Is Westworld our world?

This does appear to happen if the reports are to be trusted. I've bookmarked a couple of reports which I've come across, probably due to folks posting them in this forum:
I've seen other reports too though - some of which are even more extreme.

I guess I wasn't clear, Laird - this is not what I was asking for when I wrote:

"If these experiences are allowed/made to happen so that more and more people (like David) believe that "it's all good even if we don't get it", why don't we receive the same type of message via other less "controversial channels"? For instance, a number of people could be made to "rise from the dead" after having been officially declared dead in hospitals - say, a few days later, which would eliminate all sorts of doubts on the part of "mainstream scientists".

The articles you linked to do not refer to people coming back from the dead (having been officially declared dead, and preferably after the first signs of decomposition have appeared) AND also reporting NDEs.

One of these two people moreover suffered from dementia, so whatever she might have said could not really have been taken at face value anyway - hardly a good choice for what lies beyond the veil to convey un uncontroversial message to mankind.....

Btw only the first article mentions time (she woke up 11 hours after being declared dead, so definitely not days, as I had asked), and the second article is about a prisoner so one may surmise that his apparent death was dealt with "unprofessionally" so as to get him out of the prison system rapidly - anyway this second report is not sufficiently reliable: it seems to be based on what "his family" said, and it is likely that they were not objective about what happened to him. The article clearly says that what might have happened " is not confirmed".

It is therefore probable that neither of these two examples (certainly not the first one) would qualify as rising from the dead a few days later, as I had asked.

And, even more importantly, neither of these two articles mentions these two people reporting NDEs about what they encountered after dying (I guess in such cases one should say ADEs...After-Death-Experiences :))
 
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I guess I wasn't clear, Laird - this is not what I was asking for

Thank you for being so clear and assertive as to your requirements and how my offering failed to meet them, dear Magda. I will do some more digging, because I believe I have encountered reports which meet your requirements, but as to whether I can track them down, and as to their reliability, those are open questions!
 
Ideally, we'd take a systematic approach to this whole issue, perhaps supported by a software tool more suitable than XenForo, but right now I don't have the energy to try to make that happen.
I can recommend MyBB as an alternative software. Maybe it could be considered as a possibility.
 
I can recommend MyBB as an alternative software. Maybe it could be considered as a possibility.

Heh. Yep, for forum discussions, it's pretty good!

I was thinking though more along the lines of custom software that has built-in structures for data points to be considered, models which take those data points into account, assessments of how well each model accounts for each data point, including structures for arguments for and against those accountings, and counter-arguments to those arguments, etc, etc.

I'm wondering whether perhaps the police have built or use such software - it would seem to be perfectly applicable for the process of investigating a crime: there, too, you have a bunch of data points to take into account ("evidence"), as well as different "models" as to how the crime might have been committed and by whom, for each of which you need to assess how well it accounts for each "data point" (the evidence), subject to arguments (and counter-arguments) for/against, etc etc.
 
I guess I wasn't clear, Laird - this is not what I was asking for when I wrote:

"If these experiences are allowed/made to happen so that more and more people (like David) believe that "it's all good even if we don't get it", why don't we receive the same type of message via other less "controversial channels"? For instance, a number of people could be made to "rise from the dead" after having been officially declared dead in hospitals - say, a few days later, which would eliminate all sorts of doubts on the part of "mainstream scientists".

The articles you linked to do not refer to people coming back from the dead (having been officially declared dead, and preferably after the first signs of decomposition have appeared) AND also reporting NDEs.

One of these two people moreover suffered from dementia, so whatever she might have said could not really have been taken at face value anyway - hardly a good choice for what lies beyond the veil to convey un uncontroversial message to mankind.....

Btw only the first article mentions time (she woke up 11 hours after being declared dead, so definitely not days, as I had asked), and the second article is about a prisoner so one may surmise that his apparent death was dealt with "unprofessionally" so as to get him out of the prison system rapidly - anyway this second report is not sufficiently reliable: it seems to be based on what "his family" said, and it is likely that they were not objective about what happened to him. The article clearly says that what might have happened " is not confirmed".

It is therefore probable that neither of these two examples (certainly not the first one) would qualify as rising from the dead a few days later, as I had asked.

And, even more importantly, neither of these two articles mentions these two people reporting NDEs about what they encountered after dying (I guess in such cases one should say ADEs...After-Death-Experiences :))


What do you think about this one? https://www.near-death.com/science/evidence/some-people-were-dead-for-several-days.html#a04
 
I meant "objectively real", which would have been the better term to use. That is, experiences - and their consequences - of pain and suffering exist objectively, regardless of any comparisons that can be made to other experiences (in this reality or some other).



Sure they count, but unless those levels consist in even ghastlier pain and suffering, then there is no reason to excuse or minimise the pain and suffering in this level.
Well I wish this discussion didn't descend to a moralistic level so easily. I mean isn't it worth stretching our minds a little to at least ask if that need be true? A lot of small discomforts in this life are tolerated or even relished because they are part of a larger context. Masochists even enjoy pain as such - being whipped for example. That leads in to the whole idea of Yin and Yang, which claims that opposite emotional extremes are somehow inter-related, and one can't exist without the other.
Yes, that would be a problem. I am not sure how it is relevant though - I haven't seen anybody in this discussion grant "infinite" powers to more than one entity.
I'd argue that if God had totally infinite powers, that would render a lot of explanations meaningless. For example, why should Earth have any history before humans - he could have made the lot in one go? The narrative of many NDE's suggests that a celestial mistake was made - which would not be possible for a being with infinite powers.

David
 
Would you please provide us with links to the accounts you mention? Do you mean that these people were actually officially declared clinically dead? I was thinking more in terms of people who had already been taken care by an undertaker and prepared for the funeral, you know, after the first signs of physical decomposition had appeared. THAT would definitely be impossible for 'science' to dispute.
They are pretty easy to GOOGLE:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ne...ck-to-life-after-being-dead-for-17-hours.html
But anyway this is not so important since you then say that NDEs seem to be involuntary on the part of what lies beyond the veil.

In fact what you suggest (that the transition to death doesn't always go according to plan, so that NDEs are not revelations but ACCIDENTS in the big scheme of things) would then very clearly imply that the consciousness behind the veil is not at all all-powerful - heck, our pretty primitive medical technology, which still fails to save millions of people from premature death, is able to rend holes in the veil which "God" decided to put there, so that we could continue to live our lives in uncertainty as to our condition and ignorance about the nature of reality until the very end!

Doesn't this suggest that whatever these NDErs meet beyond the veil can NOT be the ultimate consciousness/power that has given rise to the whole of Reality?

Gnostics would say that NDErs meet the imperfect, clumsy Demiurge and his Archons, and not the "God-above-God"!

NB: I don't take the Gnostic myth literally, obviously! What I mean is that we could very well be the (imperfect) creatures of (other-dimensional but just as imperfect, though much more powerful than us) forms of consciousness who are trying to make us believe that they are "God".

As some have said, it could be "turtles all the way down" for all we know!
LOL - well anything is at least possible - this subject is anything but clear!

David
 
I'd argue that if God had totally infinite powers, that would render a lot of explanations meaningless. For example, why should Earth have any history before humans - he could have made the lot in one go? The narrative of many NDE's suggests that a celestial mistake was made - which would not be possible for a being with infinite powers.

David

Excellent, so since you are talking about an entity WITHOUT infinite powers, the idea that these NDErs have met "God" (in its mainstream definition of the term) is out of the question, by definition:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/god

GOD:
capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality: such as a : the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe
 
A lot of small discomforts in this life

Nobody's argument in this thread is based on "small discomforts" though. Why are you avoiding the actual argument, to the extent of not even quoting the bit about "enhanced interrogation techniques" in my post, nor answering the question I raised with respect to them?

I'd argue that if God had totally infinite powers, that would render a lot of explanations meaningless. For example, why should Earth have any history before humans - he could have made the lot in one go? The narrative of many NDE's suggests that a celestial mistake was made - which would not be possible for a being with infinite powers.

Oh, I missed that you'd originally written "one or more"; I had misread it as "more than one". I also think that the meaning of an "infinite" Being is pretty vague. Infinite in which sense(s)?

But in any case, don't you think that a singular, infinite God is far more of a problem for the "incarnation as a school" model than for the alternatives being proposed in this thread (i.e. because the alternatives generally don't propose such a God in the first place!)?
 
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Great, but where's his NDE account??

The first nine paragraphs below the (blue/purple?) horizontal line after the first paragraph under the heading "1. Reverend George Rodonaia's NDE" seem like a pretty good candidate as an NDE account - don't you think?

I'm guessing that perhaps you didn't scroll up the page - bad LetsEat for providing a dodgy link to an anchor near the bottom of the page!
 
The first nine paragraphs below the (blue/purple?) horizontal line after the first paragraph under the heading "1. Reverend George Rodonaia's NDE" seem like a pretty good candidate as an NDE account - don't you think?

I'm guessing that perhaps you didn't scroll up the page - bad LetsEat for providing a dodgy link to an anchor near the bottom of the page!

That's exactly what happened! Thank you dear Laird :)
 
The first nine paragraphs below the (blue/purple?) horizontal line after the first paragraph under the heading "1. Reverend George Rodonaia's NDE" seem like a pretty good candidate as an NDE account - don't you think?

I'm guessing that perhaps you didn't scroll up the page - bad LetsEat for providing a dodgy link to an anchor near the bottom of the page!

However, without even reading it properly (have go go soon), I can already say this:

1) this is definitely an a-moral "God", so the word God is a misnomer (see dictionary definition above) - I quote from the account: "God, I believe, is even more than the light, because God is also darkness. God is everything that exists, everything - and that is beyond our ability to comprehend at all. So I don't believe in the God of the Jews, or the Christians, or the Hindus, or in any one religion's idea of what God is or is not."
2) I had never heard of this guy before (and most of mankind either, or everybody would know about this story, as much as practically everybody knows the history of Christ at least!) so this story probably has not been objectively validated (which I suspect, as it comes from a pretty obscure website)
3) if what is beyond the veil really wanted us to believe in NDEs, this kind of experience would be happening far more frequently, and in contexts that would make this completely obvious, so that eventually even skeptics would have to concede that it's indisputable. I would have to research this guy to see if his story has been verified by independent researchers, but my point remains anyway.
4) the reason why I asked this question aimed at ascertaining whether NDEs are made to happen voluntarily by whatever is beyond the veil. The unanimous answer by those who believe in the veracity of NDEs here so far has been "no", so this suggests that whatever is beyond the veil is not almighty, and hence cannot be God by definition.
 
Nobody's argument in this thread is based on "small discomforts" though. Why are you avoiding the actual argument, to the extent of not even quoting the bit about "enhanced interrogation techniques" in my post, nor answering the question I raised with respect to them?
I agree that suffering can be intense, but I think it may look very different when viewed 'out there'.

I didn't want to read about US torture, because I agree that there was a period when the US lapsed to that degree. I very much hope that will not happen again. I don't think the politics of this help in this far more abstract discussion - there is all kinds of terrible suffering on Earth - we don't need examples.
But in any case, don't you think that a singular, infinite God is far more of a problem for the "incarnation as a school" model than for the alternatives being proposed in this thread (i.e. because the alternatives generally don't propose such a God in the first place!)?
I am not pushing for a traditional God in any way - LOL! I suspect there are beings out there with much more intelligence than we have, and maybe you are right and some of them are malevolent.

Another interesting reason to believe in multiple intelligences out there, is that if you, like me, think Intelligent Design is likely, you have to explain the arms races between parasites and their victims.

David
 
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I didn't want to read about US torture, because I agree that there was a period when the US lapsed to that degree. I very much hope that will not happen again. I don't think the politics of this help in this far more abstract discussion - there is all kinds of terrible suffering on Earth - we don't need examples.

Putting a Vietnamese woman in a cage and starving her to death? Raping victims with eels and snakes prior to murdering them? The use and insertion of a 6 inch dowel into the canal of a detainees' ears, and then 'tapping through the brain until [the detainee was] dead?' And you blithely dismiss this as distasteful "politics"?

This isn't political at all -- it's the actual manifestation of evil. And this discussion is about whether there is a creator or creator beings who would permit this type of evil as part of our "learning" process -- and/or whether soul fractals would willingly sign up for such trauma.

And we DO need examples -- real examples of what evil actually looks like -- so it's not minimized or denied. Maybe then you'll stop analogizing watching a horror movie or playing a video game to what actually happens to people in real life.
 
This isn't political at all -- it's the actual manifestation of evil. And this discussion is about whether there is a creator or creator beings who would permit this type of evil as part of our "learning" process -- and/or whether soul fractals would willingly sign up for such trauma.

Look there is absolutely no sense whatever in mixing this thread with politics. Obviously I think what went on was a manifestation of evil, though the fundamental evil was to attack Vietnam in the first place. Once you unleash the dogs of war, terrible things happen.

Remember, I did not invent this idea that incarnation is a learning process. I am simply disinclined to accept that all those NDE's are deliberate lies - though they may leave something out.

David
 
Hey Laird, I'm really pressed for time at the moment and can't think of a way to answer your great questions quickly. So, here's one answer, the rest will follow.....

And one final question if you'll permit: what relationship (if any) do you propose between the impersonal, pantheistic God of your paradigm and the Being of Light experienced in some NDEs as a telepathically-communicating, personal Being?

Ok, I might have to sketch out some of my current thinking for the answer to make sense (it's also a very good exercise for me as this is something I'm still trying to get my head around).....

  • We exist in two realms at once - the physical realm and the consciousness realm. The consciousness realm is the dimension of dreams, psychedelic experiences, lucid dreaming, active imagination, OBEs, NDEs, etc. The physical has defined laws, the consciousness realm is far more 'non-local' in its operation. Our awareness switches between the two via the mechanism of attention - when our attention is on the embodied, our awareness is primarily on the physical, when our attention moves away from embodiment, via trance/dreams/imagination/whatever, our awareness begins to shift increasingly towards the consciousness realm.
  • Life has an omnipresent pattern of systems embedded within larger systems that transcend the sum of their parts.
  • It's not a huge stretch to imagine the consciousness realm as operating under the same pattern as the physical - a series of consciousnesses embedded within larger transcendent consciousnesses.
  • All beings with complex consciousness (like animals) should also have some kind of an existence in the consciousness realm.
  • If complexity seems to be a requirement for complex consciousness to arise (flow into?) a system, could we not imagine extremely complex systems like forests, oceans, planets, galaxies, as having some kind of complex consciousness?
  • As aspects of our own psychology regularly manifest as forms in our dreams (lucid or otherwise), is it not possible that archetypes/collective fears/drives/whatever from the human collective consciousness field may have a kind of existence in the consciousness realm?
  • If humans have a life after bodily death, is it not likely to assume that other physical entities/processes/systems do too? If so, this could conceivably count for entities from other solar systems and those long since extinct.
  • Dream telepathy seems to indicate contact with another human being's consciousness. Shamanic experience, if taken at face value, seems to indicate contact with the consciousness fields of animals, plants and other natural processes. Various phenomena seem to indicate that we can have contact with the consciousness of deceased humans.
All this opens up a gigantic ecosystems of of entities to potentially come into contact with when engaging with the consciousness realm.... with the realm's topography of embedded consciousness fields looking something like this (from the human perspective, anyway):

Individual Field
personal fears, drives, aspirations, complexes, etc.
|
Collective Human Field
Collective emotions, archetypes, drives, fears, complexes, etc.
|
Gaian (Earth) Field
Animals, plants, ecosystems, other processes(?), etc.
|
Solar Field
????????????
|
Galactic Field
???????????????????????
|
ETC.
OK, building on the above, I think we have a few options for what the being of light is.....

  1. An archetype within the human collective consciousness field. Meeting Jesus or Buddha could be encounters with the same archetype. If so, the fact that we're shown the best of our nature in archetypal form is kinda interesting in itself.
  2. Contact/communication with a higher transcendental system in which we are embedded (Earth, Solar System, Galaxy?). In the physical, higher and lower systems do exchange information (like in the human body).
  3. Earlier in the thread I suggested that the cosmos's tendency to seek to maximise certain characteristics may imply the presence of 'attractors'. Perhaps the 'being of light' is an embodiment of a consciousness attractor? A moral attractor, even? If existence is process..... is the being of light the goal state for humanity?
Done!
 
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