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A Near-Death Experience Question

Anja

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So, I'm thinking since my last post. If all of the Universe is a whole, then perhaps Science and Spirituality are much more closely related than some believe they are.

If Science cannot yet conclusively state whether a person is alive or dead and we don't know that improved technology will ever find the answer, other than by faith that it will, maybe it would be best for each to become his own Theologian. And Scientist, as well. Seems Scientists are already depending on faith with the hope that it will. Perhaps it is just as possible that it will not.

I don't see the two as diametrically opposed at all. It makes sense to me that a Universe which chaotically seems to seek equilibrium would also have room for this, at first glance, dichotomy.

Perhaps the insistence of always needing a final answer to every question could be a red herring, drawing us away from the Truth.
 

ptgatsby

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Perhaps the insistence of always needing a final answer to every question could be a red herring, drawing us away from the Truth.

I think this is the big mistake. It's really ok to say that we don't know, and that is true for 'science' and 'faith', equally. Sometimes science makes this mistake, but I think faith makes it a whole lot more... it almost seems foundational to faith.

Everything depends on definitions, however. We can come up with a definition of death - if we put the bar low, we will have 'after death' experiences, and if we put it too high, we will probably bury people alive. But none of that matters, objectively. What we want to know is if there is a soul, a spirit, or some part of us that lives on beyond the physical body.

Honest discovery of that is what should matter - not the definition.

As of this moment, 'science' has more unknowns than any one person can even be aware of. The whole point of science is to find out what is happening... in fact, it's the only thing that science really works on. And it's always trying to find more unknowns to work on. But it's the explanation that matters, in the end.

The near-death thing is not possible to explain, but to me, the faith answer is still assuming an answer. It doesn't matter if science isn't able to pinpoint the moment of physical death in order to validate if something exists after physical death... if it doesn't, the answer is unknown. The burden of proof doesn't shift because we lack the ability to meet it. That's what makes the definition part so important... we need to know what we want to know before we go looking for it. We need things to be defined so that we can discover the answer.

-

I know we differ in how we think - not opposite, which would make it easier to understand each other - but at right angles. My version of faith can be summed up in reliability. I have faith in knowledge that I define as reliable.

But this is heavily subjective, and I admit it. I have faith that my wife will be home when I get home... but that faith can be very misplaced if I was working 16 hour days and ignored the signs that she might not be. From one person's perspective, my faith is misplaced, even if it is rational that she has been there for thousands of days. Not everything comes down to hard numbers - it's humans doing the calculating. Faith is just a part of it. However/i], my way of doing things is to use my skeptical attitude towards everything that I can use it against. Then I start going with my gut. And more often than not, I have to make decisions on some degree of faith of the outcome, of what is.

But this comes back to the question I asked earlier - how confident are you that there is life after death? It's like asking someone religious how confident they are in God, or something similar. But it's the same system when I'm asked if my wife will be home tonight.

Except I probably have a bit more to go on :D

(I'm really not sure I answered anything in your post... I think we are thinking in two different directions and finding common ground... difficult. But I tried to cover everything that came to mind when I read your post!)
 

Anja

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I am curious Anja.


How do you define spirit/soul?


My answer, although we think very differently, would have the same end result as if I had asked you to define Universe or Infinity to me. Nobody knows what that is. We can't measure it.

It is that effort to pin down and label the unknowable which, from my perspective hinders our understanding.

But some desire conclusive evidence in order to feel that they are making the correct decision. A need for safety?

The best a Scientific mind can answer is, "We don't know - but, dang it, we're going to find out." Maybe; Maybe not.

Seems many scientific "truths" have been reversed in my lifetime. Knowledge and technology grow and, with that growth, changes come.

There is an arrogance/hubris to this in that the end result for some minds, which refuse to accept that they can't know everything, is to deny it's existence. To me that is unscientific.

___________________________________________________________

I see your response, pt, and thank you. I haven't read it yet as it's late in the afternoon here. I'll come back when I have time and respond.
 

Virtual ghost

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Here is why I ask

The thing is that if spirit/soul exist in a way that many people think it is,then there is one problem with that idea.

If that idea is true then psychiatric medications should not work.
 

SolitaryWalker

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Things like this thread are why atheism isn't really any more rational than spiritual belief. Scenarios are being offered under the de facto assumption that some kind of afterlife is impossible. "Well, this may be unlikely, or I can't think of anything right now, but I know it's not THAT." It's no different than the way religions bend over backwards to explain things in a way that incorporates their dogma.

Thesis: Some kind of an afterlife is possible.


Afterlife: Existence after the death of our body. Existence must be similar to the existence we experience on earth either with regard to our physical or psychological activities.

Reasons to believe that our thesis is true: What people report to have experienced at the time when physicians thought that they were dead is reminiscent of life after death.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Problem: There is life after death only if the physicians were corrected in declaring that the people who have reported the aforementioned experiences were dead and if the aforementioned reported experiences are true.

1)Do we know if the people in question were truly dead?

We do not know such a thing, as the articles Jack Flak has cited suggest that knowledge of the patient's inactive heart does not guarantee knowledge of the patient's inactivity of the brain.

2)Do we know if the aforementioned experiences were true? The visions depicted in such experiences were highly structured, or they included events that follow a clear pattern, exactly like events follow a pattern in a story depicting real-life occurences. We know that in order to think in a structured fashion we must be conscious, as structured thinking by its own definition requires that we organize our thoughts. We know that when we are unconscious we experience visions which are not structured. However, when we proceed to explain our visions (in this case the visions we have experienced in our dreams) to others, we bring structure to our visions. Very often we alter the content of our visions without knowing we have done so.

The psychological principles I wish to establish is as follows, our visions that we have not carefully organized cannot be clearly remembered as in themselves they lack structure. To examplify this matter, consider how we struggle to remember a random group of letters, but if we were told that these letters are an acronym that represent an idea that we are clearly aware of (or that we are told that the letters have a pattern), it would be easier for us to remember such a group of letters.

As aforementioned, what we see when we are unconscious cannot be structured and therefore is almost always altered. It is altered in two regards, much like our dreams tend to be altered. We misrepresent the content of what we have envisaged, and because we do not have a clear idea of what exactly we have envisaged, we tend to introduce additional material to our visions (material that has not occured in what we have seen) or neglect to recollect some of the material we have seen.

Thus, this shows that it is unlikely that the visions the people in question have experienced are true.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Additional notes on the visions of the people who claimed to have returned from the dead: It is very natural for us to believe in what strikes us as most pleasant. Wishful thinking, for this reason is very common among most people. Consider how, 5 months from now we may think that the opinions we have expressed to other people in our letters are profound and interesting. Yet, upon re-reading such letters, we would observe that this was not the case. Or for example, how an athlete may think he has performed well in a competitive event, yet upon reviewing the game on television, it would become obvious that this was not the case.

Moreover, consider how many elaborate interpretation we concoct for our dreams and how well structured our stories (that purport to depict what we have experienced in our dreams) tend to be. Yet it is clear to us that such structure could be possible only through conscious thinking.

One now is tempted to ask the following question; suppose John was declared dead at 7pm. At 7:05 PM the nurse said that it is raining outside. At 7:10 PM the doctor took off his mask and placed it on the highest shelf in the room.

John has regained consciousness at 7:20 PM and states what the doctor and the nurse intepret as the following "The nurse said it was raining outside and the doctor put his mask on the highest shelf in the room."

Lets assume that John was not truly dead. His brain remained active to a certain degree. It is not clear to what degree the brain could be active when his heart ceases to work. It is conceivable however, that his brain would be active enough to allow him to hear what has been said, as very often we can recollect what has been said when we are only partially unconscious.

Hence, John may have been able to report accurate information with regard to what has been said. Yet, it certainly seems doubtful that he would be able to report exactly what others have said or what others have done when he was unconscious, as having such clear recollections requires structured thinking. Such structured thinking is possible only through conscious activity.

At this point I wish to draw the reader's attention to the phenomenon of wishful thinking. John may have had (and likely had if at all) only partial perceptions of what has happened when he was unconscious and with limited success provided structure for his perceptions. As a result of this what he had stated to the nurse and the doctor was only vaguely reminiscent of occurences that took place when he was unconscious.

Moreoever, its possible that John was completely dead and had no perceptions at the time when he was unconscious. The perceptions he had were collected before he had died and were stored in his memory. He has retrieved such perceptions after he has regained consciousness.

The doctor and the nurse, eager to believe in life after death envisage that what he said obviously matches what has occured when he was unconscious. It is also the case that John himself was eager to believe that there is life after death and his experiences confirm such a proposition. Therefore, wishful thinking on his part could easily convince him that what he has experienced when he was unconscious supports the proposition that life after death is possible. It is very easy for John to think in a wishful fashion under these circumstances because his unconscious experiences are unstructured and therefore can be easily diluted, it is also his nature to think wishfully. Therefore it follows that because John thinks wishfully and it is easy for him distort the content of his visions, he will most likely alter the visions he has experienced to better fit the conclusions with regard to such visions that he wishes to accept.

Hence, the experiences that John has shared most likely had more in common with our recollections of dreams and all other of our unconscious psychological experiences. By virtue of John's attempt to bring structure to his visions and wishful thinking on his part, as well as those who have attempted to interpret his visions, a very elaborate and propitious to ourselves explanation of his experiences has been concocted. Such an explanation, almost certainly, does not correspond to what John truly has experienced when he was unconscious.

It is unlikely that if this case was subjected to careful inquiry, that what John had stated corresponds closely to what has occured when he was unconscious.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary:We do not have a reason to believe in the possibility of an afterlife because we do not know if any person who has communicated with us was truly dead and we do not have a reason to believe that their testimony is accurate, even if it was the case that such a person was truly dead.
 

THEANO

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Thesis: Some kind of an afterlife is possible.


Afterlife: Existence after the death of our body. Existence must be similar to the existence we experience on earth either with regard to our physical or psychological activities.

Reasons to believe that our thesis is true: What people report to have experienced at the time when physicians thought that they were dead is reminiscent of life after death.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Problem: There is life after death only if the physicians were corrected in declaring that the people who have reported the aforementioned experiences were dead and if the aforementioned reported experiences are true.

1)Do we know if the people in question were truly dead?

We do not know such a thing, as the articles Jack Flak has cited suggest that knowledge of the patient's inactive heart does not guarantee knowledge of the patient's inactivity of the brain.

2)Do we know if the aforementioned experiences were true? The visions depicted in such experiences were highly structured, or they included events that follow a clear pattern, exactly like events follow a pattern in a story depicting real-life occurences. We know that in order to think in a structured fashion we must be conscious, as structured thinking by its own definition requires that we organize our thoughts. We know that when we are unconscious we experience visions which are not structured. However, when we proceed to explain our visions (in this case the visions we have experienced in our dreams) to others, we bring structure to our visions. Very often we alter the content of our visions without knowing we have done so.

The psychological principles I wish to establish is as follows, our visions that we have not carefully organized cannot be clearly remembered as in themselves they lack structure. To examplify this matter, consider how we struggle to remember a random group of letters, but if we were told that these letters are an acronym that represent an idea that we are clearly aware of (or that we are told that the letters have a pattern), it would be easier for us to remember such a group of letters.

As aforementioned, what we see when we are unconscious cannot be structured and therefore is almost always altered. It is altered in two regards, much like our dreams tend to be altered. We misrepresent the content of what we have envisaged, and because we do not have a clear idea of what exactly we have envisaged, we tend to introduce additional material to our visions (material that has not occured in what we have seen) or neglect to recollect some of the material we have seen.

Thus, this shows that it is unlikely that the visions the people in question have experienced are true.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Additional notes on the visions of the people who claimed to have returned from the dead: It is very natural for us to believe in what strikes us as most pleasant. Wishful thinking, for this reason is very common among most people. Consider how, 5 months from now we may think that the opinions we have expressed to other people in our letters are profound and interesting. Yet, upon re-reading such letters, we would observe that this was not the case. Or for example, how an athlete may think he has performed well in a competitive event, yet upon reviewing the game on television, it would become obvious that this was not the case.

Moreover, consider how many elaborate interpretation we concoct for our dreams and how well structured our stories (that purport to depict what we have experienced in our dreams) tend to be. Yet it is clear to us that such structure could be possible only through conscious thinking.

One now is tempted to ask the following question; suppose John was declared dead at 7pm. At 7:05 PM the nurse said that it is raining outside. At 7:10 PM the doctor took off his mask and placed it on the highest shelf in the room.

John has regained consciousness at 7:20 PM and states what the doctor and the nurse intepret as the following "The nurse said it was raining outside and the doctor put his mask on the highest shelf in the room."

Lets assume that John was not truly dead. His brain remained active to a certain degree. It is not clear to what degree the brain could be active when his heart ceases to work. It is conceivable however, that his brain would be active enough to allow him to hear what has been said, as very often we can recollect what has been said when we are only partially unconscious.

Hence, John may have been able to report accurate information with regard to what has been said. Yet, it certainly seems doubtful that he would be able to report exactly what others have said or what others have done when he was unconscious, as having such clear recollections requires structured thinking. Such structured thinking is possible only through conscious activity.

At this point I wish to draw the reader's attention to the phenomenon of wishful thinking. John may have had (and likely had if at all) only partial perceptions of what has happened when he was unconscious and with limited success provided structure for his perceptions. As a result of this what he had stated to the nurse and the doctor was only vaguely reminiscent of occurences that took place when he was unconscious.

Moreoever, its possible that John was completely dead and had no perceptions at the time when he was unconscious. The perceptions he had were collected before he had died and were stored in his memory. He has retrieved such perceptions after he has regained consciousness.

The doctor and the nurse, eager to believe in life after death envisage that what he said obviously matches what has occured when he was unconscious. It is also the case that John himself was eager to believe that there is life after death and his experiences confirm such a proposition. Therefore, wishful thinking on his part could easily convince him that what he has experienced when he was unconscious supports the proposition that life after death is possible. It is very easy for John to think in a wishful fashion under these circumstances because his unconscious experiences are unstructured and therefore can be easily diluted, it is also his nature to think wishfully. Therefore it follows that because John thinks wishfully and it is easy for him distort the content of his visions, he will most likely alter the visions he has experienced to better fit the conclusions with regard to such visions that he wishes to accept.

Hence, the experiences that John has shared most likely had more in common with our recollections of dreams and all other of our unconscious psychological experiences. By virtue of John's attempt to bring structure to his visions and wishful thinking on his part, as well as those who have attempted to interpret his visions, a very elaborate and propitious to ourselves explanation of his experiences has been concocted. Such an explanation, almost certainly, does not correspond to what John truly has experienced when he was unconscious.

It is unlikely that if this case was subjected to careful inquiry, that what John had stated corresponds closely to what has occured when he was unconscious.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary:We do not have a reason to believe in the possibility of an afterlife because we do not know if any person who has communicated with us was truly dead and we do not have a reason to believe that their testimony is accurate, even if it was the case that such a person was truly dead.


Hey!!! Paragraphs and white spaces. I've died and gone to heaven. I'll report on my experience when I return.
 

Lady_X

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damn really...i'm sure i would enjoy this discussion but i just can't read all that.

my beliefs aren't up for debate anyway though.
 

Anja

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Thanks for your effort on the thread's behalf, SW. I read it all but felt disconnected from it's import after the third sentence assuming that existence after death must bear a resemblance to corporeal life. That's where the glitch lies I think.

pt, thank you. I think your observations about our comparative communicational styles are apt and really quite useful to me. I appreciate your taking the time to present your ideas in a more understandable form to me!

Whoopy! A real conversation. What a gem!

(Do I dare post the freakin' banana?)
 

SolitaryWalker

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Thanks for your effort on the thread's behalf, SW. I read it all but felt disconnected from it's import after the third sentence assuming that existence after death must bear a resemblance to corporeal life. That's where the glitch lies I think.?)

It is possible to imagine an existence that does not resemble our past experiences? If we had such an experience, how could we regard what we have observed as life after death?

In other words, life on earth is our paradigm for what we regard as the essence of 'life' itself.
 

Anja

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To me that is thinking inside that box of having to understand through our human mind and doesn't work.

I'm not sure if accounts of NDE talk about the state of the person experiencing it. What they generally describe is what they are seeing happening in the corporeal life and are not part of it anymore. They talk about feeling reluctantly called back to something they have left. Reluctantly.

Do you believe in the Universe? In Infinity? If your mind can actually wrap around something which we can't experience in corporeal life - I call that faith - then I suppose you can believe that you understand what life after death is/is not like.

See what I'm saying? Those concepts are outside the realm of measurement and experience and yet we posit them with our inadequate human brains. And, I daresay, some sense of fear. No wonder we'd like to think that we aren't energy which could exist forever!

Incidently, I am not making a case for life after death. I can't do that. No one can.

What I'm saying is that not all can be knowable.
 

Wild horses

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Well no one can make a case for it out of their intellectual capacity but out of their spirit where faith lies they most certainly can. It is when we try to cross two realms that things get mixed up. We ofetn try to intelectually explain feelings and it is impossible because feeling are not rational and it is the same with things of the spirit realm that lie outside this thing we call reality we cannot use the things we have developed here to cope with this realm to analyse and make a case for or against another our skills just aren't that cross curricula I'm afraid
 

Tiltyred

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Last night I saw a program on tv about people with special abilities, among which was a man who was born without eyes who is an artist. He paints pictures of recognizable things -- windmills, flowers, sky, trees. When they looked at his brain while he was painting, the visual parts were lit up like a Christmas tree. They tested him until he was literally sick of it, and every time, he passed, he could draw what he was asked to draw.

It makes me thing that our ideas about how our bodies interrelate with the world around us are still pretty primitive and mechanistic.
 

Virtual ghost

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There is one thing that I don't understand about spiritual people.

Spiritual people are always very interested in talk about life after death.

But I what I fail to understand is what would be the purppose of this life.


Why is it so important that this story is true?
 

Virtual ghost

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What is the purpose of this one if you are not spiritual?

I will not going to lie to you I really think that this life is pointless.

If you want me to I can post a lot about this and about what is really my position on this topic.
In some other thread of course.
 

Wild horses

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Well then for a person such as yourself why does the next life need a purpose if you feel this one doesn't either... I am guessing we have very different ideas on this topic but i don't mind reading your views on the subject if you wish to post them to me... :)
 

Virtual ghost

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Well then for a person such as yourself why does the next life need a purpose if you feel this one doesn't either... I am guessing we have very different ideas on this topic but i don't mind reading your views on the subject if you wish to post them to me... :)

That would be hijack of the thread.

But in short my argument comes to that purpose is human need but there is no such a thing as purpose in this reality. That is just a way how humans see it and they are projecting their ideas and feelings upon the reality but that doen not mean that they are hitting the target.

You will just have to believe me that when you get rid of the need for purpose there is a whole new world out there.
But this in a way means the destruction of feeling.

I will open a thread about this kinds of things so we can talk there.
 

King sns

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But this in a way means the destruction of feeling.

I will open a thread about this kinds of things so we can talk there.


And in that thread, I would like to know why realizing that there is no purpose might destroy feeling? Elaborate.
 

SolitaryWalker

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To me that is thinking inside that box of having to understand through our human mind and doesn't work.



Do you believe in the Universe? In Infinity? If your mind can actually wrap around something which we can't experience in corporeal life - I call that faith - then I suppose you can believe that you understand what life after death is/is not like.

See what I'm saying? Those concepts are outside the realm of measurement and experience and yet we posit them with our inadequate human brains. And, I daresay, some sense of fear. No wonder we'd like to think that we aren't energy which could exist forever!

Incidently, I am not making a case for life after death. I can't do that. No one can.

What I'm saying is that not all can be knowable.

All that we regard as existence is within the constraints of time, space, and matter.

If something lacked time, all events would happen simultaneously, the human mind could not register this as existence. Therefore if we had such an experience, we simply would not be able to experience it.

If an event lacked space, it literally would be nothing, therefore also by definition would be regarded as unimaginable. If an event lacked matter, it would also be unimaginable as all things within our imagination were inspired by what was once in the senses.

To me that is thinking inside that box of having to understand through our human mind and doesn't work..

This is the only kind of thinking possible and the only kind of thinking that can work by definition.



See what I'm saying? Those concepts are outside the realm of measurement and experience and yet we posit them with our inadequate human brains...

Because we were able to talk about such experiences, it follows that they were indeed within our "realm of measurement'.

Do you believe in the Universe?...

The definition of the Universe is all that exists. I believe in that.


In Infinity?
?...

Infinity by definition is an entity without a limit. This does not exist in the world that we can experience. Infinity however does exist. It is the substratum or the underlying layer of our known world. The existence of infinity is what justifies the existence of our known world. Because we know that infinity is limitlessness, finitude is the opposite of limitlessness, or property of having a limit. If our universe was infinite, it would be one thing without a beginning or an end. No such thing with an exception of space (which is indeed the substratum to all other entities of the finite universe) could be infinite, as all things that we know of have a limitation. In fact, if we could prove that the universe contains at least two distinct entities, it follows that our universe is finite, or it is not the case that the universe consists of one boundless, homogeneous substance.

If we were to posit that the finite universe was created by another finite being, we would be forced to ask what the cause of that finite entity that creating the universe was. If we were to say another finite, entity, would proceed ad infinitum seeking the first cause. What if the first cause was self-created, as theists claim that God was self-created. This contradicts the principle that nothing can come from nothing. Therefore it is untenable.

Hence, the only way we can provide an intelligible understanding of the first cause of the universe is by claiming that it was infinite. That way the original entity is boundless and needs not creator, it did not come from nothing because it has always existed. Our known finite world is merely how we tend to perceive the infinite realm.
 
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