Really?

I have often found that to be one of the most useful places to look. Perhaps your initial premise could be incorrect and from that point on anything based upon it will be flawed as it must follow from it. Much time and effort can be spent on trying to build a sound theory based on an incorrect premise. If a premise is incorrect, it will eventually become a road block to going any further.

At the close of the nineteenth century Newtonian physics was considered to be a nearly complete description of the universe with only a few details yet to be worked out. Then along came the twentieth century and they realized it was all based on a flawed premise and the whole thing unraveled as relativity and quantum mechanics developed and the new picture of the universe diverged dramatically. IMO, material realism as a premise is an anchor that is not needed and just holds one back from exploring premises that explain the soul and our "reality" much better and much more easily. I don't think a working technical explanation of the soul can be achieved if one starts from the materialistic premise, but I suppose one can try if they feel bound to it. Many struggle to give up that deterministic materialistic premise for reality, even Albert did and he was one of the founders of both those scientific revolutions.