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How is Alphonse Elric ( And all the other souls affixed to objects ) able to
see ? **_Contains Spoilers_**

Alphonse soul got affixed to a armor but his real body still remains in the
void. So how is he able to see through the piece of armor? And does this not
collide with his real body's vision. All his other sense's such as feeling,
taste are removed. And he also has the inability to sleep. So why does his
vision remain?


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fullmetal-alchemist-series
How is Alphonse Elric able to see?


Trying to factor how the Soul works in physics is a very hard thing to do
since currently there is no way to confirm or deign it's existence of weight,
there is a believe that all senses connect to the soul.

When we touch, taste, smell, hear or see, our mind translates this so that our
soul can understand it,

  * for touch and taste we need nerves to collect the information, since Al has no nerves he can't use these, he can however feel his Soul being scratched at only when someone is scratching at the blood seal

  * for smell we need a nose, since Al has no nose he can't smell

  * for hearing and seeing, the soul can understand what it hears/sees however it can recognize which is why Al is unable to remember key arts of his memory

this is all just speculation however and will change based off belief, as i
said, trying to factor how the Soul works in physics is a very hard.

As for what you mentioned about Al's vision not colliding with his real body's
vision, the Gate can only be access via special methods, remember at first Ed
and Al believed Al's body to be lost however then started to believe that his
body may still be at or in the Gate, it could be that when Al Body and Soul
were separated so too was the connection between them thus disallowing Al to
tell if his body still existed or not, this would too explain why in
Botherhood Barry was surprised to see his body.


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There's a bit of speculation here, since there is no blatant in-universe
explanation nor [Word of
God](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WordOfGod) to fully
demonstrate the reason for this.

You may want to take a look at the answer to [why a soul bonded to a suit of
armor can move](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/3865/274), because the
explanation here is pretty similar. Essentially, keeping in line with the
series' representation of [eyes being windows to the
soul](https://anime.stackexchange.com/a/3939/274) (a [common
trope](https://anime.stackexchange.com/q/3547/274)), basically: Sight is not
necessarily handled biologically.

Here's basically how this works: If an average person loses his sight (as does
happen in the series), he cannot see, because there is no channel of vision
connected to his soul (for either eye). However, Alphonse, Barry, and the
other soul-bound armors do have this channel of vision, just as there is the
ability for them to move their steel fingers (with, of course, the channel
being in opposite direction).

The reason what he sees does not collide with what his body sees is because
his body is not transmitting its sight to a soul. It has no conscious mind to
connect to its sight. As for his sleep, because he has no biological
mechanisms, they do not need to rest, but his conscious mind still remains
active because it is affixed to his soul (imagine the way we dream).

You're probably thinking, "Oh, hurr hurr, mister clever, there's still no
physical organ to transmit the vision data!" And you'd be absolutely right!
There is _nothing which suggests that there is a physical entity able to
transmit visual data from the real world to the armor seal_ , whereas there is
a physical entity able to move his limbs. It's not even known that only armor
with helmets can see; in fact, when Barry is reduced to a single plate of
armor, he appears to be able to see his body standing over him.

So to put it simply, your answer is: **Alphonse and other soul-bound armors
see because it's necessary for the story.** We can loosely explain it, as I
did above, but there still is no legitimate, solid reason why this should be
possible.


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