picture of the moon on 19/03/11... by Gus

Some people!!!!! Channel Seven this morning presented a loopy American (from New Orleans I think I was advised), a motor-mouth who tells us that his "scientific" research on near-death experiences proves there is an afterlife... And of course he has collected thousands of testimonies from people of all walks of life — all religious and non religious alike to confirm his findings...

And the TV channel had the gall of placing a caption stating something like "science proves there is an afterlife"... Sorry Sam and Andrew! That's a doozy-porky!!  That is not science. It's an opinion with NO verification whatsoever. Idiots!!! Peddlers of false information!!! Promoters of fibs as if they were gospel... well, I suppose they are because the gospel is full of fibs but this is another story...

Come on! be intelligent!!!... There is NIL science in that... No proper questions asked...

What a crock... A near death experience does not confirm anything. I've had near-death experiences a few times in my life and that's all: it's "near"-death. NOT DEATH... It's a time when our memory is in turmoil. The body shuts down, the memory shuts down... but not all at once suddenly. There are stages, there are fight-backs...

It is believed Einstein said we only use 10 per cent of our memory... True to a point but false in many regard.

Imagine our memory is like an iceberg. The bit that we used to show off is the top bit above water. It defines our existence as we are seen and as we want to be seen... But what's below the waterline is what underpins the top. The subconscious mind is heavy and loaded with images of all we have been able to "sensorily" perceive and perform in our life. We use this enormous bit to stabilise and streamline our habits, our emotions and our decisions — mostly without knowing about it. It enables us to have reflexes and reactions to situations. It contains the complex stack of inhibitors and of authorities that shape our thoughts and actions — through having learnt via direct experience or through teaching, including our first and latest reaction to particular events and styles of events. It enables us to store complex "understandings" and comparisons without having to formulate them.

Just saying "boo" has a substrate of language learning and of memorising the effect of it on other people. We learn the response. We learn the effect, We remember the process. But when we say "boo" for the ten-thousand times, we rarely remember all the times we said it. But they all count, below the surface.

Imagine our iceberg is breaking up, melting... (It's our lot anyway...). Our memory is thrown into turmoil, the iceberg has a possibility of tipping over... Things become confused. Stuff that had been ignored or forgotten comes to the surface and peaks above it.... A near-death experience. We are melting down. "We see things".

My computer, when I shut it down, has a near-death experience... The memory it contains is still there. Should I remove some memorised bits, it's likely to have a hissy fit... Near death experience. Possibly the computer will not start. Death. Sometimes bits cannot be placed back in the system once removed... Death. Unless I revive it by being able to place the bits back in... That's what happens when people have a "near-death" experience. Either their own body/memory — or outside help — re-launch the system. I'd say, one can be quite "ginger" after one of these. It takes a long while to reconnect the dots. Some people restructure their stack of "inhibitors" and "authorities" according to NEW decisive CHOICES... Mostly for a better understanding of the processes of life not just as a learnt reactive/active behaviour that has been ingrained in us since we're babies/toddlers/kids/adolescent/adults by other people's desire.

From the time we're toddlers, we learn of the fairies of the gods of the santa clauses that impart the sense of immortality in an ingrained stack of belief that even if we dice some of these beliefs overboard, the sense of afterlife remains strongly within us. The illusion has been firmly implanted.

Death comes when the ice is completely melted away. Our memory no longer is. The rest of the body may still be kept alive by artificial means but our memory of life no longer is. We are dead.

That is the  terminal tragedy of individuality. That is the way life structured itself. That is the way the DNA is programmed by millions of years of evolution.

The "work" of this unscientific American (he shall remain nameless here) using the "repeat" of many people's experiences does not a scientific performance make. It only proves that when people are in a memory trauma, they can experience memory shifts that could appear highly unusual, but are profoundly ingrained in the subconscious memory — including the illusion of "afterlife".

It's not for me to dispel your right to believe in an afterlife. It is my duty to enforce the concept that a near-death experience is not a scientific proof of an afterlife...

I am an atheist. Thank you for your time and enjoy life as it is. Peace...