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Soul?! What is it according to science and scientists?
I am getting several messages from people who read some of my articles on 'after life', 'near death experiences' and other related articles and my replies here to some Qs people asked me to explain the scientific points of view on these issues.
I can confirm one thing: People are fascinated by mystery! By death. By after life. By near death experiences. By souls - good and bad (ghosts!?).
But there are no mysteries as far as scientists are concerned. Majority of them have very firm views.
Recently I participated in a debate on 'souls' where a few scientists took on people who believe in 'souls', 'after life', and 'reincarnations'.
I am posting here some of the points that were discussed to show what scientists think of these beliefs.
A request though. This is a controversial subject and you need to keep your emotions in check while reading this and try to understand things from a scientist's point of view. Read this article that would help you in the process: why-is-it-difficult-for-scientists-to-have-high-eqs
But first watch this wonderful video titled "Death and the After life" where a physicist, Dr. Sean Carroll explains why he doesn't believe in 'after life and souls'.
(Sorry, this video is set to'private, so I posted the gist of the video in the comments section: Life after death 'impossible' with 'no way' for soul to survive says scientist Dr. Sean Carroll)
This is what Stephen Hawking, the famous theoretical physicist and cosmologist said about after life:
The belief that heaven or an afterlife awaits us is a "fairy story" for people afraid of death. There was nothing beyond the moment when the brain flickers for the final time.
'I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark', he added. Hawking completely rejects the notion of life beyond death and emphasise the need to fulfil our potential on Earth by making good use of our lives. In answer to a question on how we should live, he said, simply: "We should seek the greatest value of our action."
Further he argues that tiny quantum fluctuations in the very early universe became the seeds from which galaxies, stars, and ultimately human life emerged. "Science predicts that many different kinds of universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing. It is a matter of chance which we are in, he says!
Okay, now let us move on to the discussion...
'What will happen at the time of or after death?'
Scientists: Nothing. You just cease to exist after death. Your body decomposes and the atoms and energy that it constituted are re-cycled. Period.
In order to study the existence or non-existence of something, there needs to be information about it that we can test. We cannot 'test' souls. We cannot do anything about proving things that don't have a chance of existing in the first place. We cannot test baseless beliefs. we cannot test peoples' wild imaginations.
For most iterations of an ‘afterlife’, there’s absolutely nothing we can measure. Sometimes someone makes a claim that the body loses a bit of mass after they die. Okay, we can test and measure that. But when it was done, it was found that it was gas that escaped from the body and caused the weight loss!
Soul is entirely religion based belief: Soul - Wikipedia
The current scientific consensus across all fields of science is that there is no evidence for the existence of any kind of soul in the traditional sense. Many modern scientists, such as Julien Musolino, hold that the mind is merely a complex machine that operates on the same physical laws as all other objects in the universe.(*)According to Musolino, there is currently no scientific evidence whatsoever to support the existence of the soul(*) he claims there is also considerable evidence that seems to indicate that souls do not exist (*).
* Musolino, Julien (2015). The Soul Fallacy: What Science Shows We Gain from Letting Go of Our Soul Beliefs. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. pp. 21–38. ISBN 978-1-61614-962-8.
Evidence of absence - the evidence of any kind that suggests something is missing or that it does not exist. We have that a lot in these cases. Not the evidence of presence.
There is no evidence that souls exist, that Heaven exists, that after-life exists. Those who want to believe what they want to believe cannot understand this. And we don't understand death too properly to come to firm conclusions about it. Science is trying to first find out what consciousness is.
And what will happen at the time of death? People say they have experienced several things and according to science, these are all illusions created by the brain and scientists were able to reproduce them in labs using certain techniques. Please read these articles Dr. Krishna wrote here:
how-science-explains-near-death-experiences
and here: science-tries-to-strengthen-your-minds-permanently-by-making-you-realize-reality
One person from general public: Why do skeptics continually repeat this falsehood that there is no evidence for a "life after death"? Memories of previous lives, apparitions, NDEs, DBV's, the evidence is huge. I am not suggesting that the evidence is necessarily compelling, but it is simply false to say it doesn't exist.
The fact that scientists can reproduce certain experiences is an irrelevance. You need to show that such experiences do not have an origin in some external reality. Appropriate stimulation of the brain might allow us access to perceptions of other realities.
Science cannot *in principle* find out what consciousness is. At least not how science is currently construed. See an essay by me:
Science, the Afterlife, and the Intelligentsia
Scientists: Had you watched the Sean's video, you would have understood why we are skeptics.
The things you say 'evidence' is just bullshit. Creative Stories people tell to deceive the innocent. Why is it false to say it doesn't exist? Give me reasons and Show me the proof to make me accept it.
Why is it irrelevant when we are able to produce 'ghost - effects', 'Near death experiences' in labs to show people how they occur in reality? What external reality do you want us to consider? Okay, electromagnetic radiation in some places that cause hallucinations of ghosts. Apart from what science makes us understand we cannot accept other things just based on misconceptions and baseless beliefs.
Science is interested with the facts, not fairy tales or crazy claims. Because facts are based on measurable, observable and quantifiable incidents that can be repeated. If it cannot be repeated, there's nothing to be researched and trusted.
The soul is something the human ego dreamed up to mitigate its existential fear. There is no sign its anything more
Musolino, Julien (2015). The Soul Fallacy: What Science Shows We Gain from Letting Go of Our Soul Beliefs. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books. pp. 21–38. ISBN 978-1-61614-962-8.
Another person from GP: One 'Bhagwat Geeta As It is' for you my scientist friends!
Everybody laughs!
Scientists: Smile :). We have read these creative stories. We know Lord Krishna mentioned about souls in it. Just stories don't convince us. They were based on beliefs people had in ancient times. One mythological story doesn't give us evidence to accept souls. Try to differentiate between mythology and reality (evidence based facts).
The change of facts in our field is again based on new data provided, not the change based on belief or opinion. To beat inaccuracy, you need the weapon of absolute truth - not another inaccuracy!
Another person from GP: You are asking for proof for soul (Athma). But you cannot disprove the same also because proof can be given for existence but not for non-existence. Like you studied science under a proper teacher putting your utmost faith in him/her, you must also learn about athma (soul) from a proper teacher. Then only you will understand Athma. Remember where science stops, spirituality (Not a proper word but will do for now) starts.
Scientists: This article written by Dr. Krishna is for you: Science and Spirituality
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.” ― Bertrand Russell
Gurus or teachers you mention about themselves are unable to do unbiased reasoning and provide rationale based facts. What can they teach us?
If you say a soul exists, it is you who have to prove it really exists.
Science says there is no evidence - Like Sean Carroll said in the video above
"There is no known particle, field, or force that can interact with people and carry the information needed for an afterlife or reincarnation. And, quantum field theory (proven accurate to many decimal places) says that there cannot be anything we don’t already know about that could interact with things on a human scale.
We accept that. If you have one, you have to provide in order to make people believe you. Mere words and stories don't suffice.
The Burden of Proof initially falls towards those that make a positive claim - in this case that a type of Afterlife is “a thing” or 'soul is a substance'.
The same person from GP: Burden of Proof? We don’t need any proof to know. We experience and feel the same.
Will human instinct always miss the truth? Being a doubter you should doubt this first.
You must follow the truth but nothing else. Then only you will be able to see the truth about Athma. Doubting will get you nowhere, but Verifying with experience will. We never talk of belief. We SEE and EXPERIENCE Athma but may be not to its full extent. I can tell you ladoo is sweet. But you will know that only when you taste a ladoo.
What rational reasons makes you not to see one (Athma) that we see?
Scientists: First watch the video we posted here and then give reply. Without reading fully my reply/watching the video where scientists give rational reasons for their assumptions, you cannot give replies and argue things without understanding the scientists’ view! Scientists tried but couldn’t find any souls!
You can feel fear without any rationale. Feelings don’t prove anything except a person’s uncontrolled emotions! They lead to beliefs - which are just your assumptions and opinions without any evidence. We don’t give importance to these misconceptions.
You can see sweets, there is proof, so you can eat and taste them. How can you feel something that doesn’t exist? Oh,yes, you can hallucinate!
One person from GP: We have many science fiction books and movies. Do you ask people who write them or create them to prove them? Why you are being partial to spiritualists Only? Poets imagine many things. Do you ask them to prove it?
You have missed the argument. Spirit cannot be proved. Because. YOU ARE THE SPIRIT. Do you need to prove yourself? Spirit has to be realized or understood, not proved in physical laboratory.
Scientists: So you are making spirit theory equivalent to fiction. Great :)
We don't ask 'fiction' writers to provide proof because they don't claim their fiction is fact. And we ask you to provide evidence because you say what you think is real and true. That is the difference.
We are not the spirit. We are living entities based on science. We can prove ourselves to be living entities based on science. Not based on spirit. That is the difference between a fact and an imagination!
One person from the GP: We don't even have evidence of a mind. But still aren't we all believing it exists?
Scientists: Mind isn't a thing. It is the mental capacity. It is a person's ability to think and reason; the intellect. Aren't we all aware of it? Aren't we conscious of it? Or do you think you don't have a mind? :)
Then how are you asking this Q? The very fact that you are able to think and ask this Q itself is evidence that you are capable of thinking and have the capacity to reason.
A person from GP: Some scientists too worked on this and showed that re-incarnation is true.
You can learn more here: Sam Parnia - Wikipedia
and here: 'Erasing Death' Explores The Science Of Resuscitation
and here: Consciousness after clinical death. The biggest ever scientific stu...
Why-don-t-scientists-study-souls
Scientists: Yes, there are some 'scientists' who is after name, fame and money. They often create sensations to sustain their desires. But those types of work has been described as “bordering on pseudoscience,” by scientists, and is challenged by credible other scientists who think that notions of survival may arise from mundane causes.
There are some who did actually try to 'prove' souls but their work was marked as work with wrong methods and methodology and therefore, the general conclusion 's that these experiments have no real validity like the last one you mentioned.
A person from the General public: Science can't and shouldn't decide about supernatural!
Scientists: Right. You say these things are supernatural and science can't deal with them. But still you try to bring them into the natural world. If you say a person had a rebirth, he 'entered' the natural world and can be tested by science. And science didn't get any genuine evidence about it.
You say souls become 'supernatural' after death because they become sacred and enter 'God phase' or 'unite with God', but you say again they take rebirth and enter natural world where they can be tested and science couldn't find evidence for souls till date.
All those things you say is supernatural and does not come into the natural realm and science are brought into natural world by you people where science had tested and proved them wrong.
You are mixing up things : supernatural and natural. While what you imagine is supernatural and science can't deal with it, is made natural and brought into the realm of science by you people. Miracles in this world. Rebirths in this world. Souls in a human body. We can, science can, deal with it alright.
One person from the general public: Why don't you investigate further?
Scientists: It costs money. We cannot waste our precious resources on things that catches somebody's fancy or stupid stories. It can be put use to some useful work that can really help the world. Unless there appears to be at least a reasonable chance of some tangible outcome, You don’t just throw science at random guesses and hope something comes out; you bet on those things which look like they have a good chance of paying off.
There’s just no realistic, practical, repeatable experiment that can be done here. Personal anecdotes can’t be used because they’re neither consistent nor repeatable, and many of them have non-metaphysical explanations that can be successfully tested.
But scientists still tried. There have been tons and tons of studies over millennia, some good science, some bad, but all indirect of course and never with a positive reproducible outcome.
Reincarnation has been investigated by interviewing memories of people remembering past lives. Statistical analysis of the data showed weird properties like reincarnation respecting national borders.
Souls have boundaries?! Contrary to what people who believe in them say! These weird properties are already explained by psychology, so scientifically there is no need to introduce an afterlife to explain that phenomenon. Reincarnation falls for Ocham's razor, which is the scientific principle that you should not invent stuff in your explanations when not needed.
People tried Weighing the body at the time of death to find the soul of it exist and leaving the body at the time of death. No evidence found.
A soul within the body, affecting it, would have to interact with the atoms of the body and hence be measurable as well as learn and store information eternally. Science would have found such an entity long ago if it existed. Again no proof found.
Experiments on prayer and blessings shows praying to any God/deity/spirit is equally effective aka no more effective than a pep talk, which is also explained by psychology. No scientific need for the divine powers here.
The soul was originally proposed to explain personality and the difference between alive and dead, but now personality is scientifically explained by neurology and the difference is explained scientifically by metabolism. No scientific need for the soul.
Tons of people hear voices speaking to them, and thus qualify as prophets and Godmen and good souls. None have been able to reproduce to get new information from the voice. Many have been diagnosed with Schizophrenia .
So?!
A person from the general public: Why can't we accept indirect evidence?
Scientists: We know of concepts (including specific particles of mass or energy) in physics that must exist or should exist in order to explain certain phenomena, but the inability of physicists to observe, measure, or replicate such things is NOT considered proof that they don’t exist.
But the only evidence I have seen of any weight is inferential, indirect, circumstantial, or experiential and limited in nature. There is such evidence but it is not considered validated, able to be replicated, or “scientific” in the realistic sense.
Studies of supposed reincarnation experiences (past life experiences) have not been validated or have been debunked.
Studies attempting to measure a change in mass at the moment of death are similarly not finding anything if valid.
I don’t know of any scientifically validated claims of angels, ghosts, demons, the dead, or any such things to the extent that they exist having any potential direct effects on or direct physical communications with people living in this world, nor of physically observing such things.
There are other indirect forms of proof or evidence but they involve religion and not scientific evidence and cannot be replicated and could not stand scientific scrutiny.
Brian Cox, the physicist, says (1), “If we want some sort of pattern that carries information about our living cells to persist then we must specify precisely what medium carries that pattern and how it interacts with the matter particles out of which our bodies are made. We must, in other words, invent an extension to the Standard Model of Particle Physics that has escaped detection at the Large Hadron Collider. That's almost inconceivable at the energy scales typical of the particle interactions in our bodies”.
He further adds, “I would say if there's some kind of substance that's driving our bodies, making my arms move and legs move, then it must interact with the particles out of which our bodies are made. And seeing as we've made high precision measurements of the ways that particles interact, then my assertion is there can be no such thing as an energy source that's driving our bodies.”
A Person from GP: Genes made of DNA and RNA can live after life and therefore can they be considered as 'evidence of soul"?
Scientists: Your genes (made of DNA and RNA) are passed on to your offsprings. They are not your soul. Those chemicals that represent DNA and RNA that are present in your body get disintegrated and recycled - if not immediately, after sometime. They are not eternal like people describe souls.
Moreover, the orientation patterns (of chemicals) and numbers of genes make what type of individuals we become. They are just chemicals and molecules made from them. That's all.
GP: Neuroscientists have discovered that if you sever the connections between the left and right hemisphere of the brain the personality remains completely intact. This implies we have souls. Does the brain produce the soul or not?
Scientists: What has brain got to do with souls? How does a split brain imply the existence of a ‘soul’? How can brains produce 'souls'? Brains are responsible for consciousness and minds that's all.
Besides the general philosophical question of how this implies a ‘soul’, one needs to account for the fact that ‘split brain’ persons still have extensive inter-hemisphere communication - just not through the major tract, the corpus collosum. It is only certain kinds of communication that is lost. Cutting the corpus collosum is like cutting the interstate highway system. Travel is impaired, but it’s still possible to get from point A to Point B via secondary roads. Souls have nothing to do with it.
General Public: What about god men who experienced these 'soul things'?
A Neuro-scientist: People whose brains have been damaged in some small way will often exhibit behavioral or functional changes for the worst in ways which reflect the known purposes of the areas of the brain which received damage. People have lost the ability to speak; they have become unable to use words appropriately while speaking; they have lost the emotional regulation afforded by certain areas of the brain; they have lost defining memories; all of this in ways which could be expected given knowledge of the brain regions which had been damaged.
A believer in the afterlife could witness the effects of incremental damage to a person’s ability to function, behave, and retain the personality by which they were known, all the while suspecting that if and when the brain is destroyed completely, off of the body will rise a soul which is capable of remembering grandma and speaking English.
Likewise a person whose brain has undergone some change or damage can 'imagine' things of the 'past life', talk about souls wandering in the sky. I don't give much importance to it. We need not investigate into these stories too. We know how and why they arise.
We only have to treat such patients. Period.
You heard from scientists what they think about these things. It is difficult to make scientists accept anything unless it sticks to scientific method and methodology. Providing factual evidence is one such thing.
If you can't do that scientists will not give your argument a second thought. Don't blame them for it. Go search for what they insist on providing!
Q: Can a soul be controlled by science?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on
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Q: It is said that matter cannot be destroyed. So what happens to your soul when you die?Krishna: The first law of thermodynamics doesn't actually specify that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but instead that the total amount of energy in a closed system cannot be created nor destroyed (though it can be changed from one form to another). It was after nuclear physics told us that mass and energy are essentially equivalent - this is what Einstein meant when he wrote E= mc^2 - that we realized the 1st law of thermodynamics also applied to mass. Mass became another form of energy that had to be included in a thorough thermodynamic treatment of a system. -
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Krishna:There is no relationship.
"Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed but changes form" is an observed law.
"Soul is not destructive"? is an imagination.
Soul?! What is it according to science and scientists?
If you try to connect genuine science with evidence-less-imagination, it becomes pseudo-science.
Q: Is atma equal to energy in science?
Atma or soul is an imaginary thing. There is no evidence that it exists: Soul?! What is it according to science and scientists?
You can scientifically show that energy exists. Energy exists in many different forms. Examples of these are: light energy, heat energy, mechanical energy, gravitational energy, electrical energy, sound energy, chemical energy, nuclear or atomic energy and so on. You can see light. you can drive a car using mechanical energy or electrical energy. You can produce nuclear energy.
How can you equate the imaginary soul with with a thing that has evidence for and can be used successfully?
Oh, yes, people say a soul can neither be created nor destroyed like energy. But where is the evidence?
Edit: I was asked to read Dr. Sam Parnia’s work. I did!
And this is what I got…Dr. Sam Parnia Claims Near Death Experience Probably an Illusion
So?!
And this is how genuine science explains it: How Genuine Science Explains Near Death Experiences
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https://www.quora.com/Is-Atma-equal-to-energy-in-science/answer/Raz...
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Q: why didn't the LHC detect the soul?Krishna: If you ask people who believe in souls they say some things are beyond science’s comprehension and therefore, can’t be found by science.You can say several things without providing genuine evidence in the belief realm. Those who want to believe it will believe it anyway.
Brian Cox, the physicist, says (1), “If we want some sort of pattern that carries information about our living cells to persist then we must specify precisely what medium carries that pattern and how it interacts with the matter particles out of which our bodies are made. We must, in other words, invent an extension to the Standard Model of Particle Physics that has escaped detection at the Large Hadron Collider. That's almost inconceivable at the energy scales typical of the particle interactions in our bodies”.
He further adds, “I would say if there's some kind of substance that's driving our bodies, making my arms move and legs move, then it must interact with the particles out of which our bodies are made. And seeing as we've made high precision measurements of the ways that particles interact, then my assertion is there can be no such thing as an energy source that's driving our bodies.”
We had a detailed discussion on this. You can read the whole thing here:
Soul?! What is it according to science and scientists?
Footnotes:
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Q: What happens to our past life lovers when we reincarnate?Krishna:There is no scientific evidence for souls and reincarnation.
Soul?! What is it according to science and scientists?
Imaginative things can have as many scenarios as people can imagine. People tell several stories to this question based on these imaginations.
Imaginative stories attract people more than realistic answers like mine.
So let me tell you some of mine using my imagination for fun:
Your past lovers might too reincarnate and become your lovers again like they show in Indian movies! It seems they usually reincarnate seven times in seven births! Hmmm!
Some of them become ‘ghosts’ and follow you where ever you go!
Some of them marry others but remember their past births and leave them and come back to you!
Some of them leave their whole families after rebirth because they remember their bond with you in the ‘earlier birth’.
They might take revenge on you if you marry another woman in this birth!
They might kidnap your common children!
Is this enough? Or need more? :)
https://www.quora.com/What-happens-to-our-past-life-lovers-when-we-...
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Q: Is Atma equal to energy in science?Raziman T.V., Anti-pseudoscience: No.
Please do not conflate religious/philosophical ideas and scientific ones.
Energy[1] in physics is a very precise concept. In particular:
- Whenever physicists, chemists, biologists or engineers talk about energy, they are talking about the same thing (Do you have any idea how hard it is to get physicists and biologists to agree on something?)
- It is a quantitative property. When a physicist says that potential energy can be converted to kinetic energy, they are not simply making a qualitative, hand-wavy statement. They can use equipment to measure the energy changes involved and show equality. And when they make the quantitative comparison and things don’t match, scientists get seriously bothered. The prediction of neutrino[2] came out of the need to conserve energy (and other quantities).
So how does this compare to Atma?
Atma[3] is the Hindu philosophical concept of the soul (similar concepts exist in other Indic religions). It permeates all creatures, and is eternal. In the cycle of rebirths, the soul sheds one body with death like cloth and wears another. Liberation is finally attained when one realises that the self is identical to the divine (Brahman). I am not an expert in Hindu philosophy, so please correct me if I am wrong.
So, the way I see it, the Hindu concept of Atma is definitely an intriguing philosophy and theological foundation. But as a scientist, I cannot see how it matches the scientific concept of energy at all.
The top answer on this page, receiving thousands of upvotes, claims that atma is equivalent to energy by making the comparison with cellular respiration. The chemical storage of energy in Adenosine triphosphate (ATP)[4] is equated to atma.
Of course, this brings up many issues
- ATP is an important biomolecule, but it can stay outside the body too. For example, we have managed to synthesise it artificially.[5] Given that the chemical can be found and created outside the body, does it mean that these artificial systems have atma too?
- Even after death, the body continues to produce ATP for a while.[6] As a molecule, it can remain in the body. How does this match with the concept of the soul leaving the body with death?
- If atma is energy in general and not the kind of chemical energy stored in ATP, why is it only found in living objects?
- On the other hand, if atma is the kind of “life energy” the answer claims to be limited to living beings, it can be created and destroyed. How does it match the concept of the eternality of atma?
The rest of the top answer is similarly about stretching the meaning of verses in scripture to make comparisons with energy. But that is not how science operates. You have to come up with falsifiable predictions which can be used to test the validity. If the tests come up wrong, you have to discard or modify your theory. And of course, your theory has to be consistent. What I see in the atma-energy comparisons are simply scriptural gymnastics with a lot of holes, with no scientific rigour or predictive power.
Finally, it is my opinion that making such comparisons degrades the beauty of the philosophical concept itself.
What I see in the philosophy of atma is the concept of the unity of all life. Every living thing of the past, present and future are one. All of life is you and me. This has theological implications and affects the way we act. By trying to tie it up with the scientific statement that all life is based on the same chemicals, isn’t the beauty of the philosophy lost?
Similarly, by claiming that the Advaita Vedanta statement of the unity of Atma and Brahma is just the scientific concept of equivalence of forms of energy, haven’t you lost all the depth of the philosophy?
Please do not debase your religion and philosophy by trying to make them match scientific concepts. But if you insist, we have high standards. Make a consistent, predictive theory that is falsifiable and not merely explanatory. And when you are talking about something like energy, you better be quantitative. Trying to claim some sort of scientific support for vitalism[7] is not going to work in the 21st century.
PS: My answers countering stretching of scripture to match scientific concepts and other pseudoscience are aggregated here.
Footnotes
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Q; How does a soul enter a mother's womb?Krishna: There is no evidence for soul in the first place, according to science and scientists.
Soul?! What is it according to science and scientists?
It is a religion based belief. What people give as answers to this question is also based on blind belief. If people can imagine things like souls, they can also imagine various ways it can enter a womb and can give you several imaginative answers.
Just enjoy these stories but try to distinguish between a myth and reality.
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Q: Can you choose not to reincarnate?
Krishna: There is no need to worry. Nobody will reincarnate in the first place, there is no genuine evidence to say that it takes place.
There is no evidence of soul, according to science, in the first place.
Soul?! What is it according to science and scientists?
Without a soul, you cannot reincarnate.
So you cannot reincarnate, whether you choose to or choose not to.
Just because people believe in something it doesn’t happen.
Fiction doesn’t become facts. Stories are stories, not reality.
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Is Atma equal to energy in science?No.
Please do not conflate religious/philosophical ideas and scientific ones.
Energy
in physics is a very precise concept. In particular:
- Whenever physicists, chemists, biologists or engineers talk about energy, they are talking about the same thing (Do you have any idea how hard it is to get physicists and biologists to agree on something?)
- It is a quantitative property. When a physicist says that potential energy can be converted to kinetic energy, they are not simply making a qualitative, hand-wavy statement. They can use equipment to measure the energy changes involved and show equality. And when they make the quantitative comparison and things don’t match, scientists get seriously bothered. The prediction of neutrino came out of the need to conserve energy (and other quantities).
So how does this compare to Atma?
Atma
is the Hindu philosophical concept of the soul (similar concepts exist in other Indic religions). It permeates all creatures, and is eternal. In the cycle of rebirths, the soul sheds one body with death like cloth and wears another. Liberation is finally attained when one realises that the self is identical to the divine (Brahman). I am not an expert in Hindu philosophy, so please correct me if I am wrong.
So, the way I see it, the Hindu concept of Atma is definitely an intriguing philosophy and theological foundation. But as a scientist, I cannot see how it matches the scientific concept of energy at all.
The top answer on this page, receiving thousands of upvotes, claims that atma is equivalent to energy by making the comparison with cellular respiration. The chemical storage of energy in Adenosine triphosphate (ATP)
is equated to atma.
Of course, this brings up many issues
- ATP is an important biomolecule, but it can stay outside the body too. For example, we have managed to synthesise it artificially. Given that the chemical can be found and created outside the body, does it mean that these artificial systems have atma too?
- Even after death, the body continues to produce ATP for a while. As a molecule, it can remain in the body. How does this match with the concept of the soul leaving the body with death?
- If atma is energy in general and not the kind of chemical energy stored in ATP, why is it only found in living objects?
- On the other hand, if atma is the kind of “life energy” the answer claims to be limited to living beings, it can be created and destroyed. How does it match the concept of the eternality of atma?
The rest of the top answer is similarly about stretching the meaning of verses in scripture to make comparisons with energy. But that is not how science operates. You have to come up with falsifiable predictions which can be used to test the validity. If the tests come up wrong, you have to discard or modify your theory. And of course, your theory has to be consistent. What I see in the atma-energy comparisons are simply scriptural gymnastics with a lot of holes, with no scientific rigour or predictive power.
Finally, it is my opinion that making such comparisons degrades the beauty of the philosophical concept itself.
What I see in the philosophy of atma is the concept of the unity of all life. Every living thing of the past, present and future are one. All of life is you and me. This has theological implications and affects the way we act. By trying to tie it up with the scientific statement that all life is based on the same chemicals, isn’t the beauty of the philosophy lost?
Similarly, by claiming that the Advaita Vedanta statement of the unity of Atma and Brahma is just the scientific concept of equivalence of forms of energy, haven’t you lost all the depth of the philosophy?
Please do not debase your religion and philosophy by trying to make them match scientific concepts. But if you insist, we have high standards. Make a consistent, predictive theory that is falsifiable and not merely explanatory. And when you are talking about something like energy, you better be quantitative. Trying to claim some sort of scientific support for vitalism
is not going to work in the 21st century.
PS: My answers countering stretching of scripture to match scientific concepts and other pseudoscience are aggregated here.
Footnotes
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Physics and the Immortality of the Soul
The topic of “Life after death” raises disreputable connotations of past-life regression and haunted houses, but there are a large number of people in the world who believe in some form of persistence of the individual soul after life ends. Clearly this is an important question, one of the most important ones we can possibly think of in terms of relevance to human life. If science has something to say about, we should all be interested in hearing.
Adam Frank thinks that science has nothing to say about it. He advocates being “firmly agnostic” on the question. (His coblogger Alva Noë resolutely disagrees.) I have an enormous respect for Adam; he’s a smart guy and a careful thinker. When we disagree it’s with the kind of respectful dialogue that should be a model for disagreeing with non-crazy people. But here he couldn’t be more wrong.
Adam claims that “simply is no controlled, experimental[ly] verifiable information” regarding life after death. By these standards, there is no controlled, experimentally verifiable information regarding whether the Moon is made of green cheese. Sure, we can take spectra of light reflecting from the Moon, and even send astronauts up there and bring samples back for analysis. But that’s only scratching the surface, as it were. What if the Moon is almost all green cheese, but is covered with a layer of dust a few meters thick? Can you really say that you know this isn’t true? Until you have actually examined every single cubic centimeter of the Moon’s interior, you don’t really have experimentally verifiable information, do you? So maybe agnosticism on the green-cheese issue is warranted. (Come up with all the information we actually do have about the Moon; I promise you I can fit it into the green-cheese hypothesis.)
Obviously this is completely crazy. Our conviction that green cheese makes up a negligible fraction of the Moon’s interior comes not from direct observation, but from the gross incompatibility of that idea with other things we think we know. Given what we do understand about rocks and planets and dairy products and the Solar System, it’s absurd to imagine that the Moon is made of green cheese. We know better.
We also know better for life after death, although people are much more reluctant to admit it. Admittedly, “direct” evidence one way or the other is hard to come by — all we have are a few legends and sketchy claims from unreliable witnesses with near-death experiences, plus a bucketload of wishful thinking. But surely it’s okay to take account of indirect evidence — namely, compatibility of the idea that some form of our individual soul survives death with other things we know about how the world works.
Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?
Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren’t any sensible answers to these questions. Of course, everything we know about quantum field theory could be wrong. Also, the Moon could be made of green cheese.
Among advocates for life after death, nobody even tries to sit down and do the hard work of explaining how the basic physics of atoms and electrons would have to be altered in order for this to be true. If we tried, the fundamental absurdity of the task would quickly become evident.
Even if you don’t believe that human beings are “simply” collections of atoms evolving and interacting according to rules laid down in the Standard Model of particle physics, most people would grudgingly admit that atoms are part of who we are. If it’s really nothing but atoms and the known forces, there is clearly no way for the soul to survive death. Believing in life after death, to put it mildly, requires physics beyond the Standard Model. Most importantly, we need some way for that “new physics” to interact with the atoms that we do have.
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.
But let’s say you do that. How is the spirit energy supposed to interact with us? Here is the equation that tells us how electrons behave in the everyday world:
Dont’ worry about the details; it’s the fact that the equation exists that matters, not its particular form. It’s the Dirac equation — the two terms on the left are roughly the velocity of the electron and its inertia — coupled to electromagnetism and gravity, the two terms on the right.
As far as every experiment ever done is concerned, this equation is the correct description of how electrons behave at everyday energies. It’s not a complete description; we haven’t included the weak nuclear force, or couplings to hypothetical particles like the Higgs boson. But that’s okay, since those are only important at high energies and/or short distances, very far from the regime of relevance to the human brain.
If you believe in an immaterial soul that interacts with our bodies, you need to believe that this equation is not right, even at everyday energies. There needs to be a new term (at minimum) on the right, representing how the soul interacts with electrons. (If that term doesn’t exist, electrons will just go on their way as if there weren’t any soul at all, and then what’s the point?) So any respectable scientist who took this idea seriously would be asking — what form does that interaction take? Is it local in spacetime? Does the soul respect gauge invariance and Lorentz invariance? Does the soul have a Hamiltonian? Do the interactions preserve unitarity and conservation of information?
Nobody ever asks these questions out loud, possibly because of how silly they sound. Once you start asking them, the choice you are faced with becomes clear: either overthrow everything we think we have learned about modern physics, or distrust the stew of religious accounts/unreliable testimony/wishful thinking that makes people believe in the possibility of life after death. It’s not a difficult decision, as scientific theory-choice goes.
We don’t choose theories in a vacuum. We are allowed — indeed, required — to ask how claims about how the world works fit in with other things we know about how the world works. I’ve been talking here like a particle physicist, but there’s an analogous line of reasoning that would come from evolutionary biology. Presumably amino acids and proteins don’t have souls that persist after death. What about viruses or bacteria? Where upon the chain of evolution from our monocellular ancestors to today did organisms stop being described purely as atoms interacting through gravity and electromagnetism, and develop an immaterial immortal soul?
There’s no reason to be agnostic about ideas that are dramatically incompatible with everything we know about modern science. Once we get over any reluctance to face reality on this issue, we can get down to the much more interesting questions of how human beings and consciousness really work.
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2011/05/23/physics-and-th...
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Life after death 'impossible' with 'no way' for soul to survive says scientist
Dr Sean Carroll, a cosmologist and physics professor, argues that the laws of the universe do not allow consciousness to be entirely separated from our physical body.
If you thought the last few years on planet Earth were bad then you're in for another letdown - a scientist has now claimed that life after death is “beyond the realm of scientific probability”.
A professor who has dedicated much of his life studying the laws of physics and claims that the laws of the universe does not allow consciousness to continue to operate after we die.
Dr Sean Carroll, who is a cosmologist and a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology in the US argues that for there to be an afterlife, consciousness would need to be something that is entirely "separated from our physical body."
And here's the bad news - that's a possibility that the laws of physics deny.
His conclusion on life after death is built on the understanding that “the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood”, so everything occurs within the realms of this.
Dr Carroll wrote in the Scientific American: “Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there's no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die.”
He continued: “If it's really nothing but atoms and the known forces, there is clearly no way for the soul to survive death.
“Believing in life after death, to put it mildly, requires physics beyond the Standard Model.”
Once this is accepted by all scientists, Dr Carroll said it is then they can truly begin to understand how the human mind operates.
He said: “There's no reason to be agnostic about ideas that are dramatically incompatible with everything we know about modern science.
“Once we get over any reluctance to face reality on this issue, we can get down to the much more interesting questions of how human beings and consciousness really work.”
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/life-after-death-impos...
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- In order for there to be an afterlife, our consciousness must be capable of surviving apart from our physical bodies (call it a “soul” or a “spirit” or what have you).
- And if our consciousness is capable of surviving apart from our physical bodies, it can’t be generated by or produced by or be wholly dependent on our physical bodies (and certainly not by any one particular part of our bodies). We should, for example, be able to damage or even replace a toe or an arm or a lung or a heart and not have our consciousness be affected (assuming we don’t die in the process).
- And this is generally what we find to be the case, with one glaring exception — our brains. Every other part of our body can be damaged or even replaced without our consciousness being affected, but not our brain. If our brains are damaged, our entire personality can change. We become, in effect, completely different persons. And, while practically any organ in the body can be replaced without changing who we are (they can even transplant faces now), does anybody imagine that if it were possible to receive a brain transplant that our consciousness with the new brain would match that of the previous brain?
- Therefore, since it appears that our consciousness is inextricably and indelibly linked to our physical brains, that would indicate that our consciousness cannot exist independent of our bodies and therefore cannot survive the death of our bodies. And if our consciousnesses cannot exist without our bodies, then there cannot be any such thing as an “afterlife.”
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- People have had so-called “near death experiences” and have told stories about visiting an afterlife of some sort. So what? There’s a reason they are called near death experiences and not actual death experiences. Not a single person in recorded history has actually died and returned to tell the tale, and the phenomenon of near death experiences is actually pretty well understood as a purely biological reaction to an oxygen starved brain ( there is an article here on this network , please read it).
- Just asserting things like “we are more than our bodies” or “there is a part of us that lives on after death” doesn’t actually make them true. Without actual evidence, it’s just wishful thinking. Similarly, the fact that you have an “opinion” or a “belief” in an afterlife of some sort is not actually a justification for anybody else to accept it as true.
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Hearing ghost voices relies on pseudoscience and fallibility of human perception
Nontrivial numbers of Americans believe in the paranormal. These beliefs have spawned thousands of groups dedicated to investigating paranormal phenomena and a proliferation of ghost-hunting entries in the reality television market. Anecdotal evidence even suggests that ghost-hunting reality shows have increased public openness to paranormal research, which usually entails a small group traipsing through reportedly haunted locales at night with various ghost-hunting technologies.
Audio recorders figure prominently in paranormal researchers’ toolkits. Microphones capture ambient sounds during the investigation. Later, the audio recordings are scoured in search of messages from spirits. The premise is that audio recording devices can register otherwise inaudible communications from discarnate entities.
These purported communications have been dubbed electronic voice phenomena (EVP). The sounds are generally brief – most examples consist of single words or short phrases. Perceived contents of EVP range from threatening (“You’re going to hell”) to bizarre (“Egypt Air”).
Part of the attraction of the audio recorder for paranormal researchers is its apparent objectivity. How could a skeptic refute the authenticity of a spirit captured by an unbiased technical instrument? To the believers, EVP seem like incontrovertible evidence of communications from beyond. But recent research in my lab suggested that people don’t agree much about what, if anything, they hear in the EVP sounds – a result readily explained by the fallibility of human perception. Despite the technological trappings, EVP research bears several characteristics of pseudoscience.
What are the EVP sounds?
The chain of evidence for most purported EVP makes hoaxes difficult to rule out, but let’s assume that many of these sounds are not deliberate fraud. In some instances, alleged EVP are the voices of the investigators or interference from radio transmissions – problems that indicate shoddy data collection practices. Other research, however, has suggested that EVP have been captured under acoustically controlled circumstances in recording studios. What are the possible explanations for these sounds?
The critical leap in EVP research is the point at which odd sounds are interpreted as voices that communicate with intention. Paranormal investigators typically decode the content of EVP by arriving at consensus among themselves. EVP websites advise paranormal researchers to ask themselves, “Is it a voice…are you sure?” or to “Share results among fellow investigators and try to prevent investigator bias when reviewing data.” Therein lies a methodological difficulty.
Research in mainstream psychology has shown that people will readily perceive words in strings of nonsensical speech sounds. People’s expectations about what they’re supposed to hear can result in the illusory perception of tones, nature sounds, machine sounds, and ev... when only acoustic white noise – like the sound of a detuned radio – exists. Interpretations of speech in noise – a situation similar to EVP where the alleged voice is difficult to discern – can shift entirely based upon what the listener expects to hear.
EVP in the perceptual research lab
In my lab, we recently conducted an experiment to examine how expectations might influence the perception of purported EVP. Our EVP were audio recordings from a ghost-hunting reality show.
We asked three questions: Do people perceive alleged EVP to be voices under controlled conditions? If they hear voices, do they agree about what the voices are saying without being told what they’re supposed to hear? And finally, does it matter whether or not they think the research topic is paranormal?
Half of participants were told that the experiment was part of a research project on paranormal EVP. The other half were told that we were studying speech perception in noisy environments – a typical (if perhaps boring) perceptual psychology experiment.
In a study trial, participants heard a sound and were asked if they detected a voice in the stimulus. If they responded “no,” the trial ended. If they responded “yes,” they reported what they thought the voice had said. Across the study, participants heard the purported EVP, recordings of actual human speech, recordings of human speech obscured in noise, and recordings of only noise. The EVP and speech-in-noise sounds were inherently ambiguous – they sort of sounded like a voice was present and sort of did not.
Compared to the control condition, the suggestion of a paranormal research topic made people more likely to report hearing voices for both the EVP (48% versus 34% “yes” responses) and the voices hidden in noise (58% versus 40% “yes” responses). For real human speech, all participants nearly always heard a voice (99% “yes” responses), and for noise all participants almost never heard a voice (1% “yes” responses). So suggesting a paranormal research topic mattered only when the audio was ambiguous.
Further, when people said they heard a voice in the EVP, only 13% agreed about exactly what the voice said. To compare, 95% percent of people on average agreed about what the voice said when they heard actual speech.
In one final analysis, we showed that the participants’ interpretations agreed with the paranormal researchers’ interpretations less than 1% of the time. These findings suggest that paranormal researchers should not use their own subjective judgments to confirm the contents of EVP.
But perhaps most importantly, we showed that the mere suggestion of a paranormal research context made people more likely to hear voices in ambiguous stimuli, although they couldn’t agree on what the voices were saying.
A perceptual explanation of EVP
It can’t just be chance! Jeff Noble, CC BY
We concluded that EVP are an auditory example of pareidolia – the tendency to perceive human characteristics in meaningless perceptual patterns. There are many visual examples of pareidolia – things like seeing human faces in everyday objects (such as Jesus in a piece of toast).
Research from cognitive psychology has shown that paranormal believers may be especially prone to misperceiving chance events. A face-like configuration in a slice of toast seems meaningful. People ask, "What are the chances?“ But if you add up all of the slices of toast you see over the days and weeks and months of a lifetime, it becomes inevitable that you will encounter some of these human-like configurations in toast due to chance.
Similarly, paranormal investigators record a practically limitless amount of audio and use all manner of sound-processing techniques including filtering the sounds to remove particular frequencies and boosting .... Inevitably they’re able to find samples of audio that sound somewhat like a voice.
Assuming some of these voice-like sounds can’t be attributed to shoddy data collection practices, their actual sources likely run the spectrum from ambient environmental noises to electrical interference to audio processing artifacts. If the listener is intently expecting to hear a person, virtually any sound can meet that expectation. One writer aptly suggested that EVP are like an auditory inkblot test: a blank slate upon which the listener can project any interpretation. The tendency for EVP investigators to hear a voice – a meaningful sound with agency and intention – is likely amplified by the suggestion of a paranormal context.
The technological trappings of ghost hunting can lend a gloss of objectivity. P K, CC BY
EVP research bears hallmarks of pseudoscience
In pseudoscience, there is a semblance of adherence to the values of science. Objectivity in EVP research is equated with the use of a technological recording device per se, but subjectivity permeates the critical step of interpreting what the sounds mean. In science, objectivity is a critical value for researchers – an ideal that we attempt to apply to all aspects of inquiry – rather than a feature of our equipment.
Another characteristic of pseudoscience is a lack of integration with related areas of inquiry. There is a rich history of using experimental methods to examine auditory perception, yet EVP enthusiasts are either unaware or willfully ignorant of this relevant work.
Science also values parsimony – the idea that the simplest explanation is preferred. To explain EVP as the result of human auditory perception, we need a theory to account for how and why a human listener sometimes misperceives ambiguous stimuli.
In fact, this very tendency is one of many well-documented cognitive shortcuts that may have adaptive value. A voice may indicate the presence of a potential mate or foe, so it may be useful to err on the side of perceiving agency in ambiguous auditory stimuli.
A paranormal theory is much more complex. We have to explain how disembodied entities acquire agency. We have to explain why they have the ability to produce sound but only communicate in audio recordings instead of simply speaking aloud. We have to explain why they apparently can’t speak clearly in full sentences, but only brief, garbled, often seemingly random phrases.
What’s the harm?
Many forms of popular entertainment require the suspension of disbelief, and viewers of paranormal reality shows are hopefully tuning in for the entertainment rather than scientific value of these programs. There are many important public issues, however, for which pseudoscientific beliefs have harmed public discourse.
Currently, there is only limited, tentative evidence to link exposure to pseudoscience on television to pseudoscientific beliefs. Still, one study showed that people find paranormal research to be more credible and scientific when it is shown using technological tools such as recording devices. Other evidence has suggested that popular opinion may outweigh scientific credibility when people evaluate pseudoscientific claims.
A good ghost story may hold entertainment and even cultural value, but the popular portrayal of pseudoscientific practices as science may be detracting from efforts to cultivate a scientifically literate public.
https://theconversation.com/hearing-ghost-voices-relies-on-pseudosc...
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