After Life

[rug]

This hour: Radiolab stares down the very moment of passing, and speculates about what may lie beyond.

Season 6 | Episode 2
On air this week.

What happens at the moment when we slip from life...to the other side? Is it a moment? If it is, when exactly does it happen? And what happens afterward? It's a show of questions that don't have easy answers. So, in a slight departure from our regular format, we bring you eleven meditations on how, when, and even if we die.

When Am I Dead?

1. Soul Has Weight, Physician Thinks: Biologist Lee Silver tells us the story of a physician’s ambitious 1907 experiment to discover the weight of the soul. 2. Metamorphosis: One possibility of the afterlife from David Eagleman, read by actor Jeffrey Tambor.

- snip -

What’s the Difference Anyway?

5. 4 Seconds Down: Soren Wheeler tells the story of Ken Baldwin, a man who is looking for death but finds a new view on life. 6. Am I Dead?: Neurological psychologist Paul Broks introduces us to a patient who thinks she's dead.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/91680-after-life/

A 21 gram soul? I can only imagine how ludicrous the test for God.

One hour 13 minute audio at link. Worth every minute.

[safeinOhio]

1. I know what the after life is like.

I have experienced it.


It's the exact same thing as the before life.

[Yorktown]

2. One hour of show for nothing

Let's even assume there is an after life.
What is there to say about it? Witnesses? Facts?
One hour of show about the hope of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow..

[rug]

6. Yop do realize thery're talking about death.

[Yorktown]

10. No. Afterlife isn't death, it's a pipe dream.

I know what death is. I've seen dead people.

I haven't seen an afterlife.

[rug]

15. Good for you. Now listen to it again. You're missing something.

[Yorktown]

17. Sure, I keep missing lots of things.

To give you an example, I still haven't been able to spot the flying teapot orbiting Mars.

Darn. Shucks.

[rug]

18. Keep trying.

[Yorktown]

24. I will.

Trust me:

I'll spend long hours (days? months?) looking for something nobody has ever seen yet.

[cbayer]

25. I hope you do. That's how most great scientific discoveries were made.

I'm not going to hold my breath, but dismissing that as an activity is not a very good argument.

[Yorktown]

27. You fail to make one important distinction:

scientists who embark on long searches for evidence of something usually do so on some solid theoretical basis.

None exists for a 'god'.

Which btw? Thor? Zeus? Lemme know.

[cbayer]

29. God? How did the issue of god enter into this conversation.

You really should listen to the show if you are going to comment further.

Or you could just keep digging. I think you are close to china about now.

[Warren Stupidity]

44. Your pal rug brought it up. In the op.

Here: " I can only imagine how ludicrous the test for God. "

"You really should" read "the" op "if you are going to comment further. Or you could just keep digging." - good advice.

[cbayer]

23. Give me an honest answer. Did you listen to this?

[Yorktown]

26. Give me an honest reason:

Why should I waste one hour listening to a subject nobody can give an answer to?

Bring me the testimonial of someone who experienced death,

and I'll listen to what happens after death.

[cbayer]

28. Because if one is going to dismiss something, they should at least take the

time to read or listen to it.

You don't have to do that, but your criticism is completely without merit if you have not.

Why comment at all?

I think I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

[phil89]

43. The "weight of the soul"

nonsense gas been debunked. Why would an adult entertain such unsupported garbage? Are thoughts about the existence of Bigfoot going to be next?

[cbayer]

46. Again, by not listening to this you are really being caught with your pants down.

The piece about the weight of the soul is merely a historical retelling of the physician who tried to prove this. It in no way supports what he thought to be true. It's just an interesting story.

Really, why don't you actually listen to this before commenting further. Commenting without actually listening to it leads one to conclude that your comments have no credibility whatsoever.

Have you ever listened to radio lab before? I'm going to guess no.

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Your soul has weight? Guess what, it has a flavor too, om nom nom

Any peer review of that 1907 experiment?

[rug]

7. 21 grams according to one scientist.

Now, measure god.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. I suspect a gram was involved, all right.

[Yorktown]

11. Measure god? Easy: 0.

Any other questions?

[rug]

12. That's your hypothesis. Now test it.

[Yorktown]

13. Easy test.

Find me a god, and I'll weigh it.

[rug]

14. Design the experiment to locate it.

Maybe you can ask CERN to help you.

[Yorktown]

16. No, no, you're complicating things.

Just deliver me a living, functioning god anywhere you want on this planet.

And just leave the weighing to me.

[rug]

19. "Just deliver me"

You make as lousy a scientist as you are a discussionist.

[Yorktown]

20. Quite, quite, I'm sure.

Now, just point to a god somewhere on the planet, and I'll go, pick it, and weigh it.

Do you prefer that form of speech?

[rug]

21. It's not yor choice of words, it's your concept.

I guess science has made it's greatest strides when somebody brought something into a lab.instead of looking for it.

[Yorktown]

22. OK, great. I'll follow your (very sound) advice.

Please kindly advise: where on the map would you suggest I go looking for a god?

Preferrably a living one that I could weigh. Thanks.

[Yorktown]

31. Absolutely. I make my living as a shitty scientist.

So now, we have ascertained an interesting fact: god has no location.

Gee, I do guess it makes weighing it more difficult, doesn't it?

Btw, how do you 'speak' to it if it's never there?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[rug]

32. Forgive my skepticism.

You know, evidence and all that.

[Yorktown]

33. Evidence? Why bother when we have god?

I mean, god is that magic thing that explains all that we don't know yet, right?

[rug]

34. The claim is much more modest: that you make a living as a scientist.

[Yorktown]

36. Pfff. I was just dismissing your jab I was a lousy scientist.

Anyway, if I was CERN's boss, it would have no bearing on outrt discussion up to this point.

But feel free to sugest a protocol you would deem fair to weigh god.

If you can define god, that is. And its properties while we're at it.

[AtheistCrusader]

41. No need.

Looks like a jury dismissed it for you.

[AtheistCrusader]

39. Hey, while you're trying out words like evidence and skepticism, you might want to look up

'burden of proof'.

Because it's yours, not Yorktown's.

[Warren Stupidity]

42. funny how evidence is only important for other people's assertions.

[phil89]

45. Just provide evidence for a god.

if you can't, then why do you believe? Magical thinking isn't science.

[AtheistCrusader]

37. Actually, that's your job.

For instance, those postulating that the higgs boson was a thing, went looking for it.

You postulate that god is a thing. Proceed to prove it.

[rug]

38. No, it was he who asserted god weighs zero.

That is a specific physical claim.

[AtheistCrusader]

40. You asked how much god weighed.

He answered with a snarky version of 'what god'.

If you want us to weigh your god, establish that your god exists and what it is, and we'll start working on weighing it.

[AlbertCat]

47. That's your hypothesis. Now test it.

OK


http://www.amazon.com/God-Failed-Hypothesis-Science-Shows/dp/1591026520/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1430767201&sr=1-1&keywords=god+the+failed+hypothesis




Of course it's not up to us to prove a negative.

The only test is whether a god exists or not, and if you can't prove that then it is to be assumed he is not there.


But you already know about this "prove a negative" thing, since it comes up all the time, so why would anyone bring it up since it just makes god-believers look foolish and deaf.

[Ron Obvious]

4. I wonder how much the air in the lungs weighs?

When we breath our last and expire, I mean. That alone could easily account for 21 grammes, I would imagine.

[rug]

8. That's what I was thinking.

It reminds me of the experiment on the dying man in the Walking Dead.

[cbayer]

5. Love radio lab and will listen to this when I get the opportunity.

Thanks for the link!

[Warren Stupidity]

35. 21 grams

1. an awful movie starring the equally awful sean penn.

A freak accident brings together a critically ill mathematician, a grieving mother, and a born-again ex-con.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0315733/
2. a ridiculously flawed experiment to prove the existence of the soul:

Researchers have revealed that MacDougall's experimental results were flawed, due to the limitations of the available equipment at the time, a lack of sufficient control over the experimental conditions, and the small sample size.

According to the psychologist Richard Wiseman:

When MacDougall’s findings were published in the New York Times in 1907 fellow physician Augustus P. Clarke had a field day. Clarke noted that at the time of death there is a sudden rise in body temperature due to the lungs no longer cooling the blood, and the subsequent rise in sweating could easily account for MacDougall’s missing 21 grams. Clarke also pointed out that dogs do not have sweat glands (thus the endless panting) and so it is not surprising that their weight did not undergo a rapid change when they died.[3]

Science writer Karl Kruszelnicki has noted that out of MacDougall's six patients only one had lost weight at the moment of death. Two of the patients were excluded from the results due to "technical difficulties", a patient lost weight but then put the weight back on and two of the other patients registered a loss of weight at death but a few minutes later lost even more weight. MacDougall did not use the six results, just the one that supported his hypothesis. According to Kruszelnicki this was a case of selective reporting as MacDougall had ignored five of the results.[1]

The physicist Robert L. Park has written MacDougall's experiments "are not regarded today as having any scientific merit" and the psychologist Bruce Hood wrote that "because the weight loss was not reliable or replicable, his findings were unscientific."[4][5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_MacDougall_%28doctor%29

As (2) is totally embarrassing to whatever obscured point you are attempting to make, I'll go with (1). Horrible movie. Now what does that have to do with your alleged gods?