Curious to know

[The Valkyrie]

Brain dead my arse:

Brain Dead?

Prikky, these people know nothing right?  What is this?  Is it a conspiracy to stop your world view?

Please Prikky, how do we explain this away?  We need your help

Didn't I say that LR give free tuition?
Here I am.


There are enough experiences to knock down your theory.
Let us talk about just one experience but there are many more.

One of this experience was about one person that after he or she die (I forgot about the sex)
in the emergency room of the hospital saw what was happening inside the hospital.
He or she saw a nurse that drop a baby on the floor.
The baby had a fracture and was crying for the pain but the nurse was not ready to accept the responsibility so she put the baby in the cot and moved on as nothing happened.
When the person who had the NDE and saw what happened from above (so to speak) came back to life
he or she inform the doctors who brought him-her back to life of the incident so the baby with the fracture could be look after.

Now you tell me how could the brain see what happen inside the hospital?
The brain doesn't but the consciousness can therefore it was the consciousness that took over once the brain was gone.  

Ever been on the very edge of sleep when you're basically out but you can clearly hear what's going on around you, or you focus on one or two specific things?  And, since your eyes are closed and you can't see what's happening, your brain rather vividly creates a picture in your mind of what is happening?

This can be an explanation for such claims.  And your brain can notice extreme details that you didn't think you noticed.

We haven't come close to mapping the brain's full potential.

[Angrboda]

The research of Karl Jansen has revealed how the effects of an NDE can be induced by ketamine. In 1996 he published a paper on the subject which concluded "mounting evidence suggests that the reproduction/induction of NDE's by ketamine is not simply an interesting coincidence... ketamine administered by intravenous injection, in appropriate dosage, is capable of reproducing all of the features of the NDE which have been commonly described in the most cited works in this field."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience

Ketamine (Medical names: Ketanest, Ketaset, Ketalar; Street names: K, Ket, Special K, Vitamin K) is a member of a class of drugs known as "NMDA receptor agonists".  It is structurally similar to PCP, but generally considered much safer (even possessing properties that help prevent neuron damage).  As the dosage increases, ketamine begins binding to a wider range of receptors, including opioid μ receptors and sigma receptors, some of which decrease its bioavailability and help prevent overdose.  This built-in safeguard has made it a popular anesthetic; however, due to the severe hallucinations it can cause, it is generally only used with other anesthetics to help ensure complete unconsciousness.

As a street drug, ketamine is used precisely for said hallucinations.  The experience of being on ketamine is very different from that of LSD, which binds to entirely different receptors (the "G-protein coupled receptors").  The effects of Ketamine have been well studied.  For example, in a Russian experiment with alcoholics:

Thus the enhanced spirituality in patients after KPT might be an important element to the therapeutic action. Regarding spiritual experiences induced by ketamine, it is interesting that many people who never thought about spirituality or the meaning of life reported having profound religious transformative experiences. At the ketamine session, people often experienced the separation of consciousness from the body and the dissolving of the body ego. For many patients, it is a profound insight that they can exist without their bodies as pure consciousness or pure spirit. Some of them said that as a result of their experience, they understood the Christian notion of the separation of the soul and the body. Some people reported contact with God, and after coming back to ordinary consciousness, they feel sure that they have had contact with a higher power. Many patients reported the existence of other dimensions or other worlds that are parallel to ours and seem as real or even more real than our own. Some patients experienced the expansion of consciousness to encompass the whole universe, whole cosmos, etc. They often said: "I ceased to exist, I disappeared, yet still just my consciousness existed. It was like I became the whole universe or the whole cosmos".

Near-Death Experiences: the 'Ketamine' Hypothesis

[Losty]

Damn I wish I could have been a test subject in that experiment

[Minimalist]

Shitheads are always impressed by woo.

Scientists find out what the woo is.... and the religitards hate them for it!


http://www.bbc.com/news/health-15494379

Near-death experiences are simply "manifestations of normal brain functions gone awry", researchers say.
Psychologists from Edinburgh University and the Medical Research Council in Cambridge reviewed existing research.
They say phenomena such as out-of-body experiences or encounters with dead relatives are tricks of the mind rather than a glimpse of the afterlife.
One of the researchers, Dr Caroline Watt, said: "Our brains are very good at fooling us."
The researchers say that many common near-death experiences could be caused by the brain's attempt to make sense of unusual sensations and perceptions occurring during a traumatic event.

Move along, religitards.  Nothing to see here.

[Angrboda]

One interesting tidbit is that pediatric patients with NDEs visualize talking to friends and people still alive, in contrast to adult experiencers who are more likely to converse with the deceased.

[Magilla]

Suppose some respected member of this forum had an NDE.
After that they come back here on the forum telling that God exist.
Would you believe them and give up atheism or no thinking that they just had
some sort of hallucination?  

To me, it would prove one thing only, namely that the person thought they had had a near death experience.

Suppose we grant that they did have some kind of experience. It would not tell us anything much. I have no problem with concluding that some people have had hallucinatory experiences when near to death, and that they may have been convinced that the hallucination was something more. But neither I nor they could claim to have reliable information about what actually happened.

We know that the brain does not make accurate recordings of memories, but rather reconstructs past happenings in a person's life. The NDE may be a reconstruction of something well after the person has revived, made up out of a completely physical event, (or maybe nothing at all), into something meaningful. And don't overlook the fact that an NDE is not an experience of death, but one of an uncommon experience in the life of some people.

[bennyboy]

Once again you guys are not answering the question.
I am not talking about people who had an NDE in general.
I am very very specific and ask if one of you which is a respected atheist in this forum would come back in here after an NDE experience saying that he-she was wrong all the way........what would you do?
Change, not change or what else?  

It's possible if someone's brain state and chemistry changed severely, their beliefs would change as well. For example, if my brain suddenly became the same as yours, Little Rik, I'd probably think the same way you do, and believe in God.

If I started hearing voices, and heard them for so many years that they seemed like a central part of my existence, and if thos voices seemed to be teaching me valuable life lessons, I might come to believe that they were voices from God or angels or something.

Most people here would see that as hallucinations of a malfunctioning brain. You might see it as a legitimate religious experience. However, it's clear enough that experiences can be false, no matter how strong they seem.

My answer to you is this: I can't imagine that I would change my view, whatever the experience. . . but I haven't had the experience, so I cannot know for sure.

[IATIA]

If my brain suffered a catastrophic malfunction, the "I" I am now might not be the same "I" any longer and I could not say what the new "I" would think.

[KevinM1]

The doctors used to use ketamine on me as a surgical anaesthetic back in the late 80s/early 90s. Pre-teen me tripped balls on that shit. I mean, dreams of my mom operating on me, giant 3D letters whizzing by my head, a castle on a floating rock in the middle of a storm cloud... Stuff that I still remember because it was so vivid, with sounds and smells and tactile sensations as well as the visuals.

Our brain chemistry is sensitive to changes. It's why things like caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol work. It's why various drugs to modify our mood and depression and focus work. It's how general anaesthesia works. When the brain undergoes trauma, it can do funny things, especially when its chemistry is altered. That's why it's idiotic to think that NDEs contain a mystical component.

[robvalue]

You could change the question to every atheist on the forum suddenly turning up with stories about meeting God. Any stories. I don't care. Evidence or GTFO. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and anecdotes are terrible evidence. Absolutely terrible. For anything except the mundane, they are next to worthless. Even huge numbers of anecdotes are worthless. For mundane claims, sure. For relatively unimportant claims, sure. I'll settle for anecdotes from people I trust. But not for claims regarding stuff not even understood by science. My wife tells me stories about ghosts and other such weirdness. I believe she believes them, but I don't believe her conclusions are correct.

I'd be interested to investigate what exactly has gone on to make all these atheists lose their shit at once. I'd suspect some other explanation. But I simply wouldn't know.

And to prove a point, if all the theists in this forum turned up one day with stories of how they went outside the universe or some shit and saw there was no god, would little Rik believe them on weight of numbers? And become an atheist? I'm thinking no. I'm thinking he'd want evidence, all of a sudden.