Duncan Macdougall

[Thatdude]

I remember hearing about this a while back. Here is a good video on this.


In short, a long while back someone did a experiment where someone try to figure out how much does the human soul weigh. The experiment has .... major problems. The biggest is the technology at the time, the amount of people, and so on. But it does bring up an interesting question. I'm wondering if maybe I could do this experiment on myself if I die from my own hands. And I wonder what other experiments that could be done to help say when we actually are dead. Like it will be just 1 data point, and it might be iffy at best. But I wonder

Thoughts?

 

[Brick In The Wall]

I remember hearing about this a while back. Here is a good video on this.


In short, a long while back someone did a experiment where someone try to figure out how much does the human soul weigh. The experiment has .... major problems. The biggest is the technology at the time, the amount of people, and so on. But it does bring up an interesting question. I'm wondering if maybe I could do this experiment on myself if I die from my own hands. And I wonder what other experiments that could be done to help say when we actually are dead. Like it will be just 1 data point, and it might be iffy at best. But I wonder

Thoughts?

I've heard of this experiment before. I'd be curious to see the same thing tested with modern technology.

Unfortunately though I don't think many scientists would touch this nowadays. If you don't tow the line you'll be blackballed from scientific journals and research grants.

 

[Thatdude]

Unfortunately though I don't think many scientists would touch this nowadays. If you don't tow the line you'll be blackballed from scientific journals and research grants.

I wonder why. Even when he was around it was taboo, and I can't figure out why.

 

[Brick In The Wall]

I wonder why. Even when he was around it was taboo, and I can't figure out why.

Science hates anything that may potentially be linked to the afterlife or "God". There's been a huge religion vs science debate/war going on for some time now. Which is kinda funny considering science was once born from religious scholars, the two went hand in hand.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

This was discussed in the book Spook. Macdougal was not able to repeat that result. Also from Spook, there is a doctor, Gerry Nahum, who now wants to measure the weight of consciousness but has not been able to get funding. You can Google him, his story and theory are interesting.

 

[Thatdude]

there is a doctor, Gerry Nahum, who now wants to measure the weight of consciousness

How? All I found was a paper that gets way too deep, and it doesn't clearly say how.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1174/41bc6963d0a6bd1548e3fb5238b4186b41c1.pdf

Like with the measurement of a soul, that experiment is dead simple. Measure the weight from when the person is alive to death. The problem with past experiments is the fact that the technology sucked. We can contain the person in some containment bag that they use in a quarantine. Similar to what is shown in this image http://netnebraska.org/sites/defaul...ANNER_SigSto_EbolaLessons03.jpg?itok=TbNomdtd
This allows the person to be comfortable as they die, their fluids and everything will be trap inside, and they can even modify the bag to only allow for air from tanks to be added. This accounting all gases. They can then after the person dies vent all gases into something and figure out what gases is there and the weights of each. So lets say the soul has mass. If the entire thing shows less weight, then that means the soul can travel through known objects. Lets say that isn't the case. They can see if there is an unknown gas, and how much.

My problem with the paper I found is it simply doesn't explain how the experiment works without using a crap load of technical wording which confuses even a person who understands half of it.

Macdougal was not able to repeat that result

I have my doubts that there will be anything different. But the tech we have today is far better than what they had then. And on top of that, I think one of his biggest problems is he only had 6 or so subjects. Even if every one showed something. That in itself is a major problem.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

@Thatdude, you can read part of Spook on google books if you use search terms like "Roach Spook Gerry Nahum," there's an excerpt of the chapter with his views and what he proposes to do (the chapter started with Macdougal). It is indeed very technical, but Nahum described it more simply when Mary Roach interviewed him. I don't recall it having anything to do with gases, though.