Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Episode 12: Formulating Trials

Satisfied, Shahryar continued to question his Vizir.

“So we have three questions for which the answers appear obvious but by their nature must be classified as assumptions. These questions are:

Does the spirit leave the body after death? Do children have a spirit? Do spirits have a gender?"

"These are the questions we discussed."

"And to promote these to a more factual status, we need to conduct trials to determine their liklihood?”

“Such would be a reasonable step.”

“So for the first, we could take a pair who were twins and when one dies… conduct a trial.”

“What sort of trial?”

“Well, we could drug the one who still lives making him appear to be sleeping soundly, and take the dead one and have the mortician make him appear as alive as possible. “

“One who is actually alive and the other made to appear alive?”

“Yes, then we could ask a panel, who never knew them, to choose the one who is living and the one who is dead. If the outcome is that everyone makes the correct choice then we can conclude that the difference between the living and the dead man is the absence of a spirit.”

“…and the second?”

“We could take a group of children and have a magician perform tricks in front of the group. We then have a panel of observers look at their eyes and rank order the ten from most spirited to least spirited. If they agree, generally on the ranking, we have evidence that the intensity of a spirit is discernable, and if that can be measured... it follows that a spirit must be present.”

”…And the third?”

“We could take a second group of children, of equal gender, say, two years old and able to walk. In front of them set two tables. On one table place a sword and on the other place a vase of flowers. See which item they choose to play with. If the boys choose the sword and the girls choose the flowers we will have evidence that the spirits of a child share the same gender.”

“I see how this might be done.”

“The outcomes will not prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt but would support the framing of a hypothesis that can be further tested.

“I see… the outcomes will only give evidence of a reasonable doubt but this is enough to point the pathway to the truth.”

"Yes, Now take some time and do these trials and report back to me, on the results."