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By real do you mean physically real? If so, what makes these physical phenomena special or different than any other?
DUH!!! Obviously I think they're real.
After all my posts ITT you still have to ask that question??
Now let me ask you again, and please respond with just a yes or no answer.
After I posted the studies, do you now admit there have been dozens of studies done on NDE's?? Yes or no??
Well, to be fair, much of what occurs in the visual field is hallucinatory. That's my point. Brains are hallucination machines. Some of these visual constructs are quotidian. They are functional solutions to perceptual problems. They are also rigorous, in so much as brains are regularly solving these problem across multiple persons and instances. Everyone who sees purple is "hallucinating" it, for example. The brain is "smudging" blue and red wavelengths the eye cannot process well at the same time.
This may or may not be the case with NDEs, which have similar elements (probably related to occipital structures) but also are wildly individual.
The word "hallucination" is nonetheless correct. Which goes to my point. Much of what we experience is an artefact of sentience, of brains kludging visual constructs, not an unadulterated perceived fact.Seeing purple is not really analogous to an hallucination or what the word means in general use. I had hallucinations when I had fevers and they are entirely different experience from seeing color or even a mirage that looks like water. It is where the main hallucination effect is coming from that is the crucial difference.
No doubt. I'm as materialist as one can reasonably be, but we have to remember that brains are not adept at perceiving so much as at constructing.NDEs are all about the brain, especially in response to traumatic events and related stimuli leading to death. There was a case a few years ago where a patient was having a brain EEG and he died as it was recording brain activity. The EEG recorded what happens in the brain immediately before and after death, namely brainwaves similar to dreams and memory recall. This would explain the claims of NDEs.
These studies all present some interesting circumstantial evidence but I don't think they address my point that none of them are able to study, in real time, a NDE (or OBE, since the second study makes the valid point that OBEs aren't always triggered by NDEs). The evolutionary argument that OBEs might enhance survival is not much better than the one about the opossum-human. If your body seeks to rally from some trauma, wouldn't the OBE-experience serve to weaken the will to survive? If the subject thinks he's moving into some paradisical fantasy, why rally?
In 1954, [Thelma Moss] co-wrote the mystery comedy Father Brown, based on a short-story by G. K. Chesterton, starring Alec Guinness in the titular role. Essentially the future Obi-Wan Kenobi chases an art thief around France. A particularly entertaining scene finds Father Brown in quite a pickle, when his nemesis overpowers him in the Paris Catacombs and ties him up against a pile of bones.
One startling moment involving Alec Guinness was surely an influence on Thelma's later decision to study parapsychology. In his memoirs, entitled Blessings in Disguise , Guinness tells the story of an evening when he met Thelma Moss for dinner in Los Angeles. At a little Italian bistro named Villa Capri they find no tables available and leave discouraged, but James Dean comes to the rescue, following them outside and inviting them to join him at his table. On the way back to the restaurant, bursting with pride, James Dean draws their attention to his new sports car in the parking lot.
Despite James Dean’s boyish enthusiasm, like a true Jedi master, Alec Guinness gravely blurts out, “Please never get in it. It is now ten o’clock, Friday the 23rd of September, 1955. If you get in that car you will be dead in it by this time next week.” Catching himself, Alec Guinness swiftly apologized, blaming his strange outburst on jet-lag from an international flight. Thelma, Alec, and James went on to have a lovely dinner. Unfortunately, James Dean wouldn't take Alec Guinness’s spooky advice to heart. By 4 p.m. the following Friday, James Dean was indeed dead, killed in an accident in his new sports car.
Wow, a new belief in mind-reading. You know for a positive fact that Stalin held no real belief in the materialism of Russian Communism? Of course you don't. You may have read every Stalin bio in existence, but how can any of the authors prove that his lack of religious belief did not impact on his ruthlessness? Maybe it did and maybe it didn't. But you HAVE to believe that it did not, and that's dogma.Stalin didn’t kill in defense of any belief system. He killed and imprisoned as a means to gain absolute power. He was a criminal who developed a cult of personality. He had been used by Lenin to fund the revolution through robbery and kidnapping for ransom. He never had a problem killing anyone who opposed him. It had nothing at all to do with his materialism, as you put it. His actions were personally motivated, not philosophically so. From his youngest days, he routinely and habitually killed anyone who opposed him in his quest for power.
I've never encountered a materialist who did not make the conclusion that if (a) science cannot provide supporting evidence for an alleged phenomenon, then (b) the alleged phenomenon does not exist. A materialist who does not make that conclusion-- now, THAT's a phenomenon no one can demonstrate.Science doesn’t prove things, it provides supporting evidence or it demonstrates that there is no supporting evidence.
We know that people have dreams and what physical things happen in the brain during them. It doesn’t mean the content of the dream is something beyond an individual’s brain activity.
Yes, physically real. Going OBE is as real as anything else you would do during the day.By real do you mean physically real? If so, what makes these physical phenomena special or different than any other?
Feels and real are hardly as objective, or universal, as you seem to suggest.Yes, physically real. Going OBE is as real as anything else you would do during the day.
If anything it feels more real
Yes, physically real. Going OBE is as real as anything else you would do during the day.
If anything it feels more real
I've never encountered a materialist who did not make the conclusion that if (a) science cannot provide supporting evidence for an alleged phenomenon, then (b) the alleged phenomenon does not exist. A materialist who does not make that conclusion-- now, THAT's a phenomenon no one can demonstrate.
Wow, a new belief in mind-reading. You know for a positive fact that Stalin held no real belief in the materialism of Russian Communism? Of course you don't. You may have read every Stalin bio in existence, but how can any of the authors prove that his lack of religious belief did not impact on his ruthlessness? Maybe it did and maybe it didn't. But you HAVE to believe that it did not, and that's dogma.
The word "hallucination" is nonetheless correct. Which goes to my point. Much of what we experience is an artefact of sentience, of brains kludging visual constructs, not an unadulterated perceived fact.
Not all perception, no; but, the brain regularly hallucinates perceptual fixes. Which, for our purposes, doesn't yet include the 2-4% of all people who are hyperphantasic, or, equally as fascinating, people who can "see" visual overlays in addition to ordinary brain interpretations of visual stimuli.What we experience is not accurately described as hallucinations.
Best way I can describe it, when you wake up in the morning, and you take a shower, and you drive your car to work, and then you come home, you eat your dinner and you go to bed...etc. Does all this feel real to you?? I suspect you will probably answer that it feels real to you.Feels and real are hardly as objective, or universal, as you seem to suggest.
Not all perception, no; but, the brain regularly hallucinates perceptual fixes. Which, for our purposes, doesn't yet include the 2-4% of all people who are hyperphantasic, or, equally as fascinating, people who can "see" visual overlays in addition to ordinary brain interpretations of visual stimuli.
Best way I can describe it, when you wake up in the morning, and you take a shower, and you drive your car to work, and then you come home, you eat your dinner and you go to bed...etc. Does all this feel real to you?? I suspect you will probably answer that it feels real to you.
Well.......going out of body, and entering the astral world, feels just as real as that
What I haven't done is gainsay your experience of verisilimitude. I question the subsequent conviction that this constitutes "real".Best way I can describe it, when you wake up in the morning, and you take a shower, and you drive your car to work, and then you come home, you eat your dinner and you go to bed...etc. Does all this feel real to you?? I suspect you will probably answer that it feels real to you.
Well.......going out of body, and entering the astral world, feels just as real as that
It is the correct term, though.* The brain conjures non-stimulated, non-verifiable visual constructs.I still wouldn’t use the word hallucinate. My hallucinations due to fever don’t fit whatever you seem to think a hallucination is.
It is the correct term, though. The brain conjures non-stimulated, non-verifiable visual constructs.
What it is not, is delusional hallucination.
See above.No, it is not the correct term at all. The brain doesn’t normally hallucinate.
See above.
All the same, you are too narrowly assuming "hallucination" means "delusional decoupling from ordinary experience", when, in fact, much of ordinary experience is hallucinated by brains. That's the broad, and well-researched consensus of neuroscientists.I did. I stand by what I have posted. The brain doesn’t normally hallucinate. If iIt did, we would not be able to successfully function in physical reality. Hallucinate is not an accurate word to describe how the brain normally functions.
All the same, you are too narrowly assuming "hallucination" means "delusional decoupling from ordinary experience", when, in fact, much of ordinary experience is hallucinated by brains. That's the broad, and well-researched consensus of neuroscientists.
A vivid dream might feel real. But it's still just a dream.Best way I can describe it, when you wake up in the morning, and you take a shower, and you drive your car to work, and then you come home, you eat your dinner and you go to bed...etc. Does all this feel real to you?? I suspect you will probably answer that it feels real to you.
Well.......going out of body, and entering the astral world, feels just as real as that
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