<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (December 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (December 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> Following Aristotle, Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Ibn al - Nafis, a Persian philosopher, further elaborated upon the Aristotelian understanding of the soul and developed their own theories on the soul . They both made a distinction between the soul and the spirit, and the Avicennian doctrine on the nature of the soul was influential among the Scholastics . Some of Avicenna's views on the soul include the idea that the immortality of the soul is a consequence of its nature, and not a purpose for it to fulfill . In his theory of "The Ten Intellects", he viewed the human soul as the tenth and final intellect . </P> <P> While he was imprisoned, Avicenna wrote his famous "Floating Man" thought experiment to demonstrate human self - awareness and the substantial nature of the soul . He told his readers to imagine themselves suspended in the air, isolated from all sensations, which includes no sensory contact with even their own bodies . He argues that in this scenario one would still have self - consciousness . He thus concludes that the idea of the self is not logically dependent on any physical thing, and that the soul should not be seen in relative terms, but as a primary given, a substance . This argument was later refined and simplified by René Descartes in epistemic terms, when he stated: "I can abstract from the supposition of all external things, but not from the supposition of my own consciousness ." </P>

Where did the concept of a soul come from