Are Near Death Experiences Evidence of a Soul?, page 1

Originally posted by The Matrix Traveller

Your wrote...

then there is an afterlife

Rather a continuation of 'Consciousness" or "Awareness" merely experiencing the continuing story...
Not of the experience, perhaps what we/you knew, during the last few years but rather to do with the "Self Awareness" or "Conscious State"

MT nice to hear from you again. Yes I think I know what you are getting at but I am keeping it simple at present so that I can appeal to the materialists amongst us who believe only in what their sensate experience tells them about their environment. They are very much in the concrete experiential state and even abstract thought is regarded as an epiphenomenon thrown up by the 'noise' of firing neurons.

There are a number of questions though, that need to be answered;

Where does Consciousness reside???

Within the Brain, or on the other side of the Wall, as to say, external of the brain yet interfaced with it....

There are two totally different Worlds involved....

These are linked, in order to experience what you refer to as, a Universe and another World, of "Mind/Consciousness".

Some believe that the Pineal Gland is somehow involved with the Linking process... (perhaps the Switching mechanism?)

There is I believe, Nothing at all, that is aware of "Mind" in this Universe but instead, The Mind or Consciousness is very much aware of the Universe Experience..... (in most cases a One way Link unless changed by some phenomena)

The Brain is a "Decoder/Encoder" between the Universe Experience and The World of Mind or Consciousness.

I am willing to believe that the brain is a mediator of 'influence' from another source. It would seem sensible to think of other dimensions perhaps acting through the brain. However, what if the brain is not really there at all but is also a piece of 'code'. I did not want to really get into the depth of knowledge which you obviously have. I wanted to keep it locked to a scientific framework. Most scientists would dismiss your experiences which is an unfair judgement to make.

What is the Soul?

And what does it look like???

What is it constructed of/from and what is it's prime function???

Is there Technology that allows us to view the Soul???

What is Spirit as it is Not the Soul???

What is Life???

The words Soul, Spirit and other Components (Subjective in human nature) are very loose terms and undefined, which are often referred to, out of context, or incorrectly to some, while correct to others.

Is the Soul simply in the area of belief or imagination, or is/was there knowledge of another body that has been lost from us that is either human like or completely different???

To understand the Soul in its True Context, we must first discover the True make up of this Universe and what it really is....

Not what it is/as, based on belief, or the present understanding, or perhaps lack of understanding, by the human race...

In the context of this thread I just wanted to limit it to a self-aware consciousness with memory and the ability to use senses but without the mediation of the brain. This would then link to the direct remembered experiences of people to identifying objects or even in hearing speech (and remembering speech)

What is Life???

Is it just the action of Biological structures, or is Life something that experiences Biological interaction, with an Environment???

I would suggest that the Biological function experiencing of this Universe, is that which is being experienced by "Life" or "Consciousness/Awareness".....

And that the Biological Form is totally Unaware of Consciousness, yet "Consciousness", is Aware of the Experience of the Biological form including its Environment through such a form....

We need to start exploring for the answers, regarding these subjects, but the question to most will be how???

One thing that is certain though, we will all find out at some point in our lives, and can Not escape this...

The Living will know, when so called clinical death occurs, but the Dead won't know anything.

The Biological form won't know anything, but the "Conscious State" will certainly know and express its self, via the Biological form at that time, until the flesh becomes Non Functional, no longer being able to be used to express anything...

Now you're talking. I would ask you what if the flesh is also illusion and that there probably are human beings who understand this?

Through my own Personal experience of so called clinical death, I now no longer know what Death is...

As for myself on being pronounced "Brain Dead" I was very much "alive" regarding my Self or Consciousness, but had no recollection of my experience of this Universe including Family, Friends or any history of activity on Earth.

So called Death can only be observed by humankind, but no one knows, what happens to the Conscious State, until they personally experience this moment in their lives...

I can only report having experienced this, that we do Not become "Unconscious" when your Biological body ceases to function.

Some who have experienced a NDE, recall nothing at all but this does Not say they did Not experience anything during the time of Non body function.

It only says, Nothing at all was recorded or held in memory!

Rather it is the intensity or alertness of Consciousness, that determines what you experience after the Biological body ceases to function...

Everyone of us has different levels of Consciousness or degrees of Awareness i.e. different degrees of Alertness ....

Some are very aware, while others are not aware of very much at all, even during their experience of this Universe or for that matter anything else
( Due to The Conscious State being asleep )....

But in rambling on about this subject, I strongly believe more research should and must be done in these fields...

I don't mean as in Philosophy or Theology, but rather to approach this in a Scientific way, in determining the existence or non existence whichever, of these unknown entities.

It is a matter of coming to know how to approach this research in a way that will allow us to have access to Scientific knowledge in these areas....

[edit on 31-3-2009 by The Matrix Traveller]

Agreed. I thought a non-harmful and fully ethical way of researching this would be to harness the abilities of people who claim to have consciousness of their surroundings after sleep - sleep being a correlate of death - IMHO. If you could ask these people to leave a locked room to another room containing a numbered code in their sleep then to recall the coded numbers you have a ready-made experiment. Does Science want to perform the experiment and discover another reality? I hope so, even if they do it to falsify the idea of a separate or 'other' consciousness.

Thanks for your post MT.