First hint of 'life after death' in biggest ever scientific study

[Griffin NoName]

Damn! I was banking on there not being any

They'll be proving St Peter really is ia at the Gate next.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

The article doesn't mention EEG use during resuscitation, that would be a better proxy of consciousness than the heart stopping.

Mind you, I'm not saying it's impossible but this is still far from clear evidence.

[Griffin NoName]

From the article I got the impression they are relying on having a large sample size as the major factor. But I haven't read the paper itself. They may well discuss the limitations of the study there. Plus, newspaper articles are always dodgy on health and science IMO. Still they do use the word "hint".

[Aggie]

The article doesn't mention EEG use during resuscitation, that would be a better proxy of consciousness than the heart stopping.

Mind you, I'm not saying it's impossible but this is still far from clear evidence.

I agree on that... lack of brain activity plus apparent retention of consciousness would be interesting in its implications. However, it's probably not routine in this sort of cases, and I can't imagine a hospital being persuaded to set up additional equipment in emergency cases for the purpose of looking for evidence of an afterlife. Since these people have come back to talk about it, they obviously did not experience brain death, so it doesn't really offer up much evidence for the persistence of consciousness after the machinery quits completely. It's more like a light continuing to glow after you pull the plug on an appliance, due to remaining energy in the system.

Certain drugs can induce out-of-body viewpoints as well, so it's not too far fetched IMHO to experience a shift in perspective under extreme duress.  I find it interesting that subjects are described as 'unconscious' at these times. It's a shift of consciousness that lends a wee bit of credibility to living out-of-body experiences.  Presumably some of the sensory equipment could still be functioning during apparent unconsciousness (hearing, touch), but vision should not be possible in a closed-eye patient, and the experience of looking down at oneself doesn't make sense even if the eyes are open.

[Aphos]

The article really doesn't say anything about an afterlife, if any.

What it does point to is that consciousness may last a bit longer after the heart stops than previously thought.  Even that conclusion is made on little evidence.  It is mostly based on one case where the subject claims to remember hearing a sound twice from a machine that rings once every 3 minutes.  However, this is "eyewitness testimony", which is known to have problems, and the experience was under circumstances which would cloud the memories even further.

It does raise some interesting questions, but is far from conclusive.

And, as stated, says nothing whatsoever about an afterlife.

[Griffin NoName]

And note, no evidence of a beer volcano.

[Aggie]

I'm a proponent of the idea that *if* there is a non-matter-based "soul" of some sort, it likely breaks down after death and gets recycled into the larger system the same way that the physical body does.  Therefore, the idea that consciousness persists after the point of clinical death is similar to the idea that a corpse does not instantly disintegrate after death. I wonder what a decaying soul smells like? 

_{actually, I may have met some people with that condition... it smells like money.}

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

That sounds in line with both answers to reincarnation by Buddha and the Unconscious Collective proposed by Jung.

_{as for the money, you now know the sound of Thethans...} 

[Griffin NoName]

Regarding Jung's Unconscious Collective, it works whether dead or alive. Otherwise, what is Jungian therapy?

[Aggie]

I've been contemplating the idea of emergent consciousness lately...  the apparent consciousness that arises from a number of essentially non-conscious or less-conscious sub-units in communication with each other; for example, the 'hive mind' of social insects or the emergence of human consciousness from a large number of not-very-intelligent neurons.

What has me wondering is whether any system of inter-communicating sub-units of sufficient complexity results in some form of emergent 'consciousness' (albeit unlikely one that we'd recognize as similar to our own). In a somewhat esoteric sense does an ecosystem have its own consciousness?  

I'd be willing to argue that in a fairly real sense, human societies (for example, at the national level) can have a collective consciousness that is to some degree self-aware, possesses a 'personality' or character, and is capable of taking action on a greater scale than any of its individual sub-units is capable of (e.g. science, trade and warfare are not conducted on the larger scale by individual humans, but specialized groups of human 'cells' acting as functional 'organs'). We are all at some level slaves to our societal consciousness, even if we are relatively free units within it (in some societies with restricted freedom, the societal consciousness may indeed supersede individual consciousness).

The interesting part of human societal consciousness (which I believe arises from our own self-consciousness) is that it's quite prone to change and can indeed be manipulated by meme-shifting in human sub-units. One can, through propaganda and other media-based methods, shift the identity of a country quite significantly over the span of years or decades.


I don't consider a PC conscious, but what about the hive of human minds and computing power that is the internet? With the amount of data and meta-data being processed at the moment by computer systems globally, is there likely to be an overarching consciousness emergent from that system? Could an evolutionary process be applied somehow to reward that consciousness for learning to communicate directly with humankind in a manner that we could understand?

[Griffin NoName]

I understand where you are coming from and it certainly seems possible to me.

One can, through propaganda and other media-based methods, shift the identity of a country quite significantly over the span of years or decades.

As for propaganda and other methods, the Tory government has convinced the British population that the sick and disabled are scum and frauds, and working families are always referred to as  hard working and being swindled by benefit claimants. The welfare state is being dismantled as there's no reason that anyyone should be incapable of working and the poor have only themselves to blame. Ukip is doing a good job blaming immigrants for everyone, and want to ban HIV +ve people coming to Britain etc etc. And all this is very successful. The brainwashing is almost complete. We are transforming from nice people to nasty people. If that's what collective consciousness can achieve, I'd rather guard my own from joining in.

[Aggie]

[cynicism]If you aren't working with the collective consciousness, you're a rogue cell that becomes a foreign body to the system[/cynicism]

We're seeing a dismantling of socialism here as well, but without the degree of propaganda. It's being done slowly in piecework at the federal and provincial level, mostly by claiming that there's not enough money in the system (said claims made by the same people who promise tax cuts.... less money in means less money for important stuff - duh!). The main attacks so far from the federal level have been against those who use Employment Insurance when they're out of a job. For sure there are abuses in the system, but some of how its being carried out appears to allow employers to effect wage cuts through mass layoffs and re-hirings, IMHO. It's also been set up to force people to take jobs further from home than most of us would like to work (up to a one-hour commute), or else lose benefits.  Disability benefits are pretty poor here (below poverty line), but at least seem to be holding steady.

The main propaganda push in Canada that I've seen is to convince the population that increased petroleum development (oil sands, pipelines, LNG and bitumen shipment ports on pristine coastlines) are environmentally friendly and will make us all shiny happy people.

Of course, I still say that the vast majority of all propaganda out there is to support consumption and capitalism, but that's generally called advertising.

[Griffin NoName]

I suppose taking money away from the poorest, sickest, most disabled people in society is going on everywhere. I get really cross when the suggestion that the necessary money should come from the richest not the poorest is met with the arguement that they would then leave the UK causing massive economic disaster. There's absolutely no evidence that this would happen. Time to call their bluff !

[Aggie]

This is one of the downsides of globalization; the richest people and corporations can move their 'official' headquarters to wherever the most advantageous tax-regime is, and also can move production in many cases to where the poorest people are.  I agree with you... call their bluff.  There is a cost to moving out of a country for an individual / family, and provided this isn't exceeded over the short term, it's doubtful that most British nationals would actually pack up and leave. Of course, when one owns properties all over the globe and can afford to travel freely, one's actual country of residence is a matter of paperwork, I suppose.

What we see a lot of in Canada and the US is importing people from poor countries to do poorly-paid work.  The US obviously relies on a lot of unofficial immigration from Mexico.  I think Canada does a better job of this at the moment, although there are some imbalances in the system. 

Currently, the largest wave of temporary foreign workers, at least out west, is from the Philippines.  Most are women, often with families back home, and most are working as care aids or in the service / tourism industry. They are generally highly regarded and looked on more favourably than many other immigrants, mostly because they tend to be friendly, cheerful, hard-working and speak English fluently.  IMHO, it's a pretty good system for supporting a developing country, since the majority who come here to work remit much of their pay to families back home.  It's effectively providing a type of foreign aid, but earned by the labour of people from the receiving country. I suspect that those who complete a few terms of work and then return home benefit from having international experience, and I expect that many will become permanent residents in the future.

[Griffin NoName]

If there's a minimum wage I don't see why there can't be a maximum wage.

Women from Philippines also work in care here, but I think the majority are nurses. Many have been here a long time.