Dr. Eben Alexander, NDE Science Wins Out |504|

This was freaky when I read about being the love that you are. I was given a very similar message when i was struggling to breathe, after surgery, just before i passed out. The message was "LIFE THE LIFE OF LOVE THAT YOU ARE". That we all are. I had to comment on this as it did blow me away. So much that i couldn't keep reading again until today. Talk about a shake-up for me!
 
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This was freaky when I read about being the love that you are. I was given a very similar message when i was struggling to breathe, after surgery, just before i passed out. The message was "LIFE THE LIFE OF LOVE THAT YOU ARE". That we all are. I had to comment on this as it did blow me away. So much that i couldn't keep reading again until today. Talk about a shake-up for me!
wow!!!
 
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The term hierarchy is some what fraught especially in post modern circles. I like Huston Smiths idea that certain levels of consciousness are closer to source(God) and are therefore more real or reflect a higher degree of reality. The pejorative "hierarchy" has more ego where as the spiritual has less.

How about the difference in consciousness between an insect and a human?

Some people might say just let the insect live, but if it were a choice between the insect living and a human living, there would be no contest.

David
 
How about the difference in consciousness between an insect and a human?

Some people might say just let the insect live, but if it were a choice between the insect living and a human living, there would be no contest.

David
How about the difference in consciousness between an insect and a human?

Some people might say just let the insect live, but if it were a choice between the insect living and a human living, there would be no contest.

David
It seems that humans have the capacity to step back from our biological imperatives and see the world as a whole from which we are not bound by our more primitive instinctual drives. I think we can observe animals showing a proto form of love when we observe a mothers care of their young. however unconscious this may be. As that unconscious drive evolves or develops along it's natural trajectory(telos) it becomes more conscious and more compassionate toward all sentient beings, even the ones we eat and the ones that eat us.
 
I’m more interested in the difference in consciousness between a new born human and an adult human.
That might be less than you think. Imagine being born into a society where you didn't know the language or what everything was - starting afresh. The amazing thing is that babies can make sense of it all in just a few years.

Maybe babies are more intelligent than adults?

David
 
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That might be less than you think. Imagine being born into a society where you didn't know the language or what everything was

it’s hard to imagine one’s experience of consciousness not being entirely informed by those things.

Remember, we are really born without (what some on these forums call) quaila; not even the “redness of red”.
 
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Excellent article — I've been saying the same thing for years.
The article doesn't really "say" anything though. This remains a largely intractable thing to my eye.

Both explanations (if I can generalize them into a binary) are promissory. The physicalist explanation promises that science will ultimately prove NDE's to be artifacts of the brain. The alternative explanation promises that science will never be able to prove any such thing; that there is more to this than the brain.
 
The article doesn't really "say" anything though. This remains a largely intractable thing to my eye.

Both explanations (if I can generalize them into a binary) are promissory. The physicalist explanation promises that science will ultimately prove NDE's to be artifacts of the brain. The alternative explanation promises that science will never be able to prove any such thing; that there is more to this than the brain.
I would tend to disagree that the article "doesn't 'say' anything".

The evidence that awareness requires a functioning brain is so overwhelming that the weight for the "correlation doesn't equal causation" argument is like that of thin air relative to a battleship, and like the article says, we only know about NDEs because people with functioning brains have relayed them to us well after the fact – when their brains are demonstrably functional. There are no ( none — zero ) instances of a person relaying their experience in real time, and zero instances where anyone has correctly identified the targets placed in hospital operating rooms — at least since last time I checked.

What the article therefore leads us to conclude ( for good reason ) is that NDEs are the product of living brains, not dead ones, or some other mystery agent, and that believing otherwise is based on faulty reasoning and/or blind faith. To me that says a lot.
 
I would tend to disagree that the article "doesn't 'say' anything".

The evidence that awareness requires a functioning brain is so overwhelming that the weight for the "correlation doesn't equal causation" argument is like that of thin air relative to a battleship, and like the article says, we only know about NDEs because people with functioning brains have relayed them to us well after the fact – when their brains are demonstrably functional. There are no ( none — zero ) instances of a person relaying their experience in real time, and zero instances where anyone has correctly identified the targets placed in hospital operating rooms — at least since last time I checked the studies.

What the article therefore leads us to conclude ( for good reason ) is that NDEs are the product of living brains, not dead ones, and that believing otherwise is based on faulty reasoning and/or blind faith. To me that says a lot.
I understand that perspective. My point is simply that your assertion of the evidence being overwhelming remains a matter of opinion and not one of fact (i.e., the promissory note). Certainly, I don't see a final word having been said on this matter by either scientific materialists or proponents of alternative viewpoints. Heck, consciousness itself remains largely intractable to science, at least to my view.
 
I understand that perspective. My point is simply that your assertion of the evidence being overwhelming remains a matter of opinion and not one of fact (i.e., the promissory note). Certainly, I don't see a final word having been said on this matter by either scientific materialists or proponents of alternative viewpoints. Heck, consciousness itself remains largely intractable to science, at least to my view.

Although my use of metaphor constitutes an opinion, the evidence it refers to ( neuroscience, experiments, and everyday observations ) aren't, so simply calling my position an opinion doesn't affect its weight as an argument. It's not a "promissory note". If anything the promissory note is the one that says "trust me, there's an afterlife — redeemable only upon death". An electroencephalogram is real evidence.
 
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Although my use of metaphor constitutes an opinion, the evidence it refers to ( neuroscience, experiments, and everyday observations ) aren't, so simply calling my position an opinion doesn't affect its weight as an argument. It's not a "promissory note". If anything the promissory note is the one that says "trust me, there's an afterlife — redeemable only upon death". An electroencephalogram is real evidence.

The fact that we need a physical body in this reality to communicate proves that you need a physical body in this reality to comunicate nothing more. It does not prove that consciousness needs a physical aparatus for its existence.
The idea of relaying their expierence in real time is a bizarre notion since they are not in our time/space, since they are not in it how would they do so?
Honestly these statements weigh more like value judgements on what is real and what is deemed not...and by who's authority can we call reality reality. Who decides what is real? I'd question anybody who said they had that authority.
 
The fact that we need a physical body in this reality to communicate proves that you need a physical body in this reality to comunicate nothing more. It does not prove that consciousness needs a physical aparatus for its existence.
The idea of relaying their expierence in real time is a bizarre notion since they are not in our time/space, since they are not in it how would they do so?
Honestly these statements weigh more like value judgements on what is real and what is deemed not...and by who's authority can we call reality reality. Who decides what is real? I'd question anybody who said they had that authority.

All proof is, is a reason that is sufficient to justify someone's belief in a claim. For some people, blind faith is all the reason they need. For others, it takes evidence and critical thinking, and I happen to be on that particular train. So believe whatever you want to believe, but mere proclamation that such and such is the case doesn't count for much ( to me ).

I would suggest that you start by realizing that we need our physical bodies for much more than communicating. We also need them for sensing and thinking. The scientific evidence for this is voluminous. If you offhandedly dismiss it, you are arbitrarily ignoring the truth, and that is called wilful ignorance. So I hope you don't decide to take that route.

If you heed my advice, and start digging into the neuroscience behind thought and sensory experience, you will eventually have no reasonable choice but to admit that they are directly facilitated by a living brain supported by a living body. How all that comes into existence on a fundamental level is another question, and is as much of a mystery as why anything else would come into existence on a fundamental level.

But ultimately it ends-up making no difference to the outcome because the case that our bodies and brains give rise to perceptual experiences here in this realm remains true to our situations. Without eyes and a visual cortex, we cannot see the world around us. If we could, then blind people wouldn't be blind would they? Nor would there be any reason to evolve eyes and a visual cortex. Just follow these breadcrumbs and you'll get there all by yourself.
 
That might be less than you think. Imagine being born into a society where you didn't know the language or what everything was - starting afresh. The amazing thing is that babies can make sense of it all in just a few years.

Maybe babies are more intelligent than adults?

David
There was an interesting discussion of why ppl in general have no memory of being born or shortly after that, although I have seen a video of one NDEr claim he did. Dr. Eben A. said he understood it as a function of learning a language; once you have the verbal language skills, you can put your memories into words. So what happens to the earliest ones? Do you 'forget' them or they're overlaid by new experience like some children seem to do who report past lives? My earliest memory is being shocked by an extremely loud & huge tractor rumbling near the fence I was sitting on. It's more of a 'feeling' memory than recalling something. I had another at 2 or so of stealing a bottle from my brother in his crib, but weirdly enough, once I had the bottle, I saw the scene from a distance, like a toddler OBE.
 
I would tend to disagree that the article "doesn't 'say' anything".

The evidence that awareness requires a functioning brain is so overwhelming that the weight for the "correlation doesn't equal causation" argument is like that of thin air relative to a battleship, and like the article says, we only know about NDEs because people with functioning brains have relayed them to us well after the fact – when their brains are demonstrably functional. There are no ( none — zero ) instances of a person relaying their experience in real time, and zero instances where anyone has correctly identified the targets placed in hospital operating rooms — at least since last time I checked.

What the article therefore leads us to conclude ( for good reason ) is that NDEs are the product of living brains, not dead ones, or some other mystery agent, and that believing otherwise is based on faulty reasoning and/or blind faith. To me that says a lot.
I'd have to send Rory C. to the files & databases of Dr. B. Greyson & Dr. J. Long. I'm know there are plenty of evidential experiences like Anita Moorjani's. She was deep in a coma w/ multiple organ failures happening after 4 years of fighting lymphatic cancer, predicted to be dead before morning, so her husband & a doctor shut the door to her room, went down the hall to another room & talked about her condition. Yet, Anita was able to recount in exact detail what they both said. I have read so many of these that if I think materialists & brain worshipers are woefully aware of even a fraction of them. Over & over, things that ppl couldn't have known or experienced are available to impaired, comatose, or deeply anesthetized persons by psychic means. By psychic, I mean through mental channels that not all of us use or use regularly, but all of us have.
I noticed Rory C. conveniently left out (if he knows about it) that the beautiful young woman who accompanied Eben on some of his coma journeying turned out to be his dead sister from his birth parents. He had never seen her before, (I'm not sure if he knew he had one) & didn't know she had died. Yet he recognized her picture later as the woman in his NDE & knew that she had passed on even though no one told him this.
I think it's the height of arrogance & unabashed stupidity to come to a conclusion that, a prior, a fully functioning brain has to be involved for memories to be formed. Dr. Alexander will readily point out the fact that memory is not dependent on the brain. My science fanatic PhD brother told me about a professor at Texas Tech who suffered the loss of 70% of his brain in an auto accident, yet he gradually regained his ability to speak, write, & lost not one bit of his professional training. Memory is stored through out the body, in every cell, in a holographic form that some ppl have said links us to the Akasha, or the ether.
I, however, will point out that Dr. Grayson doesn't hide the fact that NOT EVERYONE has a NDE following temporary death, coma, or other horrendous vital impairment. Fully 20% of ppl surveyed after traumatic crises report NOTHING. Cut to Twilight Zone music......
Take the case of Mary Neal, M.D. who drowned, pulled swollen from a warm river after 30 minutes under water. Yet she was revived & during her NDE was told her son would die. Years later, he did, just as predicted.......More Twilight Zone music.....
 
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All proof is, is a reason that is sufficient to justify someone's belief in a claim. For some people, blind faith is all the reason they need. For others, it takes evidence and critical thinking, and I happen to be on that particular train. So believe whatever you want to believe, but mere proclamation that such and such is the case doesn't count for much ( to me ).

I would suggest that you start by realizing that we need our physical bodies for much more than communicating. We also need them for sensing and thinking. The scientific evidence for this is voluminous. If you offhandedly dismiss it, you are arbitrarily ignoring the truth, and that is called wilful ignorance. So I hope you don't decide to take that route.

If you heed my advice, and start digging into the neuroscience behind thought and sensory experience, you will eventually have no reasonable choice but to admit that they are directly facilitated by a living brain supported by a living body. How all that comes into existence on a fundamental level is another question, and is as much of a mystery as why anything else would come into existence on a fundamental level.

But ultimately it ends-up making no difference to the outcome because the case that our bodies and brains give rise to perceptual experiences here in this realm remains true to our situations. Without eyes and a visual cortex, we cannot see the world around us. If we could, then blind people wouldn't be blind would they? Nor would there be any reason to evolve eyes and a visual cortex. Just follow these breadcrumbs and you'll get there all by yourself.
BLIND FAITH...? I'd say the Evolutional theory is more blind faith then any thing I've heard (full of holes), astro physics which assumes something can come from nothing (thats not blind faith?)and the list goes on..
In so far NDE Kim just cover one case, there are thousands - hardly blind . If you want to cherry pick evidence, that's cool but can not be considered case close.
Faith is not blind it's based on expierence and logic and if I were not to believe in my personal expierence then what...well then you've just undermined self,hardly recommend able.
Consciousness as fundamental , the basis of reality, is based on rationality which the materalistic seem to claim as sole owner-ship..sorry I'd contest that.
 
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I'd have to send Rory C. to the files & databases of Dr. B. Greyson & Dr. J. Long. I'm know there are plenty of evidential experiences like Anita Moorjani's. She was deep in a coma w/ multiple organ failures happening after 4 years of fighting lymphatic cancer, predicted to be dead before morning, so her husband & a doctor shut the door to her room, went down the hall to another room & talked about her condition. Yet, Anita was able to recount in exact detail what they both said. I have read so many of these that if I think materialists & brain worshipers are woefully aware of even a fraction of them. Over & over, things that ppl couldn't have known or experienced are available to impaired, comatose, or deeply anesthetized persons by psychic means. By psychic, I mean through mental channels that not all of us use or use regularly, but all of us have.
I noticed Rory C. conveniently left out (if he knows about it) that the beautiful young woman who accompanied Eben on some of his coma journeying turned out to be his dead sister from his birth parents. He had never seen her before, (I'm not sure if he knew he had one) & didn't know she had died. Yet he recognized her picture later as the woman in his NDE & knew that she had passed on even though no one told him this.
I think it's the height of arrogance & unabashed stupidity to come to a conclusion that, a prior, a fully functioning brain has to be involved for memories to be formed. Dr. Alexander will readily point out the fact that memory is not dependent on the brain. My science fanatic PhD brother told me about a professor at Texas Tech who suffered the loss of 70% of his brain in an auto accident, yet he gradually regained his ability to speak, write, & lost not one bit of his professional training. Memory is stored through out the body, in every cell, in a holographic form that some ppl have said links us to the Akasha, or the ether.
I, however, will point out that Dr. Grayson doesn't hide the fact that NOT EVERYONE has a NDE following temporary death, coma, or other horrendous vital impairment. Fully 20% of ppl surveyed after traumatic crises report NOTHING. Cut to Twilight Zone music......
Take the case of Mary Neal, M.D. who drowned, pulled swollen from a warm river after 30 minutes under water. Yet she was revived & during her NDE was told her son would die. Years later, he did, just as predicted.......More Twilight Zone music.....
I am aware of the many anecdotal claims out there. People here might not recognize who I am, but I cohosted another well known paranormal podcast for a couple of years and have several thousand posts on that site. I do my homework.

One of the first things I learned when examining NDEs is that there is a huge difference between clinical death and brain death, and the criteria range from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In many cases brain death was simply assumed rather than tested. I know for a fact that it is rarely ( if ever ) actually measured with full spectrum EEGs during operations, because doing so requires special equipment and procedures that are expensive and not necessary. The other thing is that our audio perception is one of the last things to fail before brain death, so a person can appear to be clinically dead and still receiving audio input.

Another facet to consider is that prior to these operations, most patients ( unless they are victims of some unexpected emergency ) have made plans to have the operation done, and been to the hospital for several pre-screening and preparatory meetings. They are then assigned to rooms and are immersed in the hospital environment. From there their minds pick-up all sorts of cues and memories that are stored in the subconscious. By combining these variables with unconsciously acquired audio input, a mistakenly assumed to be be dead brain will naturally start to subconsciously filter it all into something that makes sense.

Our dream worlds are often fully 3D photorealistic places. I have had dreams so real I thought I was awake until I actually woke up and realized it was all a dream. The human brain is amazingly powerful. So combine all these things with the uncertainty about what the actual circumstances were in an uncontrolled situation relayed through hearsay and it's entirely plausible that these amazing stories aren't as reliable as the believers want them to be. That being said, like the article says, people still have the "experience", and I do believe many are completely sincere. Certainly not all are fabrications, just like not all UFO cases are fabrications.

The bottom line is that something unexplained is going on, and we don't know what it is, but some critical thinking skills combined with the best available evidence eliminates afterlives ( as most people have come to think of them ). That is not to say that it isn't possible that some "version" of a person might not pick-up in another realm where the one in this realm has left-off. That is possible. But at the same time that "version" is at best only a copy. It is not "you". It can't be, because the "you" in this realm is either in the morgue, a coffin, or reduced to ashes in some urn.
 
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The bottom line is that something unexplained is going on, and we don't know what it is, but some critical thinking skills combined with the best available evidence eliminates afterlives ( as most people have come to think of them ).
This will remain a tennis match in terms of volleying balls over the net at one another.

For what its worth, I am absolutely not trying to change your mind. As I stated in my opening response, I fully appreciate your perspective and the conclusions you've drawn.

My only point is that statements like what I quoted above are simply NOT objectively scientific in at least a holistic sense. Science has not proven NDE's to be artifacts of the brain. Science has not disproven the notion of afterlife. Depending on one's perspective the proverbial "best evidence" may suggest these things, but no more. Hence, I use the nomenclature of a promissory note when folks assert these things as fact.

I really don't get why either "side" feels the need to be factually correct on something we simply do not fully understand. Seems a tad irrational to me.
 
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