I always thought that this particular JW teaching had some credibility. I always defined a soul as a 'piece' of life, as a human or animal. And when a human or animal dies, that particular 'piece' of life is extinguished.
Over the years though, I've taken that premise to its logical conclusion and come up on some tough questions. If a man or a dog is a soul (a 'piece' of life, that is), what about single celled organisms? And if single celled organisms are souls, what about the millions and millions of cells that make up a more complex organism, like a human or a dog? Do every one of my body cells have a soul, or are they a soul? And what about the person called Hybridous? Is my soul a conglomerate of all those millions of souls of my cells? There's really no end to the questions.
May I ask how you know that I have a soul?