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Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

newscientist.com

41–50 of 223 posts

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#41

> The sensation of moving down a tunnel towards a bright light, reliving past memories and hearing or seeing deceased relatives have all been reported by people from many cultures who have had a brush with death. Sceptics, however, say these experiences could be caused by people hallucinating as they recover in hospital. The way that the default is presented here is interesting. Interpreting the experiences as halluc…

Unfortunately many things in western culture that get close to mysticism are disregarded as hallucinations or random neurological firings. Same goes with dreams and such. It’s the ‘religion of science’ defaulting to the ‘god’ of deconstructionism. Just hallucinations, nothing more. I understand why, there’s certainly many things which were once said to be mystic, but ended up less so. However, anyone who has done res…

[deleted]

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#42
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a question? If yes, what is the field of possible answers?

Well, the answer is literally that everything you ingest affects you. It affects your body and the body affects the mind. From the food you eat to the words you hear, your body and mind is affected.

That obviously is true, but you are completely ignoring the argument of the person you are answering to. He told that the brain might be learned using effect of some substance by the same principle when Neurophysiologists observe people with damaged brain and realize what the damaged surface is doing. And you are telling that people without brain damages can be observed by Neurophysiologists as well which is just a truism.

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#44
post #10

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-pPBwFFWz_k Some children can remember exact & verifiable details of their prior life they never could have come to know in this their current child life. These details can be objectively and independently confirmed. Remarkably & quite biologically enigmatic: Some of them have birth marks and birth defects at very same locations as the lethal injury causing their often abrupt and violent…

If reincarnation is real, I guess the afterlife faces a crisis due to the impending demographic crash here. The lines of souls awaiting reincarnation are about to get real long, as lots of people die of old age without people having children to ensure a fast return.

I don't believe in reincarnation but had a phase of religious study. It's generally not a 1-to-1 mapping of you die and come back as a human. Depending on the religious school of thought "you" can spend some finite time in some afterlife (good or bad) then come back as some organism, not necessarily human. Also accounting for continued biological evolution may not be homo sapien if your "soul" comes back 1000 years later. Can't say I believe in reincarnation at all.

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#45
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the why anymore. More than 2000 years ago, we understood that we must be a sum of parts and that kind of idea yielded the atom. We applied the atom to many kinds of structures to discern their nature. Now, atom means some scientific particle. We simply have more things to name, but still constantly run into things we cannot name yet. We think this will end but it will not. If our universe is ever e…

> still constantly run into things we cannot name yet. Humanity has the opposite problem - we invent names for things that don't exist. We have no idea what dark matter is, but we have a name handy just in case. Same with gods, elves, dragons, aliens, etc. I can't find one example of people not being able to name something that exist. Worst case just name it "phenomenon X" where X is the first unused integer. I can f…

I think we have both problems, actually. We definitely have names that are good, like New York, Justice, Earth, Peace, Aphex Twin’s Windowlicker.

But we also have names of things which are bad, because they are false. These the are names which are you talking about.

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#46

> The sensation of moving down a tunnel towards a bright light, reliving past memories and hearing or seeing deceased relatives have all been reported by people from many cultures who have had a brush with death. Sceptics, however, say these experiences could be caused by people hallucinating as they recover in hospital. The way that the default is presented here is interesting. Interpreting the experiences as halluc…

Unfortunately many things in western culture that get close to mysticism are disregarded as hallucinations or random neurological firings. Same goes with dreams and such. It’s the ‘religion of science’ defaulting to the ‘god’ of deconstructionism. Just hallucinations, nothing more. I understand why, there’s certainly many things which were once said to be mystic, but ended up less so. However, anyone who has done res…

There shouldn't be anything wrong with having an open mind about such phenomena. While it's very likely that they are of biological origin, to immediately dismiss any other possibilities is closed minded dogmatism.

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#47
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re in a period of karmic-inflation, where any given soul will get you about 1/5th what it’d get you in the good old days. Nowadays you’d be lucky to die into a fish or bird - most of us are destined bugs, or industrial farm animals.

But the insect population is rapidly decreasing, so are many fish and birds. No if you ask me, most of us will reincarnate into bacteria.

Best bet are species that thrive despite or even thanks to humans. Like pets, pigeons or cockroaches.

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#48
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the why anymore. More than 2000 years ago, we understood that we must be a sum of parts and that kind of idea yielded the atom. We applied the atom to many kinds of structures to discern their nature. Now, atom means some scientific particle. We simply have more things to name, but still constantly run into things we cannot name yet. We think this will end but it will not. If our universe is ever e…

> still constantly run into things we cannot name yet. Humanity has the opposite problem - we invent names for things that don't exist. We have no idea what dark matter is, but we have a name handy just in case. Same with gods, elves, dragons, aliens, etc. I can't find one example of people not being able to name something that exist. Worst case just name it "phenomenon X" where X is the first unused integer. I can f…

> I can't find one example of people not being able to name something that exist

How about "The smallest positive integer not definable in under sixty letters"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_paradox

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#49
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the answer is literally that everything you ingest affects you. It affects your body and the body affects the mind. From the food you eat to the words you hear, your body and mind is affected.

That obviously is true, but you are completely ignoring the argument of the person you are answering to. He told that the brain might be learned using effect of some substance by the same principle when Neurophysiologists observe people with damaged brain and realize what the damaged surface is doing. And you are telling that people without brain damages can be observed by Neurophysiologists as well which is just a t…

I am addressing the original argument. The original premise was mere amusement that such a chemical could exist which could alter the mind. What I’m saying is that there is more than just chemicals which can change your mind.

If you say it is obvious that everything you ingest affects you, then what about time? Both of us are clearly ingesting time, it is simply another one of our inputs. And, of course, it is obvious that time affects our mind and body.

Re: Brain activity of dying people shows signs of near-death experiences

#50
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reckon they'll just go stuffing multiple souls into each baby. Has anyone tried counting the number of souls per body?

If you watch certain tiktok channels too much, you open up space for more souls to enter. Seems to works best for younger girls though.

Cool. I'm gonna seek out some extra souls and then do a roaring trade with some demons.

"Why yes, I do currently own this soul, so it's MY soul, but not necessarily the one I was born with"

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