Finnish Mystic’s Visions of Afterlife Match NDE Research

However, this leaves the Hard Problem unsolved because changing momentum is a purely physical event, and there is no way to translate that into any sort of awareness.

It is a purely physical event only if you define it as such.

If you don't know how to explain qualia, then who is to say that every sort of interaction or transformation doesn't result in some rudimentary form of qualia?

I am not sure if your last post is somewhat tongue in cheek - should I try to pull the rest of it to pieces?

David

If you wish. :) There's no other way to talk about where the sidewalk ends or where the end becomes the beginning. The universe was created partially tongue in cheek and so we must explain it that way.
 
However, this leaves the Hard Problem unsolved because changing momentum is a purely physical event, and there is no way to translate that into any sort of awareness.

I am not sure if your last post is somewhat tongue in cheek - should I try to pull the rest of it to pieces?

David
Every single explanation I’ve ever seen completely ignores the hard problem. Then when you raise that with somebody attempting to explain consciousness in material terms, they’ll say, “yea but quantum measurements and neuronal networks this and that”, and continue to go on with other explanations that (even if they don’t realize it) still completely ignore the hard problem and they never get an inch closer to describing why any arrangement of anything physical should lead to a subjective conscious experience. Then you challenge them on that point, and then they respond, again, by going deeper on their explanation, adding in new pieces of physical material and combinations of them and different analogies, and they still have yet to come a millimeter closer to explaining why an arrangement of atoms should translate into a conscious subjective experience. Or why a particular arrangement of atoms should be considered the same thing as my thought that, “Boy I Really feel like eating some apples with Peanut butter.” As if that thought is somehow analogous to X number of protons, electrons, up quarks, down quarks etc. Even if you could somehow mathematically determine that you’ve isolated that X number of atoms definitely exist along with other physical items and forces and arrangements whenever I have a particular exact thought, that combination (or any particular combination of anything material) is still not the same thing as the subjective experience of that thought.

But I’m preaching to the choir here. I think. I hope lol.

I also don’t buy the idea that rocks, or all atoms have consciousness, because I’m full of atoms, and as far as I can tell, I am one consciousness. You could speculate that I have one overall consciousness, and my separate atoms have their own separate consciousness, but that’s really compounding the issue and you have to then explain why this huge number of atoms (all separately conscious) have given rise to another SEPERATE grand consciousness (myself), and where do you stop with that? Have the arrangement of atoms in my fingernail given rise to a larger consciousness in my fingernail (in addition to the separate consciousness of all the individual atoms in my fingernail?) All the atoms in my fingernail are self-aware but they’ve also given rise to a self aware fingernail that calls itself “I”? Of course consciousness isn’t necessarily analogous to self-awareness, you can get the picture of where I’m going with this. Or maybe you can’t.
 
Every single explanation I’ve ever seen completely ignores the hard problem.
Right - and every discussion of panpsychism also ignores the obvious flaw in the idea - one atom, or one electron, or one proton can't differ from any others - so if they are all conscious, they have the same tiny scrap of consciousness! If you look at the subject using ordinary QM, the Schroedinger equation treats all electrons as equivalent in the sense that if you swap two electrons you only change the sign of the wave-function, which doesn't really change anything. A similar conclusion applies, I believe, if you look at the problem from the point of view of Quantum Field Theory (not something I ever knew much of!)

So you can't go postulating arbitrary bits of consciousness on individual elementary particles - so what exactly are these scraps of consciousness supposed to be linked with? I mean, say you start to associate them with a molecule - say H2O - well one molecule of water might differ from another one in its vibrational/rotational state, but that still wouldn't give you many distinct entities called H2O, and anyway, what logic would there be to saying that H2O is consciousness, but the atoms or elementary particles of which it is composed are too small to be conscious - in effect you have re-created the Hard Problem again right there!

On top of all that, it seems to me that panpsychism is a sort of cop-out - here is Christof Koch expounding on the idea:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-consciousness-universal/

As a natural scientist, I find a version of panpsychism modified for the 21st century to be the single most elegant and parsimonious explanation for the universe I find myself in.
It simply doesn't make sense, and it seems to be used as a way of dodging the HP issue while pretending you have solved it.

David
 
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What awaits us after we die? Is there really a "there" there to explore? Is there a thought form created by what we think it's going to be, or is there a reality out there that we must face?

I think there is a 'there-there' to explore, but I'm still very new to this exploration. I tend to think there is a reality out there that we must face, but that's b/c I think there is a reality here we must face. I think our greatest cultural issues now are compounding b/c so many are unwilling or unable to face it and once they do it often becomes a case of out of the cave and into the fire, or the swamp.

While I've never had an NDE or personally know anyone who has I have had dreams a couple of times of close relatives just before they pass, which certainly makes me curious. I also have a question based on another very odd occurrence for anyone here who may have some knowledge to share as to if this fits anywhere in NDE research and where I might find more material about it.

I had an experience having to kill a large snake in our chicken coop. Normally this is something hubby would do, but he was out of town. I was quite nervous and anxious about it--not exactly afraid, b/c it was not poisonous and I don't have an unreasonable fear of snakes, or particularly like them either. To make a long story short, I tried to stab it with pitch fork so I could pull it out of the nesting box. The moment I struck it I felt an extraordinary jolt through my entire body, and I recoiled, and the snake slithered away into a darker corner of the coop. The odd thing that happened was in that moment the electricity went out in the house, on a beautiful sunny morning with no wind or even a cloud in the sky. Of course I write that off as a crazy coincidence, yet at the time it did not feel like a coincidence, my feeling was it was connected. Then my brain stepped in and said, no, impossible, just a coincidence. Has anyone else heard or experienced such phenomena with electricity? I assume the jolt I felt was adrenaline and I'm just not used to that level of rush--is that typical feeling for those more adrenaline-seeking folks?

I had a really strange experience the other day as well. It very well could’ve been coincidence but if so, it was a rather bizzare one. I had my headphones on as I was getting ready to walk my dogs and I always listen to Podcasts as I walk them. I was listening to “Near Death Radio, sponsored by IANDS” and this guy was going on about “post-Death signs” that our loved ones leave us after they die. I began thinking, “I don’t think this sort of thing has ever happened to me.” As I was thinking this, I sort of vaguely had my deceased mother in mind. Right as I was in that thought, the TV in my living room came on by itself!! I was just standing in the middle of the room with my dogs leashes in hand. I was so stunned that just I stood there, nervously for at least a few minutes just staring at the TV screen. After I collected myself, I checked where the controller was, it was sitting on the kitchen counter, I looked behind the TV, everything seemed normal, and both of my dogs were in the bedroom. I’ve had that TV for 3 years and I’ve never seen it do that. Coincidence? Maybe, but I don’t know guys. It really scared me in one way, and excited me in another.
 
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I had a really strange experience the other day as well. It very well could’ve been coincidence but if so, it was a rather bizzare one. I had my headphones on as I was getting ready to walk my dogs and I always listen to Podcasts as I walk them. I was listening to “Near Death Radio, sponsored by IANDS” and this guy was going on about “post-Death signs” that our loved ones leave us after they die. I began thinking, “I don’t think this sort of thing has ever happened to me.” As I was thinking this, I sort of vaguely had my deceased mother in mind. Right as I was in that thought, the TV in my living room came on by itself!! I was just standing in the middle of the room with my dogs leashes in hand. I was so stunned that just I stood there, nervously for at least a few minutes just staring at the TV screen. After I collected myself, I checked where the controller was, it was sitting on the kitchen counter, I looked behind the TV, everything seemed normal, and both of my dogs were in the bedroom. I’ve had that TV for 3 years and I’ve never seen it do that. Coincidence? Maybe, but I don’t know guys. It really scared me in one way, and excited me in another.
That sounds rather impressive - I wonder if you can persuade your mother to do it again?

Just out of interest, was the TV on standby or actually switched off - i.e. was a purely electronic tweak necessary to start it up, or did it need the physical movement of a switch?

David
 
That sounds rather impressive - I wonder if you can persuade your mother to do it again?

Just out of interest, was the TV on standby or actually switched off - i.e. was a purely electronic tweak necessary to start it up, or did it need the physical movement of a switch?

David

Well I can’t be certain, but I think it was powered off. My wife is anal about turning everything off before bed and this was earlyish morning. There is some possibility that it was on though I suppose. I’ll meditate/pray and ask for another sign :)
 
I’ve also had a weird ‘coincidence’ involving electronics and the deceased. Two years ago in June, my step grandfather died of cancer. The same day he died, sometime in the afternoon when his body had been removed from the house, my aunt had something strange happen to her. She went on Facebook to find that he had ‘sent’ a picture of him and her at the zoo! The picture was from a couple of months ago when they went to the Columbus Zoo. His phone had been in my grandmothers dresser shut off with the battery out for a month. There were a lot of people at the house that day, but all of them were family and wouldn’t mess with her like that. It should also be noted that when he first married my grandmother, my aunt and mom hated him and vice versa. But during the last six months of his life, my aunt and him had gotten really close with one another. This all could have been some coincidence, but I can’t help but to ask, “what if?”
 
When my husband was dying each of his sons visited at separate times. As he was giving what I called his "dying Sandy speech" to his oldest son, (Sandy was their mother and was killed in an auto accident at the age of 29), I decided to leave the room and went into my bedroom. The vacuum cleaner was plugged into the wall outlet and in the off position. As he was giving this speech in the other room, the vacuum cleaner suddenly turned itself on in my bedroom....in front of my eyes. I always thought that was probably a "wave from the other side" from Sandy herself.
 
Dead people seems to really like electronics. Even the skeptic Michael Shermer had an experience with an old radio.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...-that-can-shake-one-s-skepticism-to-the-core/

I think it’s the easiest way for them to manipulate the environment in order for us to take notice. In the paranormal research field it’s widely known/speculated that spirits can more easily manifest if there is a surrounding source of energy or energy field and that spirits themselves are actually energy of some sort, so it all makes sense really.
 
Every single explanation I’ve ever seen completely ignores the hard problem. Then when you raise that with somebody attempting to explain consciousness in material terms, they’ll say, “yea but quantum measurements and neuronal networks this and that”, and continue to go on with other explanations that (even if they don’t realize it) still completely ignore the hard problem and they never get an inch closer to describing why any arrangement of anything physical should lead to a subjective conscious experience. Then you challenge them on that point, and then they respond, again, by going deeper on their explanation, adding in new pieces of physical material and combinations of them and different analogies, and they still have yet to come a millimeter closer to explaining why an arrangement of atoms should translate into a conscious subjective experience. Or why a particular arrangement of atoms should be considered the same thing as my thought that, “Boy I Really feel like eating some apples with Peanut butter.” As if that thought is somehow analogous to X number of protons, electrons, up quarks, down quarks etc. Even if you could somehow mathematically determine that you’ve isolated that X number of atoms definitely exist along with other physical items and forces and arrangements whenever I have a particular exact thought, that combination (or any particular combination of anything material) is still not the same thing as the subjective experience of that thought.

But I’m preaching to the choir here. I think. I hope lol.

I also don’t buy the idea that rocks, or all atoms have consciousness, because I’m full of atoms, and as far as I can tell, I am one consciousness. You could speculate that I have one overall consciousness, and my separate atoms have their own separate consciousness, but that’s really compounding the issue and you have to then explain why this huge number of atoms (all separately conscious) have given rise to another SEPERATE grand consciousness (myself), and where do you stop with that? Have the arrangement of atoms in my fingernail given rise to a larger consciousness in my fingernail (in addition to the separate consciousness of all the individual atoms in my fingernail?) All the atoms in my fingernail are self-aware but they’ve also given rise to a self aware fingernail that calls itself “I”? Of course consciousness isn’t necessarily analogous to self-awareness, you can get the picture of where I’m going with this. Or maybe you can’t.
Or maybe the whole problem is based on a category error.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/99/What_Hard_Problem
 
Or maybe the whole problem is based on a category error.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/99/What_Hard_Problem

That may be relevant in some way but it still doesnt come close to explaining why consciousness exists. Just philosophical musings on what "hard" and "easy" mean along with some assumptions, like "Consciousness as we have been discussing it is a biological process, explained by neurobiological and other cognitive mechanisms, and whose raison d’etre can in principle be accounted for on evolutionary grounds." An assumption which I feel is totally falsified by NDE and, particularly, veridical OBE reports. But lets even grant them that it is a fact that, "consciousness is purely a biological process." You dont come in inch closer to explaining its emergence by deciding what sort of category of an unexplained problem that it is. Its still 100 percent unexplained either way. That was my point. What I took from this link you provided is that "maybe someday we will figure it out."
 
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I just finished reading the pdf From Death to Rebirth. I have a question on the content that maybe Dr. Savant (Antti) can answer as it's maybe covered in other writings of P.E. (which I take Antti has researched quite a bit more than is covered in the book). There is this passage in the book:
Quote from Book Pagination p76 (PDF Pagination p78) said:
Such people as Theosophists, occultists, or whatever term we wish to use, who have more or less the right conception of the afterlife, will be received with special care on the other side. This kind of person will be asked: "Now that you have entered here, would you like to spend time with your own soul experiences, or would you like to start working in this world?" And then these people, at least most them, will answer with elation: "There is nothing more wonderful than working and serving here; it is the greatest joy to me." "Well, since you have such a good and sincere will to help, come to the school; when you have finished it, you can join a certain group of helpers, as we have many kinds of them here."

My questions are:

(1) What is meant by "spending time with your own soul experiences"?

(2) If you chose this spending time with your own soul experiences what does it mean for progression in the spirit world? Will it bring you closer to God quicker by focusing on your own soul experiences? Or is there some deficit attached to deciding in that way? (Like maybe it's seen as being 'selfish' and not so elevated as helping others. Did P.E. ever write about this area.)
 
Hi Radish,

thank you for your questions! See my answers below. I'll write as if the ideas presented were true (I believe that Ervast's accounts are quite accurate but I do realize that they do not constitute verifiable knowledge). Note also that this is just my interpretation on Ervast's teachings.

(1) What is meant by "spending time with your own soul experiences"?

As nders tell us, there is a life review quite soon after leaving the body. In addition, it is followed by the second life review which lasts about a third of the life time (i.e., time spent sleeping). It is devoted to living through the life experiences: one clearly sees and feels how his or her actions affected others. The first life review is objective in nature (one sees what was good and what was not-so-good but with no pain or suffering); this is because the first life review takes place in the light of the higher self. This light allows one to see the lived life from a higher ethical perspective. However, the second life review is living through the events personally and working through negative thoughts, emotions, and deeds and how they affected other people and the world. This is sometimes called purgatory because it can include painful experiences and insights into the shadow of one's own soul. At the same time it is purification and healing, although it certainly might not feel so especially if a human being have acted in a violent and evil way. On the other hand, for some people this is not hard at all; it all depends on how one has lived his or her life. When this process is finished, the soul is left only that which is true, good and loving; only these kind of qualities can endure life in the heavenly state which is the home of our high selves. The whole process of purification is what Ervast refers as "spending time with your soul experiences".

(2) If you chose this spending time with your own soul experiences what does it mean for progression in the spirit world? Will it bring you closer to God quicker by focusing on your own soul experiences? Or is there some deficit attached to deciding in that way? (Like maybe it's seen as being 'selfish' and not so elevated as helping others. Did P.E. ever write about this area.)[/QUOTE]

In order to be able to help others in the soul world, one must have some control over his or her lower self. This means in practice that this kind of person has strived to grow ethically. Compassionate and helpful attitude towards other people has been important for this kind of person. In addition, spiritual understanding of the afterlife is helpful as well: a prepared mind can learn how to help in a soul world much more easily than, say, a person with strong materialistic philosophy.

Another perspective to this question is that a spiritually awakened person has already dealt with his or her dark aspects and habits to some extent. There is less negativity to work with which liberates the person to work for others. In a way, this kind of person has lived through the purgatory while being on earth. What is left unfinished will be taken care quite quickly. Furthermore, some people have already found the connection with their higher self (or God, the names do not matter) while being alive. They continue having this connection in the afterlife as well. They are like angels, they can move freely between the various afterlife states and can reach people residing even in hellish conditions.

I suppose that helping others is more noble than concentrating on one's own soul experiences. However, sometimes it might be the right thing to do. I don't think there is a judgmental element in this choice.

I hope this helps!

Antti
 
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Thanks very much for answering my questions, Antti - much appreciated.

Now I'm thinking if I ever find myself myself in that position my answer will be I'll deal with my own soul experiences first and do the helping others after that because dealing with my own 'stuff' first might make me a better helper.

When I was reading From Death to Rebirth the parts mentioning the soul going through various 'trials' of a possibly painful nature, and also of 'dying' in the spirit realms, to reach higher parts of the spirit realms, I couldn't help but think that in some ways that was similar to what Geraldine Cummins (channelling Frederic W. H. Myers) was writing in The Road to Immortality and Beyond Human Personality both of which I found interesting reading. I don't think Cummins or Myers were Theosophists though.
 
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