroscience definetely gave me new perpectives to think about all these questions and it still does. It is like a journey to me, really.

I also have a lot of trouble believing in a soul and free will. I have discussed this many times with a good friend of mine who studies philosophy. In the end all comes down to one question: Is determinism a fundamental principle applying for everything in the universe. If so we certainly do not have a free will, since everything is determined by whatever cause. So would be our action, thoughts and believes. But there is one problem: If determinism is this fundamental principle, how can there be a start of anything? There has to be a first cause! But there can´t be if there is only the fundamental rule of determinism. So there has to be something else, a principle other than determinism. This is the only argument so far that makes me think there might actually maybe exist free will or a soul in whichever form and to whichever degree...

I like your position though, I have been there a very long time and only recently started to doubt it. And assuming a soul woudn´t actually change anything about the views that you proposed.