Board Thread:Naruto Discussions/@comment-33156423-20170923231447/@comment-734582-20170927140923

Starscream1998 wrote: Ok Guys compromise, humans didn't originally have chakra or any of that stuff they were just normal humans and then they were given chakra and then had kids who were born with it. Kind of like how in the manga Kaguya gains chakra and Hagoromo is born with it. We all agree they didn't have chakra. We disagree over what counts as chakra, since the series does such a shitty job at consistent terminology.

I think that the chakra network is the only supernatural element necessary to explain chakra. Physical energy is just chemical energy in the body and mental energy are just thoughts. It's the network that gathers those and molds it into chakra.

It's not entirely clear what Hagoromo did, but it seems to me that chakra was originally just pure spirit power (IE, Six Paths chakra). Then hagoromo spread some of this spirit power to people, and people in stead used this power to bend already-existing energies to their will. It's not clear how they'd have obtained the ability to do so, but it seems to me that this gift from Hagoromo altered people's DNA. Which, considering how Naruto has whiskers from Kurama and how Hagoromo even has natural chakra, is an established fact.

This doesn't explain what role the spirit plays exactly, nor the role of life force. But considering that transferring chakra isn't the same as transferring life force, i'd argue they're different things.