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by Helen
This diary was originally a reply to InWales' diary (Woo-woo vs Science). I was asked to re-post as the original comment thread was getting long and this is a slight departure from the original which could stimulate another discussion.
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All things considered, the mind is an odd place to live. After all, whatever scientific investigation there has been on the brain, nobody seems to have a handle yet on consciousness and the mind at all. You can observe it by glancing sideways at the mirror by the light of the moon, but never under the microscope. It's incredible to understand how memory works : Strangely so much like a modern computer with transitional memories (RAM) that we hold onto for the day that are downloaded by REM sleep into permanent storage (HDD), dreams being the editing/contextualisation process. Then there is the more subtle background process whreby memories that are unused get put into offline storage, accesible only by triggers (metatags) not under conscious control (JakeS dissociated memories of ptsd).
I describe it thus not to mechanise and cheapen it, but because it is how I visualise my wonder of it. And my biggest wonder is the discovery of large physical memory pathways that only seem to work in low oxygen situations (NDE ?), but they don't seem to go anywhere except the top of the brain. It's as if a large amount of "experience" needs to be moved around urgently as the blood oxygen count diminishes.
Now you all know I am contemptuous of religion, because it is, imo, a temporal distortion of the wonderful gift of human spirituality for invariably base political ends. Nevertheless I remain respectful of all manifestations of spirituality, even those constrained by religion. I do not know what happens when we die, if pushed in most conversations I will state clearly and unequivocally that we cease. Utterly. So this is kinda strange cos I'm telling a load of strangers something I would never tell even my nearest and dearest. But it "rationalises" the things I understand about the NDE and its meaning. If spirituality means anything, then it suggests a metaphysical "existence" outside of our 4 understood dimensions (I'm ignoring the others required to support String theory). Which kinda gives it a timeless quality. Vaguely on-topic aside : In fact some of the more interesting archeological dowsing entirely depends on creating an internal sense of free-floating in time. Also, there are magnetic machines which switch off those parts of the brain that create our internal sense of time and space (interestingly co-located near the memory shunts I mentioned) to create an artificial sense of spiritual presence. In my view it is related to eastern ideas of re-incarnation; the essence comes into corporeal existence, learns, and then uploads the experience for the next incarnation to draw upon. That's what I think the "mechanism" exists to do, in the last moments of "life" it uploads our body of experience into our spiritual existence. So, by that understanding, the NDE occurs when the response is triggered, but the higher self intervenes to say it is not time.
Now seeing as the human animal evolved to reproduce, evolution has no interest in what happens with the individual after reproductive abilty has been achieved, it is difficult to understand how such a mechanism could come into existence within the physical brain of the animal, so I accept this is a fallacy. But this is belief, faith if you will. It's the first time I have ever written it out, I have certainly never spoken it aloud, so it probably doesn't hang together |
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The Memory of Death (woo-woo Two) | 54 comments (54 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
The Memory of Death (woo-woo Two) | 54 comments (54 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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