[split] IF you deconverted in midlife, can you help?-NDE Discussion

[Whateverist]

Well there is one important difference.  After you're born you exist and have some form of experience or other even before your first memories.  But before you're even conceived you just don't exist at all.  See?

So what you're saying it that you've discovered proof that consciousness cannot exist apart from the body?

Let me put it this way: do you think digestion exists apart from your G.I. tract?

[Huggy Bear]

So what you're saying it that you've discovered proof that consciousness cannot exist apart from the body?

Let me put it this way: do you think digestion exists apart from your G.I. tract?

Yes.

Now that I've given you a straight answer, how about giving me one?

[Whateverist]

Let me put it this way: do you think digestion exists apart from your G.I. tract?

Yes.

Now that I've given you a straight answer, how about giving me one?

Well proof is only for formal logic and mathematics but I guess you'd like me to justify the claim that consciousness cannot exist apart from brain/bodies.  Okay, I can't deny the possibility of a clever alternative account of consciousness: perhaps we are brains in vats; perhaps we are plugged into a matrix; perhaps the universe has created souls which it continually recycles on the wheel of life; or perhaps the lord your God creates consciousness receptors on some vast assembly line and lets the souls age for eons of time before embodying them only to reclaim and sort them upon the death of the bodies he has cleverly designed to give the appearance of giving rise to consciousness.  I have no conclusive justification for thinking as I do though I do feel I am being much less extravagant in my theorizing than you.

So how good is your justification for thinking consciousness does not arise as a function of brains?  Pretty tough to prove a negative isn't it?  Oh wait, you find youtube videos convincing, don't you?

[Alan V]

If your body/brain "is what is conscious" then explain this...

https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/i...-done1.htm

I'm not really sure I have to. The problem with anecdotal reports is that they weren't monitored under careful controls, to make sure the situations actually happened as reported. There is all sorts of room for interpretive bias in such situations, as well as for some people outright lying. People do lie and embellish their stories.

Further, reports can't be assessed in isolation. If 99% of the evidence says one thing but 1% of the evidence says another, and both can't be true, I would go with the 99%. Uncertainties of all kinds hover around the fringes of science, so scientists must think in terms of probabilities.

Even further, any spiritualistic explanation for consciousness requires the existence of a whole other spiritual dimension to reality. It is not the simplest explanation, so it is not the most likely explanation.

Finally, assuming for the moment that the occurrence was exactly as described, perhaps it's an indication of how the brain works in some way different than we presently know. I'm not sure why you or others would necessarily leap to a spiritualistic interpretation, which is certainly not a conservative assessment given other scientific studies.

[Cod]

Please point to the peer reviewed research that corroborates what you claim.

That being said, there's that whole law of conservation of energy that states energy cannot be created or destroyed. So even if you don't believe in the concept of a spirit (which really has no definition but it's something that cannot be created or destroyed, like energy), you have to acknowledge that the energy that causes your body to function, came frome somewhere and has to go somewhere, It doesn't just cease to exist...

I'm talking about you... Not energy. What makes you the person that you are? I'll tell you. Life experience and the memories of the life that you have lived... That did not exist before your conception, and will not exist after your death.

[Huggy Bear]

Please point to the peer reviewed research that corroborates what you claim.

That being said, there's that whole law of conservation of energy that states energy cannot be created or destroyed. So even if you don't believe in the concept of a spirit (which really has no definition but it's something that cannot be created or destroyed, like energy), you have to acknowledge that the energy that causes your body to function, came frome somewhere and has to go somewhere, It doesn't just cease to exist...

I'm talking about you... Not energy. What makes you the person that you are? I'll tell you. Life experience and the memories of the life that you have lived... That did not exist before your conception, and will not exist after your death.

*emphasis mine*
A statement you can't actually demonstrate, AKA unfounded speculation...

[Cod]

I'm talking about you... Not energy. What makes you the person that you are? I'll tell you. Life experience and the memories of the life that you have lived... That did not exist before your conception, and will not exist after your death.

*emphasis mine*
A statement you can't actually demonstrate, AKA unfounded speculation...

So, your life experiences and memories existed before your conception? You are talking bollocks now.

[pocaracas]

I'm talking about you... Not energy. What makes you the person that you are? I'll tell you. Life experience and the memories of the life that you have lived... That did not exist before your conception, and will not exist after your death.

*emphasis mine*
A statement you can't actually demonstrate, AKA unfounded speculation...

You can't demonstrate the opposite either.
The null hypothesis then should be one that stands.

[Huggy Bear]

*emphasis mine*
A statement you can't actually demonstrate, AKA unfounded speculation...

So, your life experiences and memories existed before your conception? You are talking bollocks now.

You weren't only speaking of 'before' you also mentioned 'after'...

That did not exist before your conception, and will not exist after your death.

You have absolutely no idea what someone experiences when they die.

[Cod]

So, your life experiences and memories existed before your conception? You are talking bollocks now.

You weren't only speaking of 'before' you also mentioned 'after'...

That did not exist before your conception, and will not exist after your death.

You have absolutely no idea what someone experiences when they die.

And neither do you...Rewind a few posts in our interaction Huggy, you might see where I'm coming from.