Survival of Consciousness after Death - Skeptiko Community Led List

- philosophically weak (don't know how to phrase)


https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/skeptical_fallacies#skeptical_fallacies_materialism_rational
Below I outline other ways materialism is self-defeating. These self-defeating flaws, as Edward Feser writes, show that materialism is incoherent and constitute examples of reducto ad absurdum and therefore demonstrate that materialism is false.

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-materialist-explanation-of.html
Consciousness is not an illusion or an epiphenomenon of the brain.

Consciousness Cannot be an Emergent Property of the Brain".

Claiming consciousness is an emergent property of the brain is just an fancy way of saying, "Materialism cannot explain consciousness".

Consciousness, a subjective phenomena that cannot be measured objectively, cannot be produced by physical processes all of which are in principle measurable.

Correlation does not prove causation. The correlation between brain processes and mental states is not proof that consciousness is produced by the brain. The theory that the brain is a filter of non-physical consciousness explains more of the empirical evidence.

If materialism were true, natural selection could not produce consciousness.

Humans are more than biological machines that operate strictly according to physical laws. (If materialism were true, you would not know you are reading these words.)

The Brain is not a Conscious Computer. Human mathematicians can identify truths that cannot be proven by a computer program. And if you believe your mind operates according to the laws of materialism, like a computer, it is irrational of you to believe anything.
At the link, each of these points has a link to a separate article explaining the assertion.
 
I’ll copy and paste a post of mine on an NDE page from Facebook.

How can we know that NDE's are not hallucinations? Several reasons. I want to outline a handful, but there are more than the ones which I will be listing.

1) Shared Death Experiences

These are experienced by people who are completely healthy who just so happen to be near somebody who is dying.


2) The Blind seeing for the first time during NDE's, and the deaf hearing for the first time. There are several reports and testimonies of this.


3) Veridical NDE's

People floating outside their bodies (often to other rooms) to report conversations and events which later check out as accurate. There are a great deal of these on record


4) These events are life altering. People change permanently. They report a non-existence of time. Those are two (there are many more) rather bizarrely common reportedly themes of NDE's. This doesnt fit the notion that they are Hallucinations, which are disorganized and bizarre and rarely make sense, and generally have no typical after effects. In contrast, NDE's are reported as being more real and clear than everyday real life, and that they make every day existence seem like a mere dream. This is nothing like a hallucination or dream.

5) People very frequently encounter dead people during their NDE's. Notice, they're not meeting living people. Strange coincidence if its a dream that all the people they run into just so happen to be dead isn't it? And why are people hallucinating something which is like what we would think the afterlife would be? Why are there profound and intelligent moral lessons which are learned? Why this undescribable state of love expressed during these experiences? Sounds a lot like what we would expect an afterlife to be based upon the religious writings of the wise man, sages, holy men, and shaman of the past.

6) There are a lot of reports of people given information about the future, which eventually came true



7) Miraculous healings which people were told would occur during their NDE's, and actually occur

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPmtfW3BIGs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X7b5pc-20k&t=219s
 
both of these are great... an ideas in terms of how we would title in a top 10 list?

Maybe it'd be good to post a master list of bullet points at the top of the thread. i think we're already beginning to repeat points. Maybe a better use would be to gather the best references for the specific points.

Once we have a master list we could put it out to a poll to see what people think are the most critical ideas....
 
You guys are missing the point, you don't need reductionist science or labs to tell you its real if you have the experiences personally
 
You guys are missing the point, you don't need reductionist science or labs to tell you its real if you have the experiences personally
I don’t think anybody doubts that for a second. Many/most have not had the experiences. For me it was data that converted me. And the new scientific world needs the data. Far from missing the point, it’s a profoundly important one. You don’t just stop trying to demonstrate something if you personally know it to be true,
 
Thanks Jim, That's a wonderful post! You've just about covered it!

One thing I'd throw in the mix here is the existence of God/Supreme Being/Higher Power
In listening to Dr. Jeffrey Long on episode #327 he throws out the stunning figure that nearly 97% of those returning from an NDE experience specifically verify the existence of a Supreme Being etc

While I don't want to dispute the existence of God/Supreme Being/Higher Power that idea can be a case of self-confirmation in that a something encountered maybe just 'has to be' God/Supreme Being/Higher Power - because what else could it be if you have nothing else to imagine it might be. I have just started reading Frank De Marco's latest book 'Awakening from the 3D World'. Frank asserts that "everything is an expression of consciousness" and within that idea everything is essentially scaled and hierarchical - so there is mostly an implicit Higher Power for anybody who is open to any engagement with agency in a non-physical state.

I think we need to be careful also to distinguish between physical and non-physical experiences of conscious being - rather than make the boundary not dead/dead. While the death of the physical body is a critical event it is not the sole evidence of non-physical experiences of conscious being. I fear that if we focus on death as the basis for asserting the persistence of conscious being we are flipping the focus.

Jeff Kripal quotes a saying attributed to Teilhard de Chardin – “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” If we can quit being conditioned by materialism we can reclaim this ancient and universal wisdom.

So what is the evidence that we are primarily non-material beings? Life after death stuff is a contributor to that argument. It doesn't, I submit, define it.
 
I’ll copy and paste a post of mine on an NDE page from Facebook.

How can we know that NDE's are not hallucinations? Several reasons. I want to outline a handful, but there are more than the ones which I will be listing.

1) Shared Death Experiences

These are experienced by people who are completely healthy who just so happen to be near somebody who is dying.


2) The Blind seeing for the first time during NDE's, and the deaf hearing for the first time. There are several reports and testimonies of this.


3) Veridical NDE's

People floating outside their bodies (often to other rooms) to report conversations and events which later check out as accurate. There are a great deal of these on record


4) These events are life altering. People change permanently. They report a non-existence of time. Those are two (there are many more) rather bizarrely common reportedly themes of NDE's. This doesnt fit the notion that they are Hallucinations, which are disorganized and bizarre and rarely make sense, and generally have no typical after effects. In contrast, NDE's are reported as being more real and clear than everyday real life, and that they make every day existence seem like a mere dream. This is nothing like a hallucination or dream.

5) People very frequently encounter dead people during their NDE's. Notice, they're not meeting living people. Strange coincidence if its a dream that all the people they run into just so happen to be dead isn't it? And why are people hallucinating something which is like what we would think the afterlife would be? Why are there profound and intelligent moral lessons which are learned? Why this undescribable state of love expressed during these experiences? Sounds a lot like what we would expect an afterlife to be based upon the religious writings of the wise man, sages, holy men, and shaman of the past.

6) There are a lot of reports of people given information about the future, which eventually came true



7) Miraculous healings which people were told would occur during their NDE's, and actually occur

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPmtfW3BIGs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X7b5pc-20k&t=219s
great stuff. we need to break this off into a thread about NDE. possible titles... which you think is best (again, maybe we need sep thread for this):
10 Lessons From Near Death Experience Science
Top 10 Reasons We Know Near Death Experience Are Real
10 Ways Near Death Experience Research Shatters Science
... (more)
 
Maybe it'd be good to post a master list of bullet points at the top of the thread. i think we're already beginning to repeat points. Maybe a better use would be to gather the best references for the specific points.

Once we have a master list we could put it out to a poll to see what people think are the most critical ideas....
great. let's do it. I think you can accomplish this by continuously editing your first post in this thread and then point folks to it.
 
While I don't want to dispute the existence of God/Supreme Being/Higher Power that idea can be a case of self-confirmation in that a something encountered maybe just 'has to be' God/Supreme Being/Higher Power - because what else could it be if you have nothing else to imagine it might be. I have just started reading Frank De Marco's latest book 'Awakening from the 3D World'. Frank asserts that "everything is an expression of consciousness" and within that idea everything is essentially scaled and hierarchical - so there is mostly an implicit Higher Power for anybody who is open to any engagement with agency in a non-physical state.

I think we need to be careful also to distinguish between physical and non-physical experiences of conscious being - rather than make the boundary not dead/dead. While the death of the physical body is a critical event it is not the sole evidence of non-physical experiences of conscious being. I fear that if we focus on death as the basis for asserting the persistence of conscious being we are flipping the focus.

Jeff Kripal quotes a saying attributed to Teilhard de Chardin – “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” If we can quit being conditioned by materialism we can reclaim this ancient and universal wisdom.

So what is the evidence that we are primarily non-material beings? Life after death stuff is a contributor to that argument. It doesn't, I submit, define it.
I agree with a lot of this... then again, this is the kinda "level 3" conversation we're trying to balance out with this proposed show/episode. think in terms of an onramp to yr point.
 
While I don't want to dispute the existence of God/Supreme Being/Higher Power that idea can be a case of self-confirmation in that a something encountered maybe just 'has to be' God/Supreme Being/Higher Power - because what else could it be if you have nothing else to imagine it might be.

Thanks Mike. I'm basically quoting Dr. Jeff Long's words/study. He makes it very clear in the podcast referenced that when they ask about the existence of God/Supreme Being, they aren't priming or leading the experiencer. That as well they ask specifically whether or not they've received any information disproving the existence of God/Supreme Being. That, generally, if I understand it right, they are trying to get whatever information the experiencer has received during the NDE, regardless of the existence of God/Supreme Being.
 
Anybody with anything good on the re-incarnation data? I haven't seen it mentioned yet. It's a very important piece of the argument.
 
Anybody with anything good on the re-incarnation data? I haven't seen it mentioned yet. It's a very important piece of the argument.

i seen bering from SA was pretty positive about the reincarnation evidence along with a german physicist as well, seemingly i noticed those critical of it ..... suprise suprise, skeptics whom would have everything to lose if the data was well recieved/proven or whatever

i wanna see what jim tucker comes out with, as he studies in areas where reincarnation is probably looked down upon :D
 
Jeff Kripal quotes a saying attributed to Teilhard de Chardin – “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” If we can quit being conditioned by materialism we can reclaim this ancient and universal wisdom.
Great quote
 
Thanks Mike. I'm basically quoting Dr. Jeff Long's words/study. He makes it very clear in the podcast referenced that when they ask about the existence of God/Supreme Being, they aren't priming or leading the experiencer. That as well they ask specifically whether or not they've received any information disproving the existence of God/Supreme Being. That, generally, if I understand it right, they are trying to get whatever information the experiencer has received during the NDE, regardless of the existence of God/Supreme Being.
great point Zach... I'm actually going to use this in my interview with Bernardo... oops other thread :)
 
i seen bering from SA was pretty positive about the reincarnation evidence along with a german physicist as well, seemingly i noticed those critical of it ..... suprise suprise, skeptics whom would have everything to lose if the data was well recieved/proven or whatever

i wanna see what jim tucker comes out with, as he studies in areas where reincarnation is probably looked down upon :D
There are extraordinarily compelling cases which, in my opinion, are impossible to explain away.
 
Ok, I'm throwing out a quick list here, I'm going to need everyone's help in choosing the best language to underscore the themes and terms. Thanks again to Jim_Smith for sharing your writings. I'm going to attempt to combine some categories. For example, the overlapping ideas between 'Drop-in Communications,' 'Proxy Sittings,' 'Cross-Correspondences,' and 'Prophecy,' or between 'Crisis Apparitions,' and 'Death-bed Visions'

The term Near Death Experience I don't think should be a category in itself, it seems that it matters more what happens, what kind of NDE an experiencer has. The kind of experience that occurs during an NDE is more suitable for a category (in my humble opinion, feel free to disagree with any/all of this)

I'm going to post this list to my first post on this thread at the top. I'm focusing first on separate categories before getting too deep in references, so please let's start with this in mind and carve out the most succinct topics/categories that show survival of consciousness after death
 
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