"There is the fact our minds are indivisible and thus indestructible. And there is the fact our deaths are extremely harmful to us (which yet would not be if they ceased our existence)."

What do we know about the mind to know it isn't divisible or destructible? If we continue after death how is death harmful to the person?

Do we even know if reincarnation is a thing or is compulsory? I think reincarnation and NDEs need to be studied separately.

If I was in a hospital knowing I might be in mortal danger I don't think I'd let my thought travel far from there. Seems priority to stay present and not off riding unicorns and stuff?

There is research into previous lives which seems even less scientific as a living person is referring to a dead person who can't confirm they are the same person. I'm not partial to reincarnation, but would accept it if it ended up being true.

By stuck in a room my emphasis is gaining knowledge from outside. If a person's body hasn't moved and they claimed an out of body experience they should be able to point out particular details from elsewhere that they hadn't been prior. https://www.nderf.org is run by Dr. Long who isn't a scientist and he relies entirely on self reporting which seems to have a very Christian bias. I'm not particular to those stories. A more international pool of people is much preferred.

I think most people know what a typical dream would seem like? Personally my dreams are weak, not vivid, and I rarely remember them. Also entirely too many dreams about work.

ditto to your question.

What other type of evidence are you referring to?

And yes you could say a person never died if they can make a recovery no matter if the doctor says they "officially" died. But to my knowledge dead men tell no tails, and I am skeptical of psychic research. I don't think they have ever beaten the odds when testing their claimed abilities. So I don't concern myself as much with talking to people after they are all dead.

I am interested in knowledge gained from the experience that is very unlikely to be gained from the individual in their state and position. It would of course be unethical to ship a person to a lab for a proper experiment if there is a better chance to save them first and foremost. It's also unethical to prove that smoking causes cancer because we have enough evidence that taking a person in good health with no cancer in the family and making them smoke is a bad idea. I don't think this type of research should be ignored because it isn't more convenient.

I read your post previously, or at least the first 10 pages. It seemed to go in circles after that. I really need more than sheer number of testimonials of the experience. I need information gained from the experience that can't be gotten by a person unmoving and stuck in the room. Like for example I heard such a story of a person who had an out of body experiences and claimed to see a sneaker on the roof of the hospital, and strangely enough that was true. I like to hear more like that.

I don't know if people question more the limits of research methods available, or those doing the research and any bias they may have. Personally I have seen videos of a couple NDEs researchers that seemed completely genuine and not too zealous. Maybe even less enthusiastic than those claiming new treatments for cancer. Just very matter of fact.

I only linger on the subject because I suffer from chronic pain that makes most days useless. I rarely leave the couch outside of going to work. After getting Covid-19 I started get trigeminal nerve pain. I can't help but think about what's next since clearly medical knowledge isn't advanced enough now. I am grateful I was in great health through most of my 20s when health is supposed to be good and life is supposed to be enjoyable. But ultimately, it's not a pointless question to ask what's next since quality of life isn't promised to anyone. And philosophy is the subject that must be open to all things.

Don't linger on the word "near." That only emphasizes that it wasn't permanent this time. Focus on any information recovered during the experience that the patient couldn't have had because it occurred in a different room entirely from the patient for example. Or if you think of the experience itself I have read DMT and Ketamine are the chemicals most likely to produce the experiences described in NDEs. I don't know that the brain can even produce enough DMT to produce a full blown hallucination.

Likewise. Antiaging research gives me hope of functioning again.

That does make intelligence interesting if it actually impedes survival. It must than serve a different purpose. Hopefully one that makes us special even if not enduring.

How do you mean? And there is also the specificity of a creature. A bacteria may live over many years of generations, but will also have many mutations so it isn't necessary the same thing before long. A complex creature with the same number of mutations may still be call human after more time because of the relative small changes.

Maybe both, but I assume simple to complex happened first.

I certainly often wondered what it would be to have a graduate degree. I assume the great cost of getting one is related to the supposed promise of a career in a subject. It would of been nice to study a subject on the cheap with a promise to stay out of related industries. Lol.

Well evolution does mention the color of a beetle that doesn't get eaten because it goes unseen, so purpose is addressed in general evolution thinking. But what about more subtle qualities that one could argue make little sense any other way. For example the human eye by physics must be a certain shape to focus light correctly.

Their mutual goal isn't to either explain how we got here or where we might be going?

Well their purpose can't be simply life as we are far more complex than the minimum requirement of being alive. I am curious of the other forces that guide our betterment that go beyond a guy looking good enough for pity sex. Lol.

Looks like interesting reading. Thanks.

I just mean as far as a locator of how life got to where it is now. I realize creationism is baseless, but its purpose is common somehow with evolution.

Ok. How do we know that light can only travel at exactly 1 speed? Massful things can vary in speed. How can light have only 1 speed? Perhaps light that exceeds our measure of "lightspeed" can't be measured in the massful world. Basically only light's lowest energy state represented here?

I mean sense of self and requirements of survival and thriving, but not necessarily a sense of importance. Just action towards own goals without thought of who else's needs might be missed in ones own pursuits without consciously thinking the worth of self versus not self. Maybe more of an intuition?

"Intriguingly, the ego has this burning desire to be part of something bigger, but the catch is it must negate itself for this. It's not about me anymore!"

Apart of something bigger then negates itself? What examples are there?

How do we determine what we should strive to have for ourselves that isn't selfish (assuming existence itself isn't selfish) and isn't taking from others that are in more need? We seem to do this intuitively, but we never really make deserving objective?

My mistake. Conformal cyclic cosmology

Although such research is questionable, those that study reincarnation stories have not found evidence for karma. Only for reincarnation through alleged memories of previous lives.

I think Roger Penrose suggested a cyclic universe of multiple big bangs? Was that chaos theory? Perhaps there can be multiple definitions of time or different levels as there are of Infinity within mathematics?

Biden has often had to choose between being compassionate and being Catholic.

And ironically people stopped going to church for football.

I know. Lol.

As it turns out, most vision problems require much more than lens. Lol. The human eye has many fallible parts unfortunately.

I think self analysis is pointless in terms of free will. We can't trust this subjective perspective anymore than anecdotes about out of body experiences proving their truth in and of themselves. Our desire for free will doesn't discount it.

Do arguments for free will typically need a spiritual aspect? Like a mind i dependent of the physical world yet that can affect it? Or is it just enough to say we don't know enough about the quantum world or the larger universe and can't really confirm determinism either?

Are you sure it is binary? Either free will or determinism? Doesn't determinism imply that that exact end state of the universe needs to be a particular way and thus a particular trajectory is needed?

I wonder which gratitude is most important. If I were perpetually grateful I'd be exhausted and feel unworthy of everything and start to stop driving my life in any particular way.

Putting God aside. Do we fear the direction our psyche might go in if we don't take stock in things of a positive nature that we receive that we didn't directly contribute to? Is it part of the expectation managing system more than anything?

:smile:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jint5kjoy6I

Does this simple quantum example defend the idea of free will? That things aren't certain even in the short run?

Also is the free will question based entirely on objective outcomes? Clearly I can throw a baseball and wish it to hit a target, but I don't control the wind and its end could be slightly off. In science we like things to be predictable, but do we need them to be perfectly predictable? And would there need to be a good reason for everything to be predetermined before they could be?

Horrible state of things. Particularly that screaming teenager thinking he knows anything about anything.