First hint of 'life after death' in biggest ever scientific study

a reply to: surrealist

Define death.

In my opinion, death should be defined as the point at which entropy claims the body to the point where its ability to function is impaired beyond recovery, and has only occurred at all, if all function of the body has ceased, including but not limited to, heartbeat, pulse, brain function, and respiratory activity of every conceivable kind. I would argue that only at the point where the body has begun the process of breaking down into its constituent parts, without being replenished and rebuilt by the internal systems which regulate skin renewal and other significant automatic processes have also ceased, has death occurred.

That is my logical mind at work.

Another way to look at it, would be that death is only death if the spirit has left the body, never to return. These NDEs and the like are not deaths, and I do not care a damn how many times you "died" on the operating table. If you wrote a book about it afterwards, or did a TV interview, or talked about it with your neighbour weeks later, then you simply did not die. What happened was, that our science was not equal to the task of measuring your life signs accurately. Death is permanent, so if it did not stick, it was not death.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: surrealist

Define death.

Define life.

Death is permanent, so if it did not stick, it was not death.

That is correct. Hence the term "near death".

a reply to: PhotonEffect

Oh, quite right of course.

What I am getting at, is that afterlife or none as one may believe, the fact is that we cannot learn anything of the hereafter, until we ourselves as individuals experience it. There is no sense in trying to escape that fact, or try to skirt round it by musing along with those who have been close to death, because only once one has in fact died, can one have actually known anything of what lies beyond, which of course, renders one entirely incapable of communicating ones experience to others.

It's is a little bit similar to Schrödinger's cat, in that nothing can be known, until the state about which one wishes to learn before reaching that state, has in fact been reached. Until that point, there is no way to know for certain if there is an afterlife, and if there is, what shape it might take. One might carry their own beliefs about these things, and I know that I certainly do. However, I think that any effort to quantify these things prior to actually being dead ones self, is somewhat bloody stupid, and a waste of time which could be better spent on a myriad of other issues affecting the affairs of the body and mind.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
That is my logical mind at work. Death is permanent, so if it did not stick, it was not death.

Logic isn't all it's cracked up to be...



The resurrection of Jesus, Lazarus, and countless others are proof that death IS in fact reversible.

T.L. Osborne has raised over 100 people from the dead in Africa.

Smith Wigglesworth raised at least 25 people from the dead including his wife.

David Hogan's ministry in Mexico has raised over 400 people from the dead.

Dr. Richard Eby, who came back to life in a totally bloodless corpse in a hospital morgue...

Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" ~ John 11:25

The Raising of Lazarus

Jesus, intensely moved again, came to the tomb. (Now it was a cave, and a stone was placed across it.) Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the deceased, replied, “Lord, by this time the body will have a bad smell, because he has been buried four days.” Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you would see the glory of God?”

So they took away the stone. Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you that you have listened to me. I knew that you always listen to me, but I said this for the sake of the crowd standing around here, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he shouted in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The one who had died came out, his feet and hands tied up with strips of cloth, and a cloth wrapped around his face. Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him and let him go.”

When Jesus died there was a violent earthquake and the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom. The Bible says tombs were opened and many bodies of saints arose from the dead. It says that after Jesus' resurrection they went into Jerusalem where many people witnessed their return to life. Mt 27:51-53

Jesus stopped a funeral procession as they were carrying the casket to the cemetery. Jesus had compassion on the weeping mother. He told her to stop crying, and then he raised her son from the dead. Lk 7:11-16

Jairus asked Jesus to come heal his dying daughter. By the time Jesus arrived she had already died. Jesus sent the mourners out, but took the girls' parents and Peter, James and John into the room where the dead girl lay. He said, "Little girl, get up." She did.
Mk 5:35-43

www.pathlightspress.com...

a reply to: Murgatroid

I believe in Jesus, and I believe that he came back from the dead, and that by the hand of God or his Son alone, it is perhaps possible to come back from the dead. However, I do not believe for a single second, that there has been an example of such a thing which holds any weight at all, which does not appear in the Bible.

Outside of scripture, all things are questionable. I keep my rational mind separate from my spiritual mind, because I believe that it is necessary to retain objectivity and impartiality when discussing these matters.

However, with regard to NDE, and people being "dead" for three minutes or so, I believe that these are not deaths, and therefore cannot teach us diddly squat, ON ANY LEVEL about death, dying, or what happens next.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
I believe in Jesus, and I believe that he came back from the dead, and that by the hand of God or his Son alone, it is perhaps possible to come back from the dead. However, I do not believe for a single second, that there has been an example of such a thing which holds any weight at all, which does not appear in the Bible.

Outside of scripture, all things are questionable. I keep my rational mind separate from my spiritual mind, because I believe that it is necessary to retain objectivity and impartiality when discussing these matters.

However, with regard to NDE, and people being "dead" for three minutes or so, I believe that these are not deaths, and therefore cannot teach us diddly squat, ON ANY LEVEL about death, dying, or what happens next.

In a way, that puts you in good company (Thomas)...

Thomas, even after seeing everything he had up to that point, still could not believe that Jesus had risen again.

Concerning scripture and things questionable...

Jesus promised that those who believe in Him would do greater miracles even than those he himself had performed.

Jesus came, although the doors were locked, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” Thomas answered and said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

How do we define 'being alive'? What I do know is that when you do die you will, at some point depending on the manner of your death, experience reality unraveling. Reality will all fall away from you until you are as far from the physical world as a distant star. According to the fatalists you will fade away until you are no more and to all intents and purposes you never existed and never will again. That conclusion is not one that I personally feel inclined towards since my own experiences indicate that eternal 'life' is possible thou not necessarily inevitable. I have no religious affiliation.

a reply to: Murgatroid

A fair point to be sure, but that is not the focus of this subject. The focus here, is on the scientific study which seeks to peer into the hereafter, and I posit that it is fundamentally impossible to understand death or after death, by the means outlined in the material which is referenced in the OP.

Furthermore, regarding the passage you quoted about Thomas, and the information you provided about the apparent miracle of dead people coming back to life by the hand of God, working through human beings in contemporary periods, I wonder, just how dead were these people? Were any of them missing a head, limbs, did any of their ribcages get crushed to a thickness of but two inches thick before this apparent miracle reawakening?

Or were these folks simply in a state of near death when bought back to the world of the standing, the breathing, the living?

One is miracle, the other is too easily explained to so be called.

a reply to: tavi45

You're aware what "conscious" is right? Most often conscious is defined as responsive to stimuli, this doesn't mean they are completely unaware of what is going on around them. We can argue there are many states with in unconscious.

For all of those people talking about the difference between "actual" dead and "clinically" dead. This is something interesting to consider:

they found that nearly 40 per cent of people who survived described some kind of ‘awareness’ during the time when they were clinically dead before their hearts were restarted.

“We know the brain can’t function when the heart has stopped beating,” said Dr Sam Parnia, a former research fellow at Southampton University, now at the State University of New York, who led the study.

“But in this case, conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes into the period when the heart wasn’t beating, even though the brain typically shuts down within 20-30 seconds after the heart has stopped.

Pam Reynolds had a (Near) Death Experience when she was going through a brain operation where her brain was not functioning...

I must of missed the part where eyewitness testimony became a reliable source of data.

originally posted by: GoOfYFoOt

...The real question is, what is the definition of consciousness? Science, and you apparently, believe that it is simply a chemical reaction taking place in a biological organism. My belief varies greatly. In that, it is an unknown energy from an undetermined source. And, as an energy, it is perfectly capable of remaining intact, without it's host. And, when the host is no longer viable, the energy returns to it's source!

You say I apparently believe consciousness is simply chemical reactions; but honestly, I don't know. I have ideas, but of course if I knew, then I be the wisest man that ever lived.

I don't know what consciousness is, and I doubt there is anybody who does know what consciousness is. While I don't know, I would say that it seems logical that consciousness is simply an emergent by-product of brain chemicals. I say "it seems logical" because it doesn't seem likely that in the 13 Billion years that the universe has existed, or even just the 4.5 billion years the earth Existed, that some separate consciousness (a consciousness that can be separate from the brain/body) would suddenly just pop onto the scene in humans -- humans who have been around for only 250,000 years of the 13 billion years.

Why only now? Why us? Did early human-like primates have a consciousness that could be separated from the body? Do alien beings have consciousness? Do dogs have consciousness? What about birds or squirrels or geckos?

Does every thing that ever lived have a consciousness that could exist separate from the living organism? If so, then why? Then again, if only humans have a separate consciousness, then why only humans?

I don't really know the answers, but it seems there are many more reasons to think that what we call consciousness is simply brain functions doing their thing.

originally posted by: arpgme
Pam Reynolds had a (Near) Death Experience when she was going through a brain operation where her brain was not functioning...

Again, that assumes that our scientific knowledge is vast enough to understand exactly what it it means when they say "her brain was not functioning". Do we know enough about the detailed workings of the human brain to say positively that her brain had no function whatsoever?

The doctor you quoted said that the brain shuts down 20 -30 seconds after the heart stops beating. However, people have had their heart stop for longer periods of time and have survived. Maybe not every single brain function shuts off when the heart stops. Perhaps there are some functions that science just does not yet know about.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
Again, that assumes that our scientific knowledge is vast enough to understand exactly what it it means when they say "her brain was not functioning". Do we know enough about the detailed workings of the human brain to say positively that her brain had no function whatsoever?

That's the way science works. There is always a degree of uncertainty even if it is 1%. If we reject all information based on it not being "vast enough to understand exactly" , then we would have no starting place because even the 5 sense of the human being can be doubted as to whether or not the human sense perceive reality 100% accurately.

In that video (between the 3rd and 4th minute of the video), the doctor explained the process of the surgery saying this:

The metabolic activity of the brain was stopped. Every measurable output that the body puts out dissappeared completely to have no measurable neuronal activity whatsoever, and that it is not possible to have audio or visual perception in the condition that her physical body was in.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

Consciousness would have to incorporate some form of awareness, by definition. Wouldn't you say? SO, prehistoric apes, dogs, squirrels and geckos could be considered conscious. I've seen all but the first, react to external stimuli. But all of these possess brains, so it doesn't get us anywhere.
If by aliens, you mean angels, then I would suppose they were conscious, as well. But, they, unlike the others, may or may not have a biological form. So, I say let's focus on aliens/angels and get some of these things hashed out...

Consciousness is defined currently as being aware of ones existence. People confuse "being conscious" with consciousness, as in response to stimuli but this isn't necessarily the case. Certainly animals have consciousness, maybe not to the degree that humans have but they have awareness of their own existence. So in essence consciousness is awareness. It's the "I AM", not the "my options of who I am", but rather the awareness behind the thought. People that live just in their thoughts (myself included most of the time) are not aware of the observer behind the thoughts. This is the basis of why it's so hard to define and break down into parts that can be examined.

Turn me off in the end. If what the bible says is true, I don't want no part of such a jealous god. It'll be worth the wait in hell to be turned off. Wonder what ran through his, her, or it's mind. Hey Satan, lets mind screw the new creation. Sin is within them all and it'll be fun to see if a leopard can change it's spots. You get to keep the one's who don't change. I keep the one or two who might make it. Then in the end, god turns them all off but not before torturing the human beings who couldn't change their nature until Heaven is made on Earth. It is genetically coded and I'd say an absolute that we don't know a damned thing about anything.

a reply to: LOSTinAMERICA

Here's the thing though, you don't have to believe in God, especially particular definitions by certain sects on what God is. Animals don't believe in God, but they are somehow connected to something that holds all of existence together. Religion has hijacked the term God and the implications of that. I consider myself spiritual (not in a blanket term sense) but I knew (personally at least) when I was 5 that the definitions on what God is by certain religions didn't make sense. Do I believe in a higher power? Without a doubt. And my searching has lead me to believe that we are all connected and part of this mysterious something.

originally posted by: arpgme
a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People
Again, that assumes that our scientific knowledge is vast enough to understand exactly what it it means when they say "her brain was not functioning". Do we know enough about the detailed workings of the human brain to say positively that her brain had no function whatsoever?

That's the way science works. There is always a degree of uncertainty even if it is 1%. If we reject all information based on it not being "vast enough to understand exactly" , then we would have no starting place because even the 5 sense of the human being can be doubted as to whether or not the human sense perceive reality 100% accurately.

In that video (between the 3rd and 4th minute of the video), the doctor explained the process of the surgery saying this:

The metabolic activity of the brain was stopped. Every measurable output that the body puts out dissappeared completely to have no measurable neuronal activity whatsoever, and that it is not possible to have audio or visual perception in the condition that her physical body was in.

Excellent points.

The only way to try and refute this is to try and change the definition of dead. This is what always occurs when results come back that people don't agree with.