Consciousness independent of life?

[Polymath]

How about this for an article:
http://www.boston.com/news/daily/28/brain.htm
Thought some of the religiously-minded would like to see it, I could argue some of the points in it, but best if you guys have a look first.
The mind is a truly mysterious thing.

[Marina]

Interesting article! I believe that our soul (whatever it is) continues to exist after our death.

[z7]

I knew about the NDE studies as I used to live in Southampton.

[Chris H]

I was down in Southampton the other weekend and can understand what you mean z7. Hell of a place.

[z7]

What - hellishly dull?

[Chris H]

Entering Southampton is an NDE.

God, I love that northbound M3.

Only joking if I've offended any Sothampton lovers!

Anyway, which of us religiously minded people are going to start this?

[z7]

Can't be as bad as entering London on the M4 Sunday PM?

Anyway on the M3 sucks, don't you just love what they did to the hill at Winchester!?

What is their to start - the body dies, the soul lives on - tell me something I didn't already know.

(do I sound like I am in a bad mood today?)

[Chris H]

Originally posted by z7
What is their to start - the body dies, the soul lives on - tell me something I didn't already know.

Does the soul live on? Jesus talks about the soul being destroyed in Matthew. Just thinking that NDE's could be described as 'in the spirit' experiences instead? But that starts off the soul and/or spirit discussion which gets away from the original thread.

As to NDE's. I believe they happen. I believe that man has a spiritual dimension that is ignored in this material world.

z7, send me an email telling me what you know and I'll send you back something you didn't know?

[z7]

Good point.
I sometimes have difficulty distinguishing between the two! (esp. on a brain-fog monday morning!)

[Polymath]

Well, personally I'd need more than this to think there's a case - but I haven't got the faintest idea how the brain is affected by this stuff. Could it be an illusory experience? I really don't know. I mean, what is consciousness anyway, could consciousness be an illusion, and there is no free will? Or does consciousness occur 'on a higher level'? Even though I don't know what that I mean by that.
All I can really do is repeat myself - the mind is a truly mysterious thing.

[Jeremy W.]

the soul can be destroyed... Depends on which word is used to translate to soul...

"He speculated that human consciousness may work independently of the brain, using the gray matter as a mechanism to manifest the thoughts, just as a television set translates waves in the air into picture and sound."

Yes... we are all one consciousness, we just happen to each be tuned to our own frequency </sarcasm> (not to offend you marina).

This scientist is speculating on stuff that has nothing to do with the data from the study.

ach, my arms hurt... be back later...

[z7]

Buddist monks claim Marijuana destroys the soul - I'd be inclind to agree when I look at my Art Director - HAHAHA

[Polymath]

Sorry z7, you've got that completely backward:

"The Tibetans considered Cannabis sacred. A Mahayana Buddhist tradition maintains that during the six steps of asceticism leading to his enlightenment, Buddha lived on one Hemp seed a day.
He is often depicted with Soma leaves in his begging bowl and the mysterious god-narcotic Soma has occasionally been identified with Hemp.
In Tantric Buddhism of the Himalayas of Tibet, Cannabis plays a very significant role in the meditative ritual used to facilitate deep meditation and heighten awareness."
From:
http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/mj001.htm

[z7]

Opps - maybe it was some other kind of monk then?

Only something I heard.

Doesn't stop my AD from being a moron whichever way you look at it!

[Polymath]

Well, either way, one man's weed is another man's soul-destroyer, that's true enough.
What we need is for someone with an NDE to say they saw Buddha, and he offered them a toke on some sacred Tibetan 'herbs'. Proof enough for me.

[z7]

Originally posted by Polymath
...the mind is a truly mysterious thing.

I tend to think of the mind like an internal-combustion-engine - it won't work without petroleum.

[Plebius]

Originally posted by studiococo
the soul can be destroyed... Depends on which word is used to translate to soul...

"He speculated that human consciousness may work independently of the brain, using the gray matter as a mechanism to manifest the thoughts, just as a television set translates waves in the air into picture and sound."

Yes... we are all one consciousness, we just happen to each be tuned to our own frequency </sarcasm> (not to offend you marina).

This scientist is speculating on stuff that has nothing to do with the data from the study.

It may have nothing to do with data from the study, but there is a LOT more reasoning behind it than is given in the article.

First, see http://www.culture.com.au/brain_proj/stapp.htm

and then...

About 60 years ago physicists observed something that was unexplainable. They were watching two photons flying around and found that each one seemed to know what the other was doing instantaneously. Their movements co-varied exactly. This observation caused a real problem for physicists because in order for them to communicate instantaneously, the information passing "between" them would have to be moving faster than the speed of light. According to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity this was impossible. Taking this into account, they concluded and then proved that there had to be a deeper level of existence, outside of our three dimensional universe where everything is connected. The reason why the "two" particles knew where the other was going was because at a deeper level they were of the same holograph. It was only the scientists' observations that made them appear separate. We are made of the same stuff as these particles. There is a deeper level of reality on which we are all connected. Mind (consciousness) is not rooted in any one place. It is omnipresent. This means we have access to all the information there is. It means that distance healing is possible and that the concept itself (distance) is a misnomer. It means we have a lot more to do with how the world is than what Newtonian physics led us to believe.

http://www.nlptrainings.com/humanistic.html

And, to explain further the idea that the Universe is holographic:

Holograph: from laser technology. Bounce a stream of coherent light off some object onto a photographic plate; that plate retains a three-dimensional image of that object and will project that image in 3 dimensions when that laser light shines through the plate. What makes this phenomenon holographic is that if you break the plate, every fragment of that plate will prove to have that entire 3-dimensional image! Every particle of that plate carries the complete record of information. The more profound aspect of this phenomenon is that:

• Everything is affected by virtually everything else, hence is modulated by virtually everything else, hence carries information about virtually everything else;
• This information is potentially retrievable;
• The result is that virtually everything is a holograph of virtually everything else;
• The finest instrument yet developed for retrieving this holographic information is the right side of the human cerebral cortex.

http://www.winwenger.com/part29-4.htm

You are correct, the scientist is speculating, but there's more... a LOT more thought behind his statement than most people realize. Whether people want to turn that into some spiritual thing, or not, is rather irrelevant.

[z7]

Originally posted by Plebius
...the idea that the Universe is holographic.

Hey - now I like that idea, really floats my boat

[Chris H]

Originally posted by Plebius
Whether people want to turn that into some spiritual thing, or not, is rather irrelevant.

Whether people want to turn that into some psuedo-psycho-scientific thing, or not, is rather irrelevant.

I can't grasp what NDE's have to do with holograms or large group awareness training.

[z7]

Touche!

[Michel V]

On NDE: some studies have brought the hypothesis that the NDEs where the subjects describe a tunnel with a light at the end of it, are illusions inducted by the release of an abnormal amount of a molecule in our brain. My memories are unclear, so I can't elaborate more on this, I'll try to find at least one or two articles on this on the web...

Edit: I should read the articles entirely before I post, since what I call "the release of a molecule" seems just to be the lack of one, oxygen.

[z7]

Well, that explains away one part of NDEs/the article but what about...

Of those, four were labeled NDEs in that they reported lucid memories of thinking, reasoning, moving about and communicating with others after doctors determined their brains were not functioning.

[Michel V]

z7, I never doubted the existence of the soul. Still, I have a hard time taking conclusions based on the testimonies of 7 people out of 63.
To me, the brain looks like it's not functioning anymore but that may be because we cannot detect some kinds of brain activity. Maybe it's still functionning, neurons communicating only through chemical reactions rather than electric signals. After all, most of the basic cell functions are still acting when we're dead, until the cells themselves die.

[z7]

Maybe... Well, some day we'll all find out.