The Soul Of A Cell

Well, you definitely win "Advogato Weirdest Article".

Actually, it's likely that the soul resides within the microtubules in brain cells. See, given modern quantum physics, something has to eventually collapse its own wave function, so the universe can exist without an "observer." Well, under certain conditions the buildup of quantum "pressure" can force an immediate quantum collapse, and those types of conditions are common in microtubules. So, if our souls (or souls in general) do exist in any biological sense, it's most likely there.

Dr. Stuart Hammeroff (who co-pioneered this idea) has significant information available on his website.

I must have missed something about the last millennium. Do you mean it is an established fact now that a creature has a soul? I thought this was a question open for debate.

Not that science is about established facts, but how does one formulate even a testable scientific theory about souls? It means so many things to different people. How can you even begin trying to establish its presence?

When I use the word 'soul' I don't think of something actually present as an independent entity. It's just a poetic and powerful way to express 'essence of being', or something along those lines. In practice there may not be such a singular essence at all, just a whole bunch of things in the mind doing their stuff. From that we can distill an emergent essence. But our minds love to see patterns, even where none exist.

You could of course claim that those parts doing their stuff have independent souls, but where do you stop then? At information in the mind, at conglomerations of nerve cells? At the cells themselves? Molecules, atoms? Perhaps not a very useful avenue of speculation.

Regards,

Martijn

How much does a soul weigh? How long is it? Can I put it in a jar? How many soul's can dance on a head of a pin?

A "soul" is such an ill defined concept that any attempt to speak of it in a scientific way makes no sense.

You say cells have souls, I say rocks have souls. Prove me wrong!?

Sorry for the excessive cynicism...

...richie

movement, yeah it's weird alright. I just had to write it down and see for myself if it makes sense whether my reasoning have some valid points or none at all. If you look at it from another angle though, you might find something that make sense.

piman, the link you posted is definitely something interesting. I never thought Quantum Physics has some connections with consciousness or even souls. At any rate, I'll check them out.

faasen, let me clarify the item regarding the established fact. That statement has basis coming from religious dogmas, which was primarily based on Platonic and Aristotelian logic. Though it was extracted from religious base, there are some parts of it that were taken from scientific reasoning. But that doesn't mean they are eternal truths, they are, as of the moment, the most plausible.

Regarding the granularity of the soul, I have no idea what it actually looks like. I can only state, given the information in my hands, that a cell have a soul by which the material parts get animated. Just like what you stated that, indeed, humans tend to see a soul from a material point-of-view. Note that these statements I made doesn't reflect my religious belief at all as I try to keep them separated.

Also, I have no intention of attacking any religious institution. What I have written here is primarily for testing and validating submitted statements or claims. They are scrutinizable and open to criticism.

Well, if you can't see it, can't measure it how do you know it exists? Can you perform an experiment that shows that a cell has soul but rock doesn't? Definition please!

Now, I have nothing much against religious idea of an immortal soul (I just happen not to believe it). There are plenty of concepts humans understand that are not quantifiable by science. For example "beauty" - you know when you see it, but you can't measure it.

...richie

The basic experiment consisted of placing tuberculosis patients on a sensitive weighing device, figuring in the loss of weight from evaporation, and noticing any additional loss of weight at the moment of death. The latter experiment concluded that the soul must also be contained as electromagnetic energy (i.e. light), since it was far too much energy to be mechanical, chemical, or heat.

As for rocks having souls - since they can't die, and therefore don't experience mass loss, apparently not. A dog was also tested in the first experiment, and was found not to have mass loss either.

If anyone knows where to pull up links regarding this, I would greatly appreciate it.

Well, have they taken into account the loss of air in the last breath or the loss of bodily fluids at the moment of death? Has anyone repeated these experiments with the same results?

As for rocks. How do you define "being alive"? If you define "living" as a certain electo-chemical processes that take place in your body, perhaps there are chemical processes going on in rocks that are just slower?

Here are some references you may find interesting:

• The Astonishing Hypothesis
• Consciousness Explained

The thing is that the real explanation of how all this works will be far cooler than a barrelful of souls...

...richie

P.S. Did you read the story by Stanilaw Lem about the scientist who invents the immortal soul? He figures how to transfer your consciousness into a little glass ball, which then lasts forever. There is a catch though, the process destroys the body - but that's a little price to pay for immortality. Right? :-)

They did take into account the loss of air and bodily fluids, yes. However, the experiment has only been done those two times... although in both cases on a multiple number of patients (I forget the exact numbers, although in the second case it may have been over 100. I wish I could find my notes about them).

That theory about rocks intrigues me. The thought that everything might have a soul, but simply live slower, is definitely an interesting concept. Maybe it's just because I finished Flatterland yesterday, but suddenly I get the idea that the soul (or consciousness) could be a quantity of dimensionality that indicates how fast/slow time passes (rather than the more common view that time is a quantity that indicates how much we age).

As we learn more about high-energy physics, I think it's definitely going to be an increasingly interesting time for discusions of consciousness.

I have heard this "1/3000th of an ounce" story several years ago. Let's put it in perspective:

Assume your deathbed patient weighs 100 lbs (45.4 kg, 45,400 g), or 1600 oz. 1/3000th oz is then 208 ppb (parts per billion).

1 oz is 28.375 g (approximately), so 1/3000th oz is 9.456 mg, or 0.00946 g. Milligram balances are not cheap, and they also are only capable of weighing less than 100 g typically. For this experiment, you need to measure 45,400 g +/- 0.00946. That's at least eight significant figures. You will be very hard-pressed to find a balance that is accurate to eight significant figures for any range of measurement, at any price.

A ml of water weighs 1 g. A ul (microliter) weighs 1 mg. The weight difference here is about 10 mg or 10 ul of water. Or maybe a human hair or a flake of dandruff. Balances are also sensitive to air movement.

In short, you can't measure to this degree of precision for something as large as a human being.

This trope has burrowed so deeply into our minds that we don't even recognize it as an idea to be questioned. In fact, you are restating an idea known originally as the "Manichaean heresy". (Now no longer heresy, but doctrine.)

This idea, borrowed from Zoroastrianism in the 3rd century AD, asserts that there is a difference between the material and spiritual. Between body and soul, if you will. In the usual interpretation, it also asserts that the material is inherently bad, while the immaterial or spiritual is inherently good.

Interestingly, most arguments about this heresy revolve around whether matter=bad and spirit=good. By even making such an argument, one implicitly accepts the underlying dualism of matter and spirit.

Just some interesting noodlings.

richieb, regarding the soul test, I think Aristotle has already figured that out. There is a page here written by probably a professor outlining the paper written by Aristotle.

By employing Aristotle's Soul test method, it can be said the cell has a soul. But the rock test will fail though.

piman, regarding the mass of the soul. I also saw that on TV, but I don't exactly remember the details. What it said was there was a difference before and after. So, I think you were correct on that one.

Well, the reason why I chose to implement the classical Aristotle's Soul test is because it's already a sure-ball way of winning any kind of argument regarding the soul. That's because our belief systems were conditioned around Aristotle's. Do you see my point? Aristotelean logic is currently the best there is in the market, so to speak. Western oriented schools use it, heck even eastern schools use it too. (Note the three religions agree to the Aristotle's definition.) In fact, our way of thinking is now almost the same, give or take a few percentage.

Note however, with the discoveries and breakthroughs being made, our classical Aristotelean way might not stand against these new findings. As it might introduce new theories into the table, suddenly turning it out-of-date. Watch out for these 21st century physics discoveries, who knows, maybe an alternative definition of the soul will show up. Maybe humans driven by tiny particles moving in random order is the correct one after all.

Also, check out the Gaia theory. There might be connection Earth has a soul as well.

In the last thousand years, the idea of a creature having its own soul have been an established fact.

I suspect you've been exposed to some very different account of the "last thousand years" than some of us; but for the sake of argument, I'll raise some matters on which I disagree:

First of all I'm not aware that there's any consensus on any particular facts surrounding souls (such as their existence, location, or nature). Experiments are not forthcoming, and for every experiment that anyone has tried there are as many methodological counterarguments (you didn't do it right) as there are philosophical counterarguments (the soul isn't a thing that ought to be measurable that way). The only consensus I've heared amongst philosophers, religious leaders, physicists and metaphysicists is that the word "soul" means too many things to have any hope of consensus attached to it.

More pressingly, even when leaving it as a sort of "wildcard" assumption about the universe being made of two (or more) kinds of things rather than one, people have had an awful time of constructing coherent dualistic theories of mind or metaphysics. The concept of something "intangible" is a serious problem; by its very definition, it cannot be touched, and likewise cannot touch, and therefore has no known avenue with which to cause anything, save perhaps waving your hands and claiming that some unexplored or unresolved corner of quantum physics offers you a loophole. One is faced either with admitting that the soul has no interaction with the world, and is therefore useless in explaining free will and intent or any physically occuring, tangible phenomena, or else the soul has a nonstandard (and possibly unique) physical interaction with the world, which is a reasonably heavy burden to define and defend. I may as well suggest that there is, oh, I don't know, say a parallel world composed entirely of icecream, which interacts with ours using nonstandard means. Without defining those means, I am merely blowing smoke.

Don't get me wrong; I'm all for the mysteries and wonders of the universe, and much of the psychology and metaphysics which has come out of religions, organized or otherwise. But those mysteries only get cloudier when you introduce a second kind of reality into the picture. Why bother? Galaxies, stars, planets, biota, organisms, cells, molecules and the particle zoo are imho dizzyingly complicated enough as they are, without having to be split in two pieces with unexplained interactions.

Graydon, yes, I recognize it, The Mind And Body Problem. Yes, absolutely, I'm aware of it and acknowledge it. Though there have been arguments presented to it, my position to that is definitely Aristotelean in general, that the soul being immaterial animates it and can influence the body being material.

I strongly believe in the union of body and soul, that they both are in contact and influencing each other. That the soul gets its information through the body and also acts on the body on its own will. The Mind And Body Problem is definitely something I acknowledge too because of the nature of the body and the soul being different. But I cannot accept the idea of each being disconnected and independent at all.

Definitely, the universe existed before me and will exist after the material part has passed away. Though I cannot prove the immortality of the soul scientifically, but it can be proving in another way though. I can only use information relating to Plato's near death experiences which he wrote. That may be the reason for his position with dualism.

One good explanation could lie in Quantum Mechanics, like what piman mentioned. I don't know exactly how Quantum Mechanics work but I think it might have some answers related to the problem.

Regarding the established fact issue, it's my allegation that many who believe in the Aristotelean way also believe in them. For others, it remains to be debated.

Anyway, looking at the responses, they definitely make a lot of sense, being me as an amateur philosopher. I certainly enjoyed the responses, they were great and very interesting. I never expected to get responses this many. Thanks to those who made their comments.

I have not been a member of Advogato for too long, but this article seems inappropriate in this forum. I am here to discuss open source developer advocacy and other topics related to open source development. I am not saying that this is not an important topic, just that I don't think it should be discussed here.

Of course, Tom Tomorrow whose cartoons appear in Salon among other places had this issue covered when the stem cell thing came about.

The "Mind vs Body" problem is equivalent to the millennia-old "Car vs. Speed" problem. Where does the Car end and the Speed begin? Which part of the Car is the Speed in? How much does the Speed weigh? Somebody once weighed a car at speed, and then stopped the car, and it weighed a good attogram less.

There's also the "Water vs. Flow", the "Nose vs. Blow", and the "Fist vs. Clobber" problems. Civilized society may never satisfactorily explain these conundra. (I know I can't!)

The proper topic for Advogato is whatever its members think it is. Still, the more topics like this I see here, the less I will read Advogato. In that sense, this was a harmful article.

Nymia says:

I strongly believe in the union of body and soul, that they both are in contact and influencing each other. That the soul gets its information through the body and also acts on the body on its own will.

and

Regarding the established fact issue, it's my allegation that many who believe in the Aristotelean way also believe in them. For others, it remains to be debated.

I can sympathize with your beliefs, but beliefs, even by Aristotle, do not create "facts". Aristotelian reasoning seems cicular to me anyway: "a soul is what makes things alive and all alive things have a soul". This explains nothing.

Many people believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. Does that make them real? What's the purpose of inventing the concept of the "soul" when it doesn't help explain anything, but only complicates things. Have you heard of Occam's razor?

First you must show us that materialistic explanation of consciousness is impossible, and only then we can entertain other theories.

What's so special about consciousness anyways. To paraphrase Stanislaw Lem, consciousness is just an evolutionary performance hack that allows information to be passed between generations faster, with no other hidden purpose.

...richie

As long as we're wandering off topic for Advogato, I thought I'd throw in a concept that may be a little more on-topic.

No matter what you think about souls, it's pretty well established that brains work through the interaction of neurons. Several neurons fire that connect to another neuron at a synapse, and if enough of them fire, enough to overcome that one's threshhold, then the recipient neuron will fire too.

The human mind arises from the connections of the neurons, the firing threshholds, and the process of signal flow in the brain.

Of course we're familiar with artificial neural networks, which can be simulated in conventional software or implemented in hardware, and they can be taught to learn and solve problems.

But in our world there is another network of nodes that communicate. The nodes are people, and we impinge signals on each other by talking, sending email, touching, what have you.

And if someone impresses something on you strongly enough, or enough people say the same thing over and over, you're likely to react one way or another, and pass on the signal.

While there are fewer people in the world than neurons in a mammalian brain, we communicate with more bandwidth. Neurons just pulse, but we can sing and write web pages.

So, I'm suggesting that there may be a mind that spans the earth, and it may have thoughts and feelings, but it may be no more aware of those of us who make it go than we are of our own neurons - or at least no more than we were before early biologist figured out nerve impulses.

What's it thinking?

It may be just waking up. This is because such a beast's capacity for intelligence depends on how many connections it has and how fast information flows between people. In the past, when most people were isolated, it would have been a very primitive brain. But today we have the internet. We have had radio, television and telephone for a while, but two of those are primarily one-way and the third has poor bandwidth and economics prevent it from being used heavily.

I'm not the only one to think of this. I came up with the idea independently, but when I mentioned it to my old boss a while back, he said he'd read a book on the topic. I don't know what it's called or who wrote it.

Perhaps he was thinking of the book "Society of the Mind" by Marvin Minsky.

...richie

goingware wrote:

But in our world there is another network of nodes that communicate. The nodes are people, and we impinge signals on each other by talking, sending email, touching, what have you.

Thank you for bringing back some sanity into this discussion.
Yes, I think you have hit the nail on the top: what we refer to as consciousness is in fact a 'new' state of matter, one that is reached at a sufficiently high degree of complexity. (some time ago, emergent properties was all the hype in complexity theory).
Interestingly, these concepts can be applied to a lot of domains (reminds of thermodynamics, doesn't it ?), different scales, etc.

However, I think the phenomenon you are talking about has been known for a very long time, and is usually referred to as society and culture. You might also check out C.G.Jung and his discussion of the collective mind. What is important IMO is to recognize and accept the real existence of these entities (as well as that of the human mind), instead of claiming that these are just effects which you could entirely explain out of their constituents. Yet, they all live within the same realm which we can explore with usual scientific experimentation and reasoning. There is no need for any form of mysticism.

richieb, I wish I could give more information supporting them. But as of this moment, I don't have anything.

About the email I got, I'm just surprised at the comment I got. I never thought it would lead to getting on a religious slant. My apologies if the wording of the article somehow touched it. I never intended it to be going that way. Theist or Atheist, it really doesn't matter. What matters most is the logic and how the premises were framed.

If the presented arguments were sound and good, yeah, I would definitely buy it, why not? It's sound and believable. But first, show the statements are logically correct, then I will believe.

As far are beliefs are concernced, everybody is entitled to have one and it doesn't matter where they come from. What matters is how they are compared and contrasted, because that is only way one can see which one makes sense or not.

Best of all, I really like the responses. They were absolutely great. Definitely, I'm going to use them for the article I'm currently writing.

To me, what matters is whether something is true or not. Looking at what I know to be true and using the senses that I have, I try to discover what is true about my environment and what is not. You're trying to determine what is true about the concept of a soul by comparing and contrasting with other people's ideas, but your algorithm for determining the truth is flawed because you're assuming the existance of a soul to begin with, with no solid input data to support this assumption.

I don't understand why this article is on Advogato. Your article had very little to do with stem cell research, and much to do with a fuzzy concept that has been around without support for a few thousand years. Even the word "soul" is ambiguous, because there are multiple fuzzy concepts that it represents. When a musician says to play with more soul, they're probably meaning to be more expressive in your playing. When a religious person talks about a soul, they're talking about some sort of etherial object that nobody has any evidence of, but the idea sounded sort of cool, sort of like everyone believing that the Earth was the center of the universe. The big difference is that there is an Earth, so we can prove that that was a stupid idea, but since there is no evidence of a soul, we can't prove or disprove the idea of it.