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An Exciting Science behind Ghosts: Concept of Human Souls

Arjun Vijay

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According to the mythology in almost all the traditions in the world, uncertain Human Souls is considered as Ghosts. Carrie Poppy, an expert in dealing with paranormal situations, did research all her life about Paranormal Activities. She personally had paranormal experiences. During her Ted Talk, she claimed that the house she stayed was “possessed” by ghosts. She claimed to constantly feeling depressed and always had a heavy heart. She used to see scary shadows in the dark and creepy sounds. After 2 weeks of intense paranormal experiences, she decided to discuss this with her friend, her friend didn’t make fun of her like it normally happens in the movies but instead suggested her to check if there is a leakage of “Carbon-monoxide”. She requested building authorities to check the pipelines and they discovered that there was a leakage.

alt text Carbon monoxide is used in heating systems, gas, boilers, and water heaters, which is used widely in the US. Carbon monoxide have the properties to make human mind experience paranormal activity like hallucinations and depression, and excess exposure would have deadly effects. Carrie Poppy decided to do her research on this, she went to hundreds of “Haunted” houses, made a show to create awareness and she claims that most of the houses have carbon-monoxide leakage and every single haunted places had a scientific explanation and was solved easily. She also says from 1920s, haunted houses were just carbon-monoxide poisoning and instead of fixing it, they call pastors to consecrate house.

So are there no souls?

In 1901, Duncan MacDougall, a physician from Massachusetts, USA, did an experiment to find the weight of the soul with one of his dying patients. He measured the difference of the body weight right before the time of death and right after the time of death. He found out that the difference was 21.3 grams. So he declared that the human soul weighs 21.3 grams. That’s the closest thing science could ever come to understand souls. There are many scientists who believe that the existence of souls are scientifically impossible. Debates regarding this topic are still going on and it is still a hot topic among scientists. There are many mysterious incidents in which the police have no particular answers to it, but it is by no means that it happened with the direct effect of paranormal activity.

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Limitations of Science

In this universe we are living in, scientists have concluded that only 4% of the universe are observable and partially understood, rest 96% is considered as Dark Matter and Dark Energy which scientist have no idea about. It is a hypothetical type of matter and had never been able to observe.

Of that 4%, 99.9999% are cosmic dust, which is the particles unable to form stars and found everywhere in the universe. The atom and molecules which again contains 99.99999999999996% empty space. The remaining are particles like protons, neutrons, electrons, sub-atomic particles etc., which gives mass to the atom and a group of atom which is the building blocks of matter is what is visible to our eyes. It is a fact that the Scientists didn’t yet know completely about an atom and its entirety. Although science has developed in other sectors like IT, medical sciences and comfort oriented equipment, human understanding of the universe is just a speck of dust. Science is still in the premature stage of understanding the concepts of anything in this existence. To the best of chances to get the idea about the topic, both the experience of self and science together could make a difference in understanding. Whenever you are in a bus or a public place, often by accident, you turn and looks at someone, and realize that they are already staring at you; and when they see you, they look away. How many times that have happened to you? It doesn’t happen by coincidence. This is called gaze detection system of our brain. Every time when someone stares at you, your brain has the capability to detect it and caution you. Some group of scientist claimed in the past that it is the work of Pineal Gland in our brains, but had never brought up with recognized evidence or a logical explanation to prove that fact. In fact, the pineal gland has a different function in our brains, it modulates our sleeping patterns and have no additional sensory functions to detect anything. But these scenarios are mentioned in our ancient books and according the books like Yoga Sutra and Upanishads, these are our inner consciousness which awakes us when another being recognize us.

These scriptures have confirmed the existence of conscious awareness which is beyond physical in nature, and yet they are considered to give life to the physical body. But obviously there is no valid evidence for those claims. Human life today is unaware of numerous things because we are too concentrated to comfort oriented things around us, which had overshadowed our unique capabilities.

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Benefits of Being Conscious and Seeking the Science of Existence

When you are conscious about your body and your surroundings, there are numerous benefits. Consider you are a conscious being, you are sitting on a mountain cliff and a snake is coming from behind to attack you, you would know before it comes because you are conscious about your body and so the gaze detection of the brain works to its highest capability. Your body works in the optimal condition if you are conscious about it. It is not as difficult as it sounds, if you just concentrate on your present happenings and not give too much importance on your past or future or any other thoughts, it would quite your mind and you would be conscious all the time. For instance, if you are eating, just concentrate on its taste and chewing process; if you are talking, concentrate on that and so on. Your mind will take care of the rest.

It also has other benefits like if you are in a business meeting, you would have capabilities to choose better words to close the deal. Being conscious would immensely benefit in choosing best possible decisions in any scenario you are in and will reduce wrong decisions due to unconscious actions, emotions and anger. You will be a calmer, happy and sensible person if you are conscious. It would be an immense help to the world of science if more minds are working towards understanding of existence. When you start researching about science of existence, it will make you feel humble to be alive in this universe because the vastness of the universe will just overwhelm you. You would understand that all the prejudiced way of living is just our unconscious construction and if we are extinct, the vastness of universe will go unnoticed. As the old saying goes, “Understanding truth happens as a consequence of an absolute unprejudiced perspective towards life.

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