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Awareness at Death

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101–110 of 180 posts

Re: Awareness at Death

#101

The substantive results from the article: > First, most of the 53 survivors initially flat-lined on the EEG, but, with continued CPR, recovered brain activity up to 60 minutes later. This result not only encourages first responders to persist, it also suggests the possibility of to-be-recalled cognitive activity in comatose patients. > Second, 6 of the 28 interviewed survivors (21 percent) had a “transcendent recalle…

Define reality.

Re: Awareness at Death

#102

How do they obtained informed consent for human experimentation? If I understand, the researchers are summoned to the hospital bedside of someone undergoing cardiac arrest. If they came into a loved one's room, or mine, I would be very angry. Any risk or distraction is too much. But that's my perspective. Maybe they obtain permission from next of kin?

It seems pretty obvious that they didn't, and I suspect this whole project is a function of knowing the right people.

I also don't think it's a very well-designed experiment (in that it makes some assumptions about where attention is focused; if there were truly an OOBE taking place, then I would not expect the disembodied consciousness to be connected to the sensory apparatus, nor to pay particular attention to a tablet with some random image being held up toward the ceiling), but I suppose you have to start somewhere. I don't think it's unethical exactly, but it's intrusive in an extremely weird fashion. Might be justifiable if the EEG cap turns up useful medical information independent of the parapsychological investigation.

Re: Awareness at Death

#103
post #71

Out-of-body experiences are real. My wife had one. Because of special circumstances I am convinced that she didn't know about them. It was an unknown and completely new thing for her. When I told her that some people also experienced out-of-body, she was stunned. I came to the realisation that science has limits. I have the hypothesis that the set of measurable effects is smaller than the set of all true things. In o…

I've had three out of body experiences that I think are completely attributable to things happening in my brain at the time. They were interesting and memorable but I'm not sure they represented some kind of unmeasurable/unknowable para phenomena out of the reach of science. (One while falling asleep sitting up after many hours awake studying for exams in college, one while trying out some lucid dreaming techniques I'd read about, and one after underestimating the potency of some cannabis.)

Re: Awareness at Death

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was present when someone else went through the same experience but they reacted slightly differently than you did…”Please don’t stop CPR! There’s nothing there! Whenever you stop and I die, it’s all black!” His last horrified words were “There’s nothing there!”

I wonder if this reaction was because his brain hasn't yet entered the stage where NDEs normally occur - ie. he was still somewhat conscious and expecting an NDE at this early stage where they don't yet occur?

NDE, also as what I get from the article, seems to be just hallucination.

I also have experience of void, but from serious surgery. It is hard to describe something as simple as absence. But it left deep impression on me that there can be true emptiness. And as other have said here, I'm now not that worried about it.

Re: Awareness at Death

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I have grounds to argue against this take. I think the definition of death changes over time as medical technology advances in its ability to return someone to "life".

If your brain is working well enough to have thoughts about its experiences, I don't see how you could call that death when people whose brains are not working that well at all, are alive.

It’s an open question in many (most?) of the reported NDEs as to whether their experiences were contemporaneous with their “deaths”, or rather their brain’s retrospective backfilling of the period when it was oxygen-starved and neurotransmitters lacked the ability to regulate their concentration and flow. I’m not a neuroscientist (or any kind of scientist) but I don’t think the consensus involves approaching reported subjective experiences from a presumption that they reflect the literal experience of death in the more permanent sense.

Re: Awareness at Death

#106

"It's like a labyrinth you can't see, innit? And by the time - heeheehee, by the time, heehee - by the time - you can see it, it's too late. There's no way out"[1] The phrase "invisible labyrinth" describes perfectly the relationship of the self inside the complexity of the human brain. When the body tries, in drips and drops, to save the organism, parts of the resource-hungry labyrinth are taken apart like a travell…

I've always felt that to get AGI it needs to have some concept or fear of death ingrained in it just like humans do. It happens to every human always. It's been in our evolution. The fear and avoidance of death is a primal core of who we are and how we think.

Re: Awareness at Death

#107

The substantive results from the article: > First, most of the 53 survivors initially flat-lined on the EEG, but, with continued CPR, recovered brain activity up to 60 minutes later. This result not only encourages first responders to persist, it also suggests the possibility of to-be-recalled cognitive activity in comatose patients. > Second, 6 of the 28 interviewed survivors (21 percent) had a “transcendent recalle…

Define reality.

Haven’t had an occasion to do this before, but sure — here you go: https://www.yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth

Re: Awareness at Death

#108

I've had a couple OBEs (as a result of meditation, not near-death), and they're very interesting, but I'm not surprised that Parnia's subjects weren't able to match up any images because I've never had an OBE where the objective world is completely accurate. It's odd because you'll be totally lucid, often more so than in waking life, but things are slightly off, and electronics in particular never seem to work. I've…

No real reason to believe OBEs are anything other LDs. As you said nothing lines up, so the whole "your soul / astral body / whatever is travelling" has no weight. Furthermore, LDs/OBEs seem to be subject to working memory overload. Try looking at a large distance in an OBE, it won't render.

It renders, it just takes time for me.

Re: Awareness at Death

#109

The substantive results from the article: > First, most of the 53 survivors initially flat-lined on the EEG, but, with continued CPR, recovered brain activity up to 60 minutes later. This result not only encourages first responders to persist, it also suggests the possibility of to-be-recalled cognitive activity in comatose patients. > Second, 6 of the 28 interviewed survivors (21 percent) had a “transcendent recalle…

Define reality.

the moment from when you started reading this until the end of the sentence

Re: Awareness at Death

#110

Whew, glad this dodged the "woo". I've seen similar reports like this, that fail to detect any parapsychological assertions. I often wonder if people who have these experiences have ever done hallucinogens. I have a feeling that if someone has previously experienced the flimsy nature of perceived reality, they wouldn't be so quick to ascribe near-death experiences to something supernatural.

I agree with this take. For many, it seems like that their NDE was also their first psychedelic experience. So then the two is conflated.
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