Do humans have souls? | Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder

Do humans have souls, or are we just particles? Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder explains.

Have you ever considered the possibility of transferring your consciousness into a computer? Sabine Hossenfelder, a German theoretical physicist, believes that this may one day be possible.

According to Hossenfelder, the fundamental laws of physics as described in the standard model of particle physics can explain everything in the universe, including human consciousness. She suggests that we are simply a collection of elementary particles, but it is the arrangement of these particles that gives us our unique qualities and abilities.

As such, it may be possible to capture and transfer all the information about the arrangement of particles in the body in order to transfer a person's consciousness into a computer. So, could we one day upload our consciousness and exist within a machine? It's an intriguing possibility.

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About Sabine Hossenfelder:
Sabine Hossenfelder is a physicist, author, and creator of "Science Without the Gobbledygook". She currently works at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy in Germany.

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Read more of our stories on consciousness:
Is your mind just a parasite on your physical body?
Will we ever define the conscious mind?
Yes, the Universe really is 100% reductionist in nature

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[mobiustrip]

The Ancients in the East understood it much better: You are not a human being having an experience in the Universe, you are the Universe having an experience in a human being.

[erictaylor]

I had a heart attack in 2020 and spent 4 minutes in cardiac arrest.
It was a highly fascinating experience, I can tell you. But not in the way you might think.
I was in the hospital, in quite a lot of pain (I barely noticed when they did a Covid test) Doctors were asking me lots of questions, they were working to treat me and I asked someone to remove my prosthetic leg. I started to explain how to do that when the nurse just did it. I was being impressed with the nurse and thinking he must have done this before when there was what I might call a discontinuity.
There was no discontinuity in my thought. I was thinking the same thing after things changed as I was before, as if there was no interruption. I had no sense of waking up or coming to from unconsciousness. It felt like I was never unconscious, but several things changed. I was now laying flat, I was now completely naked and someone was messing with me down there (shaving my pubic hair, turns out) and someone was pounding the ever living hell out of my chest.
I was very confused when I realized the pounding was someone performing CPR on me. I remembered my Red Cross classes and the warning to never perform CPR on someone who was awake, so I asked if it was a good idea for them to be doing that while I was awake.
This alerted the doctor, who was actually getting ready to pronounce me! that I had come back.
I had been dead for 4 minutes. But for me it was like no time at all passed from the time my heart stopped to the time it restarted.
If that is what being dead is like, then it is no different that what I experienced before I was born. And so being afraid of what comes after life is quite literally being afraid of nothing.
Is this what being dead is really like? I don't think I have the answer any better than anyone else who has had an NDE, even the more "typical" kind. Though you never really hear about the kinds of NDE I had, because it seems quite boring: What did you experience? I experienced nothing at all.
Oddly, I find this just as interesting as NDEs when something does happen. It seems that with ever NDE I have heard about it seems to align with whatever the person believes. I am an atheist and believe nothing happens after death, so my NDE was nothing.
I don't believe NDE's really tell us anything about life after death, because no one who has reported having an NDE has actually died in the biological sense. "Legally dead" is not the same as biologically dead. Biological death is "true death" that is, the permanent cessation of biological functions in an organism. Legal death is just the cessation of measurable biological functions in an organism. Yet there are many examples if the cessation of measurable biological function is just temporary. These functions can be restarted, even in humans if conditions are right.
By definition, you can't come back from biological death, so anyone who has "come back from the dead" was never really dead.

[distantraveller]

I saw a video on Youtube a few years ago between two neuroscientists and they were discussing the idea that brains might just be filters that allow us to experience consciousness on an individual level, the same way our eyes are filters that allow us to experience reality. They argued reality doesn't cease to exist if you close your eyes or go blind, so perhaps consciousness is the same, maybe it already exists as some fundamental property of the universe that we don't understand yet.

[carlhopkinson]

We as humans need to be a lot more humble about what we think we "know" about reality.

[JhonIkkiOfficial]

The Universe is far more fantastic than anything our minds can imagine

[mindfulnesswithmatt]

Her book on existential physics was eye opening, a very non-dismissive and articulate book exploring topics on souls, gods, creation of the universe etc. Need more openness like this in the science world

[jacksmith]

Our whole lives are made up of the qualitative, not the quantitative - when we say "I love you so much" how much is that? it can’t be measured, it has no definable boundaries or depth, that feeling can’t be pointed to and has no physical location, yet love is one of the most real things a human being can experience. All things are like this. The blueness of the sky, the joy your favourite song brings you, the pain of losing someone you love. these things are immeasurable, meaningful and deeply mysterious. To think this can all be explained away by particle physics is ludicrous. It is dangerous to use oversimplified scientific concepts to explain away your life when things are so clearly more mysterious than we could possibly ever imagine or know.

[outofindiatheory]

I do believe in the soul. As someone with a background in science, I realize that specialization and compartmentalization of subjects into physics, biology etc. (and their sub-divisions) is necessary. But a truly unified theory of the universe and understanding of the nature of reality cannot come unless there is a cross-disciplinary integration of learnings from each stream. What she says here @1:08 troubles me because physicists MUST probe the nature of consciousness, not just neuro biologists. The soul experience is an intimate experience that many people have and cannot be dismissed as something imaginary since it is not testable and demonstrable in a lab. That just means that it is something that cannot be proven in a conventional sense, not that it doesn't exist. We hardly understand the universe we live in and to say that it is not necessary to invoke anything other than the fundamental forces as we know them now is hubris.

[mikasasukasa]

Even if we don't have a "soul" just.. what we are is a wonder of its own.

[mmartinisgreat]

My fave cold hearted German physicist.

[ptimal]

Understanding is never ending. This is true because there is always more to learn. Be sure that we haven't found all there is to find.

[hg-ygxh]

It's not wanting something else, its the fact that consciousness doesn't seem to need to exist in order to function in the universe. How did you get tuned into your head and not someone else's? There is something unexplainable about it, and that's good.

[LifeCookie]

We either as the human race have a soul or don’t. What is most important is that we treat each other with care because we are individually only alive on this earth for a short time!

[ishkibable]

But there aren't just particles, there's also space, as well as the interactions between particles/waves, fields, and space. Also, the fact of the matter is we simply do not have an objective way to describe subjective experience.

[Homo_sAPEien]

I don’t think people believe that people have souls, they believe we are souls, and they believe that our bodies are what we have.

[klpezuo]

I don’t get why they don’t interview a metaphysician (philosopher) or possibly a neuroscientist on this matter. This lady doesn’t even know the name of the field that studies the possible existence of souls.

[pauldonohue]

My question is: Why am I me? Everyone has a consciousness and a personality. But why am I this one among many and why do I experience myself?

[jhunt]

But if we put ourselves onto a computer, what happens with personal identity. Is it us, or is it simply a copy?

[kuribojim]

This series is beautifully shot and edited. Absolutely gorgeous work!

[kathyorourke]

Thank you! I get so irritated with people who don’t understand how miraculous our world is. There has to be more but they don’t even know the first thing about how things really work.