--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Yifu" <yifuxero@> wrote: > > > > consciousness beyond the brain - precisely; dead people with > > subtle bodies. Likewise, Buddhas existing in varous Buddhalands > > beyond the physical. You doubt the existence of life after > > physical brain existence? How curious. > > This recent article from Salon.com reports on some of > the latest and most conclusive evidence concerning near- > death experiences: > > http://www.salon.com/2012/04/21/near_death_explained
I wouldn't go so far as to say it was conclusive. For instance, around a third of people who report meeting relatives meet some who are still alive. Which gives it away as an entirely subjective experience. And there isn't much to the experience I haven't had from drugs or meditating. The mind is capable of some weird shit. That said it's fascinating that these clear experiences take place at times of serious trauma but only a very small proportion who are near death have any sort of NDE which has to go into the data. I suspect it's some kind of illusion caused by the dying brain and the time correlations are simply mistakes caused by the urgency of the situation. Tricky to test anything under those conditions, maybe some people should volunteer to be killed so it could be put to a rigorous test? But maybe you need to be in mortal fear to generate enough adrenalin (or something) to mess up your mind enough to trigger it. The tennis shoe story is a good anecdote, if only the plural of anecdote was data! Luckily it's being tested right now (the OBE component anyway) with items being left on high shelves in operating theatres in case a patient has an OBE. > > The final paragraphs: > > ----- > The scientific NDE studies performed over the past decades indicate that > heightened mental functions can be experienced independently of the body at a > time when brain activity is greatly impaired or seemingly absent (such as > during cardiac arrest). Some of these studies demonstrate that blind people > can have veridical perceptions during OBEs associated with an NDE. Other > investigations show that NDEs often result in deep psychological and > spiritual changes. None of this proves the mind can live independent of the body. > These findings strongly challenge the mainstream neuroscientific view that > mind and consciousness result solely from brain activity. As we have seen, > such a view fails to account for how NDErs can experience—while their hearts > are stopped—vivid and complex thoughts and acquire veridical information > about objects or events remote from their bodies. Not yet, but it's too vast a jump to conclude life after death from this. > NDE studies also suggest that after physical death, mind and consciousness > may continue in a transcendent level of reality that normally is not > accessible to our senses and awareness. Needless to say, this view is utterly > incompatible with the belief of many materialists that the material world is > the only reality. Terrible last paragraph, gives the game away. All there is is the stuff of physics. If it doesn't fit in with that, where is it?
