Posted on 02/21/2006 1:05:58 PM PST by bildabare
A leading cardiologist — who has become convinced of the existence of life after death after hearing his patients’ experiences — is talking about his research and beliefs at a major conference in London in March.
Dr Pim van Lommel was so inspired by the stories related by his patients of their Near Death Experiences (NDEs) that he became the first medical practitioner to risk his reputation with a full, systematic trial into the phenomenon.
He interviewed 344 heart patients at his hospital in Arnhem, Netherlands who had all clinically died, some
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The Bible teaches that animals also have rudimentary spirits- so they would work too.
Then how do you explain the Denmark/Australia optical illusion experiment?
If everything happens in the brain, where are the memories? Why can't we decode them?
We're still not certain how the brain stores memories...it probably stores different sorts of memories in different ways and various brain areas. The hippocampus is especially important in retrieving memories; it seems to be the master cataloguer that governs access to them and also sees to it that they're stored.
As for 'where' memories are, my memories (as physical states) almost certainly reside within my brain inside my skull. I can't say exactly what form these physical states take...yet. But we're just starting to study the brain seriously. Wait a while.
...our spirits, which have no mass and do not exist in space/time...
I simply don't know what this means. Sorry.
Then how do you explain the Denmark/Australia optical illusion experiment?
I wouldn't know where to begin to explain that. For one thing, I'd have to examine the experimental protocol, determine who knew what about what and when, determine what sort of news coverage was given the experiment in both Denmark and Australia (to try to get some idea of what could've come to the attention of people in both countries, even if peripherally). There are questions upon questions to be asked about any sort of so-called 'experiment' like that.
fair enough. But c'mon-- the dead/alive cat in the box isn't freaky? The universe is odd at all levels. Especially the very small, and in this case, nothing is more odd than leaving the universe completely and speculating about the non- physical. Lots to learn. But in order for science to grow, we're going to have to leave the idea behind that we have to quantify everything. SOme things just can't be studied directly. Not everything is here to be studied. We live in a multidimensional world.
Part of the problem with trying to figure this kind of stuff out is that one of the things our brain truly excels at is filling in the blanks. The brain has to backfill data constantly (like every time you detect motion for one example since the optic center actually sees stills) and could easily be doing that in response to an NDE. Or the signals may have gotten too slight to detect. Or the doctor could be right.
I doubt neutrions are it. In the same spirit however, string theory predicts that ~11 dimentions actually exist, not just the 3 we easily perceive. Personally, that's my main hope for something tangible existing beyond what we frimly know. If string theory is ever demonstrated, then there is a whole lot of stuff hiding right under our noses.
But in order for science to grow, we're going to have to leave the idea behind that we have to quantify everything. SOme things just can't be studied directly. Not everything is here to be studied. We live in a multidimensional world.
It sounds as if you're recommending a kind of New Age-y approach to science. No thanks. And I strongly recommend that you not drive over any bridge that might have been designed by somebody who espouses such an approach!
Best regards...
Is There Life After Death? Trespass Here And Find Out. |
BTW, even if some version of String Theory turns out to be able to give a reasonable account of the universe we currenly observe (a far-from-obvious outcome), any extra dimensions that it might posit—either at the Planck scale or even larger—aren't going to give us a way out of here. After a handful of years, you can stick a fork in us...we're done.
So how can this be? Well, one could explain auditory and tactile inputs by positing that we can't measure electrical activity in the brain at the levels it is happening during shutdown. But how does one explain the visuals? Dead people can't see through their eyelids and eyelids are closed when patients shutdown for a reason.
Is this science?
"Just a different set of rules/laws apply."
If only we knew what they were.
No ping, but I am rubbing the wet rim of my wineglass pretty hard while reading the posts....
Don't people usually have a bowel movement when they die? probobly about 4 oz but who knows.
(Not that I don't believe.)
I just believe in the idea that the more you know the more there is to know. I believe in things that are seen and unseen. I believe in dark matter. I'm a Mystic, but I believe that any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic, or mysticism, if you will.
You are begging the question. If the soul exists, it would be, as traditionally stated, the substantial form of the body. He is not really proving immortality but existence "outside" the body. Apart from the body, the soul would "fade away" as dissolution takes place. This is Aristotle's view. Plato's view is that the soul is something that exists before the body takes shape and will survive it.
I'm a big fan of Dr. Wilder Penfield's work fromt he 50's. Using electrical stimulation of the Sylvian fissure, he illicited a response similar to the out of body experience. I suspect there is a correlation between dying, and the stimulation of this area.
Remember old school tv's? Shut it off, and the electron beam stops scrolling and snaps into the center- making a dot that faded? Maybe when we die, the OOB experience is simply a function of electrical activity shutting down in the brain.
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