Near Death and Out of Body Experiences

[annnnoid]

Disembodied consciousness is like a rook moving diagonally. We know enough about the physics of human scale interactions to know it's not a valid move.

Not correct.

I’ve a friend who’s a theoretical physicist. Here’s what he had to say about the matter:

I find the claim that "were it to occur it would be detectable" somewhat question-begging. It presumes that it (OBEs) would occur in a way that is easily detectable through the known forces of nature (EM, weak, strong, gravity). But in fact, it's not so clear. For example, the electromagnetic vacuum energy of quantum electrodynamics is an enormous energy density, yet we can barely observe its indirect physical effects on visible matter other than in highly controlled experimental setups (e.g. Casimir plates in a hard vacuum). If OBEs (say) were mediated by the E&M vacuum energy (perhaps through correlations in the vacuum field modes or whatever), it would be extremely hard to detect those correlations (much harder than doing a Casimir effect experiment). Then of course, there's the fact that there are mediums in our physical universe whose constituents or physical origins we know next to nothing about - dark matter and dark energy (it's not clear yet if dark energy is really the same as the electromagnetic/weak/strong quantum vacuum energy, or something different). These two mediums constitute around 96% of the mass-energy content of the universe, yet the only way we know how to 'detect' them at the moment is by observing their gravitational effects at galactic and inter-galactic scales. If (say) the medium for OBEs (assuming they really are 'consciousness' displacing itself from the physical brain) was mediated by dark matter and/or dark energy, it would be hopeless right now to try and detect the physical effects of an OBE with earth-bound lab experiments, and probably impossible to infer OBEs from gravitational effects at galactic or inter-galactic scales. I can't think of any evidence or theory that can decisively rule out these two possibilities for the mediums of OBEs.

I’ve heard this ‘but it contradicts all the laws of the universe’ silliness for way to long. It's nothing more than a bare assertion, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Especially given that nobody has any clear idea as to the actual phenomenology and / or range of activity of consciousness and especially given the indisputable fact that nobody has any idea how it’s generated by the brain in the first place.

Constantly bleating that ‘the mind is what the brain does’ is nothing more than a convenient fairy tale to hide the elephant in the room. Ignorance.

It is well-known that memory is unreliable.

Of course this is blatant nonsense (and can easily be established to be exactly that)…but for once, we’ll let one of your own demonstrate.

Hyper-real or vivid experiences are a common feature of lucid dreams and may also occur as a result of extreme mental or physiological stress (PTSD, NDEs), and psychoactive drugs. I've had several hyper-vivid lucid dreams over the years; you don't forget them.

We’ll just assume that dlorde is lying shall we.

I’m thinking that dlorde has just become a witness for the defense.

 

[bruto]

I see that we appear to have another poster who is unclear on the difference between the container and its contents. I think it's reasonable to suggest that memory is faulty without suggesting that no memory can be relevant, and that we can remember a dream without forgetting it was only a dream.

 

[Donn]

Even if there's some bleeding-edge physics that postulates a means to connect our atomic brains to the outside of our skulls, what does the "consciousness" attach-to when it leaves the brain?

I.e. why is the brain so complex? If that complexity is required to "host" a "consciousness" then whatever else may "host" it should be at least as complex. What could that be?

If this "consciousness" is self-contained and needs no structure to be "hosted" then why the brain at all? Why not a marble of electromagnetic vacuum energy, whatever?

If this "consciousness" is merely data - and it must move to various "hosts" in order to exist - then what is its bandwidth? What are the measurements in gigs per second, say, that it would take to move from in the skull to outside the skull, and off into super-universe-brain-space?

Are the mentioned quantum vacuum energy flim-flams up to the task? Would there not be some residual signal we can detect now? As the "consciousness" moves out, would it not leave some heat, some light perhaps?

So many questions.

 

[Nonpareil]

I’ve a friend who’s a theoretical physicist.

Assuming you're still talking about Max Derakshani, no, you don't. You have a friend who is a college student majoring in physics.

Constantly bleating that ‘the mind is what the brain does’ is nothing more than a convenient fairy tale to hide the elephant in the room. Ignorance.

It's really not.

Of course this is blatant nonsense (and can easily be established to be exactly that)…but for once, we’ll let one of your own demonstrate.




We’ll just assume that dlorde is lying shall we.

I’m thinking that dlorde has just become a witness for the defense.

In other news, annnnoid still does not know the definition of "fallible".

 

[Navigator]

Yes, one should. As narrators of reality, even our own accrued lives, humans are rubbish at non-fiction.

So something happened which was real but how it is reported is not how it was.

For a certain social aspect, we pretend that we are in control and at the helm. We can manage an identity over time by the constant use of it. Other oft-repeated things groove into our minds and maintain the illusion of self, etc. For this short span and social aspect, we are "reliable" but it's within very strict limits.

Ah. So 'the illusion of self' has more to do with how the self puts on a costume and acts out.
I have been saying as much in relation to my experience with ideomotor. The ego personality is at the helm and the real self is ignored and/or presumed to be something it isn't.

It is that real self which I am speaking about communicating with through ideomotor.

It is quite the humbling experience for ego personality as the real self slowly undresses it and washes it clean of makeup.

Here's another very strange thing:


You say it's a claim and then you say it can so-and-so as if that's a fact. No, it's more claiming. You do this a lot, shifting from cautious to carefree and dabbing all over the canvas.

Or so you claim. I see you relying upon hearsay here and have not provided examples.

See? And, no, that's not at all clear.

No I do not see. What is not clear. You need to clarify.

Affirming the consequent. Begging the question. Coming to a gun fight with a halibut.

What does that even mean in regard to what you quote?

Evolution is a word with many meanings. One is that, loosely, things change and go from one state to another over time. So, yes, kinda-sorta, the universe evolved.

Ah yes. There are so many singular words with multiple meanings. That makes it easier not to have to say what you mean, or be understood.
generally people have been lead to believe that the universe exists through the process of evolution, in a definite rather than kinda-sorta way.

Were the goal posts moved or did someones discover something previously hidden?

The evolution here is not the same as the theory of evolution used in biology.

Ah... so same universe but different processes. Why use the same word for a different process?

Bald assertion served by your special pleading. Well done! No, there is no evidently about it. Zero.

Nope, wrong. Evidence? And not more fallacious looping.

That will be your illusion of self talking here. It simply prefers not to see the obvious because of the implications. It needs to get out of its box and remove its costumes and makeup and start being real.
The evidence is there to observe. What more evidence could you require? What evidence will you accept?

Yeah, you can discover that the mind is an endless source of stories that fit the mind.

You will never know if you continue to live the facade of your illusion of self.

Psychonaut, doubt thyself!

Says the illusion about the real.

 

[annnnoid]

Assuming you're still talking about Max Derakshani, no, you don't. You have a friend who is a college student majoring in physics.
.

He has a masters degree in theoretical physics...currently doing research.

Tell me Nonpareil...what qualifications do you possess?

Your never-ending refusal to provide a shred of evidence to support your claims would lead one to conclude that you possess...nothing.

Feel free to demonstrate otherwise.

Can you challenge the conclusions presented?

....no, didn't think so.

So all you're left with is a feeble attempt at ridiculing the author. Ad hominem it's called. Sad.

Unless you can challenge what he wrote (and you can't, and you won't), what he wrote stands.

 

[annnnoid]

Even if there's some bleeding-edge physics that postulates a means to connect our atomic brains to the outside of our skulls, what does the "consciousness" attach-to when it leaves the brain?

I.e. why is the brain so complex? If that complexity is required to "host" a "consciousness" then whatever else may "host" it should be at least as complex. What could that be?

If this "consciousness" is self-contained and needs no structure to be "hosted" then why the brain at all? Why not a marble of electromagnetic vacuum energy, whatever?

If this "consciousness" is merely data - and it must move to various "hosts" in order to exist - then what is its bandwidth? What are the measurements in gigs per second, say, that it would take to move from in the skull to outside the skull, and off into super-universe-brain-space?

Are the mentioned quantum vacuum energy flim-flams up to the task? Would there not be some residual signal we can detect now? As the "consciousness" moves out, would it not leave some heat, some light perhaps?

So many questions.

...so few answers. Congratulations Donn...you're finally beginning to get it!

Science can't tell you what you are (...cause it....doesn't....know!).

Can you?

 

[Nonpareil]

He has a masters degree in theoretical physics...currently doing research.

On what, precisely?

Because I very much doubt it's anything related to this field. He is simply pulling things out of his posterior and saying "well, you haven't yet proven it isn't", rather than there actually being any evidence whatsoever for it being that way.

Unless you can challenge what he wrote (and you can't, and you won't), what he wrote stands.

"What he wrote" was baseless speculation.

 

[bruto]

...so few answers. Congratulations Donn...you're finally beginning to get it!

Science can't tell you what you are (...cause it....doesn't....know!).

Can you?

If science cannot answer a question, of course it's possible that science is at fault, but first you must be sure it's an answerable question.

Why is a mouse when it spins? The inability to answer this old riddle is inherent in the question. No answer will ever come to how a thing called consciousness is handled, if consciousness is not a thing.

 

[Donn]

...so few answers. Congratulations Donn...you're finally beginning to get it!

Science can't tell you what you are (...cause it....doesn't....know!).

Can you?

Knowledge must exist amidst doubts. That there is doubt does not make two proposals equal in worth.

On one hand you have the sum total of human science - the very best of what the species can do - saying that consciousness is of and in the brain. It does not come from without, but within.

On the other hand, you have scant gaps of dubious pedigree and a tank-load of mystic muttering that says, well, variously opposite things.

The two are not on the same level; they are not equal; they do not balance.

If they were on a see-saw, science would be the elephant and the other side would be a gnat.

So, what's your position on the see-saw?

 

[annnnoid]

Knowledge must exist amidst doubts. That there is doubt does not make two proposals equal in worth.

On one hand you have the sum total of human science - the very best of what the species can do - saying that consciousness is of and in the brain. It does not come from without, but within.

On the other hand, you have scant gaps of dubious pedigree and a tank-load of mystic muttering that says, well, variously opposite things.

The two are not on the same level; they are not equal; they do not balance.

If they were on a see-saw, science would be the elephant and the other side would be a gnat.

So, what's your position on the see-saw?

"All is jaundiced to the jaundiced eye."

...I can (and have on other threads) produce a pile of neuroscientists who flat out claim that we have no idea how the physical activity of the brain generates consciousness.

... and nowhere does there exist anything remotely resembling a consensus on the phenomenology of consciousness or what constitutes normative activity.

...and nowhere does science even begin to have anything remotely resembling the ability to explain it's own existence.

...but they're just scant gaps.

Ok then! ...believe what you want. Just don't pretend they're facts, cause they're not. It's called religion.

 

[dlorde]

Disembodied consciousness is like a rook moving diagonally. We know enough about the physics of human scale interactions to know it's not a valid move.

Not correct.

I’ve a friend who’s a theoretical physicist. Here’s what he had to say about the matter:

<... words to the effect that we don't know or can't say ...>

I’ve heard this ‘but it contradicts all the laws of the universe’ silliness for way to long.

I'm going by Sean Carroll's assessment of what the current state of physical knowledge allows us to say. I find it persuasive, but provisional - like all science.

But hey, two theoretical physicists have different opinions - who'da thunk it?

It is well-known that memory is unreliable.

Of course this is blatant nonsense (and can easily be established to be exactly that)…but for once, we’ll let one of your own demonstrate.

Hyper-real or vivid experiences are a common feature of lucid dreams and may also occur as a result of extreme mental or physiological stress (PTSD, NDEs), and psychoactive drugs. I've had several hyper-vivid lucid dreams over the years; you don't forget them.

We’ll just assume that dlorde is lying shall we.

I’m thinking that dlorde has just become a witness for the defense.

Don't be silly. It is well established that episodic memory is unreliable, including autobiographical memory. That doesn't mean you forget vivid experiences (although you may), but that, if you recall them, the content is likely to be unreliable. So it's likely that my current recall of the dream may not correspond precisely to what I dreamt, or how I would have described it the morning after. For most memories, especially dreams, it doesn't really matter.

There is also the possibility that I never had the dream at all, and have unwittingly incorporated it from other sources or confabulated it. This kind of thing has been shown to occur, but seems unlikely in this case, as I have other memories of describing it at various times, including shortly after.

 

[annnnoid]

If science cannot answer a question, of course it's possible that science is at fault, but first you must be sure it's an answerable question.

Why is a mouse when it spins? The inability to answer this old riddle is inherent in the question. No answer will ever come to how a thing called consciousness is handled, if consciousness is not a thing.

...and does anyone have any ability to determine whether or not it is a thing? Cristof Koch, for one, has insisted that consciousness is phenomenologically differentiated. Doesn't mean it is, just means he, for one, thinks it is.

 

[Donn]

So something happened which was real but how it is reported is not how it was.

Yes, actually. This is why science compounds results over time - to give more weight to results exactly because individual an human's reports are apt to err.

One man can be wrong in his reporting of <x>. Fifty men are less likely to be wrong if their reports on <x> all tally. It's always a probability.

This is why you stand alone in your self-dowsing. We cannot afford to believe you because individuals are unreliable. *

(* I say this stuff now but I didn't always know it. Unless I stay in this mode, I will forget it again. You might find me one day totally ignorant about these skeptical topics. I forget stuff all the time.)

Ah. So 'the illusion of self' has more to do with how the self puts on a costume and acts out.

Yeah, that sounds like a good analogy. The costume is one we fashion all the time, in real-time. If we do not maintain it, it will fade in those places. The costume I was when I a teenager is long gone. The one I will be in five years time, who knows?

I have been saying as much in relation to my experience with ideomotor. The ego personality is at the helm and the real self is ignored and/or presumed to be something it isn't.

I must say* there is no "real self" - you have a homunculus fetish.

(* I only "know" this from recent reading and a humble acceptance of my relative capacity to know things. I'm asserting, yes, that there is no "real self", but it's backed by recent arguments that convinced me of the truth of it. Those arguments included evidence, although my ability to critically appraise scientific evidence is limited.)

How do you know that your "real self" is the one, so-to-speak, below your "ego" self? I mean, how can you tell that it's not reversed and you're suffering some mental disorder?

Or what if there's another level under your "real self" that is the real real self and it's just playing a trick on you by talking "up" a layer?

Or what if there is no other layer at all, and all you have is the picture we've been explaining in this thread?

You owe it to yourself to come up with some way, some means, some test whereby you can exclude the false trails in your self experiments. If you do not, then you may as well believe anything at all.


On the "evolution" word:

Ah yes. There are so many singular words with multiple meanings. That makes it easier not to have to say what you mean, or be understood.

Well, you've been posting here for long enough to have been told about what evolution is many times. You are the one equivocating.

generally people have been lead to believe that the universe exists through the process of evolution, in a definite rather than kinda-sorta way.

And this generally is the wrong notion.

Were the goal posts moved or did someones discover something previously hidden?

No, you moved them. Stop using the word to cover two bases at once, it's slippery.

 

[annnnoid]

"What he wrote" was baseless speculation.

The guy has a masters degree in theoretical physics. He’s explicitly talking about theoretical physics. It has been specifically stated…numerous times…that NDE’s, OBE’s, psi, etc. etc. contradict all the known laws of god, the universe, and everything.

He has clearly demonstrated that they do not.

If you’re going to insist that this is baseless speculation at least make some attempt to argue the point…

…or are we going to have to bring up the epileptic on a nest of fire ants again. Hands a waving, hands a waving, hands a waving.

If you can do no better than…’ but he’s wrong…and I know it…cause I’ll be upset if he isn’t…!!!!!!’…then we’ll just have to ignore you and move on.

 

[Navigator]

Of course. It is not so unreliable that I cannot in general work with the assumption that what I experience is real, but I am well aware that it does not need to be so.

It is well-known that memory is unreliable. I have memories from my childhood that cannot have happened, and others where people tell me that what I remember did not happen. our powers of observation are not so great as people generally think, and this is why eye-witnesses are not to be relied on exclusively, even if they do not lie. Think of the famous "gorilla-suit" clip, or the experiments where people who see a violent event remember it based on their biases, and not on what really happened.

Our senses can be fooled in many ways, and we can see and hear things that do not exist, or see patterns that do not exist. We can even be fooled into thinking that we make decisions voluntarily that have actually been forced on us.

In favour of what? Experiencing something yourself is not the same as gaining knowledge that is not based on belief. You yourself speak about the experience of entities that you can sense, although it is quite obvious that you are just experiencing a recurrent hallucination, not something that is actually real.

And it should be equally as obvious that I am not saying it was real.

Again, your personal experience, though convincing to yourself, is not actually evidence that this is real.

So you are saying that even if you experienced it this does not signify it is real. Yet I made no mention of whether it was real or not. What I said was:
The mind process has something to do with the consciousness I speak about in relation to ideomotor.
You will not know this until you can verify it through the same process
The evidence is obtained through the data. The data is real. It can be recorded as it is happening.

But you still have not presented any evidence that what you experienced was real, and not a hallucination.

I don't need to produce evidence. I am not claiming the experience was real. I am claiming it was a real experience.

I have experienced people who hallucinated, and who were quite convinced about something that was at odds with reality. A very good example was of a lady who had been given some wrong medication, and who was convinced that there was a light switch on a wall where there was none. Your sense of what is real cannot be relied upon.

Let me put it another way which might help remove you from the obvious confusion you are under.

A movie isn't real, but still can be experienced.

Okay?

So your claim is that you can communicate with your own subconscious mind? This is not controversial at all. Schizophrenics do it all the time. But that does not turn your subconscious mind into a real "entity".

I am communicating with you. Are you a 'real' entity?
If so, then your assertion is incorrect.
If not, then what is real and who can explain that to me?
And are we all thus Schizophrenics?

Really? Why on Earth should you believe a hallucination?

You believe the subconscious is a hallucination?

Evolution is a natural process that is observed in biology. It has nothing to do with the universe as a whole, and the universe is not the product of evolution.

Well who moved the goal posts and why?

I have no idea what you are talking about here. What movement? What relation to the universe?

As much as it looks like galaxies are stationary, they are moving. It the movement, they are evolving.

Er, what? How do you determine that "the process" is "evidently intelligent"?

By observing the intelligence of the process, rather than ignoring or otherwise pretending it isn't there.

As a matter of fact, you are wrong. This plant would become extinct if there were no bees but only flies. So, no consciousness is evident.

Yet there are both bees and flies so the process is intelligent.

Evolution might change things over lots of generations, but only if the change in insect life happens over a long time. Evolution does not display intelligence any more than water running downhill display intelligence in picking the route of least resistance.

Yet if water ran uphill, lifeforms would likely not be able to evolve and be plentiful as the are in reality.

The process of evolution does not necessarily have to take a very long time in order for changes to occur, but the amount of time anything takes is not an argument against their being no intelligence involved in the process.

Sorry, "the process" does not display intelligence, so your argument falls flat.

Yes it does so my argument stands.

Any more than the example of gravity? Why do you see a difference?

I don't. The origin of this argument started by the claim that consciousness can only occur in things with brains and is absent from everything else.
gravity is part of the intelligent process and it works admirably.

I have no idea what you are talking about. Although I do agree that everything to do with consciousness is subjective.

That is why we have science to overcome the bias.

So when an individual overcomes personal bias, he/she is being scientific.

No.

In fact, yes, but you answer from ignorance and bias. So in that context, you are correct. For you the answer has to be 'no'.

(see the hilited for more detail.)

 

[Donn]

...I can (and have on other threads) produce a pile of neuroscientists who flat out claim that we have no idea how the physical activity of the brain generates consciousness.

I've read those posts. I also read as they were torn to shreds. You have left many questions unanswered in those threads, in favour of just repeating this refrain.

I'm not persuaded.

... and nowhere does there exist anything remotely resembling a consensus on the phenomenology of consciousness or what constitutes normative activity.

Except where it does and your cherry-picked experts are not on the list. Also, physics.

...and nowhere does science even begin to have anything remotely resembling the ability to explain it's own existence.

So? An argument from ignorance is building.

...but they're just scant gaps.

Yes. Your efforts to stretch them wider are not persuasive.

Ok then! ...believe what you want. Just don't pretend they're facts, cause they're not. It's called religion.

I notice you dodge my basic question and ignore my post's message. Well done. You earn --

+10 Teflon points for slipperiness.

 

[Donn]

..gravity is part of the intelligent process and it works admirably.

You have yet to tell us what is not intelligent in your system.

 

[dlorde]

... It has been specifically stated…numerous times…that NDE’s, OBE’s, psi, etc. etc. contradict all the known laws of god, the universe, and everything.

He has clearly demonstrated that they do not.

Has he 'clearly demonstrated' it or just expressed his opinion?

What you posted from him, "I can't think of any evidence or theory that can decisively rule out these ... possibilities" is an uncertain opinion.

 

[Donn]

He has clearly demonstrated that they do not.

Glass caked in mud and tar is clear by comparison.

Please provide this demonstration so we can all be clear about it.