Regarding electrical and chemical energy and the first law of thermodynamics. I don’t think you’re going to find support for souls in physics. That would be extremely interesting and most physicists would give their entire career to prove such a thing.
Electrical energy is measured because there are electrons around. Chemical energy is measured when bonds between atoms are broken. In the body, the creation and splitting of the chemical ATP creates energy that your muscles then use for you to get around. There are also all sorts of other chemical reactions happening in your body. You have electrical currents in your nervous system from electrons moving around. You can measure this activity. An EKG, for example, measures the electrical activity of the heart.
When you die, your body stops producing ATP and the nervous system stops working because the machine is broken. Machines need energy. Your body needs oxygen to make ATP, for example. You stop taking in energy because you are no longer breathing and eating. Some of the immediate energy in the body gets radiated as another form of energy – heat.
There was an experiment performed just about 100 years ago that lead to this “21 grams” business. It is discredited now as being very poorly performed. If anyone ever shows that the body loses mass or energy and it can’t be measured as heat loss or some of other form of energy they will win a nobel prize for proving that the conservation of energy is not true.
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