[Cross-posted at Scientific American Blogs. Thanks to Bora Z. for the invitation.]
The topic of “Life after death” raises disreputable connotations of past-life regression and haunted houses, but there are a large number of people in the world who believe in some form of persistence of the individual soul after life ends. Clearly this is an important question, one of the most important ones we can possibly think of in terms of relevance to human life. If science has something to say about, we should all be interested in hearing.
Adam Frank thinks that science has nothing to say about it. He advocates being “firmly agnostic” on the question. (His coblogger Alva Noë resolutely disagrees.) I have an enormous respect for Adam; he’s a smart guy and a careful thinker. When we disagree it’s with the kind of respectful dialogue that should be a model for disagreeing with non-crazy people. But here he couldn’t be more wrong.
Adam claims that “simply is no controlled, experimental[ly] verifiable information” regarding life after death. By these standards, there is no controlled, experimentally verifiable information regarding whether the Moon is made of green cheese. Sure, we can take spectra of light reflecting from the Moon, and even send astronauts up there and bring samples back for analysis. But that’s only scratching the surface, as it were. What if the Moon is almost all green cheese, but is covered with a layer of dust a few meters thick? Can you really say that you know this isn’t true? Until you have actually examined every single cubic centimeter of the Moon’s interior, you don’t really have experimentally verifiable information, do you? So maybe agnosticism on the green-cheese issue is warranted. (Come up with all the information we actually do have about the Moon; I promise you I can fit it into the green-cheese hypothesis.)
Obviously this is completely crazy. Our conviction that green cheese makes up a negligible fraction of the Moon’s interior comes not from direct observation, but from the gross incompatibility of that idea with other things we think we know. Given what we do understand about rocks and planets and dairy products and the Solar System, it’s absurd to imagine that the Moon is made of green cheese. We know better.
We also know better for life after death, although people are much more reluctant to admit it. Admittedly, “direct” evidence one way or the other is hard to come by — all we have are a few legends and sketchy claims from unreliable witnesses with near-death experiences, plus a bucketload of wishful thinking. But surely it’s okay to take account of indirect evidence — namely, compatibility of the idea that some form of our individual soul survives death with other things we know about how the world works.
Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?
Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren’t any sensible answers to these questions. Of course, everything we know about quantum field theory could be wrong. Also, the Moon could be made of green cheese.
Among advocates for life after death, nobody even tries to sit down and do the hard work of explaining how the basic physics of atoms and electrons would have to be altered in order for this to be true. If we tried, the fundamental absurdity of the task would quickly become evident.
Even if you don’t believe that human beings are “simply” collections of atoms evolving and interacting according to rules laid down in the Standard Model of particle physics, most people would grudgingly admit that atoms are part of who we are. If it’s really nothing but atoms and the known forces, there is clearly no way for the soul to survive death. Believing in life after death, to put it mildly, requires physics beyond the Standard Model. Most importantly, we need some way for that “new physics” to interact with the atoms that we do have.
Very roughly speaking, when most people think about an immaterial soul that persists after death, they have in mind some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain, and drives around our body like a soccer mom driving an SUV. The questions are these: what form does that spirit energy take, and how does it interact with our ordinary atoms? Not only is new physics required, but dramatically new physics. Within QFT, there can’t be a new collection of “spirit particles” and “spirit forces” that interact with our regular atoms, because we would have detected them in existing experiments. Ockham’s razor is not on your side here, since you have to posit a completely new realm of reality obeying very different rules than the ones we know.
But let’s say you do that. How is the spirit energy supposed to interact with us? Here is the equation that tells us how electrons behave in the everyday world:
Dont’ worry about the details; it’s the fact that the equation exists that matters, not its particular form. It’s the Dirac equation — the two terms on the left are roughly the velocity of the electron and its inertia — coupled to electromagnetism and gravity, the two terms on the right.
As far as every experiment ever done is concerned, this equation is the correct description of how electrons behave at everyday energies. It’s not a complete description; we haven’t included the weak nuclear force, or couplings to hypothetical particles like the Higgs boson. But that’s okay, since those are only important at high energies and/or short distances, very far from the regime of relevance to the human brain.
If you believe in an immaterial soul that interacts with our bodies, you need to believe that this equation is not right, even at everyday energies. There needs to be a new term (at minimum) on the right, representing how the soul interacts with electrons. (If that term doesn’t exist, electrons will just go on their way as if there weren’t any soul at all, and then what’s the point?) So any respectable scientist who took this idea seriously would be asking — what form does that interaction take? Is it local in spacetime? Does the soul respect gauge invariance and Lorentz invariance? Does the soul have a Hamiltonian? Do the interactions preserve unitarity and conservation of information?
Nobody ever asks these questions out loud, possibly because of how silly they sound. Once you start asking them, the choice you are faced with becomes clear: either overthrow everything we think we have learned about modern physics, or distrust the stew of religious accounts/unreliable testimony/wishful thinking that makes people believe in the possibility of life after death. It’s not a difficult decision, as scientific theory-choice goes.
We don’t choose theories in a vacuum. We are allowed — indeed, required — to ask how claims about how the world works fit in with other things we know about how the world works. I’ve been talking here like a particle physicist, but there’s an analogous line of reasoning that would come from evolutionary biology. Presumably amino acids and proteins don’t have souls that persist after death. What about viruses or bacteria? Where upon the chain of evolution from our monocellular ancestors to today did organisms stop being described purely as atoms interacting through gravity and electromagnetism, and develop an immaterial immortal soul?
There’s no reason to be agnostic about ideas that are dramatically incompatible with everything we know about modern science. Once we get over any reluctance to face reality on this issue, we can get down to the much more interesting questions of how human beings and consciousness really work.
Cody – “If there ever were a case of severe brain damage/death, that did not result in loss of consciousness or higher cognitive functions, that would be strong evidence against this view.E.g. it is falsifiable.”
Well, if you look at the phenomenon of “shared-death experiences”, which is a step up from many ordinary but veridical near-death experiences there are data points. See here for these “ordinary” NDEs at least:
http://www.iands.org/conferences/past-iands-conferences/2006-houston-tx/217-panel-the-future-of-nde-veridical-perception-research.html
and the international AWARE study is presently looking at 4 years worth of data.
But for “shared-death experiences” carers, family and the patient experience phenomena together – difficult to ignore. See Moody:
http://www.amazon.com/Glimpses-Eternity-Mind-Body-Spirit/dp/0824948130
Wow! What a LONG discussion. I haven’t read all the entries, but as a Christian who believes in the Immortal Soul I think the point about Dirac’s Equasion is a valid point. This equasion has to allow a two-way connection so that perception and response are both possible. Either the equasion is incomplete, or perhaps the wave function of an electron is composed of two parts, one is the “history” the other part is (or can be) controlled by the “soul” and appears to come from the future (i.e. “advanced” and “retarded” components of the wave function).
In scientific experiements we can only control the “history” part of the wave equasion and that’s why the electron seems to have a sort of “free will”. If both parts could be controlled then an electron would be 100% deterministic.
I’m not claiming that this is the way the soul latches onto electrons in the brain, I’m just throwing out one possible idea.
Thanks Sean! This was an excellent account of how the soul is basically impossible.
Philosophy has to preceed science. If one’s world-view is that the universe is a closed system and there is no “outside” which can interfer with its operation, then the soul is automatically excluded and therefore any “scientific” discussion will always come to this conclusion.
If you want to understand the basic philosophical question you could read the book “Miracles” by C.S. Lewis.
–TidyTim–
Re: “life after death” and/or “some form of persistence of the individual soul after life ends”, SC states ” Clearly this is an important question, one of the most important ones we can possibly think of in terms of relevance to human life.”
Why?
SC makes a presumption which I believe is erroneous. In my own experience over 40 years and many cultures, highly religious people who employ their beliefs in daily practice give little if any thought or concern to what a possible life after death may entail. They’re too busy trying to be good to their fellow humans and the planet.
SC’s presumption (about “relevance”) I believe is the bias that afterlife is the principal motivator for good behavior for people who self-identify as religious, and the inversion that such people would exploit and dominate others were it not for that constraint. But the reality is that these people are good despite the inevitable doubts they all have. For example, Buddhists believe all memory and personality vanish with death, as the soul goes on either to another life or possibly nirvana. Since there’s no memory, why should one care what happens to the soul after death, so why bother leading a compassionate life? Yet the Dalai Lama says “my religion is compassion.”
Scientists are supposed to eliminate biases as best they can at all stages of inquiry, but it’s very difficult to do. Being “firmly agnostic” in the true sense of the word is the appropriate scientific position.
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I suppose for palliative care for terminally ill people, the link given highlights how we sometimes try to keep our loved ones alive maybe for ourselves, not them. That seemed to be the message from that story. And how much we want to be in charge of them even though they would want the final release – a more natural release is better. So because we have technology we do it and doctors are also legally obliged but at what cost to the patents’s suffering is key here? But a fascinating end to the article which perhaps suggests we are not alone at the end – something the relative learned and which allowed him to let the doctors switch off life support. Surely though, if proof of an afterlife was confirmed, this would change the whole landscape of palliative care, moral, legal…there would also be an emphasis perhaps on preparation for going somewhere instead of nowhere – how would that be done?
Also doctors and nurses must have many stories like this – well worth documenting seriously.
Please read Lizzie Cocker’s `Letter from Libia to a close friend’:
http://lizziesliberation.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/letter-from-libya-to-a-close-friend/
What is the reason of all this war activity in Libia?
Dirac equation? Viagra overproduction? Dictatorship of Lie?
to 167 and 175
what particle is the soul made of??? there could be one but I don’t think so – on the other end it would have been difficult to expect gravity to be made of particles.
The world is not just particles. Complexities are not just particles. What are concepts made of? What are memories made of? Our “memosphere” is expanding exponentially. What is a “singularity” and what will it do?
Dream on….your soul is waiting….possibly eternal.
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“Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter? ”
What utter humbug.
Isn’t it more the laws which we believe to underlie everyday life seem to be completely explained or some such. But to make such a claim we would have to know all about everything in the universe. As a former defense secy suggested it is the unknown unknowns which we have to watch for.
We know zilch about 90% of the universe. We do not know what has to be changed to explain entanglement. And the problems in the Copenhagen model, or rather the alternate answers to these problems, will take us into places where other aspects of everyday life may well emerge.
One of the great afilings of our culture is our Chrono-centric.That we know know is correct and complete. What others earlier believed is the misguided attempts of dumb schmucks.
One big problem with this thesis is the correlation between believing the moon is made of green cheese and believing that mankind has a soul. IF Sean had begun with the hypothesis of ‘Could the moon be made of volcanic rock,’ this would have been a much more realistic comparison. How many people actually believe the moon to be made of green cheese? I doubt one percent of the population would believe this. On the other hand, throughout history mankind has believed in life after death and that the moon is made of material similar to that of meteors or made of rock. When you compare these two beliefs it changes the analogy and the outcome is different.
Sean’s entire premise is based on the hope that mankind completely understands the laws of physics AND that evolution is responsible for human life.
This is where there is a major breakdown in the reasoning that leads some to discard the idea of a soul and life after death. When you leave God and creation out of the equation, explaining how man is superior to other life forms is difficult. There is a great divide between all life on earth and man, who was made in the image of God. Evolution cannot and does not explain life as we know it. It does not explain the soul. It does not explain our love of music, art, and beauty. It does not explain our ability to have a relationship with our Creator. There is a dimension to mankind that neither physics nor evolution can explain.
The initial claim that we know all we need to know about physics to explain consciousness is absurd. Roger Penrose wrote at least two books–and perhaps a third that I have not yet read–attempting to explain that not only is consciousness not understood, but that the contradictions between quantum mechanics and general relativity need to be resolved before we can understand consciousness.
This isn’t an issue of belief in a soul or not: as far as I can tell, Penrose is an atheist. But it *is* an issue, in that you make it an important part of your proof. And this irks me greatly.
I would also concur with others on this thread, that there is plenty of room in the equations, if the imagination wishes to squeeze the soul into the gaps; and since believing in a soul is harmless, I see no reason why it matters one way or the other.
The argument that consciousness only exists within the brain falls apart when the documented cases of identical twins who maintain some level of awareness of each others well-being over distance are examined. What particles or beams connect these people? No matter how you cut it, they’re exhibiting evidence of consciousness outside of the body.
“documented cases of identical twins who maintain some level of awareness of each others well-being over distance are examined.”
Please provide cites to your sources so others can read them. Since the laws of physics (as currently understood) say that this can’t be true, my initial assumption is that your sources are incorrect. However, I would like to review and evaluate them for myself. Thanks.
Mike, there is quite a lot of studies on twins. I reccommmend an excellent 2011 book Fringe-ology by Steve Volk which describes current state of parapsychology. There you can also find several references to research papers on “twin telepathy”.
It seems, at first blush, sublime, to reduce the question of immortality to an equation.
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@Alan
According to the critics:
“Unfortunately, the Scole Experiment was tainted by profound investigative failings. In short, the investigators imposed little or no controls or restrictions upon the mediums, and at the same time, agreed to all of the restrictions imposed by the mediums. The mediums were in control of the seances, not the investigators. What the Scole Report authors describe as a scientific investigation of the phenomena, was in fact (by any reasonable interpretation of the scientific method) hampered by a set of rules which explicitly prevented any scientific investigation of the phenomena.
The primary control offered by the mediums was their use of luminous wristbands, to show the sitters that their hands were not moving about during the seances. I consulted with Mark Edward, a friend in Los Angeles who gives mentalism and seance performances professionally. He knows all the tricks, and luminous wristbands are, apparently, one of the tricks. There are any number of ways that a medium can get into and out of luminous wristbands during a seance. The wristbands used at Scole were made and provided by the mediums themselves, and were never subjected to testing, which is a gross dereliction of control by the investigators. Without having been at the Scole Experiment in person, Mark couldn’t speculate on what those mediums may have done or how they may have done it. Suffice it to say that professional seance performers are not in the least bit impressed by this so-called control. Tricks like this have been part of the game for more than a century. Since hand holding was not employed in the Scole seances, the mediums effectively had every opportunity to be completely hands free and do whatever they wanted to do.”
Source: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4179
A commenter raised the problem of which “you” would make it to an afterlife: the one that exists at the moment of death or some earlier one. Because most of us have a set of memories that go back a way we have the illusion that we have always been the same person and personality. This is not, in fact, true. We think quite differently at different stages of our lives. We also forget a huge amount of our experiences and knowledge. For the Abrahamic religions this poses the problem of what happens if one “sinned” during the periods for which one no longer has a memory? What if the “sin” was one of those that cannot be forgiven?
In other words, we really don’t know exactly who we are and have little clue about who we once were.
There is an even bigger problem. We have two brains in our heads that are normally connected together. This is not always the case, either for reasons of genetic abnormality, brain injury or surgery. Split brain research provides proof that the two halves can have opposite views on religion. There are recorded cases where one half is an atheist and one half religious. If there were an after-life that includes a god does this mean that one half of the brain is sent to “hell” and the other to “heaven”? Is there a separate soul for both halves or only one? If there is only one, would this be jeopardized by the “wicked” brain half or not?
The only answers to such questions would involve the religious making more stuff up. It’s an interesting life being a religious apologist. 🙂