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

newscientist.com

61–70 of 223 posts

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

#61
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn’t. Because the study of health and the being of health are separate topics entirely.

> the study of health and the being of health are separate topics entirely I would rather say that your statements in this particular topic and wise statements per se are separate things entirely and what you have just claimed is not at all.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly by this, but I think I understand a little. The reason why the study of health is separate than the being of health is that the being requires time and experience. I cannot convey how I feel when I eat clean, lift well, read a lot, and socialize often, but I can say that I feel "happy" or "good" and give you a list of steps to achieve that state.

This essence of "lossy transmission" is simply our reality.

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

#62
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of us are clearly ingesting time, it is simply another one of our inputs. We are not ingesting time, we are in a certain sense creating it. We constantly observe the world and it changes over time but just observing the world alone is not enough to perceive time. You have to memorize the current state of the world as you just perceived it and later compare your new perceptions with the memory in order to determi…

Observation is inherently a process with time. Without time, observation cannot be done. I’m not sure how observation without time could even be done, with the goal of observation being the measure from one state to another.

Sure, an observation itself takes place in time and over a period of time, but a single observation itself does not capture time. Imagine you would see the world through your eyes and immediately forget about it. The process of seeing itself takes some time as chemistry and biology do their thing, but you yourself would not be aware of time. You would see the world in one state and shortly after in another state but you would be unaware that it changed as you already forgot the previous observation. For all you could tell, the world could be a static timeless place.

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

#63
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Observation is inherently a process with time. Without time, observation cannot be done. I’m not sure how observation without time could even be done, with the goal of observation being the measure from one state to another.

Sure, an observation itself takes place in time and over a period of time, but a single observation itself does not capture time. Imagine you would see the world through your eyes and immediately forget about it. The process of seeing itself takes some time as chemistry and biology do their thing, but you yourself would not be aware of time. You would see the world in one state and shortly after in another state but…

I agree with what you say, but do not think it is true for humans. I think this may be true for thinking machines like ChatGPT which do not think, do not observe, unless we give it something to think about. E.g. the thinking machine is just a program which runs its program with our input. In the future, seeing machines will not see unless we give it something to look at.

Perhaps you are right, it is we who create time to observe.

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

#64
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, an observation itself takes place in time and over a period of time, but a single observation itself does not capture time. Imagine you would see the world through your eyes and immediately forget about it. The process of seeing itself takes some time as chemistry and biology do their thing, but you yourself would not be aware of time. You would see the world in one state and shortly after in another state but…

I agree with what you say, but do not think it is true for humans. I think this may be true for thinking machines like ChatGPT which do not think, do not observe, unless we give it something to think about. E.g. the thinking machine is just a program which runs its program with our input. In the future, seeing machines will not see unless we give it something to look at. Perhaps you are right, it is we who create tim…

Humans obviously have the capability to remember so it is hard to imagine what it would be like if we could not. For artificial neural networks it depends on their architecture and use, to be able to get a sense of things changing over time you need the ability to process information from different times at the same time. Therefore the network itself needs some memory that feeds back internally or some outputs of the network must be fed back into the inputs externally or the inputs itself must be from different times.

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

#66

> 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…

On the other hand, it's the definition of solipsism to interpret any experience you don't personally share as "hallucinations."

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

#67
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

There is actually a hierarchy of reincarnation with enlightenment being at the top.

You can think of it like a mouse is lower form of life and if he works on his karma he can reincarnate as a racoon and then then if the racoon works on himself he can reincarnate as a monkey all the way up until enlightenment.

The animal right before reincarnation as an enlightened being is of course man.

But do you know what being is right before man?

Woman.

True story. Not even joking here. If a woman works on her karma, she supposedly can reincarnate as a man.

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

#68
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with what you say, but do not think it is true for humans. I think this may be true for thinking machines like ChatGPT which do not think, do not observe, unless we give it something to think about. E.g. the thinking machine is just a program which runs its program with our input. In the future, seeing machines will not see unless we give it something to look at. Perhaps you are right, it is we who create tim…

Humans obviously have the capability to remember so it is hard to imagine what it would be like if we could not. For artificial neural networks it depends on their architecture and use, to be able to get a sense of things changing over time you need the ability to process information from different times at the same time. Therefore the network itself needs some memory that feeds back internally or some outputs of the…

It's hard to imagine what it would be like to actually live as something that doesn't remember, but we do have some experience observing people who have lost the ability to remember through illness or brain trauma or otherwise.

In general it seems like attempting to live in human society without memory is a pretty traumatic experience. Or it would be, if you could remember experiencing it.

It's also very hard on the people around you.

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

#69
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.

Who says you have to get reincarnated in the future? Maybe next up you'll be a 17th century peasant. Hell everyone that has ever and will ever live could all just be the same person.

[0] http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html

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

#70

> 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…

Yeah and the interesting part of it, scientific as we think we are, we don't even try to prove conciousness arises from neurological processes.
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