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From: dmcanzi@watmath.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.sci,net.misc
Subject: Re: Mind and Brain
Message-ID: <8155@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Jun-84 19:50:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: watmath.8155
Posted: Wed Jun 27 19:50:44 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 28-Jun-84 06:05:11 EDT
References: <569@ihuxj.UUCP>, <93@mouton.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 37

> Second, on the existence of the mind or soul, independent of the
> brain.  (This, again, is not MacLaine, but another character speaking.)
> 
> 	Some of our scientists suspect this energy is there but
> 	they can't measure it because it is not molecular.  They say
> 	there's an energy that fills interatomic space, but they don't
> 	know what it is.  Even they call it the cohesive element of the atom,
> 	which they term 'gluon'.  They know it is not matter, but rather
> 	units of energy.
> 	...it is this subatomic energy that makes up the Source.  Therefore
> 	the Source, that form of energy, is not molecular.  Now I'm going to
> 	tell you the hard part to understand, but the part that is the most
> 	important.  This energy is the energy that makes up the soul.  Our
> 	bodies 	are made out of atoms; our souls are made of this Source
> 	energy.  [p. 325]
> 
> 
> This is interesting because it is a synthesis of religious and
> scientific ideas which reconciles the conflict without contradicting
> either.
Some recent physical theories say that the class of particles called
baryons (which includes common protons and neutrons) are themselves made
from a family of strange and charming particles known as quarks.  The 
quarks in a baryon are held together by gluons.  (Many of the names
that particle physicists use for particles were devised in a near-fatal
fit of whimsy.)

The passage above is interesting, not because it synthesizes science and
religion, but rather as a case study of how almost anything poorly
understood by most people can be used to "explain" almost anything else
as poorly understood.  Hence: the soul is made of gluons.
I wouldn't be surprised in the future to see telepathy and psychokinesis
"explained" by quark emissions, and tales of UFO's travelling faster than
light using gluonic drives!

	David Canzi, watmath!dmcanzi
	"Solving Today's Problems Tomorrow"