Science Deals with the Intangible

Spectrum wrote:

 

6079_Smith_W wrote:

And really, if what is put on the table is something as outlandish as a so-called news magazine publishing a vision of a Christian heaven and claiming scientific proof, you can bet there's going to be a bit of skepticism.

 

Constructive skepticism and you have to do more then just read a magazine article. Jesus.:) And another thing, it is the perceptions that are greatly enhanced from the way in which the universe has been looked at, as to imply the greater implication is spectrum allocated all the way up to gamma.  We may see into this deeper nature. Matter reducible,  to it's finer decay chain components. All tried tested and true:)

So what do you do? You look back out int the cosmos and you look at the events, Dark energy or dark matter, and you begin to appreciate the motivations for what the universe is doing. How do we explain it?

How does consciousness fit into this? Well,  if the depth of what you see around you had never been appreciated then how might consciousness be appreciated if we cannot see it out amongst the stars as well?

What if and of course we are now catering to the speculations of what the driving force is, and is it worth the effort to wonder why that universe needs to be explained? Well?:) A need for the universe but not for consciousness eh?

 

....oops

In my journey of understanding after my coma, Hemi-Sync potentially offered a means of inactivating the filtering function of the physical brain by globally synchronizing my neocortical electrical activity, just as my meningitis might have done,to liberate my out of body consciousness. I believe Hemi-Sync has enabled me to return to a realm similar to that which I visited deep in coma, but without having to be deathly ill. Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander, Page 159

Well it seems this paragraph sums up some of the issues I had here about consciousness in terms of the focus as a challenge to experience. Again I am not selling anything.... and just as amazed that such abilities can be procured in other people by technical means.

The journalist standing in a position of recognizing "a place"  in which his observation and perspective can offer up a return too,   a connection too, a correlative and potential experience as a exploration into understanding consciousness.. This is not about prayer or religion, but about recognizing the potential offered by journeying inside.

It is not a Ptolemaic model issue about what has been graduated too and from, but more the recognition that such differentiation by venturing inwards , brings outward an understanding of what is true and abiding by the loosing the reins of our preconceptions. What one assumes to be,  a Ptolemaic model about ego but more about, "a means of inactivating the filtering function of the physical brain."

Conciousnes then is an intangible that you cannot explain by physical means in terms of your observations? Observation,  plays a great part in our understanding of the reality? If you see such association to what formed in Jill Bolte Taylor's mind in terms of perspective/observation and her right brain......then,  Eben surpassed that restriction and explains that most people can.

What is Heaven Like?

The distinction here has been taken along side of "the Focus."  Yet,  Eben said that there was no electrical activity at the time of his near death experience.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

@ Spectrum

What is Ptolemaic (that is, Me-centred)  is the sophistric argument that the universe is fascinating and complex (it is) and therefore must have some purpose (no, it doesn't),  and that consciousness must be infinite (no, it musn't necessarily).

That's your argument and that is what I was refering too by being Ptolemaic?:)

6079_Smith_W wrote:

And Alexander's "doors of perception" revelation? It's interesting, but not exactly a news flash, and it is certainly not supernatural.

Yes exactly. So why do you treated the awareness as such?

Spectrum wrote:

If you see such association to what formed in Jill Bolte Taylor's mind in terms of perspective/observation and her right brain......then,  Eben surpassed that restriction and explains that most people can.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Read Huxley or Leary or Alpert, or talk to people who have experience altered states, and many will tell you that it can change the way you see the world, sometimes permanently (never mind needing some device to get back to some realm).

Yaaaaa.......what have I been saying,  and now your telling me?:)

6079_Smith_W wrote:

But again, there is nothing about it that defies physical laws, or suggests that the consciousness can survive without the body.

Spectrum wrote:

Yet,  Eben said that there was no electrical activity at the time of his near death experience.

Eben said Hemi-Sync was the closest, which left the question for me. :)

6079_Smith_W wrote:

He was in a coma; he was not dead.

That does require whether or not brain was measuring activity...yes?

6079_Smith_W wrote:

And yes, of course there is a lot we don't understand about that state, but I am not so sure about the claim there is no brain activity.

My point exactly.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

My "protracting attitude"? Good one. I suppose the proper response is to not question and just accept all this pap. Is that what we mean by no brain function, and the supposed enlightenment that comes from it?

In a way while you try and declare my position you reveal much about yours. Arrogance. The protracted attitude is one that said that while you can continue to show your own attitude, I did appreciate when you had something to offer.

Months after her infection cleared, Bainbridge was diagnosed as being in a vegetative state. Owen had been using positron-emission tomography in healthy people to show that a part of the brain called the fusiform face area (FFA) is activated when people see a familiar face. When the team showed Bainbridge familiar faces and scanned her brain, “it lit up like a Christmas tree, especially the FFA”, says Owen. “That was the beginning of everything.” Bainbridge was found to have significant brain function and responded well to rehabilitation. In 2010, still in a wheelchair but otherwise active, she wrote to thank Owen for the brain scan. “It scares me to think of what might have happened to me if I had not had mine,” she wrote. “It was like magic, it found me.”  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-brain-scans-comatose...

This does raise certain issues about what Eben relates as part of his experience in terms of faces that he identifies as he relates the remembrance of. Even in a comatose state the individual is aware at some level, "it lit up like a Christmas tree, especially the FFA."

An EEG lacks fMRI's precision, and it cannot look as deeply into the brain, so the regions active in the tennis study were “off the menu”, says Owen.

Owen's methods raise more difficult dilemmas. One is whether they should influence a family's or clinician's decision to end a life. If a patient answers questions and demonstrates some form of consciousness, he or she moves from the 'possibly allowed to die' category to the 'not generally allowed to die' category, says Owens.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=do-brain-scans-comatose...

So what we have done then is identified that certain brain waves can be reached by using a method that may be similar to taking people to comatose states and having relevant experiences. What's the benefit? What's the benefit of studying a Leary?

6079_Smith_W wrote:

Again, none of this comes even remotely close to suggesting that there is life after death, that the consciousness can exist independent of the body, or that heaven is real.

What it suggests is that our brains can function in ways that are very subtle. People do go into comas and revive from them; Doctors sometimes induce them to help healing. They advise loved ones to talk to the person in case there is some perception. But the person remains alive, and usually with consciousness intact and unimpaired after he or she emerges from the coma. That means that there is enough going on in the brain to sustain life.

As for what, if anything, the person imagines is going on during that time, or even what span of real time those dreams cover, or whether they took place while the person was in coma or emerging from it, that is harder to say.

I'll come back to this later. What use to understand what your own consciousness is capable of if you did not recognize its limitations according to some measure. So all measure is not sufficient to say that it is capable, yet one might be persuaded to say indeed that consciousness has certain capabilities just that we are not using drugs to find out. It is to recognize that the accidents in life that put us in a bed reveal some potential about the healing and what consciousness is able to do.

Timebandit wrote:

Eben Alexander claimed there was no brain activity.  He had no way of knowing that.  From the Harris article I linked to earlier:

Jesus....welcome to the conversation. This has already been mentioned as a need to clarify that indeed he was dead. Smith's link and Owen's use of fmri helps to highlight this issue as to see the perspective about death as another way in which to perceive a comatose patient. So Eben might of not had that research available,  so this helps to clarify the experience with a new measure.

It also raises a ethical question as mentioned in the article,  and which I had mentioned previously,  now given this information.

Fidel wrote:

Apparently until now medical science was wrong about vegetative state patients about 20% of the time. That's all they are saying in the article. The author may or may not have considered out of body experiences. And it's not apparent that the doctors interviewed were questioned about OBE's.

The measure and research helps to highlight what consciousness is doing so to that degree the measure helps to see what was not possible before as you imply.

Slumberjack wrote:

The health professionals where I work would be derelict in their responsibilities if they were to waste valuable time asking questions of this nature to a patient who has just emerged from a coma for instance.  I know if I were one of the family members present and heard such a question being posed, I'd be off in search of the nearest hospital administrator.

I can see that now given the medical research and given to the understanding here about what is perceptive about comatose states would require hospitals now to measure.  The demand from relative with signing authority to request this method before pulling the plug. In that sense I would be calling the hospital administrator to answer that question.

Slumberjack wrote:

You're muddling two separate questions together, which causes me to suspect that you're simply confused.  There's a difference between asking that this new testing method for cognitive responses from a patient be attempted, and asking the doctor to use this experimental form of inquiry to make our representations to the consciousness of an otherwise unresponsive patent regarding OBE.

No I am not confusing it. New evidence ala' smith suggests that research method can identify different locations of the brain being used while under Owen's measure. It would have shown up under Eben's too. I brought up the face issue recognition or how someone else delves into levels of consciousnesses as to imply that consciousness works indeed at subtle levels. Eben was relating his experience in this context as well. When you read the book,  if ever you will, you will understand what I mean.

Secondly, the research level shows signs of life.

Slumberjack wrote:

What this case suggests is that some level of ability continues to be present, which can facilitate the transmitting of information via a receptacle for sensory input, the eyes in this case.

Question for you slumber jack. Do all comatose patients have their eyes open? Does the light when moved across the eye cause reaction in the pupil. Sensory reaction to pinprick?

If consciousness dreams, where does it go? Does it always stay with the home body and measures would indicate that it does, but what information is consciousness grabbing that would make it worthwhile to see that consciousness could work to gain access at that subtle level?

Perspective of NDE's as to locations and to looking from,  other then the home body, was pointed too, with regard to Jill Bolte Taylor. That was her perspective as she related her experience on the glider about experiencing fro her right brain. About speaking about creativity as a right brain benefit....while there are questions around this for me about that perspective with regard to location. It is as the consciousness looks as Being "outside the parameters" of the three brains.

This raised a question for me about what is "self centered and self less" as Eben experiences. This represents a evolution in the development of consciousness and recognition of the observer? Not a progression of a Ptolemaic ideology, as it relates to science.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

... except that Alexander was not declared brain dead. He was in a coma.

 

Oh, the Doctors had the research material at the time of Eben's diagnosis?

Spectrum]</p> <p>[quote=6079_Smith_W wrote:

But again, saying that the signs are more subtle (perhaps even imperceptible) is not the same as Alexander's claim that there is no connection at all:

"For me, it's become clear that the best way to look at it is to turn it around and realize that consciousness exists in a much richer form, free and independent of the brain, which has everything to do with the eternity of our souls and the fact that our awareness, our consciousness, our soul, our spirit, does not depend on the existence of the brain in the physical universe. In fact, it's freed up to a much richer knowing when we're outside."

I have tried to explain at length that the recognition of the experience by Eben does not have parameters like you and me when it came to assessing his experience. Eben looked at his experience more critically then you think you do. Your are hand-waving and being superfluous with your statements without challenging the framework that NDER's are experiencing. 

Maybe offer a suggestive framework that makes psychological sense so that they can feel connected with themself again having to return to the earth orientated construct we live in. That is the difficulty, because the constraints that they felt while being alive, did not feel this way for them as they were having the experience. Suggestively,  some do not want to come back and how does a soul have any finality in the saying of? Do you think that such a decision cannot be made?

Jill Bolte Taylor became inspired after her experience and she speaks quite highly of the praises of what was experience through the right brain. A right brain world she said.

double post