h a l f b a k e r yA riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a rich, flaky crust
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When a hospital patient is about to enter a state of near-
death where an OOBE is typically experienced, a sticker of
random color with a random number printed on it should be
placed on the patient's forehead. After the patient is
revived, if they claim to have had an OOBE, they shall be
queried
about
the color/number combination of the
sticker. If they claim they didn't see a sticker, I think it's
safe to say they were either hallucinating or making it up.
Note on research: I did some searching, and the closest
I've found was a news story about some UK hospitals
hanging pictures, face-up, from the ceiling. I couldn't find
any results from this type of test, however, and there
could well be an issue of knowing exactly how high the
person is supposedly floating.
This test should alleviate that concern.
[link]
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I am sure I have read, that the reason for there not being very many results, is that the results are usually negative, and the researchers then feel disinclined to publicise the results. |
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I saw a video recently where James Randi (for anyone not
familiar with him, he is the archetypal skeptic when it
comes to matters such as this one) talks about an event he
could only describe as an out of body experience. He
couldn't honestly say with any certainty that he hadn't
really had one, until his son pointed out that he had seen
the wrong color bed sheets while he was floating over his
bed. |
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There was a halbake on this topic about placing some sort
of unusual object for the disembodied observer to identify
as proof. |
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And in a separate but linked study, webcams are setup pointing at chimneys all around the world on Christmas Eve. |
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"Oh, what a beautiful light, I know I'm dying, I see my whole life like a movie, I must see the sticker in my forehead just in case" |
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Does anyone ever see fire and pitchforks? (just curious) |
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/fire and pitchforks/
Probably you could get some press if you claimed to. Especially if you claimed to have mooned the lake of fire lifeguards as you were whisked back to the mortal plane. |
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BTW the light people see is probably ambient light, but made very bright because their pupils are dilating. |
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"Orderly, why have you seated all the comatose patients around a card table ?"
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"They're playing Out-of-Body Poker, sir". |
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There's a game where people around a table each has a card stuck to his/her forehead and must figure out what the card is. OOBE would be considered cheating here? (No nearly choking oneself to death - against the rules.) |
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The best explanation for the "moving through a tunnel towards a bright light" is that it's the mind's recollection of birth, recycled.
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I haven't heard an explanation for the "meeting dead people" part of many near death experiences. |
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Ah yes [squeaketh], I have played that game with my family many times, but it is played with all participants slumped on easy chairs in the living room after a boozy festive meal, rather than at the table. |
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Is there any reason to speculate on the hazy
rememberings of almost dead people? Did they see the
bright light when they were at their most almost dead, or
in the seconds before regaining consciousness. Is the
narrator not the least bit unreliable about matters of
perception such as time. Was the light ambient or the
perception of light from the visual cortex. Isn't it much
like a morning conversation about someone's recent dream
that admittedly is a little interesting but not a source of
any real certainties.
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Personally I can't wait to die and find out for sure. I'm a
little skeptical that everyone just teleports to safety once
their bodies die. There is comfort in the near certainty
that perception dies, but it is the opposite belief that
informs some about the afterlife. The safest way to face
eternity in my opinion would be to be without perceptions
at all. Time and all that can carry on while the dead
blissfully ignore it like eternal badasses. Nonexistence may be
something really
stupid and relieving anyway like individual minds are just
the individual perceptions of biological entities and when
they die the relative importance of things also die, and we
just go back to being floaty stuff that nothing is really
important to especially being alive, because that was
really just an inconvenient way for matter to be organized together
in the first place. |
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Imminent meaning certain but it will be as much of a
surprise to me as anyone.
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But on this point about the relative importance of things the fear of death stands out. Isn't fear the death feeling itself? Isn't it that thing that is of the utmost importance to a living being that can grow way out of hand, and can be used to manipulate and control the mind? If fear is anything, isn't it a functional thing, something that protects a living thing from death? What is the fear of death to someone who has already died or is about to die? Something of little importance, just as everything your biological entity needs and loves that will be difficult to let go of. I've found that some people tend to prey on the death feeling and use cunning poisonous afterlife threats tied to religious antidotes that they control, but in all exactitude they can be guaranteed to not know a damn thing, and deserve what they promise for others. |
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I don't fear death. I only fear the bits leading up to it. |
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Why can't we just assume that we expire completely, just as all living things seem to.
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Afterlife: Does every cell that is born get one? Plasmodia? Protizoa? Is the afterlife limited to chordates? Only humans? (what hubris) Or can we just apply Occam's razor and say that no living thing gets one without some evidence to the contrary. |
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The biggest practical reason not to assume we expire completely is that it will develop into a sort of fatalistic philosophy that can become religious. People will eventually start to worship ultimate destruction or something stupid like that as people are apt to do (remember the stupid idiots called people?). One benefit of the rejection of religion is free speculation on the nature of existence. As long as the mind is open to free speculation and doesn't get trapped in only one way of thinking about things religiosity can be avoided. I view complete expiration as a sound possibility and to some degree accept it. However, I also like to speculate that within a universe or cosmos of infinite possibilities my existence, and yours, might again be possible. Or even that minds can exist in some other quantum arrangement in some other dimension or something like that. The ability to freely speculate without reaching the conclusion that a diety has affirmed it, the community has affirmed it, or even discursive regimes have affirmed it.
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Revisionism is one of the biggest indicators of absurdity in the history of systems of thought. That people so strongly base entire epistemes on certain systems for producing knowledge and rational ways of thought that are later discovered to be nonsense provides for an anti-episteme of "justified true doubt", for any kind of systematically contrived conclusion. |
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Not only that [wcw] but what about the afterlife of the light bulb that failed last night? The mobile phone you bricked by dropping it in the bath? The piece of paper you shredded?
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I suppose, though, that all the people in the afterlife will be glad to have the use of modern conveniences such as light bulbs, writing paper and mobile phones. |
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//I did some searching, and the closest I've found was a news story about some UK hospitals hanging pictures, face-up, from the ceiling.// Nice to see the National Health Service is on the cutting edge of medical research.
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If the hospital decided to administer this test to me I'd declare that I'm having an "out of hospital experience" as I walked out the door. Or crawled if I had to.
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I'm gonna bun this assuming it's based more on a quest for humor than the answer to the eternal question. |
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