I’m just rambling and throwing out some ideas that I think are interesting.
No cites…no evidence needed. Just add your two cents worth.
Let’s just say that the human brain upon approaching death goes into a state of “shock”. Your consciousness in its attempt to deal with its own demise puts YOUR reality into perspective as it is capable of dealing with the fact that you are about to die.
Reality as WE know it ceases to exist…time has NO meaning anymore. Let’s just say for the sake of argument that as far as you are concerned time has stopped. Okay…you’re dead. Time has stopped, for YOU. In that instant before your “life” ends and you are still alive, your consciousness goes into a state of limbo. Time has stopped, you are stuck in the moment.
What is it that YOU are imagining?
Are you thinking…there is NO god, there is nothing beyond this physical life and therefore your “state of limbo” is one of NOTHINGNESS emptiness…your life really is over for all intents and purposes. You haven’t even “brainwashed” yourself into a higher level of existence. OR Have you convinced your mind that there is another dimension and when you look death in the face you retreat to “your idea of heaven”. Time stops for you and that is where you get “stuck”. You are now in your own dream that never ends. You have actually died and gone to “heaven”. OR Have you lived a life that you know is “wrong”. Did you not live by your conscience or sense of right and wrong? Will you then, in the last instant of your own consciousness have condemned your eternal dream to be one of torment and regret?
Time stops…for you. Where will you spend this eternal “dream?”
Just the ramblings of a guy with little sleep. Take it as presented and run with it.
I believe in an afterlife as much as I believe in a beforelife, which is not at all. (What was I doing for 13.7 Bn years, and how come I wasn’t bored?)
I also believe that consciousness is dependent on time as a dimension: sensory input being sorted into different levels of memory moderated by chemical emotion. “Timelessness” cannot therefore describe consciousness in any state, alive or dying. (Incidentally, it could perhaps describe the Big Bang).
So “what I’m thinking”, ie. the dynamical configuration of this incredible neural network in my skull, is itself dependent on time. I cannot guess what it is, but perhaps some ultra-synchronised state strongly correlated with Near Death Experiences would happen.
Actually, yes, on LSD the perception of “time passing” did feel rather different. However, all kinds of things go a bit wonky perception-wise - I’d hesitate to reference it as evidence for “timeless consciousness”.
(Incidentally, that the “passage of time” is nowhere to be found in Einstein’s equations describing space and time has led many to question whether it is simply an illusory product of our evolutionary need to predict eg. which way the prey will jump. However, even if time’s passage is an illusion, this still requires a dimension of time, and there will be observable differences in brain activity at those different times.)
S/M Let me just say this… my life has been…hmm a fucking experience that most people would just go WHOA… :eek:
okay I realize that may not mean much to some folks but I have been so close to death so many times it just doesn’t seem probable.
I know that when you get to that point…time is null and void.
I have been shot twice. Once clean through the gut with a .45 caliber long colt hollow point, once in the back with a .44 mag. oh I forgot one, but it wasn’t a big deal.
I was drowned twice. Once as a kid (12 years old) and many years later at 30.
I’ve been in several car wrecks that others died in. The doctors looked at me and shook their heads. How in the hell did you survive?
I CAN NOT explain adequately what it is I’m trying to say.
I lived my life for most of it…on the fucking edge. I know there is something beyond our comprehension, something past what most folks have experienced. I’m not saying that it is “supernatural” in the sense that I talked to God.
I’ve got scars on every part of my body, you can not put your open hand on me anywhere and NOT cover one. I’ve had so many stitches that I quit counting 15 years ago at over a thousand. I lost 12 pounds of my intestines from the gut shot. I’ve had my head split to the skull…both wrists cut, a shank through the thigh which cut an artery. Both shins gashed to the bone from knee to ankle…
A friend of mine said once I had a death wish. Well that’s bullshit, I never wished for death. I was just never scared of dying. I’ve fallen a couple of times while rock climbing…broke horses, rode bulls, fought a bear one time…been left at sea.
Like I said, it sounds like way TOOOOO much for one person to have lived through. Probability does not suffice in my opinion. I know this is a message board and I’ll probably get crucified now that I’ve said these thing publicly. What’s so funny is that this is just a few examples of my life. AND everyone is gonna say BULLSHIT.
What’s even worse is that I am still at 42 in practically perfect health. i do not understand what or why and as I get older and am forced to bury all of my friends and family for one time events, it just does NOT seem fair. Why in the Hell am I still alive and they aren’t.
Man I’m sorry to go off like this but there’s no denying that something just ain’t right.
Before y’all say yeah…t/k fuckin nuts…I’ve heard it before. That may be, but it don’t change the facts that I just told y’all about. Don’t even say…well you’ve been lucky either. It sure as hell don’t feel like luck.
Which probability are we talking about exactly: That one person could have such an event-filled life or that a person could be so close to death and yet live to tell the tale, or both?
Yours certainly sounds like a heck of an autobiography, tk, and we all find it difficult to think of ourselves “statistically”. But if you were to analyse those numerous life-threatening situations discompassionately, you might conclude that they were somehow avoidable (ie. there is a reason why they all happened to you rather than, say, me, even if none of it was your “fault”), and conclude also that medical science is simply incredible these days, to the extent where many, many people skirt as close to death as you have done and come back to relate their experience.
I am a physicalist. I believe that my brain is a piece of offal that somehow, via sensory inputs and memory moderated by chemical emotion, has the ability to “think”. I have experimented with my brain every reasonable way I could, from having an intense religious experience to drugs to meditation. (I haven’t had a Near Death Experience, but the synchronicity in the temporal lobe is largely similar, so maybe I did!). Nothing, not even these incredibly powerful experiences, has convinced me that this powerful computer in my head is anything but as physical as the computer on my desktop, and it will stop functioning when I am brain-dead (which clearly, you weren’t).
We must each find an explanation, a world-view, which satisfies us. Many find mine unpalatable. I understand that completely.
No K/L I never watched SouthPark, I wish I knew what you’re talking about. I’ve never really been into TV much. I never watched Friends, Cheers, Seinfeld, Simpsons, … hell none of 'em really. I was out there doing shit, you know. I used to race cars, motorcycles, boats, played sports, man I can’t even recall everything…I told myself when I was like 20 (I’d already worked my ass off by then even) “fuck this clock punching life” and I just did everything that came my way. Hell, I drove a car over a cliff one night. Granted, it wasn’t but about 80 feet to the bottom but I had that SS Nova pegged.
S/M I hear what you’re saying buddy. I’ve got a Master’s in Biological Psych. so I understand the science and I believe it too. But that just ain’t enough. Understand I’m not saying…heaven/hell is a for sure. I’m just saying is all.
Also, I’m not saying anything was avoidable or anyone’s fault…I’m not putting a “purpose” into the picture. I don’t think there’s some omnipotent being out there getting his kicks fucking with folks, okay?
Of course, I realise that this is MPSIMS where we’re “just talking” rather than debating. I must admit, I’ve never found it easy to do the former without causing the latter!
I guess I’ve been up too long cause that last one kind wooshed by me. I understand the part about conversations turning into a debate. Not clear on why you quoted my comment though.
Yeah it’s 10:15 am and I’ve been up since hmm…not sure I’ve been up all night and all day yesterday and the night before and all day…see what I mean. I’ve got a couple of naps, and hour here or there…but I’ve been doing this since June. Just can’t sleep. Not since then
hugs to t-keela Get some sleep, thee!
My afterlife… for some reason, I always picture myself in a sunny, windswept field with hills in the distance, and then flying among the stars, and then walking through a wide dusty city with the rustle of palm leaves and the smell of oranges–a random association of images and places.
Time there, for me, is non-existent. You can experience everything there ever was or will be in the universe. You can do anything, meet anyone, see things you never even dreamed of.
Heh. Hadn’t realized I thought about it this much.
