Soh
Rakesh Sandhu
Rakesh Sandhu
Chriss Pagani
Rakesh Sandhu
Joel Agee
Rakesh Sandhu
Yor Sunyata
Joel Agee
Stefan Beyer
2 liked this (Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 6:51pm)
Stefan Beyer
James O'Neill
Daniel Noreen
Joel Agee
Stuffs RedTurtle
Brian Zey
See original post
Near death experiences not the result of brain activity http://www.salon.com/2012/04/21/near_death_explained/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Justin Struble, Joel Agee, James O'Neill and 10 others like this. (Saturday, August 16, 2014 at 5:20pm)Rakesh Sandhu
Everything we experience is from brain activity from my understanding.
(Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 12:05am)SohThat is a very materialistic understanding... very common understanding needless to say, but nonetheless not one that is accepted in Buddhadharma. (Not that we posit Mind as absolutely disconnected from body or that it is somehow metaphysical) Have you read the article? It would throw some doubts on the materialist worldview I think..
2 liked this (Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 12:07am)Rakesh Sandhu
Maybe but from my observations and research.It's the only one that has been proven.I've heard about this case before.
(Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 12:11am)Chriss Pagani
"...from my observations and research.It's the only one that has been proven." Not proven. Widely believed by materialists, yes. If such proof existed we wouldn't even be having these discussions. But what you are calling proof are really only very limited indications of how the brain functions. The source of consciousness is called "the hard problem" for a good reason: It remains unsolved - and it will remain unsolvable as long as one clings to materialism.
(Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 3:52am)Rakesh Sandhu
it will be unsolvable in my view since we are limited.no matter what a person believes or understands.since we are limited (knowledge and experience on how things are) but materialism is the only view that makes sense to this limited mind.consciousness for me doesnt need explaining and cannot be explained or understood by us.
(Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 4:45am)Joel Agee
Setting aside the criterion of scientific proof, how do you make sense of details like the first woman's describing the apparatus on her ears and reproducing the words exchanged by two technicians at a time when her physical senses were shut down?
2 liked this (Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 5:21am)Rakesh Sandhu
Never agreed on her claims :-)
(Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 5:37am)Yor Sunyata
"History is littered with examples of mainstream science deliberately overlooking 'new and unfamiliar' things. It's worth pausing to consider the record. The French Academy of Sciences in the eighteenth century scoffed at meteorites because: how could rocks fall from the air? Museum curators across Europe jettisoned the meteorites they had in their collections, as a result, embarrassed that they could have been seduced by something so fanciful. In the late nineteenth century, Hungarian obstetrician Ignaz Semmelweis demonstrated that, if doctors washed their hands before delivering babies, the rates of infection in mothers went down, but this proposition was deemed absurd and he was ridiculed into obscurity, eventually dying, unhinged, in an insane asylum. John Snow was belittled for proposing the existence of germs.
My favorite example is the one that novelist Hilary Mantel pointed out a few years ago in the London Review of Books: 'From 1904, the Wright brothers made flights over fields bordered by a main highway and railway line in Ohio; but though hundreds of people saw them in the air, the local press failed to publish reports because they didn't believe the witnesses, and didn't send their own witnesses because it couldn't be true. Two years after their first flight, Scientific American dismissed the feats of the flying brothers; If there had been anything in it, the journal said, would the local press not have picked it up?'" - Patricia Pearson, Opening Heaven's Door: Investigating Stories of Life, Death and What Comes After, location 946, Kindle edition.
5 liked this (Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 6:41am)My favorite example is the one that novelist Hilary Mantel pointed out a few years ago in the London Review of Books: 'From 1904, the Wright brothers made flights over fields bordered by a main highway and railway line in Ohio; but though hundreds of people saw them in the air, the local press failed to publish reports because they didn't believe the witnesses, and didn't send their own witnesses because it couldn't be true. Two years after their first flight, Scientific American dismissed the feats of the flying brothers; If there had been anything in it, the journal said, would the local press not have picked it up?'" - Patricia Pearson, Opening Heaven's Door: Investigating Stories of Life, Death and What Comes After, location 946, Kindle edition.
Joel Agee
"Never agreed on her claims" even though they were confirmed by the medical records?
2 liked this (Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 7:01am)Stefan Beyer
2 liked this (Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 6:51pm)
Stefan Beyer
In the Journal of Consicousness Studies, No.1-2,2013 there is an article by Pit van Lommel, who is mentioned in the article that Soh linked and also appears in the video above. He collected accounts of NDEs. I found this one very remarkable:
"During my cardiac arrest I had an extensive experience(...) and later I saw, apart from my deceased grandmother, a man who had looked at me lovingly, but whom I did not know. More than 10 years later, at my mother's deathbed, she confessed to me that I had been born out of an extramarital relationship, my father being a Jewish man who had been deported and killed during the second World War, and my mother showed me his picture. The unknown man that I had seen more than 10 years before during my NDE turned out to be my biological father."
How can one explain that?
3 liked this (Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 6:59pm)Soh"During my cardiac arrest I had an extensive experience(...) and later I saw, apart from my deceased grandmother, a man who had looked at me lovingly, but whom I did not know. More than 10 years later, at my mother's deathbed, she confessed to me that I had been born out of an extramarital relationship, my father being a Jewish man who had been deported and killed during the second World War, and my mother showed me his picture. The unknown man that I had seen more than 10 years before during my NDE turned out to be my biological father."
How can one explain that?
Ajahn Brahmavamso:
"The evidence proved to those hard nosed doctors that out of body experiences do happen. But how could they happen? If we agree that the mind can be independent of the body, then we have a plausible explanation. The brain doesn’t need to be functioning for a mind to exist. The scientific facts are there, the evidence is there, but a lot of scientists don’t like to admit those facts. They prefer to close their eyes – because of dogmatism.
Come and See for Yourself
If you had just one person who had been confirmed as medically dead who could describe to the doctors, as soon as they were revived, what had been said, and done during that period of death, wouldn’t that be pretty convincing? When I was doing elementary particle physics there was a theory that required for its proof the existence of what was called the ‘W’ particle. At the cyclotron in Geneva, CERN funded a huge research project, smashing atoms together with an enormous particle accelerator, to try and find one of these ‘W’ particles. They spent literally hundreds of millions of pounds on this project. They found one, just one ‘W’ particle. I don’t think they have found another since. But once they found one ‘W’ particle, the researchers involved in that project were given Nobel prizes for physics. They had proved the theory by just finding the one ‘W’ particle. That’s good science. Just one is enough to prove the theory.
When it comes to things we don’t like to believe, they call just one experience, one clear factual undeniable experience, an anomaly. Anomaly is a word in science for disconcerting evidence that we can put in the back of a filing cabinet and not look at again, because it’s threatens our worldview. It undermines what we want to believe. It is threatening to our dogma. However, an essential part of the scientific method is that theories have to be abandoned in favour of the evidence, in respect of the facts. The point is that the evidence for a mind independent of the brain is there. But once we admit that evidence, and follow the scientific method, then many cherished theories, what we call ‘sacred cows’ will have to be abandoned.
When we see something that challenges any theory, in science or in religion, we should not ignore the evidence. We have to change the theory to fit the facts. That is what we do in Buddhism. All the Dhamma of the Buddha, everything that he taught, if it does not fit the experience, then we should not accept it. We should not accept the Buddha’s words in contradiction of experience. That is clearly stated in the Kālāma Sutta. (AN III, 65) The Buddha said do not believe because it is written in the books, or even if I say it. Don’t just believe because it is tradition, or because it sounds right, or because it’s comforting to you. Make sure it fits your experience. The existence of mind, independent of the brain, fits experience. The facts are there.
Sometimes, however, we cannot trust the experts. You cannot trust Ajahn Brahm. You cannot trust the scientific journals. Because people are often biased. Buddhism gives you a scientific method for your practice. Buddhism says, do the experiment and find out for your self if what the Buddha said is true or not. Check out your experience. For example, develop the method to test the truth of past lives, rebirth and reincarnation. Don’t just believe it with faith, find out for yourself. The Buddha has given a scientific experiment that you can repeat." - http://www.dhammaloka.org.au/.../1182-buddhism-and...
"I used to be a scientist. I did Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University, hanging out in the same building as the later-to-be-famous Professor Stephen Hawking. I became disillusioned with such science when, as an insider, I saw how dogmatic some scientists could be.
A dogma, according to the dictionary, is an arrogant declaration of an opinion. This was a fitting description of the science that I saw in the labs of Cambridge. Science had lost its sense of humility. Egotistical opinion prevailed over the impartial search for Truth. My favourite aphorism from that time was: "The eminence of a great scientist, is measured by the length of time that they OBSTRUCT PROGRESS in their field"!
To understand real science, one can go back to one of its founding fathers, the English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561 - 1628). He established the framework on which science was to progress, namely "the greater force of the negative instance". This meant that, having proposed a theory to explain some natural phenomenon, then one should try one's best to disprove it! One should test the theory with challenging experiments.
One must put it on trial with rigorous argument. When a flaw appears in the theory, only then does science advance. A new discovery has been made enabling the theory to be adjusted and refined. This fundamental and original methodology of science understood that it is impossible to prove anything with absolute certainty. One can only disprove with absolute certainty.
Some misguided scientists maintain the theory that there is no rebirth, that this stream of consciousness is incapable of returning to a successive human existence. All one needs to disprove this theory, according to science, is to find one instance of rebirth, just one! Professor Ian Stevenson, as some of you would know, has already demonstrated many instances of rebirth. The theory of no rebirth has been disproved. Rebirth is now a scientific fact! " - http://www.sundaytimes.lk/.../Plus/sundaytimesplus_13.html
4 liked this (Sunday, August 17, 2014 at 8:20pm)"The evidence proved to those hard nosed doctors that out of body experiences do happen. But how could they happen? If we agree that the mind can be independent of the body, then we have a plausible explanation. The brain doesn’t need to be functioning for a mind to exist. The scientific facts are there, the evidence is there, but a lot of scientists don’t like to admit those facts. They prefer to close their eyes – because of dogmatism.
Come and See for Yourself
If you had just one person who had been confirmed as medically dead who could describe to the doctors, as soon as they were revived, what had been said, and done during that period of death, wouldn’t that be pretty convincing? When I was doing elementary particle physics there was a theory that required for its proof the existence of what was called the ‘W’ particle. At the cyclotron in Geneva, CERN funded a huge research project, smashing atoms together with an enormous particle accelerator, to try and find one of these ‘W’ particles. They spent literally hundreds of millions of pounds on this project. They found one, just one ‘W’ particle. I don’t think they have found another since. But once they found one ‘W’ particle, the researchers involved in that project were given Nobel prizes for physics. They had proved the theory by just finding the one ‘W’ particle. That’s good science. Just one is enough to prove the theory.
When it comes to things we don’t like to believe, they call just one experience, one clear factual undeniable experience, an anomaly. Anomaly is a word in science for disconcerting evidence that we can put in the back of a filing cabinet and not look at again, because it’s threatens our worldview. It undermines what we want to believe. It is threatening to our dogma. However, an essential part of the scientific method is that theories have to be abandoned in favour of the evidence, in respect of the facts. The point is that the evidence for a mind independent of the brain is there. But once we admit that evidence, and follow the scientific method, then many cherished theories, what we call ‘sacred cows’ will have to be abandoned.
When we see something that challenges any theory, in science or in religion, we should not ignore the evidence. We have to change the theory to fit the facts. That is what we do in Buddhism. All the Dhamma of the Buddha, everything that he taught, if it does not fit the experience, then we should not accept it. We should not accept the Buddha’s words in contradiction of experience. That is clearly stated in the Kālāma Sutta. (AN III, 65) The Buddha said do not believe because it is written in the books, or even if I say it. Don’t just believe because it is tradition, or because it sounds right, or because it’s comforting to you. Make sure it fits your experience. The existence of mind, independent of the brain, fits experience. The facts are there.
Sometimes, however, we cannot trust the experts. You cannot trust Ajahn Brahm. You cannot trust the scientific journals. Because people are often biased. Buddhism gives you a scientific method for your practice. Buddhism says, do the experiment and find out for your self if what the Buddha said is true or not. Check out your experience. For example, develop the method to test the truth of past lives, rebirth and reincarnation. Don’t just believe it with faith, find out for yourself. The Buddha has given a scientific experiment that you can repeat." - http://www.dhammaloka.org.au/.../1182-buddhism-and...
"I used to be a scientist. I did Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University, hanging out in the same building as the later-to-be-famous Professor Stephen Hawking. I became disillusioned with such science when, as an insider, I saw how dogmatic some scientists could be.
A dogma, according to the dictionary, is an arrogant declaration of an opinion. This was a fitting description of the science that I saw in the labs of Cambridge. Science had lost its sense of humility. Egotistical opinion prevailed over the impartial search for Truth. My favourite aphorism from that time was: "The eminence of a great scientist, is measured by the length of time that they OBSTRUCT PROGRESS in their field"!
To understand real science, one can go back to one of its founding fathers, the English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561 - 1628). He established the framework on which science was to progress, namely "the greater force of the negative instance". This meant that, having proposed a theory to explain some natural phenomenon, then one should try one's best to disprove it! One should test the theory with challenging experiments.
One must put it on trial with rigorous argument. When a flaw appears in the theory, only then does science advance. A new discovery has been made enabling the theory to be adjusted and refined. This fundamental and original methodology of science understood that it is impossible to prove anything with absolute certainty. One can only disprove with absolute certainty.
Some misguided scientists maintain the theory that there is no rebirth, that this stream of consciousness is incapable of returning to a successive human existence. All one needs to disprove this theory, according to science, is to find one instance of rebirth, just one! Professor Ian Stevenson, as some of you would know, has already demonstrated many instances of rebirth. The theory of no rebirth has been disproved. Rebirth is now a scientific fact! " - http://www.sundaytimes.lk/.../Plus/sundaytimesplus_13.html
James O'Neill
like
(Wednesday, August 20, 2014 at 1:40pm)Daniel Noreen
I myself can attest that these experiences are not in fact false.
(Wednesday, August 20, 2014 at 2:14pm)Joel Agee
Can you say more, Daniel?
1 liked this (Wednesday, August 20, 2014 at 11:09pm)Stuffs RedTurtle
I looked up the w particle and came across a very interesting interview with Fred Alan Wolf
http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/.../how...
(Thursday, August 21, 2014 at 12:01am)http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/.../how...
Brian Zey
Gary Weber is awesome!
(Thursday, August 21, 2014 at 9:44am)See original post
