In my opinion it's a relative thing. Consciousness/soul is a quasiparticle relative to physical world. In a crystal structures, there are quasiparticles, for example a phonon that is just quanta of motion, or a hole in semiconductor, thay is just an empty place where electron can be. Despite those things not being actually "real" in physical sense, we can use same equations and principles as with real particles to describe such things. A hole cant exist outside of semiconductor crystal grid. And now imagine that all particles we consider real and physical exist too as sort of quasiparticles in some other medium. Consciousness is a same thing, its very complex oscillation/computation/information, to physical world it's same as a hole in semiconductor. If you split semiconductor crystal to atoms there wont be any holes, but in a semiconductor they exist because of properties of material as a whole. In same way consciousness exist in physical world in any medium that allows enough computation for consciousness to manifest. Fun part is a relativity aspect of reality. Imagine a beings made from a holes in semiconductor, they would study their universe and for them their particles would be real, and crystal grid of semiconductor itself would be some sort of space where their particles exist. Particles would be real, and space would be just space with specific properties. But to outside observer in our universe such beings would be made of oscillations in a chunk of semiconductor in our lab, and what they consider empty space would be a semiconductor particles for us, completely real to us while empty for hypothetic beings made of holes and phonons. And our universe is the same. Materialists just consider usual observable particles as real ones, and everything else as emergent property. In my opinion being emergent property is a relative thing and there is no reason to assume one realty more real in general than another, things are more real or less real depending on observer position relative to them. Consciousness is an emergent property of medium supporting complex computation, but at same time medium is an emergent property of consciousness. It's a same thing, there is only consciousness, in different forms of itself. Like electric and magnetic fields, that emerge from each other, but are same thing, and which one is observed depends on reference system of observer. In hypothetical example of beings made of holes in a semiconductor in a lab, what happens if we blast semiconductor to atoms? If one will assume that our lab where semiconductor was is a real reality, then that universe of quasipaeticles is now destroyed with the medium they were in. But those weren't even real particles from our perspective. And from perspective of those beings inside semiconductor reality outside never existed too, so how it can destroy their universe? What really happened is that by destroying that piece of semiconductor two realities disentangled and cant longer interact, but hypothetic beings made of holes may exist in any other universe with semiconductors, sort of creating medium for themselves. So after physical body dies, consciousness can't be observed from here, but it will exist, in other forms. Physical body is a computation, just a process, emergent property of reality, and consciousness is a process, there is no reason to assume one process is more basic and real than another. World exists because of consciousness and consciousness exists because of world, there is no difference between two. This view can't be proved in materialist sense, its unfalsifiable, so feel free to call it nonsense.