On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 01:06:14 -0500, "Tony DiPipanone"
opioids.com> wrote:
>You remarked that "there is mounting evidence that consciousness _does_ exist during
>clinical death." That is because "clinical death" is not death. The nervous system
>does not "boot up" again following actual death; no one has ever returned from actual
>death to tell the tale. What happens during "clinical death" (i.e., cardiac arrest and
>flatlining of the superficial [cortical] EEGs) is immaterial to this question.
Immaterial to the question? If it's established that even blind people
can see what has transpired in the room during their "brain dead"
situation? Seems to me that if that becomes established fact, it has
considerable relevance to consciousness/brain questions.
Now, I don't know where this issue stands at the moment. I picked
up on it as a "tidbit" in a recent book I read named "The Spiritual
Brain" by neuroscientist Mario Bearegard. The author claimed that
medical professionals are increasingly reporting such incidents now
that clinical death has been clearly defined (just in the last decade
or so).
>You
>also said that there is "very solid evidence" of reincarnation. Unless you're willing
>to accept statements made under hyponosis as "very solid evidence" (in which case I'd
>say your criterion for "very solid" is actually vaporous at best), no such evidence -
>let alone "very solid evidence" - exists. If I am mistaken, I ask that you point me to
>the references.
I agree with you that hypnotic methods are suspect. The most solid
evidence IMO was gathered during the sixties by Dr Ian Stevenson
who did field work using only young children as subjects. I'll not
supply you with a list of references since his name alone will lead
you to his various published works. I have a link on my web page
to one of his truly curious findings ... that of birth mark
correlations he discovered in cases where records could be
found on the nature of violent deaths of individuals his
subjects "knew they were in a past life". I put that in quotes
since as Stevenson himself points out, reincarnation is just the
least far fetched explanation of the facts ... it's a hypothesis
that probably cannot ever be firmly established as fact.
>I have never been to this NG before, and so I don't know if it is organized around
>hard-core analytic philosophy, new-age "philosophy," or something in between, so please
>forgive my frankness.
I don't think you'll find any organization here :)
>I completely agree with the author of that essay that it is now
>beyond reasonable dispute that consciousness does not exist following the cessation of
>brain activity.
What seems "reasonable" to you is highly "unreasonable" to me, since
I'm open minded to evidence suggesting the contrary.
>I would go a step further, and say that anyone who does not understand
>this lacks the elementary scientific and philosophical education to expect to be taken
>seriously in a discussion of this problem.
Since I'm merely a electrical engineer who thinks for himself I thus
don't qualify to have any say on this newsgroup then in your
opinion?
>It is that simple: saying that
>consciousness can arise and be sustained absent any physical substrate is identicial to
>raising your hand and saying, "Pardon me, but I don't understand the question." If I
>have overlooked some dramatic developments that have negated the past 350 years of
>intellectual history, I ask that someone point them out to me.
>
>If I have accidentally stepped into the middle of a new-age crystal-energy channeling
>Area 51 investigation group which, for some inexplicable reason, is called
>"alt.philosophy," please forgive me and I will leave _ex post haste_. Such matters
>were not taught where I went to grad school.
