How to prove the existence of the soul ? Part 1

Dear ATSers,

I recently was wondering the question that I previously asked in my title: How could science prove the existence of the soul ?

We all heard some typical comments such as the eyes are the seats of the soul. More over, the soul or psyche or whatever name it might have had during the past, the concept still exist since a very long time.

I am pretty sure too, that by this discovery the mystifying topics such as aliens, demons/angels, life after death, time travel, parallel universes and so on, you name it, could be explain with the latter being proven.

Now, as far as I am concerned, on what basis could science or we ATSers could start to postulate in order to prove the existence of this mysterious thing of old ???

I have my own idea: the theory of conservation of energy. Nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything changes, this could be a basis.

What other basis could science or we start with?




Thruthseek3r

I like to believe in the works of Bob Monroe and reincarnation. That we all belong to one life-giving source (god) and we travel in this world learning, and many times we reincarnate until we have fully complete our tasks. I think time isn't rigid and there are different planes of existence. I have had dreams before of future events (in my life) that have come to pass.

Monroe goes on to say that he had an OBE where his "spiritual guide" came to him.



After seeing his videos I became very interested with reincarnation and OBEs/Astrial Projections, because I just couldn't keep believing in a Christian belief...

Pont52
I like to believe in the works of Bob Monroe and reincarnation. That we all belong to one life-giving source (god) and we travel in this world learning, and many times we reincarnate until we have fully complete our tasks. I think time isn't rigid and there are different planes of existence. I have had dreams before of future events (in my life) that have come to pass.

Monroe goes on to say that he had an OBE where his "spiritual guide" came to him.

After seeing his videos I became very interested with reincarnation and OBEs/Astrial Projections, because I just couldn't keep believing in a Christian belief...

Well ... sorry to say, but your link is broken.

Interesting although I must admit concerning Mr. Monroe as I am already in the known about the man and his theory. What I found strange though is the fact that OBE's and astral projection seemingly ressemble to shamanism, where the person enters a trance and talks to spirits in the spirit realm.

AIthough, directly related to the thread, I am asking more specifically, what could science or we take as a basis to prove the existence of the soul? This is the main goal of this thread so I needed to clarify this.




Thruthseek3r

The mystery and wonder of both consciousness and paradox must be good starting points.

Consciousness has no apparent weight nor mass and yet is responsible for all tremendous achievement and cognizant creativity.

Then there was Dr. Duncan MacDougall. While of course his "experiment" is rightly open for debate, he did grab the bull by the horns and go for "science"...

In 1901, MacDougall weighed six patients while they were in the process of dying from tuberculosis in an old age home. It was relatively easy to determine when death was only a few hours away, and at this point the entire bed was placed on an industrial sized scale which was apparently sensitive to the gram.

He took his results (a varying amount of perceived mass loss in most of the six cases) to support his hypothesis that the soul had mass, and when the soul departed the body, so did this mass. The determination of the soul weighing 21 grams was based on the average loss of mass in the six patients within moments after death.

en.wikipedia.org...(doctor)

The GUT
The mystery and wonder of both consciousness and paradox must be good starting points. Consciousness has no apparent weight nor mass and yet is responsible for tremendous achievement and creativity.

Then there was Duncan MacDougall. While of course his "experiment" is rightly open for debate, he did grab the bull by the horns and go for "science"...

In 1901, MacDougall weighed six patients while they were in the process of dying from tuberculosis in an old age home. It was relatively easy to determine when death was only a few hours away, and at this point the entire bed was placed on an industrial sized scale which was apparently sensitive to the gram.

He took his results (a varying amount of perceived mass loss in most of the six cases) to support his hypothesis that the soul had mass, and when the soul departed the body, so did this mass. The determination of the soul weighing 21 grams was based on the average loss of mass in the six patients within moments after death.

en.wikipedia.org...(doctor)

edit on 9-12-2013 by The GUT because: (no reason given)

Wow, I was not expecting an answer that fast. I am compelled to thank you first of all. More over, if this is to be true and would be proven under any scientific experiment, then we have a good basis to make some further research on the topic.

I was already aware of the fact, but you reminded me of it.


Great contribution I admit,




Thruthseek3r

reply to post by The GUT


He got an interesting experiment there. Was his experiment repeated by others? It surely is easy to do and easy to confirm.

Askal
He got an interesting experiment there. Was his experiment repeated by others? It surely is easy to do and easy to confirm.

That's what I was thinking when I heard about it. Seems easy enough to either void or validate. Maybe it was never taken seriously?

Like I said: I DO see its problems, but the only legitimate negation--assuming the accuracy of equipment--would seem to be dehydration of bodily fluids. And that's easy enough to test it appears. 21 grams difference is a significant claim.

There was some blowback that portrayed MacDougall as some kind of ghoul for experimenting with the dying, but I don't see that as any valid reason to discontinue scientific experimentation. I myself would certainly agree to such a cause...as long as the bed-scale wasn't some torturous apparatus, eh?

reply to post by thruthseek3r


Hi

Have a look at the link below to the Institute of Noetic Sciences. I seem to remember that they are experimenting and wondering about this concept too.

Noetics

They might provide some good background, and save you starting from scratch.

I do believe in the existence of a soul, however I disagree with the use of the laws of thermodynamics as proof. This is, I believe, a misapplication of physics. First, it's assuming our soul is energy. (I think it is, but that is beside the point.) Second, it's assuming that because energy cannot disappear, merely transforms, that implies the soul survives death. In reality, the transformation does NOT mean the energy is the same as it was before. Our energy can just as easily be interpreted as releasing heat into the atmosphere, or becoming worm food. So while I do believe the soul survives death, I do not believe the laws of thermodynamics have anything to do with it.

I love your question, and I wish I had a good answer. Most "proofs" of the soul that I am familiar with are philosophical rather than experimental in nature. Of the experimental ones... Communication with the dead seems to be a possible avenue. Some see promise in reincarnation studies where past lives can be verified, but a controlled study for such phenomenon is difficult to come by. The Global Consciousness Project is interesting, but one could argue that proof of global consciousness does not necessarily equal proof of a soul. Near Death Experiences, I believe, are very enticing proof of soul survival. There are lots of individual case studies as well as larger experiments on NDEs.

I sometimes think that no scientific experiment, no matter how well executed and conclusive, will ever suffice as proof for some people. We all tend to cling to our worldviews pretty tightly (myself included).

VegHead
I do believe in the existence of a soul, however I disagree with the use of the laws of thermodynamics as proof. This is, I believe, a misapplication of physics. First, it's assuming our soul is energy. (I think it is, but that is beside the point.) Second, it's assuming that because energy cannot disappear, merely transforms, that implies the soul survives death. In reality, the transformation does NOT mean the energy is the same as it was before. Our energy can just as easily be interpreted as releasing heat into the atmosphere, or becoming worm food. So while I do believe the soul survives death, I do not believe the laws of thermodynamics have anything to do with it.

Well, if we consider e=mc2 by einstein and the fact (if true) that at death the body looses part of it's mass and not as some thing physical, but something etheric/astral which has mass (very low but still mass) then souls are merely energy, a different form of course but still energy. This has yet to be proven though.

I love your question, and I wish I had a good answer. Most "proofs" of the soul that I am familiar with are philosophical rather than experimental in nature. Of the experimental ones... Communication with the dead seems to be a possible avenue. Some see promise in reincarnation studies where past lives can be verified, but a controlled study for such phenomenon is difficult to come by. The Global Consciousness Project is interesting, but one could argue that proof of global consciousness does not necessarily equal proof of a soul. Near Death Experiences, I believe, are very enticing proof of soul survival. There are lots of individual case studies as well as larger experiments on NDEs.

Near death experiences seems something interesting, I already read the book "Life after life" by Raymond Moody which took record of many different NDE's and there were a wide variety of these with different context. What seems to be strange though is the fact that these people mentioned of seeing themselves out of their body in contact with some kind of being (which they thought were angels) but how to prove this?

I sometimes think that no scientific experiment, no matter how well executed and conclusive, will ever suffice as proof for some people. We all tend to cling to our worldviews pretty tightly (myself included).

Well, if we/science are/is to shed some light upon this very phenomenon of old, since the beginning of man, as I said earlier, it would be wonderful. Many topics such as aliens/E.T.'s, demons, angels, sicknesses, the world, the universe, witchcraft and magic just to name a few could a be proven as true or false because we would have evidence to know and then verify later once the soul is proven to be true to clarify everything I just mentioned.

Like we all thought the earth was flat to have it later be proven as a sphere, the same would happen to what I just cited above so no more myths, plain and pure truth backed up by science until something better comes during a certain time in the future.




Thruthseek3r

The GUT
The mystery and wonder of both consciousness and paradox must be good starting points.

Consciousness has no apparent weight nor mass and yet is responsible for all tremendous achievement and cognizant creativity.

Then there was Dr. Duncan MacDougall. While of course his "experiment" is rightly open for debate, he did grab the bull by the horns and go for "science"...

In 1901, MacDougall weighed six patients while they were in the process of dying from tuberculosis in an old age home. It was relatively easy to determine when death was only a few hours away, and at this point the entire bed was placed on an industrial sized scale which was apparently sensitive to the gram.

He took his results (a varying amount of perceived mass loss in most of the six cases) to support his hypothesis that the soul had mass, and when the soul departed the body, so did this mass. The determination of the soul weighing 21 grams was based on the average loss of mass in the six patients within moments after death.

en.wikipedia.org...(doctor)

edit on 10-12-2013 by The GUT because: (no reason given)

What I am wondering though is what exactly is consciousness? Is it a neurological pehnomenon, is it an emotion ? (how we do feel could related to the soul or another non physical body), is it an idea ? (another possibility here for another non physical body).

Many questions here would need to be clarify before even focusing on consciousness. This is interesting, but as I seem to see that the use of consciousness is very prevalent in the new-age beliefs, I prefer to stay away a bit from it and focusing on the soul at first.



Thruthseek3r

beansidhe
reply to post by thruthseek3r

 

Hi

Have a look at the link below to the Institute of Noetic Sciences. I seem to remember that they are experimenting and wondering about this concept too.

Noetics

They might provide some good background, and save you starting from scratch.

Thank you, and I might take a look on the topics of NDE's, but I have a couple of topics which seems new-age related, so strating from scratch, maybe not, but I will take it with a grain of salt.




Thruthseek3r

I love the topic, and the thought of applying scientific process to it; but before you can even get to that point we'd need to establish a definition of the soul, in such a way that it is applicable to testing.

Ah, easy right? Except there are dozens, if not hundreds, of interpretations of what "makes" the soul. Characteristics and attributes that we claim are proof of it.

Is consciousness proof of the soul? Morality? Emotions? Is it the ability to question ourselves? How do you test that?

Is it the sum of the electrical impulses that drive our synapses and thus our bodies? If so we know that dissapates after death, at least from the physical body. Trying to establish what happens to it after becomes of interest, which I believe has been tested to some degree already.

So: The hardest question, in my mind, is to establish what the soul IS, after that testing becomes relatively straight forward.

"What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets."

reply to post by The GUT


If recall correctly about Dr. Duncan MacDougall experiments: The experiments were not in an adequately scientifically controlled environment and not enough cases were performed. Although, I'm surprised this has been furthered expanded upon by the scientific community as far as I know?


Based on the law of conservation of energy , instead of looking at weight maybe we need to concentrate on observing energy changes before ,during,and after death .

Truly the only way to prove the existence of the soul would be to find it and display it in a way that is irrefutable. Just like anything else that science has proven the existence of. Consciousness is a product of the physical brain. When the brain is damaged the abilities of your mind are also damaged. That is the evidence of causation. Causation is the physical trail you can follow to provide proof of cause and reaction. Nde's have been studied by thousands of doctors across the world and none of these studies has produced any form of evidence of causation. If there were something physical leaving the body then it would be something that could be studied. However there are physical things that leave the body upon death. They are mostly water and fecal matter. 21 grams is about what you would expect from evaporation alone.

Dbl post


Speculation is fine. It leads to the important questions that may lead to a path of truth. But until a soul is proven to exist, one should not go about claiming the properties of said soul because. THERE IS NO WAY TO PROVE IT.
And you are just left with what if scenarios and gut feelings which do not further our knowledge of anything.

Have you read "Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness"? You might enjoy the book. It's an interesting read.

Here is a description from Amazon:

In trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics, the most successful theory in science and the basis of one-third of our economy. They found, to their embarrassment, that with their theory, physics encounters consciousness. Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all this in non-technical terms with help from some fanciful stories and anecdotes about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, emphasizing what is and what is not speculation. Quantum Enigma's description of the experimental quantum facts, and the quantum theory explaining them, is undisputed. Interpreting what it all means, however, is heatedly controversial. But every interpretation of quantum physics involves consciousness. Rosenblum and Kuttner therefore turn to exploring consciousness itself-and encounter quantum mechanics. Free will and anthropic principles become crucial issues, and the connection of consciousness with the cosmos suggested by some leading quantum cosmologists is mind-blowing. Readers are brought to a boundary where the particular expertise of physicists is no longer the only sure guide. They will find, instead, the facts and hints provided by quantum mechanics and the ability to speculate for themselves.

In the few decades since the Bell's theorem experiments established the existence of entanglement (Einstein's "spooky action"), interest in the foundations, and the mysteries, of quantum mechanics has accelerated. In recent years, physicists, philosophers, computer engineers, and even biologists have expanded our realization of the significance of quantum phenomena. This second edition includes such advances. The authors have also drawn on many responses from readers and instructors to improve the clarity of the book's explanations.

Sorry I don't have time write more right now... but I wanted to suggest this book to you before I forgot.

UnmitigatedDisaster
I love the topic, and the thought of applying scientific process to it; but before you can even get to that point we'd need to establish a definition of the soul, in such a way that it is applicable to testing.

Ah, easy right? Except there are dozens, if not hundreds, of interpretations of what "makes" the soul. Characteristics and attributes that we claim are proof of it.

Is consciousness proof of the soul? Morality? Emotions? Is it the ability to question ourselves? How do you test that?

Is it the sum of the electrical impulses that drive our synapses and thus our bodies? If so we know that dissapates after death, at least from the physical body. Trying to establish what happens to it after becomes of interest, which I believe has been tested to some degree already.

So: The hardest question, in my mind, is to establish what the soul IS, after that testing becomes relatively straight forward.

"What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets."

This is indeed very true, what exactly is the soul. There would be a need to make a research concerning the different views across time, cultures and history to find similarities and then to make a definition.

The soul, in many religious, philosophical, psychological, and mythological traditions, is the incorporeal and, in many conceptions, immortal essence of a person, living thing, or object. [1]

1. ^ "soul."Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica 2006 CD. 13 July 2010.

Source

Then I found this sentence :

Soul can function as a synonym for spirit, mind, psyche or self.[5]

5. ^ "Soul", Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Retrieved 12 November 2008.

So, to keep it simple, considering there is currently very little consensus on what is the difference between, soul spirit, mind, psyche, etc, let's just keep it to "an immeterial body" other than the physical body we are able to touch and perceive in this 3 dimension.



Thruthseek3r

Woodcarver
Dbl post

edit on 10-12-2013 by Woodcarver because: (no reason given)

Speculation is fine. It leads to the important questions that may lead to a path of truth. But until a soul is proven to exist, one should not go about claiming the properties of said soul because. THERE IS NO WAY TO PROVE IT.
And you are just left with what if scenarios and gut feelings which do not further our knowledge of anything.

edit on 10-12-2013 by Woodcarver because: (no reason given)

I can tell you from my own experience, when I go to sleep I know for sure there is more than my body. This is part of the reason which lead me to start this thread. Now, as I can not prove anything, because my personal experience was not happening in a scientific/empirical context, this is why I decided to make this thread to start getting the different ideas of ATSers.

Saying

THERE IS NO WAY TO PROVE IT

is a bit far fetched in my opinion. Please bear in mind the the absence of proof does not mean proof of absence, by definitely no mean.

Would you have in any way a thought on how could it be possible to prove it instead of saying it is impossible?


Thruthseek3r

VegHead
Have you read "Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness"? You might enjoy the book. It's an interesting read.

Here is a description from Amazon:

In trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics, the most successful theory in science and the basis of one-third of our economy. They found, to their embarrassment, that with their theory, physics encounters consciousness. Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all this in non-technical terms with help from some fanciful stories and anecdotes about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, emphasizing what is and what is not speculation. Quantum Enigma's description of the experimental quantum facts, and the quantum theory explaining them, is undisputed. Interpreting what it all means, however, is heatedly controversial. But every interpretation of quantum physics involves consciousness. Rosenblum and Kuttner therefore turn to exploring consciousness itself-and encounter quantum mechanics. Free will and anthropic principles become crucial issues, and the connection of consciousness with the cosmos suggested by some leading quantum cosmologists is mind-blowing. Readers are brought to a boundary where the particular expertise of physicists is no longer the only sure guide. They will find, instead, the facts and hints provided by quantum mechanics and the ability to speculate for themselves.

In the few decades since the Bell's theorem experiments established the existence of entanglement (Einstein's "spooky action"), interest in the foundations, and the mysteries, of quantum mechanics has accelerated. In recent years, physicists, philosophers, computer engineers, and even biologists have expanded our realization of the significance of quantum phenomena. This second edition includes such advances. The authors have also drawn on many responses from readers and instructors to improve the clarity of the book's explanations.

Sorry I don't have time write more right now... but I wanted to suggest this book to you before I forgot.

What would be your personal definition of consciousness?
I really am wondering.





Thruthseek3r