Established Member
Near Death Phenomenon - Consciousness Survives Death?
This topic is very interesting, dont be so quick to brush it off saying im a kook lol but this is some fascinating stuff.
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2002/10/55826
http://chicagoiands.org/stories/Mark%20Sauer
http://www.skepticalinvestigations....o/vanLommel.htm
One things for sure this research raises way more questions than answers.
Honored Member
In addition to the cited reasons, endorphins, learned information and behavior, and something called dreaming should be included, all of which continue, apparently at levels sometimes not detected by our current instruments, in an intact brain for a short while after other body functions either slow down or cease. Such investigations are reminiscent of well-documented accounts of severed heads briefly retaining control of various facial muscle reactions. Oddly enough, a lot of these reports are from the period of the French Revolution. Accounts such as those in the OP would have more impact if they documented such things occurring in a brain that had significantly deteriorated due to a lack of blood supply over a period of a few days.
Re the blind folks, the article doesn't mention how long they had been blind. Plus, even if blind at birth, such persons would certainly develop their own unique mental imagery for what was inputted by the other senses and learning, including a sense of body image.
Always be wary of a "scientist" who throws around the word "miracle".
Order of Kilopi
A little summary of the articles would be nice so people can decide if they want to take the time reading them. For example:
The first article has a person who says that consciousness has no physical essense. Which is odd, because no one who has had their brain removed has retained consciousness, providing strong circumstancial evidence that all those physically measurable electrical signals coursing through the brain have something to do with consciousness.
And so on.
Banned
Exactly.
Believe it or not, I have been dead twice.
No near death experiences here.
Order of Kilopi
Came close myself.
Hepactic coma from liver failure. It sucked mightily but I came back. It was going into it that was weird, but nothing like you'ld heard. Be as sick as you've every been in your whole life. Be told by your personal physician for the last six years you ain't gonna make it 8 hours because as of the last blood test, you you have no liver function left, THEN begin to experience visual disturbanses you believe are the begining of desolution. (The term for when your mind goes away because the chemical processes that form it have stopped.) THAT is a near death experience.
If Einstien is correct and EVERYTHING is relative to the observer, then to me a near death experiance looks like a computer monitor who's horizontal lines of pixals looked liked dynamite fuse burning at different speeds, from left to right and when the image of the room I was in was gone, so was I.
And then I woke up. The nurse touched my wrist to time me out. She was looking at her watch when I peeked at her. She immediately got my doctor who camre in and gave me a really big, "Are we glad to see you!" He was truely amazed. I don't apologize for not dying. Stuff started working again. What can I say. I have the medical records to prove it. Plus, by typing now, it's a strong indicator I didn't die 12 years ago.
If Mr Brak or Mr Hutchinson have their ears on, my AST and ALT levels were so high my kidneys were failing, yet had no trace of jaundice. Not even corneal. A condition unique to a medication I was taking at the time to control siezures. Since pulled off the market.
I "fired" a new personal physician who looked me square in the face and said, "No. That doesn't happen". I immediately wanted another doctor.
(I actually wanted to physically assault him for his smarm, but I didn't. Bad form, you know. Like hitting a priest, only worse. Priests aren't as organzed. You'll stop getting "the good help" after that.)
Established Member
What is the definition of being dead? Is it when your heart stops or when brain functions cease or are both necessary for the term to apply? I just wonder if I have been using the term incorrectly as I have been saying for the past 17 yrs that I died 4 times. Technically, my heart just stopped 4 times, once when the paramedic arrived on the scene, he said he had to revive me, then three more times during surgery. Could you even survive if your brain stops functioning? All I know is I didn't have any wacky experiences. To me it was just walking down the sidewalk, stopping to light a cigarette, seeing a deli across the street, suddenly craving Dorito's, nothing, then waking in a hospital bed, not knowing who I was or why I was there. The odd thing is, the first surgery was just to stabalize me. I don't remember this but my mother and my sister were in recovery, the first time I had any level of consciousness. They said I didn't open my eyes, didn't say a word, I just brought my hand up to smoke a phantom cigarette, the very last thing I was doing before I got hit. Of course, that's how I got busted smoking which I never thought was fair.
Established Member
We had a co-worker suffer a massive heart attack recently. This person was revived. They indicated that there was no light to go towards and that they in fact had no recollection of anything until they awakened in recovery.
I had my heart stopped during open heart - but its function was handled by a machine so that doesn't count. My brain was still getting oxygen and they were able to restart it no problem.
Order of Kilopi
The Mind's Sky, Human Intelligence in a Cosmic Context by Timothy Ferris gets into this a bit, with a scientifically sensible explanation. I recommend anything written by Timothy Ferris, starting with The Red Limit.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
Bad Post-Doc
Not odd at all, when you think about it. There were an awful lot of beheadings during the Revolution, and they were all pretty closely--in two sense of the word!--observed. A lot of the aristos were of a scientific or semi-scientific bent, and they actually asked people to observe them to see how long their heads kept moving.Originally Posted by Maksutov
And Closetgeek, the definition of "dead" is pretty fluid these days for just such reasons. When you have neither heartbeat nor brain activity, you're pretty dead, but it's possible to meet past clinical standards of dead and still be alive to certain current medical professionals.
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Gillian
"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"
"You can't erase icing."
"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"
Established Member
The light, the feeling of well-being, the out of body sensations, are all symptoms of anoxia. Talk to any airman who has had training with a high altitude chamber test. I have passed out from anoxia, and I felt wonderful.
Order of Kilopi
The difficulty in actually pronouncing people dead is why in first aid there's fairly strict rules about when you're allowed to stop resuscitation.
Basically the person has to be decapitated or rotting for you to not try to resuscitate him.
If you've had training in first aid and stops trying for anything less, you could in theory be charged with criminal neglect (or whatever it's called when you know how to help someone and don't do it).
All this with the caveat that that's how I was taught first aid, possibly others do it differently.
__________________________________________________
Reductionist and proud of it.
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn. Benjamin Franklin
Chase after the truth like all hell and you'll free yourself, even though you never touch its coat tails. Clarence Darrow
A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. Mark Twain
Order of Kilopi
In my considered opinion, that's really, really, really weird. Dr Hutchinson might have an opinion that's a little more professional and not based upon information acquired off the back of cereal packets.If Mr Brak or Mr Hutchinson have their ears on, my AST and ALT levels were so high my kidneys were failing, yet had no trace of jaundice. Not even corneal. A condition unique to a medication I was taking at the time to control siezures. Since pulled off the market.
Order of Kilopi
I had a possible NDE when I was 7 or 8. No lights-and-tunnel, no dead relatives, I just remember running through the house one minute, the next waking up and being told I'd smashed my head and my Dad had to give me CPR and mouth-to-mouth.
I've had dreams with out-of-body experiences, and sometimes I remember traumatic things from that "outside myself" point of view too. But no evidence it's anything but a trick of perception.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Established Member
The first article actually does mention this...this research is interesting though, what do you guys think though is this research bogus or it has some validity?
Order of Kilopi
The first article, the only one I bothered to look at, has a guy asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars to do research into the survival of consciousness after death. This guy says that consciousness has no physical essence. That statement is bizarre. We have vast amounts of data that indicate that the physical state of the human brain is intimately related to consciousness. I wouldn't pay that person to wash test tubes, let alone give them a huge sum of money to do research with.The first article actually does mention this...this research is interesting though, what do you guys think though is this research bogus or it has some validity?
Established Member
Not that my Phys Ed teacher was a lawyer or anything, but when I was taught CPR back in high school 25 years ago we were told almost the same thing. CPR is to continue until I was relieved by a professional or were physically incapable of continuing. Tag teaming was allowed but only a professional could decide that CPR can be stopped.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue
Established Member
In the department of not-so-scientific research, as I recall, Houdini had arrangements with his wife for after death signals from him, if possible. The results were negative.
Order of Kilopi
Bogus. People have been serching for conclusive, non-subjective evidence since time began, and found zilch.
STARGAZING: All I see are the lights of a billion places I'll never go. --Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary
Established Member
Is this topic considered debunked then?
Order of Kilopi
There isn't any scientific evidence of a mind without a functioning brain.
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Established Member
what would be sufficient scientific evidence based on your opinion?
Order of Kilopi
Zombies doing the "brains . . ." thing would probably cover it.
Seriously, if somebody could walk and talk without a functional brain, that would tell you that the brain wasn't a requirement.
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
Established Member
Lol, that would be pretty hard to do.
Do you think this "survival of the consciousness" topic is bogus and should not be taken seriously?
Banned
Whatever a person chooses to believe is up to them.
This is one of those topics in which belief will often guide what a person perceives.
As far as the evidence goes, there is no evidence that consciousness exists without the structure, chemical and electrical process and composition of the brain that makes it all possible. No brain- no consciousness.
From death itself, comatose patients, mental illnesses, brain trauma and damage, Neurosurgery and our ability to somewhat scan and map the brain (it's a very very complex organ and we are still learning a lot about it); I would say that it is quite clear that consciousness is not a separate entity from the brain.
Established Member
I dont mean to sound like a broken record here, but there are studies showing people that were supposedly clinically dead yet they were somehow aware.
Like in this link, http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=98447&page=1
Do you think more research should be done on this or is this a open and shut case in your opinion, as you said we are still learning about the brain.
Banned
I read the article.
Apparently this study is not based on scientific observation, but on interviews asking about the patients perceptions.
Same old same old....
For one thing, how do the interviewers know during which time things took place? The patient experienced the euphoria of what is commonly described as NDE but was it Truly During the time in which the brain was no longer functioning?
Secondly, what is the basis for the description "no longer functioning" ?
Does it mean totally shut down? OR does it mean the regular functions are not working?
Lastly, the brain acts like a capacitor. It does not turn off like a switch- it slowly fades or drains.
Even when perceptible functionality is not seen by the doctors, there is still a minimal functionality in the brain for hours after death.
Heart attack patients that were revived were most likely not revived Several Hours after death.
Order of Kilopi
Well that's not so odd. When the heart stops someone is clinically dead, which means the clinical appearance of death. It's like one stop from actually being dead. Normally the brain will start to shut down as soon as its oxygen supply is cut off, but if the person starts to be resucitated, that will keep an oxygen supply going to the brain so the person can still hear. Also, anesthetic is stopped when someone clinically dies on account of how they want to rev things up, not slow them down. There is plenty of evidence that unconscious or semi-conscious people can still hear things. For example, a sleeping person can ignore loud noises and slumber on, but awake when you say their name. And it's also fairly common for people to incorporate outside sounds and conversations into their dreams.I dont mean to sound like a broken record here, but there are studies showing people that were supposedly clinically dead yet they were somehow aware.
Established Member
First off, I fess up that me wanting there to be an afterlife is what even sparked this topic, I admit my fault there, for now I hold off on completely believing in an afterlife because there isnt any cold hard evidence, unless we see as Van Rijn said a person walking around and conversating without a brain. And obviously I should have seen what type of replies I was going to get on this board since this is a scientific forum. But the feeling that I am getting from the replies is that this whole research into the continuation of consciousness after death is almost like a joke, are all these so called "scientists" with their phd's and master's degree's that are doing research on this topic supposed to be NOT taken seriously? I dont want to turn into one of those fortune-telling tarot reading "kooks", does this really go in that category?
Banned
Platinum Rhymer, let me try to help you out here...
Science deals in what is falsifiable.
Currently, an afterlife is not falsifiable.
It means we can't die and test the theory
But your own beliefs are of your own choosing.
I used to be a minister. A lot of my beliefs have changed because of learning science. A lot of them.
Because, for me, I cannot accept anything blindly. I want to know how things really are.
And it was not always easy and I struggled with a lot of it. It took a little time on some, was very quick on others. Because I was always a person who asks "Why?" and a simple aswer like , "It's a mysteryy...." Just did not ever satisfy me.
When it comes to what is not falsifiable- then you kind of have that leeway about what you personally choose to believe.
Do not be cold toward science when it demonstrates realities you do not want to be true. Sadly, that is just the way it is.
But science is not trying to take your beliefs away from you- Science is trying to progress learning, knowledge and advancement. So that we may continue to improve ourselves and to explore and understand this marvelous universe.
So while many of us cannot blindly accept certain "faiths" when the evidence contradicts it- that does not mean that everything is currently falsifiable.
I hope this helps.
Established Member
I see what you are trying to say but science is really just starting to scratch the surface on what reality is, so I think it would be careless to assume we know everything, and even more careless to disregard unexplained phenomena that doesn't fall into the confines of current scientific understanding.
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