@farmerman,
For me, this is ez because I 've had a few un-expected
out-of-body experiences in the 1970s and '80s.
From them, I know that my consciousness can exist
independently of my human body. Feels nice.
My former girlfriend, Jayne 's little boy, Chris, had those memories
as he was beginning to learn to speak English on Long Island, NY.
I think he is now in his 30s or 40s.
I 've attended some of the annual conventions of the International Association
of Near Death Studies. Interesting conversations and lectures.
David
@gungasnake,
now now. Lets not display our gibbonous rumps . Its low class.
@farmerman,
Where's xingu when you need him?
http://able2know.org/user/xingu/
I must say I am somewhat bemused by this op
@gungasnake,
Quote: The Julian Jaynes Society would never hear of that, they are all evolutionists just like Jaynes.
Which is why I was accusing you of wandering too close to the flame of knowledge.
Ive read "The Origins of Consciousness ..." many many years ago and was bothered with his "bicameral mind " thingy. We know way more about cerebral structure and responses to maybe look at this with a bit o skepticism neh?
Art v Analytical , big data v poetry etc. we seem to know so much that we are now able to delve into these things as "is consciousness separable" in a reserch project kinda like Descarte would approve of.
This is a fun area of study.
I 'd love to have another OOBE,
tho not ready for the big one yet. Human life is too much fun for that.
David
@farmerman,
farmerman wrote: We know way more about cerebral structure
and responses to maybe look at this with a bit o skepticism neh? . . .
U might like "Proof of Heaven
A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife" by Eben Alexander, M.D.
He was and is a very senior expert on brain structure and functioning; a pleasant read.
@Olivier5,
Quote: Apparently yes. We all have one such space and we can't share it with others
Cool, what Ive wanted. The new research Ive read about is "buddied up" between U Wisconsin and Princeton and some lab in the EU. They are trying to develop some means to actually test that and to mount a quest on such things as NDE's and prenatal memories. (and maybe understand How anasthesia actually work) The working hypotheses is that perhaps consciousness is seperable from the individual
Quote: repulsions like the fear of snakes, and simple behaviors such as sucking tits.
It often goes beyond that , and seems to include some more complex actions and responses that may be more "lamarkian" and seem to be in the realm of epigenetics. (Like abilities to quickly swim in a certain culturally defined manner,)
@farmerman,
I'll believe this when I see evidence of it. To my knowledge, no serious research done on, say, telepathy has yielded anything so far. We are traveling along with our body, evidently... That must be because our body 'produces' or 'underwrite' or 'supports' our mind somehow. I seriously doubt this link can be detached.
@Olivier5,
epigenetic research is still looking for ways to be relevant
@farmerman,
Quote:Quote:....repulsions like the fear of snakes, and simple behaviors such as sucking tits.
It often goes beyond that , and seems to include some more complex actions and responses that may be more "lamarkian" and seem to be in the realm of epigenetics. (Like abilities to quickly swim in a certain culturally defined manner,)
Instinctive and heritable fears such as those of snakes and spiders appear to be real enough and verified by experiments on mice. Danny Vendramini's notion of "TEEM" theory has a great deal to say about such things.
@farmerman,
The paranormal is fascinating, but full of crooks.
@farmerman,
Epigenetics and much else has shown up since my own genetics class years ago. Just reading up now.
Anyway, I'll be quiet and listen. Interesting thread, Farmer.
@Olivier5,
Olivier5 wrote:The paranormal is fascinating, but full of crooks.
Everything else is full of crooks too. That 's the world.
@farmerman,
thanks for starting this thread, interesting stuff.
Quote:1. Some kids(all over the world) seem to have past life memories that are lost within a few years after birth.
2.We DO NOT know how anesthesias actually work
3. NDE's are getting more and more believable as our abilities to determine and follow brain activities (and lack there of) get more sophisticated. We cannot toss off NDEs as merely stray synapsing in a brain that is "on an anoxic break". We can track synapses now.
excellent points.
Quote:I was one of those kids who had pre-life memories and I still hve recall of some of the points I would ask my folks.
can i ask what you mean by prelife memories, and what specifically it is that you can remember?
anyway, my thoughts.
consciousness is a word we use to describe our experience. the brain and its synapses are part of the body, and theoretically, we cannot say they have anything to do with consciousness. now, i agree there is overwhelming evidence that different synaptic firing patterns correlate to different states of consciousness. however, this is only evidence that brain or body AFFECTS consciousness, not that it is the ultimate cause of it.
so what i propose is that the nature of consciousness is the ultimate nature of the entire universe, of every particle. what we experience as human consciousness is the highly specialised and evolved consciousness, filtered through the human brain and sensory systems. however, the source of the consciousness, the awareness itself, is beyond the individual body, and is the very nature of the universe.
so, the simple answers to your points 2 and 3 above would be that when the brain/nervous system is blocked (either temporarily by a neuroblocking anaeshetic, or because it is dying in a NDE), the individual, evolved consciousness which comes with it is also dying, REVEALING the deeper universal consciousness behind it, in which everything is possible, and individuality doesn't exist.
@Olivier5,
Quote:To my knowledge, no serious research done on, say, telepathy has yielded anything so far.
neither has research on consciousness. all speculative, nothing conclusive.
Quote:We are traveling along with our body, evidently... That must be because our body 'produces' or 'underwrite' or 'supports' our mind somehow. I seriously doubt this link can be detached.
i agree we are travelling with our body. i disagree that therefore the body produces, underwrites, or even supports the mind. we have no way of knowing this, and there is no such evidence. the link between body and mind is, as i said, the ability of the body to affect the mind, which does not imply a causality.
what is happening in your mind when you are deep asleep? not dreaming, actually deep sleep. absolutely nothing. things still happen in the body, heart beats, blood flows, but mind goes temporarily 'dead'. so there is your evidence that there is some detachment possible between body and mind. you may argue this detachment is always temporary, until actual death. but really, if detachment is possible in deep sleep and death, then why should it not be possible sometimes during waking states also (paranormal conscious phenomena).
ABC NEWS
Parents Think Boy Is Reincarnated Pilot
June 30, 2005 --
Six decades ago, a 21-year-old Navy fighter pilot on a mission over
the Pacific was shot down by Japanese artillery. His name might have
been forgotten, were it not for 6-year-old James Leininger.
Quite a few people — including those who knew the fighter pilot —
think James is the pilot, reincarnated.
James' parents, Andrea and Bruce, a highly educated, modern couple,
say they are "probably the people least likely to have a scenario like
this pop up in their lives" but over time, they have become convinced
their little son has had a former life.
From an early age, James would play with nothing else but planes,
his parents say, but when he was 2, they said the planes their son
loved began to give him regular nightmares.
"I'd wake him up and he'd be screaming," Andrea told "Primetime Live"
co-anchor Chris Cuomo. She said when she asked her son what he was
dreaming about, he said, "Airplane crash on fire, little man can't get out."
Reality Check
Andrea says her mom was the first to suggest James was remembering a past life.
At first, Andrea says she was doubtful. James was only watching kids' shows,
his parents say, and they weren't watching World War II documentaries
or conversing about military history, but as time went by, Andrea began
to wonder what to believe. In one video of James at age 3, he goes
over a plane as if he's doing a preflight check.
Another time, Andrea said, she bought him a toy plane, and pointed out
what appeared to be a bomb on its underside. She says James corrected
her, and told her it was a drop tank. "I'd never heard of a drop tank,"
she said. "I didn't know what a drop tank was."
Then James' violent nightmares got worse, occurring three and four
times a week. Andrea's mother suggested she look into the work of
counselor and therapist Carol Bowman, who believes that the dead
sometimes can be reborn.
With guidance from Bowman, they began to encourage James to share
his memories — and immediately, Andrea says, the nightmares started
to become less frequent. James was also becoming more articulate
about his apparent past, she said.
Bowman said James was at the age when former lives are most easily recalled.
"They haven't had the cultural conditioning, the layering over the experience
in this life so the memories can percolate up more easily," she said.
Trail of Mysteries
Over time, James' parents say he revealed extraordinary details about
the life of a former fighter pilot — mostly at bedtime, when he was drowsy.
They say James told them his plane had been hit by the Japanese
and crashed. Andrea says James told his father he flew a Corsair,
and then told her, "They used to get flat tires all the time."
In fact, historians and pilots agree that the plane's tires took a lot of
punishment on landing, but that's a fact that could easily be found
in books or on television.
Andrea says James also told his father the name of the boat he took
off from — Natoma — and the name of someone he flew with — Jack Larson.
After some research, Bruce discovered both the Natoma and Jack Larson were real.
The Natoma Bay was a small aircraft carrier in the Pacific and Larson is living in Arkansas.
"It was like, holy mackerel," Bruce said. "You could have poured my brains out
of my ears. I just couldn't believe it.
James 2 = James M. Huston Jr.?
Bruce became obsessed, searching the Internet, combing through
military records and interviewing men who served aboard the Natoma Bay.
He said James told him he had been shot down at Iwo Jima.
James had also begun signing his crayon drawings "James 3."
Bruce soon learned that the only pilot from the squadron killed
at Iwo Jima was James M. Huston Jr.
Bruce says James also told him his plane had sustained a direct hit
on the engine.
Ralph Clarbour, a rear gunner on a U.S. airplane that flew off the
Natoma Bay, says his plane was right next to one flown by James M. Huston Jr.
during a raid near Iwo Jima on March 3, 1945.
Clarbour said he saw Huston's plane struck by anti-aircraft fire.
"I would say he was hit head on, right in the middle of the engine," he said.
Treasured Mementos
Bruce says he now believes his son had a past life in which he was
James M. Huston Jr. "He came back because he wasn't finished with something."
The Leiningers wrote a letter to Huston's sister, Anne Barron, about
their little boy and now she believes it as well.
"The child was so convincing in coming up with all the things that
there is no way on the world he could know," she said but professor
Paul Kurtz of the State University of New York at Buffalo, who heads
an organization that investigates claims of the paranormal, says he
thinks the parents are "self-deceived."
"They're fascinated by the mysterious and they built up a fairy tale," he said.
James' vivid, alleged recollections are starting to fade as he gets
older — but among his prized possessions remain two haunting
presents sent to him by Barron: a bust of George Washington and
a model of a Corsair aircraft.
They were among the personal effects of James Huston sent home
after the war.
"He appears to have experienced something that I don't think is unique,
but the way it's been revealed is quite astounding," Bruce said.
Asked if the idea that James may have been someone else changes
his or his wife's feeling about their son, Bruce said: "It doesn't change
how we think. I don't look at him and say, 'That's not my boy.' That's my boy."
This story originally aired on April 15, 2004.
@carnaticmystery,
Quote: can i ask what you mean by prelife memories,
Kids often talk incessantly about things they did as "AA grown up" when they did one thing or another.
I recall from my own experience having vivid memories and would relate them at the drop of a hat. My paternal grandmother was more into Slavik legends and superstitions so I was considered "touched by the devil" in her mind.
My son also had similar stories and he was a worker who made metal objects in foundry.
I have no ideas whether these were real, implanted pre-natal in a manner that osso stated ( sound-Permeable womb), or were they like "Advanced ques" for which psychologists used to preach were responsible for "deja vu".
The research work that's being talked about now is operating under n assumption that consciousness and being are separable.
I have neither idea nor opinion and Im not willing to stand up and argue any point but I will take in opinions from others.
@OmSigDAVID,
Did anyone follow up with the boy to see how pwrsistent these memories were and do they fade with time such that most memories (except perhaps terminal ones) are forgotten.
In my own "mind flick" I was in a small boat that was being taken in very rough waters. I almost think that my interest in small boats was initiated in this mental movie.
I know you are an NDE fan but, as I said before, , until something substantive comes up on this phenom, our present explanations of a brain "producing a cascade of synapses" as it begins to shut down is as good as weve got. This is based upon the greater number of folks who DONT have NDE's under cardiac arrest or vegetative states that were later reversed
@OmSigDAVID,
There's a higher concentration of crooks in certain domains. Parapsychology is one such domain. For one thing, the audience is great: throngs of gullible people wanting to believe in something, wanting to be lied to, to be reassured... Hard to resist, if you like being a guru...
