You have reversed the post. Sorry it don’t count when you cheat.
It is this fine group of folks that say I missinterpreted my own experience, so I have asked them to prove it.
I made no such claims, when I was asked, I related my experience which included the above. I don’t care whether you believe it or not. I feel no need to prove it.
It wouldn’t matter anyway.
Probably in your limbic system:
http://www.humanistsofutah.org/2001/IsReligionHardwired_DiscGrp_10-01.html
You could prove it by hooking up electrodes to the brains of people who are dying, but that seems just a tad unethical to me.
Well, I guess I just can’t get it, I will try again.
I think you are saying that I could not possible tell whether or not my mind was in an altered state or in another level of reality. But you can judge this for me. BTW am I different from my mind? Is there me and my mind?
I didn’t know you believed in different levels of reality. Is the physical reality not the only one?
Now I am confused.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
I read the study. It is another form of brain mapping.
It is well known that brain mapping does not prove consciousness is biological.
The only way to prove biological consciousness is to find consciousness stored in the brain in some manner.
All this could be caused by a non local energy source such as the spiritual nature of man.
Radios don’t contain voices.
TVs don’t contain images.
Telephones don’t contain the speaker (person)
And the brain don’t contain consciousness.
Also you will need to explain how NDEers often come back to life with information they didn’t have when they died.
Like Pam Reynolds surgery. There are literally dozens of these accounts.
—I think you are saying that I could not possible tell whether or not my mind was in an altered state or in another level of reality.—
Yes. How could anyone simply from the experience itself?
—But you can judge this for me.—
No, we can all judge it using various arguements and evidence that we can all evaluate the validity of. The point is, simply asserting over and over that you had the experience doesn’t EXPLAIN what the experience was, how it happened, etc. Doing that requires some sense of figuring out the mechanisms of what is happening, regardless of what they are. And without doing that, it’s pointless to jump to conclusions about what the cause was.
—BTW am I different from my mind? Is there me and my mind?—
No: I was using “mind” simply to reffer to whatever collection of mechanisms composes your conscious experience.
—Also you will need to explain how NDEers often come back to life with information they didn’t have when they died.—
No, we don’t. The fact that it is unknown does not prove that your conclusion about spiritual consciousness is correct. That’s known as arguement from ignorance, or in your specific case, a god-of-the-gaps type arguement.
You are also failing to recognize the importance of self-selection. That is, if you have a large pool of cases to begin with, it is very likely just from random chance alone that SOME people will have odd experiences, accurate memories, and neat coincidences, especially if the emotional effect of NDE’s compells people to actively seek for ways to find such things and make them work (not unlike the cold reading technique of John Edward). Since these cases single themselves out as being being more notable than the others, they are obviously much more likely to be recognized and talked about.
—It is well known that brain mapping does not prove consciousness is biological.—
You can deny it all you want, but I don’t see how it is “well known.” It pretty clearly seems to demonstrate that particular areas of the brain handle particular aspects of personality, memory, and so on. Damaging these parts in turn damages the related capacity.
You seem to simply deny outright the relevance of anything you find threatening to your theory.
—The only way to prove biological consciousness is to find consciousness stored in the brain in some manner.—
You’re being exceedingly sloppy with what you mean by “consciousness.” If you want to claim that we must find “consciousness” in the brain, you have to explain what we are looking for so that we can know it when we see it. In the abscence of this, all you are doing is sending us on a wild goose chase after a vague term that you can simply redefine every time we get too uncomfortably close to proving it.
I’d say that showing how memories, habits, addictions, and such related things work in the brain is a pretty good job at explaining conscious experience.
—All this could be caused by a non local energy source such as the spiritual nature of man. Radios don’t contain voices.
TVs don’t contain images. Telephones don’t contain the speaker (person) And the brain don’t contain consciousness.—
So says you. So why should this analougy be appropriate, other than that it appeals to your theory?
But then, no one is saying the brain “contains” consciousness as if conciousness were an object rather than simply a concept: rather, the brain organizes all sorts of disparate sense data, path deliberation, and processes into a coherent experience. And this is what we then conventionally call “consciousness.”
I think you have just explained us away.
I will keep to my own experience and my own council.
I realize I don’t know everything. but neither does science.
Looking upon mankind as some kind of biomechanical mechanism just leaves me cold. I know I am much more than that.
Love
Leroy
—I think you have just explained us away.—
I don’t think so. We’re still here.
—I will keep to my own experience and my own council.—
Then what are you doing here, if you have no interest in actually discussing anything substantively: if anything of substance that anyone says will simply be brushed off absentmindedly, with nary a substantive response.
—Looking upon mankind as some kind of biomechanical mechanism just leaves me cold. I know I am much more than that.—
I’ve never understood this view. Whatever “we” are is SOME sort of mechanism, even if you claim it to be spiritual. I hardly see how that is more interesting or “more” just because you think it exists in some alternate reality. What we are isn’t cold, and refusing to even think about what makes us up seems colder and duller, to me, than anything else imaginable.
Its the difference between a mystery and a surprise. You are treating our ultimate inner workings as if they were a suprise: as if learning something about it would somehow ruin it. But it isn’t any simple surprise: it’s a mystery, one that will continue to be fascinating and wonderful even as we learn more about it.
This is how the scientific method works: as more and more evidence becomes available, a theory is considered more and more likely to be correct. It’s disengenous to say “brain mapping does not prove consciousness is biological”. We can’t prove that there isn’t an undetectable source of consciousness, in the same way we can’t prove that it doesn’t come from magic fairies. All we can do is consider the overwhelming body of evidence that it IS biological, and compare it against the utter lack of evidence for a different source. You are free to ignore all the objective evidence, and instead focus only on your subjective experience. But as you can see from this thread, not many people are going to agree with you.
Although Apos conceeded the point that Pam “came back”, with information she did not have previously, and chalked it up to coincidence (which is certainly possible), I do not conceed this. The accounts you have linked to give details of what Pam experienced, but there is no indication that there wasn’t any information that she couldn’t have invented or already known before the surgery. Since this point has already been made, and you didn’t respond, I can only assume that there is no corroboration for anything Pam claims to have seen, and therefore no reason to believe it was anything other than a hallucination.
Now, you may object: “But she KNEW it was real”. However, if you look at the article I previously posted to (and there are plenty of scientific studies like this), you can see that stimulating certain parts of the brain create the illusion of deep significance. In other words, her brain may have tricked her into thinking it was real.
Your distate for the idea does not make it false.
Oooh, that’s good. Now I want to change my answer.
I really do appreciate your input, but it doesn’t address the NDE.
There is a change in perspective, a knowingness that comes from the experience that can not be explained. The Light is everything, all knowledge, all love, and being. There is no doubt left as to the meaning and purpose of life. You know you have been there before you were born and will return after death. It is not theories or guessing, it is as real as you are. That is why NDEers values change, their lives change, they no longer see the world as fearful. They lose their fear of death and life, replacing it with love and compassion.
Science has helped mankind a great deal, but it is too limited to explain the Near Death Experience, or understand what consciousness really is. Consciousness is you. That which is real can not be harmed and we are real.
I have provided scientific studies and other solid proof of life after death, nothing but opinions and theories have been offered in return.
Love
Leroy
Just remind us which bit was the ‘solid proof’ again?
—There is a change in perspective, a knowingness that comes from the experience that can not be explained.—
But it can be exaplined. Almost dying, or being dead and then revived, is psychologically traumatic enough all by itself to explain it. And if NDE’s affect the part of the brain recently explored by Newberg, then it’s quite possible that they are triggering the “oceanic feeling” which brings with it deep feelings of peace and connection. This feeling, whatever it is, can be triggered by stimulating a certain part of the brain in the lab. It can also accessed by deep meditation/prayer.
Again, you also have sampling problems: obviously, those who feel most profound about their NDEs are the ones who will speak up most about them being profound: so you already have an unrepresentive sample of NDE experiencers.
—I have provided scientific studies and other solid proof of life after death, nothing but opinions and theories have been offered in return.—
You are contradicting yourself: first you say that science cannot delve into these things, then you say that science can prove that they represent life after death. You cannot have it both ways: it cannot be possible to prove that they are real, but impossible to disprove their reality.
The Near Death Experience
Within the Near Death Experience are the seeds of Man’s understanding of the universe, of love and of Oneness. For it is in the Near Death Experience that man releases his preconceived opinions, and allows the facts to come forward and be seen. It is as though he pulls aside a curtain of his own misconception and sees for the first time a truth that has always existed, a truth that is so profound, so persuasive, so undeniable that the experiencer’s life can never be the same.
The Truth of Oneness: that all men are part of the whole, not just four billion individuals, standing alone and apart, but four billion parts for making up the whole, the One, sharing and joining in the responsibility of life on this planet. Four billion people needing to work together, for the good of the world, not in opposition. We can accomplish our paradise on earth by cooperation, not by war, hate or deception.
The Truth of Love: that Love is the greatest strength of all. For Love given is Life received. For Love creates an environment of Love, cooperation and trust. It is Love given, that turns hate and mistrust into mutual respect and beneficial cooperation. There are nations in the world that have that Love. The Love results in open borders, free trade, open, honest exchange between people. There are nations that practice hate. The newspapers are filled with their terror, killings, bombings. There are two choices that are ours, and we must make a decision. NDEer’s learn or “know” the power of Love, and their lives change. It is a lesson that the world desperately needs, for we have led ourselves to the brink of our own destructions, by our own practices of greed and distrust and our “me-first attitudes”.
The Truth of Life: Death is not the end, but a transition to another Life. Think of the horror, the dread, that mankind has given itself, by believing that death is the end. How many millions of lives have been spent in grief for the “lost” loved ones, that have never been lost? Let us give our cooperation and support to these seeds that have been planted by the Near Death Experience. The experience is a gift. It is perhaps the beginning of a new life, not only for the Experiencer, but for our society and possibly the World.
Jack Cuthrell, author of “Letters of the Soul”
This article seems to suggest that NDEs are symptomatic of the brain. More fodder for the debate.
Had a lot of respect for Jack Cuthrell. He used to have a NDE website, and he did a lot of research. I think he’s crossed over now, his site is gone, I can’t contact him or find out what happened to him. He was a lot older than I.
He believed in the spirit world of the NDE. Been there many times like a lot of us.
I don’t think there’s a debate here. I wonder if there ever was.
If you have questions I will try to answer them.
—I don’t think there’s a debate here. I wonder if there ever was.—
There is only one person who can be blamed for that. You. Almost everyone else here has been raising arguements. You’ve been largely ignoring them, simply repeating your original claims.
I agree, Apos. I even tried to explain the concept of debating to him, but to no avail. (I thought it was the least I could do to try to get the debate going- but since he’s still offering to enlighten us poor Dopers he’s obviously clueless as to what an actual debate is.)
The really sad thing about all this is that he actually thinks he won. I think in his mind the one who can hold on to their point the longest wins- even if it means sticking your fingers in your ears and saying “LALALALALA- I can’t hear you!” Apparently, since he has succeeded in ignoring all other points in favor of his own opinion, he thinks he’s the big ole hero who took down the Dope Board.
I still think he’s a troll.