Loss of body mass post mortem.

[Jonas]

A debate of whether or not the human body has a "spirit" eventually brought up the idea (pro-spirit) that the human body loses a small amount of weight (assuming it doesn't telport away from the earth, mass too) when/slightly after the person dies. The proposed argument was that this was the spirit leaving the body. After the initial shock of spirits having mass (not the Catholic kind) I tried to reason out why, assuming this was true. Is it because of deflation of the skin? discharge of fecal matter/other bodily fluids? Proof by contradiction or lack of soundness in the assumption?

 

Cheers

Jonas

[insane_alien]

no (sudden)decrease in mass upon death has been observed. at least not a sudden one. there is of course mass lost as vapours escape the body and are not repleneshed by the intake of food and water. but this takes time before it is noticable.

[swansont]

http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=21543