> why does a soul or whatever have anything to do with importance?

It doesn't, I was reacting to something else entirely (namely a phrase of yours that I quoted).

> we just went over how "abstract" and "material" (the world) aren't necessarily so different...

A description of a thing (an "abstraction") is not the same as the thing in a materialistic universe. I can see how they can be neighbours in a platonic or more generally an idealistic universe.

Which is why it is crucial for us to know in what type of universe we find ourselves into.