I have an NDE nearly every night. No, I actually don’t die, although I think my pulse slows. But I have these wild ineffable experiences where I travel to strange places and meet funny people (sometimes fictional people!). Clearly this isn’t happening to my physical body because by all accounts it’s still lying asleep in my bed, so clearly my nocturnal excursions are genuine examples of my mind leaving my body and hanging out elsewhere. Like, with the smurfs.
Some people claim that these are just dreams, created within my mind without it ever leaving my body or referencing an outside source, but this is obviously poppycock, because as everybody knows the human mind is incapable of imagining anything ever.
Copernicus had a theory that was later proven to be correct. Of course Galileo didn’t speculate out his ass, but he did observed a situation, developed a theory, and then carried out experiments to test his theory.
I don’t know what happened or how it happened. I think it was the real deal and it is ineffable (incapable of being expressed in words). However, I am open to other possibilities such as pure biochemical explanations, or biochemical mechanisms that are a part of the process that kicks the experience off like a launching pad, etc. No one knows for sure, not me, not you or anybody else. Your biochemical model is only a theory it can’t be proved or disapproved; just like mine.
How about a car that runs, drives, propels itself, etc. which drops dead and is nothing more than nonfunctional metal sitting in your driveway? It stops working too - does it have a soul?
By your argument, it must. So must an electric clock: it works fine, you hit it with a hammer or let its insides wear out, and it stops! Wow, clock souls!
And shoes! They fall apart: shoe soles!
The scientific method is about observing reality, and observing how it works, screening out the wrong guesses. The SM is perfectly capabale of working with souls. You chase down ghost sightings, interview people who have claimed to have seen things and had experiences and whatnot. This has already happened with regard to souls. To the best of our knowledge, based on all the evidence, they’re wishful thinking that doesn’t mesh with what’s actually happening.
And how unique is this supposed life force? Do dogs have it? Flies? Trees? Bacteria? Viruses?
Rocks?
So the obvious thing to do is assume that they do, right?
And aliens at least are possible, without ignoring what we know about the universe. Souls, essences, magic soul juice… not so much.
The difference is that there’s plenty of evidence for the biochemical model; and nothing but baseless claims from the “it’s MAGIC !” side. And the biochemical model is clearly possible, while the “Magic !” explanation violates multiple physical laws.
And you certainly don’t sound like you are “open to other possibilities”; you sound like you have the standard “don’t confuse me with the facts !” mindset of the true believer.
*Of course I have a theory ( a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b: an unproved assumption) and I also believe it to be true; could be wrong, could be right or something inbetween.
You also have a theory that you believe to be true. You don’t know for sure anymore than anyone else.
*
If by “know for sure” you mean “believe really hard”, then you’re right - nobody can “out-know” a True Believer.
If “know for sure” you mean “have good reason for your beliefs”, then you’re not just wrong, but completely backwards - the evidence is all on one side, and it’s not the side with pixies.
I agree with the Alien thing. The soul juice not so much. The fact that animate things have something that inanimate things do not; that is obvious. As to what that observation is, is theories that have yet to be proven one way or another.
That’s not what “theory” means in science. A scientific theory is an explanation for an observed phenomenon or set of phenomena which is confirmed by testable evidence. It doesn’t mean “hypothesis,” and it doesn’t mean “unproven.” No amount of proof stops a theory from being a theory.
You have a completely unfounded belief which does not even rise to the level of a decent scientific hypothesis, much less a theory.
As to your last two sentences above – what theory do you believe others have espoused in this thread? I haven’t really seen any. I’ve seen plausible hypothetical explanations for your hallucinations, but those are hypotheses, not theories.
As to the discussion of “what happens after death,” there is no reason to believe that anything happens except a cessation of indivdual consciousness. That’s just a null hypothesis, not a theory. It’s the default assumption. You might as well argue about what happens to the spirit of a TV set if Led Zeppelin throws it out a window, and then get all indignant in your insistance that “nobody knows.” There is no more reason to believe that humans have souls or “life forces” than that telvisions do.
All the evidence - and there is an immense amount of it - is that life is simply a matter of chemistry. It’s about as proven as it can be. On the other hand, there is zero evidence for any sort of souls or life force; there is zero evidence such things are even possible.
In other words, you are in the position of someone trying to claim that gravity is caused by invisible goblins pulling everything down.
This is not “obvious” at all. Living things are “animated” by fairly well understood chemical processes. There is no mystery about it. Biologists are not sitting around scratching their heads wondering what “animates” things. These are not the Middle Ages.
It’s obvious that cars have something that clocks don’t too - cars are self-propelling, can carry people, burn gasoline, etc.
Does this prove that cars have souls? Yes, yes it does. No wait, it actually doesn’t. It proves that they are built differently and have different internal operations.
Look, your argumentation here proves that Furbys have souls. That’s not a good sign.
Jake Steele The fact that you just used theory and hypothesis as synonyms shows that you have a very mistaken idea of what the word theory means in science.
I suspect this may be the problem that’s being had here. We don’t just have two categories, “Proven” and “No idea”, with everything that’s not proven just stuck in the no idea basket. It’s a continuum, with evidence helping an idea from one end to the other. Something being proven does not mean that it is equal in support to everything which is not proven; you can’t prove i’m not an elephant, and you can’t prove i’m not a human, but that doesn’t mean that we should assume i’m just as likely to be an elephant as a human. Likewise, with NDEs, that we can’t prove they do exist nor that they don’t exist doesn’t mean we can happily sit in the middle, the two ideas being as likely to be correct; we are able to look at evidence for either side and judge them on those merits.
You agree what the doctors said about dying. You are hypothesizing that if I did have one it would have a timeline and then tell you’re asking me to pinpoint it. Okay, It happened while I was dying and continued on after. Death was the tipping point. I had a cessation of all vital functions long enough for the doctors to declare me clinically dead.
How about this: I was Schrödinger’s cat, alive/dead and somewhere inbetween simultaneously.
You are bantering semantics. You’re saying that mine is believe but yours is fact. You would have to be omniscient to know yours is fact, case closed.
I’m not hypothesizing, that’d be a rather more operative thought. Besides, it’s actually your belief that there’s a certain timeline to events, not mine. As you say here, it is your belief that it occurred while you were dying and then continued after you were dead. My question is; how do you know it happened at those points? How do you know that the experience you had did continue after you died - what was it about the experience that allowed you to recognise your death had occurred while your NDE was also occurring?
No, i’m not. I don’t believe i’ve actually used the word “fact” in any post i’ve made. I haven’t even said that I disagree with your belief! I haven’t set out what “mine” is nor disagreed with “yours”, so i’m not entirely certain how I can have said one is fact and the other belief. My point, simply, is that it isn’t just a matter of proof vs. no idea, but a line between the two along which evidence can take us. That’s it. I have taken no sides. I think you may have reacted to my post a bit hastily.