Dr MacDougall and the 21-gram Soul

[Nous]

In all these examples implicitly a human presses the key, turns on the gas, draws a beer. But what about non-volitional events (and what 'volitional' means is a work in progress in this conversation) like iron oxidizing in rain, lack of rain causing a plant to die or mold growing on a wall because it's damp?

It's your claim that computers make decisions in contrast to what other machines do. I'm asking what you believe computers do differently than what other machines do in this regard.

Show us where any hypothesis about computers making decisions has been tested.

Yes, since I can't see how any alternative could work.

So you are not able to choose to state a true proposition over a false one on the issue of whether you are able to make decisions.

That explains a lot about the content of your posts.

Are you able to recognize the fallacious rationale you have stated here by which you arrived at your conclusion?

Let's say a new fact is confirmed about dark matter that indicates a phenomenon unlike any particle suspected to exist or else the whole of general relativity must be wrong. The discoverer says that he can't imagine a new kind of particle that would account for the findings, therefore the whole of GR is wrong. That would be fallacious reasoning. Right?

I use 'energy' to mean 'mass-energy'.

All you need to do is define "energy" and state the deduction by which you can demonstrate it existence by dropping a brick on your foot.

I dare say there are plenty of massless photons mediating EM phenomena in my brain in their virtual way, but biochemical and bioelectrical phenomena such as constitute memory, concepts and so on have mass.

What you said on the thread I was referring to was:

"The concept of a unicorn is a physical set of relations between neurons" https://www.religiousforums.com/threads/what-does-physical-really-mean.203241/page-4#post-5406178

Thus, these "physical" concepts should remain even in dead brains, no?

 

[Milton Platt]

X is about to die.

At the moment of death, his soul will depart from his body.

Since the soul is real, his body will lose weight as a result.

Therefore the mass of his soul can be determined by comparing his just-before-death weight with his just-after weight.

So reasoned Dr Duncan MacDougall, publishing his results in 1907. They showed that of six such experiments, one showed a loss of 3/4th of an ounce / 21.3 grams. Therefore not conclusive, said the doctor. >More here<.

But the question was essentially a good one, was it not? If the soul is real / has objective existence / is not imaginary then it will have real qualities such as mass, won't it?

So why haven't churches who think the soul is real pursued such experiments further? Surely they must have a healthy curiosity to discover what the facts are?

Or is there a tacit acknowledgement that the soul is imaginary (is 'spirit') and such experiments can only end in embarrassment?

Why would an immaterial thing have weight (and therefore, I would guess, mass)?
Why would only 1 in 6 have mass, and 5 not have mass? Obviously, the experiment was flawed.

 

[blü 2]

Why would an immaterial thing have weight (and therefore, I would guess, mass)?
Why would only 1 in 6 have mass, and 5 not have mass? Obviously, the experiment was flawed.

The experiment may have been done in an imperfect manner, but the concept seems to me to be correct. If the soul is real then it will have mass, and at death it will be reasonable to look for a loss of mass not otherwise explicable.

Thus the failure to find such a loss would indicate that the soul is not real, simply a concept without a real counterpart, a thing imagined.

Which appears to be the case.

 

[Milton Platt]

The experiment may have been done in an imperfect manner, but the concept seems to me to be correct. If the soul is real then it will have mass, and at death it will be reasonable to look for a loss of mass not otherwise explicable.

Thus the failure to find such a loss would indicate that the soul is not real, simply a concept without a real counterpart, a thing imagined.

Which appears to be the case.

While I don't believe in souls, I don't think the experiment is worth anything one way or the other. I have no idea what the properties of something that is immaterial, ie, lacking a material existence, would be. I would not think mass would be one of them.

 

[blü 2]

While I don't believe in souls, I don't think the experiment is worth anything one way or the other. I have no idea what the properties of something that is immaterial, ie, lacking a material existence, would be. I would not think mass would be one of them.

The properties of something outside of nature, outside of the realm of physics, would necessarily be imaginary.

So I have no argument with MacDougall's underlying perception that a real soul must have real consequences, even if his experiment was not a model of how to test the question.

 

[blü 2]

It's your claim that computers make decisions in contrast to what other machines do. I'm asking what you believe computers do differently than what other machines do in this regard.

Show us where any hypothesis about computers making decisions has been tested.

Those are good questions.

How are we to define 'decision' in this context?

One definition would require will to be involved, but what here is a satisfactory definition of 'will', such that we can test for its presence and absence? I don't have one, but if you do, please put it on the table.

Another would simply require a choice to be resolved:

Both A and B are possible ─ choose 1 of A and B.
A is chosen.​

With the Jacquard loom, the result of the choice is predetermined, but relative to the loom, it is still a choice, an instruction to do A rather than B.

With the calculator, the result of the set of choices ─ the result of the process ─ is also predetermined, and again the output is completely the result of the input.

If we look for a corresponding example in biology ─ in the wild, as it were ─ we find at the basic level that ultraviolet light promotes a response of movement (contract-relax-repeat) in some microorganisms, which results in their moving (particularly in water, as I understand it, but that's not essential to the point) thus increasing their chances of finding shade. The ones with that reaction get to survive and breed in greater numbers than the ones damaged by exposure to the ultraviolet and evolution takes place.

Over the course of 3.5 bn years, it seems fair to guess that microorganisms became very good at surviving as a result of such processes ─ the filter of evolution, as it were. Some of them became multicelled, complex, became bistomata, chordata, marine critters, amphibians, dry land dwellers, reptiles, mammals, us.

But was there ever a point at which all of these steps entailing greater complexity ceased to function (react appropriately for survival and breeding) through chains of cause and effect, like our primitive UV-sensitive critter, and began to function using (whether in whole or part) some other set of phenomena?

I can't think of any evidence for that, nor do I know what that hypothetical other set of phenomena could be based on, or how it could function, or how it could interact with biology. As far as I can tell, biological complexity is still the result of chains of cause and effect (possibly randomized at times by QM events). That includes working brains, of course, said by people whose opinions are respectable to be the most complex things we know of.

If you have evidence that in the course of evolution something other than cause and effect (with or without QM randomness) altered the existing case of complex interacting chains of causality, then this would be the time to say so and place them on the table, no? Isn't that exactly what we're discussing?

And if you don't, this too would be an appropriate time to clarify the point, yes?

 

[Nous]

Those are good questions.

How are we to define 'decision' in this context?

One definition would require will to be involved, but what here is a satisfactory definition of 'will', such that we can test for its presence and absence? I don't have one, but if you do, please put it on the table.

Another would simply require a choice to be resolved:

Both A and B are possible ─ choose 1 of A and B.
A is chosen.​

Here you have indicated that "decisions" entail choosing, which means selecting by preference or according to desire.
the definition of choose

Obviously you haven't shown that computers engage in such choosing, or that computers can do something in this regard that other machines cannot do.

Moreover, you are now implying that computers can do something -- choose between options -- that you claim you cannot do.

You seem to have one confused idea on top of another.

You also haven't given any argument by which to conclude that you can demonstrate the existence of E by dropping a brick on your foot.

Nor have you addressed the issue of what happens to the supposedly "physical" concepts that you claim exist in brains upon the death of a brain.

 

[blü 2]

Here you have indicated that "decisions" entail choosing, which means selecting by preference or according to desire.
the definition of choose

The question, then, is how is a choice made?

And it seems to me that the only coherent answer on the table is, as the result of complex interacting chains of cause and effect in the brain, plus perhaps the odd random QM element.

How do you say choices are made?

Obviously you haven't shown that computers engage in such choosing, or that computers can do something in this regard that other machines cannot do.

I've said that computers reach their results (including IF A then X) as the result of chains of cause and effect ─ as far as I can tell, just like humans, only not nearly as complex.

Moreover, you are now implying that computers can do something -- choose between options -- that you claim you cannot do.

As I said, they use a version ─ comparatively, a very simple version ─ of what we do.

You also haven't given any argument by which to conclude that you can demonstrate the existence of E by dropping a brick on your foot.

You say? Then explain to me what happens when you drop a brick on your foot, in the absence of energy.

Nor have you addressed the issue of what happens to the supposedly "physical" concepts that you claim exist in brains upon the death of a brain.

I have indeed. I've told you they cease to exist because the biomechanisms that make their existence possible have ceased to exist.


Since this is supposed to be a discussion and not simply your cross-examination of me, set out your alternative version of how humans arrive at decisions.

Or if you don't know, please just say so.

After all, I've made it clear that I've reached the conclusions set out above as the best of available alternatives. Offer me a better alternative.


PS And address the questions raised at the end of my post #46.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Why would an immaterial thing have weight (and therefore, I would guess, mass)?
Why would only 1 in 6 have mass, and 5 not have mass? Obviously, the experiment was flawed.

It's why these types of things are so ridiculous. It's urban legend at best and the dear doctor's experiments were hardly scientific.