5 ms·

Of course there are also stories of people who claim to have left their body and seen the operating theatre from above and to have noticed some unexpected objec

by bloak 3y ago

Of course there are also stories of people who claim to have left their body and seen the operating theatre from above and to have noticed some unexpected object on top of a cupboard or in some other location visible only from on high ... and later, when someone checks, the object really is there ... [spooky music] ...

aitchnyu 3y ago
18 hospitals planted such objects so that only beings floating close to the ceiling can see them. Wonder if those objects are still there and how the rest of the research went. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/10/26/130829358/are-near-death-experiences-real https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/10/26/130829358...
andyjohnson0 3y ago
> stories Are there actual, verified instances of this happening?
- NateEag 3y ago
  The canonical compilation of these anecdotes is "The Self Does Not Die": https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Self_Does_Not_Die.html?id=LBCbDAEACAAJ https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Self_Does_Not_Die.h... There are a few stories in it that left me raising my eyebrows and going "well, that seems improbable." I've not found any I couldn't construct a reductionist dismissal for (usually of the form "confirmation bias - someone had to eventually have the hallucination that corresponded with reality and we don't hear about the failures" or "the witnesses memories are incorrect"), but that doesn't mean I find the dismissals entirely plausible or fully convincing.
ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
I like this kind of experiment, but it would have to be tightly controlled to avoid anyone viewing the object and possibly communicating it to the patient. Maybe some kind of duplicated 2FA device that shows a time-changing code and the twin device records its output over time - that would be tricky to cheat.
jzb 3y ago
I don’t know if there’s an afterlife or not, but if there’s such a thing as a soul I wouldn’t think it’d operate on a technicality. That is: our medical definition of death wouldn’t be what determines freeing a soul from the body. I can’t imagine an “oops, looks like they got your heart beating again - guess it’s time to stuff that pesky soul back in the carcass. See you in a few years” scenario.

by bloak 3y ago

aitchnyu 3y ago

18 hospitals planted such objects so that only beings floating close to the ceiling can see them. Wonder if those objects are still there and how the rest of the research went. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/10/26/130829358/are-near-death-experiences-real https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/10/26/130829358...

andyjohnson0 3y ago

> stories Are there actual, verified instances of this happening?

NateEag 3y ago
The canonical compilation of these anecdotes is "The Self Does Not Die": https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Self_Does_Not_Die.html?id=LBCbDAEACAAJ https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Self_Does_Not_Die.h... There are a few stories in it that left me raising my eyebrows and going "well, that seems improbable." I've not found any I couldn't construct a reductionist dismissal for (usually of the form "confirmation bias - someone had to eventually have the hallucination that corresponded with reality and we don't hear about the failures" or "the witnesses memories are incorrect"), but that doesn't mean I find the dismissals entirely plausible or fully convincing.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago

I like this kind of experiment, but it would have to be tightly controlled to avoid anyone viewing the object and possibly communicating it to the patient. Maybe some kind of duplicated 2FA device that shows a time-changing code and the twin device records its output over time - that would be tricky to cheat.

jzb 3y ago

I don’t know if there’s an afterlife or not, but if there’s such a thing as a soul I wouldn’t think it’d operate on a technicality. That is: our medical definition of death wouldn’t be what determines freeing a soul from the body. I can’t imagine an “oops, looks like they got your heart beating again - guess it’s time to stuff that pesky soul back in the carcass. See you in a few years” scenario.