Consciousness in death

[chris epic]

Hi there- I saw a show about "near-death" experiences and what not. But these weren't your a-typical stories of "I was clinically dead for twenty minutes, saw a tunnel, and observed my own body" One gentalman was hit by a car, died, was placed in a fridge for 3 days, was brought out to a table to be cut open for an autopsey, and then woke up just fine. Another woman's brain was completely shut down for an operation to repair an anurism. Her heart was stopped and all of her blood was taken out of her body. She had absolutely no brain activity. She was revived and recalls an out of body experience.

A scientist speculated "What if consciousness lies outside the mind and is more of an external university." I thought that that was a pretty intriguing notion, because how can you explain thought in a dead brain???? Could this be out "soul" and could this soul in fact be universal? I'm not making a claim for sprituality or religion, but we cant ignore metaphysics. Thoughts aren't tangible, there is no impirical evidence for the metaphysics of the mind.

 

[TobiasTheViking]

I call bull.

 

[Beerina]

How the subjective experience of consciousness arises out of matter is still a high mystery. However, we do know that damage to the brain "shuts it off", giving us confidence that, whatever the physics, it's intimately tied to the brain itself, and without the functioning brain to support it, it evaporates like a candle flame whose candle is suddenly removed.

I highly doubt that, whatever the "mind" is, that it's something that could even exist without a brain, much less continue to operate.

 

[SuperCoolGuy]

Hi there- I saw a show about "near-death" experiences and what not. But these weren't your a-typical stories of "I was clinically dead for twenty minutes, saw a tunnel, and observed my own body" One gentalman was hit by a car, died, was placed in a fridge for 3 days, was brought out to a table to be cut open for an autopsey, and then woke up just fine. Another woman's brain was completely shut down for an operation to repair an anurism. Her heart was stopped and all of her blood was taken out of her body. She had absolutely no brain activity. She was revived and recalls an out of body experience.

Couple of problems:

The 3 days in the freezer sounds made up. But assuming it happened, where was the non-conscious experience? And, can someone be pronounced dead, then regain brain/heart function a few minutes later without anyone noticing? Sure. Hence, if the man had been clinically dead when the coroner/medic showed up, regained heart/brain function, and sat in a freezer for 3 days, he'd have plenty of time to have out of body experiences before waking up to the sounds of a circular saw.

The lady could have an out of body experience while the brain shuts down prior to the procedure or once brain activity resumes and before she regains full conciousness.

It takes seconds to have dreams that feel like they lasted minutes or hours.

Not terribly convincing evidence of "thought in a dead brain"

 

[Beady]

Another woman's brain was completely shut down for an operation to repair an anurism. Her heart was stopped and all of her blood was taken out of her body.

First of all, this is wrong. Yes, her heart was stopped for the surgery, but the blood was not "taken out of her body." At least, not all at once. What they did was hook her up to an external, artificial, heart to bypass her own heart, yet maintain circulation during the operation. Technically, the blood did leave her body, but only as a momentary detour in its normal course.

She had absolutely no brain activity. She was revived and recalls an out of body experience.

What SCG said.

I see nothing to be wondered at.

 

[Dancing David]

If they are double blinded and can verify actual events during the OOBE prior to exposure to other individuals then i would say 'confirmed'.

If the woman was drained of boold and didn't have any brain activity for twenty minutes I would really be suprised if she returned to normal functioning.

 

[roger]

I saw a show that featured a man that can leap over buildings with a single bound.

 

[Interesting Ian]

How the subjective experience of consciousness arises out of matter is still a high mystery. However, we do know that damage to the brain "shuts it off", giving us confidence that, whatever the physics, it's intimately tied to the brain itself, and without the functioning brain to support it, it evaporates like a candle flame whose candle is suddenly removed.

Or the brain might instead be analogous to a TV set.


From http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth28.html

What does the observed dependence of mind upon matter prove, if not the mortality of the soul? Wait. First, just what do we observe? We observe the physical manifestations of consciousness (e.g. speech) cease when the body dies. We do not observe the spirit cease to exist, because we do not observe the spirit at all, only its manifestations in the body. Observations of the body do not decide whether that body is an instrument of an independent spirit which continues to exist after its body-instrument dies, or whether the body is the cause of a dependent spirit which dies when its cause dies. Both hypotheses account for the observed facts.

When a body is paralyzed, the mind and will are still operative, though deprived of expression. Bodily death may be simply total paralysis. When you take a microphone away from a speaker, he can no longer be heard by the audience. But he is still a speaker. Body could be the soul's microphone. The dependence of soul on a body may be somewhat like the dependence of a ship on a dry-dock. Ships are not built on the open sea, but on dry-dock; but once they leave the dry-dock, they do not sink but become free floating ships. The body may be the soul's dry-dock, or (an even better metaphor) the soul's womb, and its death may be the soul's emergence from its womb.

What about the analogy of the candle? Even in the analogy, the light does not go out; it goes up. It is still traveling through space, observable from other planets. It 'goes out' as a child goes out to play; it is liberated.

But what of the need for a brain to think? The brain may not be the cause of thought but the stopping down, the 'reducing valve' for thought, as Bergson, James and Huxley suppose: an organ of forgetting rather than remembering, eliminating from the total field of consciousness all that serves no present purpose. Thus when the brain dies, more rather than less consciousness occurs: the floodgates come down. This would account for the familiar fact that dying people remember the whole of their past life in an instant with intense clarity, detail, and understanding

I completely agree with what this guy says. And there are further philosophical reasons for supposing the brain "filters" consciousness rather than produces it which I won't go into here.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Couple of problems:

The 3 days in the freezer sounds made up. But assuming it happened, where was the non-conscious experience?

By definition you cannot be non-conscious and experience. And the concept of location for consciousness makes no sense since consciousness is non-physical.

It takes seconds to have dreams that feel like they lasted minutes or hours.

Dream time passes at the same rate as real time.

 

[gfunkusarelius]

forget the OBE...i want more info on the man who was revived after being frozen for three days. how christ-like...can you point to a source?

 

[Donks]

Or the brain might instead be analogous to a TV set.

Is there anything analogous to a TV signal? Can they be picked up with anything other than a brain?

Dream time passes at the same rate as real time.

On what do you base this?

 

[SuperCoolGuy]

By definition you cannot be non-conscious and experience.

Why not. Last night, I was unconscious and experienced a cool laser light show orchestrated by Tommy Lasorda.

I should have said "out of body experience" instead of non-conscious experience. Sorry for the confusion.

And the concept of location for consciousness makes no sense since consciousness is non-physical.

When I said "where was the non-conscious experience", I was referring to the fact that no out-of-body experience was mentioned in the OP regarding the frozen guy.

Dream time passes at the same rate as real time.

Hence, dream monster runs as fast as real monster

 

[SuperCoolGuy]

What the hell is a "spirit"? How do we observe, measure, detect, channel a spirit?

 

[epepke]

First of all, this is wrong. Yes, her heart was stopped for the surgery, but the blood was not "taken out of her body." At least, not all at once. What they did was hook her up to an external, artificial, heart to bypass her own heart, yet maintain circulation during the operation. Technically, the blood did leave her body, but only as a momentary detour in its normal course.

Every time I hear this story, it grows in the telling.

First, it was a story about someone whose brain activity was slowed down but who apparently still had some sensory perception. Very, very interesting. Since we don't really know when sensory perception stops, worth investigating.

In two weeks, I expect people to claim that she was killed, shipped to Japan, sliced into Sushi that was eaten, and all the resulting crap incinerated, shipped on one of Xenu's spaceships that look like DC-8s to Alpha Centauri, shipped back again, reanimated with a drop of vampire's blood, and she still remembered an OOBE!

 

[Interesting Ian]

Is there anything analogous to a TV signal?

I said TV set, not TV signal. TV's do not produce television programmes despite the fact that the quality of the picture depends on the set.

On what do you base this?

Common knowledge.

 

[SuperCoolGuy]

What the hell is a "spirit"? How do we observe, measure, detect, channel a spirit?

"We do not observe the spirit cease to exist, because we do not observe the spirit at all, only its manifestations in the body."

How convenient.

 

[Donks]

I said TV set, not TV signal. TV's do not produce television programmes despite the fact that the quality of the picture depends on the set.

I noticed that. That's why I asked if there is anything analogous to a TV signal. You are right, TV's do not produce programs, they receive TV signals. Which leads to my question, is there something analogous to a TV signal and can it be received with something other than a brain?

Common knowledge.

I was hoping for something more authorative. I ask because I had the oposite impression, but have not looked up on this so I don't know one way or the other. Your response helped not at all.

 

[SuperCoolGuy]

Dream time passes at the same rate as real time.

Common knowledge.

I asked two coworkers, they both think dream time goes faster than real time.

One related an old Chinese story about a man who fell asleep waiting for the cook to finish dinner, then having a dream that spanned his entire life and career into old age and wake up to dinner being ready. Sure, its just a story. But people have had similar experiences to this story. Regular sleep or near death experience.

I once blacked out. I woke up, and swore I had been unconscious for hours, barely able to remember what I was doing just 10 seconds earlier. And I knew it was 10 seconds that had passed because people saw me drop and have a ceisure on the floor for about 8 of those seconds. Granted, I didn't dream during my black out.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lucid_Dreaming:_Dream_Recall

"It is also possible that dream time doesn't strictly correspond to real time. Days may pass in a dream during a single night's sleep. Dreams which seem to last for hours while you have them have sometimes been found to actually have a duration of only a few minutes."


I'd say common knowledge was contrary to what you believe. But hey, common knowledge is a poor metric for most things. But we're talking about people's perceptions of their dreams in comparison to their actual experiences.

Nevertheless:

"While we often get the impression that events unfolding during dreams occur at high speed, it would appear that they are actually experienced in real time."
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=39&EventId=148


So maybe it is still an open question.

Therefore, I will take back my statement:
"It takes seconds to have dreams that feel like they lasted minutes or hours."

Nevertheless:
"The lady could have an out of body experience while the brain shuts down prior to the procedure or once brain activity resumes and before she regains full conciousness."

 

[Interesting Ian]

It's probably research into lucid dreams which indicates that dreams occur in real time. You know, they hook a person up to various measuring apparatus which can register when a person enters REM, and the dreaming person can communicate with the outside world by pre-arranged directed movement of his eyes (the only part of the body which isn't paralysed).

And it's highly weird to think dreams don't occur in real time.

 

[Mojo]

And it's highly weird to think dreams don't occur in real time.

I frequently, in the eight minutes between me hitting "snooze" and the alarm going off again, have dreams with an apparent elapsed time of several hours.