Neil DeGrasse Tyson headed down same loony road as Carl Sagan?

Really !- good idea that nobody ever responds to my threads again because if if this is how people choose to use their precious minds then it is a crime against creation.

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?

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 14:43:08 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:
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?

Nah, it's rather like" If a dove has mass, why not coal?"

Btw, in the far infrared, a white dove is black, ss is most other
objects.

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"?

Do you? You seem to confuse it with spirit...


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,

That "only problem" is then a quite serious problem..

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.

So there are excellent reasons to not trust that data...


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

Would honest people have obtained a different value?

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.

So you'd prefer a value of 10 to 15 grams instead? Not a big deal,
the error bars ought to be quite large anyway... let's say 10-20
grams instead, ok?

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

Such possibilities have been discussed in the literature.

And the conclusion was?

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.

Why not also use it when discussing the mass of the soul?

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.

You shouldn't blindly trust an exaggerated confidence level. First,
it has probably been boosted by wishful thinking by these
experimenters. And, second, the confidence level only says something
about random errors and nothing about systematic errors. The
systematic errors can only be found by several other independent
measurements by others, and as you earlier reluctantly admitted this
has not been done.

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 then you elaborate about the Bible as literature. I agree, the
Bible shall be read like literature, like e.g. Hamlet by Shakespeare.
You wouldn't consider Hamlet to be literally true, would you? You
shouldn't do that with the Bible either.

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

If the soul = the spirit and body combined Weigh 10-20 grams, and if
the body weighs some 70 kilograms, then the spirit itself must have
negative mass of about -70 kilograms. And the mass of a living person
must be around,10-20 grams and upon death a person gains mass by a
factor of several thousand times to about 70 kilograms. And the
spirit will, due to its negative mass, fall to the Earth since a
positive mass (Earth) and a negative mass (spirit) repel one another
(Newton's law of gravitation) , however a negative mass will be
**attracted** by a repulsive force (Newton's second law).

Surely all this sounds absurd, but it is just consequences of your
claims... you definitely have to think them over...

On Tuesday, October 23, 2018 at 11:55:33 PM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

On Tue, 23 Oct 2018 14:43:08 -0700 (PDT), Gary Harnagel
wrote:

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?

Nah, it's rather like" If a dove has mass, why not coal?"

Not at all. We KNOW that both doves and coal have mass, but we don't
know whether information has mass.

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"?

Do you? You seem to confuse it with spirit...

Many people confuse it with spirit, so do dictionaries.

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,

That "only problem" is then a quite serious problem..

Not as serious as you would pretend to make it.

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.

So there are excellent reasons to not trust that data...

Disingenuous and dishonest assertion.

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

Would honest people have obtained a different value?

READ THE REST OF THE PARAGRAPH, disingenuous disparager.

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.

So you'd prefer a value of 10 to 15 grams instead? Not a big deal,
the error bars ought to be quite large anyway... let's say 10-20
grams instead, ok?

The average value of the four measurements is 0.53 ounce. I prefer accuracy
to guesses.

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

Such possibilities have been discussed in the literature.

And the conclusion was?

All objections refuted.

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.

Why not also use it when discussing the mass of the soul?

I present the data as a brake on assertions that a spirit has no mass. There
is absolutely NO evidence that it has ne mass but there IS experimental
evidence that it does. Do you believe that NO evidence trumps SOME evidence?

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.

You shouldn't blindly trust an exaggerated confidence level.

I did the analysis myself.

First, it has probably been boosted by wishful thinking by these
experimenters.

"Experimenters"? There was only MacDougall's name on the paper he wrote.
"Probably" wishful thinking? Do you have experimental data to support
that assertion? Nope, you don't. YOU are the one engaging in wishfull
thinking.

And, second, the confidence level only says something about random errors
and nothing about systematic errors. The systematic errors can only be
found by several other independent measurements by others,

That is pure baloney. Experimenters investigate possible systematic errors
in their own equipment all the time.

and as you earlier reluctantly admitted this has not been done.

The "reluctance" is in your brain, not mine.

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 then you elaborate about the Bible as literature. I agree, the
Bible shall be read like literature, like e.g. Hamlet by Shakespeare.
You wouldn't consider Hamlet to be literally true, would you? You
shouldn't do that with the Bible either.

In your opinion, not mine. But then, we are BOTH prejudiced about that,
so your assertions are irrelevant.

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

If the soul = the spirit and body combined Weigh 10-20 grams, and if
the body weighs some 70 kilograms, then the spirit itself must have
negative mass of about -70 kilograms. And the mass of a living person
must be around,10-20 grams and upon death a person gains mass by a
factor of several thousand times to about 70 kilograms. And the
spirit will, due to its negative mass, fall to the Earth since a
positive mass (Earth) and a negative mass (spirit) repel one another
(Newton's law of gravitation) , however a negative mass will be
**attracted** by a repulsive force (Newton's second law).

What the HECK are you babbling about? Bodies LOSE mass upon death
according to MacDougall's work, not gain it.

Surely all this sounds absurd, but it is just consequences of your
claims... you definitely have to think them over...

No, it is pure baloney perpetrated by a dishonest or confused atheist.
The absurdity is YOUR invention.

On Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 11:20:50 AM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

I present the data as a brake on assertions that a spirit has no mass. There
is absolutely NO evidence that it has ne mass but there IS experimental
evidence that it does. Do you believe that NO evidence trumps SOME evidence?

That _sounds_ sort of plausible.

But while nothing can't trump something, to take the position that one report of
an observation that is not considered to have been done well enough to be
reliable is trumped by the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community
that it isn't even worth the effort to repeat the measurement to refute it... is
not unreasonable.

Sure, you can take the position, if you want, that most scientists have a
materialistic bias. However, to many of us, this is hardly surprising; how could
they get any work done without one? They focus on what is measurable, what is
controllable, what is predictable, what is repeatable, because that's where they
can get results that can be confirmed.

John Savard

On Wed, 24 Oct 2018 11:02:10 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc wrote:

On Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 11:20:50 AM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

I present the data as a brake on assertions that a spirit has no mass. There
is absolutely NO evidence that it has ne mass but there IS experimental
evidence that it does. Do you believe that NO evidence trumps SOME evidence?

That _sounds_ sort of plausible.

But while nothing can't trump something, to take the position that one report of
an observation that is not considered to have been done well enough to be
reliable is trumped by the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community
that it isn't even worth the effort to repeat the measurement to refute it... is
not unreasonable.

Sure, you can take the position, if you want, that most scientists have a
materialistic bias. However, to many of us, this is hardly surprising; how could
they get any work done without one? They focus on what is measurable, what is
controllable, what is predictable, what is repeatable, because that's where they
can get results that can be confirmed.

John Savard

Exactly. Noting that mass was lost at time of death is interesting, but
simply not good enough for me to assert it was a "soul" that departed
the body.

If the experiment could have been performed in a closed system
(MacDougall didn't have the means) then I could know if the lost mass
was something known/identifiable matter - or if the lost actually
represented some sort of new enigma.

On Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 3:39:23 PM UTC-6, Bill wrote:

On Wed, 24 Oct 2018 11:02:10 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc wrote:

On Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 11:20:50 AM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

I present the data as a brake on assertions that a spirit has no mass.
There is absolutely NO evidence that it has no mass but there IS
experimental evidence that it does. Do you believe that NO evidence
trumps SOME evidence?

That _sounds_ sort of plausible.

But while nothing can't trump something, to take the position that one
report of an observation

There were FOUR measurements.

that is not considered to have been done well enough to be reliable

Says who? WHO "considers" that? Do "they" understand the experiment?

is trumped by the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community
that it isn't even worth the effort to repeat the measurement to refute
it... is not unreasonable.

That's is silly baseless assertion. Where have you seen this "consensus?
I haven't seen any report of such. MacDougall was disinvited by the
hospital from performing any more experiments because it was considered
"ghoulish." It is unlikely that any such experiments would be performed
today because today's resuscitation technology would interfere.

Sure, you can take the position, if you want, that most scientists have a
materialistic bias. However, to many of us, this is hardly surprising;
how could they get any work done without one? They focus on what is
measurable, what is controllable, what is predictable, what is repeatable,
because that's where they can get results that can be confirmed.

John Savard

Exactly. Noting that mass was lost at time of death is interesting, but
simply not good enough for me to assert it was a "soul" that departed
the body.

SOMETHING left. "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains,
however improbable, must be the truth"

If the experiment could have been performed in a closed system (MacDougall
didn't have the means)

Really? How do you know this? His system was closed except for air. Do
you understand WHY that's not important?

then I could know if the lost mass was something known/identifiable matter
- or if the lost actually represented some sort of new enigma.

Methinks you are speculating in a vacuum.

On Wednesday, October 24, 2018 at 8:51:28 PM UTC-6, Gary Harnagel wrote:

Really? How do you know this? His system was closed except for air. Do
you understand WHY that's not important?

Air, unlike water, is compressible. So perhaps someone upon death might release
some _compressed_ air from his lungs, to lose a small amount of weight?

People, of course, inhale by expanding their lung volume while the lungs are
open to the air, so when air first enters the lungs, it is not compressed. If
they pause between inhaling and exhaling, they might compress it slightly, but
that would be unlikely to account for the difference in weight measured.

John Savard

On 23/10/2018 22:43, Gary Harnagel wrote:
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:

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.

The snag is that he is about as credible a scientific witness as the
drunken Hillbillys that claim to have been abducted by aliens.

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.

ROFL. You will believe what you want to believe in the face of any and
all evidence to the contrary.

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.

Fine. Lets accept for the moment that 20g of mass spontaneously vanishes
on death - that is a roughly 400kT TNT explosive equivalent yeild.
Einstein's famous equation : E = mc^2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence#Binding_energy_and _the_"mass_defect"

MacDougall can't be blamed for not knowing this in 1907.

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

Such possibilities have been discussed in the literature.

Almost certainly the measurement errors are due to the relatively poor
reproducibility of weighing equipment he used. That and selective
reporting of only the cases which supported his hypothesis.

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.

The guy is a historic delusional crank with no credibility whatsoever.

A much more rational explanation is that with the body's main cooling
system shut down when the heart stops pumping there is a rapid rise in
skin temperature and sweating mass loss after death. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_gra...ment#Criticism

Otherwise your God of the gaps is has a 400kT detonation per soul to
deal with.

This sort of junk is usually classified as "pathological science"
another example from the same period is Prof Blondlot's N-Rays 1903.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N_ray

Even reputable scientists can fall into such traps. Electrochemists
Fleischmann & Pons cold fusion claim being a fairly recent example.
Their results were sadly not reproducible although for months after the
initial report you could not buy heavy water or palladium for love nor
money. Everybody and their dog had a go at reproducing it.

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?

Depends whether or not the air has the same temperature as the
surroundings. Dome seeing is a well known problem in astronomy.
Schleiren photography will allow you to image a phase screen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieren_photography

Scientists are not limited by your superstitious medieval mindset.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On Thursday, October 25, 2018 at 1:37:58 AM UTC-6, Martin Brown wrote:

On 23/10/2018 22:43, Gary Harnagel wrote:

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:

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.

The snag is that he is about as credible a scientific witness as the
drunken Hillbillys that claim to have been abducted by aliens.

What evidence do you have to support such an outrageous assertion? This
sounds to me like wishful thinking and character assassination.

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.

ROFL. You will believe what you want to believe in the face of any and
all evidence to the contrary.

There is no evidence to the contrary. YOU will believe what you want to
believe just like all atheists.

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.

Fine. Lets accept for the moment that 20g of mass spontaneously vanishes
on death - that is a roughly 400kT TNT explosive equivalent yeild.
Einstein's famous equation : E = mc^2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence#Binding_energy_and _the_"mass_defect"

MacDougall can't be blamed for not knowing this in 1907.

NOBODY has said it "disappeared." That's a fallacy to claim it was converted
to energy.

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

Such possibilities have been discussed in the literature.

Almost certainly the measurement errors are due to the relatively poor
reproducibility of weighing equipment he used.

MacDougall reported the sensitivity of his equipment as 1/16 to 1/8 ounce.
What evidence do you have to the contrary except for wishful thinking?

Another point against your baseless assertion is that he turned to dogs
after he was banned from hospitals. He measured no weight change upon
death. That's a bit disconcerting, don't you think?

That and selective reporting of only the cases which supported his
hypothesis.

You obviously haven't read his paper.

"You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant." — Harlan Ellison

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.

The guy is a historic delusional crank with no credibility whatsoever.

Your intent on character assassination rather than honest scientific inquiry
is noted.

A much more rational explanation is that with the body's main cooling
system shut down when the heart stops pumping there is a rapid rise in
skin temperature and sweating mass loss after death. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_gra...ment#Criticism

This article has several glaring errors in it. Clarke's criticism hangs on
what the word "sudden" means. In fact, it's not as "sudden" as the change
noted by MacDougall. The article also asserts that "only one of the six
patients measured supported the hypothesis." This is an outright lie.
Obviously, the writer of that piece had extreme bias.

Otherwise your God of the gaps is has a 400kT detonation per soul to
deal with.

Worthless assertion.

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?

Depends whether or not the air has the same temperature as the
surroundings. Dome seeing is a well known problem in astronomy.
Schleiren photography will allow you to image a phase screen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schlieren_photography

Scientists are not limited by your superstitious medieval mindset.

Regards,
Martin Brown

I was the one that brought up Schlieren photography as a possible way to
detect a spirit that has mass. It may be a great noninvasive way for
future research. OTOH, it might not be practical today what with medical
resuscitation efforts where several sweating doctors and nurses are
trying to keep the patient from dying :-)

YOU, OTOH, seem to have a propensity for ad hominem smearing of those you
disagree with.