Alex Tsakiris and Tom Jump Debate Near Death Experience Sceicne |408|

My thinking on the soul is unorthodox. I believe that the brain does produce and sustain consciousness. The soul is the non-physical or inner consciousness. In other words, the soul is a product of the brain. I don’t believe that God installs souls into brains in utero. I also believe that, once a consciousness begins, it never ends. Consciousness is partially in non-physical reality during life, and completely in non-physical reality after death.

The physical precedes the spiritual.
 
My thinking on the soul is unorthodox. I believe that the brain does produce and sustain consciousness. The soul is the non-physical or inner consciousness. In other words, the soul is a product of the brain. I don’t believe that God installs souls into brains in utero. I also believe that, once a consciousness begins, it never ends. Consciousness is partially in non-physical reality during life, and completely in non-physical reality after death.

The physical precedes the spiritual.
Ok. Then what happens according to your belief, in the process of reincarnation, what exactly do you envisage in this case?
 
New NDE research shows that the brain keeps functioning after death. Personally, I’ve always realized that OBEs have physiological causes.
I suppose my problem with the concept that the brain goes on functioning after loss of blood flow to the brain, is that it is fundamentally a naive. I mean even a drop in blood pressure can cause someone to faint - the brain is clearly critically dependent on its supply of blood, but equally obviously its activity will decay away over a short period - but why would one expect exceptionally clear scenarios to unfold within a brain that is just dwindling to a standstill.

David
 
Ok. Then what happens according to your belief, in the process of reincarnation, what exactly do you envisage in this case?
In my view, reincarnation doesn’t happen. You get one physical life and an eternal afterlife. I’ve heard stories about people that supposedly remember things from previous lives. This could possibly be a psychic phenomenon, where mental impressions from the past can somehow affix to a living mind, Then again, I don’t know if past life memories have ever been concretely verified.
 
One thing, with regard to past-life recall. Often it is thought of as just having certain information about a particular life, whether that is a place-name or a visual impression of a place. But there is another aspect, that of trauma, which causes real pain and suffering in the present. This sort of emotional impact is not a superficial glimpse, but a deep inner state. Investigating the causes of such trauma can lead inevitably to someplace other than the current life.

These things are difficult, on the one hand they are overwhelmingly real, but on the other, cannot be shared with other people - human language just doesn't have the words to express our inner state in any meaningful way.

At any rate, when such trauma accompanies some of the more verifiable information which could identify a time, a place, a person, it becomes pretty much impossible to deny that something of significance is there, it can't be swept aside with a wave of a hand.

Researchers of note in this area include:
Dr. Ian Stevenson
Jim B. Tucker, M.D.
James G. Matlock, Ph.D
 
I think if one is going to put words into the mouths of other people, and to presume what they would say, that is a risky and shaky ground on which to stand.

What Dr Parnia has repeatedly said, over many years, is that death is a process, not a moment. Hence if asked whether a person in such a situation was dead or alive - of course it would be better to ask him to find out for sure. I suspect he would not give a one-word answer, but instead a lengthy explanation.

Yeah well it's not putting words in anyone's mouth. It is what they say - NDEs are occurring when there is no brain activity as measured by EEG.
 
Alex Tsakiris (Skeptiko) vs TJump, are NDE's reason to believe in non-physical minds?
my debate with TJump:
I’m TJump and I’m an atheist by which I mean I believe there are no reasons to believe in the existence of a God. If you like my original arguments you can help me to make them more popular by subscribing or donating to my Patreon so in future i can publish my ideas.

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This was fun... a bit of a throwback regarding Tom's arguments against NDE science. What really blew me away were the comments on YouTube... some of these skeptics can be a weird bunch :)
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Good job, mostly, but I was disappointed that the discussion went down the "possible" vs. "likely" rabbit hole at the end. You did better than I would have in the same position. I think the crux of this whole debate was missed, and I will raise it here. I apologize if someone has already addressed this, I honestly don't have time to read all the comments in a timely fashion before making this post. I did read a lot of them, and didn't see this point.

What is the difference between "science" and "magic?" (Or "science" and "supernatural?") What justification does TJump have for labeling one option "natural" and the other "supernatural", (thereby implying it's "nu-natural")? Doesn't that labeling show explicit bias for one explanation, even though he said, up front, that he didn't care which turned out to be true? Since you two didn't define your terms, you often talked past each other. The term "natural" was never defined in the context either. The real issue here is the the belief that "science" is good, "magic" is bad, that we must defend "good science" from "bad superstition" by any means necessary, and I get to define what is "magic" and what is "science" based on nothing more than my own opinion (and my friends, who agree with me!).

The line between science and magic moves all the time, and now consciousness and the psi are crossing that line, while the religious fundamentalists and ridged materialists are scrambling hard to push them back. (I wonder if any of the materialists have realized the irony that defending their position now requires that they deny hard science?) They conflate materialism with science, and any challenge to materialism to an "attack on science." The sad fallout of this is people like TJump using scientifically questionable methods to defend their positions, thereby legitimizing these methods for the flat earthers, antiVaxxers, and anyone else with a belief to promote.

I suspect that if we drilled down deep enough, we would find this conflation: mind<>brain = God (or gods) exist, and that is what TJump is afraid of. Despite his assertion that he doesn't care what explanation turns out to be true, he clearly has a dog in this fight.
 
Good job, mostly, but I was disappointed that the discussion went down the "possible" vs. "likely" rabbit hole at the end. You did better than I would have in the same position. I think the crux of this whole debate was missed, and I will raise it here. I apologize if someone has already addressed this, I honestly don't have time to read all the comments in a timely fashion before making this post. I did read a lot of them, and didn't see this point.

What is the difference between "science" and "magic?" (Or "science" and "supernatural?") What justification does TJump have for labeling one option "natural" and the other "supernatural", (thereby implying it's "nu-natural")? Doesn't that labeling show explicit bias for one explanation, even though he said, up front, that he didn't care which turned out to be true? Since you two didn't define your terms, you often talked past each other. The term "natural" was never defined in the context either. The real issue here is the the belief that "science" is good, "magic" is bad, that we must defend "good science" from "bad superstition" by any means necessary, and I get to define what is "magic" and what is "science" based on nothing more than my own opinion (and my friends, who agree with me!).

The line between science and magic moves all the time, and now consciousness and the psi are crossing that line, while the religious fundamentalists and ridged materialists are scrambling hard to push them back. (I wonder if any of the materialists have realized the irony that defending their position now requires that they deny hard science?) They conflate materialism with science, and any challenge to materialism to an "attack on science." The sad fallout of this is people like TJump using scientifically questionable methods to defend their positions, thereby legitimizing these methods for the flat earthers, antiVaxxers, and anyone else with a belief to promote.

I suspect that if we drilled down deep enough, we would find this conflation: mind<>brain = God (or gods) exist, and that is what TJump is afraid of. Despite his assertion that he doesn't care what explanation turns out to be true, he clearly has a dog in this fight.

Well stated Rodney. Alex is being clear about his miracle and wants it tested... TJump hides his miracle behind a word, and pretends that it does not exist.

The former is science, the latter is dogma (even it if calls itself 'natural')
 
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Yes i am fine with the research, nothing in the research answers any of the questions you asked... which is why the conclusion is unsupported because they are doing the exact same thing i did, coming up with an ad hoc explanation that answered nothing (mine is ad hoc physical thier's is ad hoc non-physical) neither answer any of these questions...

I cannot find the post, but many years ago Alex seemed to claim oxygen doesn't affect memory recall of NDE's. And my memory is vague, but didn't Sam Parnia work on that very issue? It does matter. Maybe Alex's point was that NDE's occur WITH or WITHOUT normal brain activity -- and they do.

You know who else ignores biology? Philosophers. And what are we doing? Yup.

This is outside sciences domain, for now.
 
The brain never stopped functioning during NDE's... it take 20 min for brain cells to run out of ATP (energy) and die so they continue to function 20 min after cardiac arrest with no blood flow. If being given CPR all the cells continue to be given energy and function up to 45 min after cardiac arrest. Even if there is no measure EEG (electrical activity) in the brain, there is still measurable fMRI activity so it is simply false to say the brain is "dead".... its not dead at all all the cells are doing just fine you simply are not conscious.

If you want academic references you can see the work by Dr. Adrian M Owen The University of Western Ontario from the The Brain and Mind Institute. There are many many papers on fMRI readings from coma patients: Measuring consciousness in coma and related states Carol Di Perri

The science is not on the side of non-physical consciousness. All the NDE research says is "We cant measure brain activity with these tools".... thats it, which does not indicate at all there is no brain activity, only no conscious brain activity. My explanation provided in the video covers this... they are not conscious they just remember the sense datum collected by the subconscious as an explicit memory giving the illusion its was a conscious experience.

TJump,
Why are you bringing up research on coma patients?

Everyone agrees that coma patients are not dead.

btw - IMO, Eber Alexander's coma experience should not be counted as an NDE. Weak.
 
How many minutes does it take for the brain to run out of juice during fainting (syncope)? Is it 20 minutes, I'm not sure?
 
I found this interview very aggravating and I'm not sure arguing with skeptics actually does any good for either party. (And i used to be one. I used to fight with college bible thumpers and thought I was matter's gift to intellectual rational thought. It took 7 hits of LSD and a telepathic experience to smack me into reality. Let them learn the hard way, why should we suffer?)

I was thinking about how pseudo-skepticism/materialism is actually detrimental to your level of awareness (self-awareness specifically.) It is a methodology whereby you are unable to deal with uncertainty and you feel the need to keep cropping the full picture of life as if the extraneous/non-logical/non-causal data will tarnish the brain like a disease. It turns out if you're smart enough you can throw as much sh** as you want into your worldview-mobile and start to make out patterns; it doesn't hurt at all. So really skeptics are truly doing themselves a disservice. Also, it's just not as fun. Remember awe? Remember magic? You're killing it. And don't you dare try to neil degrasse your way out of this one. Sonnets of awe about meaninglessness, no matter how well stated, are meaningless.

Does meaninglessness even exist? If a painter working on my house is having a shitty day because he's having troubles in his marriage and leaves one sad wayward paintbrush stroke where his disheartened mind couldn't bring up the effort to blend it in - that meaning is now permanently embedded in my house's paint job. And it's absolutely and completely real and causal. There is no "physical world" as opposed to a "thought world" they are one and the same. Do you think all the repeating archetypes in our fictions throughout history are not real? Contrary to the skeptics, the world is absolutely STUFFED with meaning. You can't escape it.

Metaphors we live by
http://theliterarylink.com/metaphors.html

If you believe you are a robot in a meaningless universe, guess what, you are!! and your body/mind reacts accordingly:
https://bigthink.com/artful-choice/do-you-believe-in-free-will-maybe-you-should-even-if-you-dont

"Do You Believe In Free Will? Maybe You Should, Even If You Don't"
"What the scientists then discovered is that the brains of those participants with a dampened belief in free will actually showed a reduction in RP amplitude: not just their minds, but their brains appeared to have taken the reading to heart. They reported the intention to act at the same time as the control group, but their brains were not preparing as well—or as eagerly—as those of their counterparts.

What we believe, it seems, affects us much more fundamentally than previously thought. At least when it comes to free will, disbelief can affect neural processes at a stage before we are even aware that they are taking place.
"

Then there are the studies where we show people flashing images and their galvanic skin response changes slightly BEFORE they actually physically see an image with a sexual or violent nature. Now how the hell can that be possible? Retrocausality? It used to confound me too. If you stop spitting out these seeds as impossible and actually chew on them, you just might learn something.

Imagination is the way that we do anything... when you hit a baseball you are not making a trajectory calculation, you are imagining a future potential and trying to bring it into your reality. We discovered when we tried to get robots to catch things that the trajectory methodology was actually very difficult. If you want to record brainwaves to move your new replacement robotic limb, how do you do that? You imagine that limb moving. That's it. It's that simple. We record it and then associate the imagination with the actual movements of the limb. What if we add a ridiculous limb in the middle of your chest? How do you record the brainwaves of moving that limb? You just imagine it. They record it. When you do it again the computer sees the pattern and the limb moves.

You ever hit that perfect pool shot and knew it would go in? Did you calculate it or did you just feel it? Ever heard the expression 'in the zone'? What is the zone? It's where you aren't thinking, where the limitation engine that is your brain is no longer getting in the way. And it turns out that's exactly where superior athletes go. We know that athletes that pretend/imagine a scenario where they accomplish something in meditation do better than those who don't. We know that the physical body does not know the difference between a person actually doing something and that thing happening in a dream, the brain interprets it in the the same way.

The Strange Power of the Placebo Effect

^ How can the placebo effect be SO strong? We think something and it happens? Why do a group of Christians praying for someone to heal faster actually makes them heal faster? Why does a group of Buddhists praying in a city center actually reduce crime statistically? (Look those up yourselves.) How on Earth could that be possible? Seems crazy, right? Only because your worldview is inside out and you are strenuously holding it in that position.

LSD actually mimics serotonin production which means your brain stops producing it because it thinks everything is fine. Serotonin is a limiter / governor / faucet. So people doing LSD are actually experiencing MORE of reality, not a "hallucination". And yet brain activity goes down? How can that be?
https://www.scienceandtechnologyres...-peek-inside-the-brain-during-hallucinations/

Funny that people that experience NDEs and OBEs also say that their experiences are "more real than real" when the brain has less activity (in NDE's case, NO activity,) now how can that be? This is getting weird, huh? It doesn't make sense in a material universe? And it won't until you break that restrictive mold.

Why Physicalism is Wrong
https://philosophynow.org/issues/126/Why_Physicalism_is_Wrong

I mean, you could get your ass handed to you by Bernardo Kastrup's articles in Scientific American, but I don't want you to get too scared all at once:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/bernardo-kastrup/

I mean hell, even Shermer gets smacked by the fringes of reality every once and a while:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/...-that-can-shake-one-s-skepticism-to-the-core/

Then there's this podcast I listen to called Skeptiko, it's super informative even though the host is a bit of an ass (i'm kidding, he's absolutely a lovely man)...
https://skeptiko.com/94-jeffrey-long-near-death-experience-research/

“I looked at over 280 near-death experiences that had out-of-body observations of Earthly ongoing events… If near-death experiences were just fragments of memory, unrealistic remembrances of a time approaching unconsciousness or returning from unconsciousness, there is no chance that the observations would have a high percent of completely accurate observations. They’d be dream-like or hallucinations. But 98% of them were entirely realistic… In fact, these observations of Earthly ongoing events often include observations of things that would be impossible for them to be aware of with any sensory function from their physical body. For example, they can see the tops of buildings. They can see far away. In my study over 60 of these near-death experiencers later went back and independently attempted to verify what they saw in the out-of-body state. Every single one of these over 60 near-death experiencers that reported checking or verifying their own observations found that they were absolutely correct in every detail.”, Dr. Long said.

// People floating over their bodies and watching their surgeries and being able to report everything that happened to them accurately as opposed to a control group who died and returned, but had no memory of NDE so made up their stories. What kind of floating magical neurons do you propose to explain this?

Then there's quantum mechanics supposedly reacting to an observer. There's the fact that we cannot actually access an objective reality - EVER. EVERYTHING is interpreted subjectively, including the "science" you worship at the feet of. Then there's telepathy, precognition, the fact that meditators and psychonauts and NDE'rs and OBE'rs and even alien abductees are suddenly struck with the feeling that "everything is ONE."

IANDS - Newest NDE accounts - pick one at random, i dare ya...
https://iands.org/research/nde-research/nde-archives31/newest-accounts.html

What could this be about?

Oh, you don't believe in UFOs? Well that's amazing because the Navy just admitted that they are real and they have buzzed our most sensitive sites. You didn't see that article in politico? Also, we are being provoked into a higher state of awareness by something from outside of our consciousness... we are being evolved:
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1avAk7e822-K-PSIh_vLNcSG40NlnNigc

^ Here's a thorough study of N=1000+ people who have experienced contact with some kind of extraplanetary(?) inhuman(?) future_us(?) intelligence. Enjoy that. If your noodle isn't cooking you're doing it wrong.

TJump repeated over and over that we barely know a fraction of anything and damn sure he's right about that one. But that says to me you need to open up your aperture and let some sunshine in because you've been filtering for way too long, son. You ain't got an inkling what's going on here. And there's a LOT to catch up on so you best chop chop.

Let's do some mushrooms together and see how confident you are in the face of a bigger reality than you can imagine. The gods hate posturing and anything less than authenticity will be crushed by the might/light of the awareness. Let's go.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

- Hamlet (1.5.167-8)
 
My thinking on the soul is unorthodox. I believe that the brain does produce and sustain consciousness. The soul is the non-physical or inner consciousness. In other words, the soul is a product of the brain. I don’t believe that God installs souls into brains in utero. I also believe that, once a consciousness begins, it never ends. Consciousness is partially in non-physical reality during life, and completely in non-physical reality after death.

The physical precedes the spiritual.

This opinion is not supported by an overwhelming body of evidence concerning the nature of human consciousness.
 
Hi All
Its the same old same old.
IOUs from the "self proclaimed moral holders of knowledge" till finally their ideas converge to what is obvious when you allow your own imagination do a little thinking.Then somehow they end up telling everybody that thats what they were saying all the time.
Leave them in their ivory towers,down waste your energy Alex.
All I can say for certain is that something very funky is going on around us and we will never really get a handle on it but somehow we are co-creators
in the strangeness.
Alex I promised to send you some info,I apologize for not delivering but without context it is very lame and I dont have permission to share
at the moment.
 
I suspect that if we drilled down deep enough, we would find this conflation: mind<>brain = God (or gods) exist, and that is what TJump is afraid of. Despite his assertion that he doesn't care what explanation turns out to be true, he clearly has a dog in this fight.

Atheists always care what explanation turns out to be true despite what they say - because they assume they are right. The first assumption we must make about atheists is that the very fact they define themselves as such means they know squat about the subject. Atheism is an opinion from ignorance, and it is usually a counter to Christian theism - which is riddled with irrationalities. But the counter to an irrational notion of the divine it is not that it does not exist - and atheists do not get this. That's like denying dogs exist because you heard a severely mentally ill person give you a completely implausible explanation of what a dog is.

It is actually possible to be an atheist and yet hold to the metaphysical nature of reality and accept that the divine is real. One simply opposes theism as a way of describing it all.

Mostly, however, atheists are materialists who misdirect attention away from the central point. Materialists have to be atheists, But atheists do not have to be materialists. So there are two very distinct issues here - and it is important not to confuse them.

The point about materialism is that it is a metaphysical guess - a conclusion made in advance of evidence. If it were a rational position to take it would be a foundation from which inquiry is projected - and quickly disabused. But its not a rational position. Rather it is a staked out and defended territory predicated upon the mistaken notion that the nature of reality is a matter of belief and opinion. It assumes that evidence to the contrary can be disputed by the logic that asserts materialism is true. This is intellectual sloppiness at its worst.

TJump is like so many other materialists in that he seems to have invested so much in his belief system that it has formed a critical part of his identity - and hence defence of the idea is bound up with defence of identity. This is typical of the politically and religiously zealous as well. Confusing belief and identity is a real problem.

Christopher Hitchens, one of the supposedly great atheists, was an appallingly sloppy thinker who used his considerable capacity for cutting commentary to conceal the fact that he didn't real know much about the things on which he pontificated to great theatrical effect. He played to a devoted audience. His brother, Peter, an Anglican, is way more sensible. He is actually a decent disciplined thinker.

The other infamous atheist, Richard Dawkins, was likewise ridiculously ignorant on subjects he opined about with so much passion. Dawkins and Hitchens are marked by their bold insensitive ability to talk utter bullshit with grand confidence to adoring audiences.

I think materialists, like TJump, have two particular fears - that they might be wrong on two counts - the intellectual and the existential. Materialistic atheists tend to form 'clever boys' clubs of mutual congratulation for being so intellectually superior as to see through the superstitious folly that traps others. That conceit reminds me of the adolescent arrogance that wards off the deflating impact of wisdom with fierce determination. The ability to face up to one's conceit and delusion is hard won - but warding off that encounter with inner reality and truth can be deftly done by maintaining an outer mask of hostility to seeing beneath the surface of bluster.

There's an old saying that goes a bit like this - if you are not a socialist by the time you are 20, you have no heart. If you are still a socialist by the time you are 50 you have no mind. I don't want to engage in any debate about whether this is true or not - because that's not the scope of this forum (but I will take on any off-line discussions). I use it to illustrate a point - we could say "If you are not an atheist by the time you are 20, you have no mind and if you are still an atheist by the time you are 50 you have no heart." My point being that we can argue that holding any POV at any stage in our lives can serve a useful purpose only if it is a starting point - a guess that is maybe driven by a personal passion. The same may be said of being a believer in a faith. If you have a passion for truth any starting point is okay - but you got to move away from it. We aren't born at our destination.

In a sense being a materialist is a bit like being a racist. Sure there are seemingly rational arguments to support and sustain the position - until you look a them with an open mind and an open heart.

I don't get grown ups being materialists unless it reflects a period of existential crisis when a faith position turns out to be crap. It is a posiiton that merits exploration, not occupation. Occupation suggests there is a psychopathology at play.

Just in case TJump reads this I want to plainly state my grounds for asserting my POV. The first basis for my confidence is that I have lived with a wide variety of paranormal experiences since I was 14, and I could stretch back and say age 4 or 5. I have routinely violated the materialistic boundaries. I am neither mad nor stupid. The second is that I have been reading across the fields of religion, magic, the paranormal, ethnography, psychology, philosophy etc since I was aged 16 - that's a shade over 50 years now. So I do feel qualified to critique the opinions of materialists when they talk about anything paranormal or religious. Oh, and I do have 2 Masters level science degrees.
 
This opinion is not supported by an overwhelming body of evidence concerning the nature of human consciousness.

How so? To talk about consciousness is to talk about all animals with consciousness, not just humans. Anything with a consciousness has a soul. If consciousness is created by God, then this would be true for all animals with the neurological capacity for consciousness. I believe that God created this, and any other universe in existence. I also believe that this universe was created for life to be possible. However, to believe that God personally creates every consciousness in every brain seems far-fetched. Wouldn’t God want the brain to work on its own? To me, the meaning of life is to come into existence and to choose our path. The meaning of intelligent life is to choose between good and evil. Life is the beginning, and it precedes spiritual existence.
 
I found this interview very aggravating and I'm not sure arguing with skeptics actually does any good for either party. (And i used to be one. I used to fight with college bible thumpers and thought I was matter's gift to intellectual rational thought. It took 7 hits of LSD and a telepathic experience to smack me into reality. Let them learn the hard way, why should we suffer?)

I so empathise with this sentiment. But I have to pull you up on the use of the term "skeptics". No they ain't! I know they call themselves that, but that isn't what they are - in the same way so many folk who call themselves Christians are not Christian. Skepticism is a noble art - hence the name of this forum.

These fake skeptics are deniers and intellectual poseurs - and I deny them the right to debase the noble philosophical art of skepticism.

I have to confess I did not listen to the show. In fact I thought it was entirely text based and was a bit puzzled by references to listening to it. As it turned out, for some reason the show didn't appear in my podcast feed until today - and I deleted it without listening to it - with no pang of conscience.

I did materialistic atheism very solidly up to a decade ago when I quit, having satisfied myself I had given it a fair hearing. Having encountered TJump's opening gambit I probably could have written his script for the show. There's nothing new in Materialism Land.

So I am entirely with you in that we should leave them to their own devices and not have to suffer yet another iteration of the same old tired assertions. I am at the point where I can't even muster the motivation to listen any more. In fact not so long ago I encountered an individual who declared his atheism and I made a groan and a face. He wanted to know what I meant by that and I was very rude. I told him I really couldn't be bothered telling him. That probably sounded disgustingly arrogant. But I am so over the subject I struggle to take it seriously. I bother here only because I know some folk are still a bit stirred up -and some comment from those of us who have 'been there and done that' might be helpful.
 

In every tradition I am aware of the physical arises from the metaphysical - matter distils from spirit. Human consciousness is mediated by the brain and the heart and combines soul and animal awareness. Contemporary science focuses on the brain and is quite right in saying that our consciousness as humans in a physical body is generated by the brain (as well as the heart as reports on heart transplants tell us). But that does not means that consciousness per se is body based.

Obviously how we understand ourselves in the physical world is very different from how we understand ourselves in the metaphysical or spirit world. We do not need the consciousness of biological being in a state with no biology and no bilogical or physical ecology. So, so long as we are in the physical body we need the intelligence of biological being and behaviour to survive. The combination of the brain/heart physical awareness with the soul gives us that combination of awarenesses that we understand as our sense of consciousness as human beings.

But that sense of consciousness dissipates from the death of the physical body as we adjust to a non-physical state of awareness. It is no longer necessary, and, in fact, retaining it would be a serious problem once we no longer have a physical body or live in an organic material aspect of reality.

Support for this commences circa 5,000 years ago and remains consistent right up to contemporary reports. You can usefully go back to foundational texts of yogic metaphysics and up to the contemporary works of Frank DeMarco and others - going via Hermetic, Kabalistic and Theosophical material on the way.
 
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