Interaction between body and soul

[litewave]

The main problem I see with the idea of the soul (as a conscious entity that can survive the death of the physical body) is how this soul would interact with the physical body while eluding the observations of physicists and neuroscientists. If the soul interacted with the body via a very weak force, it might elude the observation of physicists and neuroscientists but its influence on the body would seem insignificant. If on the other hand the soul interacted with the body via a relatively strong force, it seems that this force should be detectable by physicists or neuroscientists.

Here is my possible solution to this problem.

The possible solution is that the soul would interact with the body via a relatively strong force that results in measurable changes in brain activity but due to the rather limited level of detail at which we can measure complicated brain processes (fMRI, EEG...) and due to myriads of external influences on the brain, it would be difficult to tell whether the measurable changes in brain activity are or are not entirely caused by known physical forces. At least if the soul's influence on the brain was normally within the usual variance of brain activity and behavior.

However, the brain consists of the same elementary particles that physicists observe with high precision (unlike in neuroimaging studies) in particle accelerators and there they have failed to detect a force other than the known physical forces. A relatively strong force should be detectable in particle accelerators. So if the soul influences the brain in a significant way, this influence would seem to be limited to the brain and maybe to some other complex physical objects where it would be difficult to differentiate this influence from the known physical forces. But why would the soul influence only brains or other complex objects?

It has occurred to me that the soul might interact with matter via a very weak force (that's why it has not been detected even in precise observations in particle accelerators), but it would be able to influence the brain in a significant way via resonance. Resonance is a familiar physical phenomenon in which a periodic external force or vibrating system drives another system to oscillate with greater amplitude at specific frequencies. Thus the effects of a weak force would be amplified, theoretically without limit if the driven system had no resistance. It is the same phenomenon where freely traveling electromagnetic waves cause vibrations in specially constructed electric circuits in a radio or a TV set. It might be that only certain highly complex structures like neural networks provide patterns that can resonate with the soul and so the otherwise weak interaction between soul and matter would be difficult to detect outside the brain. Perhaps the weak force connecting the soul and the body might even be the familiar gravitational force, which is a universal force (acting on everything that has energy) and is too weak to be measured in particle accelerators.

The interaction between the soul and the brain could also go the other way: via resonance, brain activity would influence the soul, and thus the soul would be able to receive information from the brain, including information that encodes perceptions of the sensory system of the physical body. After the death of the physical body, the soul could continue to exist and hold consciousness but would lose access to further information provided by brain activity.

Thread moved from General Skepticism and The Paranormal to Religion and Philosophy.

Posted By: zooterkin

 

[Andy_Ross]

What i the evidence for a soul?

 

[bluesjnr]

Soul - brain - particle accelerators - resonance -fail.....................

 

[The Norseman]

Here's a good start from the blog of Sean Carroll:

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2011/05/23/physics-and-the-immortality-of-the-soul/

"As far as every experiment ever done is concerned, this equation [refers to the Dirac equation (supplied in the blog link)] is the correct description of how electrons behave at everyday energies. It’s not a complete description; we haven’t included the weak nuclear force, or couplings to hypothetical particles like the Higgs boson. But that’s okay, since those are only important at high energies and/or short distances, very far from the regime of relevance to the human brain.

If you believe in an immaterial soul that interacts with our bodies, you need to believe that this equation is not right, even at everyday energies. There needs to be a new term (at minimum) on the right, representing how the soul interacts with electrons. (If that term doesn’t exist, electrons will just go on their way as if there weren’t any soul at all, and then what’s the point?) So any respectable scientist who took this idea seriously would be asking — what form does that interaction take? Is it local in spacetime? Does the soul respect gauge invariance and Lorentz invariance? Does the soul have a Hamiltonian? Do the interactions preserve unitarity and conservation of information?"​

So how do you, litewave, begin to address these questions?

 

[litewave]

Here's a good start from the blog of Sean Carroll:

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2011/05/23/physics-and-the-immortality-of-the-soul/

Actually that's where I started about a year ago. The idea of a weak force amplified by resonance occurred to me when I was thinking about this very article by Sean Carroll. I even wrote him an email about it but he never replied. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to develop the idea further.

 

[Apathia]

You can cut through this brain and soul numbing speculation by letting go of the bifurcation of reality into soul stuff and business, and body stuff and business.

You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You don't have a body. You are a body. A living Human Body (provided ze's not a vegetable in a coma) is a living soul.

No need for mysterious forces that can't mesh with the forces we know, or misunderstanding the existent ones in ways that contradict their functions to account for the wonderful beings we are.

That subjective inner life we celebrate cannot be made into some separate stuff. We have consciousness because we're empirical. We can speak of empiricality because we're conscious. Stuff as in Mind or Spirit. Stuff as Matter are both ignorant projections.

 

[Loss Leader]

Here is my possible solution to this problem.

What problem?

You're assuming that a soul exists and then trying to figure out why you don't have evidence of it.

That's exactly backwards from actual science. Scientists find a bit of data that doesn't conform to known theories and then try to isolate and study it.

What evidence is there that any soul exists sufficient to spend any time trying to figure out anything about it? What evidence do you have that the biological processes of the human brain are insufficient to explain the entirety of processes of the human brain?

Evidence, evidence, evidence.

 

[JoeMorgue]

The main problem I see with the idea of the soul (as a conscious entity that can survive the death of the physical body) is how this soul would interact with the physical body while eluding the observations of physicists and neuroscientists.

Yeah I totally believe you really have a problem with this.

The possible solution is that the soul would interact with the body via a relatively strong force that results in measurable changes in brain activity but due to the rather limited level of detail at which we can measure complicated brain processes (fMRI, EEG...) and due to myriads of external influences on the brain, it would be difficult to tell whether the measurable changes in brain activity are or are not entirely caused by known physical forces. [snip the next 3 paragraphs of Woo]

Oh another "This Woo thing totally exists... but you see the reason there is literally no evidence for it isn't that it doesn't exist but, by some amazing coincidence, it just so happens to only work when already understood force that would ALREADY BE DOING THE SAME THING SO I'M NOT ACTUALLY EXPLAINING ANYTHING would also be happening.

Rocks fall down because of gravity, except for this one rock I've decided is magic it doesn't fall down because of gravity but because of magic, but magic that works exactly, in fact that is totally indistinguishable, from it falling down because of gravity.

 

[The Norseman]

Actually that's where I started about a year ago. The idea of a weak force amplified by resonance occurred to me when I was thinking about this very article by Sean Carroll. I even wrote him an email about it but he never replied. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to develop the idea further.

That's too bad he never responded. But still, how are you attempting to answer these questions?

 

[bluesjnr]

I thought all souls were alphabetically identified 'cos everybody has an r-soul.

 

[Bikewer]

There just MUST be some way we can have a soul!

Wishful thinking. Modern neuroscience has shown us that the electrochemical activity of our massively complex and interconnected brains is quite adequate to produce consciousness, even if we don’t have all the fine details as yet.

 

[Mojo]

 

[Darat]

Actually that's where I started about a year ago. The idea of a weak force amplified by resonance occurred to me when I was thinking about this very article by Sean Carroll. I even wrote him an email about it but he never replied. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to develop the idea further.

Still doesn't work for the same reason, fundamentally there just isn't any "room" for such a transfer of energy/information.

And this isn't like one of those old "man will suffocate if the train goes bove 30mph", it's because we have looked down to the scale that if there was anything even if we couldn't detect what it is we would see anomalies in the energy detected. And we don't.

 

[litewave]

Still doesn't work for the same reason, fundamentally there just isn't any "room" for such a transfer of energy/information.

And this isn't like one of those old "man will suffocate if the train goes bove 30mph", it's because we have looked down to the scale that if there was anything even if we couldn't detect what it is we would see anomalies in the energy detected. And we don't.

I think this is false, and I have explained why in OP.

 

[The Norseman]

I think this is false, and I have explained why in OP.

Where is the math?

Once again, physics is not truly expressed in words but in mathematics. I showed the link which discusses the Dirac equation. You said you have looked at Dr. Carroll's blog and maybe it helped you to come up with your idea.

That's cool. But we [ISF] aren't ultimately the people you have to convince but theoretical physicists like Dr. Carroll.

Speaking of which, it is the actual job of theoretical physicists to think of ideas like what you've come up with. What makes you think someone like Sean Carroll hasn't already considered a resonance idea?

See, the thing is, ultimately your soul would be measurable if it affects the brain, regardless of how the signal got there or what route it got there, such as resonance.

This is what you're missing. Once it reaches to the level of affecting the brain in any way, we can measure it. That's it. We. Can. Measure. It. And if you want to say that there is something there we cannot measure, then you will be uprooting the entirety of science, as Sean Carroll expresses in the linked blog.

 

[litewave]

What makes you think someone like Sean Carroll hasn't already considered a resonance idea?

I don't know whether he considered the resonance idea.

The Standard model is obviously incomplete. It doesn't contain gravitons and dark matter particles.

And what makes you think that when a neuroscientist sees a measurable change in brain activity, for example on fMRI, he can say that it was caused entirely by known physical particles inside and outside the brain? He can locate activations with spatial resolution of a few millimeters but how does he trace its origins in the messy system of billions of neurons and synapsies? It seems there is a lot of room for unknown influences that manifest as normal brain activity.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

What problem?

You're assuming that a soul exists and then trying to figure out why you don't have evidence of it.

I agree. It is that simple.

I also would like to add that there is no possible mechanism for "souls" to evolve, so do we have the souls of homo erectus? Alternatively, is someone claiming souls only popped up with modern humans?

 

[Loss Leader]

And what makes you think that when a neuroscientist sees a measurable change in brain activity, for example on fMRI, he can say that it was caused entirely by known physical particles inside and outside the brain?

The mere fact that an action hasn't been observed doesn't mean that the overall theory is suddenly debunked and any dreamed-of idea is equally likely. The theory that wins is the one that fits all the evidence with the fewest assumptions. When a bit of contradictory evidence is discovered, then scientists can begin testing to create a theory that incorporates that evidence - either a modification or a complete sea change in ideas.

How did we abandon our belief in phlogiston, or a deep space ether, or the idea that disease was caused by bad air? Scientists did experiments that returned data that was inconsistent with those theories.

Do you have any evidence that's inconsistent with the theory that a human is entirely material in nature and the mind is an emergent property of a working brain?

If so, please present it. Otherwise, there is no reason to attempt to shove an extra assumption about "souls" into an otherwise perfectly serviceable theory - especially one for which no counter-evidence has been observed.

We might as well try to work out how raccoons are able to control our emotions, or how exactly the planet Mars worked out a proof of the quadratic equation. It's all nonsense without evidence.

 

[Robin]

Here's a good start from the blog of Sean Carroll:

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2011/05/23/physics-and-the-immortality-of-the-soul/

"As far as every experiment ever done is concerned, this equation [refers to the Dirac equation (supplied in the blog link)] is the correct description of how electrons behave at everyday energies. It’s not a complete description; we haven’t included the weak nuclear force, or couplings to hypothetical particles like the Higgs boson. But that’s okay, since those are only important at high energies and/or short distances, very far from the regime of relevance to the human brain.

If you believe in an immaterial soul that interacts with our bodies, you need to believe that this equation is not right, even at everyday energies. There needs to be a new term (at minimum) on the right, representing how the soul interacts with electrons. (If that term doesn’t exist, electrons will just go on their way as if there weren’t any soul at all, and then what’s the point?) So any respectable scientist who took this idea seriously would be asking — what form does that interaction take? Is it local in spacetime? Does the soul respect gauge invariance and Lorentz invariance? Does the soul have a Hamiltonian? Do the interactions preserve unitarity and conservation of information?"​

So how do you, litewave, begin to address these questions?

I see no reason to suppose there is such a thing as an immortal soul, but Carroll's questions here seem to miss the point and assumes that a soul, if it existed, would be another material entity that we haven't yet discovered.

 

[Scorpion]

I agree. It is that simple.

I also would like to add that there is no possible mechanism for "souls" to evolve, so do we have the souls of homo erectus? Alternatively, is someone claiming souls only popped up with modern humans?

Surely the process of living our lives is the mechanism which causes the evolution of our souls?