On Tuesday, October 23, 2018 at 12:24:17 PM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 07:16:04 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

On Monday, October 22, 2018 at 11:02:13 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter
wrote:

If you erase all applications and all other software from your
computer, how much weight would it lose?

If the human soul has weight, computer software must have weight
too. We all know computer software exists, but how much does it weigh?

Straw-man irrelevancy.

Why? If a soul has mass, why not computer software?

Really? What you are asking is akin to the question, "If a dove is white,
why not coal?

Did you ever read Tracy Kidder's classic book "The soul of a new
machine"?

Yes, I did. Do you know the meaning of "soul"?

And it's the same with books. Take a book which contains a great
novel, a true masterpiece. Compare it to another book which just
contains random gibberish. Both books have the same binding, the
same paper quality, the same number of pages, the same amount of
ink of the same kind. They are identical in all respect except the
vontents:
a masterpiece novel VS random gibberish. Do they have the same
weight? Doesn't that masterpiece novel by itself weigh anything at
all?

To summarize: does organization have any weight, or is it weightless?

That's an interesting question but isn't applicable to the discussion of
whether or not a spirit has physical mass. Your unsupported assumption
that it doesn't has no supporting evidence whatever. OTOH, MacDougall's
experimental evidence supports the contrary.

Were they reliably replicated several times by others?

That's the ONLY problem with his data, but there's an excellent reason for
that which I have explained to this group previously. If you have a faulty
memory I'll be happy to regurgitate it for you.

Chris Peterson wrote:

True. And as we've noted, Oriel, Harnagel and other such people
thrive here because others talk to them. Some see it as a pedagogical
challenge to try to explain the it mistakes to them.

Anyway, if the soul has weight, the computer software as well as great
stories should have weight too.

Repeating irrelevant assumptions does not change their falsity.

Someone claimed the soul weighs 21 grams. But if so, the soul should,
when leaving the body, fall down to Earth rather than rise to heaven.

The "21 grams" argument is fallacious, as anyone who actually LOOKED at
and ANALYZED MacDougall's evidence would know. MacDougall reported FOUR
measurements of 3/4, 1/2, 1/2 and 3/8 ounce. The sensitivity of his
equipment was 1/16 to 1/8 ounce, which refutes the fallacious assertion
that it wasn't good enough.

FYI: 3/4 of an ounce is quite close to 21 grams. So why is 21 grams
fallacious but 3/4 of an ounce ok?

Good grief! The 21 gram bandied about IS 3/4 ounce. The fallaciousness
is that (1) the 3/4 ounce was converted to 21 grams by dishonest people
to make it look more scientific (two significant figures instead of one)
and (2) they picked the biggest value from the set instead of the average
value. Don't tell me that you couldn't figure that out for yourself.

And how do you exclude the possibility of systematic errors in the
measurements?

Such possibilities have been discussed in the literature.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, didn:t you know
that?

Of COURSE I know that. I use it all the time in discussions on the
relativity board. I would ask you: why you believe it is okay to reject
experimental data that has a 99.9% confidence level? If you REALLY
want to refute MacDougall's results then YOU do your own analysis of his
data.

Unless the density of the soul was lower than the density of the air,
then it would float up some kilometers until the two densities matched
- but that would require the soul to have a substantial volume of some
15 liters (about 4 gallons) or more. Quite naturally, such a large
object could hardly leave the human body without being noticed.

Reports of observation of spirits claim them to have the size and shape of
a human body, so that says they won't fall to the ground. As to being
noticed, do YOU notice a volume of air?

Moving volumes of air are easily noticed. Have you ever heard about a
phenomenon called wind? Even weak gusts of wind are noticeable. And a
volume of a human body suddenly appearing over a body, pushing air
away, ought to be easily noticed by people nearby.

An interesting question.

"And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive
the Holy Spirit." -- John 20:22

"And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind,
and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
"And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat
upon each of them.
"And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost" -- Acts 2:2-4.

In college I took a class called "The Bible as Literature" for an English
requirement taught by a Dr. Ben Siegel. He pointed out that the words in
Genesis:

"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."

that the words "breathed, breath, living and soul" are all the same root
word in Hebrew: ru'ach. So he translated the phrase into "breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life and man became a breathing breather."

We flippantly use the word "soul" interchangeably with "spirit" but it
is clear that, theologically, "soul" means the spirit and the body
combined.

Anyway, you used the word "suddenly" to describe a spirit leaving a body.
How much "wind" do you feel when someone moves from one place to another?
Sure, you feel a breeze when someone runs past you. That would be a
"sudden" displacement of the air, but how long does that take? About a
second or less, and you just feel a slight breeze. Your claim assumes
that a spirit must leave the body "suddenly" and that's just another
unfounded assertion. It may take several seconds, who knows?

But it's interesting that the spirit does seem to be connected with
"breath" and "wind," n'est-ce pas?