Scientists offer quantum theory of soul\'s existence (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, November 04, 2012, 17:45 (4379 days ago) @ BBella

BBella has drawn our attention to an article claiming to prove that the soul exists:-http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/quantum-scientists-offer-proof-soul-exists/story-fnesz...-It would be grossly unfair to judge 16 years of research through a short article such as this, but if it's an accurate summary of the theory, I'm not surprised other authors don't accept the idea (according to David). The heading alone (presumably not Hameroff/ Penrose's fault) is highly misleading: "A pair of world-renowned quantum scientists say they can prove the existence of the soul". Normally when you say you can prove something, it means you have evidence, but there is none. The theory asserts that "our souls are contained inside structures called microtubules which live within our brain cells". Consciousness "is the result of quantum gravity effects inside these microtubules ... a process they call orchestrated objective reduction (Orch-OR)."
 
Straight away the alarm bells start ringing. By telling us our souls are contained etc., have they provided any proof that there is such a thing as the soul, or that there is such a thing as the microtubules that contain the soul? The article uses the verbs "assert" and "argue", but you do not prove the existence of the soul by asserting or arguing that the soul is contained in microtubules. Since quantum gravity is a theoretical problem in itself, we then have the assertion, in layman's terms, that consciousness/the soul is the result of effects we don't understand inside containers that we don't know exist in a process called...well, I'm not going to pretend I understand Orch-OR. How about 'thought'? (I shall have to keep repeating that it is the article I'm questioning, since that is all I have to go on.)
 
The next phase of the argument is just as nebulous: "In a near-death experience the microtubules lose their quantum state, but the information within them is not destroyed. Or in layman's terms, the soul does not die but returns to the universe." (It returns to the microtubules if the patient is resuscitated.) Information has become the in-word, but what does it entail? There's information in every cell, DNA, my bathroom cabinet, a lump of clay, the air we breathe. Everything is information. And information doesn't die, because information doesn't live. It may be contained within living, dead or inanimate things, but it takes humans to sort it out, define it and name it. So what information are we talking about (and what's the difference between information and quantum information)? Integral to my soul is my love for my wife and children ... not to mention music, cricket and chocolate! My soul won't mean much to me without my personal loves, memories, characteristics, so what am I being told here? This is all information, and information can't die. True. But by synonymizing soul and information, our scientists are merely creating a linguistic smokescreen. The information that makes up my bathroom cabinet and my box of chocolates can't die either.
 
The article suggests, however, that our scientists may not be as confident as first appeared: Since it can't be destroyed, it is "possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body indefinitely ... as a soul." We've now graduated to possibility as opposed to proof. In layman's language: the soul is information contained in miniature soul-containers inside the brain, but when the brain dies, the information-soul is freed from its miniature soul-containers and returns to the universe because information can't die; therefore the soul may exist (and may be immortal). Shove the word quantum in a few times if you want to make it sound more convincing. Is this really a scientific theory?-I must repeat with massive emphasis that I can only go by what the article tells us, and it may be that the author of the article has misrepresented the Hameroff/Penrose theory. I must also emphasize that I have an open mind concerning the nature of consciousness and of NDEs, and that the quantum world may well contain forces and processes to which at present we have no access. And perhaps all I've written is sheer nonsense, and the two world-renowned quantum scientists would tear me to shreds. If so, could someone else please do the job for them, as I'd certainly like to know just how this theory ... as summarized in the article ... proves or even gives credence to the idea that we have a soul.