Science Attempts To Explain Heaven 692
Hugh Pickens writes "Lisa Miller writes in Newsweek about the thesis that heaven is not a real place, or even a process or a supernatural event, but rather something that happens in your brain as you die. The thesis is based, in part, on a growing body of research around near-death experience. According to a 2000 article by Bruce Greyson in The Lancet, between 9 and 18 percent of people who have been demonstrably near death report having had an NDE. Surveys of NDE accounts show great similarities in the details, describing: a tunnel, a light, a gate or a door, a sense of being out of the body, meeting people they know or have heard about, finding themselves in the presence of God, and then returning, changed. Scientists have theorized that NDEs occur as a kind of physiological self-defense mechanism when, in order to guard against damage during trauma, the brain releases protective chemicals that also happen to trigger intense hallucinations. This theory has gained traction after scientists realized that virtually all the features of an NDE can be reproduced with a stiff dose of ketamine, a short-acting, hallucinogenic, dissociative anesthetic. 'I came out into a golden Light. I rose into the Light and found myself having an unspoken interchange with the Light, which I believed to be God,' wrote one user of his experience under ketamine. 'Dante said it better,' writes Miller, 'but the vision is astonishingly the same.'"
Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
How did they explain the out-of-body visions experienced by people who were born blind (and then actually saw things when their heart stopped beating)?
Brain matter is highly plastic (Score:5, Interesting)
Blind people still "see." Brain pathways have simply been remapped so that the "vision" parts of the brain are now associated with other senses.
If you blindfold yourself, and navigate the world by touch, you will still instinctively build a "picture" of the world around you. The spatial cognitive portions of your brain that are usually excited by vision, will come to be associated with touch, or other senses. After years, your neural pathways will remap themselves.
In people who are born blind, those spatial picture generating portions of their brain are still functional, but more closely attuned to nonvisual senses. So they can still "see" in that they generate a spatial impression of the world around them.
They've done experiments with artificial vision systems based on the receptors in your tongue, remapping and training the brain to "see" via your tongue's tactile receptors rather than your eyes.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Since blindess from birth might be caused by mutliple factors, optic nerve or eye abnormalities among them, it's rather safe to say that larger areas of the brain might still experience those effects, don't you think?
Anyway, describing such experiences as plain "seeing" by those people is probably a stretch. Especially considering that in many of them visual cortex does process some information, just not from the eyes; or that supposedly some might experience similar things to when you close and push your e
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bad trip is bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Or simply mental states, expectations. You will agree after all that those do influence so called "subconcious" brain activity, dreams, and so on.
That migth be also part of an explenation why bad trips don't manifest themselves nearly as often on ketamine - when given it people are probably more likely to have positive approach, trying hard to convince themselves that everything's cool. Like during a planned surgery (if it's serious you can add "people try to be at peace with themsevles" here) or outright e
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
As an experienced ket tripper, I've been in a lot of mindsets going into a trip. I've had beautiful experiences that have changed me for the better, and I've had some trips to hell that have been ugly and scary. The connections to archetypes are always pretty pronounced on this drug. I've never had that happen consistently on other psychedelics like mushies.
I think the researchers should look specifically at 5-MeO-DMT, since that is actually produced by the body and is a potent psychedelic. I believe it has a direct connection to these NDEs.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Funny)
I am an atheist ... a timeless eternity "somewhere else", but there was no bright light and all that, it was a dark and nasty place.
Well, no wonder you went to hell, eh? ;)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I was in a very serious car accident and went... well, not to Hell maybe, but somewhere quite unpleasant. I am an atheist so I don't think the experience was particularly significant, although it is just about the strangest thing I have ever experienced. I very much felt like I had spent a timeless eternity "somewhere else", but there was no bright light and all that, it was a dark and nasty place.
Hell is described often as "the outer darkness where men weep" or "outside". A place where God is not; the place where He allows souls to go if they truly do not want to be with Him.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How did they explain the out-of-body visions experienced by people who were born blind (and then actually saw things when their heart stopped beating)?
Blind people are quite capable of 'seeing' things. A blind persons brain may be more re-wired to take input from the other senses but indeed the visual parts of their brains are still intact.
I have a family member, blind from birth, who believes what she 'sees' in her imagination to be what sight would be like. Indeed she thinks she sees colors in her dreams, and can give a good verbal description of colors and what objects would be that color. Usually quite to the surprise of a sighted person assuming a
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
They "saw" things? What is "saw"? You mean their eyes were open when their heart stopped beating and they actually responded to visual stimulus? They were shown pictures of the 1933 Yankees and recognized Babe Ruth? What is "saw"?
Am I "seeing" when I dream? Is that heaven I'm seeing? I mean it could be, but last night I had monsters chasing me in my dreams and I hope there are no monsters in heaven or there's been some false advertising going on. The dream I had where I was banging Izabel Goulart, now that might have been heaven. (Go ahead, google Izabel Goulart, I'll wait...Seriously. It's worth it.)
Let's take your question again:
Perhaps you should write to the researchers who are mentioned in the article above and ask them why their theory doesn't explain every single thing in the world that the superstitions might want to present as evidence for an afterlife?
Please understand, it's possible these researchers were not actually trying to spoil your Easter by disproving the existence of God, OK? So don't get your eternal soul in a twist.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
(Go ahead, google Izabel Goulart, I'll wait...Seriously. It's worth it.)
It appear to be just a random "super" model...
Question (Score:3, Insightful)
What I want to know is how do they deal with the inherent bias of materialistic western science (I suggest there is one).
I'm not saying that Western science is wrong, or invalid (not at all) but that it is inherently materialistic in it's outlook and in the tools it uses to measure things and test them. Is it EVER possible that the methodologies of science (as it now is) could ever validate 'spiritual' experience if it WERE true as a thing in itself, or is there an inherent bias that makes the metho
Re:Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Well your first mistake is the term "materialistic western science". There is no other "science". Science is development of knowledge based on empirical evidence. Everything else is religion, fantasy or just plain bullshit.
Science starts with nothing and develops theories around observations.
So as long as nobody can define what "spiritual experiences" actually are and how they differ from the common hallucinations and fantasies of the human mind they don't really exist as a valid phenomenon.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Funny)
"Same way you'd explain that you can call someone a Christian when the vast majority by far don't follow the bible and most of their ideals are the exact opposite of Jesus' ideals"
Indeed. This is precisely why I don't believe in Christians. I've never met one. I've met plenty of people who claim to be Christians but since they all selectively believe bits of the bible and not other parts I just don't see how they can claim to be Christian. It reminds me of someone I studied Geology with. She was a 'Young Earther' who didn't believe the world was more than 6000 years old but she was studying a field which explicitly disagrees with her. In the end she got a degree in Geology despite her disagreement with its basic ideas and thus I don't consider her a geologist.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's a sign their faith isn't that strong whi
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
How I got to that conclusion to was by reading up on religions and reading the texts like the bible. The bible is actually quite interesting and there are some very good ideas in it. But most practitioners of their religion pick and choose bits or want to stick in their head in the sand about the fact the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions are so similar and all three borrow bits from previous religions. Where as the wise thing would be to say there reason for all the similarities are that the fundamentals are true and they've just come out differently due to human interpretation and therefore embrace the other religions rather than act as if they are your worst enemy.
It's not that hard to see that America's "Christian" right and their beliefs do not match Jesus' teachings and beliefs. For starters the bible is quite clear that you shouldn't be a loud mouth religious jerk and that your connection to the lord should be private.
There is also the fact that the free market capitalist system ironically matches the evolutionary theory and not Christianity. It's all about survival of the fittest. Not wanting to share some of your wealth so others can have healthcare falls under greed which is a sin and the bible repeatedly blasts the rich and wealthy. After all it's apparently easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven and the bible states you can't serve two masters, the lord and mammon (money).
So therefore the whole basis of being a Christian conservative is complete and utter BS.
I'd go out of my way to help out someone who truly followed the word of Christ. I think for someone to sit down and actually read the bible and do their best to follow it to the letter is very admirable. By that I mean the important bits about helping your fellow man and not being a greedy douche. But there in lies the problem, I've not really met anyone like that and I've certainly not seen them on TV.
It's easy for people to say that Muslims need to tackle their extremists (which they should) but Christians have the same exact problem and they need to start standing up and condemning those who don't follow the bible properly rather than paying Sarah Palin to read a speech off her hand.
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Preach it!
There's a scene in Bill Maher's Religulous where he goes to a trucker chapel, and the people are very kind and accepting of him, and pray for him in a very tender, loving way. As he leaves, he says, "thank you for being Christlike, and not just Christian."
I was raised in an evangelical/fundamentalist household. I have known some truly wonderful Christians, who, I think, "get" what Jesus was trying to say/do. But most of them are assholes, same as everyone else, but they are even worse, because
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
If you ever have to say hush to a legitimate question, it isn't science. You seem to think science is like religion.
In practice, "science" often is like a religion. It serves many functions of religion for some people, it can fiercly oppose ideas that don't fit with the official line, and it's liable to messianic pretensions ("science will answer everything"). Read Mary Midgley's "Evolution as Religion".
Of course, scientists will rightly say that "science" doesn't do any of that, science is an objective set of methods, that all those things are an abuse of science. But then, religionists will say that all the evils of religion are not really religion but are an abuse of it, and we wouldn't let them get away with it, would we?
Re:Science = religion (Score:4, Insightful)
Taking away our believes, in a better life afterwards, makes people lose hope for this live, losing the moral, making humankind do all kind of bad things, making live for themselves or for others unlivable.
It also takes away the power of people like the Vatican screwing over the poor for larger cathedrals, and more power of more people. Ever wondered what makes it right for a poor family in Phillipines giving their last Pesos to the church to bury a family member, whilst the Pope sits in a palace that dwarfs any king's palace. Now that's morals for you.
Re:Science = religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking away our believes, in a better life afterwards, makes people lose hope for this live, losing the moral, making humankind do all kind of bad things, making live for themselves or for others unlivable.
No it doesn't. Secular groups like Humanists believe in making the world better for the sake of future generations. Humanists don't believe in holy wars, or prostrating yourself before some figurehead who claims to speak for some magical cloud people. They believe in the progress and sustainability of the human species.
That's more than I can say for mainstream religions.
~X~
Re:Science = religion (Score:5, Insightful)
Science and morality are not related. Neither are religion and morality, although those with a vested interest in religion try to make it appear so.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Vatican doesn't even have as much money as minor movie studio
[Citation needed]
How about the morals of big hollywood making billions of dollars throwing poor people in jail for copying a movie or a song
Not defending that it's right by me, or the general population, but they don't ooze rubbish about benevolence, and treating one's brother as you wish to be treated and all the rest. Hollywood is a corporation that's out to make money. That's what they claim to be. The church claims to be the representative of god on Earth.
Now tell me this,
If god is so good, then why do his peoples,
Place lightning rods atop of their steeples?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Vatican doesn't even have as much money as minor movie studio, just a lot of old stuff that frankly isn't worth very much.
The Vatican itself is estimated to have assets of between $1.5 to $15 billion [news24.com].
If you consider the Vatican to be the head of a multinational corporation, and include all worldwide assets of the Roman Catholic Church, some estimate they have close to $100 BILLION in money, property and other assets. And think how much of that is tax-free.
Re:Science = religion (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with science is that they are missing the moral factor
That's no more a problem with science than it is a problem with lollipops, stars, and waterfalls.
And actually, I find that tying ethics with religion is deeply problematic. It leads to failing to question moral teachings brought about by a religion which might in some cases be bad, very bad. You need to examine and think critically and philosophically abour morals and ethics, for yours to actually be moral and ethical.
allowing them to do everything that only hurts us, or destroys our world...Taking away our believes, in a better life afterwards, makes people lose hope for this live, losing the moral, making humankind do all kind of bad things, making live for themselves or for others unlivable.
The dominant religions on this planet teach that there will be a world-ending apocalypse but the faithful will be whisked away to a better place. *That* allows people to destroy our world. Lacking belief in an afterlife makes this world far more precious; a thing that must be protected because there is, as yet, nowhere else for us to go.
I would astonished to hear that religious non-scientific people polluted more than scientific non-religious people; I know of absolutely no evidence of this. This of course excludes the category of scientific-religious and non-scientific-non-religious, which your post also seems to exclude.
This brings me back to your original statement:
Science is religion, today people don't believe in religion anymore, they believe in science...
I'd like you to define "science", because it's not the standard definition. Strictly speaking, if you don't believe in science, you're an extreme moron. Religion is a set of unproven beliefs taken on faith, science is a process that explicitly excludes faith. Science works, that's how we figured out how to make computers, and refrigerators, and so on. It's up to you to figure out if the process of science has lead to conclusions that contradict your religion. I think it does, but you're not necessarily an extreme moron if you disagree.
I'm pretty sure you're confusing science with some set of conclusions from some scientists, but I'm not going to set up straw arguments, I need you to tell me.
People are living worse everyday, no moral anymore, lots of sickness, more struggles, no hope, and still science believes they are god...
People are living better today than they ever have in the history of the Universe, "no moral anymore" is a context-free statement but I can tell you that at least in the US and Canada youth violence is at an all-time low (and, as they say, children are our future), disease is similarly at record low levels for the past several decades, "more struggles" is again ill-defined (there are more people alive than there used to be, so I don't doubt we have more absolute struggles), there's a whole tonne of hope all over the place, and "still science believes they are god" doesn't mean anything at all and is frankly confusing.
Re:Science = religion (Score:5, Insightful)
- Even if it did make any sort of sense, it's extremely disrespectful and, frankly, anti-scientific to call someone a moron based on their beliefs. You can't be a scientist without an open mind. You can't have an honest discussion without basic respect. In defending Science, please attack the argument and not the person.
I'm inclined to disagree. You can't call someone a moron for not having all the facts, but when someone willfully ignores the entire concept of fact.. Well, political correctness and politeness be damned, "moron" is far to mild a word.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Religious people tend to define their world based on beliefs. The word "believe" has a different, special meaning to them. Nothing is more natural to religious people than to think we "believe" in Science the way they "believe" in religion. Their belief is based on faith, which ultimately comes from authority - the Pope, bishop, shaman as interpreters of some ultimate authority that emanates from the divine - a book or the stars or whatever. They find it natural to transfer that to us and they think we take our beliefs from the authority of some fuzzy hierarchy revolving around Academia.
And yet there is a growing amount of religious people for whom Science (big S) is a religion. They call themselves atheists, but they aren't like rational philosopher atheists, instead they're "dig my heels in the sand, I'll believe what this scientist says even though I don't understand it because I don't like the religion I grew up with" type of atheists. There's no skepticism, no logic. The rational folk on both sides of the theist/atheist fence have to come to a point where we recognize that a certai
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"There is an unrealistic idolisation of humanity on the grounds of our "great scientific achievements", when we're still pretty much as feeble, week, and transient as we ever were, just with a few more gadgets around the place, and more of us surviving to our (still very brief) hundred-odd years of life."
What metric are you using to determine this? Human beings could exterminate all life on this planet if we wanted to. We can launch rockets into space. We can make fire. We can build methods of locomotion un
Re:Science = religion (Score:5, Interesting)
Science makes no claims towards what it is not. Science comes with error bars. Science tells us, "This is exactly how wrong I am." Science takes your pet theory, that really elegant one that you WANT to believe is Truth, and tells you, no, there's no strong correlation. That is the morality of science. When you do an experiment, and determine that your hypothesis is unsupported, you pick a different hypothesis, not a different experiment.
Yes, sometimes scientists seem like they are stumbling about in the dark. They might pick the wrong conclusion. But science is based around revisiting prior assumptions and refining them as you gather more data. What religion has such a mechanism built in? What religion describes how to amend its holy books in the event that they are demonstrated incorrect?
You're right that science takes away beliefs. But it can only harm false beliefs. How could you use science to demonstrate something incorrect? That is the strength of explaining everything from the ground up. There is a strong foundation, not based on strength of faith, but rather on a series of repeatable experiments. If you take issue with how an experiment was done, do it yourself. If you get different results, publish them. The scientific community thrives on that. If you get the same results, know that the truth of the matter has nothing to do with how willing you are to stomach it.
The one thing I will grant you is that the media does a very poor job of representing the scientific process. These scientists did not prove that there is no heaven; they did not set out to, and their experiment is not set up in a way to demonstrate that fact one way or another. What they can demonstrate is that a chemical released by the brain under extreme duress can produce strong hallucinations accompanied by a feeling of the numinous. That's not terribly exciting in and of itself, so the press fancies it up, makes the bold claims that science cannot, and releases it in comprehensible chunks to the public.They have a difficult job, trying to represent incredibly technical work to a public without the background to understand it, and often having to make it entertaining as well. Much is lost in the translation.
Re:Science = religion (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with science is that they are missing the moral factor, allowing them to do everything that only hurts us, or destroys our world. They are of course doing some good things too, but the question is if those good things outreach the bad things. Looking at our earth, I would say no.
Science shouldn't have morals. Morals are nothing more than someone's opinion on how things should be. Most people do agree on the same morals.
Take for instance the age of consent. It can range anywhere from 9 to 20. Who is right? 9 seems disgusting to me but then people who believe it should be 20 may thing 16 is disgusting.
Is stem research morally wrong? Some think so but would it be morally right to stop something that may save millions of lives? Again some say yes and some say no.
It's pretty sad though that most people need some greater force to tell them to treat people as they want others to treat them. Perhaps humans aren't as advanced as we would like to think.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Science = religion (Score:4, Insightful)
> Looking at science, if science was good to humans, ms windows wasn't such a pain to use...
You're free not to use a computer, or to use another operating system.
> We are living in a culture, were we can't live without science, yes you are right, but if you look where it is heading. At the moment it isn't heading in the nice star trek direction... It is more heading in direction of big calamities, terrorism (without science no boms), diseases, war....
Without science no medicine either. Science can cure diseases, and sometimes completely eradicate them (currently only smallpox, but I'm sure we can do it again). Sure, the virus is still held in a few labs somewhere, but it hasn't killed anyone in decades.
> Why wouldn't I have been born without science ??? People have been born for thousands of years without science... Science says we come from apes ? There is even proof we have been walking strait up for millions of years, and still science says we come from apes.
It's quite likely that without science many of your ancestors would have died long before they were old enough to reproduce, but I admit GP made a lousy argument (unless your mother required a C-secion I guess). I don't know about your walking straight example, but the specifics are not really relevant: whenever science discovers it is wrong is becomes MORE accurate, not less.
> so you say science killed Christ, I rather lived without science then...
You claim not to be a christian, so honestly what do you care about some guy who supposedly died 2000 years ago? Besides, it wasn't science that killed him, just people. If the cross hadn't been invented yet, they'd just have beat him to death with a rock. Science merely enabled the particular way they killed him.
> And yes I am using a computer, and use it for work... If there wasn't one, we would live different, doing other stuff. You can't jump from one situation in the other, people are not used to it...
But you ARE free to do other stuff. Go live naked in the woods! You CHOOSE to use the fruits of the very science that you claim to dislike. There is a word for that: hypocrisy.
> The same when you grow up in a big town, you probably don't want to live some where without people, and the same way around.
So what are you trying to say? You don't like science but don't want to live without it? Or that we like science but only because we grew up with it?
> This is a discussion were we can go on for ages, you believe your stuff, I believe mine.
Yes, if only this were science, so we could use objective data to come to a conclusion.
> I just think science makes our lives more complex and slowly destroys our surroundings... Because money is involved, and moral isn't looked at...
Ah! So it's greed, not science, that you oppose?
Damn You, Science! (Score:5, Informative)
Next you'll be trying to tell us God doesn't exist.
And we all 'evolved from apes'.
And the iPad is a game-changer.
Re:Damn You, Science! (Score:5, Insightful)
Next you'll be trying to tell us God doesn't exist.
And we all 'evolved from apes'.
And the iPad is a game-changer.
Only two of those correct.
Re:Damn You, Science! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Nonono... it's said that men and clams came from a common ancestor.
Re:Damn You, Science! (Score:4, Funny)
Mmmmmmmm.... ancestors in wine sauce never .... :)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Dear Bottles,
I would like to inform you that your insidious yet gross attempt to sell me an IPad has failed.
Regards,
--
Richard
NDE is "near" death (Score:2)
This doesn't state anything about what happens when you're dead (probably not much), just what happens when you're on the point of death. It doesn't "explain heaven" at all.
All we've discovered here is what cats have known all along: it's comforting to purr when you're dying.
Re:NDE is "near" death (Score:5, Insightful)
This does explain the prevalence of concept though.
It's safe to assume people were experiencing various NDEs for a looong time, especially in more dangerous times - remember they didn't have to survive their injuries for long, just long enough to tell somebody. This even fits as one of the factors why people were so much more fixated on religion in brutal times.
Colour me skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What? You supposedly study religions and missed the prevalence of "good light"/etc., reunification with ancestors, a path and border point (remember, they can have differing forms depending on the culture) imagery?...
How then could primitive man regale his story when it would have lead to actual death while unconscious?
Well, religions themself claim that all it takes is one prophet...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What? You supposedly study religions and missed the prevalence of "good light"/etc., reunification with ancestors, a path and border point (remember, they can have differing forms depending on the culture) imagery?...
(1) "Light is good" needs no religion to explain. But it's clear that something so valuable would attain religious significance, without the need to consider NDEs. (Sun)light, well, sheds light on things - it gives you warmth, it makes your plants grow, it comforts you by allowing you to see danger, it allows you to substitute knowledge for ignorance.
(2) "I'd like to reunite with my dead ancestors" needs no religion to explain. But it's clear that a feeling of loss so strong would attain religious significa
hmm.. (Score:2)
Now we know what Michael Hutchence was going for.
Not just with drugs (Score:4, Informative)
Hmmm, a quick google search turns up this article on reading such experiences with an MRI [guardian.co.uk], but i think there was a way to trigger them too.
Practice and prepare yourself for death . . . (Score:5, Funny)
This theory has gained traction after scientists realized that virtually all the features of an NDE can be reproduced with a stiff dose of ketamine, a short-acting, hallucinogenic, dissociative anesthetic.
. . . by taking stiff doses of ketamine. You don't want to enter such a difficult level as death without enough experience.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
This theory has gained traction after scientists realized that virtually all the features of an NDE can be reproduced with a stiff dose of ketamine, a short-acting, hallucinogenic, dissociative anesthetic.
. . . by taking stiff doses of ketamine. You don't want to enter such a difficult level as death without enough experience.
Speaking from experience Ketamine may have been isolating the part of my brain which records long term memories from other parts of the brain, so that the recording from that period was largely noise. The normal clocking which gives us a feeling of time passing was missing so I had no real sense of time but time definitely had an arrow. My visual field was filled with surging fields of coloured dots. I heard a roaring in my ears. I don't want to go back there, but I am not typically a drug user, either.
I di
Life imitates art (Score:3, Informative)
Connie Willis wrote a novel "Passage" about scientific investigation of NDEs. I rate it as the second best book by the best author I know. (Warning: Willis's books generally fall into the categories of 'comedy' or 'tragedy'. Which do you suppose a book about what you experience when you die is going to be?)
In Passage, the protagonists are following a two pronged strategy of interviewing patients who have had NDEs naturally, and simulating them in volunteers by using a drug, while the volunteer is in a brain scanner.
To say more would stray into spoiler territory, so just go out and buy the book and read it.
(For what it is worth, the book which beats "Passage" is "To Say Nothing Of The Dog", a time-travel Victorian farce.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh, I thought the Domesday Book was better. But yeah, Passages wasn't bad. Willis points out one of the key problems with this kind of research, though--there's actually no reason at all to assume that the "near-death" experiences people report has anything to do with dying. You can't ask someone who has actually died what it was like, because they are dead. If they've gone to heaven, or to a new body, or just vanished like the data on your hard drive after a head crash, there's no way to definitiv
Always disturbs me to explain religion (Score:3, Interesting)
I think real scientists should stay well away from this kinda crap, if you got to research what happens when people die, don't link it to heaven.
It is like "scientist" trying to explain Bible myths. How could Moses have parted the seas, what could have caused the plagues etc.
That is like a bad episode of myth-busters where they test movie stunts. What they do first is try to convince people that a scene in the movie is somehow real and has to follow real world physics and then disprove it... learn to seperate fantasy from reality for Christ damn, for god's sake oh fuck it.
All the happenings in the Bible can be explained very simply if you think of it as a bunch of Fantasy written by people who wanted to create a religion. There is even clear evidence that the Bible is fabricated. Even its followed accept that the New Testament was created from seperate books, edited with some parts and books left out completely. So we know that it is edited. No truly religious person would dare to edit the word of god, so what made the person who edited the new testament decide to think he could do this?
And low and behold, if you think of it as a bad hack job, then suddenly it all makes sense. And we know religions can be entirely fabricated. Scientology anyone?
It is amusing to see a program on trying to explain the story around Moses, when nothing in the historical record mentions this at all. Explain the parting of the red seas, but not why an exodus of slaves was not mentioned in Egyptian records. Now that is science. Up next, myth-busters and the geographic channel examine how a grandmother and a little girl can fit in a wolves stomach whole. Leave your brain at the door.
Re:Always disturbs me to explain religion (Score:5, Insightful)
The widespread belief (well, perhaps better described as a delusion) that there exists an afterlife is a legitimate scientific phenomena.
"If there is precisely zero evidence for heaven, why do people believe it exists?" - This is a legitimate scientific question that isn't satisfyingly answered at present.
This kind of research strengthens the case for disbelief and I therefore consider it very valuable. Next time someone describes how their great aunt saw God just before she died I can now point out that their aunt was probably confusing God with special K.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
""If there is precisely zero evidence for heaven, why do people believe it exists?" - This is a legitimate scientific question that isn't satisfyingly answered at present."
People are just afraid to die.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
ask yourself, "why am i me, and not someone else". that question leads onto others like "how am i able to know this is me". I could totally understand a state of just not existing.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously, if someone believes something, then that someone thinks there is sufficient evidence for that something.
The question, then, becomes: on what evidence do people who believe in heaven (or afterlife in general) do so, and is that evidence valid (as in, make sense without engaging in doublethink)? Posing the question this way not on
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I like a concept I've chosen to call 'Contamination by free will'. When you recieve a bible or coran or whatever, some human being (with free will) have written it to the format it is distributed in.
There is no way a human being can be able to recognize the difference by words of god and man. And as
the authors seem to be explaining ketamine (Score:3, Interesting)
Interestingly, one of the study authors at least is taking this the other way. Rather than taking the similarity between NDEs and ketamine experiences as evidence that NDEs aren't spiritual, he's taking it as evidence that ketamine experiences are spiritual, just like NDEs. It's not clear as a whole that explaining NDEs was even the goal: for at least one of them, it seems that explaining ketamine experiences was the goal.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
All the happenings in the Bible can be explained very simply if you think of it as a bunch of Fantasy written by people who wanted to create a religion. There is even clear evidence that the Bible is fabricated. Even its followed accept that the New Testament was created from seperate [sic] books, edited with some parts and books left out completely. So we know that it is edited. No truly religious person would dare to edit the word of god, so what made the person who edited the new testament decide to think he could do this?
Care to provide said evidence that the Bible is fabricated? By the way, history text books are edited often (at the behest of many people's agendas) to remove events that make certain groups of people look bad to the rest of the world and for many other reasons. Would you doubt everything you learned about history after knowing that Boards of Education decide what to have in the history text books? There are other history books to read as well but, *sarcasm* can you really trust anyone who writes a book *sa
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Calling religion "fantasy" is a poor way of putting it, as it implies that it is "made up" and would have no existence without someone dreaming it up. In theory, this could be true, but it doesn't have to be. Consequently, by using that terminology, you are implying that you know it is fantastic, which you don't.
Just because you can't see or prove something exists, does not mean it has no objective reality beyond your senses. All we get to decide is whether we place credence in that we are told exists be
How I faced my death (Score:5, Interesting)
So many things wrong with the article (Score:5, Insightful)
heaven is not a real place, or even a process or a supernatural event, but rather something that happens in your brain as you die
I challenge anyone create a testable hypothesis on whether there is a soul or life after death or heaven etc. What this experiment is testing for is a correlation between chemical processes in the brain when a person nears death and the subjective experience of said person. Where does the existence of heaven or supernatural events even come into this? Those are questions that shouldn't come into play when speaking of science. Whether an objective explanation of a subjective experience nullifies the "reality" of it or not is philosophical has nothing to do with the experiment in question. This is a bunch of horseshit.
LS
Re:So many things wrong with the article (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry about replying to myself, but the following quote of a statement made by the researcher referred to in the article that conducted the ketamine experiments is relevant to this discussion:
Dr. Jansen has the following to say about the journal article that follows:
'I am no longer as opposed to spritual explanations of these phenomena as this article would appear to suggest. Over the past two years (it is quite some time since I wrote it) I have moved more towards the views put forward by John Lilly and Stan Grof. Namely, that drugs and psychological disciplines such as meditation and yoga may render certain 'states' more accessible. The complication then becomes in defining just what we mean by 'states' and where they are located, if indeed location is an appropriate term at all. But the apparent emphasis on matter over mind contained within this particular article no longer accurately represents my attitudes. My forthcoming book 'Ketamine' will consider mystical issues from quite a different perspective, and will give a much stronger voice to those who see drugs as just another door to a space, and not as actually producing that space'.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Far from it being horseshit. This line of study is taking shots at the "horseshit" that is the evidence for there being a god and a soul/spirit. For many people, these near-death experiences are their primary evidence of the existence of a god and that they have an eternal spirit/soul. By explaining yet another "supernatural phenomenon" with science, we continue to chip away at the god myth. Birds once flew because it was god's will. The sun travelled around the earth because it was god's will. Animal
Re:So many things wrong with the article (Score:4, Insightful)
instead of just letting people live their lives, their faith forces them to interfer.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why people should be allowed to vote on discretionary budget items. What a Christian is saying when they oppose embryonic stem-cell research is, "I think that this is immoral, and I do not want my tax money to be spent on it." I feel the same way about war, and would really like to be able to say to the government, "you may not spend my money killing people."
Others feel that war, or embryonic stem cell research, or whatever, are good things and would vote to spend their money that way. But bec
After death studies on live people? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:After death studies on live people? (Score:5, Interesting)
Simple, the "electrical waves" to which you refer are the propagation of ion current flows, esp. Na+ and K+ along the neurons in the brain. Just because one cannot detect such propagation of local charge differentials does *not* mean that all chemical activity, esp. the pumping of Na+/K+ due to local ATP pools has ceased. Indeed if one's brain is not *FROZEN* there is going to be chemical activity (there is probably even some chemical activity above liquid nitrogen temperatures) -- which may be a reason why one can get better brain recovery even with no heartbeat and no electrical activity if one cools it down before attempting a reboot. (Brain rebooting is a complex interaction of proper chemical reactions and improper (harmful) chemical reactions.)
The problem is with the current definition of "DEAD" [1]. You are not DEAD until the information content (organization) of ones brain has been damaged beyond the capability of any technology to recover. Currently the two most probable (frequent) methods for making one really dead are disassembly by incineration (cremation) and disassembly by consumption (allowing fungi/bacteria to consume a body). The next most common methods probably involves brain crushing injuries such as in earthquakes, industrial accidents, etc.
So long as proper brain (neuronal) organization exists and most of the proper cellular structure is in place YOU ARE NOT DEAD -- you are simply "shut-down". I've got a 10+ year old 8086 based computer sitting downstairs. It runs either Windows 98 or Linux depending on how I boot it. It isn't normally "dead", its simply "off". You should read a bit more about brain/neuron physiology and cell biology to understand this. Also education regarding cryonic preservation and the future capabilities offered by robust molecular nanotechnology would be useful.
1. The current definition of "dead" and therefore "NDE" is based on the very limited definition roughly equal to "beyond the probable restoration of significant levels of functioning using *currently* known medical technologies" [2].
2. If one is cynical about it one might consider how prevalent the trend is to promote declaring people with fully organized brains as "dead" so as to enable the harvesting of organs for organ transplants (which surgeons and hospitals do make money from). In contrast an alternative would be to have both the supposedly "dead" individual as well as the individual(s) likely to die should they not receive an organ transplant undergo cryonic suspension [3].
3. A third nearer term alternative, which is currently unapproved, would be hydrogen sulfide "anesthetic" preservation which appears to have certain "suspended animation" properties (may retard overall metabolic rate) and thus give people an increased opportunity for technology to "catch up" with their condition(s).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Who are these MDs, that moderated the above comment?
The flat line you see on the machinery during NDE is the heart that stops pulsing.
Brain activity stops within 3 minutes after clinical death but it is still possible to revive the brain tissues up to around 10-20 minutes after the blood stops oxygen flow to the brain, though most likely it will be completely damaged.
To say that there is no electrical activity in the brain is to make a statement that the brain is dead. Once the brain is dead it cannot be b
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Observation of events occuring doing NDE & OBE was actually quite conclusivelly shown to be BS (not that it isn't experienced - just not the way it is described). Remember, it talks specifically about observing reality, so it can be tested, and was.
There was an experiment going on for a long time in few ER units - basically weird signs, symbols, etc. placed on top of ER room equipment ("furniture", if you like). And yes, inevitably some number of OBE cases showed up over the years. Even though most of t
Tripping (Score:2)
If drugs can induce NDEs and indeed some even more fantastical experiences than your basic Im-dead-tunnel-of-light-OMG-aw-crap-im-back fare, this kind of shuts down any proof of a afterlife possibly presented in NDEs. It's at once depressing - oblivion after all - and kind o
Fortnately (Score:3, Insightful)
Fortunately, "Heaven" is not a wee bright light that occurs the instant before you die. Read through the Bible, you'll note that God exists outside his Creation. So, you're not going to be able to measure him or prove him by scientific observation.
Furthermore, "[w]e cannot determine the character or nature of a system within itself. Efforts to do so will only generate confusion and disorder." John Boyd
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Heres an NDE question (Score:3, Insightful)
What evolutionary advantage do NDE's serve?
How does reducing trauma in the brains of those who are dying aid survival?
Obligatory movie reference: Brainstorm (Score:3, Informative)
The ability to record an actual death experience is the centerpiece of Brainstorm [imdb.com], a classic science fiction movie from the 80s, starring Natalie Wood (in her last screen role, I believe) as the user experience designer, Christopher Walken and Louise Fletcher as the idealistic genius scientists, and Cliff Robertson as the entrepreneur. They invent a way to record brain activity, and then play back the experience so the user feels he or she has actually done it themselves. They make a "demo tape" of riding a roller coaster, hang-gliding, riding on horseback, eating great food, having sex, etc. When the chief scientist has a heart attack, she records her slow, agonizing death in an unforgettable scene. Whenever anyone plays it back, the shock starts to kill them, too.
TFA commits fatal logical fallacy - non sequitor (Score:4, Insightful)
In essence, they argue from the premise that the mere fact that a perception of having an experience can be triggered by an artificial stimulus to the brain, implies that the experience itself is never caused by anything in objective reality, and is entirely a product of subjective internal biochemical processes. But that conclusion doesn't follow logically, at all.
For example, we know that visual hallucinations can be triggered by artificial stimuli, but from that observation, it does not follow that light does not exist, and that those of us who claim to see things, such as this text on the screen, must be imagining it.
We also know from experiments conducted by electrically stimulating the brains of patients undergoing brain surgery, that vivid memories of childhood experiences can be evoked, having such clarity and vividness that they seem to the patient as if they were happening right then and there on the operating table, at the time of the experiment. But from these observations it does not follow that those experiences never really took place at all, or that the persons claiming to have had those childhood experiences were merely hallucinating when they were four years old, and thought that they were playing with their father.
Sounds like the same mechanism scarfers utilize.. (Score:3, Informative)
Though not for religious purposes, but to aggregate the orgasm at jacking off while strangling them selves:
"When the brain is deprived of oxygen, it induces a lucid, semi-hallucinogenic state called hypoxia. Combined with orgasm, the rush is said to be no less powerful than cocaine, and highly addictive" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_asphyxiation [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
The best recent, IMHO, not well thought out mental masturbation of that kind is the concept that hell is the state of absence of gods (concept that gains traction here and there, from what I see). Of course that makes sense only for those who need to reinforce themselves with the conviction in value of their beliefs.
The rest of us says - great, just what we want! ;p
PS. Adding to what you say (last portion also not well thought out BTW...), early depictions of heaven in Abrahamic religions do involve, basica
Re:Props for trying! (Score:4, Interesting)
I mean, if life is hard here because God gave us Free Will, but Heaven is Perfect with no pain. Doesn't that mean there's no free will there? And wouldn't that be way worse than life here? Are you really YOU without the ability to make your own choices?
I think there are a few people who would be comforted to know that they would no longer be capable of bad decisions. To view it another way; everyone finally knows _why_ all the bad decisions are bad, and thus do not choose them.
If he lets us keep our freewill, and only lets people in who won't make things bad, than wouldn't that mean a pleasant personality trumps true acts of good? Would you rather have an asshole cop who saves lives every day, or a guy who makes witty comments and makes everyone laugh?
Acts of good are just that; actions; singular events. If Heaven is eternal, I'd rather have a mousy guy who makes everyone laugh than an asshole who saves lives. To be eternally annoyed by an asshole sounds like hell. Oh, and saving lives isn't much use somewhere where everyone's dead (or living forever).
Re: (Score:2)
Re:finally... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well , i am skeptical towards this "proof" .
It just proves that there is a chemical reactions when you die , which explains the tunnels of light you see when you have a near death experience.
In other words , it explains that this experience itself, is not really heaven , but just a physical reaction . It doesn't say anything about heaven itself.
Re:finally... (Score:5, Interesting)
If NDE's can be explained by chemical reactions, that means there's no evidence for heaven right? And even if we assume heaven exists, there is no longer any reason to believe we actually go there when we die (since obviously you can't be experiencing a NDE and be in heaven at the same time, since the NDE is all in you brains).
Surely this research says something about heaven: it tells us that an NDE is not part of heaven (when previously some people believed it was).
Re:finally... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:finally... (Score:4, Interesting)
> As the religionists will correctly point out any minute now, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Yes... and by that logic every lightning strike that we don't measure may have been magical and thrown by Thor, and it's just that sometimes lightning is caused by electricity and those are the only ones we've measured.
If all 'measured' NDEs appear to have been caused by ketamine (of course we can never PROVE *any* causal relationship...) the religionists can point out all they want that the unmeasured ones may have really been caused by heaven, but they'll just look silly. They're free to pump some people full of chemicals that instantly break down ketamine and then almost kill those people (that'd be an interesting if somewhat immoral experiment) and see if any NDE's occured.
> Well, so can hunger -- does that mean that food doesn't exist, or that we don't need to eat?
Well, I believe there is a lot of evidence that suggests not eating causes those chemical reactions, and no evidence that it is caused by some supernatural afterlife. Obviously we could use chemicals to make someone hungry even if they eat enough... but I fail to see how that proves food doesn't exist.
Re:finally... (Score:5, Interesting)
If all 'measured' NDEs appear to have been caused by ketamine (of course we can never PROVE *any* causal relationship...) the religionists can point out all they want that the unmeasured ones may have really been caused by heaven, but they'll just look silly.
No you're missing the point. The religionists don't have to argue any such dualism. They just have to argue that the encounter with heaven produces ketamine, and it's the ketamine that produces the qualia, the experience. They can argue that the experience can be artificially induced by introducing ketamine, but that says nothing about the supposed "natural" phenomenon.
Absolutely every experience we have come down to chemical actions in the brain. The fact that we happen to know what that chemical action is says nothing at all about the validity of the experience, and it's bad science -- going beyond the observations -- to pretend that it does. The interesting debate here is not about religion at all, it's about the nature of consciousness itself.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
> They just have to argue that the encounter with heaven produces ketamine,
So now all that's left is finding a (nonmagical) mechanism that causes ketamine to be produced/released when the brain is dying, and we'll be able to conclude that NDE's are completely unrelated to heaven, regardless of heavens existence or lack thereof.
No we can't -- that would be a basic scientific and philosophical blunder. The "(nonmagical) mechanism" could be "simply the mechanism that God uses". You can only conclude that NDE's are completely unrelated to heaven if you have already concluded that God does not exist, and I think I can see the makings of a circular argument.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You yourself said ketamine (or the mechanism that produces ketamine) could be the mechanism that god uses (I assume you mean the mechanism would bring us to heaven, else I think we can conclude that NDEs are unrelated to heaven?). How would triggering that mechanism (possible if it is nonmagical) not bring a person to heaven?
And what if we find that the the mechanism that triggers the ketamine is, let's say, lack of oxygen, would you conclude that heaven produces hypoxia? What if we find the hypoxia is caus
Re: (Score:3)
I wonder what other hallucinogen cause everyone to have the same basic hallucination.
Re: (Score:3)
Only a few on the fringes seriously took NDEs as evidence for heaven, because the possibility of hallucinations was too obvious.
Actually, most people don't think about this kind of thing too seriously, and do assume NDEs are actual connections with God. I don't know if you're aware of this, but normal people don't really sit around and debate their beliefs, they just take them at face value.
So, no, it wasn't just fringes. It may have been the fringes of serious debate, but normal people do believe in this kind of bunk. Because they just don't question it at all.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:finally... (Score:4, Insightful)
It disproves some fundamentalist interpretations of NDEs, yes, but most people who these days have the strong fundamentalist views are as unlikely to accept this proof as they are to accept evolution.
For people who hold philosophy-of-mind views other than the strict dualism of traditional religions, though, it's not as clear what this shows. It shows that something physical happens in the brain when people have near-death experiences, but that in itself isn't too surprising, because something happens in the brain anytime people have any experience: all experiences, sensations, thoughts, plans, feelings, etc., are enacted through some combination of chemical/neuronal/etc. signalling. So it's not actually particularly interesting, philosophically, that someone found a particular one, since we already assume one exists for all sensations, thoughts, and feelings. What exactly that means is trickier. If you were to argue that this means NDEs are "merely physical" and don't correspond to any higher-level concepts at all, would you commit to saying that of all human experiences? It's not impossible, but I find most people balk at it: at most, they'll accept that some mental illnesses are "just brain chemicals" (e.g. "the depression is a chemical imbalance talking, not really you"), but they won't go so far as to admit that the fact that they love their mother, or enjoy steak, is "just brain chemicals" in the same way.
(I personally don't hold to the fully reductionist view; it's not clear to me that even a complete map of neuronal pathways actually resolves all philosophical questions, or renders higher-level concepts obsolete.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm afraid I'm one of the "just brain chemicals" people. In fact it's why I never trust my parents when they say anything positive about me as they don't really have much of a choice in liking me anyway... shut up mom that's just the "my-offspring" chemicals speaking! :p
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes that's very true -- I agree.
What I experience subjectively as a mind, has an objective correlate in the physical brain. It is "correlated" somewhat loosely for now -- depression and certain chemicals appear together -- but sometimes you can cure depression by doing something mental, like changing beliefs, and sometimes by doing something physical, like changing diet, or maybe sometimes it is a bit of both.
It can be tempting to say that everything is physical, but that leaves a problem. If everything is
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll go there right after you explain to me why I should believe this ancient book of yours, why all the other old books are not true, and why I should support a system that thinks it's okay to throw people in a lake of fire.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:finally... (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words , it explains that this experience itself, is not really heaven , but just a physical reaction . It doesn't say anything about heaven itself.
And seeing as no one has demonstrably "come back" from heaven, only from possibly an overdose to endorphins and suchlike, it's still a hell of a lot more scientific than all this "you must have faith" crap we've been subjected to for the past 2000 years.
There is still not one iota of proof for or against a god or a heaven, anymore than there is proof that Underpants Gnomes really exist ... the difference being, if I said I believe in the Underpants Gnomes, I'd get locked up in a mental asylum, but if I believe in God that's okay.
Re: (Score:3)
Heaven (or whatever you want to call it) is a HIGHLY subjective place. Your idea of what it is an my idea of what it is could be very different. Who is right?
Heaven is a construct of the mind. If it exists (which in my opinion it doesn't), then it is nothing like what people think it is.
~X~
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Half of all native Americans are women. Are you implying that native American women are all lesbians?
Or that paradise isn't open to native American women - just native American men? If native American men are like other men, the women will be too busy trying to teach them how to change the toilet paper roll instead of leaving one lonely square o
Re:wow (Score:4, Funny)
Alcohol is a drug, and after mildly ODing on it I've been known to have long conversations with him via the big white telephone.