Why do you lose 21 grams when you die?

[Evo]

I haven't read the whole thread but I looked up MacDougall on Wikipedia and I found it interesting that he did the same experiments on Dogs, yet had zero measurement differences, thus he concluded that dogs had no Souls.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_MacDougall_(doctor)

Confirmation??

This was kind of cool too.

So the idea here would be that at death information is lost and that perhaps the information itself adds mass.

Electrons do have mass, which is what can be used for data storage, but it is an incredibly negligible amount of mass. If we measured weight in those amounts, then youd find out our weight would be changing every day at every moment. Its been debunked. Now kill this thread.

[Jacques]

Maybe it is the weight of all of your memories and experiences. If you download new information into you laptop it actually becomes heaver with the

binary code information. The weight of the internet in it's entirety is about that of a single strawberry (50 grams) so why cant 21 grams be = to a lifetime

of memories?

this link is to the weight of the internet reference.

[darkmoonlady]

Why will this thread not stay dead? It was debunked 6 years ago when it was first started!

Incidentally, Further, you probably aren't going to be getting an answer.

Never underestimate the human capacity for irrational thought.

[Evo]

Maybe it is the weight of all of your memories and experiences. If you download new information into you laptop it actually becomes heaver with the

binary code information. The weight of the internet in it's entirety is about that of a single strawberry (50 grams) so why cant 21 grams be = to a lifetime

of memories?

this link is to the weight of the internet reference.

...I dont think you realize the enormous amount of data the internet is. Thats greater than 5 lifetimes, easily.

Its been debunked, so just end the thread if theres gonna be nothing new to talk about.

[Stellar]

Holy frig. Some people on this thread are just butchering Einstin's equation. He'd be turning in his grave if he knew how people were misusing it!

[Beckys_Mom]

Holy frig. Some people on this thread are just butchering Einstin's equation. He'd be turning in his grave if he knew how people were misusing it!

It's like giving a 5 yr old the keys to your car... it will be chaos lol

[Orcseeker]

Also, we are not talking about a space ship, but, the stuff that runs them. Spirit is pure energy, minus the mass which you are talking about. The only time it would have mass, is when it is trapped inside the body.

Love Omnaka

Light is also an energy, light is the only thing that can travel at that speed (what we know of) because light particles are different from other particles. At the speed of light, time is a lot slower and the example fullywired offered was a theoretical situation, much like the train example where a train passes you at the speed of light and lightning strikes outside the carriage or a light is turned on inside the carriage and these all refer to frames of references and such. As we know, a spaceship cannot now or theoretically no mass can travel at those speeds.

So you suggested that the soul was an energy, like light.

Now I am not aware that the same rules apply to light as in the particles gaining a significant amount of mass. But to weigh this energy as 21 grams... I don't even. Thats like saying the force from the sunlight is quite powerful, that we are being hit by kilograms of sun (which is not evident as no extreme force is observable). Unless you are suggesting the soul is incredibly dense.

Really, I think death is the last bit of your body giving out, you'd think that would involve many chemical reactions within the body and induce large amounts of stress on the body.

If there is a soul, at all, it would weigh nothing.

Edited November 8, 2011 by Orcseeker

[White Crane Feather]

Light is also an energy, light is the only thing that can travel at that speed (what we know of) because light particles are different from other particles. At the speed of light, time is a lot slower and the example fullywired offered was a theoretical situation, much like the train example where a train passes you at the speed of light and lightning strikes outside the carriage or a light is turned on inside the carriage and these all refer to frames of references and such. As we know, a spaceship cannot now or theoretically no mass can travel at those speeds.

So you suggested that the soul was an energy, like light.

Now I am not aware that the same rules apply to light as in the particles gaining a significant amount of mass. But to weigh this energy as 21 grams... I don't even. Thats like saying the force from the sunlight is quite powerful, that we are being hit by kilograms of sun (which is not evident as no extreme force is observable). Unless you are suggesting the soul is incredibly dense.

Really, I think death is the last bit of your body giving out, you'd think that would involve many chemical reactions within the body and induce large amounts of stress on the body.

If there is a soul, at all, it would weigh nothing.

Indeed. The soul cannot be energy as we know it. Otherwise we could measure it.... And we can't. The soul is most probably information. That can change and be recorded through and upon different media. possibly super strings or some other thing.

[Orcseeker]

Indeed. The soul cannot be energy as we know it. Otherwise we could measure it.... And we can't. The soul is most probably information. That can change and be recorded through and upon different media. possibly super strings or some other thing.

Even if the soul was information it would have to travel in some sort of medium (as suggested it leaves the body upon death)

[benjaminyouup]

21 Grams

By Benjamin R Jones

________________________________________21 Grams, starts off with a sentence that is both convincing and incorrect: "They say that we all lose 21 grams at the exact moment of death". It's a short and sweet attention-grabber - but after hours and hours of researching, the science behind that sentence adds up to nothing more than an “Urban Legend”. People have believed that the "soul" has a definite physical presence for hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years. But I have found that it was only as recently as 1907 that a certain Dr. Duncan MacDougall of Haverhill in Massachusetts actually tried to weigh this soul. In his office, he had a special bed "arranged on a light framework built upon very delicately balanced platform beam scales" that he claimed were accurate to two-tenths of an ounce (around 5.6 grams). Knowing that a dying person might thrash around and upset such delicate scales, he decided to "select a patient dying with a disease that produces great exhaustion, the death occurring with little or no muscular movement, because in such a case, the beam could be kept more perfectly at balance and any loss occurring readily noted".

He recruited six terminally-ill people, and according to his paper in the April 1907 edition of the journal American Medicine, he measured a weight loss, which he claimed was associated with the soul leaving the body. In this paper, he wrote from beside the special bed of one of his patients, that "at the end of three hours and 40 minutes he expired and suddenly coincident with death the beam end dropped with an audible stroke hitting against the lower limiting bar and remaining there with no rebound. The loss was ascertained to be three fourths of an ounce."

He was even more encouraged when he repeated his experiment with 15 dogs, which registered no change in weight in their moment of death. This fitted in perfectly with the popular belief that a dog had no soul, and therefore would register no loss of weight at the moment of demise.

But before his article appeared in American Medicine, the New York Times on the 11th March, 1907 had already published a story on him, entitled Soul Has Weight, Physician Thinks, on page 5. His reputation was now assured, having been published in both a medical journal and The New York Times (a Journal Of Record).

As a result, the "fact" that the soul weighed three-quarters of an ounce (roughly 21 grams) made its way into the common knowledge, and has stayed there ever since.

But when you look more closely at his scientific work, you see large problems.

Firstly, six (as in the six dying patients) is not a large enough sample size. When I studied statistics, my lecturer convinced me that, concerning people preferring one cola to another, "8 out of 10 is not statistically significant, but 16 out of 20 is".

Second, he got "good" results (i.e., the patient irreversibly lost weight at the moment of death) from just one of the six patients, not all six! Two of the results had to be excluded because of "technical difficulties". One patient's death did show a drop in weight of about three-eighths of an ounce - but this later reversed itself! Two of the other patients registered an immediate loss of weight at the moment of death, but then their weight dropped again a few minutes later. (Does this mean that they died twice!?) Only one of the six patients showed a sudden and non-reversible loss of weight of three-fourths of an ounce (21 grams).

The third problem is a little more subtle. Even today, with all of our sophisticated technology, it is still sometimes very difficult to determine the precise moment of death. And which death did he mean - cellular death, brain death, physical death, heart death, legal death, etc.? How could Dr. Duncan MacDougall be so precise back in 1907? And anyhow, how accurate and precise were his scales back in 1907?

From such slender beginnings as a single non-reproducible result, enduring myths are born. There may be lightness after death - but this experiment didn't prove it. We do leave something behind us when we die - the enduring impact that we have had on others. We would probably have as much success in measuring the impression of that mental impact, as we would of measuring the weight of the soul.

References

American Medicine, May 5th 1907

The New York Times on the 11th March, 1907 (a Journal Of Record) h

In the April 1907 edition of the journal American Medicine

[Alienated Being]

I'd say that there's not enough evidence available for me to consider the existence of a soul to be feasible, by any means.

And... 21 grams isn't really a significant measure of weight. I work out at the gym, and I tend to fluctuate between 175 lbs - 180 lbs, but that's due to water weight.

[Tayler666]

Yes your soul is made of energy and yes you can use it to unlock more of your mind you just have to be willing to open and fully sinycronize your mind body and spirit and then I truly believe you can manipulate your surroundings,other people for example you may find the sense if connectivity and I believe that it can help us understand each other/humanity better but we have to understand we are all different so we all carry different energy's that can vary in many levels (what you mentioned before other people lost weight at different times or it took longer well that could have been when the rest if their soul finally left this world/dimension to whatever religion you may have or it could be a endless void like it was before birth) therefore we do not yet possess the technology to test these theory's  

[Davros of Skaro]

50 minutes ago, Tayler666 said:

Yes your soul is made of energy and yes you can use it to unlock more of your mind you just have to be willing to open and fully sinycronize your mind body and spirit and then I truly believe you can manipulate your surroundings,other people for example you may find the sense if connectivity and I believe that it can help us understand each other/humanity better but we have to understand we are all different so we all carry different energy's that can vary in many levels (what you mentioned before other people lost weight at different times or it took longer well that could have been when the rest if their soul finally left this world/dimension to whatever religion you may have or it could be a endless void like it was before birth) therefore we do not yet possess the technology to test these theory's  

Your soul's residence is in the MesoLimbic System.

I have no doubt.

[Adampadum123]

That's strange because there or patterns in the world we live in it's called the Fibonacci sequence you start with 1.1.2 then you add the 1+2 making 3 and you carry one the sequence it comes to 21 this sequence shows up on flowers shells everything it's like the world is pure mathematics.on YouTube there's a really interesting documentary about it 

[The Silver Thong]

No it`s because when you die you pee and crap your pants.

[Timothy]

1 hour ago, Adampadum123 said:

That's strange because there or patterns in the world we live in it's called the Fibonacci sequence you start with 1.1.2 then you add the 1+2 making 3 and you carry one the sequence it comes to 21 this sequence shows up on flowers shells everything it's like the world is pure mathematics.on YouTube there's a really interesting documentary about it 

Fibonacci himself said it didn't apply to shells...

 

[Adampadum123]

I like shells

[Adampadum123]

I'm sure he said the nautilus shell had a number sequence

[back to earth]

13 hours ago, davros of skaro said:

Your soul's residence is in the MesoLimbic System.

I have no doubt.

'Residence  in'  or  'the soul's reward'  ?    

I think its 'residence' is diffuse and spreads ( or did spread) throughout  us, our 'imagination'  and the artifacts of our culture. That specific human ability  ( originally ; visualisation and construction of tools and objects for multi-use, speculative, future usage, potential ) when grounded in object or process  ..... 'creativity is 'earthed' in successful output  ....    'soul is expressed'  -  thats when the 'reward pathway' is triggered and 'soul is satisfied'  .   Conversely, when soul is frustrated and cannot have its expression and get its fix, it becomes atrophied and a person 'looses their soul'   or suffers depression  ....  no   dopa     

[back to earth]

8 hours ago, Adampadum123 said:

I'm sure he said the nautilus shell had a number sequence

Then , you need to go off and check that       

[Davros of Skaro]

6 hours ago, back to earth said:

'Residence  in'  or  'the soul's reward'  ?    

I think its 'residence' is diffuse and spreads ( or did spread) throughout  us, our 'imagination'  and the artifacts of our culture. That specific human ability  ( originally ; visualisation and construction of tools and objects for multi-use, speculative, future usage, potential ) when grounded in object or process  ..... 'creativity is 'earthed' in successful output  ....    'soul is expressed'  -  thats when the 'reward pathway' is triggered and 'soul is satisfied'  .   Conversely, when soul is frustrated and cannot have its expression and get its fix, it becomes atrophied and a person 'looses their soul'   or suffers depression  ....  no   dopa     

http://discovermagazine.com/2015/may/17-resetting-the-addictive-brain

[back to earth]

That didnt really answer my question though , did it ? 

[Doug1029]

On ‎1‎/‎8‎/‎2005 at 8:37 PM, wrathofkahn said:

How come when a person dies, 21 grams is lifted from their weight? Don't you find that a little eerie? Lemme hear what you guys and gals have to say!

I think somebody needs to check that scale.

Doug

[psyche101]

No one does not lose 21 grams upon the event of death the experiment that generated that myth has been debunked

 

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/05/13/1105956.htm

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DjATCf9uw85I&ved=0ahUKEwieroCxi87UAhXIF5QKHWiABzYQ3ywIKzAB&usg=AFQjCNFMWnhZgibQARNFnpa1_KsLrLXqLQ&sig2=fl8kILOcMx8-HtV9ZyH_wQ

 

[+Hammerclaw]

4 minutes ago, psyche101 said:

No one does not lose 21 grams upon the event of death the experiment that generated that myth has been debunked

 

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/05/13/1105956.htm

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DjATCf9uw85I&ved=0ahUKEwieroCxi87UAhXIF5QKHWiABzYQ3ywIKzAB&usg=AFQjCNFMWnhZgibQARNFnpa1_KsLrLXqLQ&sig2=fl8kILOcMx8-HtV9ZyH_wQ

 

Daddy! You're back from Peru!