lekatt, once and for all, either support the scientific process or abandon it totally. You are constantly picking out bits of what you think are science that looks(only to you) as if it supports your unsubstanciated ideas about life after death, while at the same time you are putting down and ignoring all of the real science that clearly shows you to be wrong. Pretending to embrace science only when it serves your purpose is shallow, imho.
If that awful meme, Christianity (which had some nice sub-memes in it, like altruism, etc.), had not taken hold as it did, I doubt we’d be having this debate. Paganism was very tolerant–any contradiction between worldviews could be smoothed away. You bow to my god; I bow to yours.
But Xiantity was different; it was totalitarianism for the mind. It gave you all the answers to everything, but at would also tell you what to think and how to f*ck–and if you didn’t do everything just so, God was going to damn you to hell for eternity.
This hellish meme has both supported and choked (most mostly choked) real thought for 2000 years now. The Enlightenment that ended the last millenium was able to assemble quite a stern force against it, and I think slowly but surely the nasty dogmatic meme is giving up the ghost (although in the form of Islam it is more feral than ever).
But like anything else, it’s 2 steps forward, 1 step back. At some point a new meme was introduced that made the Enlightenment algorithm a little too simple: reductionist materialism. It’s all hogwash! All all all–all all! If it sounds like that spirit/religion stuff, you know it’s wrong!
A very intelligent subset breathed a sigh of relief–but the finish line had not been reached. Many phenomena remained that could not be explained by reductionist materialism. I understand what skeptics are fighting against when they say that psi, ghosts, and the afterlife are hogwash. I too wish to fight against the evil dogma meme. But what I’ve read and experienced in life leads me to believe that reductionist materialism is not a complete explanation, and I can’t in good conscious support it.
I also don’t want to enter oblivion upon dying! :eek:
But we agree: there is nothing “supernatural” in Reality; all that is is as natural as anything else. It may be that you could explain what happens during and after death completely in terms of matter and energy–yet there could still be an afterlife.
It is possible. It is possible that an NDE is a mixed bag of dreams, hallucinations, and “real” experiences, whatever “real” might mean here.
Well, here we’re getting into the core issue, and I think it’s a can of worms, scientifically and philosophically speaking. First, everyday experiences aren’t really “intense”–I know I took a shower last night; that was real.
I had a bunch of dreams last night; they may be intense or not, but they are “marked” as dreams. Now I don’t want to fly off on a wild tangent here, but I need to point out something that came up earlier in the thread. Someone said that people don’t believe that we fly off to some “dream world” when we dream–but many New Age people do believe that. Oh, not in so many words, but there is the belief that the dream state can serve as a kind of interface for interaction with “real” entities. I myself have dreams–then I have dreams. I have trained myself to dream lucidly and interact aggressively with the dreamworld. Sometimes I have a dream that seems to be “more than a dream.” It is marked in a different way than that of a normal dream. I have also had a few experiences which seem like OBEs or AP. Still, I felt OBE in the dream world, not the “real world.” I have also had experiences where I wake up in the morning and my mind is still able to perceive the dream state. In that state I can hold my hand in front of my face (but not really) and see a hand that looks close to photographic.
So, getting back on track, we have these different “markings” for experience. People have pointed out that NDEs and alien abductions are marked as “real” by the experiencers. I myself have had dream experiences that are higher on the reality scale. Now you mentioned “intensity.” Do you mean the intensity of trauma to the body of the person? Probably not. The intensity of the experience itself? This may be true, but I don’t think it can be the whole truth. My shower is marked as “real” without intensity, but I can have very intense, photorealistic dreams that are marked very low on the reality scale.
Qualitative differences with dreams and hallucinations.
Maybe Lekatt can help us out here. A month or so ago I was going to post to this board and ask whether it is possible to read in a dream and pinch onself to check the reality of a dream. The funny thing was that within a day or two I had a dream myself in which I tested these two things. And I had another dream the other day in which I tried to read. It is possible to test the “reality” of the dream world by opening a book and trying to read a text. In my experience, you get very wavy, unstable words–often with outright gibberish mixed in. But you can pick out a few words and “satisfy” yourself that you are not dreaming. But after you wake up the difference will be obvious. Also, it’s possible to do a very rudimentary inspection of one’s body–a pinch or two–to confirm that all is right.
I would hold, however, that the following things are completely unknown in any hallucination or dream state, and their presence in an experience would be good evidence that it was qualitatively different (whether this difference or not is sufficient to prove “reality” or not being a different question).
1. Being able to read–really read.
People under hypnosis can be ordered to open a book and read, but they always fail (perhaps an exception exists when people have memorized whole texts). In my experience, you simply can’t just open a book and read it normally during a dream.
2. Being able to write.
You can try to note something down in a dream, but the information will never be available later.
3. Massive test of physical presence.
Sure, you can pinch yourself a little in a dream. But I don’t think you could check out your whole body and make tests of your physical environment: pull a hair from your head, check for dirt under your fingernails, touch all of your toes individually, drop an object to the ground to see how long it takes to fall, etc.
Those are just a few ideas. Lekatt, how do these thougths fit in with your experiences or what you have read?
And yet we return to the paradox that “good” atheists and skeptics also come back and say it was real (despite having, one would think, the mental tools to prevent this “conversion”). Personally, I’m willing to accept that certain kinds of experiences are real, even though they leave no mark on the physical world as we know it. I mean, if you have a 100% real-seeming memory of having been taken aboard a craft and fooled with by aliens, and if it has the watermark of reality on it, what can you do? If it were I, I would look for things like the 3 points I raised above to try to distinguish it somehow from ordinary experience. But suppose my memory were such that I was walking around the aliens’ craft in precisely the same way that I can walk around my house. If I could trim my nails between examinations and implantations, if could shout out “hey!” and hear a nice clean echo–hell, I’d have to conclude that something was really going on there. I would be compelled.
For the record, however, I have not put “alien abduction” in any particular category. Jack Vallee, a famous researcher of UFOs who says the phenonena are real but not of extraterrestrial origin, speculates that the abductions are message from the group unconscious of the species, or something like that. He’s not adamant about it, though.
Yeah, but you’d expect gross counterexamples, too. If NDE were just a hallucinatory template on which people could draw anything that comes to mind, you’d expect a few dreams of going fishing with the boys, etc. Skeptics point out the inconsistencies–that’s fair; no, they’re not all alike. But why are they almost 100% clearly related to leave-taking and death? (Excluding ones that are just buzzing, lights, things that could be interpreted variously.) One could argue that a preponderance of them would appropriately flow in that direction, but such a high percent?
The alien thing is odd, too. If it’s just a natural phenomenon, a DMT release capable of producing a wide variety of hallucinations, then why don’t we hear about being abducted by earthly scientists, or comic-book characters, etc.? Why the odd consistency?
Again, I am not saying I believe alien abductions really involve space aliens.
People on the verge of death are unlikely to use trickery to make a point. I find the hypothesis that they are skillfully processing all kinds of corrupted or partial information to put together veridical accounts far more far-fetched that that they simply saw what they said they saw.
Yes. That’s what it is. The fight for Truth (with a capital T). Even if it means that we have to color outside the lines a bit (since the lines, though careful drawn, may just be arbitrary references). And there’s just no sense being limited by the point of view posed by another when that point-of-view my be limited by their beliefs, memes, philosophy or prejudice.
As far as entering oblivion, however, I’m not with you there. I’d love a permanant vacation. 
Once I was in a deep, drug-free, conscious meditation that was being monitored. The researchers decided they wanted to get my response to a question related to their observations and gave one of several signals to tell me to come out of meditation, but I didn’t respond. They tried all the rest of the signals and I did not respond. Then they began to do all the things that would rouse a sleeping person, shouting, shaking me, slapping my face, etc. Just short of dousing me with water. I did not come out of meditation. Then they noticed that I had stopped breathing. They called emergency. This was back before the days that CPR was widely known, and they were not CPR trained. They waited for the ambulance to arrive.
From my perspective I had gone deeper and deeper into meditation until I reached something that was quite unfamiliar. It seemed similar to what a lucid dream is like. I was aware and in control. I was at the entrance to a classroom and I went inside. It was a classroom of a type I found familiar (amphitheatre seating, fold-down desks built into the chairs, light-colored wood construction). I knew it was not physically “real,” but in another sense it was more real than the physical world I had just left. Holograms had not yet been discovered, but it’s a term I would use now to describe the reality of it.
I felt that I was expected, and found myself a seat and began to look around. Everything was quite detailed; I could see the pores in the skin of people sitting close to me. Most of the people in that room were totally unfamiliar to me. A few I knew personally, and as I looked at one of them I thought to myself, “What is he doing here?” In physical life I would not expect him to be researching the fringes of controlling brain-wave frequencies or dealing with what we’d call “spiritual issues.” And, I had a sense that this wasn’t any ordinary class. (“Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas any more.”)
Then the teacher came in. He was a man I had never met because he died the same year I was born. He sat down and started teaching us. He wasn’t speaking English, but we could all understand him. For the lack of a better explanation, the terms I would use to describe the teachings is that he was telling us “The Secrets of the Universe.” As he explained things I found myself in recognition/agreement. I was thinking to myself, “Of course! I knew that. It’s all so simple.”
Everything he taught tied in neatly with everything else he taught. The teachings were obvious beyond argument, but still I knew I had to get them all in. It seemed like the class went on for a long time, hours, and then I became aware that it was time for me to go, and time to tell others of what I’d heard. I slowly brought myself out of meditation, took a deep breath and opened my eyes. The researchers were gathered around me in a small circle, worry evident on their faces, looking pale. One of them said, “Wow.”
I looked at him, puzzled, and said, “What, ‘wow?’”
He said, we have been trying to bring you out of meditation for," he looked at his watch and at his notes, “almost twenty minutes.”
At that point they all started to talk, asking me questions, but all about the inability to bring me back to average waking consciousness. I realized that all of those concerns were so unimportant, and I stopped them. I said, "I need to tell you. I just learned the ‘secrets of the universe.’ That stopped them.
I proceeded to organize my thoughts, to decide where to start, but although my thoughts would organize, I suddenly realized that there were no words in English that would describe what I had just learned, and I told them so.
We discussed the experience from both perspectives for awhile. They told me what they had experienced and I told them what I had experienced, at least that part I could describe. Somewhere in there the ambulance came, and the medical personnel checked me over and found nothing wrong. They wanted to take me in but I refused. I knew I was alright. The information was still coded in my head but just wasn’t in a form that would come out.
In the years since I’ve done a lot of work to try to bring out what I learned, so I could share it with others, and I have made some progress. The information is still inside me and it has effectd my life considerably. FYI, no, I did not go out and found a new religion, but I could have. That’s not what this knowledge is for. This is only the second time this information has been written down for public consumption. I don’t know when or where I will share it all.
Now, the disclaimer:
[ol]
[li]I am not claiming anything about this experience other than the fact that I experienced it.[/li][li]I’m not trying to prove anything.[/li][li]I still make mistakes in life; this experience/information did not make me universally enlightened.[/li][li]I feel that the experience was as real as, no, more real than this physical world.[/li][li]This occurred before Dr. Timothy Leary started his experiments with LSD. We knew little about hallcinogens in those days.[/li][li]In subsequent years I did take various hallcinogens; this was totally different.[/li][/ol]
I post this here because it is information and experience relevent to the discussion. Although this is a debate format, I have nothing to debate about it. I’m sure (no, I don’t predict, but I feel reasonably certain) that the cynics who prefer to call themselves skeptics will have a field day with this, poking holes, shouting, “Aha!” and “See! We told you!” and explaining this away in terms that are about as relevent to the experience as is auto mechanics. They will give the material a cursory read perhaps, at least enough to find it similar to something they have already ‘debunked’ and will lump it into that category and call me names.
The real skeptics will examine he material carefully, and try to see if it fits into any known explanations, will try to determine if it fits some other explanation that fits their current model of science and will likely end up discarding it.
True scientists will probably read it and regret that it wasn’t done with more controls, better equipment, etc., and file is with “queer anecdotal reports.”
Some folks may experience a life-transforming experience, and may wish to study with me, uncover details of the process I used to try to replicate it. (Quite the brass ring, nes pa?) Some may even want to send me money, or: pray for me, put curses on me, acuse me of blasphemisim, etc. To them: it’s out there. You can find it if you wish.
And finally, some of you will take the information in, process it comparatively and hopefully use what you can to further your investigations. I’ll try to answer any serious, investigative questions driven by a desire to investigate Truth, the nature of being, so long as they don’t hijack the thread. Thi is not something I’m willing to discuss lightly.
I agree. Everything that is, is natural. Our explanations and descriptions, our words, limit our understanding at least as much as they expand it.
Aeschines, rather than comment on the rest of your post paragraph by paragaph, let me just say that I am in accord with most, if not all, of what you say there, *and * that I think you said it very well. I think you and I likely have a few thoughts to share back-channel. My email address is available, wite me if you agree.
Now I’m not trying to convert anyone, and I wish people would stop trying to convert me. Sure, I have some speculation about what happened, and I believe it was real. I have no theory for what it was. I can accept that it may have been an elaborate hoax constructed by some competing researchers in order to distract us. It was not a dream, it was not an hallucination, it was not induced by drugs, sleep deprivation or other means. It was an experimental meditation involving very slow brainwave frequencies, and I was fully conscious and in control mentally at all times. There was a part where I lost awareness of my physical body, but I was conscious and aware.
Slide that file open. Slip on the emotional armor; they’re baaaack!
Peace
Perhaps not physically addicting, but certainly potentially very emotionally addicting. I’ve watched people go down on acid.
I think lekatt is saying that there’s a better way, and I agree. It is not necessary to use drugs, you can do it without. Drugs can be a crutch and they can be a coffin. They can also be a valuable research tool. They can be the most exciting thing you ever have or ever will experience. Sometimes that burn is the hook. It’s like being addicted to adreneline, addicted to the rush.
Don’t feel sad for lekatt. Lekatt’s doing fine.
I forget how to find out who are the assigned moderators for various forums, and I am curious, Czar, if your posts are as a moderator or as a fellow doper?
Let me clarify, then.
As a poster, I am disgusted by people who use cites that are supposedly scientific to support unscientific viewpoints, then turn right around and, when it is pointed out that what they have cited is not scientific at all and/or obviously does not say what they think it says, say that science is not the way evaluate their positions.
As a moderator, I strongly suggest that lekatt quit inserting his NDE arguments and links into topics that have nothing to do the with topic of NDEs.
Thats what I’m saying. Our brain is nothing but drugs. Whether or not you actually ingest a drug, by meditating or dreaming our brains release natural drugs.
Any state of being: depression, happiness, arousal, anger, love, is all drug based.
I am truly sorry my attitude offends you. I have not taken any controlled, illegal drug in my entire life. My belief in God is predicated upon my experience, not with drugs, but with death. I will never agree that taking illegal drugs is right, because it is not right.
Yes, I make no distinction between illegal drugs, one is as bad for you as another. New drugs come on the market daily, and without a history one doesn’t know what long term effect it will have. You take enough of any drug and it will do serious damage to your body.
People who do drugs for fun are drug addicts. I was asked to review a book on Ketamine by a famous doctor. I did not give it a good review. I realize this age we live in will probably be called the “Drug Age” by future generations.
Drugs are artificial gods, quick pick-me-ups for a generation in depression. If you worked just one tenth the time spent looking for, buying, and taking drugs on your thought processes the results would be similar to the drugs but last forever, the rest of your lives. I feel compassion for the drug cult members, most are plagued with depression, guilt, anger and many other negative emotions. They don’t realize they are only one thought away from peace and happiness.
I am glad you are not like me also, I am glad each person is unique and special.
Love
Our brains are made up of brain cells. If what you say about emotions being drug based, how is it that depression affects a greater number of people today than it did 30 years ago. Suicides have triple in that time. Yet, we have probable a hundred times more drugs on the market. How come a drug has different emotional effects on different people. Why haven’t the … aw forget it.
Just a small bit of logic will debunk your statement.
Love
Good, why don’t you just point specifically to the studies I have presented here and I will give you the doctors name. Then you can write him and voice your opposition, tell him that he don’t know what he is talking about.
Astral Projection is an important part of NDEs and very pertinent to these discussions especially in the area of proving their reality. You have been insulting me and my work for a long time now. If you want to rid this board of me, just use/abuse your moderator status and kick me off. Then you won’t have to face opposing view points in the great debates section.
But before you do, please show me some of your scientific studies that prove my scientific studies are wrong. That has never been done here.
Love
I could argue every aspect of that post, Lekatt, but I won’t. Its obvious that there’s no changing you. If your ignorance is so blissful, go ahead living like that.
I’ve said all I want to say. I’m done with this thread. I hope some of you learned something, I sure did.
Snakespirit -
As a skeptic, all I can say is that I accept you believe you had that experience. Unfortunately, it is useless to anyone else, as there is no convincing evidence supporting it. As a counterpoint to your experience, I can point out the times when, when someone is drunk, they have the world’s most brilliant idea, write it down, and then can’t read it in the morning. That is, it is both possible you had this experience, and that you thought you had this experience. I hope what you learned in it has helped you in your life, but it does not appear to be a repeatable event.
You know what’s bothered me about Astral Projection? People have been trying to do it for thousands of years. And it’s never moved beyond the stage of “Well, I say it works.” (Independent confirmation tests tend to suggest they have not actually been to Jupiter, or what have you.) You’d think it’d be a commonly used tool by now, like making fire.
You present independent scientific studies(NOT opinion pieces and NOT anecdotes) done by reputable agencies and duplicated by other independent reputable agencies, and I’ll do just that.
BTW, don’t you ever again even hint outside of the Pit that I would abuse my responsibility and have someone banned because they disagreed with me. That would be insulting in the BBQ Pit, and in Great Debates it is disgusting. If you think I am that dishonorable, start a thread in the BBQ Pit and spew to your hearts content without fear of reprisal-I would just love to see who would back you up.
An understandable frustration. Posters must either use science or not.
So, in this case you are fulfilling a dual role, that of participant and moderator?
I have to disagree, and since you are doing this as a moderator I expect you to remain objective. If AP exists it posits a way to obtain information independent of the body. NDEs are real, but if the claims are valid, it again posits the acquisition of information independent of a body (at least a functional body).
Consequently, bringing NDEs into a discussion of AP is valid. Don’t you agree?
Perhaps it is the specific cites that don’t meet your criteria, in which case we would expect you to specify that specifically.
Sure! First we can go to here
http://www.aleroy.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=7&forum_id=13
This is the beginning of a study that showed no physical reason or evidence that NDE have physical causes.
http://www.newsnet5.com/station/2893543/detail.html
Here is one showing evidence of life after death.
http://www.aleroy.com/info02.htm
Here is one on brain studies showing the failure of brain mapping.
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html
This one is on Pam Reynolds probably the most carefully documented NDE is history,
We will see how you do on these, Scientific studies remember, not opinions or theories. I can get more,
As for the pit go there if you want, I won’t be there. The pit is an insult to intelligence in itself.
If you personally insult me again I will say so again.
Love
You have no disagreement from me, except, that there are some who may find the information helpful *because * of the anecdotal evidence. May I rephrase for you? It is useless in strict scientific investigation…
A totally valid point. However, you know what bothers me about the phenomenon (not limited to AP)? It keeps coming back. Again and again, despite being called ‘demon possession,’ ‘working in league with the devil,’ ‘fantasy,’ ‘drugs,’ ‘delusion,’ and embarassing thousands of sincere people who were just trying to find out what was happening to them, it just keeps coming back. Under different names, different descriptions, it keeps coming back. In the neantime science has ridded us of gargoyles, devils, demons, the Loch Ness Monster, Crop circles, bigfoot, the nephelim, the abomnible snowman, elves, pixies, faries, angels, levitation, walking on water, Oija boards, Tarot cards, etc., etc., etc. But, AP, in it’s various manifestations, keeps coming back. I’m not ready to give up so easily.
I appreciate finding a real skeptic here though, and I believe skeptics are KEY to valid scientific investigation. Problem is there’s so few here.
S
Why shouldn’t it “keep coming back?” The physiology of the human brain hasn’t changed for a while. I’m sure it’s common physiological phenomenon and an amusing hallucination. But speculations about invisible “spirits” leaving the body have no foundation in any empirical data, and frankly the idea is ridiculous and impossible on its face. I still want to know what your little spooks are made of, what they see and hear with, how they move and what they think with. Until you answer those questions you don’t even have a hypothesis. “Leaving the body” is a contradiction in terms. You ARE the body and nothing more. If you want to argue that there is something more then back it up. Easily explained hallucinations do not count as evidence of spirits.
Snakespirit, would you mind not incuding your siggy with every post? Thank you.
As far as lekatt’s links go, what can I say?
Plenty. In a long post that is supposed to put me in my place by providing 4 different links to verifiable studies, you managed to link to four sites that are not only unverifiable, but weren’t even studies!
The first link was to a posting by you on your own message board.
The second link was to a TV newsblurb reporting on “mediums” who have convinced scientists at the University of Arizona that there is an afterlife, the head scientist of which says that he was attempting to build on an hypothesis that he already held!
The third link was the most respectable of the four. It still wasn’t an actual study itself, but it did report on an actual(and very interesting) UCLA brain mapping study. Of course, the story didn’t even bring up the ideas of NDEs or Astral Projection, but don’t let that stop you from using it as a link-maybe someone reading your links will become interested in REAL science.
The fourth and final(if only!) link was to the Near Death Experience website. Again, not a study itself, but dioes tell Pam’s story it very glowing terms.
I have NEVER personally insulted you, lekatt, only the junk science you try to pass off here, so if you try to retaliate outside of the BBQ Pit, appropriate action will be taken.
Actually, that is not true at all. Here’s a quote from the study:
It’s true that the study didn’t find that NDEs must be cause by physical processes. However, neither did it find that they must not be caused by physical processes. The study doesn’t address the causes of NDEs at all, except to say that no one really knows, and that more research is needed.
In other words, the study does not support your beliefs.
Not at all. It might be a case of mind reading, for instance. It’s kind of hard to tell since the link is not to the study itself, but a news piece reporting on the study. We have no data to examine, which is not a good thing in determining validity. If you can find a link to the actual study data, that would be helpful.
Actually, that study talks about the success of brain mapping, by taking a large population consisting of many different brains, and finding the similarities and differences between them. Here’s a quote from that site.
Sounds like they did a bang-up job of mapping the brain, as well as understanding how brain functions can vary from person-to-person while still having the same basic structure.
Once again, you really need to do a better job with reading and understanding your sources before you cite them.
That is but a single anecdote. Hardly something that could be considered hard evidence. We have no information on what controls (if any) were in place to prevent Ms. Reynolds from gaining information about the surgery either before the procedure, or after the procedure but before talking to doctors, for instance. This is why anecdotal evidence isn’t good evidence at all.
Actually, you only had one link to an actual scientific study, and it did not come to the conclusion that NDEs are anything more than a biological phenomenon. It instead concluded by stating that more research is needed.
The “study” about the mediums talking to the dead is actually a link to a fluff news piece, and not a link to the study itself. Without access to the actual data, we can’t draw any conclusions.
The “study” about brain mapping is simply an informational description that basically says that, even though brain structure varies from individual to individual, scientists have succeeded in coming up with a very good atlas of the human brain.
The “study” about Pam Reynolds was a short article about one woman’s personal experience. There were no controls in place, and no actual experiment was performed. It is not a study at all.
Well, since you currently have zero scientific studies that support your claims, I have to assume that “more” means “more cites that either don’t support me or aren’t valid scientific studies”. If that’s the case, then no thanks.
There is a valid link hiding in there. Here’s a direct link to the study [warning, PDF]