[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.
One last thing, natural scientists themselves like to point out that we were all basically monkeys holding sticks not that long ago, so how can we then assume in such arrogant fashion that just a short time later in the big scheme of things, we’d even have the capability in our “pea brains” to come up with the answers to the universe, and say it with such absolute confidence as well? That’s why, in light of my own real experience, I view anything coming from so called “modern science” in relation to the afterlife as primitive and simple minded.
Post 44 said free will does not exist. I have a choice to type this and a choice to not type this. What is that?
Also, how can we assume that scientists are always unbiased in their work?
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Jonathan M: You write “Post 44 said free will does not exist. I have a choice to type this and a choice to not type this. What is that?” Now, I’m not saying that ‘Free Will’ exists or doesn’t exist…but what you did there, isn’t that just evidence of your short-term memory working?
Interesting, I thought this was an article written by a regular scientist, but I see from the link that this is someone who definitely has a certain mindset. That said, all I ever see is the arguments about science vs religion and it’s one or the other, but I believe in science, I believe in evolution, and I also believe what I experienced first hand, so to each his or her own I guess.
People don’t actually believe in life after death. If people did, they’d be a lot less afraid of dying. Dying is FEAR #1. Most people are irrationally afraid of death to their detriment.
People pretend to believe in life after death because it makes them feel better when loved ones die. In actual practice shown by their actions, people do not believe in life after death.
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This is another snippet from an academic psychologist (a witness) from The Scole Report I spoke a little about above. I guess some kind of intelligence – not physical but very interesting.
I’m just wondering whether this “being” (?), I suppose you could call it, popped out from some “nearer” universe to do with this “multiverse-in-a-box” article that Dr. Carroll talks about above. Just a thought really and I wouldn’t mind some physics clarification on this as I’m still trying to form a picture of this idea. Basically can other “intelligences” transition over to our space? Surely you have to ask where the heck it came from.
“The first phenomena that I saw were small points of golden light dancing in the corner of the room…They danced animatedly upwards and downwards…Shortly following this, there appeared a ball of diffused light, which I estimated to have a diameter of about 20 cm, close to the ceiling in the same corner…as the lights. The ball had no physical boundary: it was simply a three-dimensional orb of diffused golden light. It hung suspended for a moment in the corner about 30 cm beneath the ceiling. Slowly the orb moved toward the centre of the room, pausing above the centre of the table round which we were all sitting. It lowered itself by about 17 cm, remained still, then retreated slowly upwards and backwards into the corner…There were no beams of light to the orb, and the light was not reflected onto a surface; it moved independently in space. This occurred twice in succession, and I became aware of an overwhelming feeling of gentleness and love which seemed to accompany this phenomenon or, more accurately, which this phenomenon seemed to embody.”
BTW this occured in a bare stone cellar with other witnessess (David Fontana and others).
@Gregory Magarshak
Not being a physicist myself, I of course have no expertise in the field of QM.
However, I am an interested and (I like to think) scientifically literate layperson.
From what I understand of standard QM experiments, I’m pretty sure that the ‘specialness of consciousness’ interpretation of QM is… problematic, to say the least.
If I were to set up a two-slit experiment using an electron gun that fires individual particles at the slits with a scattering light-source behind the slits (from the perspective of the gun) and left the room, we would still get exactly the same pattern as if I had been there recording whether each electron went through slit one or slit two (straightforward sum of probabilities of just-slit-one and just-slit-two).
And again – if I were to remove the scattering light source altogether and leave the room, I would get the same interference pattern as if I had remained in the room scratching my head while observing the slits.
Removing the observing consciousness from the experiment does not alter the outcome of the experiment – which suggests to me that the ‘specialness of consciousness’ interpretation of the uncertainty principle is a specious one.
Whatever else is going on in QM, I seriously doubt it gives a rat’s ass about us. It would be something of a shock, to say the least.
Additionally: I know of no example where the straightforward probabilistic predictions of QM have been violated. Again – I lack expertise in the field, so that claim of mine shouldn’t carry a lot of weight of itself as we should expect me to be profoundly ignorant of QM research.
However, all the same, it would be an interesting example to see a QM experiment where the outcome could be shown to violate predictions due to the presence, absence, or specific attention/non-attention of a physical observer, rather than just being reducible to the strange (though predictable and therefore expected) behavior of particles that are exotic when considered from the perspective of day-to-day human experience.
For anyone else who is interested, I can recommend the book ‘Six Easy Pieces’ by Richard Feynman and available quite cheaply as a Penguin Paperback. They’re the assembled notes to a series of lectures Feynman gave in 1962. Those lectures are available on Audible.com – I’d recommend signing up with a monthly plan to save on the cost of purchase. The book – and especially the lectures – are very interesting and accessible to a scientifically literate and interested layperson. Easily worth the price.
Great article! As a physician and professor of medicine, I have used a similar line of reasoning to argue against homeopathy. We would need a new set of laws in physics to explain the “water memory” phenomenon homeopaths use as an explanation for their “treatments”
Maybe it would be better if there was some correlate metaphorically to what we can reveal that what brought this universe into existence, was information that was contained and transported through to what we see now?
If we look at particle decay patterns what said that the continuing perspective of such constituents, through faster then light mediums of earth, water and ice could have revealed more information from whence the source of these cosmic particles in space reveal.
What does the qgp reveal then and is there a way of the information being transferred to illustrate an example of new universes being born?
Just wondering.
Matthew Saunders Says:
Jonathan M: You write “Post 44 said free will does not exist. I have a choice to type this and a choice to not type this. What is that?” Now, I’m not saying that ‘Free Will’ exists or doesn’t exist…but what you did there, isn’t that just evidence of your short-term memory working?
Hi Matthew,
I cannot agree that my action of typing my previous response or this current response is simply short-term memory. I have a choice, to read these comments and not post or I can comment and share my thoughts on the subject of free will. This action uses short-term memory but that does not mean it generates from the chemical process involved in using our memory. Do you think that your response to my comment was short-term memory or a choice to act?
“…the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood…”
OMG!!!
No, this is a falsity. The entire monologue should come crashing down as an argument, assuming we were engaging rationally, since it is based on a false premise. It is incredulous to read this type of assertion in the year 2011.
Physics has yet to understand and characterize dark matter and dark energy. What our math and physics address (poorly at that–lots of approximations) is the “visible” component of existence accounting for 4% to 6 % of what we surmise there might be (completely blinded, of course, by no fault of ours, to what really is).
Even of this visible component, Quantum Physics tells us that what we think and we see is the exception to the rule of existence–thus, existence is weirder than our wonted sedate experiences and version of reality.
Then, there is the common error of human beings to consider themselves “outside of the system.” We come to think that we are outside of “nature.” But, we are not outside of dark matter. We are not outside of dark energy. We couldn’t be. Obviously, we are not outside of known matter either. We are nature and nature is us. What this means is that if our math and physics can only deal with 5% of existence, then we may know only 5% of what we really are as human being-manifestation of existence.
This leaves ample room for immortality, soul, consciousness, ghosts, telepathy, etc.
And also, ample room for ignorance.
Oguchi Nkwocha, MD
oguchi@comcast.net
“And they ask you, [O Muhammad], about the soul. Say, ‘The soul is of the affair of my Lord. And mankind have not been given of knowledge except a little.’”
http://quran.com/17/85
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. How a neuron network of 100 billion cells making 100 trillion connections keeps right on working after death is one hell of an extraordinary claim. I will stay open minded to the very remote possibility of some kind of unknown magic saving us from death, but lets just say I am a hell of a lot more open minded to people fooling themselves when it makes them feel better. Our world may be secretly run by shapeshifting reptilian overlords, I can’t prove that it isn’t, but it does not follow that I must concede that it is very likely. There is proof and there is probability and a lot of comments here are making a huge leap from no proof that there isn’t an afterlife to a high likelihood that there is one.
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This is all very interesting, but my question is, what does it matter? I choose to believe in God, life after death and the eternal nature of all things, not just humans. (ie. plants, animals, the earth.)
My belief system guides me to be kind to all people. To help those in need. To draw my children near to me, rear them to be decent individuals who will also strive to make the world a better place.
If there is a tsunami, I send money and I pray. If there is an earthquake, I send money and I pray. If my neighbor is sick, I take them dinner and I pray for them. When my community needs help, I do my best to show up and work.
So, let’s assume that I am delusional and inhaling/smoking/mainlining Marx’s Opiate for the Masses, and when I die there is nothing. OK, well, I will have had a happy life trying to improve myself, love my neighbor, and make the world a better place. And then there will be nothing and I will not even have any time to be disappointed, for I will no longer exist.
Essentially, my belief in God or the afterlife is none of anyone’s business as long as do not trample on the rights of others.
Now I know that the next argument is that in the name of religion people have gone to war and committed atrocities that are unspeakable. Yet governments have done the same thing in the interest of power, economics and real estate acquisition.
Bottom line: there are people who choose a life of good (regardless of belief) and people who choose a life of evil. I don’t think we should be arguing over their motivations. We can judge them by the “fruits of their labors.”
‘Enlightenment behaves toward things as a dictator toward men. He knows them in so far as he can manipulate them.’ Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (1944)
Jonathan M wrote: “I cannot agree that my action of typing my previous response or this current response is simply short-term memory. I have a choice, to read these comments and not post or I can comment and share my thoughts on the subject of free will. This action uses short-term memory but that does not mean it generates from the chemical process involved in using our memory. Do you think that your response to my comment was short-term memory or a choice to act?”
Jonathan M: I think all I can fairly say about my responses, my reading of them, etc etc is that I remember doing them. Typing them out and reading I don’t consider evidence of something called ‘free will’. After all, I don’t experience the future and I don’t experience the present, there is really, as I experience it, the past. I don’t think there is evidence that I have infinite choices — my memory says that I am influenced and constrained by causes and effects that have occurred before me. To me, to say there is a choice means that the future is, in a real sense, determined, when that is meaningless; what happens, happens, what I do or don’t do, happens. I think it has to be taken on faith that free will happens. That’s how our society runs. And that is fine by me.
random ponderings:
if all things came from an initial oneness, is that oneness now gone?
could we all be joined at the soul? meaning, rather than having your very own personalized soul, could we all be separate physical manifestations of a universal soul that animates all life? kind of God-ish I suppose. Though the physical manifestation is just a flash, a note in a song, the universal soul continues.
I think life after death simply means that this universal soul never ceases, and that everything that makes you You has always been, and will always be.
Response here: http://vereloqui.blogspot.com/2011/05/another-physicist-performing-philosophy.html
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Professor Henry Stapp, the quantum theorist, has modelled some kind of observer sitting outside of things. I find it quite compelling.
See his site at http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~stapp/stappfiles.html
He also has a paper out on “personal survival” – quite interesting. Just scroll down a bit.
“Compatibility of Contemporary Physical Theory with Personality Survival” – which stays within quantum physics.
One comment that really intrigued me from a while back was from Frank Wilczek, the physics Nobel,
“The leading interpretations of quantum theory introduce concepts that are extrinsic to its equations (“observers”), or even contradict them (“collapse of the wave function”). The relevant literature is famously contentious and obscure. I believe it will remain so until someone constructs, within the formalism of quantum mechanics, an “observer”, that is, a model entity whose states correspond to a recognizable caricature of conscious awareness; and demonstrates that the perceived interaction of this entity with the physical world, following the equations of quantum theory, accords with our experience. That is a formidable project, extending well beyond what is conventionally considered physics.”
Note he says “concepts that are extrinsic to its equations”. So awareness acting on the causal Schrodinger equation gives experienced results? So what IS this awareness.
Can anyone shed more light on these two ideas above? Free-will entities acting outside of matter? – just to link with some comments above by Matthew Saunders and Jonathan M.
I suppose Stapp means energy conservation is not broken when this awareness “interacts”.
Henry Stapp is interviewed here BTW: http://www.closertotruth.com/
if you click on “participants”.
– Robert Kuhn’s great series – the host with the most! ; – ), and lots of scientific luminaries.
The (A) spirit can live without the physical ; the physical cannot live without the spirit .
One thing is rather obvious. We don’t know all the answers to all the questions. And when we do find answers they often just raise more questions. And so on. Isn’t life amazing?