Thread: why does someone in full reason..

Originally Posted by Xei

Why?

Well - I might have better not stated it as bluntly and without anything for explanation - sorry for that.
I will try to reconstruct an argument that had been very compellingly put to me in a conversation - very hard indeed.

First of all - if I want to argue the soul in terms of the laws of physics - I got to propose that it is following these laws in the first place.
It should, logically, because following all concepts I have heard up to now - it supposedly does affect a person´s body - it´s behavior - and such reaches into the realm of physics across some border or directly.

Usually people refer to the soul as some sort of "energy-state" - the sort of energy supposedly being inherent here is never denominated, though - like for example chemical or kinetic energy.

If the soul is "pure energy" - how can it stay coherent and not mix up with the rest of the universe and thus increase entropy?
It must therefore be explained why disembodied "souls" are stable and don't break down themselves.
Since “souls” supposedly do things – interact with the world - they are not anywhere near thermodynamic equilibrium.

Communication with the disincarnated souls would in fact act add information to the world and thereby a decrease entropy.

On another line of argument - if a soul is supposed to "materialize" out of nowhere when a child is conceived - that would go against the principle of conservation of energy - no new energy can come into being in a closed system, like the universe is (if being defined as “all there is”).
It can come from a transformation of matter - see atomic bomb - I think this can be neglected here.

Now maybe someone can say - reincarnation solves this - or breaking pieces away from a "God-energy".

There are even lots of people out there bringing up this exact argument for the soul.
Like - where does the "life-energy" go to in death?
Well - the surrounding gets the heat from the body and it feeds bacteria and beetles etc..

It´s really hard to express these things in English and in general I find myself realizing here – puuh .
So I will cite somebody to maybe get it across better:

Originally Posted by darrenwong1859 on warforscience

The 1st Law of Thermodynamics, which is the principle of conservation of energy states that the overall energy within a closed system will remain constant, although it may be converted into other forms. For its energy level to change, it must come into contact with another system. In such a case, the energy level of the system will increase if work is done onto the system, and vice versa. As far as evidence goes, the Universe is a closed system.

Here comes the problem. For the soul to be able to do work in the material world, some of the soul’s energy must be converted into physical energy. Since the soul exists independently of the physical universe, the total energy in the universe will increase when the soul does work, and this must mean that the universe is an open system, which is contradictory to modern science.

Another saying that I’ve heard from my friends is that instead of existing in a separate realm, the soul enters the physical world when one is born (or during fertilization, gastrulation etc.). Somehow, the soul can affect physical entities, but not the other way around. This hypothesis doesn’t make sense, as they’re implying that the energy that makes up the soul is limited, and being unable to receive energy from the physical universe, it will use up its energy quickly and cease to exist.