Apparently your brain might stay alive long enough to know you’re dead

If you're in this state are you truly dead? Are you in some sort of waiting room between the Here and the Hereafter? Or is this just the brain trying to deal with the emotional trauma of death?

 

If your brain can function in this way...you are not dead.

 

Many years ago, when you got your head guillotined, they would pick it up and show you that you were separated from your body, believing you could still see and would know you were done. Not sure if that's similar.

Can you say more about how they see everything after death? Is it from their body's perspective or from another?

 

Here's more:

 

Doesn't surprise me at all.

The brain is a fancy box of puterin'

 

Take it from a guy who flat lined twice there's nothing there; no light at the end of the tunnel, nothing.

 

I guess you were introduced to hell?

There have been a multitude of people who have seen things, so perhaps you just had not reached the right state? All of these people agree on one thing. What they experience is more real than ordinary awake consciousness. There is a greatly heightened sense of awareness. And these accounts date back thousands of years. Dr Eben Alexander has some interesting things to say about it, with him being a neurosurgeon, and brain specialist. Once he experienced an NDE himself. These are life changing events for those that have had them. It gives people a new perspective. So, if it is just the hallucinations of a dying brain, they are significant in their ability to change lives, for the better.

Or since you and others do not experience them, perhaps that is all you have waiting for you at death? Perhaps a separation from god is just nothingness. That would be hell when compared to those that experience bliss and an indescribable reality. And that is the problem all of these people face. They cannot find the right words to describe the experience, since it is another reality and words pertain to our common reality.

 

It might depend on where you're headed.

 

Oddly enough, they kept the body alive in the experiment with the sheep, then talked about delivering the lamb. I guess they are going to try to keep a body alive for organ transplants, so they can keep from giving someone a spoiled hunk of meat?

What have they been doing all along? Obviously, they kept the person alive while they removed organs, eyes and so forth. If they could keep them alive, why not do that and revive them? Maybe I misunderstand?

Even more bothersome, I guess they will now remove your head and let your brain die in a garbage can while your body is kept alive?

Man, science sucks sometimes. Why can't they take some genetic material from your own body and grow one of your own organs? Even if it develops cancer, there would be ways to address those concerns and some wouldn't be concerns, if the organ lasted for some years before developing cancer or some disease.

Why do we look for the easy way out when we supposedly have folks who are so intelligent and technology that is so advanced? Do we actually all just live in a hypnotic stupor created by advertisements and false information, so that someone out there can make another trillion?

Something isn't right. It really does seem amoral.

 

Thanks for posting the rest of that.

 

lol - good one.

 

Cool post!

That's a pretty clear source of these "near death experience" stories scattered all over the internet.

 

The problem is that we have chosen the wrong "time of death". The fact that people with stopped hearts can be revived, means that the stoppage of the heart is not the "time of death". We need to use the moment brain activity stops.

 

The opposite of course is also true.

You can have a heart beat, but no brain activity.

That was a perfect opportunity for a political joke but my heart wasn't in it tonight.

 

It is dependent upon if philosophical materialism is truth. There are some neuroscientists who could argue with what you say is clear. Dr. Eben Alexander would object and go into the details. Generally though, particular mindsets, the materialists, really would rather not listen to the contrary voices.

 

It's dependent upon more than that.

Your guy has a record of falsifying evidence during his medical practice and has been terminated or suspended from medical positions a number of times.

Plus, the doctors taking care of him during the episode he writes about state that his story is false in the particulars that they witnessed, such as the nature of his coma.

Beyond that, there is a recognized source for such experiences. Yet, Alexander totally rejects that explanation while promoting a supernatural one instead, and he does so without evidence or reason.

You should at least find a champion who has a record of telling the truth.

Also, I don't know that Alexander would disagree with what I said - other than his claim that in HIS particular case it wasn't a dream, and that for HIM the supernatural came into full bloom inside his head.

 

There is a difference between clinical and biological death. I dont think biological death is reversible.

 

First I heard about what you say about him. He was not religious until after his NDE. So, I bet you have trustworthy links to prove your contentions about the Dr.?

He has full access to his own medical records. And it isn't like he isn't a doctor. BTW, he got the info in his book from his records and talking with his doctors. There was no need for him to lie about it. For his NDE would still stand. Unless you think he made that up too?

But the links would help, especially if it involves an interview with his doctor who says Eben is full of it.

As you know, most of neuroscience is still deeply materialistic, and that is their approach. If you start out with the assumption that the brain produces consciousness, as some effect, you will limit your research to this paradigm. And then everything is causation and not correlation. But what you observe as causation could be correlation. But being a materialist, it will always be seen as causation and not correlation. And if you question this materialistic approach, you are a kook. Even when materialism itself is a philosophical assumption. Materialists forget of the assumption involved. Granted, using materialism as a tool has produced some very good things. But that doesn't prove materialism is fact, that matter is the fundamental. It may just be it is a very good tool and nothing more.

 

That's not how science works.

I'd point out that regardless of whether one believes in the supernatural, one would start out by exploring how something works using the tools we have for investigating our world.

Since we have exactly zero tools for examining the supernatural, one would need to proceed to a point where one simply didn't "believe" that there was some non-supernatural mechanism - more or less by the process of elimination. Of course, that is still a radical departure from science (in fact, antiscience), since when science doesn't know something, the answer is, "I don't know".

In this case, there are obvious solutions that do not require there to be a supernatural. Rejecting those causes is just not supported by any evidence. It's pure belief without evidence.

 

Explanation of hallucinations caused by incapacitated brain:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-near-death-experience-isnt-proof-heaven/

Article on Esquire interview mentioning credibility problems. It has a link to the Esquire article, but Esquire asks for $1.99 to read it, unfortunately.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbe...en-authors-credibility-problems/#2c3bfd061fd6

 

The belief that matter is fundamental is not supported by evidence either. It is an assumption. You then work from that assumption, as if it were truth. With several of the founders of QM, what they discovered made them think that there was more to consciousness than materialism believed. As one said, there is one mind behind it all. They didn't say supernatural, for if it is the big picture truth it is supernatural but natural.

IMO, before this century is over there will be a change in what we call the supernatural. And consciousness will not be seen as the materialistic sciences view it today. It will relegate the materialistic process of inquiry and understanding as only a tool, but reality will be different from what the materialists think it is. For to understand reality you will need to include consciousness as a primary factor. As some of the founders of QM were entertaining. In fact, given some of the consciousness studies today, I would almost bet on it. And given what the retired head of skunkworks said about interstellar travel, and how consciousness played into it, if true, I would bet even more on it. Our understanding of consciousness has a long way to go, but in understanding it fuller, this will be a paradigm changing event.

 

Let's remember that nobody has ever claimed that science is more than a tool for exploring how things work.

However, science has been fabulously successful in figuring out how our universe works - a success with no parallel.

And, let's remember that if QM advances or other advances of science bring into the natural more of what feels today like supernatural, that is a credit to science.

 

I cannot disagree. Sound right to me.

 

The sudden last burst of brain energy may be one last desperate attempt to live. A wonderful tiny little dog I had for 14 years was clearly dying early one night. While she has been getting along just fine, just a couple weeks before the vet has told us she is years past her life span and too old and frail for any treatments, so to count every day she is still with us as a blessing. She still could run, do her little dance, see and fully responsive. But the end came.

When it started, the only hint was she suddenly had difficulty walking - as if she couldn't get her legs to function.

Her body was shutting down, her time had come. I held her to the end. Over hours, she lost control of her muscles - couldn't walk, then couldn't stand, couldn't move her head and then could not move her body at all, as she struggled to breathe, though did not seem distressed. Finally, early in the morning I thought she was gone as the breathing seemed to stop. But shouting at her caused to to again start breathing. But in a few minutes again stopped. I was certain she was gone and told her goodbye. It was as if she heard me talking to her though had not breathed for a couple of minutes - she suddenly started her legs like she was running as fast as she could - just for a second - though she had not been able to move at all for hours. But that was the end. One last burst of energy including mental energy.

It was if she somehow had made one last mental energy burst attempt to regain control of her muscles and live as a final instinctive impulse.

So I can believe that at death the brain with its last second of function may trigger a maximum effort to restart the body, though only for a second.

 

Legal defintion: Definition of death. An individual is dead if the individual has sustained either: irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions; or. irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem.

Clinical definition: Clinical death is the medical term for cessation of blood circulation and breathing, the two necessary criteria to sustain human and many other organisms' lives. It occurs when the heart stops beating in a regular rhythm, a condition called cardiac arrest. The term is also sometimes used in resuscitation research.

Medical definition: "An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem is dead. A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical standards."

Biolgical defintion: Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death" to define a person as being dead; people are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases.

. The cessation of all vital phenomena without capability of resuscitation, either in animals or plants.