Thoughts on this book?>“A]fter having spoken to many hundreds of NDErs, if not more than a thousand (for I have lost track by now), I have long become aware that from the standpoint of NDErs themselves, there is generally no doubt that the end of physical life is not a dead end. They confidently assert that there is something more. It has been my role and privilege often to speak for the many NDErs who do not write books or give public talks, and in doing so, I have often tried, as accurately as possible, to reflect the views of those NDErs whom I have chosen to represent. In doing so, I have tried to speak in their voice so that they would be heard, not me. In this respect, the evidence from NDEs is, I believe, highly suggestive that some form of consciousness continues after death; the abundant NDE testimony I have heard and read convinces me, as it does most others, of that.3 (emphasis in original) ”
>>25188932Would be nice but why do NDEs seem to contradict? Completely different religious and metaphysical systems
>>25188936Maybe they seem contradictory due to all the different interpretations of NDErs themselves, interpretations influenced by different cultural and religious beliefs about the afterlife, such that even when they're seeing the same afterlife, they're interpreting it differently. Or maybe because NDErs were explorint different parts of the same vast afterlife."As a woman who was an atheist prior to her NDE noted: “The minute that I kind of woke up on that hillside in heaven I knew that that was more real than any time I’ve ever spent here on Earth. … And I knew instantly that my time here was really but a dream. … It’s real to us when we’re in it, but once I was there … in heaven I realized that’s more real, that felt more real, and it made much more sense to me than anything here. This is kind of nonsensical at times. … In heaven, it’s so clear, so real, so rational, so logical, but yet emotional and loving at the same time. Immediately I knew that was real and this was not. Immediately.”72”
>>25188951What I’m confused about is why do most religions assume that the afterlife will be bad or dismal for the majority of people if actually it will be nice
>>25188986most of the world's religions weren't made to be accurate predictions of the afterlife, they were made so that local warlords could assert control over people. And fear of hell and other bad outcomes im the afterlife is an effective psychological terror tactic to scare most people i to obedience.
If there is an "afterlife," shouldn't there be, by definition, a "before-life"? -- If not, why not? And if so, why don't I remember it?
>>25189030You could be in your first life. In addition:1. Many children have reported remembering past lives.2. Some of those same children have reported being offered a "fruit of forgetfulness" in the afterlife that erased their memories of their previous lives, but refusing to eat it.
>>25188932I'm gonna give you my perspective, I never really came across any position except for mine. I will not say that it's necessarily right. I'm not trying to hypnotize any of you here.You don't need to consult NDErs to recognize there's an afterlife. Just think about where all the neural energy that makes up your consciousness needs to go once you die. Your brain is dependent on phase transitions that include negative space, so if negative space is also what constitutes the location of consciousness then you would go on a path of least resistance to another system of energy once there's none inside of you. I think it's impossible for there to be absolute nothingness once you die, but it's also not something an NDEr would describe "what it's like" because they aren't after-death experiences. You can't cross that threshold, come back, and tell everyone what you've seen. But the transition still exists, it just doesn't have a recallable history nor a recordable future of anything. How else would you be conscious at this very time, at this very moment? Maybe you've killed an insect and it became you after a few days.I then came across another thought about this stuff. Aristotle said something about the perpetual moving objects requiring the previous one to move, and I thought of the same thing beforehand with consciousness. It gave me a perspective that, if emergence has a prefixed chance of becoming, then it's a linear pathway of one object hitting another to the point I (or you) are the only conscious person in the universe, and that everyone else is a ghost. I haven't really found a way to dispute that, but ghosts are still capable of having affections just as much as I do, so they nevertheless are still living beings like me. I don't say that "everyone else is a ghost" for the purpose of reducing their experience, or for the purpose of stressing my ego as being above one another.I have no idea what kind of theory of afterlife this is though, I've just built my own belief system and carried on. Nobody said anything of the like to me. The only thing that is the most similar I've seen was Aristotle's moving objects and the eastern philosophy of reincarnation
>>25189041Now that's what I call pretzel-logic. Once you get twisted inside there's no getting out.
>>25189064I hope I don't piss anyone off and make them think I'm reducing every mode of experience down to a limited scientific process, I'm not. I still believe in gods and demons as well, just not the kind of demons situated in one theology or religion. It's produced by everyone's subjectivity, and the abstract mechanisms that aren't explainable of which are correlative to everyone's existence. That's where the more spiritual world comes from, and it doesn't make it any less real because there's a principle of representation within the way we experience everything. If we otherwise only functioned only under the spirit of science, there'd be less spirit at all. It would be depressing. The Christian god exists just as much as eastern reincarnation, they're both transcendental versions of experience that make themselves real so that we are still affected by it. Regardless of whether it's all in our heads or a man in the sky.
>>25189030my answer to OP applies to you here too>>25189064>>25189075
>>25188932Sounds like scoldy garbage. Easy skip.
>>25189070where's the flaw in my logic? Please point it out
>>25189030>And if so, why don't I remember it?Why should you? The world of multiplicity and separation would be rather messy if every microbe had vivid recollections of their infinite eons worth of past lives.
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc799144/m2/1/high_res_d/vol21-no1-5.pdf
>>25188932call me a pretentious faggot but I actually cannot bring myself to read books that look like this or have titles like this
>>25188932If NDEs are real it just proves a soul exists not that an afterlife exists."Light that dissolves your ego" just sounds like a recycling plant to me.
>>25189408You're judging a book by its cover.>>25189410Many NDErs specifically describe the afterlife as a higher reality, that feels realer than real, just like how waking life is realer than dreams.
>>25189344>there is a social taboo against belief in an afterlifeFunny how one line can tell you so much about a person.
>>25188932As a Catholic Near Death Experiences letting you peek at Heaven or whatever made much sense to me. If God is all knowing and decides the time of your death why would He make the mistake of "showing" you Heaven too early or whatever?
>>25189453what does it tell?
>>25189492>why would He make the mistake of "showing" you Heaven too earlyWhy are you assuming that's a mistake?
>>25189524If it's not your time why would you have been taken to the afterlife in the first place?
>>25188932>Thoughts on this book?Literally everything in this book can be explained away with neuroscience. I am of the opinion that consciousness is fundamental and I still agree with nothing in here. Having awareness with minimal brain activity is not interesting or revolutionary.
>>25189532Who says it needs to be your time to view the afterlife?>>25189545>Literally everything in this book can be explained away with neuroscienceIt can't, and even if it could, it's not addressing the core claims of NDErs. It's completely irrelevant whether or not NDEs are caused by neurophysical factors(I've read all such claims, and none of them prove that NDEs are caused by physical factors), but even IF we were to suppose that they are caused by neurophysical factors, such an explanation still boils down to an appeal to the phenomenologically coherency, rationality, structure, detail, epistemic quality, and consistency of the experience of everyday life, this current reality that we're experiencing. But NDErs have reported that the higher reality/afterlife/other world they've experienced while having an NDE is even more phenomenologically coherenct, rational, structured, detailed, and consistent than the experience of everyday life.I recommend you read pic related to understand more.
