OT - Scientific proof that there is no afterlife!

[geoschmo]

The question of whether or not photons have mass is not really that important to this discussion is it? The question was whether souls have mass, and more generally whether anything can exist that does not have either mass or energy. If photons do not meet the qualification of something that has no mass that doesn't mean souls have mass, unless we are sure souls are made out of photons.

If a soul is just information though it can exsist without mass or energy. It might take some energy to transfer it from one form of storage to another, and it's presence might cause the mass of the storage or transmission medium to alter position. But that doesn't mean the information itself has mass or energy. And it wouldn't require any fancy transdimensional particle waves or anything.

[ August 18, 2003, 17:10: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Loser:

quote:

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Originally posted by geoschmo:
Do radio waves have mass?

I know this one.

Yes.

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Energy has mass, yes, so it does distort space like matter. Oddly, Einstein didn't allow for gravity to have mass in his original calculations. He set it aside as 'special' even though there was no reason to. I guess he didn't like recursive equations. Recent experiments have shown that gravity does in fact propogate at the speed of light and otherwise behaves like energy. We just haven't isolated any 'gravitons' yet.

Originally posted by geoschmo:

I will accept this one without need for explanation. However, it still leaves open the question of whether the soul itself has mass. If the soul is merely information, in the same way that computer code is information, then a case could be made that the soul has no mass. If it can be stored without changing the mass of the storage device.

Even existing for a short time in the form of radio waves the information itself does not have mass. The mass of radio waves is not created at the begining of the transmission, and is not destroyed at the end. It's simply the transmission medium used to transfer the data.

Well, I think it's pretty obvious that the claim for the soul is for a 'substance' of some sort. Information cannot be 'immortal' after all. When the media it resides in is destroyed it goes poof.

Proof or disproof of the existence of this 'substance' is not going to be solved anytime soon, methinks.

Originally posted by geoschmo:


Who owns the intellectual property rights to my soul? Can an in individual be copyrighted?

Probably SCO by now. You'll be receiving court papers soon.

When you invent the Star Trek transporter let us know. The issue of 'copyright' of humans will then mean something.

[ August 18, 2003, 17:18: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Slick]

On that subject, I would have to quote the familiar:

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"

And would point out that it would be very presumptious to assume that all things are required to be made up of mass or energy. Just because we don't know how to observe something is not sufficient to prove it does not exist or to conveniently dismiss them.

A soul may or may not exist. We don't even agree on what it is, much less what it is made of or how to detect it. Therefore, there is not enough evidence to disprove it. As for proof, not enough evidence there either.

Arthur C. Clark (inventor of the communications satellite, author of 2001: a space oddesy, investigator of the mysterious) once had a rating system for mysterious things. It went from a +5 (being unquestionably true and provable to anyone) to a -4 (being almost certainly not true). His system had no corresponding -5 rating for the very reason that you can't prove that something doesn't exist just because you can't find it.

Now he did not apply this to mathematical "mysteries" where it is possible to prove that some things don't exist. He used this system for common mysteries like Bigfoot, Voodoo, etc.

Slick.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Well, I think it's pretty obvious that the claim for the soul is for a 'substance' of some sort. Information cannot be 'immortal' after all. When the media it resides in is destroyed it goes poof.

But that is my point exactly. The soul does not have to be a substance. And information can be immortal. Well, as immortal as anything can be. Because the "value" of any particular bit of information is not dependant on the media that contains it at any particular moment in time. The value of the information is contained in the particular "arrangment" of the little bits of matter and energy that make up the physical nature of the storage media, not in the little bits of matter and energy themselves. If the storage media is lost the information still exsists as long as it can be transferred to another storage media.

[Gozra]

Science can explain a lot of things.
I figure by the time Science can explain souls it will be too late. I may not be able to prove I have a Soul but I have Faith that I do and that there is a continuation of my being after my worldly death. We all live by faith. I have faith that the Sun will come up every morning that a seed planted will follow it's design parameters and grow. And I have Faith that politicians will get us into a deeper mess today than we were in yesterday. I have Faith that there is an Afterlife. And Once Science "proves" it Why then I guess I won't need faith then.

[Alpha Kodiak]

Originally posted by Ed Kolis:
Over time, people die and enter Heaven, but no one comes back from Heaven, so the number of souls in Heaven is constantly increasing. Of course, these souls have to be coming from somewhere, otherwise the law of conservation of mass is being violated. Where the souls are coming from is of course Earth. Now the Bible says that the righteous go on to live in the kingdom of God for eternity. Thus, Heaven has an infinite duration. But the Earth has a finite mass and if souls are leaving it at some rate then eventually its mass will be depleted below zero, which is impossible - nothing can have negative mass. Therefore Heaven cannot exist. A similar argument applies to Hell, Gehennom, Elysium, Hades, and any other form of afterlife. (The special case of reincarnation is somewhat more difficult and will not be presented here.)

Note: The preceding paragraph is a work of satire. It contains numerous scientific and mathematical errors. Please do not bother contacting me if you only want to point out these errors. Otherwise, write away!

I just came across this thread and will avoid getting caught up in its many twists and turns.

To answer the original post: the Bible speaks of eternal life and eternal punishment, but does not claim that the physical universe will Last forever (perhaps your proof proves this ). In fact, not even heaven itself is said to be eternal. Matthew 24:35 says "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Revelation 21:1 says, "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there was no longer any sea." Perhaps the recreation will rebalance the mass/energy equation.

Note that I am not trying to make a scientific proof from the Bible, just showing that the original supposition of the "proof" is inaccurate in that heaven is not said to have infinite duration.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

quote:

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Originally posted by Slick:
Why is it that people are insisting that photons have mass when all available evidence and theory are contrary to that? I just don't understand it.

SJ, nice try , but that calculation shows how much mass would be generated if the photon was completely anihilated. It does not show how much mass a photon has. This has been observed, by the way, in a process called "pair production". A photon (gamma) of at least 1.02 MeV can be transformed (E=mc^2) into an electron and a positron. There must be 2 particles due to conservation laws (momentum, spin, charge, etc.) beyond the scope of this discussion.

Slick.

Photons have no rest mass. At rest, they have no energy either and don't exist anymore.

The relativistic mass is a different question.
See:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...oton_mass.html (University of California site)
Edit: better link

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Exactly my point. Thanks SJ.