The human soul...Does it really weigh 21 grams as claimed?

[Rack of T'Pol]

I assume others are familiar with this claim? That scientists have tracked the weight of dying people, and at the moment of death, their bodies lowering in weight by 21 grams.

There's even been a movie based on it...Called "21 Grams": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315733/

I checked with Snoops to see if this is an urban legend, and as it turns-out, snoops lists it as "True": http://www.snopes.com/religion/soulweight.asp

(Well damn...For some reason, I can't copy and paste from Snoops.com. But here is some similar info from another article I found: http://perdurabo10.tripod.com/id787.html)

The Weight Of The Human Soul

By James Donahue


There has been disagreement over the centuries over just what the human soul is, or even if such a thing exists. The soul, which is not the same thing as the spirit, seems to be that spark of something within us that links us to our creator. Some say this is God. We believe it is the Mother Earth, from which we were spawned and to where we will return after our bodies are turned to rot.

That we are creatures with memory, awareness of ourselves and that we exist within our bodies is not debatable. What is in question is just how unique we are in comparison to the other animals sharing this planet with us. So how do we prove that we have a soul?

There was a strange experiment by a doctor in Massachusetts back in 1907 that suggests something, indeed, leaves the body at the moment of death. And that something weighs about 21 grams.

It seems that Dr. Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill conducted his experiment with the help of six dying patients placed in a specially designed bed. The bed was built on a scale so that they could be weighed before, during and immediately after death.

Writing in a journal of American Medicine, Dr. MacDougall told of one patient who was dying of tuberculosis. He wrote: "He lost weight slowly at the rate of one ounce per hour due to evaporation of moisture in respiration and evaporation of sweat. At the end of the three hours and forty minutes, he expired and suddenly coincident with death the beam end (of the scale) dropped with an audible stroke . . . "

He said the loss was about three-fourths of an ounce, or just over 21 grams.

MacDougall conducted similar tests during the deaths of other patients over the years and got similar results. He noted that the entire bed was weighed so that any loss of fluids from urine or the bowels at the moment of death would still be weighed because the material would remain on the bed.

The doctor even considered loss of left-over air in the lungs. To test the possible weight of air in the lungs, he said he and another person each got on the bed and strenuously inhaled and exhaled. Their efforts made no change on the scale.

As a further part of his experiments, Dr. MacDougall wrote that he tried the same experiment with 15 dogs. He said he had to drug the animals to keep them from struggling, which suggests that he also used drugs to kill them. He wrote that there was no change in the weight of the bodies of the dogs at the moment of their death.

The experiments suggest then, that the soul has substance and a measurable mass. It also suggests that humans have something that animals do not, and that it leaves the body at the moment we die.

What continues to remain a mystery is what that something is.

Highlights in bold...An answer to one of my basic questions, in bold as well...




I'm interested in the opinions of the religious (Both "Semi-Believers", like me, and "Absolute Believers", as in "Born Again Christians".), of Atheists, the agnostic, and again, of those in the mamby-pamby middle, like me...

I like to think that God, heaven and the human soul are real things...But, to this point in life, I have never had anything even close to any kind of "Spiritual" moment. I look at God, heaven, and the human soul as things I like to believe are true, like I feel about UFOs, aliens, ghosts and Bigfoot...But to date, have never seen any proof of. So, I only go on my gut instinct and the thoughts on these subjects of those people I trust...


...Example...


...I've got a cousin, and she and her husband are, without any doubt in my mind, two of the most down-to-earth, intelligent, semi-religious (Like I call myself), open-minded, and trustworthy people I know. And, to make a long story short, they had a ghost in their house...One that both had seen, and one that provided them with examples of a haunting on numerous occasions. (It was a wrinkled, gray, and a generally worn-out old man). What really got me was, on top of their absolute believability, is that the husband, not long after buying the home, but having already had numerous encounters with this ghost, was working out in the back yard when a man, driving down the alley, stopped to speak with him. This man, asked my cousin's husband if he had seen or experienced the ghost yet? Out of the blue this question was asked, and as it turns-out, the man had lived in the house previously. Thus, confirming what my cousin, her husband, and to a lesser extent, their two young girls had experienced.


Anyway...This example leads me to believe ghosts are real, regardless of the fact that I don't have any first person experiences...Nor anything even close...And even though I am firmly in the "Must see to believe" camp.


So...What do you think about, specifically, the soul weighing 21 grams, and generally, about God, heaven, the soul, and other religious beliefs? And, what do you think about ghosts, UFOs, aliens, and other supposed paranormal activities?


Thanks,

Rack of T'Pol

 

[Amaris]

The tests are very inconclusive, do not follow the scientific method, and can't even prove the basic requirement of even having a soul, to weigh during the experiment. Movies and Snopes don't move me. Peer reviewed studies and experiments that follow the Scientific Method do. As for myself, I do not believe in a "soul" as it is conventionally understood. There is not a single jot of evidence for it.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Snopes list as True the claim that: "A physician once place dying patients on a scale to measure the weight of the human soul", not that the experiment is actually true.

As explained in the Snopes page itself: "What to make of all this? MacDougall's results were flawed because the methodology used to harvest them was suspect, the sample size far too small, and the ability to measure changes in weight imprecise. For this reason, credence should not be given to the idea his experiments proved something, let alone that they measured the weight of the soul as 21 grams. His postulations on this topic are a curiosity, but nothing more."

So you have you answer right there.

I consider the experiment meaningless in any case: even considering the existence of the soul, why should something spiritual have a weight? It has also a length and a width? A temperature? A chemical composition?

The mixture of science processes with supernatural beliefs only begets confusion and false results.

 

[Rack of T'Pol]

The tests are very inconclusive, do not follow the scientific method, and can't even prove the basic requirement of even having a soul, to weigh during the experiment. Movies and Snopes don't move me. Peer reviewed studies and experiments that follow the Scientific Method do. As for myself, I do not believe in a "soul" as it is conventionally understood. There is not a single jot of evidence for it.

If nothing else, there are plenty of examples of the soul through "Near-Death Experiences", and also the claims of, for instance, Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals and popes. None of them are lying (Although leaving the priesthood would seem to confirm some are mistaken), in my opinion.

And personally, I can't help but agree with the 95% of the world's population that state they believe in a higher being.

But then again, I have absolutely no first hand experiences to make me believe, so I remain unconditionally unconvinced.

I also have another question where "Religion" is concerned...I'll probably make a post about it sometime in the future. My basic question is this...

Take the highest ranked person or persons of all religions in the world...The Pope, whomever is the Protestant leader (Or leaders, since there are so many different types of Protestants), Born Again Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus...Just name the religion...

I believe, as a matter of fact, that all of these good men and/or women, absolutely, positively believe theirs is the "One True Faith". I have no doubt about this.

But...

ONLY one, (Or perhaps none) can be right. Correct? And if so, these other good men and women are incorrect. What they believe in their collective minds, souls and hearts is wrong. Which creates all kinds of problems, of course...

So, personally, I chose to believe God exists, but Man has absolutely no idea which is the one true faith, nor does he know how God prefers we honor him.

Anyway...That's the way I see it.

 

[Rack of T'Pol]

I consider the experiment meaningless in any case: even considering the existence of the soul, why should something spiritual have a weight? It has also a length and a width? A temperature? A chemical composition?

The article also stated that "Souls and Spirits" are not one-in-the-same.

 

[Amaris]

If nothing else, there are plenty of examples of the soul through "Near-Death Experiences", and also the claims of, for instance, Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals and popes. None of them are lying (Although leaving the priesthood would seem to confirm some are mistaken), in my opinion.

There is no factual data to support it. Anecdotal evidence does not a science make.

And personally, I can't help but agree with the 95% of the world's population that state they believe in a higher being.

Argumentum ad populum. Just because the majority of the world believes as such, does not automatically make it correct or viable.

But then again, I have absolutely no first hand experiences to make me believe, so I remain unconditionally unconvinced.

I also have another question where "Religion" is concerned...I'll probably make a post about it sometime in the future. My basic question is this...

Take the highest ranked person or persons of all religions in the world...The Pope, whomever is the Protestant leader (Or leaders, since there are so many different types of Protestants), Born Again Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus...Just name the religion...

I believe, as a matter of fact, that all of these good men and/or women, absolutely, positively believe theirs is the "One True Faith". I have no doubt about this.

But...

ONLY one, (Or perhaps none) can be right. Correct? And if so, these other good men and women are incorrect. What they believe in their collective minds, souls and hearts is wrong. Which creates all kinds of problems, of course...

So, personally, I chose to believe God exists, but Man has absolutely no idea which is the one true faith, nor does he know how God prefers we honor him.

Anyway...That's the way I see it.

They all have the same amount of evidence, that being none. There is nothing upon which to base a hypothesis that can be anything other than religious posturing. There is no evidence of a soul, as it is understood, and there is no way to quantify one even if one believes it to exist. Those 21 grams? Could be anything, and that's assuming I believe the 21 grams supposition, which I don't, as it has no basis in established theory, and has not been properly researched.

 

[scotpens]

If you're seriously going to debate the weight of the human soul, you may as well argue about the color of ectoplasm, or the taste of ambrosia, or the ability of leprechauns to locate gold.

 

[Defiant]

Even assuming it was true, where does it go? Is it released as Energy? 'cuz by my calculations, that would be about 1890 TerraJules, or more than 22 times the energy released in the Nagasaki bomb...

Certainly, Exercisms would be a real bitch...

In all seriousness, this was bad science all the way around, and it has never been duplicated under any controlled circumstances (though it has been talked about for 100 years by spiritualists and religious people who desperately want to believe it is true...)

 

[Pingfah]

It occurs to me that there are two likely reasons why this so called fact is not common knowledge in the scientific community.

1. Despite the simplicity of the procedure, nobody in the last 100 years has bothered trying to reproduce this experiment because it is obviously a load of utter guff.

2. People have tried to recreate this experiment and discovered it is a load of utter guff.

 

[Trekker4747]

It seems me as scientifically... dubious to weigh several people before and after death, see that they lose some 21 grams of weight and then conclude "it was the loss of their soul!"

Seems to me all it proves is that "something" happens that causes the drop in weight, doesn't prove jack-shit about souls.

But, it's more typical Christian BS to try and "prove" their religion, the very opposite of its intent.

 

[RoJoHen]

The mixture of science processes with supernatural beliefs only begets confusion and false results.

Supernatural is just a word we use for natural things that we don't understand.

If the human soul is real, then it can be explained scientifically. It's simply possible that we don't have the knowledge to do so.

 

[JoeZhang]

Supernatural is just a word we use for natural things that we don't understand.

No it indicates something beyond the realms of the physical and therefore unmeasurable by the natural sciences.

That is why God is unimportant in the sciences, if he exists, by definition, he is supernatural and therefore unmeasurable.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I consider the experiment meaningless in any case: even considering the existence of the soul, why should something spiritual have a weight? It has also a length and a width? A temperature? A chemical composition?

The article also stated that "Souls and Spirits" are not one-in-the-same.

Says who, exactly? A guy with a website? And even then, what does have this with the discussion at hand?

Supernatural is just a word we use for natural things that we don't understand.

No it indicates something beyond the realms of the physical and therefore unmeasurable by the natural sciences.

That is why God is unimportant in the sciences, if he exists, by definition, he is supernatural and therefore unmeasurable.

This. Some people use supernatural as "unexplained", but that's not what it means. If something is "above nature", it is by definition unmeasurable by natural sciences.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

And personally, I can't help but agree with the 95% of the world's population that state they believe in a higher being.

Personally, I can't help but be completely unmoved by claims about reality based on "belief" - regardless of how many people hold the belief.

BTW, nowhere in Snopes does it say that it is true that the human body lowers in weight by 21 grams upon death. The claim that it confirms is that a researcher once carried out such an experiment.

Further, the Snopes piece makes clear that even this experiment did not unambiguously report such a weight loss. The Snopes piece continues:

It would take a great deal of credulity to conclude that MacDougall's experiments demonstrated anything about post-mortem weight loss, much less the quantifiable existence of the human soul. For one thing, his results were far from consistent, varying widely across his half-dozen test cases:

• "uddenly coincident with death . . . the loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of an ounce."
  [*]"The weight lost was found to be half an ounce. Then my colleague auscultated the heart and found it stopped. I tried again and the loss was one ounce and a half and fifty grains."
  [*] "My third case showed a weight of half an ounce lost, coincident with death, and an additional loss of one ounce a few minutes later."
  [*]"In the fourth case unfortunately our scales were not finely adjusted and there was a good deal of interference by people opposed to our work . . . I regard this test as of no value."
  [*] "My fifth case showed a distinct drop in the beam requiring about three-eighths of an ounce which could not be accounted for. This occurred exactly simultaneously with death but peculiarly on bringing the beam up again with weights and later removing them, the beam did not sink back to stay for fully fifteen minutes."
  [*]"My sixth and last case was not a fair test. The patient died almost within five minutes after being placed upon the bed and died while I was adjusting the beam."
  

So, out of six tests, two had to be discarded, one showed an immediate drop in weight (and nothing more), two showed an immediate drop in weight which increased with the passage of time, and one showed an immediate drop in weight which reversed itself but later recurred. And even these results cannot be accepted at face value as the potential for experimental error was extremely high, especially since MacDougall and his colleagues often had difficulty in determining the precise moment of death, one of the key factors in their experiments. (MacDougall later attempted to explain away the timing discrepancies by concluding that "the soul's weight is removed from the body virtually at the instant of last breath, though in persons of sluggish temperament it may remain in the body for a full minute.")

IOW, absolute bushwah.

 

[Rii]

If the soul is something non-physical, then one is faced with the problem of 'the Ghost in the Machine'. That is to say, how is it possible for something non-physical to affect something physical? Having produced such an effect on our behaviour, does it not follow ipso facto that the soul is itself physical in nature?

Given the evidence available to us through everyday experience that our consciousness is affected in what certainly appear to be fundamental ways by a variety of entirely physical substances - caffeine, anti-depressants, etc. - coupled with the consistent and predictable effects on mental function by damage to certain parts of the brain, I find it impossible to seriously entertain the notion that there is part of I which transcends this plane of existence.

Incidentally, I've long gotten a kick out of the philosophical doctrine of epiphenomenalism, which asserts that 'mind stuff' does exist, but which gets around the problem of the Ghost in the Machine by asserting that it has no agency; that it is itself a product of the physical realm and maintains an illusion of control only by the continual reinforcement of association between thought and behaviour, both sharing the same root cause, i.e. electro-chemical process A produces both effect on consciousness B and behaviour C. B thinks that it is producing C, but is in reality an end-product, mute and powerless. The psychological doctrine of behaviourism draws upon this idea.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

What a bizarre little thread. It is not surprising you lose weight when you die: you void your bowels, empty your bladder, and the moisture in your body begins to evaporate.

I have never heard of the notion that a soul is something with measurable substance, though. Weird.

 

[Defiant]

There's another big problem I have with all of this soul stuff (including the so-called near-death-experience): What is death? When is it?

A body is made of millions of cells - not all of them "die" at once. Major organ failure doesn't instantly cause all of the cells in the body to die.

Even "brain death" is beginning to get a bit questionable. Recent research even suggests that the periods of brain "inactivity" are anything but - that the brain continues working on things even when there aren't large definitive patterns recorded (See Scientific American's recent article "Dark Energy of the Brain") So much for NDEs...

Death isn't an event - it's a process, which can be reversed at certain points (and as technology progresses, those points will come later and later (think cryogenics). Those who need to believe in some magical moment when a soul leaves the body will have to come up with some pretty severe rationalizations...

 

[GalaxyX]

All of the Bible verses referencing a spirit or soul are symbolic of "mind" and not meant to actually mean "some metaphysical component" of you.

But people have interpreted them pretty much anyway they have wanted to.