Scientific Proof Of The Existence Of The Soul (and God)

[Cris]

Duendy,

Sorry but Christian de Quincey is offering nothing more than speculative fantasy. He also makes some very ignorant claims, such as –

We also know of people who function normally with almost no brain at all. A condition called hydrancephaly. As much as 95% of the brain is not there.

There are no such recorded cases of anyone living normally with such a condition. Such cases result in extreme mental retardation and death shortly afterwards. He is quoting myth to further his imaginative book.

Let’s put this consciousness thing in perspective. The brain consists of some 200 billion neurons with some several trillion synaptic connections between them. Each neuron acts very much a like an independent microprocessor and all of them operate in parallel. The result is a massively parallel processing system that is some 20,000 times more powerful than the most powerful computer we have yet developed.

Now what these philosophers are saying is that this incredible device in our heads really doesn’t do anything and that our real mind comes from outer space or hyperspace or some other such nonsense.

There is also that awkward fact that any damage to the brain results in impairment to our ability to think, emote, and to be conscious, etc.

 

[mopc]

Did you ever notice how these crazy "theory" websites always start with big bombastic letters and statements?

 

[VitalOne]

Vitalone,



Why? How do you justify that claim?

I can't really think of any experiment that would be able to justify this claim, if you think of any tell me. However, the observer affect shows that particles exist only when observed.

What other things are immaterial? If you can observe something then it is material.

We observe the effects of immaterial things, but not it, itself. For instance, time does not physically exist. You cannot show me time in concrete, physical, form. If I beat you with a hammer, and ask you to show me your pain in concrete form, can you do so? Darkness, cold, and many other things don't materially exist.

How can something immaterial interact with something material without being material? If you extend this argument you eventually have to conclude that something immaterial is an impossibility, or at least impossible for us to detect and impossible for it to interact with us.

How can time affect us without being material? Perhaps it is on another dimensional plane of existence, or simply cannot be materially observed in concrete form. If something cannot be observed by us physically, it does not mean it cannot interact with us or affect us.

Is it possible for a person with 2D eyes to see something 3D? Or will they just see what their 2D eyes show them?

LOL. By extremely simple and rudimentary deduction – we lose our consciousness when the brain is damaged 100% of the time – conclusion: consciousness is caused and maintained by a healthy brain – i.e. consciousness and brain are one and the same thing. There is no evidence that indicates anything else.

If consciousness cannot be materially observed, then how can material evidence really be gathered? Actually, some scientists are wondering where certain knowledge comes from in the brain, like when an idea just pops into your mind, as if it just came from nowhere (physically).

 

[VitalOne]

Descartes believed as you do, only he was more specific about where this interaction takes place in the brain. Most of the brain is bilaterial symetric, but we have only one pituitary gland centrally located in the brain. He designated it as the interaction site between the spirit and matter mainly because it is unique.

The problem, as Chris and thousands before him, have pointed out is that something which has no material existance can not move a single molecule. If a molecule suddently began to move without any material cause, F=ma, Neuton's famous equation, would be violated as "a" is non zero while "F" is zero.

As I pointed out, time has no material existence, but obviously affects the materially world. If consciousness is the generative cause of material existence, then it can affect the material world.

I tried to think of an analogy. Think of it this way, say a 3D being creates a 2D being, the 2D being however can only observe the 3D being through their 2D eyes, the 3D being can interact with the 2D being, but the 2D being will never observe the 3D being in 3D.

Classical Newtonian laws have long been violated.

 

[mis-t-highs]

vital: you can see time happening,right in front of you, so it cant literally be called Immaterial can it.
as there are no such things as 2D beings, your into the realms of fantasy there are'nt you, so baseless asumption.

 

[kazakhan]

However, the observer affect shows that particles exist only when observed.

So if someones not actually looking at the sun, moon etc then those objects would disappear

 

[Billy T]

About time's existance: Time is not invisible material that flows, dragging the events that happen with it. If the passage of time were universally "paused" and them resumed, no one would know. It would be like you were one of the characters in a movie who had just knocked over a glass of water, half of which had spilled out, when time "paused" - When the movies resumes, it shows the other half spills out. etc. just as if the movie never paused.

The best way to think of time is that it is a convenient parameter the can link many different events together. For example, (considering only one half cycle of a pendullum's swing), the pendulum of a grandfather clock and the advance of the clocks hands. If the position of the hands is described by a function of time, h = H(t), and the position of the pendulum by the function p = P(t) where "t" is time, h is hand positions, and p is pendulum paosition, one can solve (invert) these equations to get: t = T1(h) that is time expressed as a function of hand position which I have called T1 to distinguish it from different function T2. The inversion of the equation p = P(t) yields: t = T2(p).

Now we can eliminate t from these two equations. I.e. T1(h) = T2(p). That is with this equation we have a direct relations (NO TIME VARIABLE) between p and h. It would be possible to establish direct relationship equations between any two observable events you like, WITHOUT ANY REFERENCE TO TIME; however, it would be an extremely inconvent way to describe the universe because every equation would be unique and complex, but this illustates that "time" is not necessary to a complete description of the universe, even one with mathematical percision. Thus time is not material, or even necessary and if it "paused" we would not know. Time is only a very convenient concept for understanding how events are related. Without linking all observable events to this parameter we call time, the equations of physics would be much to complex to actually use for almost everything we can describe via time.

We naturaly tend to think of time a some unseen "flow" to which all events are tied, but this is only a convenience. Time really does not exist either as a material or non matreril flow. Events cause the change in other events, not passage of time. The clock's hands advance because the pendulum swings etc.

 

[duendy]

and so i am seing time and eternity as two sides of a same coin. eternty = time

what the white light religions do and Eastern metaphysical beliefs...is try and GET one-side, eternity. so then comes ideas like all-light worlds, no death, all evil locked up

and in the East, merging with the 'Void' all-the-time-eternal-bliss. and/or being here but not feeling pain or pleasure etc, cause one is in all-the-time-bliss

 

[Silas]

So if someones not actually looking at the sun, moon etc then those objects would disappear

You can roll your eyes, but essentially, that's it. If the moon is not being perceived, it isn't there.

 

[VitalOne]

About time's existance: Time is not invisible material that flows, dragging the events that happen with it. If the passage of time were universally "paused" and them resumed, no one would know. It would be like you were one of the characters in a movie who had just knocked over a glass of water, half of which had spilled out, when time "paused" - When the movies resumes, it shows the other half spills out. etc. just as if the movie never paused.

Whoever said it was an invisible material that flows? The problem with people thinking of immaterial objects is that they still think of them in the sameway they think of material objects. Immaterial objects are have no physical existence, that just doesn't mean that they can't be observed but are like material objects. It is obvious that time doesn't flow in any linear fashion, nor circular fashion, it simply is.

The best way to think of time is that it is a convenient parameter the can link many different events together. For example, (considering only one half cycle of a pendullum's swing), the pendulum of a grandfather clock and the advance of the clocks hands. If the position of the hands is described by a function of time, h = H(t), and the position of the pendulum by the function p = P(t) where "t" is time, h is hand positions, and p is pendulum paosition, one can solve (invert) these equations to get: t = T1(h) that is time expressed as a function of hand position which I have called T1 to distinguish it from different function T2. The inversion of the equation p = P(t) yields: t = T2(p).

Now we can eliminate t from these two equations. I.e. T1(h) = T2(p). That is with this equation we have a direct relations (NO TIME VARIABLE) between p and h. It would be possible to establish direct relationship equations between any two observable events you like, WITHOUT ANY REFERENCE TO TIME; however, it would be an extremely inconvent way to describe the universe because every equation would be unique and complex, but this illustates that "time" is not necessary to a complete description of the universe, even one with mathematical percision. Thus time is not material, or even necessary and if it "paused" we would not know. Time is only a very convenient concept for understanding how events are related. Without linking all observable events to this parameter we call time, the equations of physics would be much to complex to actually use for almost everything we can describe via time.

We naturaly tend to think of time a some unseen "flow" to which all events are tied, but this is only a convenience. Time really does not exist either as a material or non matreril flow. Events cause the change in other events, not passage of time. The clock's hands advance because the pendulum swings etc.

Time is immaterial, and does affect the material world. I never said it is necessary for the existence of the material world, nor that it is necessary to describe events. I never said it flows, time flowing just doesn't make sense. I was making a point, time is immaterial, yet it STILL affects the physical world. Einstein called time the 4th dimension.

In any case, how would it be possible to prove the existence of something immaterial materially?

 

[Crunchy Cat]

You can roll your eyes, but essentially, that's it. If the moon is not being perceived, it isn't there.

If we're working off of super-J-Hawkin's latest M-theory model then it exists
in sideways time (all permutations of matter do). The one that is 'perceived'
when viewed is the most probable one popped into normal time.

 

[kazakhan]

You can roll your eyes, but essentially, that's it. If the moon is not being perceived, it isn't there.

Oh so we humans magically appear in a void then create the known universe with our minds
If that was true then anything we wished for could be ours. As I've tried my best conjure up various objects before my very eyes and failed everytime it obviously can't be true.
I think this claim could be the most ridiculous I've ever seen on these forums.

 

[Cris]

Vitalone,

We observe the effects of immaterial things, but not it, itself.

Until you can demonstrate that something immaterial exists you cannot logically conclude that any effect is the result of something immaterial.

For instance, time does not physically exist.

This is nonsense. Time is not an object. Time is a change of state of existence and can be measured, much like motion is a change of state of position and can be measured, and again much like acceleration is a change of state of velocity, which again can be measured. These are all properties of material phenomena.

If I beat you with a hammer, and ask you to show me your pain in concrete form, can you do so?

Pain is the result of electrical impulses from the nerve endings transmitted to the brain. These can be measured. Pain is a material phenomenon.

Darkness, cold, and many other things don't materially exist.

Light levels can be measured and temperatures can be measured. Darkness and cold are simply imprecise terms. Light and heat are material phenomena.

If something cannot be observed by us physically, it does not mean it cannot interact with us or affect us.

That doesn’t mean that the cause is immaterial, it could simply be something that we have yet to observe. This says nothing about the possible existence of immaterial phenomena.

Is it possible for a person with 2D eyes to see something 3D? Or will they just see what their 2D eyes show them?

I don’t think this hypothetical has sufficient integrity to warrant serious consideration.

If consciousness cannot be materially observed, then how can material evidence really be gathered?

You are confusing abstract concepts with substantive objects. Consider the examples I gave above. You should have no problem understanding the abstract term of acceleration, yet can “acceleration” be physically observed? No, it is the object that accelerates that is observed.

Another example: Does the letter “A” physically exist or is it just a set of lines on a page? We can say that the letter is an emergent property of a particular arrangement of physical lines. In the same way we can conclude that consciousness is an emergent property of a set of particular neural networks physically located in the brain.

Actually, some scientists are wondering where certain knowledge comes from in the brain, like when an idea just pops into your mind, as if it just came from nowhere (physically).

Why isn’t an idea a particular arrangement of neural networks? And what scientists are you referencing?

 

[Silas]

Oh so we humans magically appear in a void then create the known universe with our minds
If that was true then anything we wished for could be ours. As I've tried my best conjure up various objects before my very eyes and failed everytime it obviously can't be true.
I think this claim could be the most ridiculous I've ever seen on these forums.

Ridiculous, certainly, in the sense of counter-intuitive. But that's quantum physics for you. Nonetheless, there was no implication that we are all mystically "imagining" the moon, or engaging in an act of conscious creation when we look at it. Our perception resolves the uncertainty of its position, that's all.

 

[kazakhan]

I already have a rudimentry understanding of quantum mechanics, but your trying to apply it to the "macro" world.

FYI:

Quantum effects are not noticeable in the macro world. They only become important as one approaches the dimensions of the atom.

 

[Billy T]

Whoever said it was an invisible material that flows? The problem with people thinking of immaterial objects is that they still think of them in the sameway they think of material objects. Immaterial objects are have no physical existence, that just doesn't mean that they can't be observed but are like material objects. It is obvious that time doesn't flow in any linear fashion, nor circular fashion, it simply is.


Time is immaterial, and does affect the material world. I never said it is necessary for the existence of the material world, nor that it is necessary to describe events. I never said it flows, time flowing just doesn't make sense. I was making a point, time is immaterial, yet it STILL affects the physical world. Einstein called time the 4th dimension.

In any case, how would it be possible to prove the existence of something immaterial materially?

Most of us, me included, tend to think of time as if it were progressing / flowing from the past towards the future and that we grow old etc. BECAUSE of the passage of time. Humans have many natural, but erroneous concepts, as part of our usual way of thinking, like me telling you that where I live the sun rises at about 6:30 now. I did not intend my post to be read as stating that you (only) think of time as an invisible material flow but many people do have somthing like this in the set of everyday concepts. It is convenient and works.

The point of my post, which you reproduced, was to show mathematically that time or the parameter "t" in most eauqtions is not necessary, reflects no thing, material or immaterial - it is only a covenient coordinate - as you said one in Einstine's four dimentional coordinate system. The fact that a different reference frame, moving relative to ours, would have their time, expressed as mixture of our temporal and spatial coordinates, also shows that "time" as something other than a useful coordinate for describing progress of events, does not really exist. It is not some movement from the past to the future of any independant immaterial thing as you seem to be stating.

I am growing old, not because of the passage of time, but because the regenerative cellular processes in my body are not making perfect replicas. (More technically, the telamars of my cells are are growing shorter with each mitoses and other irrevesible processes.)

I would appreciate, if you can, that you give me a few details as how something immaterial can affect material things. Make it as simple as possible - tell me how something immaterial can even slightly deflect the trajectory of a single atom, making it not follow the established laws of physics. If you think about this, you will understand why a trained physicist, like me, is interested in the existance, or not, of Free Will. Most of my life I thought free will was an illusion (another example of a common erroneous human belief) but about a decade ago I discovered, while researching visual perception, how genuine free will can be consistent with physics.

 

[Golgo 13]

It's long been known that specific types of brain damage can cause massive personality and mental changes. Granted, other parts of the brain can be removed without noticeable ill effect on the mind, but so can relatively unimportant parts of other systems be damaged--the knees, heart, etc.--without causing those to fail. And even those "unimportant" parts, when removed, often impair the system's function in more subtle ways than can be easily detected.

In general, the nervous system provides very strong evidence for complete mind-brain dependence. Conditions like Alzheimer's disease and amnesia can damage or even destroy parts of the mind in perfect unison with the appropriate brain sections.

"This patient, who suffered damage to both his hippocampus and his temporal lobes (thought to be important for storing memories) at age 46, has total anterograde and near-total retrograde amnesia: he cannot form new memories or recall old ones. He is trapped in a permanent present, a void of consciousness without memory.

Indeed, he has no sense of time at all. He cannot tell us the date, and when asked to guess, his responses are wild--as disparate [as] 1942 and 2013.... This patient cannot state his age, either. He can guess, but the guess tends to be wrong. Two of the few specific things he knows for certain are that he was married and that he is the father of two children. But when did he get married? He cannot say. When were the children born? He does not know. He cannot place himself in the time line of his family life. (Damasio 2002, p. 69-71)
(As Dr. Damasio tells us, the patient's wife divorced him over 20 years ago, and his children are long since grown up and married.) Does this man still have a soul? In what sense is he conscious? He is adrift in a world of darkness, a blank void with neither past nor future, merely an ever-moving present that continually fades from sight."

Damage to the frontal lobes can produce massive changes in both personality and mental abilities. Brain damage can even produce a person who's incapable of acquiring new memories - in effect, a mind trapped in the same time and place, one which will revert to his or her old memories every 15 minutes and nonchalantly ask his loved ones why they've aged so much after 20 years of asking them the same question.

A young priest once suffered a stroke that rendered him incapable of feeling sadness. Formerly compassionate and empathetic to his leukemia-stricken sister, he now made jokes about it and didn't understand why he should feel guilty about it. As his father commented, "... He looks like our son and has the same voice as our son, but he is not the same person we knew and loved... He's not the same person he was before he had this stroke. Our son was a warm, caring, and sensitive person. All that is gone. He now sounds like a robot."

"This wrenching story illustrates how a human property as fundamental as compassion arises from the brain and can be destroyed by altering the brain. A warm, caring, intelligent young man of God, as the result of brain damage, underwent a complete and drastic personality change. He became indifferent to his duties, unconcerned about the potentially fatal illness of a loved one, even light-heartedly joking about it with his grief-stricken parents, who said that he was "not the same person [they] knew and loved", not the same person he had been before his stroke. "

The author of that article, which explains a mass of other difficulties and cites many case studies, closes with this apt statement:

"The materialist can explain the effects of frontotemporal dementia without difficulty. How does the dualist explain it? What is happening to these people's souls? Is the deterioration of the brain causing changes to the soul - or are personality traits a quality of the brain and not the soul? But that implies that these traits will be lost upon death. In that case, in what sense will the soul in the afterlife be the same person it was during life?"

Not only does brain damage harm the mind, but certain bizarre conditions can even produce, for all intents and purposes, two damaged minds for the price of one healthy one.

"Research shows that in such split-brain cases, the brain generates what seems to be two separate consciousnesses. Research on split-brain patients led brain scientist and Nobel laureate Roger Sperry to conclude, 'Everything we have seen indicates that the surgery has left these people with two separate minds, that is, two separate spheres of consciousness. What is experienced in the right hemisphere seems to lie entirely outside the realm of the left hemisphere.'"

I will expand on this particular point below.

Case studies in severed corpus callosum (the "split brain experiment" alluded to above) more or less spell the death knell for the soul. First, a bit of background on what we can learn from the different hemispheres in healthy people:

Left brain dominates for language, speech, and problem solving
Right brain dominates for visual-motor tasks

"1. Each hemisphere was presented a picture that related to one of four pictures placed in front of the split-brain subject.

2. The left and right hemispheres easily picked the right card. The left hand pointed to the right hemisphere's choice, and the right hand pointed to the left hemisphere's choice.

3. The patient was then asked why the left hand was pointing to the shovel. Only the left hemisphere can talk, and it did not know the answer because the decision to point to the shovel was made in the right hemisphere."

This experiment indicates both sides of the brain are capable of individual thought in some capacity, as if each one had an independent mind. Now we just need to find out whether this curious effect is merely an artifact of our consciousness, or really at odds with self-awareness being the result of a single, indivisible paranormal spirit.

Certain epileptic patients that don't respond to conventional treatment sometimes get the brain halves severed from each other. Amazingly, both halves can go on to develop unique tastes, preferences and beliefs. This indicates once the data link is cut, both can effectively function as "half a soul." In turn, this is quite difficult to reconcile with any remotely traditional model of dualism.

Courtesy of the Macalester College psychology department:

"Before the operation he integrated information between the two hemispheres freely, but after the operation he had two separate minds or mental systems, each with its own abilities to learn, remember, and experience emotion and behavior. Yet, WJ, was not completely aware of the changes in his brain. As Gazzaniga put it: "WJ lives happily in Downey, California, with no sense of the enormity of the findings or for that matter any awareness that he had changed." As previously explained (experiments), words flashed to the right field of vision of patients like WJ could be said and written with the right hand. In contrast, patients couldn't say or write words flashed to their left field of vision [even though they could pick out the object with their hand]."

One brain hemisphere is verbal but has difficulty with certain other functions, while the other can't really talk but has other traits that make up for it. Each of those can, in their own way, identify and describe reality around them, but neither hemisphere has access to the self-awareness or thoughts of the other. Splitting them produces all kinds of anomalous results, like this:

"The patients give evidence of having two differing minds. The best example of this is patient Paul S., whom you read about on the home page. Paul's right hemisphere developed considerable language ability sometime previous to the operation. Although it is uncommon, occasionally the right hemisphere may share substantial neural circuits with, or even dominate, the left hemisphere's centers for language comprehension and production. The fact that Paul's right hemisphere was so well developed in it's verbal capacity opened a closed door for researchers. For almost all split brain patients, the thoughts and perceptions of the right hemisphere are locked away from expression. Researchers were finally able to interview both hemispheres on their views about friendship, love, hate and aspirations.

Paul's right hemisphere stated that he wanted to be an automobile racer while his left hemisphere wanted to be a draftsman. Both hemispheres were asked to write whether they liked or disliked a series of items. The study was performed during the Watergate scandal, and one of the items was Richard Nixon. Paul's right hemisphere expressed 'dislike,' while his left expressed 'like.'"

In light of these and other facts, the existence of the soul is effectively falsified unless one postulates an enormous number of ad hoc hypotheses to salvage it from the data. A modus operandi that tells us nothing about truth, and in fact usually obscures it.

If the soul existed, people wouldn't suffer Alzheimer's disease, couldn't be anesthetized, wouldn't have radical personality changes caused by tumors, and would, if brain hemispheres were split, either die or show a mysterious, spooky data link was still operating at a distance to make both hemispheres consistent with a single mind.

The difference can best be described as thin-client/mainframe vs. personal computing. In one device, the "consciousness" would run on an inaccessible device some distance away from the client, getting its instructions from a network connection. Damaging the client (i.e. body) would leave the files and processes (consciousness) on the mainframe as safe as ever, but it would only produce erratic results in the client.

If a part of the client's processor was damaged, you would feel as fine and clear-headed as you usually would, but your sources of input from the physical world would progressively fail until the link was severed, at which point you would experience conscious, total sensory deprivation (assuming no other source of input was provided, this is a nightmarish scenario).

You couldn't lose any memories, personality and self-awareness, because it would be safe and indestructible on the server. At worst, you could only lose the ability to express it to others successfully as the body went, but it would affect all memories equally, not apparently destroy some while leaving others entirely untouched.

As a further analogy, you could destroy your client's ability to present Microsoft Word documents to others, but you could never find that a specific .DOC was missing on the mainframe from damage entirely limited to the client side.

This is not what occurs--in fact, the exact opposite is observed. People really forget things because of brain damage. Chemical changes in the brain can induce depression and other personality changes. Self-awareness itself goes bye-bye if you're knocked on the head, anesthetized or asleep. And, of course, the "soul" is somehow split in two, directly correlated with physical splits to the brain itself. Thus, there's only one conclusion you can honestly draw from the neurological evidence. You're not an indestructible entity using a fragile gateway to the physical world--you are the gateway, on which every single aspect of yourself is stored. Once it goes, so do "you." So enjoy it while it lasts.

 

[Cris]

Golgo,

Nice article. Is there a web reference please?

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Billy T: I am growing old, not because of the passage of time, but because the regenerative cellular processes in my body are not making perfect replicas. (More technically, the telamars of my cells are are growing shorter with each mitoses and other irrevesible processes.)
*************
M*W: Science has identified in vitro the enzyme telomerase to be the lengthening precursor for telomeres. Application of telomerase has been effectively studied in vitro. However, we've yet to apply it to human genetics. That'll be the day!

 

[Golgo 13]

Golgo,

Nice article. Is there a web reference please?

Yeah, I cited the sources in the post:

A Ghost in the Machine

Behavior of Split Brain Patients

There was also a wealth of information at this link but the page has been taken down and I can't find it on wayback.

They still have the image of the split-brain patient I used on the server though.

Science has identified in vitro the enzyme telomerase to be the lengthening precursor for telomeres. Application of telomerase has been effectively studied in vitro. However, we've yet to apply it to human genetics. That'll be the day!

Here's an interesting article on why we just can't simply activate our deactivated telomerase gene and never have to worry about aging:

Telomeres, Telomerase, and Cancer