Lots of people seem to agree with the suggestion and even wishful thinking has to come from somewhere...
Neither of those are good reasons. Lots of people believe global warming isn't real...I guess that makes it a valid position to hold? Lots of people don't believe in evolution. I guess that makes not believing in evolution a reasonable view.
There is no reason whatsoever to believe in a "spiritual essence" or "soul" or anything else. That doesn't mean you can't, but it does mean that if you bring it into an argument, I am justified in not taking you seriously.
The flying spaghetti monster doesn't prove anything, that is the whole point...
The flying spaghetti monster is a reductio ad absurdum of the position, which you seem to hold, that just because there is no concrete evidence that something DOES NOT exist, it's somehow acceptable to argue on empirical grounds that it DOES exist, despite lack of any evidence whatsoever for its existence.
Or if the FSM doesn't do it for you, how about this. I have a unicorn sitting next to me right now.
How do you know I'm lying? Because there is no evidence for unicorns existing or ever having existed, so you assume they do not. Now, there is the vaguest possibility that I really do have a unicorn, but given that nobody else has ever seen a unicorn, and there has never been any sign of unicorns ever having existed, it is reasonable to conclude that unicorns do not exist, and that I do not have one next to me.
Same goes for a soul or spiritual essence or ghost. Get it?
I am not saying it makes sense, but I think it would make gaining acceptance of such technology a ridiculous challenge. And a year is a long time, some people do say there were a different person back then...
Well there you go. A step in the right direction.