I see your point, but how would that explain the experiences people are having in an NDE? Let me put it this way, there is no evidence that the extension of our body in the ways you describe, are extensions that would give rise to these kinds of experiences. And I agree that we don't perceive all that we are, in fact, I think NDEs give evidence that we are more than this body. — Sam26

NDE suggests to me that the “point of view” we typically associate as located within the eyes is more fluid than presumed.

“Point of view” from eye location, I think, is a habit of mind. It becomes a location that is expected. Memory of all past experience is data fed into the present thereby influences what is seen and experienced.

Our point of view is "located within the eyes" because that's where the light stimulus is gathered from.

Analogously, when we're viewing a monitor of a security camera feed, the point of view is "located within the camera".

what criteria makes testimonial evidence strong? — Sam26

One criterion for strong testimonial evidence is corroboration. If multiple people testify to witnessing an event then the claims corroborated by the testimony have more weight as evidence. (likewise, if people testify to not-witnessing something when they allegedly should have, it weakens the testimonial evidence)

Another criterion is the credibility of witnesses. If a witness has a clear bias (such as a conflict of interest or having been inebriated at the time) then this can weaken the inductive strength of testimony as evidence.

Falsifiability is a great attribute for improving the strength of testimonial evidence. The more you try and fail to falsify a claim, the stronger that claim is shown to be.

Our point of view is "located within the eyes" because that's where the light stimulus is gathered from. — VagabondSpectre

This does not take memory and it's impact on perception - impact on "consciousness" into account.

Can you answer, therefore, this question. From where is "the light" you speak of "gathered from" in order to generate the experience of dreams, in all their colors, shapes and 3 dimension during sleep? Remember it is usually dark and eyes are shut.

Analogously, when we're viewing a monitor of a security camera feed, the point of view is "located within the camera". — VagabondSpectre

Incorrect. While a monitor is viewed by "oneself" the point-of-view (POV) is located (habitually, imo) "within the eyes".

A camera and a monitor is, like the room they are in, merely part of that entire experience which is presumed to be the things we "see".

And "Analogously" refers to biology. A camera is not biological.

From where is "the light" you speak of "gathered from" in order to generate the experience of dreams, in all their colors, shapes and 3 dimension during sleep? Remember it is usually dark and eyes are shut. — raza

Photons that the eyes gather are turned into electrical and chemical signals that the brain then interprets. The data within the light that the eye gathers is what the consciousness sees.

Given our dreams clearly draw from our memories it's not surprising that they usually conform to them in many ways.

Incorrect. While a monitor is viewed by "oneself" the point-of-view (POV) is located (habitually, imo) "within the eyes". — raza

What if you're wearing a VR headset?

And "Analogously" refers to biology. A camera is not biological. — raza

Analagously refers to "analogs" (as in: a person or thing similar to another). As it happens, "analogous" is used to describe comparisons between biological and non-biological things all the time: bird wings and plane wings are analagous; photosynthesis and solar panels; machine learning and human learning; cameras and eyeballs.

If you'd like to know more about the definition of analagous, feel free to have a read!

Photons that the eyes gathers are turned into electrical and chemical signals that the brain then interprets. The data within the light that the eye gathers is what the consciousness sees.

Given our reams clearly draw from our memories it's not surprising that they usually conform to them in many ways — VagabondSpectre

As with dream-sleep, the same "chemical signals that the brain then interprets" therefore produce our "awake" dream experience with added dimensions (touch etc). It is all "data" either in dream-sleep or awake-sleep.

It is all on a spectrum of illusion. Senses denote points on that spectrum.

What if you're wearing a VR headset? — VagabondSpectre

Of course. Distance between objects is irrelevant. It is still two objects, brain and vr headset.

" It is still two objects, brain and vr headset."

Although "you", I argue, are the entire experience of "brain" and "vr headset". The dream is two objects or the "I" in the room.

"You" can only logically be whatever the entire experience is.

And this understanding, therefore, accommodates (not for simple convenience) a greater space within which POV can locate.

After all, an "outer body experience" often occurs as a result of a sudden impact-like trauma which therefore may JOLT one from the habit-of-mind state which constructs the common POV location experience (although an OBE can also eventuate via subtle shifts of consciousness, astral projection etc).

One criterion for strong testimonial evidence is corroboration. If multiple people testify to witnessing an event then the claims corroborated by the testimony have more weight as evidence. (likewise, if people testify to not-witnessing something when they allegedly should have, it weakens the testimonial evidence)

Another criterion is the credibility of witnesses. If a witness has a clear bias (such as a conflict of interest or having been inebriated at the time) then this can weaken the inductive strength of testimony as evidence.

Falsifiability is a great attribute for improving the strength of testimonial evidence. The more you try and fail to falsify a claim, the stronger that claim is shown to be. — VagabondSpectre

All of these have been talked about, and you're right, corroboration, credibility, and falsification are all part of a good argument. My argument was presented at the beginning of this thread, several posts down from the first post.

This is a study of memories and NDEs.

https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/wp-content/uploads/sites/360/2017/03/NDE-85-MCQ-ConCog.pdf

The following video is interesting, especially the first few minutes. Start at 3:27.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RGizqsLumo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zdZG6KFM0g&t=94s

could it just be a dream, interpreted as something more or something different?

What follows is something I've talked about before, but it gets lost in the pages, so it bears repeating. It also represents my conclusions from studying many thousands of NDEs. Of all the things I've written, this is most important to me, it goes to heart of who we are, and where we come from.

Part of this is a response to Aleksander's comment just above, but it goes beyond his question. Could it be a dream, Aleksander asks?

It's just another level of consciousness (awareness) that we choose to experience for a variety of reasons. You won't know, at least many of us, what those reasons are until you return to the source of your being, at least not fully. Some of us do feel we know our purpose. For example, some people have always known that they wanted to be a doctor, teacher, scientist, etc, but most of us who live average lives don't have a sense that we should be pursuing x, y, or z. So for the average person their sense of purpose tends to be muddled in a myriad of small seemingly insignificant acts or experiences. Remember that everything you do has significance, even the smallest of things, yes, even your responses in this forum has significance. Any interaction with another person has significance, and while it's true that we are all part of an ultimate consciousness (for lack of a better description), at the core of this consciousness is love; and to the degree that you're able to express this love, you can be sure that that is definitely part of what you should be doing, part of your purpose. And no matter what we believe, most of us would agree that being kind to others, even to the most vulnerable (animals for e.g.) is a good thing, even to those we loathe.

What is the source? it's ourselves, we are the source, we along with many others are the co-creators of this reality, and all realities. There is no God in the religious sense, that's just man's way of trying to describe what he feels at a deeper level. The closest thing to a God is this source, but we are part of the source, we are one with it, all of us. In a very real sense, we are god. Every thing that exists is ultimately connected to the source. It's our home, where we come from, where we get our life. Moreover, we are eternal beings, who live out many different lives in different realities. Sometimes we choose to come back to this reality, which is probably where the idea of reincarnation came from.

As I said above we make the choice to come here, we actually agree to certain things before we come here. Part of this agreement includes the suppression of many of our memories, choice of parents, when we die, who are children might be, and the choice of some or even all of what we experience.

I'll end here for now.

This is one example of what life is about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89VlnvGnP2s

As I said above we make the choice to come here, we actually agree to certain things before we come here. Part of this agreement includes the suppression of many of our memories, — Sam26

According to esoteric traditions like Gnosticism, Hermeticism or Neoplatonism our loss of memory of who we are or of where we come from is basically a disease. A result of an ancient spiritual fall.

Ya, I'm sure there are many traditional beliefs that go against much of this. What I've tried to do is let the testimonial evidence speak for itself, even if the conclusions meant going against many traditional beliefs, whether western or eastern traditional beliefs. Much or many of the conclusions are downright bazaar in many cases, although it seems that many of our metaphysical beliefs may have sprung from some of these NDEs, for example, reincarnation.

But what would be the point in intentionally suppressing our memories of who we are or where we came from?

One point is probably to allow you to fully partake of this reality without the hindrance of knowing what this reality is. It would affect your ability to fully immerse yourself in this reality.

It seems that suppressing our memory of our loving nature has resulted in a lot of horrible experiences. Why would we want that?

First, nothing can ultimately harm us, but obviously that doesn't help as we're experiencing some very difficult experiences. Second, it's what we learn from these experiences that seems to be important. Third, you agree to this, so it's nothing that's forced upon you, which is why I don't believe there is really a problem of evil. Moreover, some of us think that it's so important, viz., coming here, that we come back and do it again. I don't have all the answers, and no one does, but coming here does have important ramifications on who we are; and it's not only important for us, but also those people who are around us.

Learning from experiences might be a good reason to undergo them. But why would a loving being want to experience what it's like to, say, murder someone? What would it want to learn from it?

Maybe the question should be reversed, why would you want to undergo the experience of being murdered, because based on the testimonial evidence you probably know before coming here some of what you'll experience, or even all that you'll experience. However, probably what you don't know is how you will respond to the experiences as a human. Another way to think about it is this: Think of what we put ourselves through to achieve an important goal, people will put themselves through some of the most grueling of experiences, and even risk extreme pain to achieve a goal. So it wouldn't surprise me that some people would choose to have these experiences; and remember, not everyone chooses to be murdered or tortured, some people choose to live out relatively normal kinds of lives.

My beliefs run parallel (for the most part) with @Sam26 particularly in the sense of life's unity. Anyway, I would like to contribute my opinion on the 'suppression of memory'.
I think if asked to retell anything about any of our past day(s) in life, especially the most memorable, whether the best or worst of moments, it would be difficult to express every detail to the hour, let alone minute. We lose a lot of information to our untrained capacity to remember. While I cannot offer any proof of reincarnation/metempsychosis, I do find it rather captivating in the way it unifies experience and, somewhat, in accordance with the scientific law that, "energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed." (Reincarnation is all about transformation of 'human' energy.)
Anyway, sorry I digressed a bit there, the 'suppression of memory' seems to me as an 'unachieved capacity' to fully recall, not just our current life experiences but all our experiences as 'human' energy (or souls, spirits, consciousness, ego, self, etc, whichever your currency is). This, to me, somewhat explains such phenomenon as people who have eidetic memories or perfect recall, people who claim to remember past lives with high levels of accuracy, or people like the Buddha, whom it is said, recalled all his past lives through all the levels of evolution, from the beginning to his present, during his meditations. Perhaps with time and through certain disciplines we learn to 'more fully' remember (realize) our connection to life (or God, energy, etc, again, per your currency).

What would one want to learn or achieve from the experience of being murdered?

What I find interesting is that many people who have an NDE recover their memories during their experience. They'll say to themselves, "How could I have forgotten that," or "Oh, now I remember." If you think about different levels of consciousness, say dreaming for example, this is exactly what happens as we descend into the lower levels of awareness, we forget the higher levels. It's not until we wake up (so to speak) that the memories return.

So the suppression of memory would not be an intentional choice but rather a weakness. Makes more sense to me, especially when the suppression of memory is likely to have horrible consequences and not much meaningful benefit.

I would just be guessing, but it does seem to be the case that whatever we experience contributes to learning on some level. We can see this when people have life reviews during their NDE. They are never judged, but only asked what did you learn? What's most important about living life is love. Maybe some of these experiences take us so far away from love that we are only able to see its importance the further we get from the ideal.

I think the suppression of memory allows us to fully engage in this world.

Ya Brian I see total unity of mind or consciousness, which is why I think the unifying principle behind everything is consciousness.

I wouldn't say the 'suppression' is unintentional, more of, it's a choice whether we are aware or unaware of it. It can be intentional in the sense that, the wisdom extracted from the experience is of significance while the minute details or circumstances are not, hence our analytical and memory processes work in unison to give what is necessary.

I'm grey on this topic so I'm still trying to process it.

What I find interesting is that many people who have an NDE recover their memories during their experience. They'll say to themselves, "How could I have forgotten that," or "Oh, now I remember." If you think about different levels of consciousness, say dreaming for example, this is exactly what happens as we descend into the lower levels of awareness, we forget the higher levels. It's not until we wake up (so to speak) that the memories return. — Sam26

But we don't have much choice about suppressing our memory when we fall asleep. It just happens as we fall asleep. Maybe it is similar with the suppression of memory during incarnation - it just happens and there is not much we can do about it. Maybe one day we will be able to control it. Maybe one day we used to be able to control it but we lost that ability due to a spiritual fall, as the esoteric sources say.

But we don't have much choice about suppressing our memory when we fall asleep. It just happens as we fall asleep. Maybe it is similar with the suppression of memory during incarnation - it just happens and there is not much we can do about it. Maybe one day we will be able to control it. Maybe one day we used to be able to control it but we lost that ability due to a spiritual fall, as the esoteric sources say. — litewave

Well, the dream analogy isn't perfect, but I do believe that when we choose to come here, part of making that decision is the suppression of who we really are, what we know, and where we're from. We make an agreement when we come here, for e.g., we agree to come here for a certain period of time, which is why people who have NDEs are told it's not their time, you have to go back.