Religion
Related: About this forumSoul Doubt
October 9, 2012
By vorjack
Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars dug up an article old article from Cosmic Variance about the physics of the soul. Conclusion: there is nothing in physics that supports the idea of a soul.
Very roughly speaking, when most people think about an immaterial soul that persists after death, they have in mind some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain, and drives around our body like a soccer mom driving an SUV. The questions are these: what form does that spirit energy take, and how does it interact with our ordinary atoms? Not only is new physics required, but dramatically new physics. Within QFT, there can’t be a new collection of “spirit particles” and “spirit forces” that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments. Ockham’s razor is not on your side here, since you have to posit a completely new realm of reality obeying very different rules than the ones we know.
The point is similar to the one I was making in a recent post about astrology. If there exists a soul, then physics as we know it must be wrong. Yet every experiment we do seems to bear out the current theories and models.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonablefaith/2012/10/soul-doubt/
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tama
(9,137 posts)that's why theoretical physicists keep on theorizing and experimentalists experimenting. And most of physicists carefully avoid touching the mind-body problem. Which is closely related to the unsolved quantum measurement problem.
mr blur
(7,753 posts)
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Do you go past your elbow? All the way to your shoulder?
MineralMan
(146,317 posts)Truly, you do not know modern physics. That much is clear.
rug
(82,333 posts)tama
(9,137 posts)Better than giving it to claimants of Higgs found, which would have been very premature. Experiments with "macroscopic" quantum effects is not new, but Nobel committee seems to like when they make progress towards quantum computers. Maybe also the prize going to experimentalists instead of theoretical work tells something about the state of physics.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Haroche uses atoms as a sensitive probe of light particles trapped in a cavity, whereas Wineland takes the opposite approach, using light to measure the quantum states of atoms. Both techniques have helped to investigate the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, and they are helping to develop new technologies such as quantum computers or atomic clocks of dizzying precision. News of the award came as a shock to Haroche: “I recognized the Swedish phone code. I had to sit down,” he said at a press conference shortly after the announcement.
In the quantum world, particles of light and matter obey strange rules. One particle can occupy several mutually exclusive states simultaneously, for example, and groups of particles can be mysteriously connected through a process known as entanglement. But these quantum properties are hard to see: particles will show their quantum nature only in isolation, and even the slightest bump from the outside world will destroy their quantum states. That makes experiments extremely tricky, because the act of measuring itself is enough to upset the system. The techniques developed by Wineland and Haroche gave physicists a way to probe these states without destroying them.
Haroche’s experiments bounce microwave photons between a pair of superconducting mirrors, and send a stream of rubidium atoms through the fog of photons. By measuring the spins of the atoms as they enter and exit the mirrored cavity, he is able to indirectly probe the quantum properties of the microwave photons inside. Progressive measurements have, for example, allowed his team to observe a photon’s quantum wavefunction — which simultaneously describes all of its possible quantum states — and then monitor its collapse to a single, well-defined state1.
http://www.nature.com/news/physics-nobel-for-quantum-optics-1.11560
I guess you are just upset that they failed to take your internet pontifications into account?
tama
(9,137 posts)I took all of yous away from ignore, but I'm still not interested. If you want a discussion, discuss.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)And relevant.
tama
(9,137 posts)cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Much like you post that opened this sub-thread.
But you keep smiling!
tama
(9,137 posts)and if was not, it would not be theoretical physics. Coherent is what can be discussed if there is will.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)
tama
(9,137 posts)humblebum
(5,881 posts)tama
(9,137 posts)humblebum
(5,881 posts)he doesn't quite understand.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)Last edited Thu Oct 11, 2012, 11:07 AM - Edit history (1)
I'm finally making the move I should have a long time ago. Full Ignore for you, my little buddy. Full Ignore.
Have a nice life. 
And watch out for those militant atheists. 
humblebum
(5,881 posts)
dimbear
(6,271 posts)Then they tried an accurate scale.
rug
(82,333 posts)
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)
rug
(82,333 posts)Especially in this song.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)That fact was spelled out nearly a century ago by the Vienna Circle.
The act of rehashing the idea over and over is laughable.
Vienna circle was not correct.
humblebum
(5,881 posts)to define the modern Scientific Method for at least the next generation. They, in so many words, stated that anything that was considered to be religious, metaphysical, intuitive, or apriori could not even be assessed.
IOW, anything that cannot be observed, measured, or sensed is even recognized as existing.
tama
(9,137 posts)
Silent3
(15,218 posts)Quantum something! Mind-body-soul! Randomly generated Deepak Chopra quote!
humblebum
(5,881 posts)some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain...."
It would be interesting to see the evidence verifying that statement. By what authority can the phrase "most people" be used. That POV is certainly not espoused by Christianity.
Rather leading, I would say.
Create your own definition of a soul so you can prove it wrong. Rather ad hoc and vacuous to say the least.
