So you’re actually using Susan Blackmore in support of your ideas? I’m familiar with her work, and here’s a hint: she’s not at all on your side.
Well, the only part where she was even mentioned in the article was, precisely, the four or five lines which **lekatt **quoted.
Not only that, but what she said is pretty uncontroversial (and even documented): NDE’s often change people’s outlook on life. That, of course, doesn’t exactly further lekatt’s core ideas that NDE’s mean there is uncontroversial proof of life after death nor that during a NDE people step out of their bodies and are able to see things beyond the veil nor anything like that.
In the post you pointed me to–post 425–there are no external links at all. There is one anonymous anecdote. Are you calling that a study? Or do you claim that you have provided links to peer-reviewed studies in another location?
If it’s the latter claim, again, please provide me with the three-digit identifier for that post; clearly it’s not post 425, as you originally suggested.
As for me, I agree that I accept personal experiences as valid unless there’s some reason to doubt them. Personally, I think there’s excellent reason to doubt these, both evolutionarily and evidentiarially (to invent a word perhaps). But that’s another discussion. Before we get into it, we need to establish that you’re backing down from your original claim that you can link to studies describing non-local consciousness.
So that we can end this interminable back-and-forth in which I keep asking you to keep your word and you keep dodging the issue, let’s put it this way. Your next post to me either will or will not contain a direct link to a study that you believe establishes evidence of non-local consciousness. If it does contain such a link, we will discuss it. If it does not, I will take that as evidence (admittedly not final evidence, but enough to work with) that you are unable or unwilling to keep your word, and we can move on to discuss the other sorts of evidence you offer to support your claim; I will then take it as given that you agree that your claim is substantially weakened.
Daniel
Why do you so deeply mistrust the experiences of others who’ve been fooled by frauds? Why are you so suspicious of critical thinking?
Speaking of whales - many take in millions of gallons of seawater in order to obtain nutrition from tiny sea creatures. Even whales, though, have a filtering apparatus.
Humans develop a brain filtering apparatus in order to live intelligently.
It is not a virtue to leave this faculty entirely undeveloped.
To add on to bikebloke’s comment…
Uh uh. No frigging way. Even IF that were possible, you’d never be able to do so without suffering from severe brain damage.
lekatt, I seem to remember you once quoting Yoda. If we’re going to quote from Star Wars, how about:
Grand Moff Tarkin: “You’re far too trusting.”
Luke Skywalker: “Your overconfidence is your weakness.”
You’re right. Forest Gump wasn’t a bad guy and we could learn some things from him. But he wasn’t very bright and, most importantly, he was a fantasy in someone’s mind.
If you choose to be open and trusting, that’s your choice. But it isn’t a good way of determining accuracy. It’s not just that people mislead others – that’s just part of it. They very often deceive themselves.
Bless you, lekatt. I think you mean well and I think there are things beyond the ability of science at this time.
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool.”
– Richard P. Feynman
TWEEEEET!!
Everyone knock off the bad jokes and veiled insults. If you want to discuss lekatt’s claims, this is the thread. If you just want to mock him, I’d be willing to bet there are several Pit threads available.
[ /Moderating ]
For what it’s worth, I’m still curious as to why my liminal experience of being in communion with Goddess, regardless of what I view its underlying reality as, isn’t proof that there really is a Goddess. Is it worth pointing out that, during that experience, I was made to understand that upon death, any individual identity would be totally obliterated but that as She was the Totality in any case and it was impossible to not be part and parcel of Goddess no matter who or what you were? That time itself was illusory as She contained all of the past and present in an all consuming Now? And that death didn’t matter in any case as ego was just an illusion anyway?
Does that, then, serve as proof against ‘non-local consciousness’? A refutation? A solid refutation? An irrefutable refutation?
Why or why not?
You should probably start reading your links before you post them. These two links simply gut several of your more serious claims.
Blackmore’s comment is not too bad. She says that most people who claim an NDE undergo personality changes for the better. This would support one of your favorite theses, although it is interesting that she makes absolutely no reference to any spiritual aspect. She merely notes a correlation between people claiming NDEs and personality changes without ever even attempting to explain what causes an NDe or even what an NDE actually is.
So what did Janson have to say on the subject? Well, for one thing, he directly contradicts one of your most frequent assertions. You have assiduously maintained that people who experience altered states using drugs never undergo the life-changing and personality-changing transformations that people experiencing NDEs do. Yet Janson explicitly says (bolding mine)
In other words, the drug ketamine appears to produce not just the immediate memories of an NDE, but also the life-changing after effects.
He goes on to talk about the way that he has previously examined physical bases of NDEs and states that he will examine more speculative theories in the current essay. However, for the rest of the essay, he continues to examine physical origins, noting spirituality only when he speculates that the apparent spiritual events that others have experienced might actually be ones in which the person accidentally stumbled upon the physical phenomena about which he is writing.
Without expressing any judgment on Dr. Janson’s speculations, I note that he has already observed that NDEs and ketamine therapy have the same results, both short term and long term, and that the ketamine therapy may have a very physical basis.
He is not actually providing the support that you claim for your position.
Discussion implies interaction.
Oh, you can interact with each other–just don’t make that interaction a matter of insulting him, here. 
Actually, I’m suggesting that there is a desire for interaction, but that, as usual, things are progressing on a frustratingly one-way basis.
Thank you for your kind words, I am not Forest Gump, of course, but I am not like most others either. Before my experience I lived in the reality of the physical world as most others do. After my experience I discovered the reality of the physical world lives within me. I am not alone, there are many that understand the inverse nature of physical reality.
Thanks again.
I have traded many emails with both of these skeptics, and did not mean to imply they were suddenly on my side. Only that both have softened their positions concerning the spiritual nature of mankind.
I would think that self-evident. Only truth matters.
This may be true, but your links provided no evidence of that.
Regardless, we still have the case where no scientific research has provided evidence that NDEs are anything more than some chemical reaction inthe brain–and Janson’s observation regarding ketamine even provides a direct chemical parallel.
NDEs may be sprirtual awakenings during physical death, but with the evidence you have thus far produced (none), your belief is simply not persuasive to people who are looking for answers about the events. (This includes both skeptics and devoutly spiritual people who simply prefer to have evidence for new claims about odd occurrences.)
Have you had time to think about my question?
This is all I know about it, but I did see him on television.
It is a matter of survival, negative thinking people live with more negative experiences. Positive thinking people live longer, happer, and more successful lives. It is a matter of choice, no one forces either side that you need to obey.