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The Soul and The Scientific Method

• Subject: The Soul and The Scientific Method
• From: Rehan A
• Date: Sun Jul 09 17:48:38 1995
• Message-Id: id572

Dear Rehan

Thank you for your response.

>I have been following your discussions on talk.origins about your theory of
>soul. I must say it is a very attractive looking idea. But as you have already
>mentioned in your writing that soul is a non-wordly thing and is simply beyond
>the framework of scientific method.


Many things are beyond the framework of the scientific method. However knowledge
of the soul is not. You can form scientific experiments to prove/disprove the
presence of a spiritual entity separate from the body itself. It is a simple
logical theory, that there is a spiritual component which is eternal and leaves
the material body at the time of "death". So one prediction of this theory is
chemicals alone cannot generate life. The soul is the life. The scientists have
never shown life can be generated from matter. So there is one scientific
experiment you can perform to disprove the existence of the soul. There are many.
It is a perfectly valid scientific theory. God is a different thing. The existence
of God would have to be accepted as an axiom. But God or no God the scientific
theory of the soul stands by itself.

>So before going ahead with ANY discussion
>we must devise our framework. There must be some basis as to what should be
>considered valid or invalid. Scietific method, although limited in scope
>defines the working framework very well and this is the real success of it,
>IMHO.

It is not very successful actually. But it does provide a framework as you have
said. A more perfect way of acquiring knowledge is to get it from someone who
actually knows. If you can find someone who knows you can immediately get the
right answers without all the work required with the "scientific method". With the
"scientific method" you never know if you are right or not... It is a very
uncertain thing.

>
>The probelm with soul is that we cant observe it!

NONSENSE! You can see the difference between a living body and a dead one! It's
not at all difficult. You also cannot directly observe the electricity that is
causing the light-globe to shine. But if it is shining you know the electricity is
there. So if there is consciousness, the symptom of the soul in a body you know
the soul is there. Just as you know there is electricity in the light-globe
because of the light, you also know the soul is in the body by consciousness.

> We cant interact with it.

You ARE the soul and when you interact with other living entities you are
interacting with other souls. The body is a covering only. So practically speaking
all you are doing is interacting with other souls! You can see at the time of
death what the material body is. It is simply a combination of flesh, bones,
blood, stool, skin, etc. No body is interested in interacting with that! It's the
soul we are interested in.

>we cant even describe its working.

Speak for yourself! We can certainly describe how the soul is working, how it is
covered by the mind, the intelligence, the false ego and then the gross body made
of earth, water fire air and ether. We can describe everything in terms of the
souls interaction with the modes of material nature, It is a great science.

>We simply cant have no knowledge of anything about it.

You have your eyes closed! You don't want to know about it. That is the problem.
But it is perfectly clear.

>You wont be able to make any progress on these grounds by discussing
>your theory with people who cannot aquire any knowledge of it. All you imply in
>
>your discussions is that you have some superior knowledge or have access to
>some meta-medium and can observe these phenomenon there and are trying to
>express  your divine vision to us limited beings. Like the population of beings

No it is common sense. It can be presented in the standard scientific method. It
is a perfectly valid scientific theory. There is nothing mystical about it. It
makes predictions which we can test and it can be disproved [by producing living
beings which grow, change, produce byproducts [offspring] dwindle then vanish]
from chemicals.


>

 <nonsense deleted>

>My standing is that although human beings or "life" is more than sum of its
>part yet we have no knowledge about the soul. And by reading your literature I
>am very certain that you have no knowledge of it either.


We know everything about the soul because we get the knowledge from a perfect
authority, Lord Sri Krishna. You can also know these things, you just have to read
it in the Bhagavad-gita As It Is, that's all.

But even though our source is Krishna still the science of the soul can be
described quite nicely within the framework modern science has developed.

Chant Hare Krishna and be happy!

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