But I don’t want to be shielded. I wanted to smash Mormon prejudices through the compelling nature of my story. But they’ve always stood in the way, even going so far as to call me crazy rather than just let me do my thing. There a remote chance that I got something I wanted out of it. A small chance. Swedish exits happen. Imagine if a whole region of the church didn’t leave but realized it was nuts and decided heterodoxy was just fine. Whole families leave together sometimes. Rarely. But it happens. They say they want to be together forever, but I was willing to fight for our right to be a family using the time left we know we have. They weren’t. Everything is “we’ll see after death” with them. But there’s nothing after death that anyone knows, and we have lots of reason to think there’s nothing. This has been a thought in my head since my appendectomy at the age of 13, 14. The gas knocked me out at there was not even the memory of the passage of time. Just a time skip. Next thing I knew I was rousing in the recovery room. I don’t think there’s anything after death. I mean, if physical drugs can obliterate your consciousness utterly, then isn’t the “soul” the brain itself?

Cold-Dodger Wrote:
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> But there’s nothing after death that anyone knows,
> and we have lots of reason to think there’s
> nothing. This has been a thought in my head since
> my appendectomy at the age of 13, 14. The gas
> knocked me out at there was not even the memory of
> the passage of time. Just a time skip. Next thing
> I knew I was rousing in the recovery room. I
> don’t think there’s anything after death. I
> mean, if physical drugs can obliterate your
> consciousness utterly, then isn’t the “soul”
> the brain itself?

https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/postmortem-survival

If we can show that the human brain is the engine of human perception, then wouldn’t that show that all these anecdotes are just anecdotes. The engine of perception didn’t go anywhere when a person has a near death experience: it’s right there in the skull of the person we prematurely thought was a corpse. If it’s nearly dead but not quite, then it may still be perceiving on some level because it’s still alive, but it is dying, so what it experiences is gonna be a hell of a trip if it pulls through — don’t you think? Your brain isn’t necessarily worried about what’s real when it’s fighting to distribute oxygen and energy just well enough to survive brain death, and your neurons still only know how to do the things they’re genetically wired to do.

Cold-Dodger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If we can show that the human brain is the engine
> of human perception, then wouldn’t that show
> that all these anecdotes are just anecdotes. The
> engine of perception didn’t go anywhere when a
> person has a near death experience: it’s right
> there in the skull of the person we prematurely
> thought was a corpse. If it’s nearly dead but
> not quite, then it may still be perceiving on some
> level because it’s still alive, but it is dying,
> so what it experiences is gonna be a hell of a
> trip if it pulls through — don’t you think?
> Your brain isn’t necessarily worried about
> what’s real when it’s fighting to distribute
> oxygen and energy just well enough to survive
> brain death, and your neurons still only know how
> to do the things they’re genetically wired to
> do.

Some of the attempts to understand near death experiences in terms of "conventional" science are mentioned in this overview article about near death experiences:

https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/near-death-experience

Cold-Dodger,

You might find this article of interest. It is titled "Physicalism and the Soul:"

https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/physicalism-and-soul

I think I'm understanding now.
https://youtu.be/2EwaFkPMdlY?t=99