{"id":319722,"date":"2025-11-29T01:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T01:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/319722\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T01:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T01:51:09","slug":"does-quantum-mechanics-help-us-make-sense-of-the-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/319722\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Quantum Mechanics Help Us Make Sense of the Soul?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lively Wednesday evening discussion at COSM 2025<\/a> between neurosurgeon Michael Egnor<\/a> and historian of science Michael Shermer<\/a> was followed by some further comments, including Shermer\u2019s reflections on the possibility of life after death:<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Part 1.<\/p>\n

Michael Shermer: I have a lot of friends on the other side, so I\u2019m thinking if I\u2019m wrong, maybe I\u2019ll get in.<\/p>\n

Host Jay Richards (grinning): We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

Michael Shermer: You never know. And then they\u2019ll say, well, Christopher Hitchens and Carl Sagan and all those atheist guys, okay? But anyway. So I\u2019m fascinated by all this. I would, like anybody else, for my consciousness to continue beyond my four score and whatever, however long we have. I would, of course. But is it true? I can\u2019t base my judgment of what\u2019s true by what I want to be true. I want to believe what\u2019s actually true.<\/p>\n

Richards,<\/a> author of The Human Advantage<\/a> (2018), told the audience that he has followed Shermer\u2019s work for years so he must hope that it is true too\u2026<\/p>\n

Michael Egnor offered,<\/p>\n

What I find disturbing about materialist explanations for scientific reality, and I used to accept these materialist rationalizations, but I think they\u2019re wrong and I think they\u2019re wrong because materialist science is basically kind of an unending quest to propose material explanations for things despite the evidence, not because of the evidence.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one way of stating the thesis of The Immortal Mind:<\/a> (2025), of which he is first author.<\/p>\n

And philosopher of technology George Gilder,<\/a> asked for a reaction, commented,<\/p>\n

I\u2019m just amazed at the depth of the materialist superstition of this belief. I mean, we\u2019ll all live in a world of ideas and consciousness and a sense of a transcendent consciousness. It\u2019s an overwhelming experience of human beings attested through the millennia. But there\u2019s a certain sect, a scientific sect that upholds this determinist materialism and nothing can shake their conviction\u2026<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Part 2.<\/p>\n

Jay Richards jumped in to Shermer\u2019s defense:<\/p>\n

I know Michael Shermer and he\u2019s not deranged. I think he\u2019s deeply very smart and he\u2019s deeply \u2026<\/p>\n

Speaker 5 (01:07:06): Mistaken, very smart,<\/p>\n

Jay Richards : Interesting. But he also has shown moral courage and so he speaks out on the right side of several very important issues of our time. And so we\u2019re almost out of time, unfortunately\u2026<\/p>\n

Two questions I was left with\u2026<\/p>\n

After \u201cUnderstanding Consciousness: Are Human Beings Machines?\u201d I had two questions, one for Egnor and one for Shermer.<\/p>\n

I wrote to Egnor, \u201cThere wasn\u2019t really time for you to answer Michael Shermer\u2019s questions<\/a> about how you understand the soul in much detail. So can you elaborate a bit more?\u201d He replied in part,<\/p>\n

Michael [Shermer] is using material and computational terms for the soul that have nothing to do with the soul. The soul doesn\u2019t \u201ccopy\u201d things or make \u201cpatterns\u201d or \u201cfloat off\u201d. Exactly how the soul interacts with matter is an important question, and it is not \u201cwoo\u201d. The Measurement Problem<\/a> in quantum mechanics entails this interaction question, and it\u2019s one of the most important scientific observations in modern science. <\/p>\n

Nobel Laureate Roger Penrose<\/a> has written extensively on this, and proposes that the mind (soul) interacts with the body and brain via quantum processes in microtubules. This is first rate science, not woo. The materialist theory of the human person, that we are meat machines that magically have first person experience, is 19th century science and obvious nonsense.<\/p>\n

Shermer had asked, \u201cAnd where does it [the soul] go? How does the information get stored?\u201d<\/p>\n

Egnor wrote back,<\/p>\n

Only material things get stored or go to locations and only material things can disintegrate, which is what it means to die. Neuroscience clearly points to the existence of the immaterial soul\u2014 reason and free will do not come from the brain. Immaterial powers can\u2019t disintegrate and our soul is thus immortal. Our destiny after death remains a matter of conjecture and faith. But what is certain in light of modern science is that the spiritual soul exists and that materialism is a pre-scientific ideological bias that has no place in 21st century science.<\/p>\n

Essentially, Egnor is saying that immaterial things are both real and consequential and he cites quantum mechanics in evidence. Quantum mechanics seems to be the game-changer that Albert Einstein<\/a> (1879\u20131955) feared<\/a> it would be. It is certain to liven up discussions about the soul.<\/p>\n

Rumor has it that Egnor is working on a book that will delve into these matters further.<\/p>\n

And now the question for Michael Shermer<\/p>\n

My question: \u201cYou mentioned in your talk that you would give the Bayesian probability of Egnor\u2019s view a 1 (out of a possible 99) but you might be nudged up to a 10. Did his arguments have such an effect? If so, which ones,? If not, why not?\u201d<\/p>\n

Shermer replied,<\/p>\n

\u201cI will bump up my Bayesian credence in the existence of the souls from 1% to 2%, a 100% increase, but still pretty low as credences go. The many psychological anomalies and neuroscience mysteries lead me to keep an open mind just in case.<\/p>\n

If Dr. Egnor is right then I guess I will discover I was wrong (wherever it is I will be as a soul\u2014the quantum aether?), but if I am right then Dr. Egnor and I will remain blissfully ignorant of our ignorance!\u201d<\/p>\n

And you can quote me on that!<\/p>\n

So quoted. And this debate is getting more interesting all the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The lively Wednesday evening discussion at COSM 2025 between neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and historian of science Michael Shermer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[199,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-319722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-physics","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}