According to the article in 1907 physician Duncan MacDougall tried to measure the human soul. He placed dying people onto scales and weighed them as they died. According to his studies the people lost an average of 21 grams at death, which MacDougall theorized to be the soul leaving the body.
Though this work has never been substantiated, there are still studies into the scientific possibility of what could be considered a soul today. Spiritualist Deepuk Choppra claimed that the results of a study that showed that some electrical activity continued in patients brains even after their brains had stopped, and Chopra claimed that this was evidence of consciousness surviving without the brain, "a sign of the soul" he said. Most recently studies were made that showed the possibility of some consciousness existing in the brain after decapitation but only for an insummountable time. I thought this might be interesting as a link between science and the supernatural.
I did see some very disturbing research described at a 'Neuroaesthetics Conference' at Goldsmiths in 2005. This quote below is from a presentation by Andrew Patrizio - Neuro-Curo http://www.artbrain.org/neuro-curo/
ReplyDelete"In 1905 an experiment was performed in France where a doctor tried to communicate with a condemned man’s severed head immediately after the guillotine execution.
“Immediately after the decapitation, the condemned man’s eyelids and lips contracted for 5 or 6 seconds…I waited a few seconds and the contractions ceased, the face relaxed, the eye lids close half-way over the eyeballs so that only the whites of the eyes were visible, exactly like dying or nearly deceased people.
At that moment, I shouted “Languille” in a loud voice, and I saw his eyes open slowly and without twitching, the movements were distinct and clear, the look was not dull and empty, the eyes, which were fully alive were indisputable looking at me. After a few seconds, the eyelids closed again, slowly and steadily.
I addressed him again. Once more the eyelids were raised slowly, without contractions, and two undoubtedly alive eyes looked at me attentively with an expression even more piercing than the first time. Then the eyes shut once again. I made a third attempt. No reaction. The whole episode lasted between twenty-five and thirty seconds.”
It was really a very good conference - the full texts of all the presentations are published at http://www.artbrain.org/category/journal-neuro-aesthetic-theory/journal-neuro-aesthetic-theory-4/
Obviously such an experiment would never receive approval from an 'ethics committe' today. But the study seems to say something quite chilling about the way in which science can view the world. The height of objective detachment, where the (in this case decapitated) subject, is simply an object of experimentation.
ReplyDeleteI hate to bring down the tone of the discussion, but Ivan has postulated that the evacuation of the bladder following death could account for MacDougall's errant 21g!
ReplyDeleteIvan may be correct - I haven't seen the 1907 study so it's hard to judge...
ReplyDeletePersonally I am sceptical about a soul having a weight (albeit a light 21g)... But the whole discussion recalls the debates from the 19th Century between vitalists and materialists. Vitalists said that a superadded force was needed for life (from God effectively) whereas materialists said that life could be explained by material factors alone. It crystalised around a painful debate between Abernethy, a surgeon - who proposed a vitalist position, and his protege Lawrence who criticised him and asserted a materialist explanation of life. Mary Shelley was aware of these debates. This fascinating story is written up very well by Richard Holmes in his (2009) book 'The age of wonder: how the Romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science' (Harper Press) - in a chapter entitled 'Dr Frankenstein and the Soul'