What do you make of these scientists' explanation for OBE?

If they're right, what does that mean for us and our spiritual theories about OBE or that OBE are part of the evidence for life after death?

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427291.100-out-of-your-head-leaving-the-body-behind.html

Hi Mark: Modern science is always going to get this wrong because they assume the brain, the body, the physical world is absolute... it's like studying the little finger to figure out what the hand is... that case is probably very unique... there is potential that the etheric double can move the physical body... if the automatic disconnect function of the separation sequence malfunctions... this is where you need to study the phenomenon if you want to understand it... you need to go from the 90 percent to the 10 percent... not the other way around... the case where the etheric double moves the body is a failure of the sleep paralysis mechanism which is designed to disconnect the active dream mind from the physical body preventing it from acting out the dream... the anxiety of the individual probably caused a partial disengagement of the paralysis mechanism thus the body responded to the dream minds activity...  :P

Mark Andrew wrote on Oct 14^th, 2009 at 11:30pm:

What do you make of these scientists' explanation for OBE? If they're right, what does that mean for us and our spiritual theories about OBE or that OBE are part of the evidence for life after death? http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427291.100-out-of-your-head-leaving-the-body-behind.html

Hi while our brains are restricted to locality our souls and consciousness can expand to embrace the universe and more

http://alansmysticalmind.ning.com/

In a way, the brain is like a radio receiver. No matter what theory somebody comes up with for a radio, radio waves and the stations that broadcast them won't go away.

Because of experiences I've had, I can see why some NDE people are certain about what they experience.

The thing is, when you understand something in a spiritual manner it is different than when you understand something physically. Consider Out of Body Dude' recent experience as posted on his thread.  Because I've experienced something similar, albeit in a different manner, I'm able to understand what he was getting at.

If Dude considers what he experienced with his old way of thinking he might doubt what he experienced. If he tunes into the feeling that enabled him to be certain as he had his experience, he won't doubt what he understood.

Unless a scientist has experienced in a similar way, I don't see how he or she can conclude that NDEs aren't valid proof of the existence of the before/now/afterlife. To conclude in such a way is very unscientific.

I agree with you guys. Consciousness is fundamental. Until "Science" can grasp THAT they will be grasping at straws to understand something that cannot be explained without that one prime consideration. It's like having a house with no windows or doors, but there is this secret passage to the outside, but one must seek it out. To argue that the passage does not exist because you haven't looked for it is ridiculous.

I'd build on that as i think some of you already suggest - that just because you find a section of brain correlates with a particular experience or function does not mean that it all originates in the brain.

One classic argument in that respect often is about whether the brain as your personal computer is the seat of all consciousness and more besides, or instead is just an interfacing the device to a variety of data/knowledge sources outside of the physical.

Viewed from the latter perspective the fact that particular experience tends to be correlated with activity in certain parts of the brain means relatively little.

It's an issue that arises frequently in academic research. It's one thing to find a statistical correlation between different events (i.e. one is usually found with the other), but it proves nothing in respect of their linkage in terms of cause and effect.

The tendency is to apply the theoretical preference that fits and is preferred, and to quickly move on to assuming a cause and effect linkage that validates the theory.

A classic case of this is 'end justifies the means' thinking - of the sort that leads to 'just wars', 'good wars', or whatever.

That said one of the imponderables of this territory is that while OOB and similar experience can be very convincing, you can never (in the rational, linear and scientific sense) be sure it's what you think it is either. We in the end must go with our intuition...

Hi,

I agree with the previous posts but would like to add that we don't have to look at the OBE in isolation. We can look at it in the context of all the other 'non-material' phenonena which we have evidence for such as ESP ( see Radin's seminal The Conscious Universe ) which suggests current orthodox thinking is incomplete.

Many mainstream scientists seem (to me) to have rather a schizophrenic attitude with for example quantum physics. By this I mean that they accept that quantum physics is fundamentally strange.For example Alain Aspect demonstrated that particles can  be in synchronisation with each other even though millions of miles apart with no time for a signal to be passed  i.e 'quantum entangled'.This should not be because nothing can travel faster than light. But quantum physics works in the real world and much of our modern world is based on its principles e.g semi-conductors.

However, even though they accept the above they don't accept this changes the materialist paradigm. I believe this is because scientists are just as much subject to their conditioning as everyone else and to go in a new direction is to risk ridicule and loss of funding and reputation.There are scientists who flout the 'party line' such as Amit Goswami who wrote 'The Self-Aware Universe' and was featured on 'What The Bleep ..'.

Things change slowly...

Dave

Dave,
"Things change slowly..."

'We don't have to', 'we can'. Groups are like a bunch of turtles walking through fields of peanut butter. I think the brain is a receiver for a spirit, which is a thread of a greater self. I could spend ages trying to prove it/"change the world" to suit my views. And I can get on with it, regardless of group consensus. Interesting though to talk about spiritual matters, as a social aspect and a personal broadening of horizons if that's the case, but each to his or her own.

Volu-

'I can get on with it, regardless of group consensus' .Absolutely agree with this but a favourable group consensus makes it a lot easier.  Its the difference betwen Monroe's experience detailed in his first book 'Journeys Out of the Body' when he really struggled to understand what was happening to him and, say, someone having the same experience in a native American culture where the experience would be much more easily assimilated.

This is the reason why a person in our culture could have a profound spiritual exprience which changed their worldview but over time the impact could lessen  without further work because our mainstream society does'nt recognise such experiences.In the end the person may say they must have imagined it and write it off.This is why I think the changing scientific paradigm is important - things get taken more seriously in general and it opens people up to new experiences. Organisations such as the Institute of Noetic Sciences do a valuable job.

In a phrase ' a rising tide raises all ships' !

Dave

Mark Andrew wrote on Oct 14^th, 2009 at 11:30pm:

What do you make of these scientists' explanation for OBE? If they're right, what does that mean for us and our spiritual theories about OBE or that OBE are part of the evidence for life after death? http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427291.100-out-of-your-head-leaving-the-body-behind.html

When 'theories' about OBE become a personal experience then to you they are no longer a theory. When articles try to explain things they themselves are only theorizing about don't carry much weight  ;)

What we are taught day by day in the media is this semi-philosophy that our experiences are physiologic processes in our brain. What these wannabe-philosophers apparently can't understand is that their science (along with everything else) then would be as well just brain processes. So, the theory of reality as a process of the brain is a brain process. What brain's process? It cannot be said "my" or "that one's" brain, as this would be as well just brain processes. It, therefore, has to be a second-order brain, and with this we are in the field of nonsense.

The same principle is at work when scientists talk about reality on the one hand, and hallucinations on the other. They apparently never got the insight that this distinction cannot be made, as can they prove that what they hold to be real isn't a hallucination? Of course not. But they just ramble on.

Be very sceptical when natural scientists try to explain what's reality.

Spooky