I just want to point out that the Rice professor of religion with whom she authored the first book about her experience, Jeffrey J. Kripal, wrote in the book (297):
The email data [i.e., emails of her visions she sent to herself so she would have a timestamped record] as it stands at the moment is extremely suggestive for those who are already open to the possibility that precognition is a real thing, but they do not constitute scientific proof of precognition, and the data certainly will not convince the committed skeptic.
It is easy to make light of fears we do not share. I have never had a terror of oblivion but certainly acknowledge its power. (I have fears of my own.) Anyone who has experienced a dreamless sleep knows what death will be like. You just won’t ever wake up. Of course it’s the ‘not waking up’ which is the scary part.
The sensitive soul recoils from the fearsome aspect of life, that vast organism in time and space that flourishes only by consuming itself. Our stories and myths recognize this vision. In Hindu temples, before one can approach the altar and the Holy of Holies, one must first pass by the image of the Kirtimukha, the “face of glory”, a fierce monster with swallowing mouth and fangs dripping with gore. Consider the irony of being barred from salvation for refusing to acknowledge the terror of life!
And this is my real problem with these fantasies of Heaven. They are escape attempts from life. Completely understandable but doomed to failure because they refuse to accept that life is a horror. Our limited little lives are a flicker in the dark. It is only by acknowledging this fact that life becomes possible. Maturity and understanding begin when we abandon the delusion of separateness. Our fates are one. It was not the gods but humans who invented mercy and compassion, out of pity for ourselves and each other. Best of all to share our joys and struggles. Bridges are better than walls!
I am not scientific because I am committed to being a skeptic: I am not committed to observing. I am committed to not drawing conclusions based on observation as scientists do.
Je n’comprends pas.
Care to change anything, Porphyrry?
Not really. If there is good, compelling evidence of precognition I’m obviously eager to see it. My point was that–without taking the time to go through the evidence myself–it doesn’t look like there is compelling evidence because the most her own co-author would say in writing about the force of the evidence is that it was suggestive to those who were already open to precognition. That’s pretty faint praise.
If there are authentic emails in which she predicts in advance events with the level of specificity she claims to have seen in some cases (e.g., naming both the flight number and the number of casualties) and these specific predictions often come true, I’d sit up an pay a whole lot of attention.
But if they had that kind of evidence, the professor would have said something stronger than that the emails are suggestive to those who are already disposed to accept precognition, so I don’t really feel the need to spend time investigating this further.
It is easy to make big claims and tell compelling stories, and innumerable people have made such claims. That someone claims to have seen the future isn’t unusual and doesn’t command my attention.
It’s a lot harder to provide compelling evidence that withstands scrutiny (even compelling evidence that falls short of scientific proof) that a person has in fact seen the future. If someone could convince me they had that sort of evidence of real precognition, it would command my attention.
I have things to do with my life other than spend it personally investigating every wild claim anyone makes. Consider Brandolini’s principle: The amount of energy needed to refute BS is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.
You are committed to not drawing conclusions based on observations.
Steefen I am a proud member of the Order of St Thomas the Doubter. Our credo is this –
Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.
The sad part is that many people consider this to be an unreasonable point of view.
Stephen:
Anyone who has experienced a dreamless sleep knows what death will be like. You just won’t ever wake up. Of course it’s the ‘not waking up’ which is the scary part.
Steefen:
Direct us to NDEs and Life between Life experiences where that happened.
Then you’ll have observations on the board with the NDEs and Life between Life observations.
Get yourself out of imaginings into observations.
Direct us to NDEs and Life between Life experiences where that happened.
It’s called blacking out or passing out, and it’s pretty common. In fact no one reports on it or pays any attention to it because it is so unremarkable.
But the implied premise of your question needs to be disputed: you seem to be assuming NDEs are verdical, but that had not been established.
Steefen I don’t know what you want. I have claimed that the simplest explanation for NDEs is that they are physiological responses to trauma, based on the most up to date neurological research. I am not denying that folks have such experiences. Simply their ‘after the fact’ interpretation. You are the one who has to demonstrate some compelling reason to think otherwise. Why would I accept a supernatural metaphysic provided by someone who underwent brain trauma? Surely the Almighty can provide a revelation less ambiguously than that!
Anecdotes are not evidence! Unsupported claims are not proof! Just because an idea pleases us does not mean it’s true. Just because an idea dismays us does not mean it’s false.
Here sermon endeth.
Neither of you two have a good grasp of what’s going on in this world.
People die and their consciousness does not.
They see other people and they see places.
Sometimes these dead people come back to life.
What they have observed is supposed to be some trick of their neurons.
#1 They see the surroundings of where they died. What? That doesn’t exist? Of course it exists.
Just because they leave the vicinity of their death and talk with people outside of our observable dimensions, you want deny their factual experience. You are in error.
#2 They die, have this experience, and come back with a new real power.
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reddit:
** you do not have permission to see this link **
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“There is now convincing evidence to challenge the current theory that consciousness can only exist inside the brain – and if you can have consciousness without associated brain function, that is enormously important for our understanding of the mind,” he said.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
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Once you two graduate I accept we cannot have this conversation.
Still, this lady was struck by lightning, survived, and like others who had an NDE, she came back with capabilities and powers she didn’t have before.
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National Institutes of Health – National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI):
The bottom line is that NDEs in light of psi research suggest that one or more of today’s assumptions about the mind-brain relationship are probably wrong. An improved understanding of NDEs may well be found to involve a host of mundane brain-oriented effects, but it may also include glimpses of realities that are presently beyond our imagination. Given the revolutionary changes in our understanding of the physical world over the last century through the development of relativity and quantum mechanics, it is virtually certain that the scientific worldview of the next century will include entirely new ways of thinking about space, time, and – given the challenge of NDEs – consciousness.
NDEs in light of psi research suggest that one or more of today’s assumptions about the mind-brain relationship are probably wrong.
Stay in that camp if you must–as it completely sinks, you’ll abandon it.
Jesus:
No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven, the Son of Man. Jn 3:13
You cannot get to the Kingdom of God without being born again. The first time you are born onto the Earth. The second time you are born into Heaven. There is life after life on Earth, Nicodemus.
Steefen:
So, now the Kingdom of God is not on earth.
John 3: 6
Flesh gives birth to flesh, Spirit gives birth to spirit.
John 3:14-15
The Son of Man must be lifted up that everyone who believes may have eternal life.
Steefen:
Right, the eternal life on Earth because death will be no more.
You will not be put in with the goats. You will be put in with the sheep.
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Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
Steefen
You will see it but not be able to enter it until earthly death births you into the place of life eternal.
Reject the Son and you will not see life because God’s wrath will be on you. (Jn 3:36)
Porphyry, you can google the answer to your question.
I have already searched for well documented cases. I have not been at all impressed by what I found.
That is why I asked you, who are obviously aware of something more compelling than I’ve been able to find, what “you consider the best-documented, clearest case . . . ”
** you do not have permission to see this link ** in answering that.
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