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A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

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Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#141

Post by BoardsOfCanada »

I011010011 wrote: post #87
BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #14

Probably the contrarian take, but an informed one. Near death experiences are probably the best way we have to assess the nature of reality. Now, it's almost impossible to reach people who aren't ready with any arguments, but I'll outline some possible steps for anyone who's on the verge. - Go to youtube, type in NDE and listen to a few - Try to come up with a "rational" explanation (hallucinations, the brain dumping…

100% agree with BoardsOfCanada. Note: Atheism, agnosticism are all religions ( or religious thinking disguised as reasoning ); no less fanatic than the ones their adherents so fervently ridicule.

Wear the downvotes as a badge of honor.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#142

Post by BoardsOfCanada »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #138
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Everything decays. So does any substrate which reality may run on whichever way. So there will be errors in the great plan of whichever nature. Some of them may get caught by error correction codes, some others not. These uncaught exceptions are enabling deviations from the great plan :-)

Nope. It would be very convenient for the modern American/Western nihilistic religion called atheism, but nope. Science doesn't support it. In our limited experiential world things appear to decay. If our spacetime experience is emergent from something else (in which time doesn't exist), or is holographic, we have no idea what's really going on at the fundamental (lower/higher?) level. How can you have decay in the b…

As for myself, I try to do a thought experiment. Imagine that I could travel back in time and meet myself at 18-20 years old. I could most likely convince myself that I was me from the future. But I don't think I could convince myself of the thing I've learned that are outside of what is imaginable for my younger self. So we could never be angry with other people for not understanding. Even so, with everything that you get right compared to the people downvoting you, I think you have a too simplistic view of reality, and frankly, not optimistic enough.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#143

Post by BoardsOfCanada »

olalonde wrote: post #64
BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #14

Probably the contrarian take, but an informed one. Near death experiences are probably the best way we have to assess the nature of reality. Now, it's almost impossible to reach people who aren't ready with any arguments, but I'll outline some possible steps for anyone who's on the verge. - Go to youtube, type in NDE and listen to a few - Try to come up with a "rational" explanation (hallucinations, the brain dumping…

> the brain dumping DMT Why do you exclude this hypothesis? It's well known that some drugs such as DMT do cause very similar hallucinations among people, even across cultures (as is the case with NDE).

Because they aren't very similar in a lot of respects. If someone told you about their DMT/NDE experience you could determine which one it was with far greater than 90% accuracy. For example, in NDEs people express that they are outside of linear time, things happen in parallel (I can't imagine it but one person said they arrived at the bottom of a stair, and the moment he decided to climb it he was at the top, but could remember every single step on the way - that's the best explanation I have got of it) and in NDEs people meet relatives that tell them what is happening in a very pedagogic and honest way. In DMT trips there are foreign machine elves or other entities that accept you but don't really have that much connection to you. In NDEs you meet the light a lot and get flooded with love in a way you couldn't imagine before. So even though DMT have similarities to NDEs when compared to our normal reality, they are also not that similar. If anything DMT trips are more similar to UFO abductions than NDEs. It's just weirder than I can expect anyone to accept.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#144

Post by BoardsOfCanada »

LeCompteSftware wrote: post #81
olalonde wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the brain dumping DMT Why do you exclude this hypothesis? It's well known that some drugs such as DMT do cause very similar hallucinations among people, even across cultures (as is the case with NDE).

Yeah I didn't want to burst anyone's spiritual bubble earlier, but I had a very similar experience one time when I smoked salvia divinorum: there was an eerie and overwhelming purple light, sort of like a "fluorescent" UV bulb, and the Ministers of The Universe pulled my life history in front of me, something something ALL OF SPACE AND TIME WAS- I wasn't speaking to God. I was high on salvia. And I'm quite certain A.…

There is either a spiritual bubble or a materialistic/scientistic bubble, and we shouldn't be afraid to burst either.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#145

Post by I011010011 »

mock-possum wrote: post #120
I011010011 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree with BoardsOfCanada. Note: Atheism, agnosticism are all religions ( or religious thinking disguised as reasoning ); no less fanatic than the ones their adherents so fervently ridicule.

No, you’re wrong - Atheism is the opposite of religion - it’s disbelief, not belief. This whole “well actually atheism is just another kind of religion” thing is why I begrudgingly have started to prefer describing myself as ‘irreligious,’ just so that there is absolutely no opportunity for equivocation.

As Mikhail_Edoshin pointed out precisely in the comment below. Religious thinking has certain common characteristics. For example, you go to length to defend Atheism is a sort of X negating a Y etc, that's emotional investment indicating religious adherence and sincere belief in being right.

I, from time to time, suffer from this too. It's very indication that I'm likely being misguided by myself or ideas.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#146

Post by I011010011 »

BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #141
I011010011 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree with BoardsOfCanada. Note: Atheism, agnosticism are all religions ( or religious thinking disguised as reasoning ); no less fanatic than the ones their adherents so fervently ridicule.

Wear the downvotes as a badge of honor.

Lol, indeed BoardsOfCanada :).

I didn't know one could downvote.

Anyway, Aggressively downvoting indicates religious/religious-like fanaticism, the problem is pervasive.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#147

Post by HerbManic »

BobbyTables2 wrote: post #66
ericmcer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never remotely believed this because I don't even believe in a "me" really. One hard hit in the head can literally change your personality entirely, then you have alzheimers and all the other degenerative brain diseases that will erase "you". Even if you avoid all that "you" will be wildly different every 15-20 years. Christianity gets through this by saying you will return to your prime. That just seems kind of ch…

I wonder if there even is such a thing as “eternal consciousness” the way people assume. It’s rare for me to remember -aspects of my daily life in dreams. I would think being dead would be a significant hinderance.

I have a fondness for the idea that the brain is like a radio reciever for a greater flow of the universe. Thus brain damage is like a broken antenna. The radio can die but the signal continues.

That said, we do then to attribute a lot of thinking to the technology of the time. Buddhists had their wheel of time, folks today think we live in a computer simulation. Things like that, so best not to take the idea too seriously.

Remember, life is too important to take seriously.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#148

Post by olalonde »

BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #143
olalonde wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the brain dumping DMT Why do you exclude this hypothesis? It's well known that some drugs such as DMT do cause very similar hallucinations among people, even across cultures (as is the case with NDE).

Because they aren't very similar in a lot of respects. If someone told you about their DMT/NDE experience you could determine which one it was with far greater than 90% accuracy. For example, in NDEs people express that they are outside of linear time, things happen in parallel (I can't imagine it but one person said they arrived at the bottom of a stair, and the moment he decided to climb it he was at the top, but c…

Sure, I didn't mean that the brain was releasing literal DMT.

You said what convinced you was how similar NDEs are, but we have evidence that similar experiences can arise from known brain chemistry changes (e.g., DMT-induced hallucinations) without requiring supernatural explanations. Death could simply be another case where a shift in brain chemistry produces consistent hallucinations across humans.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#149

Post by olalonde »

BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #144
LeCompteSftware wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I didn't want to burst anyone's spiritual bubble earlier, but I had a very similar experience one time when I smoked salvia divinorum: there was an eerie and overwhelming purple light, sort of like a "fluorescent" UV bulb, and the Ministers of The Universe pulled my life history in front of me, something something ALL OF SPACE AND TIME WAS- I wasn't speaking to God. I was high on salvia. And I'm quite certain A.…

There is either a spiritual bubble or a materialistic/scientistic bubble, and we shouldn't be afraid to burst either.

I disagree that the materialistic/scientistic view can be characterized as a "bubble". Unlike the spiritual camp, almost no one in that camp wishes it were true or fantasizes about it. I'm personally in the materialistic camp but wish the "spiritual" view was true.

Re: A. J. Ayer – ‘What I Saw When I Was Dead’ (1988)

#150

Post by fgd135 »

BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #143
olalonde wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the brain dumping DMT Why do you exclude this hypothesis? It's well known that some drugs such as DMT do cause very similar hallucinations among people, even across cultures (as is the case with NDE).

Because they aren't very similar in a lot of respects. If someone told you about their DMT/NDE experience you could determine which one it was with far greater than 90% accuracy. For example, in NDEs people express that they are outside of linear time, things happen in parallel (I can't imagine it but one person said they arrived at the bottom of a stair, and the moment he decided to climb it he was at the top, but c…

> In NDEs you meet the light a lot and get flooded with love in a way you couldn't imagine before

I've definitely had this exact experience on DMT, as well as the traveling through tunnels experience

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