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Post by PeterB on Jan 24, 2006 20:22:50 GMT -4
I voted for worm food, on negative grounds.
Turbonium mentioned NDEs. Now I’m no expert on these, but I’ve heard Dr Susan Blackmore describe her research into these. Apparently, people’s descriptions most closely match the behaviour of the brain experiencing the effects of a lack of oxygen.
As for the stories of people accurately describing rooms where they were clinically dead, these are very interesting. I’ve heard about them, but I’d like to see some more clear evidence to back the stories up. I suspect that quite a few of these stories might not live up to their initial claims. For example, the patient was actually alive and conscious, but in shock, or the patient only heard things, so was perhaps lightly unconscious, or the patient only described things common to all emergency rooms.
The other problem I have with the concept of something surviving death is how it came about. Do all organisms have something which survives death? If not, and it’s something uniquely human (or uniquely primate, or whatever), then someone, somewhere, had to be the first person with a soul, from a simple point of view of evolution. Either way (bacteria with a soul, or a proto-human with a soul whose parents didn’t have a soul) the argument appears tricky to resolve. Therefore I’d be curious to hear people’s comments to the contrary.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jan 24, 2006 21:06:31 GMT -4
One NDE I have heard in which there seems to have been something too it, was a woman that the surgeons had to actually kill to operate on. During the operation she was clinically dead, her body chilled to keep it viable as I understand it. Yet she discribed standing in the theatre watching the operation, including the tools the surgeons used. Tools that were brought in until she was unconscious and were specilised to the surgery she was having.
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Post by turbonium on Jan 25, 2006 1:26:52 GMT -4
If not, and it’s something uniquely human (or uniquely primate, or whatever), then someone, somewhere, had to be the first person with a soul, from a simple point of view of evolution
This leads to the larger, overall issues we cannot answer. How can time ever have a beginning?
If the Big Bang Theory did initiate the creation our universe, then what existed before it? One current theory is called the "M-Theory"...
"...proposing that the Universe has 11 dimensions, six of them rolled up into microscopic filaments that can, for all intents, be ignored....The action of the Universe takes place in five-dimensional space. Before the Big Bang occurred the Universe consisted of two perfectly flat four-dimensional surfaces...One of these sheets is our Universe; the other, a "hidden" parallel universe. "
Yikes! Well, by comparison, I suppose any delving into the possibility of a "soul" that exists after death is a relatively small step into the unknown!
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Post by turbonium on Jan 25, 2006 1:35:18 GMT -4
One NDE I have heard in which there seems to have been something too it, was a woman that the surgeons had to actually kill to operate on.
Was this case documented? I've read about a few cases that have been substantiated very thoroughly., verified by numerous reliable witnesses. Those are the cases I find to be the most intriguing - how could these people accurately describe events at the time they were "dead" in such detail?
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Post by PeterB on Jan 25, 2006 1:48:35 GMT -4
I said: "If not, and it’s something uniquely human (or uniquely primate, or whatever), then someone, somewhere, had to be the first person with a soul, from a simple point of view of evolution."
Turbonium replied: "This leads to the larger, overall issues we cannot answer. How can time ever have a beginning?"
Well, it may lead to larger questions, but I'd still like you to discuss my point: if humans have a soul today, do you believe there was a time when our ancestors didn't? In which case, do you accept that the first people to have souls, had parents who didn't have souls?
Alternatively, if you don't accept that, are you willing to accept the idea of souls for *all* our ancestors, back to the start of life? If so, you can't stop all other related lifeforms on Earth from having souls - animals, plants, funguses, bacteria and viruses included.
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Post by PeterB on Jan 25, 2006 1:50:30 GMT -4
Turbonium said:
In what sort of detail were they dead? ;-)
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Post by turbonium on Jan 25, 2006 3:47:40 GMT -4
Turbonium said: In what sort of detail were they dead? ;-) LOL! Got me!
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Al Johnston
"Cheer up!" they said, "It could be worse!" So I did, and it was.
Posts: 1,453
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Post by Al Johnston on Jan 25, 2006 4:58:25 GMT -4
There's a doctor researching NDEs who hides unusual objects in operating theatres where they can't be seen by the patient and of which the staff are unaware. He's yet to receive an NDE report mentioning any of them.
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Post by iamspartacus on Jan 25, 2006 7:05:26 GMT -4
Tuesday Lobsang Rampa says that out of body experiences, or astral travel as he calls it, can be observed by cats. Maybe if you get enough cats behind the observation window and if enough of them were to look at the same place in the operating theatre at the same time then we might just have some indirect evidence. ;D
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jan 25, 2006 9:04:40 GMT -4
Well one of the problems with NDE's is that aren't exactly something you can apparently call up, and even if someone does say they had one, how can you test it. Even the idea of hiding items only works if they are somewhere a person would actually see them during a NDE if they really happen.
Was this case documented?
I'm not sure, I assume so. It was shown on a documentary on NDE I saw and while you can't believe much you see on TV, they interviewed by the lady involved and her doctor. It was about year back I saw it so beyond that I'm not a lot of use.
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Post by gezalenko on Jan 25, 2006 9:39:45 GMT -4
Just to play devil's advocate, in response to Peter B, I think there is a third option, or perhaps it's an expansion of one of the first two.
Option 1 - humans living today have souls, all our ancestors also had souls, and all our ancestors' other descendants (who have evolved into chimpanzees, dogs, turtles, bacteria, whatever) also now have souls.
Option 2 - humans living today have souls, but tracing our ancestors back far enough, you would come to one who didn't have a soul. Which raises the question of where did souls first appear ? at the time homo sapiens emerged ? at the time mammals appeared ? some other point in time ?
My third option is - perhaps souls evolved at some point, and have gone from primitive beginnings to their current level (whatever that is). Just as we now have eyes, but we are descended from ancestors who did not have eyes, and we now have (distant) relatives who do not have eyes, maybe souls evolved in a similar way.
I have to say I think this is extremely unlikely - what evolutionay advantage would having a soul provide ? How would nature select individuals who had souls, or who had "better" souls ? And does this imply we should be able to find markers for the soul in DNA ?
It all sounds preposterous to me, and forces me to vote for "worm food". But an interesting thought experiment.
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Post by bughead on Jan 25, 2006 15:34:57 GMT -4
I like the evolving souls idea. Similar to transmigration of souls. Eventually a soul graduates from being invertebrate, works up to being a complex mammal, finally gets several tries at being human, then move on to semi-divine status.
Imples a level of heirarchal/authoritative/organizational infrasructure that's utterly invisible to the users.
I voted worm food. If Houdini couldn't wangle the long-distance call back to earth he's too far for me to care.
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Post by Dead Hoosiers on Jan 30, 2006 23:31:50 GMT -4
The name given to this phenomenon ("near" death or "clinical" death) indicates that these people haven't really died and come back. That would be a resurrection. Therefore, they don't have anything to tell us about death, a state which they haven't yet experienced.
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Post by iamspartacus on Feb 3, 2006 7:45:51 GMT -4
I agree with DH on this one. Just because your respiration and heart stops doesn't mean you're dead. This is routinely done in some surgical procedures. Maybe what some people experience is the closing down of higher brain function but not a quick trip into the afterlife.
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Post by turbonium on Feb 4, 2006 21:40:59 GMT -4
But floating above one's own body and looking down upon it, as alleged in NDE's, isn't exactly a phenomenon explainable within what we know regarding the "real" five-sense world. How do we know, if it is legit, of course, that NDE's aren't just "Stage 1" of death?
I agree with Peter, in that I'd like to see some more solid evidence for these NDE's. I won't say I dismiss the entire possibility outright - but more documented, verifiable studies would seem to be in order...
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