Funny - I went through the same process as you, prompted by the same movie, and landed on the same website (www.snopes.com). I AM a scientist, but am open to the idea of a "soul" (only in a "natural" framework, though perhaps one not yet open to human investigation). To me MacDougall's experiments link to the idea of an astral body, which one could perhaps regard as the soul. There is a large body of literature on the astral body, particularly in reference to out-of-body experiences (aka. astral projection). Much of it is old and tied in with other occult topics and somewhat apocryphal, but some of it is recent and fascinating, like the accounts of Robert A. Monroe who wrote three books on his experiences. If the astral body exists and perhaps interacts with what we normally consider to be matter, then perhaps it also has some weight. Waiting for someone to look into, but not holding my breath.

Hey you're a scientist, why don't you reperform the experiments? ;) Honestly, if this experiment was done professionally it could be revolutionary in the science of religion.

While I'd love to see a rigorous experiment done, the problem with this sort of experiment is that negative results convince no one. That is, if you do this expiriment and find that there is no measurable mass gained/lossed, the "spiritual" types will blithely continue to believe in some meta-physical, unverifiable soul.

Besides, just take a minute to consider what 21 grams of lost mass-to-energy would look like! Unless you invoke sci-fi (e.g., the energy is escaping into an alternate/parallel universe), or consider the soul as some ooze that is secreted somewhere but not noticed, the energy from the complete conversion of 21 grams of mass is around 1.9e15 Joules, or about 460 kilotons TNT...

An explosion of power in another dimension! ;)

That's very true about the negative results, but it does not sway me personally against performing the experiment again. Remember, the original scientist (Dr. MacDougall) found significant findings - ie results that were unexplainable. I see no reason why this experiment, as controversial as it is, should not be retested. It's just poor science to not leave every stone uncovered. Leave the theories and possible explanations until after the results have been verified. A hypothesis is not a conclusion, remember.

You people are nuts. Why be so mundane about a concept as transcendental as the soul or expect the possibility of proof of its existence, especially by something as simplistic as rational thought or as material as science? As for results--forget negative findings... even a positive one would not prove that which you have suggested. As the film states, 21 grams is equivalent to the weight of something like "a stack of four quarters". It's nothing... it could easily be explained by some halt in life processes such as apoptosis (cell death), necrosis, cell shrinkage from hydrostatic pressure, who knows... there can be any number of explanations other than the conclusion that an indirect material manifestation of the rising of the human soul. I would have to say, not just because I am a medical student, that that would likely be the very last possibility entertained, not only by any scientist, rational mind, nay any thinking person or being with a brain on their shoulders, but also by any other person... that is, anyone who would still maintain some true sense of spirituality, of mysticism, of the sacredness and earthly defiance of the human soul!

I totally disagree. You've given some examples of possible explanations, however they aren't really logical. If you read the link then you'd see that there was a steady weight loss (of about an ounce an hour) due to dehydration before and after death, but at around the moment there was about an ounce dissapearing in the space of 5 minutes. When a cell dies, it doesn't lose any mass, it's just dead mass as opposed to live mass. Also, there was no significant mass loss when a dog died. Wouldn't biological entities from the same mammalian family experience the same processes at death?
As for proving the theory of the soul, of course it's not proof. There may in fact be other explanations, yet nonetheless the experiment would produce interesting findings to be examined in more close detail. Once again I say that this experiment should definately be reproduced to verify or refute the findings.

Differing conclusions are often made from the same evidence. Remains of aquatic creatures on mountainsides have been used by evolutionists as proof of an ice age and by creationists as proof of a great flood. I have to agree with Zarathustra that even if there were a well-controlled, double-blind experiment proving the body lost 21g at death, there would remain debate over the meaning of the results.

Is there a soul? Most people feel strongly one way or the other. You must consider solid evidence to draw a conclusion -- and then you're stuck living with a conclusion that you can't prove absolutely, no matter what you believe!

Be that as it may, in considering all the "big questions" of life, the evidence that may be the weightiest is the simple matter of probability. What are the chances that life would have come into being by mere chance, by atoms (and sub-atoms) bouncing off each other? The answer? Physical scientists and believers in souls alike should agree on this: Not very good.

Whatever your belief about science and religion, about origins of life, about souls or the lack thereof, you can't get around the problem of probability. Stretch your mind around that for awhile, and bypass the slippery slope of weight-at-death experiments and the like.

What are the chances that life would have come into being by mere chance, by atoms (and sub-atoms) bouncing off each other? The answer? Physical scientists and believers in souls alike should agree on this: Not very good.

Oh absolutely.. I direct your attention to my existentialism post and you'll see that I fully agree.

I would explore every other possible explination for the loss of mass before i even considered exploring the idea of a soul. What about the oxegen leaving our body? Loss of blood preasure? Loss of moisture? All of these substances take up space. I can understand experimenting with these sort of things during the early tewntieth century and assumeing "Oh, this loss of mass must be a soul leaving the body!", seeing that people were too frightened to stem away from religious brew-haha. But come on people, don't you think we have evolved passed the point of organized religion, spiritualty, and the so called after life? Are we in such denial of our own mortality that we have to create a "soul", a "spirt", a piece of ourselves that lingers about while our body decays? Life cannot exist without death. That is why we die. We exist for the existance of others, and how this all came to be, in our lifetime we will probably never know. But please! Let's not hide behind the idea of second existance. We ask ourselfs, "Why are we here?" If there is a reason, why do we have to move on from that? Why can't we find peace and value in death? I think that we are asking the wrong questions. We need to focus on what happens when we are alive, not what happens when we die.

Those are good points. From a scientific perspective the thought of a 'soul' is nonsensical, a throwback to barbaric rituals and campfire story telling. Answers to questions that couldn't be answered, so were perhaps invented. However the science observed in the experiment is intriguing. First of all, the only thing that would create any difference in mass would the loss of air, and apparently this scientist and his colleagues attempted to expel as much as air as humanly possible whilst weighing themselves. They did not notice any significant mass loss. Why would a recently deceased human contract it's lungs 'tighter' than a living human? The other things like blood pressure and loss of moisture, well the blood never leaves so the mass still stays in the body. Moisture loss due to dehyrdation was noted as a steady decline in mass, something like an ounce an hour. Why then would a person suddenly lose an hours worth of moisture over the course of 5 minutes when that person died, as was observed?

There are really no explanations I've heard here or elsewhere of that can sufficiently explain this phenomenon. Can we conclude that there is then a soul that escapes? No, because the experiment needs to be redone with modern measurements and 'well-controlled, double-blind' methodolgy. Until then I remain unconvinced either way yet intrigued enough by the possibility to keep hoping that one of these days some scientist will come along my site here and decide that yes, perhaps it is worth doing again.

This is such an interesting conversation.
I can think of no reasonable objection to re-performing the experiment. It's obviously compelling enough to create contoversy and therefor benefit from some effort at resolution.
As to the issue - if verified - of whether or not the decrease in body mass at the point of death has anything to do with the soul or not - who knows? How could you know right now? I am equally suspicious of the person who already thinks it can't be the soul as I am of the person who is convinced that it is. The idea of a soul is certainly something that science has not yet been able to come to terms with, but so are (I am almost certain) a host of other discoveries that have not been made yet - things, concepts that will seem entirely mundane and well within the discipline of scientific enquiry years from now. We know so, so little of what there is to know. It seems scientists realize this even more than the general public. I think that there is no reason to discount the explanation of the soul escaping any more than some other more "scientific" explanation since both explanations are currently and equally unexplored to any true satisfaction. Do the experiment and start working. No reason to be scared of anything, biased for or against anything. The point is simply this - we all want to know if this mass loss is true. If so, we would all like to know why. If you can't accept that it is the soul, or can't accept that it isn't, then you are approaching the problem with an entirely unscientific mind. I would be so psyched if someone qualified would take it on.

Yep, I keep waiting for someone to come on this site and say, "wait a minute.. I'm a scientist! I have access to the tools that will allow me to do this experiment! I'm going to reperform them, because I think it's a relevant question!"

And so I wait...

A little off topic, but I got inspired...

"From a scientific perspective the thought of a 'soul' is nonsensical, a throwback to barbaric rituals and campfire story telling..."

I beg to differ. Scienctific discovery is far more nonsensical than anything a human campfire storyteller could ever imagine:

1) The world was thought to be flat. Then it was discovered to be a sphere orbiting one of billions of stars in an ever-expanding universe. 2) Newton believed that gravity was an attraction between matter. And his equations worked well in a 3-dimensional universe, until 3) Einstein incorporated a fourth dimension and started bending space-time. And this acted as an even better estimate for reality, until 4) Quantum mechanics showed even Einstein's 4-dimensional view of the universe to also be too myopic. Notice a pattern here?

Today contemporary physicists paint a picture of the universe that could be up to 11 dimensions. In such a universe, everything we see is a mere interpretation of reality by the brain, our data processor. This is why concepts such as infinity, death, and God are all so incomprehensible--we have a limited viewpoint. But the use of mathematical models in modern science is successfully exploring some of these areas formerly deemed to be unobservable.

Talk of a "soul" is often difficult because of semantic incompatabilites. It can invoke controversial ideas about religion and the like. To simplify and accomodate, the concept of the "soul" I believe is worth discussing (scientifically) is: a nonlocal [See Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen papers on nonlocality] entity at the end node of the observation process. In essence, it's what lies beyond the medium (the brain) connecting the observable and unobservable worlds we occupy. Such an entity is not only possible but COULD also answer many of life's great scientific, philosophic and spiritual mysteries.

We were born from nowhere, are alive for no apparent reason, and will all soon die. This is all so utterly infinite and absurd only because of our vantage point; a vantage point which science is vastly improving. Some questions we humans might never be able to answer, but during the trek we must never let our minds must be closed.

Miracles are things not yet proven by science. And science is far stranger than fiction.

i couldn't agree with the previous writer more. right on. thank you. i am, though, starting to develop a distaste for this divide that seems so normal to everyone of seperating religion and science - or maybe more accurately "science" and "non-science". i think the previous writer has it mostly right - "miracles are things not yet proven by science" but i wonder if he/she misses the point that things explained are not necessarily any less remarkable as a result - seems like maybe you do get that , but im not sure. if one believes in God, then explaining/discovering/inventing string theory or newton's laws or cell growth doesn't seem to do anything but increase the wonder of it all. alot of people seem to think that since very religious people once believed the earth was at the center of the universe - and now it's well know that it's not - that religion is old, outdated and frankly dumb. but that doesn't seem to apply to science even though some very scientific people once believed that newton's laws explained all motion and we have since learned that too is wrong. and now that im writing about God, appearing to defend the concept, in some minds that's putting me on a "side" of this discussion. i would like to argue that there really are no sides in that sense. we are all looking to learn and discover and i think there is so much that is unknown that there is room - even necessity - for diversity of approaches. evolution seems to work with brute force - throwing alot of different organisms out there over time and seeing which ones will work. i can only assume the same is working for us in answering all our questions. all kinds of thoughts, approaches - many of the most crackpots ones may turn out to be correct as they have in the past. anyway, im losing what my initial point was. in anycase if you haven't read the previous entry, do. i think there's alot of wisdom in there. thanks.

At times like these...we need Scepticism.

Because otherwise...as soon as we start believing anything, we want others to believe, and some damn cycle ensues.

But I have to commend RipVan for succintly laying out the idea that science and religion are not really that far off from each other.

I tend to take the Scientific process as my livelihood Bible, but am increasingly becoming aware of its shortcomings (but...it has not "failed" as badly as obsessive faith-based Abrahamic religion has).

About the soul thing....
I would like it very much if we didnt have a soul as we now commonly perceive it (an entity, sort of independent, within us and leaves our physical bodies). So, even if I can be persuaded to conceptually agree on the possibility of a soul, the mass of the soul idea tickles me rather than makes me seek other than scientifically verifiable basis for it.

Is it possible the actual movement of fluids and gasses within the body increase our gravitational pull? or....our lungs do not fully empty until we die?

Ok, ok, we need to carry out this experiment! just as much as I want to know with 100% certainty if I have to walk in slush tomorrow!

I am so glad that I heard about this 21 grams issue yesterday and was similarly driven to find out more about this strange and ellusive mass/energy loss online as everyone else here was. I was also lucky enough to find this website whose such recent conversations have persuaded me to leave my own comments too. It is rare that I feel compelled enough to give my own opinion since I feel often people are too stuck in their own ideas to consider anyone else's. This does not seem to be the case here. I must whole heartedly agree with RipVan's discussion about how we truly cannot judge what seems "reasonable" when true science is stranger than anything most people could dream up. It is a reliable pattern of history that science uncovers more and more unexpected and what would have been considered in the recent past outrageous results. I consider it egotistical to assume that we now at our current state have the ability to comprehend completely what the Truth is, a Truth encompassing astrophysics, microbiology, philosophy, psychology, and every known chaos which defines our concept of reality. Consider modern quantum physics in which uncertainty is the rule. Consider rolled up dimensions of the string theory in which we cannot perceive. Consider the vast universe in which we occupy and observe a small and insignificant portion of. I think most of us agree that this experiment needs to be repeated using modern scientific equipment and standards. But I also think we need to stop disregarding the concept of the soul as religious propaganda. Even if you are a die hard science-only type and don't believe in any form of spirituality, consider the interchangeability of mass and energy. We know it must be conserved. We know it is always changing its form, from mass to kinetic, thermal,...etc. We radiate energy in the infrared just by keeping our warm temperature. We function biologically by electrical impulses. Everyday we convert our food to energy to live off of. I just think that some sort of mass/energy loss in death cannot be disregarded as hopeful thinking of religous and spiritual fanatics. I personally believe in a very close knit relationship between science and spirituality. I believe they explain and support each other often but our methods and objectives today do not incorporate them as linked which leads to an incomplete understanding. Whether this 21 gram loss is true is not the point. The point is that science can and does explain what many consider to be spiritual phenomena (and vice versa) but we have unfortunately learned to turn our back to one when looking at the other. Just about every leap in scientific discovery occurs when a path of thought takes a sharp turn and incorporates new and seeminly unrelated ideas or just looks at it from the other side which we didn't realize existed. Truly acknowledging that great jumps of knowledge follow this path is the only way to open our understanding to the seemingly unexplainable.

It's too bad that most people only come across ideas such as this after it has been blown up by some mass media form of entertainment. Regardless of its truth the idea holds a feeling of wonder and I like that. We are constantly being shown that there will always be something uexplainable.

ken, i couldnt agree with you more.

what we seek is complete undertanding, which is inclusive of all realms, the scientific and the spiritual, the observable and the unobservable. one is not separate from the other, but rather they are intrinsically linked in 'truth,' by nature, as parts of the same system. "i want to know god's thoughts" was einsteins old slogan.

the difference between the observable and unobservable universes is that one is testable and one is not. this is why many scientists leave their religious beliefs at home; it has no meaning to them in the laboratory. what good would precepts based on faith do other than pigeon hole the mind?

but what i believe is important to always remember is that the boundaries between the observable and unobservable are not absolute, i.e. that the landscape is always changing due to scientific discovery. suddenly you have telescopes and atom smashers and supercomputers. such that when you create black-and-whites (e.g. the book of genesis in the bible) you are just setting yourself up for future conflict. and you soon might find your papal leader having to forgive scientists like galileo and copernicus of persecution some several hundred odd years after their revolutionary discoveries.

i dont intend to step on any religious toes-- i was raised roman catholic and respect the many potential benefits organized religion can offer-- but i do think they could take a hint from the U.S. founding fathers who had the sense to incorporate amendments and adaptability. yes, posing to have a direct, infallible connection with god is much sexier and more attractive to your target audience, but in the long-run, in the face of evolution and the big bang, it could improve ultimately improve credibility and longevity. sorry for the sidenote.

in essence, i completely concur that the incorporation of an adaptable, open-minded interpretation of the universe allows phenomenons such as evolution and the big bang to act as further evidence for the grandeur and scope of our designer rather than blasphemy.

the only thing i am sure of is my fallibility.

Someone said 'l dont't even know what l don't know'. Plato, or was it Socrates, knew that he saw something on the wall in the cave.
We want the truth, as we percieve it. l will agree with everyone, when l believe it.
There is science to small questions that are measureable. The parameters are hinted at; we can surely 'measure' mass in our universeview with our current tools. These are the shadows that our descendants inherit. They will have to figure out what we were talking about.

Someone said 'l dont't even know what l don't know'. Plato, or was it Socrates, knew that he saw something on the wall in the cave.
We want the truth, as we percieve it. l will agree with everyone, when l believe it.
There is science to small questions that are measureable. The parameters are hinted at; we can surely 'measure' mass in our universeview with our current tools. These are the shadows that our descendants inherit. They will have to figure out what we were talking about.

<metanote> First of all I'm hugely impressed with the talent that's on display in these comments. Obviously I've attracted an introspective group willing to explore different thoughts and challenge existing notions. I can't begin to describe how much enjoyment I'm getting out of blogging. I see a lot email addresses though, I wish some of you guys had blogs of your own that I could read. If nothing else you could join my forums if you wanted to converse with each other in a more communicative format. Trust me on this, forums are da bomb for indepth conversations. There's nothing like a good long conversation, slowly digested and analyzed over the course of days and weeks. It's somewhat like these comments except much more organized.
</metanote>

I've spent a great deal of my life thinking about the nature of the self. We are all individual creatures, each unique in his or her own way. To me, that infinite uniqueness becomes an almost spiritual sensation, a transcendation of understanding that while One can sometimes be the lonliest number, it can also mean unity of individuals, a system of unique chaotic patterns interfering with each and creating more chaos that passes through some 'big admittance matrix in the sky'. It keeps raising the bar. That's why new connections between people are what stimulate and vibrate this living network that we call life. It's all about individual moments of epiphany and sharing it with others.

What does make it interesting is that I believe science is also throwing out some interesting and fundamentally challenging questions to our perception of the world. Dark energy and dark matter are the 'premier' questions of our time from an 'underlying fundamental unknown' perspective. As energy that we cannot observe and matter that we cannot measure but comprising the majority of the universe, this presents an incredible dilemma to physicists who are trying to model this new meme into their equations of the universe. it just doesn't seem to fit with pure objective science.

I think there's a possibility that dark energy ties into spirituality. I believe that dark energy is attracted to complexity which is a product of the evolution of life. Look at our brains. What has been the long running theme of evolution as time has progressed here on earth? Ever increasing complexity. Complexity is a gateway to consciousness; consciousness leads to awareness of self; awareness of self leads to the awareness of other selfs. When you perceive at a fundamental level that everyone else around you is a completely seperate and unique entity you make stronger connections with them that leads to ever increasing complexity.

The thing is though that dark energy has mass, and it is measurable. I suggest that if there is a loss of mass associated with death of a person, that loss is due to the cessation of activity between the neurons in their brain. This complex activity I believe is the 'magnet' for dark energy. As the activity stops, the dark energy leaves the body. Perhaps this dark energy is an individual soul, perhaps it's some kind of perceptual energy that allows us to observe the universe, I don't know. But I do like to speculate, and I do love a good discussion.

the world was once believed to be flat and the once who thought that it wasnt, was mad.

Havnt we as human beings learned anything from our own history , that something that is as compelling like this cant be turned away like whispered words from a mad man , what happend to the sceintific learning of not excluding anything till it was really proven not to be true.

science is modern life´s midevil churches , science is now the fact that is keeping us back , that is saying that this is right and anything that isnt like this is wrong , what happend to having an open mind in the name of science ?

i was having a canversation the other day w/my brother about a mathematical contention that .9999999...... is infact equal to 1. that can be a different discussion but it made me think. in the decimal system, which is extremely useful for all kinds of work cannot handle very gracefully the concept of 1/3, something a child can comprehend. it needs to express it with an infinite symbol: .3333......forever. meanwhile the fractional method of expressing quantities can be extremely clumsy in many applications but is quite elegant in expressing the quantity 1/3. in this i find an appropriate analogy to how different disciplines can look at the same problems in different ways. some much more effectively than others - and they don't need to be in competition either. i don't know - it was compelling to me. i think it's dangerous to become too entrenched in one way of looking at things, exploring solutions. or *maybe* it's good to have individuals very focused and entrenched as long as society as a whole has a strong diversity of approaches. anyway, i am enjoying this conversation alot. it seems like we have alot of agreement, though & it would be interesting at least to have some postings that cut accross our common grain. so, if someone's reading and thinks we're all full of shit, please don't be shy!

I cannot even explain how giddy I become after reading these comments. To say that I am really enjoying it would be a grave understatement. Someone said in one of the earlier entries (and with whom I couldn't agree more) that complexity leads to awareness... leads to awarenss of self.. leads to awareness of others and connecting to others. I really feel that by acknowledging each other we are creating some sort of web of awareness and proving there are many who have thought and pondered extensively on subjects such as is being discussed. I agree that a forum should be created so these sort of indepth and thoughtful conversations won't end here or be limited to this. What really got me was ChefQuix's conversation about dark matter and life energy. I have had those same thoughts for years and have never spoken a word about it because I didn't feel like anyone would really comprehend my innate feelings about the subject even if they did disagree. Point being, I second the motion for a forum. And I also plead for a strong opposing opinion with solid reasoning to show us how we are all supporting each other's bullshit. And, of course, please continue about the 21 grams.

just to play devil's advocate (and i don't know much about dark energy) but if a) energy has a direct relationship to mass and b) we are assuming that the functions of a living being involve energy and c) we also assume that the death of a living being involves the cessation of much of that energy, then by that train of thought wouldn't an individual's mass *increase* at the point of death? to say that the energy leaves the body somehow is creating a theory to fit some tentative facts but is not really developing the logic of the theory much ---or so it seems to me. looking forward to refutation......

Ken, if we limit ourselves to observing energy transference in our own, visible 3D universe, then of course your argument would be sound. The thing is though is that although we have laws for the transference of energy into matter and vice versa in our observable universe, we don't have any such laws or conversely conservation laws when dealing with the transference between observable matter and energy and 'dark' matter and energy.

It's an interesting question though, nonetheless. As I see it, some sort of unique identity abandons the body at the time of death. Whether this has consciousness itself or is just a 'gateway' to consciousness remains to be seen. But what happens when that connection to complexity is lost? Other dimensions? Theoretically possible, but hard to fathom. In fact all of this is hard to fathom, because realistically it's all just speculation. I'm not a scientist and I have no empirical evidence to back anything up. It's just a feeling I have... Sometimes you have to trust those feelings to guide you, or at least that's the way I figure it.

Diana, I wonder how many times I have to whore out my forums before some more people sign up. I'm glad to see you've signed up but I don't see any posting. I guess people just need things to talk about, so I'll probably create a section for discussions. Please don't hold back! At least I'll answer you.. ;)

I'm diggin' the posts, but can (at least I think) possibly dispell the dark energy argument with the fact that the dogs didn't lose any mass in the original experiments. Dogs, while not having the depth in complexity as our human brains, still have brains that communicate and have energy very similar to our our own...(and there's a little anti-argument arguement for those seeking conflict :P

That's an interesting point and an important one because it demonstrates the difference between humans and animals. Let's look at the human brain and compare it to a dog brain. If this dark energy is attracted to complexity, a human brain would attract much more of it simply because it's an order of magnitude more complex than a typical dog brain. By the experimental measures of the time the loss of weight in a dog's death would probably be unnoticed or deemed to small to be significant.

Next? ;)

im not sure if a dog's brain really IS that much less complex than a human's - possibly, that's a human-centric point of view. i imagine it's possible for a being to have just as complex a brain - even be as intelligent than us or more so - but not display it in ways readily recognizable by us. but if you are determining complexity by size alone, then it would be very interesting to do the experiment on animals w/bigger brains than us (i assume elephants or whales have bigger brains, but not 100% sure). or at least conduct the experiment on different humans with discernable differences in brain size. if this 21 grams thing is real and is unique to humans, and if the ancient notion of a soul is also unique to humans it doesn't prove a link, but it's very compelling all the same. it would be very interesting (and probably pure fiction, i admit) if the weight lost was variable from person to person but not as a funtion of brain size, but brain quality - ie nicer, kinder people had bigger souls that weighed more than mean, bitter people. part of me hopes it turns out that way!

I did some internet searches last night when ChiefDJT inquired about the dog brain, and although I couldn't find out the number of neurons in a canine, I did find out that they have significantly less matter than us. Whereas a human brain is 1300 grams, a dog (a beagle mind you) is only 72. If the size of the neurons are the same, one can surmise that there is 20 times less neurons and 20 times less complexity (ie less connections). So that would put the weight from 21 grams to 21 milligrams (guessing that it's a linear scale) and probably undetectable at the time of the original experiment.

how are yor measuring mass. Apparently there is a difference between gravitational and inertial. l can kind of understand this, but gravity kind of fucks it all up, for me. ls it really about the # of atom/cm3. lf so, how are the particles measured? Some kind of electromagnetic parameter? l am kind of lost.

chefquix - your point is well taken - even much more so since i think it's not a linear thing. i've read that a human neuron has something like 50 receptors on it. so the interaction of 2 neurons has 250 theoretical possibilities, 3 would have 12500, and onward... so, depending on exactly how much a neuron wieghs (very very little for sure), a 20 fold reduction of brain mass will yeild a staggering amount of reduced complexity - in theory at least. but also, by my own argument, a person with just a few less neurons than another person would also show a significant theoretical reduction in complexity - one neuron less might mean 50 times less complexity in a persons brain! so, i don't know - just something to think about.

When I think about complexity of a brain, I'm thinking more along the lines of how many physical connections exist between the neurons. If there is 300 billion neurons and each neuron is connected to between 100 and 10,000 other neurons, then you've got a couple quaddrillion connections in your brain - more than there are stars in the universe I might add. ;) So as opposed to looking at theoretical connections (which do lead to an almost infinite variation) I define complexity as a product of number of neurons by the average number of connections each neuron has.

brad, you've lost me too. ;) I think the problem's we have understanding all of this is that on a fundamental level we really don't understand gravity, we can just predict it's effects with our equations.

l guess l should have asked what a neuron is, and weighs, in 'atoms'/cm3.
Wow. ls it maybe that we have the order of magitude wrong? Obviouslly, maybe many magnitudes of missunderstanding might be involved. l need an editor to seperate fact from conjecture.

l am new to this discussion. l will tell you what l think to be true, in my own spacetime.
Hello Eistien.
Do you have much time
to speake to me
l am here
and l am now.
?nothing but 'glowing footprints when we go'
lf you Know.

Hi. I must admit that I am visiting this site because I was curious about the weight of "spirit". I have enjoyed reading all of the postings. Open-mindedness is a wonderful thing. All of you have shown this quality and I applaud you, sincerely. Open-mindedness with strong conviction is even better. These two traits may seem mutually exclusive, but if you will indulge me for a few minutes, let me explain my personal views on the subject.
I hold very strong religious faith-based convictions, but hopefully not in the "obsessive faith-based Abrahamic religion" way that Mooo suggested above.:) There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that human beings possess physical and spiritual components (body and soul, or body and spirit, or physical body and spiritual body, or whatever two terms you choose to describe these two intermingled "objects"). I also hold to the fact that God created both of these components (a spirit child first, which was then "clothed" in a physical body). And, I also hold that the "clothing" of my spirit with a physical body is essential to my growth and development in this life and ultimate participation in the very real life that will continue hereafter.
If I believe this, then why am I looking at a site that is concerned with the weight of my spirit? Pure curiosity! My spirit is infinitely more curious and intelligent than the gray matter stuffed in my brain case. If I believe this, then what am I supposed to think about scientific pursuit? The more the merrier! Science is, by definition, dynamic and ever-changing and supposed to ask questions - lots of questions. Its purpose is not to establish truth, but to search for it. In a sense God is the ultimate "scientist", in that He knows all of the questions, but also has the advantage of knowing all the answers. And we as His children are not only allowed but encouraged to search for the threads of truth woven into everything created by Him.
We are not aimless, purposeless things that popped into life from nothing and drop out of life into a big pool of nothing.
Back to the immediate subject, the clearest statements regarding "spirit" that I have come across were made by the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. These are referenced in the books "Doctrine and Covenants" and "Pearl of Great Price". He said (presumedly quoting God, since that is what prophets are supposed to do):

1. "...the spirit of man [is] in the likeness of his person, as also the spirit of the beast [i.e. animals], and every other creature which God has created".
2. "...the spirit and the body are the soul of man".
3. "For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy. And when separated, man cannot receive a fulness of joy".
4. "Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning...".
5. "Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be".
6. "There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is matter".
7. "...if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are ...eternal".
8. "These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all".
9. "Now the Lord had shown unto me...the intelligences that were organized before the world was".

I point these out merely to add a different flavor to the conversation. There are many more but these will suffice. The main points are that spirits were "organized" by God using building blocks referred to as "intelligence", which have always existed, cannot be created or destroyed, are fundamental "packets", and are often equated with light and truth. These organized spirits spent a lot of "time" with God and some ultimately were clothed with physical (or denser spiritual matter) bodies (i.e. human beings as we know them and animals and ...). The intertwining of the spirit and the denser body is absolutely essential for the growth (not physical growth) of the spirit. And that the spirit/body combination cannot be "happy" in a separated state. Which seems to indicate that our Father, God, is also an "intertwined" (or to use common terminology, resurrected) Being (although I would allow that He is exceedingly more pure and advanced than we are at this point), since He is the embodiment of "happiness" and ultimate personal development.
Thanks for listening. I feel that if it's possible to perform the experiment of weighing a dying person or animal in a non-objectionable way, then go for it! In the big picture, knowing the answer won't add much, but isn't it fun to be curious.

I'd like to see the experiment re-done.
A negative result proves nothing, it's true, but a positive result raises questions which would demand answers. Theism and atheism are both faith-based belief systems as neither are established on empirical evidence, and both make claim to knowledge of something which is beyond the realm of the physical senses, though it is the theist who is accused of being irrational not the atheist, an obvious inconsistency.
A positive result would provide empirical evidence of something that as yet has no explanation when considered from a mechanistic perspective of the universe. If it can't be explained then theories must be proposed for the phenomena. If theories based on a physiological or physical explanation can be tested and are shown to be without validity then theories based on a meta-physical explanation cannot be excluded. Thus science might at last regain some humility and be able to say 'We don't know why this happens and because we don't know we cannot exclude the possibility of the existence of the soul or spirit and must therefore conclude that a belief in such may therefore be rational and consistent with the experimental evidence' The testing of animals could be conducted in co-operation with a slaughterhouse or perhaps the RSPCA when workers have to put down abandoned or dying animals
P.S. Don't bother e-mailing...the address is fake.

Yes but it's all well and good to discuss the pros and cons and what ifs and maybes but if the experiment never gets done, how is this question answered?
Anybody here a biologist?

Jason,
think science is also a faith-based belief system - faith that empirical evidence yeilds truth. funny, how no one seems to question that - but i guess they didn't question God much a few hundred years ago. i think no matter what we do or how we do it, we can't get away from faith of one variety or another.

I haven't read all of the comments, but I just want to clarify something about science. All that science says is that you create a hypothesis about something, and then you test it. If it fails the test, then you reject the hypothesis. Science never claims to discover truth. The only faith that science preaches is faith in repeatability -- that if you control all of the important variables and you repeat an experiment exactly the same way, that you will get exactly the same results. Or something like that. I’m sick and can’t think straight right now. Maybe I’ll revisit this site in a couple days.

The 21.3 grams (avg) a person looses would end up being 1.917EE15 watts for one second!!! Now that’s hot! Even if releases over the period of a day it would still be more than enough to power the worlds electrical grid for that whole day. That’s just too hot. At every human death the heat byproduct alone would totally consume the body and most of the stuff around it (456.42 kiloton force) yeah. Regardless of what type of energy it will have the associated heat (there is no “cold energy” it insults physics, physics doesn’t like that). Now….While this does NOT disprove the existence of a soul it should convince you that any loss of weight is matter. If the soul is matter then it can be contained in Tupperware (deities do not like this idea, it is offensive to think of pouring out ones’ soul literally). Matter is energy and energy is matter. If its clear that any weight loss at death is not energy so it must be matter.

SO….any measurable weight loss at death is matter and can therefore be contained by other matter and so is not a soul unless a soul can be contained by matter. Since there is no perceivable temperature increase at death (certainly not the amount required to justify the loss of 21.3 grams of material) Excepting a brief and subtle rise in body temperature due to the lack of blood circulation then the amount of quantifiable energy released is negligible. There fore any measurable weight loss at death is not a soul.

QED

The speculation still remains that it is dark matter leaving the body at the time of death.

Is all of the mass of a human body 'accounted for'? That is, are we certain that it is made of baryonic matter only?

Experiments on the subject should not need to rely on the local supply of nearly dead subjects; the correlation between out-of-body/meditative experiences and mass may also be studied.

Alot of the chatter seems to revolve around the loss of 21 grams and the energy of that loss as oppposed to the leaving of that 21 grams from the body. Leaving as in not becoming nothing but just going somewhere else as in one chunk of ??? soul, spirit, or what. I personally think of life after death as a positive sequence to the normal life/death equation and support all studies to look into that area of existence. To not do the studies or dismiss the possibility of that exit of soul or spirit seems to deny the search for truth and knowledge for, at the very least, it's own sake.

I like spuds comments about doing the experiment on the living while in a meditative or out of body state.

dEAR [THE BOSS OF THIS WEBSITE],
i WENT ON GOOGLE AND i TYPED IN MODEL OF AN oxygen atom, and this came up! I wanted a website with a model! U are wasting my time! I was saying to my self what kind of website is this. I couldn't get over it! So now I'm sending U this To let U know to CHANGE YOUR WEBSITE!!!!!!!!!!!!

@TheTruthCanBeFound: As spud was saying, I'm speculating that the dark matter or dark energy that is apparently a huge part of the universe is associated with the brain and our consciousness. If in fact this is the 'soul', then when we die it would cause the mass loss as our 'host' bodies couldn't support that matter or energy any more. We're not talking about converting 21 grams of regular matter into energy - of course that would cause a crazy explosion.

@Kayrssa: I'm sorry you were misled by google to here, your feedback is appreciated but I think I'll keep doing things the way I've been doing them.

To Kayrssa Lawer,

This site is wasting your time?? Haha if you had enuff time to post to tell us all about this, man your time must be worth alot, i mean looking for models of atoms is hard to fit in between reruns of star trek and unwrappen another Twinkie. Maybe if you took some of that time of yours and read some stuff on this site you would expand your mind enuff to have some thing more interesting to talk about then an atom at the next "Every website I visit should have exactly what I want on it" party you and what ever other self important, whiny friends you might have.

Next time you come to a site like this with the level of intelligence such as Chefs, don't be a dumbass. 'sides i am the only one who is allowed to be an ass to Chef. Fuc if you had half the surfen skillz as Chef you would not need post useless whiny comments; you would have found it on your first shot. I dub thee an asshat.

Easy kitty, easy... No need to piss off everyone.. ;)

Like many here, I consider myself a Truth Seeker.

I got a BS in Physics thinking that it would somehow answer or help me find the answer to the question that I had been asking myself all of my life: "What am I?"

Physics did not but I think now I now have a different attitude toward the question. This attitude can be summed up with two quotes:

1. This one I had a tough time finding the source, even now I am not sure of the source, but given the story, does it need one?

There is a wonderful story in the Islamic Sufi tradition about a man by the name of Mulla Nasruddin. Some of you probably hear the funny stories that the Sufis ascribe to this Mulla. He is much like the trickster, Thennali Raman, in Tamil folklore. Mulla Nasruddin was hunting for something in the gutter outside his house. His neighbor came to him and said, “Mulla! Mulla! What are you looking for?" Mulla said, “I’ve lost my keys! That is what I am looking for! Rather testy the Mulla was. The neighbor said, “Well, do you remember where you left them last?” and the Mulla said, “Oh, I know where they are. They’re in the house.” The neighbor said, “Why are you looking for them outside?” He replied, “There is more light outside.” Like Mulla, many of us are looking for our key outside.

Meditation is the key that has been misplaced, left behind in our interior house. It is not to be found outside in the gutter, whatever the glamour, the glitz, and glitter might be.
(http://www.namaste-bazaar.com/generic29.html)

and

2. Edie Brickell What I AM

Philosophy, is the talk on a cereal box
Religion, is a smile on a dog

That is all,

raul

We find what we go looking for.

Regarding the 21 grams:
Yeah, I found this site the same way most of you did, looking for evidence to either confirm of disprove the 21 grams legend. I had heard about the 21 grams several years ago, but didn't go looking until just now. I guess I am more susceptible to media hype than I care to admit! ‘O)
It does look like a good movie though.

I am still unconvinced the loss of 21 grams is true, but in reading this board I see it has lead to a whole lot of other questions concerning our existence, so I'm afraid I am going to jump in head first here and give you my take on our present state of Reality.
I apologize that it is only a snippet from a much longer dissertation, but if it piques you interest you can find the whole of my insane ramblings on my web site at: Choices

I place the blame on Rene Descartes for starting the whole thing with his "I think; therefore I am." Having said that, I also must admit that I believe that "I think," and therefore know we exist is the only Universal Truth, and all else is just philosophy.

But realizing that we exist only leads to The Fundamental Question: Why? Why does anything at all exist? "Why is there ‘Something' instead of ‘Nothing?"
A great many minds have been pondering that question for a great many ages, and the search for that one answer has given us every science under the sun, but I think the answer is quite obvious. The reason ‘Something;' exists is because ‘Nothing' cannot exist. "Something" is the default condition.
Of course that answer really doesn't answer the real question: What the hell is that Something?
Ok, we exist, but what do we exist IN? So we started looking around and figured out we exist in a Universe of ‘Things,' and these Things are made from a whole lot of other really really tiny Things. Not only that, but all these really really tiny things stretch out all over the place even into outer space and beyond as far, and in every direction, we can see. And no matter how far we looked there always seem to be places even farther than we can see. It just doesn't freakin' end! It's a Freakin' Infinity filled with all these really really tiny things!
Then some Einstein comes along and says- "Hey wait a minute guys! You know all those really really tiny things? They are not ‘Things' at all! There are no ‘particles' in our particles. When you take those really really tiny things and smash them apart you don't get really really really tiny things, you get empty space and some kind of force thingey that doesn't seem to be made from anything at all! Well, nothing that we can see anyway. Not only that, but you know all those neat Galaxies? They are all spinning way to fast! They should be flying apart, but they're not.
Not only is there a force we can't see making all those really really tiny things, there seems to be another unseen force holding Galaxies together!"
Our whole Universe seems to be made from forces we cannot see and cannot measure. Our whole physical Universe is made of ‘Nothing' coming out of Nowhere!

The Man Who Wasn't There

"As I was walking up the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd stay away."
Hughes Mearns

The Quantum Mandrake

Ok, so now where are we? We have a Universe filled with forces pretending to be solid matter, and we have Galaxies spinning way to fast to hold together, but being held in check by a force we cannot see and cannot measure ( Dark Energy). And no idea where any of these things come from in the first place.
Well, that's not quite true, we do have ideas. Heck, we have lots and lots of ideas, we just can't prove a single one of them! All we can do is say "Hey, What if?", and see if any of it makes any sense.
So to figure out how invisible forces join together and pretend to be solid matter we invent all kinds of Fundamental "Particles", which aren't particles at all but ‘forces.' We give them names like quarks, bosons, hedrons, and invent properties for each and every one of them. We give them Spin, Flavor and Charm, then go looking for them, and are not surprised at all when we find them. We could have just as well called them Solitons, Pulsoids, Ultrons, hylotrons, and Phorbs, endowed them with different properties; given them wave functions and oscillations, and if we looked, we would have found what we went looking for.

The first idea for ‘Dark Matter' was an attempt to find the "Missing Matter" in the physical Universe. Dark Matter, to the best of my memory, was needed to help explain purely physical problems with our observed Universe, and deals mostly with gravitational effects, Cosmic Background Radiation, and whether our Universe was ‘Open' or ‘Closed.' And thought they theoretically found gobs and gobs of it, it wasn't enough, and nowhere near enough by half to keep those crazy spinning Galaxies from flying apart. I forget the exact ratios, but I believe it was something like 15-20 percent normal matter and energy, and 25-30 percent dark matter. Which still leaves half of everything as an unexplained invisible force we call Dark Energy.
What soon becomes obvious is the study of Physics is not really the study of the physical at all, it is the study of the Metaphysical. To explain where all these forces come from we invented Quantum Mechanics, Super Symmetry, String Theory, and Membranes Theory.
I bundle them all togther and call them the Quantum Mandrake, because every one of them is an attempt to explain how the Magick oozes from an invisible nonphysical realm to transform itself into what we perceive as a physical Universe.(By the way, I didn't coin the phrase Quantum Mandrake, someone I only knew a Luis did, but he did graciously; after some very find begging on my part, give it to me to use.)

With String and Membrane Theory we really get into the Metaphysical because both of these do not exist in our Space/Time Universe, but in another Dimension all wrapped up and entangled with our physical Universe. All the Fundamental forces that combine to create our Reality radiate from the Quantum Universe; a Universe of nonphysical dimensions. A Universe of pure "Dark Energy."

Subject to Change

I know what I know, and I know it is true.
If you ask me for proof, I can talk till you're blue.
I have it all here, in print and in scrawl.
It's a fact, not a theory...In fact it's a law.
I know it's the truth, no matter how strange
Oh, by the way, it's all subject to change.

C.C.Keiser

The Tabula Rasa
We now understand that "all there is" in our physical Universe is woven from
"Dark Energy" radiating through the Quintessence first into the "Quantum
Universe" where it take form as a force, and then into our physical Universe
where the forces combine to give the Illusion of Reality.
But where does the Dark Energy come from? The Dark Energy is The
Singularity.

The Singularity cannot exist because it has no beginning and no end; it is
always in a state of potential existence, but can never wholly exist. It is
Infinite and it is also Unbound. Being Unbound it can not be defined, for it
can potentially be anything and everything at any time.
The Singularity is The Tabula Rasa. It is a Blank Slate on
which we write anything we wish.

The Singularity is all there is, it is the only One, and It has no parts. No-thing can exist in The
Singularity because all things are The Singularity.
I am The Singularity! You are The Singularity! Everything is The
Singularity.

We say we exist in this physical Universe, but our physical Universe does
not exist. There is nothing physical in it. It is all formed from the
metaphysical woven from forces radiating from an Invisible Dark Energy. Our
Universe is made from Nothing, and We are made from the same stuff.

But we Know we exist. We Know because we Think. We have a consciousness, a
sentience, a mind. But a mind; a consciousness, is not Physical and can not
be found in this physical Universe. Consciousness cannot be located and
thoughts cannot be measured or defined. They are invisible, infinite, and
unbound.

The Singularity is all there is, it is the only One, and It has no parts.
We do not exist in The Singularity.
We are The Singularity.

You have some interesting points, I find in funny that I read your site (and I guess your post) before you even posted it.. ;) Where your theories break down in your Poly-Solipsism I believe (and please - prove me wrong!) is that there is far too much ability attributed to one single human brain. I believe that there is potential for great power yet is there any 'UNIverse' altering effects on display that are repeateable? How can you claim that any single brain has the capability to alter it's own universe? Wouldn't that alteration be perceived by the others?

I think that the tenants of your Poly-Solipsism are similar to my ideas of perceptionalism, however I believe that coordinating these mind/universes is our goal to mass spiritual enlightenment. Only through an order of magnitude more complex system can we save ourselves.

Thank-you all for some very interesting and thought provoking material.I feel to converse with most of you would put me in a dimension all of it's own, out of my league, but just the same I would like to know this?
You all seem to take the loss of 21grms as an actual fact.yet its nothing more than, well,folklore isn't it?
What do we weigh when we sleep, or are unconscious,has anyone ever studied this?(maybe I dont know.
what about a dog not losing mass? Surely the canine must lose energy at its point of death.And because his brain is less complex it is more unlikely to release a soul?hmmmmmm.
Seems alot of these comments are based on the probability of a red herring.
All that aside, I find the relationship between death and quantum physics interesting.
Anyway,I will be stopping by for more info thanks

Terry

P.S
If souls are based on the complexity of the brain then I am in trouble:/

Science is a dangerous thing in the hands of movie makers and physicians.

The first Ballistocardiograph was made in 1953, see second photo on right hand side of http://www.nihonkohden.com/50th/history2.html
It measures the volume of blood passing through the heart and the force of cardiac contraction by measuring the body's recoil as blood is ejected from the ventricles in each heartbeat.

I remember using one of these in grad school to measure the forces created by the pumping heart and blood acceleration. In the manuscript shown on the following web page http://www.laboratorium.dist.unige.it/~piero/Workshop2002/dalessio-1.PDF the vertical forces (in the direction of gravity) range from -1.3 to 3.0 Newtons with a frequency of about 1.5 seconds. By the way, 21 grams is about 0.21 Newtons on earths surface. Therefore a persons reclining weight varies almost 430 grams with every heartbeat, but typical scales aren't sensitive or responsive enough to measure this. A scale measures the body weight + "average" cardiac force, but at death would only measure the body weight.

Duncan McDougall's experiment resulting in the 21 gram theory was conducted in 1907, before this phenomon was identified, was on a very small sample size, 6 patients, and his equipment was not sufficiently accurate or responsive. He constructed a special bed in his office "arranged on a light framework built upon very delicately balanced platform beam scales" sensitive to two-tenths of an ounce. This would accurately measure the average forces, but balance scales cannot measure changing forces. As noted in the excerpt from his manuscript (The Soul: Hypothesis Concerning Soul Substance Together with Experimental Evidence of The Existence of Such Substance; American Medicine. April 1907), his experiment does not accommodate rapidly changing or ceasing cardiac forces. He writes:

"The patient's comfort was looked after in every way, although he was practically moribund when placed upon the bed. He lost weight slowly at the rate of one ounce per hour due to evaporation of moisture in respiration and evaporation of sweat. During all three hours and forty minutes I kept the beam end slightly above balance near the upper limiting bar in order to make the test more decisive if it should come. At the end of three hours and forty minutes he expired and suddenly coincident with death the beam end dropped with an audible stroke hitting against the lower limiting bar and remaining there with no rebound. The loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of an ounce. This loss of weight could not be due to evaporation of respiratory moisture and sweat, because that had already been determined to go on, in his case, at the rate of one sixtieth of an ounce per minute, whereas this loss was sudden and large, three-fourths of an ounce in a few seconds. The bowels did not move; if they had moved the weight would still have remained upon the bed except for a slow loss by the evaporation of moisture depending, of course, upon the fluidity of the feces. The bladder evacuated one or two drams of urine. This remained upon the bed and could only have influenced the weight by slow gradual evaporation and therefore in no way could account for the sudden loss. There remained but one more channel of loss to explore, the expiration of all but the residual air in the lungs. Getting upon the bed myself, my colleague put the beam at actual balance. Inspiration and expiration of air as forcibly as possible by me had no effect upon the beam. My colleague got upon the bed and I placed the beam at balance. Forcible inspiration and expiration of air on his part had no effect. In this case we certainly have an inexplicable loss of weight of three-fourths of an ounce. Is it the soul substance? How other shall we explain it?2

P.S. As for dogs, the same forces would exist, but of much smaller magnitude, unlikely to be detected by McDougall's balance scale.

Well now that is very interesting. Here we have a scientific, non-mystical answer to our 21 grams dilemma. My only thought is that if the person was lying in a prone position wouldn't the force of cardiac contraction be directed in a horizontal direction, ie not in a downward and measurable direction? This is definately something to mull over though, thanks for the links!

The force of contraction has components in all three directions, and the anterior-poeterior force is about 0.4 Newtons of 40 grams.

Ok so that is interesting, but then according to what you're saying if the person died on their stomach would they in fact gain 40 grams? How exactly does that go?

A reply to ChefQuix:

We are limited by our entanglement.
Any mind not only places limits on itself by what it perceives and believes to be true, but through its entanglement it can also limit what everyone one else can do.
If a mind were completely isolated from all other minds than the Solipsist philosophy would be true. It would completely control its own universe.
It is the commingling and communications between minds/spirits/souls that creates "What Is."
One mind with a vision is a hallucination; two minds who share the same vision is Gist!

But there is evidence on the ability of one mind to control its own universe, and it is observed by others. I am talking about hypnosis, the Placebo Effect, and the "Miraculous" ability of the human body to spontaneously cure itself. People under hypnosis will manifest burns and blisters when they are told they are being burned by nothing more than an object at room temperature. A percentage of patients will show the same heeling effects from a Placebo sugar pill as those who get the actual medicine. And who has not heard of brain tumors and cancers ‘miraculously' disappearing, or patients getting out of their wheelchairs after being told they would never walk again?

I see the evidence all around us and I believe anyone would see the same things I do if they only know what to look for.
It has been said the goal of philosophy is not to find the answer, but to find the right question. Once you ask the right question the answer will be obvious.

The mind affecting a change to the body it is attached to is quite understandable because of their intimate relationship. What is not so obvious is the effect a mind can have on things not so intimate. When we start moving away from our own minds and bodies we then must contend even more with the entanglement we are in with other minds.
To understand how this can happen I would like to remind you that though our bodies and minds appear to be completely independent, we are all part of the same system. We are all part of The Singularity and our Universe is connected to it through the Quantum Universe. It is because we see ourselves as separate from our Universe; sort of observers only, we fail to see that we are all connected. We are not ‘Here" and the Universe is ‘Out There,' we are the Universe.

It is because of this entanglement everyone of us can influence everything in our Universe. I will use ESP as an example.
For years there has been controversy over the results of independent test for ESP. A few researchers claimed positive results, but when the same test was performed by other researchers they found no evidence beyond random chance.
In my research on the subject I came across one report I found particularly interesting. The researcher was testing the claim that we can sense when we are being watched. For someone who is unaware they are being watched to ‘sense' the eyes of an unseen watcher would go a long way in confirming the existence of Extra Sensory Perception.
The experiment was set up with ‘receivers' and a ‘senders,' and if I remember correctly, the ‘receivers' was unaware they were being watched.
Alas, the experiment failed to show anything the researcher would consider a positive ‘hit.'
Yeah, I know this doesn't sound that interesting, but what was interesting was what the Researcher included in his report! It seem this researcher was a skeptic, and was out to prove that we cannot sense when we are being watched, and just to insure his test would not be biased, he states in his report he actually excluded several "Nut Cases" who requested to be part of the test because they claimed to have psychic abilities!
This researcher failed to take into account his own psychic abilities to negatively influence his own experiment.
It is now believed that the minds of those participating in any experiment will influence the outcome of that experiment. There are no Observers in the Universe, because we cannot observe anything without affecting that which we observe. By observing we become part of the experiment.
We find what we go looking for.
Note:
I do have this report saved in here somewhere, but I have hundreds of bookmarks on two different computers. It is almost easier to search the Internet to find it again than it is to find it hiding in my files. I believe I did a search for "Remote Viewing" when I found it the first time several years ago, but since Google has gotten so efficient I got 2,050,000 hits when I just tried the search again. This report is among them somewhere, and I bet there are many others that are equally of interest, so you are invited to look there until I can find the report I have saved. If I find it I will pass the link along, but don't hold your breath. ‘O)

Chuck

I am leaving this reply here, but since it is really off topic for this 21 grams discussion I will also leave it on your Discussion Forum for any and all questions and comments.

RE: 21 grams - Patients are usually placed on their back, and McDougall did not say they were in the prone position.

Regarding cckeiser and remote viewing. This was debunked by several experiments conducted by Edward Karnes in the late-1970s. See:

Karnes, Edward W.; Ballou, Julie; Susman, Ellen P.; Swaroff, Philip. Remote viewing: Failures to replicate with control comparisons. Psychological Reports, 1979 Dec, v45 (n3):963-973.

Karnes, Edward W.; Susman, Ellen P. Remote viewing: A response bias interpretation. Psychological Reports, 1979 Apr, v44 (n2):471-479.

Finally, the old standby for philosophy majors who seem to frequent this chat room - Does a tree make a sound if it falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it? Not as thought provoking or complex as 21 grams. What are your thoughts? I will try to provide an indisputable answer tomorrow for anyone who cares.

I haven't yet read all of the posts, however, I offer another possible alternative solution to this 21 gram mystery. Even if a "soul" exists, by any definition, it is doubtful that something that is not visible to the human eye and capable of "floating away undetected" weighs 21 grams.

A better explanation could be that the loss of electrical charge releases adjoining material from the human body. It is well accepted that the body attracts material based on its electrical charge. Obviously, when we die, the "magnet" loses it ability to attract. This material "falling off" could conceivably total 21 grams. This would also explain the dog debacle, namely the fur would change the effect of this loss of charge.

Anyway, that is my two cents, keep the change!

Does a tree make a sound if it falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it? A falling tree creates pressure waves that propogate through the air and eventually dissipate. If the pressure waves are encountered by an eardrum, they are interpreted by the brain as sound. Therefore, a falling tree does not make a sound, irrespective of whether there is anyone around to hear it. Back to the real world!

Hank, Your supposition relies on a fairly loose definition of sound. Considering that not everyone interprets soundwaves to the same result, the definition must include the origin, and not just the reaction. However, since there are necessarily two parts to sound; namely, the origin and the reaction at the ear, the answer is still no!

Whether there is a sound all depends on your definition of what a sound is.
If you define it as a vibration of a medium; in this case air, than yes anything that will cause the air to vibrate would be considered a sound.
But if you believe that vibration must be heard to actually be ‘sound,' than no, the falling tree does not make a sound, it only creates a vibration. A sound is only a "Sound" if it is heard!

The deeper philosophical question contained in the falling tree question is what is Reality?
The definition of Reality is: The quality or state of being real. That which is real. And the definition of "Real" is: Anything that actually exists; authentic, genuine.
But how do we know something is real, authentic, genuine, and really exists? We say we know it is because we can see it, feel it, smell it, hear it, measure it, and if need be kick it!
We know it is real because we "perceive" it to be real.
For something to be ‘real' it must first be perceived. If it is not perceived it is not ‘real'!

Of course this only leads to the next question: What is perception?

Do a web search for "Does the Universe exist if we are looking?" and you will find an interesting article from the renowned John Wheeler.

Chuck

Oops!
Make that: "Does the Universe exist if we are not looking?"

The lack of depth of the "falling tree" question serves to effectively demonstrate that humans are currently incapable of determining the full scope of reality. This demonstration is based on our inability to even effectively graph a riddle to present the question. Similarly, the "one hand clapping" and other philosophical malignancies have outlived their useful life. Sadly, we have nothing to replace them with. This brings us to our fundamental paradox: since we don't know the answer, how can we ever hope to present the question in a coherent manner? I believe asking humans to present clear analysis of a system as complex as "reality" is a bit like asking a monkey to do complex division. Eventually, and with enough effort, they might get it, but any correct answers will be purely coincidental!
However, having said that, it is still fun to predict and live long enough to be proven wrong, which is really the life result of all of our greatest thinkers!

Thoughts anyone??

What exactly do you mean by "lack of depth"? I've been struggling with this question for as long as I've been really thinking. I believe by the tone of your reply that you too have struggled with this question, haven't come up with any 'definitive' answer and are now trying to move on. But this struggle is exactly what gives a question depth, and the more the struggle, the more the journey to answer that question will add to the all that is you.

So really, I think what we need is to find some kind of place holder for this one and then see where it takes us as a society. In order to find an answer of best quality we should really try to disect this question and look at it from a different perception.

Does a tree make a sound if it falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it?

This question is deceptive because it blinds us by flattering our humanistic ego. It panders to the idea that we are all that matters, that we are the only observers. The question is always 'no one', but is it ever 'no man'? It is always perceived as 'no man'. This however is a key to answering this question. Are we the only observers?

Take for instance the perception of a squirrel. There are no humans around but a tree falls - you know that squirrel is going to run. It hears a sound, so the tree makes a sound.

Then you have the other plants. There are no humans or squirrels, but a tree falls and a bush vibrates from the soundwave caused. This vibration interrupts sap and hormones moving throughout the bush and produces some kind of response. Isn't that all obeservation is? Stimulus response, where the response is a reordering of internal static values?

Finally you have the rocks which at first glance would seem completely unaffected, but upon closer examination a small crack occurs in a boulder because of the vibrations, a seed that crystalizes due to previous stress. Stimulus, response. Observation.

As abstract as this concept may be nonetheless they are all forms of observation, which is the crux of this question. If one takes the question to ask if 'no man' is around, then of course it makes a sound! There is plenty to observe it and adjust or respond to the stimulus. If one takes the question to ask if 'no one' is around then it is a trick question, because there wouldn't be a forest at all, and thus no tree to fall.

If sound is defined as an auditory sensation. The answer to the question (Does a tree make a sound?) is no, since trees don't make sounds, ears preceive sound as an auditory sensation.

If sound is defined as mechanical vibrations transmitted by an elastic medium, then yes.

But the answer is only a function of the definition of sound.

How old is this question? Was the question asked before the physics of sound and the mechanics of the ear and human perception of senses were explored? I do not think that an answer based on our mechanistic understanding of sound is necessarily the answer the askers were looking for.

Great point on the "tree-sound" comment, Chefquix. It is completely typical of our human ego to focus the question on our notions of perception. I plead guilty on that front, which is ironic as I frequently criticize others for the same breach. I take your point that the reaction of "sound" waves with virtually anything can be "sound". Further, the timing of the dissipation of sound waves plays into the equation as well. In other words, two people standing side by side with different hearing capabilities would answer the question differently if one "hears" something and the other does not. This speaks directly to the notion of whether this question is internal or external to the specific individual. In fact, one can argue it has to be internal to the individual by default, since we have no universal definition of several necessary parameters defining the question.

WRT the "lack of depth" comment, my intent was to illustrate the inability to accurately define a question without knowing the answer. By definition, it is very difficult to accurately phrase a question that does not have a static and linear answer!

Gord

"The time has come, the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax
Of cabbages and kings
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings."

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). 1832-1898.

I get the feeling old Charley Dodgson had a premonition about Internet Discussion boards when he wrote this one!
As a discussion board Junkie I can attest that for the exchange of ideas, interesting dialog, and most times lively debate, you cannot beat a good discussion board.
If you wish to know if pigs really do have wings join the forum!
As an added incentive, for all new members this month I will personally reveal the secret to The "Philosopher's Stone"!
Ok, I am now pimping for ChefQuix! 'O)
This was unsolicited, but I really hate to see a good discussion board going to waste.

Chuck

Yes please if you feel like discussing anything at all in greater detail, visit the forums, sign up and have a chat. I've whored them up pretty good so I'd like to see someone other than myself have the last word.. ;)

As for the lack of depth, I think I understand what you're talking about, but in reality will we ever be able to find a question like you seek? Is one unanswerable question as good as another? How do you describe the quality of one question over another?

So once again we don't even understand what we are talking about. There IS something, right, called dark, that we cannot see. How do we know that we cannot see it. There is the tree analagy. How about being the tree?

It's a bizarre question really, you may say that what is dark matter and dark energy are the "tree falling in a forest" question of OUR time... One can only hope that science will come up with the answer, however I do not have much hope as it seems the answer will probably be so far out there that no 'grounded' scientist would even think to ask the right question to perform an experiment. Perhaps it's time to get really crazy.

Science may never find the answer.
Science, by its very nature, must confine itself to things that can be 'measured.' Occam's Razor, its tool of choice, limits where Science can look for "Truth."
But Occam's razor is like the drunk who has lost his car keys on one side of a street, but looks for them on the other side under the street lamp because the light is better and it is easier to see there.
Sometimes truth lies in dark places.
I do not mean 'dark' as in sinister. Dark places are where things exist that cannot be measured and where science cannot shine a light. Dark Energy may be such a place.

Chuck

History has frequently proven that Science has no limit. Rather, it is the people using the tool that have the limit. If all one ever sees is someone using a hammer to drive in nails, one never knows that the other end is used to pull them out.

Once again, we are in the dangerous realm of assuming that everyone defines a term similarly. Define "Science"? I just recently had this discussion, and at the end we agreed that properly applied science must include the use of qualitative as well as quantitative data in order to arrive at a reasonable model of nature and reality, which, I feel, is the fundamental definition of "Science". Science, properly applied, is used to generate repeatable models of nature and reality. Inherently, this is limited. Therefore, by definition, the application of science, not science itself, is limited and we should not use our limited definition of terms to limit our perspective.

Lastly, and at the risk of stating the obvious, we can see "Dark". If we couldn't, how would we know it was there?? Much as different people hear different levels, people see differently. Therefore, what is "dark" to one person is "light" to another. Regardless, we all see it, it is simply a matter of scale.

Oh no, I think I see a new thread developing here!

Hi Gord! ‘O)

Yeah, I never liked the term "Dark" for describing something that cannot be seen. ‘Black Holes' were bad enough, but ‘Dark Matter' and ‘Dark Energy' just do not tell the whole story to the general public.

As you probable already know, Black Holes are black because their gravity wells are so steep the velocity needed to escape exceeds the speed of light; therefore if we saw one it would look completely black. The only way we would know it was there visually is by the starlight it was blocking. We would also know it was there by the gravitational effects it would exert in it immediate neighborhood.
Dark Matter on the other hand is not really as dark as a black hole. If we could get close enough to some of it we would be able to see it. The reason it is now called black is because from where we are sitting right now we cannot see it. All though dark matter is theorized to compose more than half of the normal matter/energy in our Universe, it is not emitting any kind of radiation we can detect. That is the only reason we call it ‘Dark.' We "know" it is there because of the gravitational effects it has on stars and galaxies.

Dark Energy is a horse of a different color. In fact, it is a horse with no color at all. Dark Energy is all around us just like gravity is all around us, but we cannot see or detect it with any technology we currently have.
We know it is there only by deduction because when we add together all the normal matter/energy and all the ‘dark matter' we still only have about half enough to account for the behavior of galaxies. Dark Energy isn't called dark because it is black like a black hole, or just very dark like dark matter, we cannot see it because it just isn't there. It just does not have any of the normal physical attributes of the energy we know that we can measure. It represents an unknown force Science has not encountered before. (Actually I think we have, we just do not wish to admit it exists.) Dark Energy is really getting into the Metaphysical aspects of our Universe.
I believe once we know what the Dark Energy is, it will answer a whole lot of the mysteries of our Universe and just may tell us how it all works.

Chuck

I'm responding to an earlier post by ChefQuix who wanted to hear from a scientist who had the training and tools to do this kind of thing.

Haven't got time to read all the posts right now and write in full, but when I first came across the 21g idea over 20 years ago I actually tried to reproduce the experiment using 2 unfortunate little guinea pigs. Darn things wouldn't keep still enough to weigh them accurately, so they died in vain.

It's a very interesting concept, however, and once I've read the original work and digested the latest postings I'll be back with some suggestions which I promise will be less gruesome than my adolescent attempt.

As a nurse capable of performing research I probably have the closest view to death that any scientist could have on a daily basis. I've seen hundreds of people in their dying stages, and must agree that this topic is very fascinating. I must admit though that I have no desire to reproduce the experiement only because I don't have the time to do it while working full time. An experiement of the quality it would take to have significant results would take a great deal of people skills (talking with families and patients), and patience because catching people at the instant they die is not an easy task. I'm replaying over and over in my mind the deaths that I've witnessed trying to remember every detail about the person's body as I watched them slip away. It is usually one of two very different situations...either peacful and quiet (as with a person who we've expected to go at any time) or sudden and noisy (as with cardiac arrest, people all around trying to bring the person back). I'm assuming that all the previous experiements were done with the first situation, and I wonder if the same results would be true with the second. It would be hard to physically weigh a person in the second because of everything else going on (Doctors are not likely to "step aside" for someone to roll the person onto a bed weight). Your best bet for finding someone willing to reproduce the experiment would be to find a graduate student in need of a research idea. I could see all sorts of majors interested in the concept...Psychology, Biology, Medical, possibly Nursing. And probably many others. However I agree with some of the others who have posted that the results may not be very meaningful. It would be nearly impossible to prove that the loss of mass would be the person's spirit. As someone said earlier, there are so many things we do not know about the human body and the universe as a whole, we may never see the entire picture.
I'd like to go into detail about the strange things I've noticed that go on when people die, but I don't know that it is appropriate for the topic, but anyone interested can let me know and I may post later.

Hello J3nn

I would love to hear more of the things you have seen, but I agree, this is not the forum for this discussion.
If you would not mind you can post what ever you can remember of the Discussion Forum ChefQuix has set up and linked at the top of this page.
You can join for free if you wish, or just post as a guest.
There are several discussions already started, but if you don't find any you think fit, please feel free to start a new topic on "The Quantum Mandrake" discussion board.

I hope to see you there.

Chuck

Why not give Kirlian photography a try. It was used years ago to catch ghostly images in suspicious dwellings. A camera could be focused on a willing or comatose person who is near death. Then at the point of death they lose their supposed 21 grams and maybe if the reason is metaphysical it can be caught on film. I'm not sure if Kirlian photography has be debunked, but if it hasn't-someone should give it a shot.

What exactly is Kirlian photography? Is it aura pictures? I wonder if someone takes an aura picture of a dead person, if they even have an aura...

I am a senior in high school and my class has been discussing the theory of the soul weighing 21 grams. We were wondering when one gets a soul? When you are born, when your heart starts beating? We would like to know if scientists have weighed embryos. If anyone has any info, please email me. Thank you.

Hi, I am a journalist from Brazil and I am writing a story about the 21 grams/lost of soul "legend". I found this conversation very interesting, but I am not finding the study of dr. Duncan MacDougall published in the magazine American Medicine, in 1907. I hope some of you may have it, so I ask you to please send it to me.
Thank you very much.

I wish I could help you find more information about that source but I don't have any access to those archives. Please keep me informed though if you're doing a story, I'd love to hear your take on it. Email me any developments to chefquix@perceptionalism.com and I'll make sure and write about it as well. ;)

i am so fascinated by this topic that i have decided to do a speech on it. We'll see how it does this weekend and thank you all for your comments as they will be used and authors recognized in my speech. Thanks again.

Ok, I have been trying to keep my own philosophy disassociated from this topic awaiting conformation one way or another. Needless to say, this is not the only discussion about "21 Grams" on the Internet, and though I do not believe for a moment I read even a fraction of them, I have read enough to conclude no one has the answer. No one as yet can provide anything other than ‘hearsay' as to the validity of the ‘Urban Legend' that we use any weight at all at the moment of death.
I did try a web search myself, and is how I found this board, but I also failed to find anything conclusive. The problem may be that almost all the links lead to something about the movie "21 Grams" and very few discuss the phenomenon itself. After a few hours of searching you just say screw it, it's not worth the effort, and I already have too many other things to do. There is just too much "information pollution" out there!

I did read a post by one PhD who stated it is all a hoax and there have been numerous studies done that disprove we lose any weight at the time of death. The fact that his PhD is in Mathematics and he has not as yet furnish a link or reference to support his statement must be kept in mind. Not that I can really fault him for not supplying a link or reference, since I know from experience how difficult that can be when recalling something I read more than six months ago, and is almost impossible for something I recall from years ago!

Which only leads me to conclude, that after all this time, not a single person has unearth anything other than hearsay on this subject, that it is just another urban legend.

This a bit of a relief, as the loss of weight does not fit with what I believe about the spirit/soul. In my philosophy the mind is the union of the spirit and soul, and neither are composed of e=mc2 type energy; they are made from the same ‘energy' memories are made from, and none of them exist in our physical Universe.

Our mind exists in a different dimension in the Quantum Universe and is only connected to this physical Universe through a link with the brain. If it is only a connection that is lost, there should be no loss of weight. Your computer does not get lighter if you unplug from the Internet.

( For Natasha )
The way I see it, the brain is a biological battery that must be properly functioning for a proper connection to be made. We acquire our mind/spirit/souls the moment our brains begins to function. Once the electrochemical reactions in the brain cease, the lights go out and we lose our connection.

If you would care to read more about my philosophy you can find it on my web site at:
http://www.geocities.com/cckeiser/42d.htm

Went through teh same path taht you did on teh internte. Cant belive it hasnot been repeated

I can only hope that talking about it and keeping the conversation going will trigger enough interest to try it again. It can't hurt.

wrap your mind around this one... I'm not sure which it is-maybe both- alzheimers or being in a coma and someone that is medically deemed "brain dead" it would be interesting to do the experiment with those two types of people with "depleted neurons'" (im pretty sure its alzheimers) and this is going back to the whole brain complexity neuron junk from a while ago... [just another thought: would the results of the experiment differ in mentally "retarted" subjects and "normal" people- sorry about the bad terminology]

I was looking back to Paul's post dec. 9 and thinking about religious Nuts (inadvertently including Paul into this group) and how these people... well I've always wondered if the reason they always sound so pepy is due to which of two reasons: a) "they" are so consumed by religion and "gods great word" that they cannot or are to ignorant to see the bad in the world AND/OR b) we, the 'others' are seemingly inferior to "them" and are therefore regarded and treated as children....my aren't I the controversial one.

Like many of you, I was curious to know the answer to this phenomenon and was left with the far to simple answer of a disembodied soul. I started thinking about what life processes cease when the heart stops beating(~4.14g

So a deep breath weighs roughly a nickel(5g). Let us hope we're never charged to breathe. Assuming oxygen intake wasn't considered for these tests(sorry, I haven't read up on this phenomenon to a great extent), there's still 16.86 grams to account for. Could be your soul, or a combination of several other degradations.

Satirical advice: Sticking with the nickel conversion, your soul is only worth about 20 cents (i.e. worthless). Sell it to the devil to spend this physical lifetime in unlimited ecstacy. *wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more*

Sidenote for those who care: I was baptised Lutheran, raised by a Lutheran and a Catholic, and I myself am currently agnostic.

SORRY. I inadvertently put in an HTML code the wiped my calculations. Here's the repost:

Like many of you, I was curious to know the answer to this phenomenon and was left with the far to simple answer of a disembodied soul. I started thinking