Andrew, I thought of you when I listened to this

[dewach...@gmail.com]

Fascinating account of a "card carrying reductive materialist" neurosurgeon's near death experience. As a result of his amazing experience he says the mind and consciousness are not a function of the physical brain. It has been established as a fact now that consciousness exists separate from the brain.

All of you 1800 century atheists pay attention things just aren't as simple as you would like to believe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYZoX4N5_YQ&feature=share

[Andrew Schulman]

Somebody else was just telling me about this.

I think we may have also talked about this here as well:

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

I also read her book. I will read Dr. Alexander's book as well. I
see his coma lasted 7 days, doesn't say whether it was medically
induced or not on the website. Mine was, they woke me on the 7th day.

The coma "dreams" were unlike any dreams I've had before or since, I
remember most if not all of them (aided by the fact that we started
writing them down the day after I woke up). But the views remain in
my mind, it's like watching a DVD.

Funny thing is that I never thought of the mind and consciousness as a
function of the physical brain. BTW, music was a big part of my coma
travel.

Thanks for posting this. It will be fun to see how this thread
devolves in just a few more posts!

Andrew

[wollybird]

this made me think of you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdxsMSZlbqQ

is your TV show any different than the " I Survived Beyond and Back"
tv show on the Biography channel?
How is an 18th century atheist different than a 21st century atheist?

[wollybird]

On Oct 8, 11:35 pm, Andrew Schulman <and...@abacaproductions.com>
wrote:

> On Oct 8, 11:44 pm, dewachen1...@gmail.com wrote:> Fascinating account of a "card carrying reductive materialist" neurosurgeon's near death experience. As a result of his amazing experience he says the mind and consciousness are not a function of the physical brain. It has been established as a fact now that consciousness exists separate from the brain.
>
> > All of you 1800 century atheists pay attention things just aren't as simple as you would like to believe.
>
> >http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYZoX4N5_YQ&feature=share
>
> Somebody else was just telling me about this.
>
> I think we may have also talked about this here as well:
>

> http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insig...

>
> I also read her book.  I will read Dr. Alexander's book as well.  I
> see his coma lasted 7 days, doesn't say whether it was medically
> induced or not on the website.  Mine was, they woke me on the 7th day.
>
> The coma "dreams" were unlike any dreams I've had before or since, I
> remember most if not all of them (aided by the fact that we started
> writing them down the day after I woke up).  But the views remain in
> my mind, it's like watching a DVD.
>
> Funny thing is that I never thought of the mind and consciousness as a
> function of the physical brain. BTW, music was a big part of my coma
> travel.
>
> Thanks for posting this.  It will be fun to see how this thread
> devolves in just a few more posts!
>
> Andrew

I watched the TED video a couple of years ago. Very interesting.

[Murdick]

Guys, the only thing we know or have evidence of is that the human brain is capable of creating/experiencing various realities. I've had several dreams in my life where I have felt that I have lived and entire lifetime (remember the famous star trek episode where Picard learns to play the time whistle?) I've experienced this with false memories and everything. Now that's a fact! The rest of this other stuff is bullshit.

[Steven Bornfeld]

Sure, I'll bite.
There are plenty of people I know personally (and a couple in this
newsgroup) for whom I have no trouble at all imagining that their
consciousness exists totally divorced from their brains.

How's that?
Steve

--
Mark & Steven Bornfeld DDS
http://www.dentaltwins.com
Brooklyn, NY
718-258-5001

[Steven Bornfeld]

I had a dream in which I learned to play the skin flute.

[dewach...@gmail.com]

18th century atheists are battling with an outdated dogmatic view of a God, they are caught up in a straw-man argument about a personal creator god. Richard Dawkins is a fine example of an outdated atheist.

A 21st century atheist is even more ignorant of reality, because he is a materialist and is so overwhelmed with survival that he can't be bothered with things outside the scope of his basic senses, and self gratification.....In other words, he uses the denial of reality to justify is materialistic, meager existence. Atheist are uncreative boring and redundant lazy ass thinkers.

[dewach...@gmail.com]

Yes exactly so! Dr Alexander experienced something similar to your dreams, he called it earthworm reality.

Lets see on one hand we have a neurosurgeon explaining in very clear scientific terminology how the mind functions...... and then we have a washed up guitarist, who's major mode of transportation is a moped, and plays a tuba, in a hillbilly band on the streets of New Orleans....... hum.

[Steven Bornfeld]

That's a pretty broad brush you're using.

[dewach...@gmail.com]

Steve, I bet you didn't even listen to the interview...... am I right?

[Steven Bornfeld]

I will admit to not listening to the whole thing. It's possible I
missed the science, but nothing I've heard here shows anything but the
typical subjective account of hallucinations that I've heard
before--certainly nothing technical that would indicate that he was
bringing any of his knowledge as a neurosurgeon to bear on what he
recounts. Maybe that's unfair, but then why write it as a neurosurgeon?
In fact, I had a lot of trouble finding anything about the doctor as a
neurosurgeon at all--or any publications or affiliations OTHER than his
supernatural writings.
OTOH, he looks wonderful for his age--perhaps there is something
supernatural going on here.

> http://www.healthgrades.com/physician/dr-eben-alexander-w5nd5/background-check

[Andrew Schulman]

On Oct 9, 9:56 am, Steven Bornfeld <bornfeldm...@dentaltwins.com>
wrote:

>
> consciousness exists totally divorced from their brains.
>
>

Good point, "totally divorced". I agree not totally divorced, it's
the hardware, but I believe it goes beyond the hardware. Lots of
science people agree, including the brain expert, Jill Taylor Bolte.

Andrew

[Steven Bornfeld]

Certainly. This stuff is at such a rudimentary stage on the science
end that to expect pronouncements about what and how is a long way off.
As to the "why", I leave that to the theologians. ;-)

[Alphonsus Jr.]

Mandatory reading on today's "new" atheist hacks:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Superstition-Refutation-Atheism/dp/1587314525/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349810558&sr=8-1&keywords=the+last+superstition

&

http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution-Fashionable/dp/0300164297/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349810653&sr=1-1&keywords=atheist+delusions

I've combed the literature. These are indeed the best.

[dsi1]

Welcome to the 21st century.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/surveys/none-of-the-above/the-rise-of-the-religiously-unaffiliated/13337/

[wollybird]

On Oct 9, 2:24 pm, "Alphonsus Jr." <alphonsu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mandatory reading on today's "new" atheist hacks:
>

> http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Superstition-Refutation-Atheism/dp/158...
>
> &
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Delusions-Christian-Revolution-Fashiona...

>
> I've combed the literature. These are indeed the best.

All I know is if you want to get rid of those pesky mormon kids that
show up every summer, tell them you're an atheist and watch them run

[Andrew Schulman]

On Oct 9, 3:05 pm, Steven Bornfeld <bornfeldm...@dentaltwins.com>
wrote:

> On 10/9/2012 1:50 PM, Andrew Schulman wrote:
>
> > On Oct 9, 9:56 am, Steven Bornfeld <bornfeldm...@dentaltwins.com>
> > wrote:
>
> >> consciousness exists totally divorced from their brains.
>
> > Good point, "totally divorced".  I agree not totally divorced, it's
> > the hardware, but I believe it goes beyond the hardware.  Lots of
> > science people agree, including the brain expert, Jill Taylor Bolte.
>
> > Andrew
>
>         Certainly.  This stuff is at such a rudimentary stage on the science
> end that to expect pronouncements about what and how is a long way off.
>         As to the "why", I leave that to the theologians.  ;-)
>
>

All of it comes down to "I believe". The science-y gang, or the
spirit-y gang. I believe there is something out there along the lines
the OP posted about. I saw things too :-)

Andrew

[Andrew Schulman]

On Oct 9, 4:59 pm, wollybird <wollyb...@frontiernet.net> wrote:
> All I know is if you want to get rid of those pesky mormon kids that
> show up every summer, tell them you're an atheist and watch them run
>
>

You better pray Mitt isn't a lurker here.

Andrew

[Richard Jernigan]

On Monday, October 8, 2012 11:35:18 PM UTC-5, Andrew Schulman wrote:

I don' think enough is known about the physical operation of the brain to conclude whether it can produce consciousness or not.

Try a car analogy. A qualified BMW engineer allowed to carefully examine my 328i, and determine that it is indeed stock in every respect, could announce with complete confidence, "Your car will not go over 155 miles per hour on level ground with no wind."

On the other hand, this same engineer, not allowed to approach any closer than ten feet to my car, wouldn't know whether the built-in speed limitation had been disabled, whether any of the commercially available soup-up items had been added, and so on. Maybe it could go 185.

The best neuroscientists know far less about the brain than even I do about my car. I know basically how my car works. When I was a kid I rebuilt my car's engine, aligned the wheels, relined the brakes, rebuilt the brake cylinders, rebuilt the transmission and so on. The BMW is far more sophisticated than my old Ford, but it's still a car.

From what I read published as cutting-edge brain research, even the leading experts have only the foggiest ideas how the brain works. Look at the most recent issue of Scientific American, for example, if you want a relatively popular article written by leading brain scientists. It's like they don't know how the car's transmission basically works, much less have a shop manual that tells them how many thousandths of an inch end play is acceptable on the main shaft.

From a scientific standpoint, we don't know enough about the brain to say whether, as a purely material organ, it is capable of producing consciousness. Neither do we know enough about it to say that it can not. We just don't know. And we don't know whether we ever will know, scientifically.

But I am quite familiar with people having vivid experiences that convince them of certain things. During the 1960s many of my close friends, maybe even most of them, experimented with LSD, peyote, psilocybin, mushrooms and other drugs. In some cases this led to insights and the grasping of truths that I didn't share. I never did anything but smoke marijuana. I thoroughly enjoyed it. But I never experienced the mystical oneness of the universe. Logically, it seemed reasonable, but I never experienced it directly. I am quite sure these people had the vivid experiences they described, and in many cases it altered their philosophies and how they lived their lives, mostly for the better, in my estimation. Unfortunately there were a few cases where I thought the outcome was definitely for the worse.

Were these people experiencing aspects of reality denied to me? Or were their brains malfunctioning in interesting ways?

"They told us that if we did these drugs, we would get brain damage. They didn't know that's what we were looking for."--Wavy Gravy (one of the Merry Pranksters)

RNJ

[dewach...@gmail.com]

I tell em I'm a Buddhist...... that's fun too!

[dewach...@gmail.com]

There have been documented cases where people died on the operating table...... their brains not functioning, they were clinically dead, then came back to life and told the doctors of their conversations. This should be impossible if the brain stopped functioning, their auditory nerves, and visual capacity were not functioning.

As far as some type of DMT experience etc. it's just conjecture, it's scientific fluff! There is no evidence of this hypothesis, it's simply the only thing scientists can come up working within their self imposed limitations.

Science is not able to address consciousness.

[dewach...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012 11:06:48 PM UTC-6, Richard Jernigan wrote:

''The best neuroscientists know far less about the brain than even I do about my car". RNG, that's a very bad analogy.

Guess you failed to actually read the full linked content..

Because he was being constantly monitored during the coma and there was zero brain activity.. His cortex was completely shut down.... his mind was doing absolutely nothing..

[Alphonsus Jr.]

On Tuesday, October 9, 2012 10:06:48 PM UTC-7, Richard Jernigan wrote:

> The best neuroscientists know far less
> about the brain than even I do about my car.

Bravo! I suspect you're right. Yet such arrogance permeates the air today, as if we're close to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. In truth, we know next to nothing.

To hell with the myth of progress and its wretched chronological snobbery! I spit on all of it!

[dewach...@gmail.com]

The myth of progress is just the discovery of what has been known for 1000's of years. Ever since Darwin introduced his ideas the world it has been under the control of materialists, and all that goes with it.

Interesting to see as you say the "myth of progress" was torn down in a single profound experience, by one of the very people who propagated it's myth....... that's always good to see.

[Richard Jernigan]

On Wednesday, October 10, 2012 12:51:57 AM UTC-5, dewach...@gmail.com wrote:

> There have been documented cases where people died on the operating table...... their brains not functioning, they were clinically dead, then came back to life and told the doctors of their conversations. This should be impossible if the brain stopped functioning, their auditory nerves, and visual capacity were not functioning.
>

I'd be interested in reading about these. A link or a reference?

>
>
> As far as some type of DMT experience etc. it's just conjecture, it's scientific fluff! There is no evidence of this hypothesis, it's simply the only thing scientists can come up working within their self imposed limitations.
>
>

I agree that the brain malfunction explanation of near death experiences is just a guess, with little supporting evidence. That's why I ended that discussion with a question, not a statement. But I don't think we can say it's the only thing science can come up with. People haven't stopped working on how the brain functions.

>
> Science is not able to address consciousness.

In my opinion, it remains to be seen.

RNJ

[Richard Jernigan]

On Wednesday, October 10, 2012 1:50:37 AM UTC-5, dewach...@gmail.com wrote:

>
> Guess you failed to actually read the full linked content..
>

I didn't notice any written content that was linked. I did listen to the whole YouTube post. Did I miss something?

>
>
> Because he was being constantly monitored during the coma and there was zero brain activity.. His cortex was completely shut down.... his mind was doing absolutely nothing..

Some brain activity was going on, else his heart would have stopped beating. Your statement appears to identify the mind with the cortex, yet other parts of the brain play a key role in consciousness. Visual stimuli are processed in the thalamus before abstracted information is passed to the cortex. The amygdala plays a key role in memory, though it's not clear at present exactly how it works.

I am not saying science will be able to explain consciousness. All I'm saying is that we don't know whether it will be able to.

RNJ

[Richard Jernigan]

On Wednesday, October 10, 2012 2:24:12 AM UTC-5, Alphonsus Jr. wrote:

> To hell with the myth of progress and its wretched chronological snobbery! I spit on all of it!

I agree that we overestimate the extent of our knowledge and abilities, sometimes disastrously. The recent financial crisis should make that clear to anyone. But if you disdain any idea of progress, I hope you don't come down with a severe infection as I did a couple of years ago.

As my son was driving me home from my four-day stay in the hospital, I said to him, "If I had been in Yap or Laos, where I have been recently, you would be arranging a funeral, not driving your Dad home from the hospital, grateful to the surgeon and to the discoverer of vancomycin."

My grandfather died in 1966 from complications of a ruptured appendix. He was 86 years old. At that time my brother was Head of the Flight Medicine Branch of the NASA Manned Spaceflight Center, deep into the Apollo moon landing program. After Grandfather died my brother and I mused over why he had refused to go to the hospital despite feeling very ill for several days, and being advised to do so by his trusted family physician.

Then it dawned on us. We had heard more than once the account of our great-grandfather being seriously wounded at the battle of Shiloh in the Civil War. He was fortunate to be able to avoid the hospital, to make it back to his plantation to be cared for by his own people, and to survive, intact and irascible, into the early 20th century. For most of Grandfather's lifetime, the hospital was somewhere you went to die, not a place where you went to get well.

RNJ

[Alphonsus Jr.]

On Wednesday, October 10, 2012 8:53:48 AM UTC-7, Richard Jernigan wrote:

> I agree that we overestimate the extent of our knowledge and abilities, sometimes disastrously. The recent financial crisis should make that clear to anyone. But if you disdain any idea of progress, I hope you don't come down with a severe infection as I did a couple of years ago....


Unfortunately, such progress - rather, development - has been more than offset by, for example, the legalized hiring of surgical hitmen to snuff out inconvenient fetal humans. The body count since 1973 is now something like 50,000,000. Progress? Is somebody kidding?

[dewach...@gmail.com]

There was a case in which a women died on the operating table, her heart stopped for 4 or 5 minutes, when she came back she could recall word for word the conversation the doctors were having, she even saw a red pair of shoes on the roof of the building, and low and behold there was a red pair of shoes on the roof they found. There are hundreds of similar stories from documented reports of doctors. When the brain is clinically dead there is no way to hear sound or see things yet people do.

[Dick Cheney]

Here:
http://www.biography.com/tv/i-survived-beyond-and-back/episodes
There a whole bunch of those stories
Personally, I like My Ghost Story a little more

[Andrew Schulman]

On Oct 10, 1:28 pm, dewachen1...@gmail.com wrote:
>When the brain is clinically dead there is no way to hear sound or see things yet people do.
>
>

As far as I know, this is an accurate description of clinically dead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death

That is what happened to me, I was gone about two minutes. I do have
memories of things that happened during that time but don't want to
get into that now, for various reasons.

When you talk about brain dead, that is permanent death, no return
ticket. During clinical death the brain is not dead. Measurable
brain activity stops, but it hasn't permanently shut down yet.

Andrew

[dewach...@gmail.com]

Yea, there are a whole bunch of those stories because it's reality. BTW, was your brain clinically dead when you concocted your ghost story......... never mind, you don't have to answer that.

[Andrew Schulman]

On Oct 10, 1:28 pm, dewachen1...@gmail.com wrote:

> There was a case in which a women died on the operating table, her heart stopped for 4 or 5 minutes, when she came back she could recall word for word the conversation the doctors were >having...
>
>
I know a first hand account of something similar. A doctor from the
SICU where I play told me this - he and another doctor where at the
bedside of a clinically dead patient, no pulse, no respiration, though
they thought he was already permanently gone. Both doctors were choir
singers and they sang, softly, Sweet Low, Sweet Chariot. They were
not being disrespectful in any way.

They left, nurses came in to prepare the body to be removed. The
patient revived, was not resuscitated, just came to. Rare, but it
happens sometimes.

My friend saw him at bedside the next day and the patient said, "I
can't believe you did that to me!" The doctor said, "What?" The
patient said, "I can't believe you sang Sweet Low, Sweet Chariot."

Andrew

[dewach...@gmail.com]

Amazing! according to conventional medical science this could not have happened, yet, it seems people experience a heightened awareness beyond sensory perceptions. This to me is why atheists are just plain lazy thinkers, there is so much more to the body mind connections than meets the eye.

[Steven Bornfeld]

Straw man much? Did antibiotics cause abortion?

[Andrew Schulman]

On Oct 11, 8:33 am, dewachen1...@gmail.com wrote:
> Amazing!  according to conventional medical science this could not have happened...
>
>
The people I work with every week are in the "conventional medical
science" world except that for all kinds of reasons that world has
evolved a lot. For instance, they think having a classical guitarist
in the SICU 3 days a week (and other musicians from the music therapy
department on other days) is a good idea. For good reason, they see
it helps the healing process. They base that on observable data.
There is a computer monitor at each bedside showing the vital signs.

Likewise, my story was observable. The patient was clinically dead,
but later knew the name of the tune.

Andrew