Who's Afraid of Life After Death? (article)

[Toastrider]

If I want enhanced mentation, I'll go email Stephen Hawking.

Off topic, maybe you could correlate this with the phenomena of 'synaesthesia', where something in the brain gets miswired and sense data from an organ often gets routed into an incorrect area of interpretation (visual data not only landing in the visual cortex, but in the audio-interpretation areas as well, for example).

--Toasty

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Let's come up with a paranomal explanation for event X even though we don't have the square-1 foggiest notion whether the brain can give rise to X. And I say this even if consciousness is something other than brain function.

~~ Paul

 

[voidx]

W: That is possible. But at least the experiencers aren't armchair quarterbacks like you guys are.

By the way, some of them have described things far away that have checked out to be true, which they didn't know about before.

Winston

Ummm unless you've had an NDE yourself, welcome to the armchair of quarterbacks with the rest of us guys. I mean really, this is a pretty lame attempt at a cheap shot.

 

[headscratcher4]

But at least the experiencers aren't armchair quarterbacks like you guys are.

By virtue of this logic, having never sailed around the world, I can now dismiss all evidence to the contrary and conclude that the world is flat.

BTW, there is lots of anecdotal evidence that it is flat, especially in Kansas.

 

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

On JREF non-materialists are to be labled trolls!

 

[Zep]

This must be a cosmic joke. Or a terrible mutation. Even by woo-woo standards this guy WWu777 is unbelievable. I don't think he is serious, maybe he just has a completely rotten sense of humor. But if he actually believes all these then we have probably discovered a missing link between apes and Australopithecus.

No, Winston Wu is for real. In the sense that he is not a prankster and he does seem to believe what he says.

 

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

I didn't know zeppie (or zeppy) was a debunker!

~Towel

 

[Zep]

Winston, If I fall down the stairs and bump my head and see stars and coloured lights, are they REALLY there? Do they exist? Can I photograph them, perhaps? Catch them in a jar?

What about the visions that drug-addicts get? Where their vision is distorted and they hear weird sounds? Can these be photographed and recorded too?

You must surely allow that they are actually a product of some internal effect on the brain for any number of reasons, and while they may look, sound, taste and smell absolutely real to the person themselves, clearly they are not "measureable reality" as such.

Don't you agree?

 

[Bikewer]

Parsimony. If simple, non-supernatural causation provides an adequate answer, why look for something more complicated?

 

[Interesting Ian]

Parsimony. If simple, non-supernatural causation provides an adequate answer, why look for something more complicated?

It's quite the converse to what you say. Why not just suppose the experience is what it seems to be than prefer complex convoluted explanations?

If by non-supernatural causation you mean physical causation, as in generative power in the empirical realm, then we have no evidence for it. We are only ever acquanited with supernatural causation i.e our own free will.

 

[Yahweh]

No, enhanced mentation means being able to think more clearly. Being more aware, "more conscious" so to speak.

Ah, thank you, Ian

I have a friend who used to live on a cow farm. Needless to say, the ingested shrooms gave him a sense of "being connected to everything". Its really quite a feeling that cant be understood unless one experiences it (much like the concept of color). He always called it getting stoned, I can now tell him he was experiencing enhanced mentation.

 

[Tricky]

You know, Ian, you really don't want to be jumping into bed with Winston Wu. He is without a doubt one of the most laughable characters on the internet today. Read some of his stuff. I don't think even you want to be associated with it. You're a much higher quality woo woo than he is. You have to maintain your standards.

 

[Temporal Renegade]

The only sure way (still!) to see if there really is Life after Death, is to DIE. And, it's still a little too final for my liking.

Besides, isn't 'Life' after 'Death' something of a contradiction?

 

[billydkid]

"Life" after death.

Anyone who doesn't view the prospect of immortality and survival of some sort after death with significant trepidation hasn't thought it through very well.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Ian said:
It's quite the converse to what you say. Why not just suppose the experience is what it seems to be than prefer complex convoluted explanations?

Because what you seem to think it might be isn't the same thing as I think it might be.

Temporal said:
The only sure way (still!) to see if there really is Life after Death, is to DIE. And, it's still a little too final for my liking.

That will only work if there is life after death. If there isn't, you won't know there isn't, because you'll be dead.

~~ Paul

 

[Bikewer]

I have often thought that the worst part of being an atheist is the fact that if I'm right, I won't get to say "Nyaa Nyaa, I told you so!"

 

[Jeff Corey]

I have often thought that the worst part of being an atheist is the fact that if I'm right, I won't get to say "Nyaa Nyaa, I told you so!"

Sort of a reverse Houdini.