The weight of the soul is apparently 21 grams... though that is unconfirmed. At the turn of the twentieth century a physician weighed six patients who were dying from tuberculosis. He claimed to have documented a 21 gram loss in weight in the human body as it died. He was eventually kicked out of that hospital, the staff found his experiments loathsome, so he began experiments on other animals including mice, sheep, and dogs. Sheep apparently gained mass, while dogs had no significant measurable change. He lamented that it was unfortunate he couldn't find dogs dying from natural cause, which led to charges he poisoned them. To my knowledge, no similar experiments on humans have been conducted, most likely because of the idea of weighing a person as they die is unpalpable to most people, and also 'cause the scientific community believes the results are meaningless. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_MacDougall_(doctor)
Interesting thread. I stay away from the leftwinger documented wife beater Sean Penn movies so I never heard of 21 grams before but from what you posted: I would not be surprised if someone tried to duplicate the experiment since 1907 but lets face it if the results do not conclude a loss of weight why publish results that can get one in trouble on way or the other. I find it interesting that dogs did not have a loss of weight in his study since back then it was taught that animals do not think for themselves but merely rely on instinct and conditioning and only humans have souls. His findings might have been concluded to find the audiance he wanted. You know the whole adam and eve thing where only we choose between good and evil. Hopefully there is a soul and if there is i would not think it is something that floats around in broken down houses or can be weighted on a scale. I would think it is beyond the perception of our senses.
Yeah, I see they made a movie out of the story, but I didn't include a link to it. I thought it would be better to focus on the factual story rather than Hollywood's interpretations. The link I provided is pretty vague, but over the years I've seen other stories about this that provided much better detail. I haven't found them yet, but if I do I'll post 'em. I've included the doc's published article below, found in the main article. An example of that detail though is the idea that breath has weight. The doc did attempt to see if that was the missing 21 grams, by weighing an assistant as he exhaled, and documenting the results. Another detail missing in the article is the doc's reasoning that fecal and urine expelled from bodies after death was accounted for, since they remained on the bed. The entire bed, with patient included, was weighed before, during and after the patient's death. The dogs were certainly killed, but I haven't seen conclusive evidence as to how yet. The theory is poisoning. I'm under the assumption the doc followed the same criteria otherwise, that the dog's bodies were weighed before, during, and after death... with the assumption, the likelyhood, the poison was in the dog during all three stages. If accounting for weight loss is somewhat easy, the explanation for weight gain in sheep is not. There is another doc mentioned in the main article who wrote a paper on that, unfortunately the link (found in the main article) doesn't work. The doc's published paper: http://www.ghostweb.com/soul.html
A possible explanation as to the sudden loss in weight at death may be related to electromagnetism, but this is purely a guess. The human body uses electrochemical processes that may react with the Earth's magnetic fields in such a way as to provide a slight "lift" in the living. A sudden death, or sudden ceasing of the body's electrochemical properties may account for a slightly "heavier" effect. The problem with that idea though is that the body's cells live for some time after death, only ceasing to function once oxygen and energy reserves are depleted over time. However, the loss of major electrochemical energy at the instant of death, especially the energy in the nervous system, may be enough to account for the loss. But this is pure speculation on my part.
It should be possible to experiment on that idea (of electromagnetism affecting perceivable weight) without resorting to weighing the dying. It should be possible to use all manners of electricapable ( new word for the dictionary? ) materials, like copper and aluminum wires, as well as nerve tissue, and passing current through them while they are in a sealed environment. There may be a measurable difference, or "lift", between certain materials as they are energized due to the material's electromagnetic properties. Can I get funding for that?
Interesting. Everything about this is interesting for it does address the most important question/fear a living person can have when time is ending. Lets face it. Who really cares about democrats or republicans when one is seeking the answer of is there life after death.
Actually, it is quite easily explained if you give it some thought. The obvious conclusion is that humans are reincarnated as dead sheep.
Just using basic reasoning. Applying Occam's razor and all that. But in seriousness, hospital beds these days do all have scales. However, their resolution and accuracy is typically only half a pound to 1 pound. So obviously not precise enough to measure a 21 gram (.05 pound) soul. You would need a bed scale with a resolution and accuracy probably in the .01 pound or less category (and recently calibrated) to have meaningful results. His industrial scale must have been pretty darn precise to measure down to that range with accuracy and precision.
At the bottom of post #3 I included the doc's paper on the experiment. In it he states the accuracy of the tests... ...which is a bit misleading, as the accuracy was further defined as:
I don't see any serious issue with using volunteers to do research on this today. People donate their bodies after their deaths, so it wouldn't be a grotesquerie to provide your body to science to study any possible sudden shift in weight during death. While it would be relatively easy to build and calibrate a scale to record such small differences in weight, it wouldn't be ideal for most deaths. At that calibration too many variables can cause the scale to fluctuate. It's likely that even things like air currents, humidity, and temperature would need to be considered and mitigated. Movements by the patient would make the scale fluctuate violently, meaning only those patients whose illness is such that they remain motionless during the final stages of death would qualify for this type of experiment. Earlier I stated that a person's bio-energy may account for "lift", and I still think that may be the case, but that runs counter to the idea of weight loss during death. My proposal of a person's "aura" being suddenly turned off would probably result in a weight gain and not a loss. Then again, who knows, right? The opposite could also be true... that a person's "aura" increases their weight slightly, and it's ceasing provides the sudden "lift". Either way, I don't see an serious moral dilemmas with people volunteering for such an experiment.
