On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 4:54:06 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

On Friday, November 2, 2018 at 3:35:22 PM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

That depends on how you define "extraordinary." I find LOTS of
supporting evidence, most of it anecdotal, but one would have to be
a very suspicious, distrusting soul to write off millions of people
who report such experiences yet have NO evidence to the contrary, IMHO.

One of the unstated assumptions that leads people to say that you're the
one who is being scientific is that scientists should be more skeptical
of findings that would tend to fall in with their wisful thinking.

I don't understand. Did you leave out an important negative word there?

The assumption is that everyone's wishful thinking is that a God would
exist, so we wouldn't perish when we die, and so we don't have to consider
the opposite: that it might be wishful thinking to believe we don't have
to worry about a God watching over us.

So you have the convention backwards.

Some people hope the former, atheists hope the latter/

In any event, while I find MacDougall's experiments unconvincing, to say
the least,

I find it strange that when considering that something completely unknown
to science leaves the body at death with mass greater than 1/4 ounce with
a confidence level of 99.9% - that is, with a one in a thousand chance that
it doesn't happen - you would choose the one chance in a thousand :-)

I don't need them to be convinced of the existence of the human spirit.

Neither do atheists, apparently.

As I understand these terms, the "soul" is, in the Bible, supposed to be
a vital spark which allows both humans and animals to be alive,

According to Genesis, "soul" is a living human being:

"And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

The "breath of life" is apparently the "spirit":

"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall
return unto God who gave it." -- Ecclesiastes 12:7

whereas the "spirit" is the immaterial component of the human mind.

In that sense, while I don't believe in the "soul" I certainly do believe
in the "spirit". From direct observation. I see what I see, I hear what I
hear, I think, therefore I exist.

There certainly is a problem in communication when people's definitions
disagree :-)

Human consciousness is something science has not even _begun_ to get to
grips with explaining. It does not have the tools to even approach the job.

But perhaps MacDougall's work was a first step in that direction. Denial
of it hinders further advancement.

So, from this, I conclude other people have feelings, how we treat them
matters, because like me, they experience life, sensations don't just
rattle around in silent dead brains the way information rattles around
inside a computer or time rattles around inside a cuckoo clock.

I don't *need* an experiment like MacDougall's to convince me of this
- which is a good thing, as his experiment isn't much help.

It indicates that your idea that the essence of life ("the breath of life)
has no mass may be wrong.

But that there is more to reality than mechanistic matter and energy -
that is something I thought we all knew.

John Savard

Richard Dawkins would disagree.