Near death experiences ,proof of afterlife ?

[Silvestru]

On 29/10/2018 at 1:48 PM, Endercreeper01 said:

If you know what a NDE is, you would know how vivid they are.

I have no doubt they are vivid. You know what else is? Mushrooms. 
No one is claiming that they are a portal to another world. Actually some might but anyway the point is that the mind plays tricks.

[Endercreeper01]

25 minutes ago, Silvestru said:

I have no doubt they are vivid. You know what else is? Mushrooms. 
No one is claiming that they are a portal to another world. Actually some might but anyway the point is that the mind plays tricks.

The mind does not simply "play tricks".

The brain is not made to create imagery. Instead, the brain recreates visual input.

This means that there is always a source that the brain is recieving information from. The brain can't simply be creating all of this imagery on it's own without recieving information from a source.

Consciousness experiences reality by connecting through a brain. Consciousness is not simply the brain, it is rather plugged in to the brain and sensory information.

When someone has a near death experience, they are experiencing themselves, the consciousness, disconnect from the brain. It's not simply losing consciousness, their consciousness is just connecting to elsewhere.

[Strange]

3 minutes ago, Endercreeper01 said:

The brain is not made to create imagery. Instead, the brain recreates visual input.

No it doesn't. This shows a profound lack of knowledge of how the brain works. Pretty much everything you see is created by the brain, and largely created by the brain to fool you.

For example, you think you can see everything around you in detail and in colour. But this is only because the brain creates that illusion. The eye can only see a tiny portion of the visual field in detail. And it can only see part of it in colour. So what happens is that your eyes constantly move around at random (saccades) and the bran stitches together all the little images to create a single high quality view that you see.

But hang on! If the eyes are constantly moving, why don't we see that? Why isn't everything blurred or whizzing around?

Well, maybe the brain "turns the eyes off" while they are moving and freezes the image so we can't tell it is moving? But then everything would look like a series of static images, so that can't be it. So basically, the brain fills in all the gaps and then tells us that we are seeing what is happening now.

Of course, the brain is good at messing around with time to fool us. It has to be. After all, if you reach out to pick up your cup of coffee the image reaches your brain in milliseconds, while the motor signals to the muscles and the touch sensations back can take half a second or more to reach the brain. The brain has to make us think that these all arrive at the same time otherwise we would get very confused.

You only have to look at a few optical illusions to realise how fragile the brain's visual system is.

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This means that there is always a source that the brain is recieving information from. The brain can't simply be creating all of this imagery on it's own without recieving information from a source.

Did you really now know that the source for the imagery is the eyes? Wow.

14 minutes ago, Endercreeper01 said:

Consciousness experiences reality by connecting through a brain. Consciousness is not simply the brain, it is rather plugged in to the brain and sensory information.

You can claim that. But you have no evidence, so we can just disregard it.

[DrP]

8 minutes ago, Endercreeper01 said:

The mind does not simply "play tricks".

Yea it does...  there are loads of examples of false memories, memories fading/changing with age and time. What are illusions if not tricks of the mind. Many things get misunderstood all the time...  the mind has been tricked. It isn't a perfect thing - it doesn't detect everything and often misinterprets and invents things.     

11 minutes ago, Endercreeper01 said:

The brain is not made to create imagery. Instead, the brain recreates visual input.

What about imagination? What's that then? It can create not merely re-create.

12 minutes ago, Endercreeper01 said:

It's not simply losing consciousness, their consciousness is just connecting to elsewhere.

This has been shown to be untrue. If you paint a number on the ground in the next room....  the person who has the OBE or NDE in one room and goes to that other room cannot tell you what the number on the floor was.... This shows they have imagined the experience and were not actually there.

 

[Strange]

14 minutes ago, DrP said:

Yea it does...  there are loads of examples of false memories, memories fading/changing with age and time.

Good point. The fact that is is trivially easy to make people remember (in vivid detail) things that never happened (and could never happen) shows that it is created by the brain. An impossible experience cannot be something that came from outside. (Unless you believe in an evil and dishonest god.)

[dimreepr]

14 hours ago, Gees said:

No. This is not rational; it is not even Rationalism -- it is Reductionism.

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the practice of analysing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituents, especially when this is said to provide a sufficient explanation.

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Edited October 31, 2018 by dimreepr

[Prometheus]

On 10/22/2018 at 8:31 PM, mistermack said:

How do they "select" the people for the so-called study? 

Southampton Uni should be embarrassed to be connected to this rubbish.

There is some perfectly valid near death research around and there is a need for it. There is such a thing as a good death, and we need to research it more to find out about it.

There are some real practical difficulties with this sort of research though. How do you consent a potential patient for inclusion when they're moribund? You could approach their family but they usually have other things on their mind. Consent as many people as possible in the hope that some will be have NDEs? This is generally low budget research; good luck getting those numbers. So, generally, patients are retrospectively enrolled, sometimes a significant amount of time after the fact - and then the research depends entirely on the recall of someone, dodgy amongst the healthiest of us, let alone someone who had their brain starved of oxygen. Want to image a brain during death? Well i guess you could get someone to consent to that, and maybe get it past ethics if certain considerations are made, but getting the person into the scanner at the right time, good luck. No chance of just leaving them there - someone needs that scanner for patients who want to live.

And so on...

There are just so many practical limitations to this kind of research. NDE research diverts scarce research resources that could be far better spent by looking into the pyscho-social aspects of death, with the intention of improving the death experience for people who follow.

 

[DrP]

21 minutes ago, Prometheus said:

There is such a thing as a good death, and we need to research it more to find out about it.

When my Nan died I was with her. I have heard that a persons last moments of consciousness could seem like a very, very long time to the person dying (no idea if this is true or not but I decided not to chance it). I tried to ensure that she received as much love and positivity for a good half hour or so afterwards just in case there was a small spark left somewhere that could register stimuli or input.....  especially if the perception is distorted and it seems to last a long time for the person. I tried to keep the area as calm and as loving as possible.  The nurse wanted to take her rings off and busy about but I asked her to wait just for a little while to avoid any stressfulness.  

 

[Prometheus]

During my training we were taught that hearing is the last sense to go. But it's not backed up with anything, and it feels like the sort of thing you say to give relatives something to hold onto. In the context of easing people's passing it's the sort of thing we should be focusing end of life research towards.

[mistermack]

I agree it's possible that people we think are dead can still hear and understand what's going on. Possible, but unlikely I would say. 

But in any case, it's the hours and days before death that could be improved first, I think. I remember when my father ways dying, he was unconscious and drugged up, and my family (who loved him dearly) would stand around the bed discussing him like he was completely inert. He might have been, he might not. I was seething inside, but I couldn't say anything, because they meant no harm, and were suffering like I was. I tried a few times to suggest that they talked out of earshot but got no recognition at all. I think they thought I was potty.

They did the same when my Aunt was dying, and she was even responding at the time with the odd squeeze of the hand. Yet they still talked about her as if she was somehow not there in the room. 

I dread to think what it would be like to hear yourself talked about for a while AFTER you were declared dead. 

[Strange]

On 31/10/2018 at 3:29 PM, DrP said:

When my Nan died I was with her. I have heard that a persons last moments of consciousness could seem like a very, very long time to the person dying (no idea if this is true or not but I decided not to chance it). I tried to ensure that she received as much love and positivity for a good half hour or so afterwards just in case there was a small spark left somewhere that could register stimuli or input.....  especially if the perception is distorted and it seems to last a long time for the person. I tried to keep the area as calm and as loving as possible.  The nurse wanted to take her rings off and busy about but I asked her to wait just for a little while to avoid any stressfulness.  

A lovely story. That is a version of Pascal's Wager that I am completely in favour of.

[Gees]

Jfoldbar;

 

On ‎10‎/‎22‎/‎2018 at 3:38 PM, jfoldbar said:

we are nothing but chemistry.

This is a good thing to keep in mind, especially in a thread like this.

 

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i have spent a fair amount of time reading about nde's over the years. ive watched many of sam parnias videos, and some guy in england though have forgotten his name.  these 2 are fairly regarded as doing the 2 largest studies into nde's.

as they are both trauma doctors, "cardio resuscitation", they can get first hand experience of people that are near death. im sure they have probably had experience with people that are actually dead as well. i.e., they go from the trauma ward to the morgue.

 

At least you have done some studying on the subject. I had not seen Parnia's videos before so this was new material for me, although I have studied other things that are related. The biggest problem that I have with Dr. Parnia is that he is a medical doctor, and studies the body; he does not appear to be a Philosopher or Psychologist, so I am not sure what he understands about mind and consciousness.

Medical doctors tend to view consciousness in levels that relate to the state of the brain, such as conscious, semi-conscious, unconscious, asleep, and varying levels of coma, etc. Psychology breaks mind into the rational self-directed conscious mind and the unconscious reactive instinctive mind. This is an important difference as this subject is more about mind than it is about the brain. NDE's are also more about mind than they are about the brain.

We actually do not know how mind and brain connect. We know a lot, we know that they are clearly interrelated and connected in some way, but we do not yet understand that connection. I suspect that understanding the connection would help to explain this time variance that occurs in some NDE's.

 

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however, while im sure they have great knowledge in their own field, there is more going on then just what their field teaches them.

sam, in one of his videos expressed that once the heart has stopped they are for all intents and purposes dead. however the brain can function for 6 minutes (mayby more) after the heart stops beating. he considers this irrelevant. he chooses to ignore the concept that the brain is still doing 'something' for those 6 minutes.

 

Well, I'm not too sure how relevant that six minutes is. If you watch the video again, you may note that he states it takes hours for all of the body to shut down. This is the same information that I got from our resident Biology expert, CharonY. 

So do we die when we stop breathing and our heart stops beating?

Or do we die when the brain loses oxygen six minutes later, and the brain dies?

Or do we die when the last organ and cell in our bodies gives up the ghost hours later and quits trying to survive?

Or like you stated at the beginning of this post, we are nothing but chemistry, so do we die when the chemistry breaks down?

We don't really know when death happens. What we do know is that chemistry (hormones) affects awareness within the body. We also know that chemistry (pheromones) affects awareness between bodies. And we know that the brain is swimming in a bath of chemistry. So IF chemistry is what connects brain to mind, then it is entirely possible that the Religions are correct in the sense that we might exist longer than we suspect -- but not indefinitely.

It is interesting to note that Religions that believe in the afterlife tend to want to preserve the body -- to hold consciousness together? And Religions/Philosophies that tend to accept reincarnation don't necessarily want to preserve the body -- to free consciousness? For myself, I am starting to like the idea of cremation a lot. I haven't been good. (chuckle)

Gee

 

[Eise]

Missed this...

On 10/22/2018 at 9:38 PM, jfoldbar said:

we are nothing but chemistry

Ah..! The 'nothing but' operator! (Also known as the 'just', or 'nothing more' operator.) That means a piece of iron dissolving in sulphuric acid also counts as 'we'? In the end that is a chemical reaction too. So we can question if it is ethical to stop this chemical reaction, in the same way we can ask if it is ethical to kill somebody?

Is a steam train 'nothing but iron, coal, and water'?

9 hours ago, Gees said:

We actually do not know how mind and brain connect.

Of course we do: they don't. Mind and brain are different views on the same processes in our brain. So there is no need to philosophise about how they are connected. Is the plain event of a runner crossing a line the cause of him winning the race? Or how is that event connected to him winning the race? Or is there just one event, seen from different viewpoints?

9 hours ago, Gees said:

And Religions/Philosophies that tend to accept reincarnation don't necessarily want to preserve the body -- to free consciousness? For myself, I am starting to like the idea of cremation a lot. I haven't been good.

Is it comforting to know that you get reincarnated as some lowlife, because of your bad life? 

(OK, you can reincarnate again and again, and have a chance of better lives some time. Might be better than eternal torture in hell...)

Edited November 2, 2018 by Eise
Increased clarity

[Gees]

Dimreepr;

 

On ‎10‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 10:12 AM, dimreepr said:

On ‎10‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 7:19 PM, Gees said:

No. This is not rational; it is not even Rationalism -- it is Reductionism.

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the practice of analysing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituents, especially when this is said to provide a sufficient explanation.

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You get a +1 for questioning this instead of just assuming the answer. I am going to try to explain this in a way that anyone should be able to understand.

Reductionism is where you reduce the idea of something to something else that is more understandable, like saying that consciousness is the "soul" or the "brain" or even "God", which is not a sufficient explanation. If you are correct, it is not a problem, but if you are not correct, it becomes a huge problem.

Imagine that we took an automobile to a primitive place where no one had ever seen an automobile. While examining it, one person notes that the tires do not feel like the other parts of the auto. You explain that tires are rubber, so they are different. The people there associate "tire" with "rubber", or they reduce the idea of rubber to a tire.

Later, I am trying to explain this really cool new material called elastic. I explain that it is made of rubber and you attach it to the waistband of your pants to keep them from falling down. The people there look at me like I am crazy because no one in their right mind would attach a tire to their pants and wear it around their waist. This is how Reductionism can fail.

If I talked about the eraser on a pencil or a rubber tree or even the rubber soles of shoes, I am going to look like an idiot because the people there will visualize a tire, as that is all they know about rubber, so I will make no sense. Tires are only products of rubber; they are not rubber. The soul and the brain are products of consciousness. The soul is a product of consciousness through religious interpretation; the brain is a product of consciousness through the evolution of conscious life. Neither are consciousness.

A thousand years ago when the Monism v Dualism debates started raging, many theories of consciousness erupted from these debates mostly centering around soul, the brain, or illusion. The problem is that when you reduce consciousness to either "soul" or "brain", you have to exclude other life from consciousness, or you have to prove that all life has a "soul" or all life has a "brain". As far as I know, neither daffodils nor crabgrass has a "soul" or a "brain". 

You can decide that other life is not conscious (which Science has been systematically proving wrong), or you have to go with the illusion ideas, which turn Science into a joke. If you look on page 2, Part 2, of my thread, Understanding the "God" Concept, you can read about what I think of that nonsense.

In Philosophy, your premise, the original truth that you base your thoughts on must be valid. If it is not valid, then all your work (thoughts) will be corrupted and you will produce garbage instead of Philosophy. Think of it like a laboratory where you are trying to research biology. If your lab is not clean and sterile, then the other materials will corrupt your work and you will produce garbage instead of Science. Same principle.

For my premises, I look to Science, because I trust Science. Science states that life has DNA. You can think of DNA like a computer chip, which contains memory and knowledge that tells a life form how to grow. All multicellular life has hormones, and all life that has hormones also has pheromones. Hormones guide and dictate survival instincts. All survival instincts work through or are activated by feeling/emotion.

DNA, hormones, and pheromones when put in a vial do absolutely nothing, because they need to be in a life form in order to activate. They activate through awareness. So life has memory, knowledge, feeling/emotion, and awareness. That is consciousness. The only component of consciousness that all life does not seem to possess is thought. Science is pretty secure in the knowledge that thought is digitalized by a brain and thinking is processed by a brain, so a brain is required for actual thinking.

In a thread like this, you can not reduce consciousness to the "brain" or the "soul". The brain dies well before all of the body loses consciousness. "God" does not drop in a soul for instantaneous life, and does not suck out the soul for instantaneous death. That is a religious belief, not Science.

Gee

[Gees]

Prometheus;

 

On ‎10‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 5:40 AM, Prometheus said:

  On ‎10‎/‎30‎/‎2018 at 7:19 PM, Gees said:

You would dismiss any evidence just like you dismissed the citations that were included in the OP, so it would be a ridiculous act for me to try to provide them.

 

On ‎10‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 5:40 AM, Prometheus said:

The 'evidence' has been deconstructed and found wanting in other posts. No one has yet argued against this.

No one has argued against this because there is nothing to argue. If you actually listened to the videos in the OP and you read the citation that you provided, you will find that they are mostly in agreement as to the facts. There might be some disagreement in the opinions, but it is only slight.

Nothing has been "deconstructed". The only thing "wanting" is a better understanding of consciousness, which you clearly do not possess. While reviewing this thread, I noted that you and Strange both made arguments against the idea of an afterlife to Endercreeper01. The problem is that Endercreeper01 did not make any claims about an afterlife anywhere in this thread. I think it was Beecee, who argued with Endercreeper01 about the supernatural. Again, Endercreeper01 did not make any claims about the supernatural. 

I am not sure if I have ever seen so much armchair philosophy, as you seem to be making up false arguments, blaming them on others, then disputing them. And the "click it squad" just loves this, and even gave you and mistermack up votes for your false information regarding the time of death. I got down voted for trying to explain something that is very complex, and CharonY got ignored by the "click it squad" for giving valid information regarding death. If there was ever a good reason to rename the "click it squad" the "idiot squad", this is it.

I am going to put an up vote on CharonY's post, so maybe we won't lose another scientist to a different forum where they are given respect. I also put an up vote on Endercreeper01's post to reverse the down vote, because there was nothing wrong with it.

Gee

[beecee]

On 10/29/2018 at 2:44 PM, beecee said:

Not true. The mind is a wonderful thing, but can and does play tricks on people.  The light and atmospheric disturbances and conditions also are contributors. Check out all the nonsensical claims of Alien controlled UFO's....95% can be explained by the conditions mentioned among others not mentioned. The remaining 5% are just that...unexplained.  When you can legitimately rule out all  scientific causes then you may have an unexplained event...still not actual evidence of anything supernatural.

On 10/29/2018 at 4:21 PM, beecee said:

And for you to say that something is supernatural simply because you cannot explain, and  are ignorant of other possibilities, is rather gullible and silly in the extreme. 

 

On 10/29/2018 at 4:26 PM, Endercreeper01 said:

There are no other possibilities. How can there be? That is what I am saying.

Did someone say that Endercreeper01 did not mention the supernatural?

He certainly inferred it, and did not protest or back away when it was raised. Sometimes, some things are pretty obvious.

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Gees said:

 The problem is that Endercreeper01 did not make any claims about an afterlife anywhere in this thread. I think it was Beecee, who argued with Endercreeper01 about the supernatural. Again, Endercreeper01 did not make any claims about the supernatural.

 

 

Edited November 5, 2018 by beecee

[Prometheus]

9 hours ago, Gees said:

Nothing has been "deconstructed". The only thing "wanting" is a better understanding of consciousness, which you clearly do not possess.

And you clearly know nothing about science. See, that was really easy, but hasn't done anything except maybe annoyed you a bit. Why don't you try to explain what i don't understand about consciousness, i might learn something. 

 

9 hours ago, Gees said:

While reviewing this thread, I noted that you and Strange both made arguments against the idea of an afterlife to Endercreeper01. The problem is that Endercreeper01 did not make any claims about an afterlife anywhere in this thread.

Review it again, pay attention to this exchange:

 

On 10/29/2018 at 5:21 AM, beecee said:

And for you to say that something is supernatural simply because you cannot explain, and  are ignorant of other possibilities, is rather gullible and silly in the extreme. 

 

On 10/29/2018 at 5:26 AM, Endercreeper01 said:

There are no other possibilities. How can there be? That is what I am saying. 

Endercreeper01 claims that the only possibility to explaining NDE is supernatural. Endercreeper01 did not correct anyone who stated that that supernatural belief was life after death, and given the context of the thread can you blame anyone for thinking such? But if you have some special knowledge of what supernatural phenomena she was talking about then please do share.

Edit: Cross-posted with beecee.

 

9 hours ago, Gees said:

I am not sure if I have ever seen so much armchair philosophy, as you seem to be making up false arguments,

I wasn't talking philosophy, i'm talking science. But I did share some personal experiences: if you think them irrelevant feel free to tell me why, or ignore them.

 

9 hours ago, Gees said:

false information regarding the time of death

What specifically was the 'false information about the time of death'? It was based on my over 10 years experience as a nurse witnessing hundreds of deaths. I've also been a part of end-of-life research as a nurse, from study design through ethics applications to implementation. I feel the experiences might be relevant to the discussion, but if not can you please be more specific as to what false statements i am making? 

Also, it your tone sounds as though you are accusing me of deliberately giving false information: is that true, or an artefact of text talk?

 

9 hours ago, Gees said:

And the "click it squad" just loves this, and even gave you and mistermack up votes for your false information regarding the time of death.

Yeah, i'll admit i had a laugh at the expense of that youtube doctor, and i can see why it would offend believers in his stuff. But i reserve my right to offend people - i'll refrain from going out of my way to offend though. 

 

9 hours ago, Gees said:

I am going to put an up vote on CharonY's post

Yes Charon's post was informative, though i'm sure she can survive the indignity of not getting a thumbs up. What of it? Do you think it supports the case for NDEs? I think it detracts from the case. As i believe i have said elsewhere it's possible the brain is still functioning to some capacity during the death process, and even past the point when medically someone would be declared dead. Plenty of time for the brain to have dream like experiences. If with no brain there is no experience at all, this would prove the mind cannot survive the death wouldn't it?

Edited November 5, 2018 by Prometheus
cross-posted with beecee

[Strange]

11 hours ago, Gees said:

For my premises, I look to Science, because I trust Science.

Good.

11 hours ago, Gees said:

DNA, hormones, and pheromones when put in a vial do absolutely nothing, because they need to be in a life form in order to activate. They activate through awareness.

Please provide a reference to the scientific research that demonstrates that DNA etc are "activated by awareness".

I'm sure that will be easy for you as you state it with such confidence and therefore it must be based on science.

[dimreepr]

15 hours ago, Gees said:

I am going to try to explain this in a way that anyone should be able to understand.

 

condescending

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It is really just a way of speaking (or writing) that is meant to make the other person feel inferior. The tone is not actual tone of voice because condescending speech usually incorporates a calm, respectful manner that you cannot quite accuse of being rude.

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15 hours ago, Gees said:

Reductionism is where you reduce the idea of something to else that is more understandable, like saying that consciousness is the "soul" or the "brain" or even "God", which is not a sufficient explanation. 

 

 

15 hours ago, Gees said:

You get a +1 for questioning this instead of just assuming the answer.

Don't do that, it wasn't a question...

[beecee]

9 hours ago, Prometheus said:

Endercreeper01 claims that the only possibility to explaining NDE is supernatural. Endercreeper01 did not correct anyone who stated that that supernatural belief was life after death, and given the context of the thread can you blame anyone for thinking such? But if you have some special knowledge of what supernatural phenomena she was talking about then please do share.

The supernatural is unscientific and unevidenced.

[Gees]

Beecee;

 

22 hours ago, beecee said:

Did someone say that Endercreeper01 did not mention the supernatural?

He certainly inferred it, and did not protest or back away when it was raised. Sometimes, some things are pretty obvious.

In order to say that Endercreeper01 mentioned "the supernatural", Endercreeper01 would actually have to type the words "the supernatural" in a post in this thread. Facts are facts. That did not happen. I checked.

You are the one who inferred it through your interpretation of Endercreeper01's comment. The fact that it was not disputed does not prove anything, as I often do not bother to dispute some rather idiotic things that other people state. To do so would take the thread way off topic, and wouldn't change anyone's mind anyway.

 

4 hours ago, beecee said:

The supernatural is unscientific and unevidenced.

The "supernatural" does not exist. There is no such thing; there is natural and there is man made, that is all. When people use the word, supernatural, they are just talking about something that is still unknown and not understood, but they are also attaching some kind of mystical quality to it. This means that they are superstitious. A person who uses the word, supernatural, is superstitious in my opinion.

Gee

[Strange]

11 minutes ago, Gees said:

In order to say that Endercreeper01 mentioned "the supernatural", Endercreeper01 would actually have to type the words "the supernatural" in a post in this thread.

Nonsense. 

If for example Endercreeper01 said "I believe in God" then he would have mentioned the supernatural.

12 minutes ago, Gees said:

there is natural and there is man made, that is all.

Why is man-made not natural? Mankind is part of nature after all. 

13 minutes ago, Gees said:

A person who uses the word, supernatural, is superstitious in my opinion.

Does this mean you are superstitious because you just used the word supernatural?

23 hours ago, Gees said:

I am not sure if I have ever seen so much armchair philosophy, as you seem to be making up false arguments, blaming them on others, then disputing them.

Irony is dead.

[beecee]

1 hour ago, Gees said:

Beecee;

 

In order to say that Endercreeper01 mentioned "the supernatural", Endercreeper01 would actually have to type the words "the supernatural" in a post in this thread. Facts are facts. That did not happen. I checked.

You are the one who inferred it through your interpretation of Endercreeper01's comment. The fact that it was not disputed does not prove anything, as I often do not bother to dispute some rather idiotic things that other people state. To do so would take the thread way off topic, and wouldn't change anyone's mind anyway.

Don't be so naive, really. 

I said...."and for you to say that something is supernatural simply because you cannot explain, and  are ignorant of other possibilities, is rather gullible and silly in the extreme". 

He replied...."There are no other possibilities. How can there be? That is what I am saying".

While I certainly inferred it first, [based on past interactions and posts of his] he then made a positive statement about no other possibilities, meaning just because he/she can not explain it, means it is supernatural...That's analogous to someone claiming he saw a UFO and because he could not explain it, it must therefor be of Alien origin.

1 hour ago, Gees said:

The "supernatural" does not exist. There is no such thing; there is natural and there is man made, that is all. When people use the word, supernatural, they are just talking about something that is still unknown and not understood, but they are also attaching some kind of mystical quality to it. This means that they are superstitious. A person who uses the word, supernatural, is superstitious in my opinion.Gee

I totally agree....In other words as I previously said, the supernatural is  unscientific.  

[Gees]

Prometheus;

I was half way through a very long post to you when I lost it. My apologies.

Since the trees in the backyard decided to break into my sewer pipes, and tomorrow's election has some proposals that I would like to review again, I will not be able to respond to your post for a few days.

Again, my apologies.

Gee

[Gees]

Prometheus;

 

On ‎11‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 4:34 AM, Prometheus said:

And you clearly know nothing about science. See, that was really easy, but hasn't done anything except maybe annoyed you a bit. Why don't you try to explain what i don't understand about consciousness, i might learn something. 

You were a nurse. Right? How many years did you have to train in order to be a nurse? Then how many years did you have to work and gain experience before you were a good nurse? Do you honestly believe that you could write a post to me that would enable me to understand the job of nursing? If that were the case, people would not have to train for that job.

I can not give you an understanding of consciousness in this post. People have trained and worked for entire lifetimes and still do not have a complete understanding. I don't know what you think I could teach you, but if your request was sincere, I would think that you would have asked about what you should study.

I can tell you this: Stop thinking of consciousness as the brain -- consciousness is essentially communication. Back in the day, people assumed that consciousness meant the brain or language, because that was how we communicated. We now know that every cell in our bodies, every cell in every body, communicates as long as it is still alive. It communicates, not through language, but through chemistry.

Once you understand that, then you would have to learn about mind, the divisions of mind, how the rational conscious mind works, and how the unconscious instinctive mind works, and how Jung's collective consciousness works. Then if you did some serious studying on the concept of "self" and the mind-numbing considerations of how that works with emotion and bonding, you would be in a position to maybe work on the idea of NDE's in some kind of intelligent fashion. This would be a lot better than superstitious notions of afterlife or the supernatural.

 

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Review it again, pay attention to this exchange:

Endercreeper01 claims that the only possibility to explaining NDE is supernatural. Endercreeper01 did not correct anyone who stated that that supernatural belief was life after death, and given the context of the thread can you blame anyone for thinking such? But if you have some special knowledge of what supernatural phenomena she was talking about then please do share.

 

I did review it again, and again,, and again. It is time for you to review it again from the top of that page, but this time look for specific things. 

Did Endercreeper01 actually type the word, supernatural? If not, then who did? How did the word seem to come from Endercreeper01?

What you will find is that it is inferred that Endocreeper01 stated something about the supernatural. In law, this is what we call "leading the witness". This is where you put something into the question that infers or implies an idea or fact that causes a misrepresentation of the answer. This is the reason why you get an attorney to come with you when you answer questions, so that no one uses this trick on you. I worked in law too long to be fooled by this kind of nonsense.

 

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I wasn't talking philosophy, i'm talking science. But I did share some personal experiences: if you think them irrelevant feel free to tell me why, or ignore them.

What specifically was the 'false information about the time of death'? It was based on my over 10 years experience as a nurse witnessing hundreds of deaths. I've also been a part of end-of-life research as a nurse, from study design through ethics applications to implementation. I feel the experiences might be relevant to the discussion, but if not can you please be more specific as to what false statements i am making? 

 

Following are the specific quotes that irritated me:

"And then he's quite disingenuous about how he describes the time of death of a patient: often the cessation of a heart beat. The reality is usually half an hour after the nurse has bleeped some lazy doctor for the 3rd time, but now i'm ranting."    and

"So yes, it appears this doctor is using the thin veneer of medical science to spout rubbish."

 

Not only are the above statements untrue, they are also a slur on the character of the doctor. Now if you stated that this doctor's license was revoked, that might be evidence. Or if you stated that multiple people have sued him for malpractice, that might be evidence. Or if you could show that he had been repeatedly dismissed from various positions, that might be evidence. You did not provide any evidence and only used insult, innuendo, and gossip to rebut his statements. Gossip is not evidence, and if you can't tell the difference, then you are not talking Science or Philosophy.

 

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Also, it your tone sounds as though you are accusing me of deliberately giving false information: is that true, or an artefact of text talk?

I doubt that it was deliberate on your part. For myself, I am probably too damned demanding. In the study of consciousness, it is just too easy to mistake what is true, as it is a very elusive study fraught with biases, assumptions, speculations, and a huge history of misrepresentation, whether religious or otherwise. Because I have studied this for so long, I have developed a rather sinister view of anything that misrepresents truth. I apologize.

 

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Yes Charon's post was informative, though i'm sure she can survive the indignity of not getting a thumbs up.

I am sure she will survive it. If you look 5 or 6 years back in the forum history, you will find that some branches of Science were better represented in this forum years ago than they are now. I personally know of two scientists, who used to be members here, but are now moderators in other Science forums. There are probably more, and I do not want to lose any more scientists -- especially the really good ones.

CharonY does not agree with my interpretation of consciousness, but she has too much professional integrity to try to manipulate the data in order to try to prove me wrong. I have a very high respect for a scientist with professional integrity.

 

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What of it? Do you think it supports the case for NDEs? I think it detracts from the case. As i believe i have said elsewhere it's possible the brain is still functioning to some capacity during the death process, and even past the point when medically someone would be declared dead. Plenty of time for the brain to have dream like experiences. If with no brain there is no experience at all, this would prove the mind cannot survive the death wouldn't it?

You are still talking about the brain. 

Gee

Strange;

This is a fine example of "scab picking philosophy" where you ask a question that has no real relevance to NDE's, then I try to answer the question, then you dispute that, and so on, and so on, until no one can remember the topic. Do you see how this works?

 

On ‎11‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 4:49 AM, Strange said:

Good.

Please provide a reference to the scientific research that demonstrates that DNA etc are "activated by awareness".

I'm sure that will be easy for you as you state it with such confidence and therefore it must be based on science.

Well, Strange, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe something else activates DNA, hormones, and pheromones.

Please provide information on the other things that activate DNA, hormones, and pheromones.

Gee

 

Dimreepr;

 

On ‎11‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 8:58 AM, dimreepr said:

condescending

 

 

Don't do that, it wasn't a question...

If you look at the second emoticon, it comes up as "unsure" when I hover my mouse over it. When someone says they are "unsure" of something, that often means that they would like more information. If I interpreted that incorrectly, I apologize.

It was not my intent to be condescending, it was my intent to be clear in my explanation. Please remember that although the post was to you, many other people may read it, so I tried to make it clear to anyone, who might read it no matter their level of training or experience.

Gee

 

Strange;

 

On ‎11‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 6:57 PM, Strange said:

If for example Endercreeper01 said "I believe in God" then he would have mentioned the supernatural.

No. A belief in "God" is not supernatural. You could review the first post in my thread, Understanding the "God" Concept, for more information, but consider that what most people call the supernatural is actually just natural phenomenon mixed with the unconscious aspect of mind. Nothing to worry about.

Gee