Near Death and Out of Body Experiences

[dlorde]

That there are already a number of plausible explanations for the specific features of NDEs doesn't mean there aren't others to be found; ... However, it does mean that there is even less justification for considering mystical, magical, paranormal, or supernatural explanations (albeit these are already ruled out en-masse by quantum field theory).

So my thoughts regarding a group mind and the possibility of consciousness that resides out side of individual bodies is supernatural?

They're sufficiently vague that they could fit any of the categories I mentioned.

I don't think it is, sounds more like the Avatar or Matrix movies, which do happen to be fiction.

Fiction isn't real. If you're describing the real world, you need something a little more solid than something that sounds like movie fiction.

I thought trotting out the quantum theory to provide evidence for or against the existence of the supernatural was an inappropriate use of the theory. What particular supernatural explanations does it rule out?

If you accept that the theory is correct within its limits (or at least within the bounds of everyday human scales and interactions), all such explanations are invalid and/or incoherent.

Consciousness is a process executed by networks of brain cells. To be maintained, it requires a functionally equivalent substrate to store the information and execute the process, some source of energy, and very likely some sensory input. If you want to speculate about consciousness outside individual bodies, you need to find some support system for it.

Of course, you can decide not to accept QFT as a good enough description of how the world behaves, but that leaves you with the problem of how it could be so successful in its predictions and applications in technology if it's wrong. Maybe everything is magic or supernatural, and we're deliberately being fooled by something that makes the world behave exactly as we'd expect if QFT was correct...

 

[Navigator]

This applies to you also.

It applies to anyone who argues from one side or the other.

Consciousness is bigger than both of us, and all of us.

As I have claimed, there is more to the individual than meets the eye, and that hidden aspect is actually not that hard to find and communicate with. Doing so offers one much more data on consciousness than any other method known.

 

[steenkh]

Complex experiences. The content of the experiences are not random bits of disassociate data.

Dreams are well known for being ordered after the event, i.e. they seem more coherent when remembered than when happened.

Is not consciousness the consciousness of the brain?

Yes. Is there currently any other consciousness?

In that case, what is there to experience the 'random experiences' if consciousness is not needed?

Obviously none of this can be experienced without a brain either. It is not very interesting to enter into a discussion of what constitutes an "experience".

I said "The only thing conscious about the brain is consciousness itself. Therefore consciousness has to be the thing creating the experiences."

I did not say that brains were not conscious - I said that consciousness is the consciousness of the brain.

Nobody disputes that, but you seem to think that consciousness can also exist without a brain.

"Synapses running loose" cannot by itself create complex experiences any more that tubes of paint can create a masterpiece.

Dreams are not masterpieces.

 

[Nonpareil]

It applies to anyone who argues from one side or the other.

Consciousness is bigger than both of us, and all of us.

As I have claimed, there is more to the individual than meets the eye, and that hidden aspect is actually not that hard to find and communicate with. Doing so offers one much more data on consciousness than any other method known.

Nope.

 

[Resume]

It applies to anyone who argues from one side or the other.

Consciousness is bigger than both of us, and all of us.

Consciousness is us; we are consciousness.

As I have claimed, there is more to the individual than meets the eye, and that hidden aspect is actually not that hard to find and communicate with. Doing so offers one much more data on consciousness than any other method known.

I suppose this means something, but I have no clue as to what.

 

[Pixel42]

I suppose this means something, but I have no clue as to what.

I think he's referring to his experiments with using the ideomotor effect to 'communicate' with his subconscious.

 

[Navigator]

I would admit that I do not know just how consciousness works. Nobody really does. We do, however, have a fairly large body of evidence for where and when it works. If you could find some instance in which consciousness occurs without a living brain this would help the argument. If you could find some instance in which consciousness exists without occurring, it would help even more.

I have no such evidence of that kind, which is why I do not invest belief in the idea. I have not claimed that when a body dies the consciousness which was in that body survives. What is known about consciousness has to do with what has been observed through bodies which are alive, and as large a body of evidence that might be, it is not enough to convince me to be a believer that when the body dies, that it also the death of the consciousness which inhabited that body.

What I have claimed is that we each have an aspect of consciousness of which most are ignorant of and to which most consign to being 'unconscious' or 'subconscious' and think little of it or its place in the scheme of things, let alone what it has to say about such things.

It is a living thing. It is able to be communicated with and I will even go so far as to claim that it knows you - the ego personality - even better than you - the ego personality - know your self.

Don't you think it would be prudent to investigate all leads before making decisions on what you feel you have to believe? Isn't that a part of scientific investigation?

 

[MuDPhuD]

Perhaps MuDPhuD may be able to answer.

Sorry, I find I am no longer able to post from tapatalk, and am rarely at a computer.

 

[dlorde]

"Synapses running loose" cannot by itself create complex experiences any more that tubes of paint can create a masterpiece.

Clearly, then, what happens in the brain is not "synapses running loose" - whatever that may mean. What goes on in the brain outside of conscious awareness is capable of complex experience, understanding, and extraordinary feats of creativity. Without it consciousness is nothing.

 

[Nonpareil]

I have no such evidence of that kind

Which is not the same thing as the evidence not being available.

Ignorance is not a substitute for an argument.

What is known about consciousness has to do with what has been observed through bodies which are alive, and as large a body of evidence that might be, it is not enough to convince me to be a believer that when the body dies, that it also the death of the consciousness which inhabited that body.

Refusal to accept the conclusion indicated by the evidence is also not a substitute for an argument.

What I have claimed is that we each have an aspect of consciousness of which most are ignorant of and to which most consign to being 'unconscious' or 'subconscious' and think little of it or its place in the scheme of things, let alone what it has to say about such things.

It is a living thing. It is able to be communicated with and I will even go so far as to claim that it knows you - the ego personality - even better than you - the ego personality - know your self.

Don't you think it would be prudent to investigate all leads before making decisions on what you feel you have to believe? Isn't that a part of scientific investigation?

None of that in any way indicates that consciousness might survive death.

 

[tsig]

It applies to anyone who argues from one side or the other.

Consciousness is bigger than both of us, and all of us.

As I have claimed, there is more to the individual than meets the eye, and that hidden aspect is actually not that hard to find and communicate with. Doing so offers one much more data on consciousness than any other method known.

I have no such evidence of that kind, which is why I do not invest belief in the idea. I have not claimed that when a body dies the consciousness which was in that body survives. What is known about consciousness has to do with what has been observed through bodies which are alive, and as large a body of evidence that might be, it is not enough to convince me to be a believer that when the body dies, that it also the death of the consciousness which inhabited that body.

What I have claimed is that we each have an aspect of consciousness of which most are ignorant of and to which most consign to being 'unconscious' or 'subconscious' and think little of it or its place in the scheme of things, let alone what it has to say about such things.

It is a living thing. It is able to be communicated with and I will even go so far as to claim that it knows you - the ego personality - even better than you - the ego personality - know your self.

Don't you think it would be prudent to investigate all leads before making decisions on what you feel you have to believe? Isn't that a part of scientific investigation?

You've already tossed out the scientific method when you said "that hidden aspect is actually not that hard to find and communicate with. Doing so offers one much more data on consciousness than any other method known".

 

[MuDPhuD]

...the data I got was that consciousness retains emotion, thought, sight, hearing and can move through things which a body cannot. Sight was far more acute. Fear is still present. The sense of self is the same. The feeling of liberation from the body was exceptional.

All these elements of consciousness are brain functions. Your memory of the experience requires an intact memory circuit. Your emotional experience requires an intact limbic system. The experience of the senses is most clearly dependent upon the sensory organs and relaled systems.

Are you aware that the image you see before you does not exist? The eye does not capture a full color focused image like a camera and piece of film. Your color vision and high acuity vision is limited to the very center few degrees of the visual field (fovea centralis) with which your brain scans the scene before you in a very systematic way. The visual system integrates the various fragments of information into a coherent picture which you "see".

The colors you see depend on the visual pigments in your retinal cone cells. Change a single base pair in your genome and the pigment proteins change by one amino acid and you would be red/green color blind! Everything would look different!

Interfere with the normal action one of your 12 extraocular muscles and your brainstem will no longer be able to coordinate your binocular eye movements, and you will be unable to form a fused 3D image.

Your stable view of the world is entirely dependent on the proper function of your vestibular apparatus, whose mili-second to mili-second corrections of your head and eye movements you are completetly unaware of. Most of us dont even know this system exists unless you experience vertigo.

In short none of your sensory experiences can exist without an intact brain. Change the tiniest part of the systems and your experience of the world will be profoundly changed. Red and and green will not exist for you!

In another, I experienced seeing an entity which was not human. It was humanoid though.
The next night the same entity (this time invisible - so I am assuming) took hold of my wrists and pulled me straight upright and crossed my arms over my chest in the same manner that he had held his arms over his chest the previous night. Then he let me go. I felt myself floating and this was the first time I experiencied OOB.
On both occasions interesting unusual data.

This data is taken from dreams and hallucinations.
Do you believe the content of all dreams represents a reality apart from the waking world? There are those who do. If you want to convince a skeptic of this you will need to produce some independently verifiable evidence of information gained in your dreams which your brain did not already have access to. Modern medicine takes the view that the brain generates dream content from experiences and memories.

The feeling of floating outside your body and looking down on yourself is experienced by many. It can be induced by direct brain stimulation, hallucinogenic drugs, and epileptic seizures. Do you believe that an epileptic who experiences autoscopy as part of her aura is in fact floating above her body, or is she having this experience based on abnormal brain discharges preceding her seizure?

Years later I told my dad about that experience and he was amazed. He replied that the same thing had happened to him and that it had been physically painful and the next day there were red marks around his wrists.

Not having seen the red marks (for which there could be a variety of rational explanations) count me a skeptic.

No not drugs. I have always been fearful of drugs because of being out of control...controlled by the drug.
I know people who take drugs for the purpose of alternate experiences, and I don't judge them for experimenting etc. Its just not for me.

Many use drugs to highten their OBEs, but they will certainly not clarify their origin for you.

there is another aspect to consciousness which is unknown to the individual

...but known to you?

Furthermore, I have experienced through ideomoter effect direct and consistent communication with the aspect of consciousness I refereed to in further back in this post. (highlited).
The communications (which happened over a long period of time and started simply and became more and more complex) where done using physical devices I created and technique I developed (with directive from the 'other' aspect of consciousness.) Long story short, I was in communication with an aspect of my own consciousness to which I was previously oblivious.
Do we all have this hidden aspect?

The aspect of your brain function which is you (consciouness) is the smallest part of its total function. What you are describing is similar to the experience of intuition and inspiration. Composers and writers feel their work arises from within or outside them, scientists describe their breakthroughs as coming upon them suddenly (sometimes in dreams!). The brain does a lot of work (constantly) while "you" are not paying attention, and then up pops the answer as if it came from outside of yourself. So yes everyone has it. I believe what you are describing is your subconscious brain (your right hemisphere if you wish to think of it that way) in action.

 

[bruto]

I have no such evidence of that kind, which is why I do not invest belief in the idea. I have not claimed that when a body dies the consciousness which was in that body survives. What is known about consciousness has to do with what has been observed through bodies which are alive, and as large a body of evidence that might be, it is not enough to convince me to be a believer that when the body dies, that it also the death of the consciousness which inhabited that body.

What I have claimed is that we each have an aspect of consciousness of which most are ignorant of and to which most consign to being 'unconscious' or 'subconscious' and think little of it or its place in the scheme of things, let alone what it has to say about such things.

It is a living thing. It is able to be communicated with and I will even go so far as to claim that it knows you - the ego personality - even better than you - the ego personality - know your self.

Don't you think it would be prudent to investigate all leads before making decisions on what you feel you have to believe? Isn't that a part of scientific investigation?

What leads have not been investigated? What evidence has turned up?

So if consciousness is a living thing, what do you call its consciousness? Consciousness ^2?

 

[Navigator]

Dreams are well known for being ordered after the event, i.e. they seem more coherent when remembered than when happened.

Dreams are not at all easy to remember. Lucid experiences which are not filled with a great abundance of sensory incidence, are far more easily remembered accurately.

Yes. Is there currently any other consciousness?

Things without brains do show signs of self awareness and ability to make decisions. The overall process of evolution is one such thing.
In the context I was speaking, the only consciousness we are aware of to do with the brain are our own. We are the consciousness of the brain. Furthermore it is recognized that there are layers to consciousness, of which we are not as aware of.

Obviously none of this can be experienced without a brain either. It is not very interesting to enter into a discussion of what constitutes an "experience".

Anything involving conscious awareness constitutes experience. Some find it interesting, others do not.

Nobody disputes that, but you seem to think that consciousness can also exist without a brain.

I think it may be possible, yes.

Dreams are not masterpieces.

That doesn't change the overall context of the metaphor. Nor was I speaking of dreams.

 

[Navigator]

Clearly, then, what happens in the brain is not "synapses running loose" - whatever that may mean.

Some one else made that statement. I just went with it

What goes on in the brain outside of conscious awareness is capable of complex experience, understanding, and extraordinary feats of creativity. Without it consciousness is nothing.

I would say it like this:
What goes on involving the brain outside of our normal conscious awareness is capable of creating complex experience, and is capable of understanding, is intelligent and capable of creating extraordinary feats of creativity. Without it our normal conscious awareness would be unable to achieve the creative input into the world that it does.

I remind you that I am not arguing that the brain is not part of the process. I have acknowledged this regarding this aspect of consciousness which we acknowledge as 'us' (the 'me' I' 'ego personality' etc) However, without consciousness, nothing can be experienced because consciousness is that which DOES the experiencing.
The brain plays its part in that process. It is unknown whether, upon the death of the brain, the individual consciousness survives and continues to experience.


Without consciousness the things we create would not exist.
There is that aspect which is conscious which we are not fully aware of. We may acknowledge and assign certain things to it, but we don't know it. It knows us. It is intelligent and fully able to converse, given the opportunity it will converse. Given the opportunity it will tell the individual exactly what it is.

Sometimes things from it 'leak' into our own awareness in the form of insight, intuition etc, and dreams have been known to be one way such things happen.

 

[Navigator]

Which is not the same thing as the evidence not being available.

Ignorance is not a substitute for an argument.

Your comment is out of context to my own.
I said:
"I have no such evidence of that kind, which is why I do not invest belief in the idea."

and was referring to evidence to do with consciousness actually surviving the death of the body.

None of that in any way indicates that consciousness might survive death.

You can't make that claim without first asking. You can't ask without setting up the necessary things in order to proceed and making the effort.

Well you can make the claim of course, but you have no evidence to back it, right?

In other words you are making the claim based on personal assumption.

 

[Navigator]

You've already tossed out the scientific method when you said "that hidden aspect is actually not that hard to find and communicate with. Doing so offers one much more data on consciousness than any other method known".

Explain.

Are you suggesting that ideomoter effect cannot be studied scientifically?

 

[Slowvehicle]

<snip>
Things without brains do show signs of self awareness and ability to make decisions. The overall process of evolution is one such thing.<snip>

This statement appears to use the terms, "self awareness" and "ability to make decisions" in novel ways, contrary to their actual meanings.

Perhaps you would explain, or support your assertion.

 

[turingtest]

...
Things without brains do show signs of self awareness and ability to make decisions. The overall process of evolution is one such thing.
...

If you really think this, you don't understand what is literally the first thing you must understand about evolution- it's not a normative process that involves making decisions (much less "self awareness"). Evolution's outcomes are no more "decisions" of the process than a hurricane is a decision of the climate/weather process that produced it.

 

[Navigator]

All these elements of consciousness are brain functions. Your memory of the experience requires an intact memory circuit. Your emotional experience requires an intact limbic system. The experience of the senses is most clearly dependent upon the sensory organs and relaled systems.

I have not claimed otherwise. I acknowledge the brains part in the process.

Are you aware that the image you see before you does not exist? The eye does not capture a full color focused image like a camera and piece of film. Your color vision and high acuity vision is limited to the very center few degrees of the visual field (fovea centralis) with which your brain scans the scene before you in a very systematic way. The visual system integrates the various fragments of information into a coherent picture which you "see". The colors you see depend on the visual pigments in your retinal cone cells. Change a single base pair in your genome and the pigment proteins change by one amino acid and you would be red/green color blind! Everything would look different!

Interfere with the normal action one of your 12 extraocular muscles and your brainstem will no longer be able to coordinate your binocular eye movements, and you will be unable to form a fused 3D image.

Your stable view of the world is entirely dependent on the proper function of your vestibular apparatus, whose mili-second to mili-second corrections of your head and eye movements you are completetly unaware of. Most of us dont even know this system exists unless you experience vertigo.

In short none of your sensory experiences can exist without an intact brain. Change the tiniest part of the systems and your experience of the world will be profoundly changed. Red and and green will not exist for you!

Actually the image I see before me does exist. What you have described is that how we view the image is simple not an accurate rendition of the actual thing being viewed.
This could explain why certain experiences seem more real than normal, because during those experiences we are consciously experiencing them as they actually are.
What we call 'reality' thus isn't the real rendition of actual reality.

This data is taken from dreams and hallucinations.
Do you believe the content of all dreams represents a reality apart from the waking world?

No. Dreams can relate to the dominant reality of the world (which we cannot as you have said, actually see in its true rendition.) but they are not real.

There are those who do. If you want to convince a skeptic of this you will need to produce some independently verifiable evidence of information gained in your dreams which your brain did not already have access to. Modern medicine takes the view that the brain generates dream content from experiences and memories.

This is how I understand dreams as well...

The feeling of floating outside your body and looking down on yourself is experienced by many. It can be induced by direct brain stimulation, hallucinogenic drugs, and epileptic seizures. Do you believe that an epileptic who experiences autoscopy as part of her aura is in fact floating above her body, or is she having this experience based on abnormal brain discharges preceding her seizure?

I have no beliefs either way. When I experienced leaving my body and floating up through ceiling and roof, and also when I experienced being pulled out of my body by an invisible entity (I mentioned that in one of my posts in this thread) I did not think to look back at my body so have no direct experience regarding that.

The visuals involved in those experiences were not random. They were purposeful and for that, had to have been created. The brain cannot do these things of its own volition. Why and how consciousness becomes an emergent of brains seems to involve necessity. My understanding of these types of experiences is that they are created by an aspect of consciousness which we loosely call the 'subconscious' and they are purposeful and specific to the individual experiencing them.
Having said that, there are similar things individuals experience, almost - if not totally - the same.

In relation to drugs, direct brain stimulation, seizures - these might be indicative of how the subconscious can work the brain to create the experiences for the conscious ego personality.
Without consciousness the brain by itself is no thing overly marvelous. An unconscious brain isn't as nearly interesting.
Think about it.

The brain does not drive consciousness, any more than a vehicle drives a person. A person drives the vehicle.
Consciousness drives the brain.
The brain is the vehicle for consciousness. This is far more logical than thinking that consciousness is the vehicle for the brain.

Not having seen the red marks (for which there could be a variety of rational explanations) count me a skeptic.

Sure - I only mentioned it in relation to telling my experience to my dad, and his immediate reaction. His experience in regard to my own, are hearsay in regard to you.

Many use drugs to highten their OBEs, but they will certainly not clarify their origin for you.

I would say many also don't use drugs. It is not here nor there.

...but known to you?

I relation to those ignorant of this, yes. I am still getting to know it, and will be for the remainder of my days here on earth. It is really the choice of the ego personality as to whether they want to examine and utilize the ideomotor effect further then putting their own beliefs into it or ignoring it altogether.

The aspect of your brain function which is you (consciouness) is the smallest part of its total function. What you are describing is similar to the experience of intuition and inspiration. Composers and writers feel their work arises from within or outside them, scientists describe their breakthroughs as coming upon them suddenly (sometimes in dreams!). The brain does a lot of work (constantly) while "you" are not paying attention, and then up pops the answer as if it came from outside of yourself. So yes everyone has it. I believe what you are describing is your subconscious brain (your right hemisphere if you wish to think of it that way) in action.

You are confusing the brain with consciousness. I acknowledge, it has something to do with the overall process. When I communicate with that other aspect, the brain acts as a medium to help enable that process. The two aspects of consciousness use the brain for that purpose. Not the brain alone of course. What you and many others think of as the brain doing the inspiring etc, I know of as that other aspect of consciousness, commonly refer to as the 'subconscious' - which in itself is a very misleading term since, as you say - it is the bigger aspect. Truth be understood, it is like we the ego personalities who are the more the sub of the two aspects of consciousness, but that kind of labeling has more to do with the vanity of the ego personality than with anything else.

The brain is a biological organ, wonderful mainly for the fact that consciousness (not just the ego personality part) evolved from its processes.