Through the Wormhole: Is there Life after Death?
In the premiere episode of the second season of Through the Wormhole, Morgan Freeman dives deep into this provocative question that has mystified humans since the beginning of time.
Modern physics and neuroscience are venturing into this once hallowed ground, and radically changing our ideas of life after death.
Freeman serves as host to this polarized debate, where scientists and spiritualist attempt to define what is consciousness, while cutting edge quantum mechanics could provide the answer to what happens when we die.
It probably wasn't long after ancient people developed a belief in the afterlife that they began trying to contact those who had crossed over to the other side.
Necromancy, the term for such communication with dead souls, comes from the ancient Greek word nekromanteia, but the practice dates back much further than the Greeks. Egyptian and Chaldean magicians attempted to conjure up the deceased and speak with them, and God specifically barred the ancient Hebrews from engaging in the practice in Deuteronomy 18:10-11.
In the epic poem The Odyssey, Homer describes his hero Odysseus casting spells according to the instructions from the sorceress Circe, in an effort to speak to the prophet Tiresias and gain assistance to return home
Roman neuromancers believed that it was easiest to reach the dead in caverns and near volcanoes, which they believed to be passageways to the underworld. Available only in United States.
People do not have a soul. Dead is dead-nonexistent forever.
People have souls given by our Creator.
Just because you identify with dead matter, it doesn't mean that the half of reality you don't care about suddenly stops existing.
If we didn't have a Creator then we wouldn't exist. Yet here we are. Try putting grains of dead matter together and creating life. You can't. Not even in a trillion years.
Pretty impressive work you've performed here. I truly enjoyed reading most of your posts and I consider your blog great. Please, keep on producing such a quality content. Thank you!
Consciousness is a funny animal. We lose it when we sleep and probably in coma. When we dream, we gather the thoughts most recently or strongly held and build a network with them. On the moment of waking, we interpret that network as a coherent thought. It is from our viewpoint of that time at that time we see the dream. In near death, there are physiological processes that the body will go through, leaving the result in the operating part of our brain. Since these processes are much the same, many people will see somewhat the same thing in that momentary very complex thought. If you have a religious bent, you may interpret that nest of thought as a story of God or as anything else. If you have no knowledge of modern God, there will be no interpretation of a supreme being, unless of course that too is part of your belief system, modern or not. To sleep Perhaps to, yes dream. Waking up brings only one dream unless you have gone through a short series of slight awakenings upon which point you may remember several dreams. Comas are the same and after six years or six months, there will only be a few memories. Note, this does not negate the possibility of anything, but to research in this direction may prevent us from assuming too much about what the 'dreams' actually mean.
answer is within selves yet universally and this made me to open my own portal so strange mystically but (my gut told me) its my natural being of state as light multidimensional. No one can work or think in that same consciousness as told by Enstein, hence one has to be open mind to recollect vast information downloaded in our processors (with different consciousness obviously). 2011-2012 really made me so mad, now i am working through wisdom and controlled the way i saw before and this in turn made me as an idealist healer.
Big bang got explored people believed somewhat, many thought a star died so we born, but my feelings are as star exploded became multiple stars with unique characteristics and different dimensions through which every individual shared its knowledge or that it-self got fragmented in different beings holding that same consciousness or energy. I can define what is life merely but death, even universe have no clues in reality (creation already created). Or else in human lives there may be no wonders or roller castle of life or its existence. And people or our ancients made a word as "illusion" so funny that i included it as my own created "ignorance". No idea but if i am true, sometimes we create "ignorance" as play where we dig our heads & forget what if behind or after and when once realized its a total illusion than presence if not ignorance. So i started living in present :) ..he he... Still duality confuses & this made me to trust my heart if not too much mind. After all we need peace??!!!!! so illusion death (temporary) !!... lol :P If energy is god or self, its knew that it is infinite and higher higher-selves with their higher-selves, like gods of gods and so on, not a being but being-less yet holds a matter of fact & must be changeable or call it free will to any frequency or dimensional realization what we named it as death.
I am an Atheist meaning that I do not Believe that anyone yet knows the finest functions of the universe. But I am not a believer in nothing either. ( my hypothesis is " something or nothing??') Even if our life experience now is a one-off , it proves that something was possible and did actually happen. After death or before birth, is there a difference. We lived our lives and served natures purpose to multiply and to support the biomass for what it may be. ( a yet larger living organism???) Anyway, my preferred fantasy is that all sentient animals are in part a consciousness that is Universal. That consciousness would be some baseline and would be not detected by us. At some basic level, however, we might all be tuned in to that cosmic consciousness that would be represented by one or more of the four forces. (electromagnetic, weak, ???) Kind of neat. Like radios all tuned into the same station. In some way we are the station. If the radio dies, the station lives on. Of coarse I do not BELIEVE that, but does it have any probability at all, maybe o.o5 of one percent????
humans can have a very clever way of rationalizing both sides of coin and in between when inspired or needing control....
As an atheist i choose to believe in nothing, yet no matter what you are there is that question of life after death. I have always believed that there is nothing, yet after losing my father i would want to believe there is...one quote comes to mind. "Energy cannot be created, nor can it be destroyed." - Albert Einstein
I haven't watched it yet, but what a ridiculous topic for a serious documentary
maybe you should watch it, because what you think is ridiculous may be a very serious thing!
Much like Harvard Prof, I suffered from Meningitis, caused by the bacteria neisseria meningitidis. Flatline and a week long coma. Gave me chills when he described the 'flying' and feelings (if you can classify them as such) of 'love, comfort and warmth'. This is exactly what I recall experiencing. I, however, didn't get a butterfly.
I also didn't believe in all these life after death theories but it all changed with one incident happened to me.From then i started believing that there is life after death.
what happened to you?
There is more to us then this life. Life never ends.
Very scary and disgusting that brain cells are merged with technology as is the case with the baby rat brain cells "grown" and merged into some piece of technological equipment. Life had already been formed and consciousness is like a hard drive of living beings, so once that baby rat was created it could feel and sense and it's brain was merely working out the details of growth. The scientist wonders if there is consciousness in this new half rat half machine as he monitors that Frankenstein thing he has created, as it is going around in helpless circles while wires measure it's electrical output.
What this is, is an already conscious but yet to develop organism that has been dissected and is being tortured. It has a consciousness. It senses and feels pain and if it could scream in pain and confusion it would, but they just can't hear it, they didn't give this rat/machine a mouth to scream in pain with. This is what they want to do to human beings, eventually, and this research is extremely immoral and unethical, and it's the direction our "science" is taking us, into monstrous dimensions of cruelty and abuse of life.
Agreed.
newsflash it has already brought us there. there are waaaaaaaaaaaay crueler experiments that have happened. just type in 'shuttle box' on google. At least these mice get to be cyborgs.
It doesn't feel pain, there are no pain receptors on its body to tell its brain it's feeling pain.
This program becomes a series of men expounding on trying to find scientific empirical ways to observe and find connections between firing of neurons in the brain and how consciousness creates the soul. There are no alternative points of view but this rationalist point of view, trying to pinpoint biological output of brain activity in humans. The concentration of focus is on the cerebral cortex, but I doubt that is where real soul consciousness lies. Reptiles, spiders, lizards, plants and animals that rely on lesser forms of brain evolution also have souls and consciousness, but that is bypassed by this fascination with the human brain and our cerebral cortex. The limbic system is an older part of the brain that has so many deeper and more essential functions that are common to many or most other living beings, which do have consciousness. Our society is too scientifically bent on proving reality through empirical science. Maybe some qualitative research would help uncover deeper aspects of consciousness more than measurement of neuron firing of brain cell synapses.
I guess you just read some stuff about the philosophy of science with speakers like bourgois?
Philosophy and science of man has nothing to do with REVELATION.
And religion has nothing to do with life after the death of the physical body. Only when we can move past religion can we evolve enough to start to understand, in a more realistic way, that all living things are more than the physical body. Religion is a great stumbling block to peoples spiritual unfoldment.
Religion is a bit of a misleading term, Religion is really a system of ideas & beliefs with which one rules their lives. Mention religion in a positive light though to anyone and they will immediately prescribe all the hate and prejudice they believe religion embodies which is a little unfair to the real meaning. All of us do this without realizing it, it's part of the human mimicking nature of the systems around us, we adopt as we grow and then develope our ability to decipher it criticially. So religion itself is very much a part of the human mind, at least in this reality we have around us. So while I agree it can be quite a stumbling block in one sense, but any system you set up for yourself or under a "guru" becomes your religion until you relinquish into the great "Brahma"
in simple words, some people hold "FEAR" and this made some mistakes. & today we are learning from that and growing in opposite of it, if not by violence but love and this frequency made me to think universally with one word "forgive" and it made me ascend to more clarity as death but again birth with clueless time lol. Wisdom became my daily food now.
Our brains are hardware, our minds are software. When our bodies fail our minds do the same thing a program does when a computer shuts down. It's gone. It no longer exists. Unless it's backed up of course.
So does it follow that there must be a programmer of that software operating system and a designer for the hardware blueprint (dna)... What about if all that hardware has a wireless connection to the internet (universal consciousness).. Is it a client/server based model or peer to peer? How far do you want to take this analogy ? Possibilities are endless..
Consciousness emerges as the result of a physical cascade of physical events in the brain, these occur in a cause-effect manner. Free-will (and autonomy, via induction) are illusions, they appear to exist because of the way our brains utilize throughput processing of probabilistic "outcomes" when presented with stimuli. The "designer" in this case is the the physical nature of our universe. When one dies, the brain ceases to function and consciousness follows suit.
If consciousness ceases at death, how then are we experiencing the present at all? What I'm saying is, if you do not exist prior to birth, and you also do not exist after death, how is it possible to be experiencing the present? Since time is actually not linear, it is merely a perception, the fact that consciousness exists at any point in time at all suggests that it cannot be destroyed, otherwise we would have no memory of it, including in the present. The separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one. If we exist at all it implies we must go on existing.
I bought a candy bar. I held it in my hand. It existed. I ate it. It was gone.
Existence at 10:00 am 1/01/01 is no guarantee of existence at 10:00:01 of that same day, let alone eternity.
Your solipsism confuses an intellectual construct for "reality." That is a recurring error of human thought.
Your first sentence was ok but then your logic failed massively. I own a lot of computers and when I shut them down the software does not "no longer exist". Even if the computer fails massively all the software is still there and able to be retrieved. It exists written onto a drive and will remain there until it is overwritten.
Yes, I believe life after death is certainly a possibility although it has not been proven by science.
I have had some pretty strange experiences, particuarly after the death of a relative, where they have seemingly come back in dreams to give me a 'message.' I don't know what to make of them; a trick of the brain or genuine communications?
I have even had a waking experience where a message given to me by a medium in front of an audience resulted in one member of the audience 'seeing' a materialised form by the medium. She had described the outline of a man, and the medium gave me details about an uncle who I recognised. So what to say? I don't know. One of life's great mysteries, and we won't know until we die.
Morgan Freeman proves to be an ideal narrator for these types of series. He is excellent, as is the show
I'm a 57-year-old, non-religious, feet-on-the-ground type of person. I've never even thought much about life after death, being more concerned with the here-and-now. Seven weeks ago, my canine best friend died. He had advanced spleen cancer and we made the decision to euthanize him to end his suffering. A very difficult--and quite sudden--decision. The next night, late, I fell asleep on the sofa and had a dream about people in a hospital room. The room was very bright, flooded by a light originating "off-screen." The people were crying and appeared to be struggling very hard to reach something or someone calling to them from the source of that light (yes, I'm aware of the whole "bright-light-from-heaven" cliché, but whatever). It was a terrible struggle. They would try to crawl towards it, reaching up, but would collapse in tears of frustration and/or fear (I couldn't make out which). The dream was suddenly pierced, and I was awakened, by a loud and deeply mournful cry. It was clearly and immediately recognizable as the "voice" of my departed dog. We were deeply bonded, his death was a difficult one, and--as I stated--somewhat hurried, giving me insufficient time to prepare both myself and him. Yet, astonishingly, I knew at once that it was not a projection of my own consciousness, but very, very clearly his reaching out to me for comfort. Nevertheless, I began to question whether it had been my own grief speaking, but even as I questioned--which seemed the only rational thing to do--I fundamentally knew, and with utter clarity, that it wasn't my grief, but his, and that he had unquestionably reached out for help. I had never heard such a cry before, had never heard such fear and sorrow in his voice. To be sure, I have made the difficult decision to euthanize and have mourned other dying animals I have loved, but this was--and is--a game-changer. And, quite honestly, having no recourse to religious explications, I'm at a loss about how to process this.
I'd say ,God is trying to get through to u! Just say these words" Jesus make ur self real to me!"
Thank you for the advice, but I'm not a Christian.
mgselig, thank you so much for sharing your story. It hit home for me in several ways. I'd like to share back. I do have religious beliefs. I also respect those that do not. In July of 2005 we were on a family camping trip. We sat around the campfire the eve of July 4th. I kept looking at my Mother thinking "she won't be with us muich longer". I remember the last 3 things I said to my Mother that night. "Can I get you anything?", "Has this made you happy?", and "I love you.". What I didn't know was how little time was left. I kept waking up the next morning (July 4th, my Daughter's 2nd birthday). When I finally got out of bed my Brother-in-law told me my Father and Sister had taken my Mother down into the city. I knew then that something was very wrong. I took my oldest Son and drove down into the city. I soon as I had signal on my phone I started calling my Sister. She did not answer. I tried several times in hope that I could find out where they went. I pulled off the side of the road to wait and call, wait and call, wait and call. As I started my truck to return to camp I had a strong feeling to call one last time. My Sister answered. The minute she said hello I knew my Mother was gone. That day became one of the longest, saddest days of my life. Very late that evening I was using the computer to create a music CD my father asked me to create for my Mother's funeral. A collection of her favorite songs. For whatever reason I was having all kinds of problems and spent several hours going in circles. I was so frustrated I had tears in my eyes. I sat back, frustrated, sad, angry, feeling like a failure. Suddenly I could feel my Mother's presence. I could hear her laughing and feel her laughter inside me. I could feel her emotions inside me. She addressed the question I had been asking myself all that day, "Is my Mother proud of me?". By her thoughts and emotions I could tell she was. That helped me. She also chuckled and I could feel her desire to tickle me. She let me know that I wasn't doing what I knew to do in order to address the problem with the computer. She was chuckling and conveying to me that, for once, she knew what was wrong before I did (inside joke). I then cleared my head, refocused on my basic trouble shooting skills and within a minute or two knew what the computer issue was. This experience did not surprise me as I believe there is life after death but it did have a huge impact on my life. I’m sorry for your loss. I to love my dogs as family. I hope your experience brings peace to you.
I believe this too " I have a older friend of mine told me there people do exist at the other side. he knew this person that passed a way back ago. He was driving one day and could feel some presents of a person in back of him. all he remember the person had touched him who he known passed a way. my mom died 21 yrs ago March !0th after that a couple days after the funeral. my mom appeared in the room where my father and mom slept .
when I was married to first wife years ago she had her moms mom
that died of being a diabetic. she passed away this was long before I met her> She was saying when she passed away when she was 12 . she had a dream about her grandmother. She was scared about it.
those you love so much do come back" don't care what other may think. the should of people do exist my wife was close to dying near clinical death. she could see her self above the table where doctors were working on her. A part of life are like when the person died and only come back to be different. my wife that day was having problems
when we was trying t o paint her parents house. If she was in Drummond Quebec. where we lived she would of been dead instead of being in Val-Court Quebec . From Val-Court to Sherbrooke University. it was shorter .
Thank you for sharing this story. I'm so sorry that you lost your mother, but how wonderful that she made her presence known in order to comfort you. We're so mired in the material, linear reality of this world, we too often mistake it for the only world. For example, American Indian spirituality doesn't seem to have this problem, as communication with other forms of life, as well as with the dead is often (depending on the tribe in question) accepted as completely natural, and that if a person has no such communication, it is indicative of an illness of the spirit. Our culture mocks or dismisses such spirituality, but seems to have no problem believing in virgin births or other such Christian phenomena, in general. It's bizarre. I have a growing feeling that our culture's understanding of the larger reality is quite impoverished, indeed. Experiences such as your own confirm that for me. Again, many thanks for sharing.
I'm sorry for your loss. But do you really need more explanation for your experience than that given by your own words, when you said that you "had a dream" ?
Thanks, but the fact that it was a "dream" is not an explanation. I am aware, from my admittedly limited reading in physics, of the possibility of other dimensions, as well as of the fact that the space/time continuum is not even remotely reflective of the linear way in which we order or understand this world. I absolutely know, however, that it was the voice of my dog, and assume that he spoke out in a "dream" perhaps because that in-between dimension was the only possible avenue for communication. I'm hardly a space case, am not religious, and am in fact a rationalist, generally speaking. That said, there are more things in heaven and earth, after all. . . .
I agree that it is more of a question what you want to believe and not what is "wirklichkeit".
Nevertheless, the quantum physics is alredy a well proofed science and its non-materialistic aspect gives the science (and consequential life itself) totally new dimensions and respects..., so let we be open and yust meybe...who knows, what more can suprise us? :)
forget explaining life after death, why do wormholes open up and swallow items inexplicably right from under my nose. for example my phone which fell off my lap in the car (presumably to the floor of the car) and upon searching the entire car, is nowhere to be found.
b4 d big bang wat was there most will say nothing or they will say they do not know i say energy made evervthing the food we eat gives us energy but they get there energy from the sun energy contrals everything we do and everything the universe does
You can never destroy or kill a rain drop, it only can change form. I don't care how many words you say over it or prayers, it will only change form, from a liquid, to a gas to a solid.
Your body is made up basically of WATER, H2o, two parts Hydrogen, (Element 1) and one part Oxygen (element 6) When you Dissipate,(Pass away) about 90% of your body, being Hydrogen, it separates from oxygen(Hydrogen has to connect to a element or it will rise and leave the earth,it is the lightest of all elements) rises from the body and litterly goes into outer space, the universe, from where you came from, your body is mostly STARDUST.
The law of conservation says nothing can be destroyed, it only can change form. Simple, You can not make NOTHING OUT OF NOTHING! Today they are finding DNA in outer space. Just think about it. You have a great adventure ahead.
The cells are only active from the vibrational energy coming from the universe that animates us.
the energy that animate us does'nt come from the universe. It comes from the food we eat, we transforme it into energy
Well but all these experiences still happen at a cellular level. What if there're no cells anymore? I think we all know but we don't want to admit it :)
Excellent movie... I really enjoyed. Thank you for making this sort of knowledge available in everyday words for everyone to understand and at least to think about it. We all should share it to help raise the level of consciousness of our species.
The more we delve into this mystery called life the more we will understand .Highly evolved beings such as Jesus ,Bhudda and Krishna are examples of advanced levels of consciousness but they in all probability needed many lifetimes to reach their elevated states.Each one knew the answer to life after death but came to learn that you don't chase after such answers ...they come to you when you are 'ready'.One of Bhudda's sayings was to learn to stay in the present and let things evolve quietly...why are we looking so far ahead to what awaits us after our lives...enjoying the present is surely far more important...we will all find out sooner or later when we leave our bodies.
JJ
We will never know the answer to this mystery if the answer is that nothing survives death. If there is life after death, we will all eventually learn it. If there is no life after death, none of us will ever learn that.
Just as you light a candle in the evening in the morning when you are blowing it out can you say it is the same flame that you had started in the evening?
It is not the same -- and YET somehow it is connected. The flame has been.changing the whole night. the flame was disappearing the whole night -- it was disappearing into smoke and a new flame was replacing it each moment. In fact the movement was so quick, that's why you couldn't see the gaps. There has been a continuum -- a constant change, but very quick and fast -- one flame being replaced by another, the whole night....It is only the religions of India which believe in reincarnation and transmigration of the soul or the Consciousness.
i had a friend who died and before i new he died he came to me in a dream and called me over to say sorry for the lies he told me he stood near me for quite a while till he went waving at me still saying sorry and asking me to forgive him and i said it was ok. this is not the first time someone has spoken to me in my dreams.the first just wanted to see me by the time i found out were he was he had died. so why he called me in my dreams i dont no i had not seen him for at least a year.the last dream i had was a child she just stood and watched me with her hands out i new her well her family lost her when she died at 12. why did she come to me i dont no. it was like i was told she was going to die and trying to tell me to stop it happening.i have had this sort of dreams for ages like a gift to help people i dont really no. i feel if i see a persons face they will die within a year of me having the dream. it does not have to be somone i no to well to have the dream or feelings that there going to die.
you need help, bro.
what do y mean i need help. it did happen i dont lie
There's a book by Lorna Byrne (I think) called "Angels in my Hair" it might be of interest to you.
is there life after death that is not said in books is there a person who was
alive say 200 years ago who exepence life in another time. to prove the fact and does the person look nice to look at and have they lent anything new.
We are all programmed like this....hence lots of limitations
I believe that Consciousness is the Soul, and that at death the soul goes to either Heaven or Hell. This is my personal belief, but I might be wrong. I have no doubt in my mind that I am write about this, but I keep my eyes and ears open for other possibilities.
you have no doubt in your mind that you are "write", yet you keep your mind open to other possibilities? those two directly contradict one another. this is a camaro statement if i've ever heard one (if you want a car, get a car. if you want a truck, get a truck).
Thankyou. Recently lost my ma but lost her a few times breifly before she got up and went the last time. In her previous experiences - she describes the opening setting of standing outside the universe and looking back at it as 'the light'
Thanks for that job. Very good and beautiful.
my father just died a few days ago, I found him cold, in my living room, just gone without any drama, without ever looking back, and although I am not a religious person, I do not believe that everything ends when our bodies give up on us. regardless of what genre is appropriate for this video, it helps comfort some that are stuck between religion and science without a similar minded person to speak with. thank you for posting it.
Jason....thanks for posting
We are all stuck between spirituality and science. These are the two things we have in hands to comprehend the i moving the hands.
az
@jack of course einstein used scientific process but before he did put it to paper he envisioned it. his theories came from imagination, he used the scientific method only after he saw them in his mind.
Like Terence Mckenna said, our brains aren't necessarily like computers, but more like radios; and that we tune into different channels that give us glimpses of the energy that drives the universe. Our models of the world or subjective experiences are coming together to form an objective reality (if we don’t blow it up).
GOD was real, he was part of our lives, the Hierophant but Darwin killed him. The dark ages did take too long but they served their purpose. We’re now at the level of The Chariot (in the Tarot cards). We are taking action through tools like science and technology (and most of it isn't healthy). This is Consciousness 7.5 (or something like that), our brains are more like a computers with radio capabilities, like connected to the internet. I believe consciousness is a process and we keep building on it so we create a newer version with every generation. We are the means through which the universe knows itself.
Right now we need to step aside a little bit, we need to get back in touch with the feminine energy, the yin so that we find again a sense of justice and equilibrium, and a connection with mother nature. Then we have to look back at our past and learn from it. Aristotle warned us that things must be dismantled in order to be understood and we’re doing that successfully but he also said that they must be put back together again in order to find the center. After that our wheel of fortune will spin the whole universe in our favor.
Anyways, that or we’re just random sparks of fire that dies out in the end. The thing is, we should keep an open mind and open it even more with DMT or mushrooms. Thanks!
whats next .. "astral projection" ?
the discovery science channel does have some "real" science shows though ...shows like "wonders of the solar system" and "wonders of the universe"
Another good documentary (on this site) called 'The Day I Died' (Under the Science heading) will shed even more light on the subject.
Let's not be too hasty to calling the study of anything pseudo science, all science is worthy to a point if even a little can be gained by it. It took the discovery of (1) before we understood (2)
My girlfriend recently lost an Uncle who came to her in a voice saying he had just two weeks to live. (He lives in another state) Two weeks later and unable to get to him in time, he died. What would you call that? I don't know but there are fields of study that have been ignored for too long that we shouldn't have a better answer by now. The current scientific community wants to study such things if only in the closet for now. But they also fear the indignant gaze and possible ruin of their careers if they should pursue such an endeavor. This has needed to change for some time.
We don't understand a lot of what is happening to us. I have studied physics for 30 yrs and have studied Buddhism for 3 yrs. when you still the mind through meditation the results are consistent. Google the Bardos retreat to get a feel for where the mind goes after death.
The best part of this documentary is hearing Morgan Freeman struggle with the word "consciousness." In any case, good food for thought.
Ha! I noticed that, too, but didn't want to mention it...
"Conscthusiness"!
(Morgan's great, though. Love him.)
I see it like this... Pretty much every religion in the world if asked where do we go when we die, points to the sky. Recent man has assumed the worship of the sun because of its relevance to life on the planet. But the earth itself has a bigger role as sedimentary recycling is the engine that drives life on earth. What if a similar system is functioning within the magnetosphere, a constant feedback loop. Tesla claimed to find a way of transmitting an electrical current without wires maybe nature does something similar. So if part of your thigh bone was once part of Cleopatra's lip maybe part of my consciousness was once part of jesus' and I specifically remember telling all you people to leave me alone I'm not the son of God.
it is so sad to see pseudo science on the science channel. This whole series is junk. Science IS a candle in the dark and idiots are trying to blow it out.
you obviously don't understand what science is
how retarded are you?
Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Calling it pseudo science is a bit harsh. Fringe, probably... In some of the episodes... Particularly the religio-scientific bits. But I think you're comment indicates to me that you kind of missed the point of the documentary. The topics were deliberately chosen. For example, "Is there life after death" is a good example of this.. Choosing a topic like this is really quite gutsy especially for a documentary. However, in a universe of infinite possibilities, you can't rule anything out.. The arguments are real with their fundamental foundations based in real science. The doc deliberately chooses open ended topics geared toward an open minded audience.
Einstein's work would have probably been called "pseudo-science" at one time. We all know how that turned out. Imagination is really one of the most important things and is one of the monikers of a true scientist. To explore EVERY possibility. Otherwise, scientific dogma would rule with an iron fist leaving no room for growth.
Einstein was open minded, maybe you should give it a shot too..
Science does not support dogma. Einstein proved his theory to be correct through the use of the scientific process. Those who disagreed with him at first had to see the truth of his theories because in science proof is what is necessary. Not dogma. Never dogma.
Listen, to say anything is junk so strongly tells me you posses no creativity. Scientist who have discovered anything are both logical and creative, but more so creative, enough to ask questions without the expectation of an exacting answer. Doing so is to have a one point perspective in a multidimensional reality. Why limit yourself by writing off everything. I wonder how much you really claim to know yourself?
Greg, even though I don't agree with what you are saying ill defend to the death your right to say it. My dear boy sometimes its nice to ponder about these things. No one really knows what's it all about and Morgan seems to me like more of the philosopher type and I would hope to think he would not be involved in this pseudo science carry on. That being said this series dose not claim anything, it merely poses questions and leaves the viewer slightly puzzled and hungry for more knowledge about the subject, but sadly there is only one way to find out about this particular one. That being said I have noticed a slight repetition of certain matters on the series, however, its a healthy repetition. I admit its not established science, but the series does suggest physics as a whole is not established, and might have took a wrong turn somewhere down the road but who knows. I agree with you in that science is a candle in the dark, at least its there lighting up the room giving us light and things to think about.
@ Nebra ...Quote: "i see what your sayin, but what happens after that ;) "
>shruggrin<
What if death is a mirror image of what one's life was? We plan our life day to day, may be we should plan our death minute to minute, or our birth into the unkown.
az
Azilda - I don't for one moment think it will be a mirror image. It will, initially, be a reflection or consequence of how we have lived. Cause and effect - there is no escaping our repsonsibilities. We will put right what we need to put right and benefit from what we have already done right. Progress is ongoing ...
OK Not a mirror image but a reflection.
az
Your comment is interesting but I have to confess I don't clearly follow you.
What do you mean by
Great Spirit
Spiritual Truth
You also mentioned you have "case histories". What are they?
Joe, "I prefer the term "Great Spirit" as opposed to "God" which has too many religious connotations. I understand it to be infinite conscious Life with a creative ability born of Love. "Conscious" Life means mind and intelligent Life. Spirit & Life being two words for the same thing. So "Great Spirit" means to me, an infinite (and eternal) conscious creative Life of Love ... and we are individuated aspects/parts/expression of this. Some call it God which I don't like because the general idea of God is one of separation "God is over there we are here" kind of thing and God is limited by personifying it.
Spiritual Truth? There are several: You are not a body with a spirit - you are spirit (ie. Life) with a body and can not die.
I think that is the most important spiritual truth which needs to be grasped.
Case histories - google "Lesley Flint" for starters.
@Intbel:
Sounds like all the prolific works of "Jane Roberts" and her Seth books,
Have read them all quite a few years back.
We are very happy to hear that you read all the Jane Roberts. Is this in any way an accusation @Intbel?
And if not, what do you have to say about what Intbel wrote in this thread?
az
Achems - I dunno her stuff. That she comes to similar conclusions is inevitable - after all, all sincere seekers of truth will, eventually, come to similar conclusions.
Unfortunately, many stop when they find something which brings them comfort. A sincere truth seeker is not interested in comfort in this regard - only what is true.
I remember last year you had me watch Jane roberts - the seth on youtube. kkkk
So, you believe in spirits and spirits are eternal. And mediums like Leslie is your proof that spirits exist.
It's a quiet astounding and yet dizzying idea. Let me research it further.
Joe - not proof at all. Just a small part of masses of corroborating evidence.
It's not about beliving in spirits. It's about realising what we are. Knowing what we are - nothing to to with beliefs.
yes belief is a prison... belief is holding on to an idea and nit picking data to support your belief.
we need to gather & test data, develop hypotosis
follow the evidence then take it on as knowledge.
i like you joe have come to the realisation of the truth of spirit, which is omnipotent and resides in all life at different stages of development [human life being the seventh and final stage], over countless life times we gather knowledge and evolve in wisdom, when we become cognasent we can witness this all around us and no longer fall prey to belief.
this is the reason why a 5 yr old can become a musical genious in the space of a year, while some adults even after receiving a full education are like childish fools, unknowing and unwise.
Intbel, what you are basically saying that everything is in the mind, is illusion and that collectively we form our reality.
You talk about an in-between life not focused in physical reality that we know after death, you give hint that we go to our source? the way you portray that, seems to me as in dreaming. When we dream there is no time, no words are spoken by our lips, we all converse telepathically, instantly to one another.
We basically cannot even see ourselves while dreaming, unless we give suggestions before sleep to see at least our hands while dreaming. Usually takes many tries. When that happens you know that you have woken up in your dream while still sleeping, and knowing that you are sleeping, that is a lucid dream, and seems to be another bonafide reality happening.
We may see ourselves as different people though, while dreaming, which is a little bit weird. Could it be that is our multidimensional selves?
Eastern thought has many distinct parallels to theoretical science, as many worlds theory, parallel universes, copy's of ourselves as in multi dimensional, collapsing the waveform-meaning it is there if, and when we look, and so on.
That is also why Castaneda's books where so popular. He borrowed from Eastern thought.
Intbel
I just read a couple of transcripts of Leslie's seances from leslieflintdotcom ( i only assume this is the authoritative website). Excuse my ignorance in the world of mediums but they all read like a typical new-age gibberish you always find in one of the isles at barnes and noble. Of course, I am not saying Leslie is a fraud but how can you say that he is legitimate? ( apparently Leslie only performed seances in complete darkness because " ectoplasm " which gave voices to deceased spirits can kill him if there was any light).
"It's about realising what we are"
I realize we are complex carbon life forms. What do you realize?
Quote: "I realize we are complex carbon life forms. What do you realize?"
I realise Joe, these carbon forms, these bodies, are not what we are.
Without us, they have no Life - they are Life-less.
We are Life, we are the Life which animates these carbon-based bodies. We do not depend upon them for our existence.
We express ourselves via these bodies temporarily is all.
"We are Life, we are the Life which animates these carbon-based bodies. We do not depend upon them for our existence."
It appears you're simply repackaging eastern mysticism like razor mentioned.
Joe - Facts of Life do not change depending upon whether one lives east or west of some arbitary longtitudinal line.
Spiritual truth is not the monopoly of some eastern mystic - it applies equally to all wherever one may live.
For the last fifteen hundred years Christianity has hidden and denied the truth of who and what we are - and continues to do so today along with the additions of various evangelical groups.
These are fear-based doctrines which have nothing to do with "God" (whatever that may be or however one perceives it to be) which is of Love, not fear.
Christianity literally puts the fear of death into people rather than the joy of Life.
It is a very dark world in which we live. It is full of turbulence, violence, greed, envy. Mammon is being worshipped instead of the Great Spirit. False idols are still the ones which are the subject of adoration.
Life, because it is spiritual in essence, cannot end when death comes to the physical body.
Matter is only the husk; the spirit is the reality. Matter exists only because spirit animates it. When spirit, the life force, withdraws, matter crumbles into dust. But the spirit, which is the individual, does not crumble into dust. The spirit is immortal; it cannot die. Death is its second birth.
It first came when it was born into your world and began to manifest through a physical body. The second birth comes when the spirit says farewell to the physical body and continues in unbroken sequence its eternal path on the road of infinite progress. You cannot die. Life is deathless.
You and I - we - are Life/Spirit. Do you really think this mundane, earthly plane is the only plane of existence? The only level of vibration at which we express ourselves?
Do you really think this is as good as it gets ???
There is no evidence of any supernatural aspect of reality.
Quote: "There is no evidence of any supernatural aspect of reality."
Agreed. And the reason is simple: there is no 'supernatural'.
It's all quite natural.
Unfortunately folks have been taught/trained/conditioned to believe otherwise.
The Law of the Universe states that pure energy will convert itself into more and more complex states of matter until that matter becomes self aware to the point of knowing that in its original state it is the pure energy of the universe. This increasing complexity of matter is exhibited in both organic life and non-organic life.
How do I know this law of the universe to be true?
Because I am writing this statement on a computer and you are reading it on a computer. We are the cosmic energy of the universe in its most complicated state, using inanimate objects (computers = tools) of the most complicated form that use electromagnetic energy and quantum mechanics to work.
The Cycle of Energy in the Universe
1. Pure energy is converted into hydrogen atoms. Quantum mechanics.
2. Hydrogen atoms condense into hydrogen clouds through the forces of gravity and electromagnetism.
3. Hydrogen clouds condense into suns through the forces of gravity and electromagnetism.
4. Suns convert hydrogen atoms into more complex atoms of the periodic table through a process of nuclear fusion (science believes), gravity and and electromagnetism.
5. These new various types of atoms later condense to form planets through the forces of gravity and electromagnetism.
6. These same elements on the planets then begin to create basic forms of life where it is favourable.
7. These life forms gradually become more and more complex until they become self aware.
8. As life forms become more complex, they begin to shape the elements around them into more and more complex inanimate objects such as dwellings, tools, transportation, art, and writing. Insects to human beings all shape the elements around them into more complex inanimate objects.
9. At a certain level of complexity an organism becomes self aware and acutely aware of its surroundings. This self aware organism then begins to try to understand itself within the context of its environment, its place on its planet, its place in its solar system, its place in its galaxy, and its place in the greater universe where it lives, with the purpose of discovering its true origins and how life works.
10. The complex self aware organism finally comes to the realization that it is the pure cosmic energy of the universe in its most complicated organic form.
The Law of the Universe states that pure energy will convert itself into more and more complex states of matter until that matter becomes self aware to the point of knowing that in its original state it is the pure energy of the universe. This increasing complexity of matter is exhibited both in organic life and non-organic life.
Never heard of your law of the universe, where do you come up with this stuff anyway? list your sources.
And how do you know we are the most complicated forms in the universe? there may be other forms out there that are 10/100 power more complicated than us. And maybe even smarter Eh?
And you say our computers, tools etc: are the most complicated form??
You got to be kidding? we are all still babies playing with all our toys, when we do become more proficient and have better equipment class 3, we might even learn how "not" to kill and blow ourselves up!
Your take on evolution and origin of the species, wont even go there.
@Achems_Razor
I only hope that one day we learn how not to kill and blow ourselves up, but I have grave reservations about whether that is something we even want to learn.
minus this and that....interesting suggestion!
The law of a Spiritual Universe.
az
i agree ...but don't forget spiritual energy -which has nothing to do with religious teachings - The Human SPIRIT is the measure of all things, not the human material body, and before everything there was the finest energy -pure spirit energy- which was without form and which became aware in the endless nothingless of the void.
then it created the first forces e.t.c. the creative forces exist today in every atom,quark and everything from the smallest to the largest, every dimension every universe and every space time configuration rules the infinte enigma of pure spirit, constantly evolving and expanding from within.
we can all connect with this higher form through meditation in the deepest levels of the consciousness , remove all daily concerns/
worrys and observe the absence of thought.
science will not be complete until it includes the consciousness and fine material. finally science has begun to recognise and show results relating to daily meditation and the massive positive effects it has on the brain. something which wise teachers already knew going back millenia. and you dont have to give a toss for that criminal supporter and hypocrite -the daili lama, free your mind of useless thoughts for twenty minutes a day in a dark room while observing a candle flame, and your concentration and ability to hold on to information and data longer will increase rapidly.
our pineal glands have shrunk massively from what they were and can be, the pineal gland situated at the base of the skull picks up on fine sensitive feelings and cognitions and only through dedicated meditation can we expand it to an inch, from the current and pityfull -1/8 of an inch.
im no expert but already after 2 yrs i have gained massively from its benifits. billy meier has been writing books on meditation since a young age.
@DEBRISTHEREOF,
So you've read couple of books, practiced some form of meditation and whoala... you're ready to tell the world that before everything there was is a SPIRIT energy. Come on. Any evidence to support this?
...the creative forces exist today in every atom,quark and everything from the smallest to the largest, every dimension every universe and every space time configuration rules the infinte enigma of pure spirit, constantly evolving and expanding from within...
And obviously you're ready to tell us which forces are in every atom, quark... Again where did you read that? Who told you that? Are there any evidence for your bold claims?
...science will not be complete until it includes the consciousness and fine material.
I knew that science is not complete but I didn't know that it will be never complete until it includes consciousness.
Bravo... with 2 years of meditation and reading you've managed to comprehend what is the creative force behind the universe, and that science is nothing without consciousness. And the scientists are struggling for over a centuries. Good for you.
...free your mind of useless thoughts for twenty minutes a day in a dark room while observing a candle flame, and your concentration and ability to hold on to information and data longer will increase rapidly.
Well... meditation is an exercise. Like the bodybuilding is building the body, the meditation is sculpting the mind. It can be called mind-sculpting. Mental exercise can indeed improve minds.
Meditation is a family of methods designed to facilitate regulation of emotion and attention. For the past several years lot of scientific research has been done on Tibetan Monks, Vipassana practitioners, novices and various volunteers regarding the effects of meditation. More than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific articles have been published on the subject of meditation. But I guess you haven't read any of them.
And so far it is proven that affects focus, concentration, mood, emotions and can be beneficial at patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
In the next five years, scientists expect a dramatically increased level of research into meditation because it is beginning to be recognized as something that takes advantage of the plasticity of the brain, has relatively few if any side-effects and has potentially very beneficial effects, the impact of which can be documented using the most rigorous scientific methods.
Meditation is just another technique for self-improvement. It has nothing to do with the spirit, creative forces of the universe, universal consciousness etc.
How can you have the finest pure spirit energy that becomes aware in an endless nothingness of a void, whatever that means? "Nonsensical" Do you even know what you are saying?
What creative force, what "spiritual energy" are you talking about? Spiritualism is about as real as religion.
By the way Billy Meier was proven to be a scammer, with his pleiadian photos,metal samples and audio recording and telepathic encounters, with guess what? females.
That pretty much sums it up. I read this one after having posted my comment. I really like how you explained it all. Thank you for that!
1. What is consciousness and the human spirit and how it relates to people? Are people just the sum of the parts of their brain or is there something more?
There are several very interesting stories that have been documented about young children who remember past lives that have been proven to be true. There only needs to be one story like this to indicate that the human spirit is a source of energy that can move from body to body at the time of death.
How this form of energy can remember memories for a short period of time may be on the holographic principal.
2. What other proof is there that the human brain is a quantum computer? Meaning that the brain exists not only in the moment, but it also interacts with the universe and it interacts with itself at other moments of time.
The proof of this is the "premonitions" people experience from time to time during their lives. I have experienced several premonitions during my life time and in fact they seem to happen all the time these days. A premonition is simply the brain sending a quantum electromagnetic signal that is interpreted by the brain in the past.
A flash back memory is simply the brain sending a quantum electromagnetic signal that is interpreted by the brain in the future.
People have these events (premonitions and flashback memories) that happen to them all the time.
With regards to the human soul / soul moving on after death, based on my own experience of a previous life when I was 3 to 4 years old as a stone mason I have to agree that this can happen and it is very normal.
Death is not the end of your spirit, it is a time of transition. Transition to what form of life though is dependent on your spirit and the universe.
watched the docu completely now - I am not a believer in life after death but it would be really interesting to see how humanity would evolve after my death :)
Watch Idiocracy. That's probably a good indicator.
@ nebra I can give you an example from my own experience that may shed a little light on the subject, though to this day I can't say I'm exactly sure myself what to make of it. I THINK I know what to make of it, but I'm putting out the possibility that it could be indicative of something deeper, even wonderful. Very probably it IS nothing, but I can honestly say it's the most 'mystical' thing that has ever happened in MY life. I'll try to tell it to you briefly, and in such a way that I get my point across without being too overbearing or obscure. You can make what you like of it, and I freely admit that the strangeness in it may be entirely subjective, only recognized by myself as unusual in any way.
When I was a child, one of my favorite activities was reading encyclopedias, which I would do everyday after school for the brief hour or so I had the house to myself. One day when I was around 12, at random I took down the 'I' volume, and in a moment happened to turn to the article about Indonesia. There on the second page of the article was a beautiful color picture of a temple and some dancers from the island of Bali, and on the page after, a map. Now...I do not know why, but this map absolutely TRANSFIXED me for some reason, and I could not stop staring at it for some minutes. I had an odd, indefinable feeling that I'd never had before from any other articles I'd ever read that this was a place I should WANT to know about, and at the same time felt an emotional connection somehow, a feeling I would have to call content, of all things, which seems ridiculous now, but did not strike me that way then. At the time I simply felt it, and that was all. I had the sense, and about this I am absolutely certain, that I was connecting with something with which in fact I was already familiar on some level. It was a little akin to deja-vu, is the best way I know to describe it. Suddenly I said to myself, as if out of the blue, "Someday, I'm going to go there." After a few more minutes I put the volume away and forgot all about the power of the experience for years. That's the way it can be with children sometimes: they feel something intensely, but don't dwell on it. They move on.
Nine years later, in 1985, President Reagan attended a conference of Southeast Asian Nations held in Bali, Indonesia. There on the national news one night was a clip of him exiting his plane at Ngurah Rai airport, and a group of dancers in full costume assembled to welcome him, performing in unison with such grace and loveliness that I was floored immediately, nearly overpowered with their beauty. And that was it for me! From the very next day on, I began to study everything I could about the island of Bali. I read every book about it in the county library, borrowed books through interlibrary-loan from a nearby university, even wrote the Indonesian Embassy in Los Angeles to obtain rare samples of gamelan music I'd heard they had, which they were kind enough to ship all the way across the country to me on loan. I struck a deal with my employer that I wouldn't take any vacation days for 18 months, if after which time I could have a full 3 weeks off, because I'd determined I was going to go see this extraordinary place for myself, whatever it took. Significantly, it was only sometime AFTER I was underway with this obsession that I remembered that strange day with the encyclopedia, and the inexplicable feelings of familiarity I had felt. I remembered saying to myself that I would go there someday, and suddenly the whole enterprise seemed like it was fated to happen. My confidence about what I wanted to do was increased, and I carried through with my plans to the letter, the only difficulty being the impatience I endured waiting for the day to arrive.
I said the only difficulty, but that's not entirely true. The fact is, off and on for most of my life I've suffered from panic-attacks, and during this entire time of planning and saving money for this trip I was seeing a doctor to help me deal with them effectively, with mixed results. When in October of '87 the day came at last to leave, I pretty much had them under control, but I'd never FLOWN before, had never much been out of my own state, and as the plane took off, and the farther away from home I got, it took all of the techniques I'd learned to keep myself from feeling out of control. The layover in Hong Kong was especially bad. I started to have a full-blown attack, initiated by my asking myself if I was crazy to be doing this after all, coming all this way by myself and having nothing to fall back on if 'the worst' should happen. I sat in the hotel-room and stared at myself in the mirror until it eased off after a few minutes of controlled breathing.
The next day I made it to Bali, at about 11 o'clock in the evening, and the contrast with everything I'd felt getting there was immediate, and couldn't have been greater. Have you ever been away from the place where you spent much of your life for a while, and then returned to it? You know that sense of safety you felt when you got back? That's what I felt: instantly at home and at ease...No panic, no uncertainty, not one trace of fear whatsoever. None. No culture-shock. Riding in a little cab to where I was to stay, I suddenly felt the same way I did that day when I was 12: I had the odd sense that I knew what was around every dark bend in the road. My heart felt like it was simply returning to where it had always belonged. In truth, it felt like heaven. It seemed like I had left the earth and gone back to where I was meant to be. I stayed there ( completely panic-free ) 11 days, made friends more easily with the people than I ever did anywhere else in my life, and experienced the real culture -AWAY from the tourist-traps- as fully as I possibly could. And when the time came to leave, it was, as you can probably imagine, very hard for me. I felt a really profound sadness almost akin to grief, and getting on that return plane seemed like a kind of death.
To sum all this up, you may find it surprising that I do NOT believe in reincarnation. And yet I honestly don't know what to make of these bizarre experiences, which some would say might indicate a past-life in that place. Anyone who knows me knows that I am the very last person to be seduced by comforting little tales of life, or lives, beyond the grave. But I swear to you that I have not merely been about contriving some little STORY here... The things I felt were real, and every word of this is true. Of course you can see, as I can, that there isn't ANYTHING supernatural in what happened to me, but what I don't understand is, IF reincarnation isn't true -and I do believe it isn't- then what would be the origin of those intense feelings? Why would I feel so strongly that I had somehow known something before? Why would I feel as much at home there, if not MORE so, than where I was born and raised? Why would I tell myself as a totally inexperienced child who didn't know Indonesia from Adam, "I'm going there someday " ? Then forget about it completely, then start actually planning to go there, then remember I said it once, and then feel more peace in my soul there than I ever have anywhere else?
If you have any insights, or if you see something obvious I'm missing, I'd sure like to hear about it. Nothing like it has ever happened to me before or since.
Good story...why are you not there, if you feel that's where you belong?
az
I went back for 17 days in '92, with the intention of staying for a while if I could, maybe a year or two. I wanted to study music with a guy I'd heard about...But money for the long-term unexpectedly became a problem, and when I asked my father if he could help me out, he refused, for reasons which, without going into it, I don't blame him now. I would only have needed about $1,000 extra a YEAR to pull it off, because expenses become exponentially cheaper if you are permitted to live there.
But it wasn't meant to happen... and that's it.
Bali and you must have change so much since 1992 that perhaps, a different country would suddenly best represent your present state of being.
Good story teller.
When you say:"I would only have needed about $1,000 extra a YEAR to pull it off, because expenses become exponentially cheaper if you are cleared to live there."
In my opinion in which case you should have asked for $83.25 and force yourself to be making the necessary wage within a month. I bet he would have liked the challenge.
az
As for lesser paying jobs, well, you really can't DO that, as it's looked upon as taking work away from the locals, which I understand completely. If YOU are the employer, then that's different... But in which case anyway you'd need things like a work-visa and capital, etc.
I have never been to Indonesia. I know Gamelan music comes from there, musicians and dancers. I have attended concerts while they were on tour and performing. It affects me in strange way, whereby I am transported to a state of being mesmerized. The repetitively hypnotic effects of the gamelan are like tiny hammers hitting my body, including my brain area,very softly. I also believe that the dancers are in an altered state of conciousness.
On a few occasions, longing to hear Gamelan music, I have made my way to the local Casino. Wary of the effects of what I will hear, I take out a twenty dollar bill, choose a centrally located machine and play it. Invariably the money is gone, sometimes sooner than later. By that time, the effects of the Gamelan, which translates to "hammer" in English, are upon me. I just sit there, broke and watch all the real players stuffing $ $ into the slots in their altered state of conciousness.
Quite enjoyable hour spent and for only twenty dollars. I realize that those players are not aware of the effect of the Gamelan on their wallets. Some are even spending their welfare money not really knowing why they are doing it........
The only reason I post this is because of your reference to Gamelan, here:= (wrote the Indonesian Embassy in Los Angeles to obtain rare samples of gamelan music I'd hear], plus the fact you do not believe in reincarnation and they probably do.
p.s. Gamelan music does relieve panic attacks......
You remind me somewhat of an ignorant librarian I once asked about gamelan music. She looked at me without any idea of what I was talking about. " Excuse me? GAMBLING music? " she said. I laughed at that a little bit, as I'm laughing at YOU now. Very softly......
Having said that, your post IS pretty hilarious in its own right. I actually ENJOYED reading it for the parody ( albeit clumsy ) in it, believe it or not. But the ridicule implied in it has not had its intended effect. Maybe you should pull out another twenty...
@ Aardnsword
Well actually I am not sure what you mean by "quantum energy". A quanta is a measurement of energy but not a kind of energy. That said, yes THEY have the means by which to measure energy outputs this small. I have no equipment of my own to speak of, only access to a physics/biology/chemistry lab at the local community college. However, I think they would have a very hard time detecting a entanglement pattern, which is what they suggest in this doc might give rise to consciousness. I am not really very familiar with quantum physics though, so I have to yield the floor at this point to someone that knows more than me. Sorry, thanks for the conversation any way. Achem knows a lot about quantum theory he might could tell you more.
I would have liked to see more personal accounts of those that have "died" and saw and experienced things after death, especially seeing things that they couldn't have seen while alive, such a sign on the roof of the building where they died, etc. That seems pretty solid for me that there is at least a conscienceness after death---the destiny of that conscienceness could be debated later.
the first professor is talking about a serious strong dmt trip - dmt is the strongest concious-expanding drug ( produced in the brain ) it gives a feeling of "they" being around (aka divine feeling) and people report seeing everything in hyper detail and understanding everything around (see 'DMT - the spirit molecule' should be on SeeUat Videos)
if there is life after death and our consciousness exists even when our body dies, that would mean that the same consciousness had to somehow exist even before we were born. any thoughts on that?
I personally believe souls are created at the moment of conception; the only "consciousness" that existed before our conceptions was God's.
first i wasnt talkin about a soul. Soul is a religious thing. Personali i dont belive in God, at least not in the way church teaches me to. People use their imagination for the things they cant explain. I think this is a "story" whitout an end.
Nebra, I have a longer response for you below that got mixed up when I tried to post it here. It might be of some interest to you, I don't know...
Not talking about a soul? In which case I have to ask you precisely how it follows that IF consciousness exists after death, it necessarily EXISTS before birth? That's not in the least bit logical, unless you are talking about something that could ONLY be called a soul, by any reasonable definition of that word, irrespective of any religious connotations. In fact, it isn't logical THEN, either, but at least makes more SEMANTIC sense... And on that "short note", I'll leave you to consider a more precise use of language, and with apologies if I have only wasted your time.
First let me just say that i liked your story about Indonesia.
Im happy for you and your experience. Soul is a religious thing, agree? There is no actual proof that it realy exists.
I think that religious believers need the idea of a soul and God to defeat their fear of death. I think when you die, you die, your gone, no one has yet convinced me otherwise. Its like when your asleep, your unconscious, so death is like a long long sleep.
Nebra - but of course!
Our parents never created us. They never created new lives.
What they did was co-create new physical forms through which Life may be temporarily expressed and experienced.
i see what your sayin, but what happens after that ;)
I have "grave doubts" -to make a small pun- about the existence of a soul, myself. But...it is CONCEIVABLE that something like it could exist OUTSIDE of any particular religious faith NECESSARILY being associated with it initially. What I mean is, you could say it's just a temporarily disembodied "energy state" of some kind in the universe, even a thus far unknown natural law, that men somehow had... FACTUAL INTUITIONS about thousands of years ago, and only afterwards tacked onto these this or that doctrine in an effort to better understand it. I don't personally believe that, but I thought something like it might be what you were getting at. As if, maybe, you were referring obliquely to the quantum-entanglement mentioned in the doc, and stripping that of any direct relation that might be made to a given set of beliefs. So...in an effort to play along, I wrote my little story down, the implications of which would be consistent with the notion of a soul as outlined here. Because in exactly such a case, if reincarnation WERE true, the correct intuition about the previous lifetime a person felt would still not be immediately associated with a faith, but would simply just BE...and only later would be colored in, maybe, by some particular TAKE on the experience. But this wouldn't change the fact of that soul's existence INDEPENDENTLY of that, if you follow me. It would be as if it were better to have at least some kind of explanation, rather than none at all. For how long did people look up at the sun without really knowing what it is? And not knowing what it is, what did they usually end up calling it? In the same way, you COULD say the soul is like that: It's simply a natural phenomenon in the universe that people have come up with all kinds of unnatural explanations for.
Anyway, if nothing else, this was a fun idea to play around with, and I appreciate your giving me the opportunity to do so. In REALITY, of course, I'd have to agree completely that the fear of death is at the bottom of all religious feeling. If we didn't know we have to die someday, the whole apparatus surely wouldn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of catching on anywhere. Just another part of that fun, easygoing thing we call The Human Condition, right?
Mr. Razor: I watched this yesterday without a comment. Can ya believe it?!? I don't understand the concept of energy that never disappears. It's just beyond my ability to comprehend I guess, but I do believe in an eternal soul. I'd give it a "7" for effrort, but as always, there's no answers to any quesitons at the end of the doc. It's still a matter of "faith" or the lack thereof.
I didn't quite catch what they were saying about human vs. animal brains. Are our brains unique or aren't they? But, this is all ASSUMING that the soul resides in the BRAIN in some form. That is a presumption that may or may not be actually correct. Something to think about.
My take has always been that consciousness is universal. Resides in some form or another starting from energy in everything, there is actually no matter at the quantum level, just quarks with their up spin, down spin and sideways spin, flickering in and out of the quantum foam, by collapsing the wave form, by looking you might say, and fixing the atoms at our vibrational level we coalesce the atoms that are empty of any matter into matter by our collective consciousness.
can you prove that is no matter at the quantum level, their is a theory that there is a fine material, which over billions of yrs expands and densifies becoming hot gas and then coarse material.
theres a wise school of thought that says the consciousness block is unique to each incarnation. the spiritform is omnipotent and re-encarnates with a new consciousness block that has the highest values of the previous ones development.
@Debristhereof:
I really do not have a clue as to what you are talking about, and not sure if I really want to know. Unless you have some empirical evidence maybe.
I hear you man!!! Its good to see someone with that attitude. When life is good it can be so moving and inspiring it overloads your emotions, but when it is bad it can be so dull and tedious that it is hard to want to live another second. But hey, that extreme, sharp, contrast is what creates passion for life- the ultimate end to all means in my opinion. I think it also creates bi-polar disorder but, I refuse to take the pills so that's neither here nor there. If you have passion you will experience things, some good some bad but you will not sit in the corner while the music plays. If you have ever sat around a camp fire at night, the sparks that fly into the air when you upset the fire- they have always reminded me of life. Its like all of existence, all you will ever know, all that has ever been, occurred on the edge of a spark flung free from the fire, streaking into the black as it dances and eventually evolves to the highest possible state of entropy. It always makes me feel like I am in a hurry. We only get the one time you know, I'd rather not muck it up any worse than I have. Even if there is something afterwards, it won't be this this.
Sorry my above post was intended for Earthwinger.
My own, admittedly rather simplistic view is that life is just something that, given enough time, matter, and randomness, tends to happen, and given the opportunity, will go on to flourish. No great spiritual mysteries, just a beautiful, blooming and buzzing chaos, that fortune favoured, and eventually led to us. All that we are is borrowed "stuff" arranged in a pretty neat way, and like all things that are borrowed, there will come a time when we have to return it. We don't get to hold out on any of it in the deal, we repay in full. I'm sure that when my time comes, it won't be without sadness, but I hope that I can accept the need to settle my debts with good grace.
In the meantime, there are sunny days to warm my skin, and roads that head in all directions, which I feel compelled to go and skate. I think as these things go, life is a pretty nifty thing, and I'm grateful for what life has bestowed on me. To want or expect more, would seem somehow greedy.
So I'll say no more, I'll take my leave of you all, and go enjoy the afternoon, in the best way that I know how - on four wheels! ;)
Excellent series, and a perfect start to the second season.
Also some very good conversation in the comments; far from the normal "flame" or "troll" wars that often occur with more controversial documentaries.
I think I've learned more about nuerology and the cortex in these past 42 minutes than I ever have known before. Despite the fact that we may not agree on the outcome of death, we all know one thing for sure: we all face it, sooner or later.
The part where the man who lost his wife described the "rough copy of a mosaic"...that filled me with hope, for some reason. I know that people often say when you lose someone dear to you that "they are still living on, through you"...but how he described it really crystallized that thought for me, I felt.
That man was Douglas Hofstadter, and he is awesome. You should check out a book he wrote called 'Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid' . It's highly original, highly entertaining, and will give you a good idea of the quality of this guy's mind. That book changed my life when I was a teenager, and I was pretty tickled when he suddenly put in an appearance in this doc.
For the first 18 minute this show suffered from the same ailments that have brought religion to humanity; a sense of self worth that is out of proportion with reality. There is nothing really mysterious and "quantum" about a consciousness, rather just a possibility from a complex biological information machine that is able to self-question...that is it...you die..you die....you have no relevance beyond that....if you lived long enough to make a copy of yourself then that copy is likely to carry on that potential to self-question.
"There is nothing really mysterious and "quantum" about a consciousness..."
Oh, really. That is your explanation? That consciousness is just a "possibility from a complex biological information machine..." That is wrong on so many levels I really don't know what to say. First off what is a information machine? What good would that possibly be? Machines could gather information and record it, but the information we could gather from the machine itself would only tell us about the machine. Like when we hear a squeak coming from a wheel, we know that there is a problem. The sound of the squeak was information converted into sound by the machine, just as the sound itself is information as well. And to say that consciousness is just a "possibility" doesn't explain anything at all. Of course it is a possibility for animate entities, but why.
Why when you put these particles together in this configuration does it produce consciousnesses, or would it? If we could assemble a human from elementary particles perfectly so that when we are done he is unable to be told apart from one of us- would it just gain a consciousness? At what point, what if the last atom we put in place goes on his big toe, when did he become a human? When we finished his brain? These are not simple questions, if you fail to see their inherent complexity I am afraid life is going to be some what dull for you.
Really love how this one ended. What a beautiful lesson.
Consciousness is a necessary tool for the handling of information (which is provided by your senses). However, just like a computer motherboard, the information must be contained to be made predictable in order to utilize energy as information. Otherwise you'd just have mass chaos. This concept of the brain operating on the quantum level is news to me, but this idea of random entanglement is really pushing the envelope into pseudo-science. First, we understand quite well how our nerves operate and it is not on the quantum level. How would this information somehow change mediums while still simultaneously transferring the same information into new medium? Secondly, nothing in fMRI's has suggested that our brains just fire at random here there and everywhere. Yet, it seems that's what they are suggesting here especially in the domino analogy.
This whole into the wormhole series seems to be really well-produced mix of pseudo-science and actual science backed with the professional narration of Morgan Freeman to make the average person swallow whatever is said hook, line and sinker.
I advise watching with a healthy portion of skepticism and if you hear something that is monumentally paradigm shifting for you, you'd be wise to do a few minutes of research before holding it as fact. It's such a fine and masterful job of weaving in, what seems to me to be, various elements crack-pot, pseudo-science which encourages the user to conclude there is a deity after all and, of course, that science totally agrees. Just plain bullocks.
Is science finally creating the "Antichrist"?
Read the Story of B, very cool "novel", food for thoughts.
az
No, Az. Science isn't creating the Antichrist. But, I think that he is alive today and will use technology, etc. to its fullest advantages when he takes power.
CnN, in my mind the Antichrist is not a person but an idea, a wave, a change, the beginning of the end of all religions and their rules on life.
Humans do not need religion to be good, but they have needed religion to be bad. (as OZ writes here and there)
Let's trust that we know the best of ourselves.
az
“An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.”
Khalil Gibran
Maybe a better question - is there awareness after death?
Wikipedia - Epicurus 341 BCE - 270 BCE
"Therefore, as Epicurus famously said, "death is nothing to us." When we exist death is not, and when death exists we are not. All sensation and consciousness ends with death and therefore in death there is neither pleasure nor pain. The fear of death arises from the belief that in death there is awareness."
His last sentence gives me great comfort. When its over, its over!
Do not ask "Is there Life after Death?", ask instead "Do we die?"
I have yet to find any proof anyone ever died. Some circumstantial evidence upon which assumptions are built, yes, but no proof.
"So in asking Is there Life after Death?" there is an unfounded assumption that there is death.
This documementary I found to be dull, boring and rather than addressing Life which is proven to be real it addresses 'death' for which there is no proof whatsoever.
Yes, no one really knows what death is, only observed in the third person. We live in our vibration, as an analogy, flickering on and off as in ac current (light bulb) on and off 60 times a second, our vibrations are much faster.
We are here, and then we are not here, when death occurs, we are not here for a longer period of time, a longer pause, whereas a new vibration, a new universe.
"I have yet to find any proof anyone ever died. Some circumstantial evidence upon which assumptions are built, yes, but no proof."
That is one of the dumbest things I've read in a while. Let me cut off your head while you're telling me about your life. Then, as your head is freed from your spine, you can continue to tell me how you are still alive. If you're unable to, I'd say we've got pretty firm confirmation of death.
I mean seriously... we're here to learn, not to stifle our minds with nonsense.
Worse, Achems of all people agrees with you. What the heck is going on here today. Achems, you're far too smart to feed into philosophical sophistry like that. Even if life were nothing more than just a vibration, pluck a guitar string and tell me it does not come to an end. Of course death is real. I'm shocked to see you buy into Deepak Chopra-type nonsense. :
I will disregard your ad hominem attacks this time and tell you again, no one can possibly know what dead is in the first person, only in the third person.
I did not say death was not real, only nobody knows what it actually is, that is what this doc is about. read my post properly instead of going off on a tangent!
if you know then you tell me, I was strictly making a supposition., Deepak Chopra?? if all else fails, put him in the picture right?
I think more along the lines of Feynman, Hawking, and my latest, Brian Greene, am studying all his latest work.
Quote: "I mean seriously... we're here to learn, not to stifle our minds with nonsense."
Agreed.
Although there is obviously physical death and decay (you must have seen a corpse before?), there may not be death of the soul.
Is there Life after Death? Is there a new kind of life after the death of the body?
Life is not proven to be real. I am felt by my senses to be real. When i sleep i feel real, my dreams seem real, when i wake up my 5 senses say it's wasn't real.
Very interesting doc..will be looking forward to more from the same source.
az
Life is Life and is expressed in an infinite number of ways. There is the human expression of Life, the plant and flower expressions of Life, a myriad bird, fish, mammalian, reptilian and insect expression of Life and you say Life is not proven to be real?
All these are unique expression of conscious Life expressed in their own unique manner via their own unique forms, each with their own varying levels, or degrees, of consciousness.
Anyways, ma'am, seems to me the materialists want proof of anything before accepting anything as a fact yet these same people will claim we die, as a fact, yet can not offer proof when challenged. All they have is an assumption, an opinion is all.
And in this instance, their opinion has no greater vailidity than mine and they can not legitimately claim to be any authority or expert, no matter how many PHDs they may have.
To anyone who claims, as a fact, that anyone ever died - I say either supply proof or be honest and admit it is just your opinion. Anyone who states a mere opinion as a fact loses all credibility when it comes to science or just honest discussion.
And this is why I say to not question "Life after death" for this assumes death - question instead the assumption.
Of course, this means question what (as opposed who who) we are and while there are many who are happy about examining, even microscopically, everything around them seem to baulk at the same minute examination of self.
I'm not sure why this is so. May be they are scared of what they may find. May be if the truth were widely known the religions and their fear-based control structures would collapse overnight. (Which is why at least one of them successfully fought against scientific progress for generations and even today, in nearly all religions, truth is hidden under a plethora of misleading dogma)
I have challenged many on this and am told I don't know what I'm talking about yet they are totally unable to offer proof to back up their claims that we die so I suggest they haven't a clue what they are talking about.
>sigh< then they become upset and point to their scientific and academic experiences and qualifications which have to do with everything from biological cells to neurotransmitters. In other words, the material aspects of the body.
No examination at all of Life itself which is not of a material nature and is what animates the body.
So, never having examined it - how can they possibly think they are they qualified to state for a fact what it is?
So it seems even science, supposedly based upon objective observation, reason and logic, falls back on belief when it comes to answering certain questions. Much like religion ...
You must agree that if death is not proven to be real than life is not proven to be real either. May be if i said this reality is not proven to be real (or to be the only one) then this reality includes life and death and everything in between.
Now if i talk about this reality, the one we seem to all live in our own way, then yes life appears to be real and so does death.
az
An other way to look at this could be that death is the only thing that mainly exist. My being here in life last for one very short "fart of time" compare to the cosmos. If i am anything when i am not here alive, i am that 99.999999999999...% percent of the time. Therefore i am more dead than alive. Life is a fleeting dream, from dreaming it awake, to dreaming it asleep and on and on until one goes back to being dead, perhaps our true Self.
In that context being dead would mean something entirely different for sure.
May be GOD has been in the making through birth and death for eons. May be it needed the full spectrum of ways to be in order to become.
What if God is about to birth in religious bullshit.
I am GOD and so are U.
We are drops of an ocean....wfffffffffffff....
Science is the wheel
Religion is the brake
Spirituality is the source
i prefer Soul to God, feels more personal
i sometimes call it 1i.i1
my way is only my way
az
Az, I think the very fact that we don't like "death" or feel that it's so "unnatural" is that we are eternal beings---we do have an eternal soul, so anything temperal like this goes against our "natural" eternal nature.
I would say a decayed corpse is proof of death. Perhaps you have never seen one, but many people have. I have, and I can assure you that if you do you will have no questions about whether or not it is dead. I would also say that you hold a overly romantic view of what "life" is, in my opinion. All these profound emotions we experience, these feelings of serenity and peace, or deep religious experiences we have can be reduced to physical and chemical processes manipulated by sensory input coupled with environmental influences. There is no such thing as a "life force" in my opinion nor a soul. This is a science program not philosophy, that's why they didn't bother with the concepts you mentioned below. Is science the final answer, that's up to whom ever is asking the question. But expecting science to include concepts from philosophy that can never be measured and are subjective in nature is senseless. You say below, "Life... is what animates the body." Here is the definition of animate-To give life to; fill with life. Now if animate means to have life, then how can life be animating the body? Life is giving life to the body? See, it makes no sense you haven't explained or defined anything. You say below they should have studied "life", what does that even mean? Were would they begin? That's a really broad topic, life. I mean you are welcome of course to your opinion and I don't mean to be ugly but I just don't see how you can reject or criticize what you so clearly do not understand. Also you say to Azilda that there are countless expressions of life, well for each one of those there has to be a expression of death, as all things alive eventually die. Yet you say you don't know if death exists? You make no sense, you contradict your own logic, in the few instances that you show any. Some things have to have an opposite to exist, life and death or hot and cold. Without the state of death there would be no need for a concept of what it is to be alive, the same as there would be no need for the concept of hot if there was not the concept of cold. To say you believe one exists means you must believe the other exists.
Hi Waldo, how are youses doing man?
Yes, definitely there is death, death of the physical body, had death in my hands many times, could not revive.
But again seen by my perspective, third person. But what is death really? taking about consciousness, no one will never know, even by the first person. There has to be a force that animates the body, "consciousness" which is real. Not made up from the brain. What made the brain in the first place? A conglomeration of cells? that decided here we are, lets start moving and a-grooving. Consciousness is energy and inherent in the quantum foam, my take, the whole universe is conscious at some level, and is run by vibrations, "string theory"
thank you. this is the most enlightening documentary on near death experiences I have seen.
Go to an old folks home and talk to anyone with dementia. Then you can ask yourself what is real. Or watch some of the documentaries on brain injury. The split brain is one of my favorites. It's where an epileptic has had the two sides of his brain severed to stop seizures. Ask to do something with the left hand the right hand will come and do the task and the subject will say he didn't do that. I'm a great believer in Eastern mysticism, living in the now and to question my presumptions but I have serious doubts about life after death and reincarnation. I think we may simply not want to face or own demise.
Awesome doc, N,N,DMT anyone? lol
This answers many thoughts and wanderings on our cosmic essence...
After watching this...is it too much of a stretch to ask if there really is a Creator? Seems to be the next logical question...
What if our Imaginations are the creator this would be easy to tell if we could communicate with nature. The imagination in our own minds expressed though the ways of entertainment such as video games. What if worlds that we create in our own minds actually do exist in this world dragons don't co-exist with humans, but in other worlds they do. What if we are the creation of someone or something elses imagination or on the other hand maybe this is all a dream of an unconisious mind. I don't believe in god I believe that there is a dreamer. and what if the rules that apply in our own world may not apply in other worlds I would call this law of the dreamer anything is a possibility. ~ Marlowe
If flying with butterflies and throughout the universe is what I can expect after death, I welcome it!
Many children develop a fascination with the Nazi symbols and feel devotion to the 3rd Reich, this is a real phenomenom, I have a dutch nephew with this condition, my scottish uncle had it and I had it also, I used to wonder where this comes from and thought that maybe the Nazis just did such a superb job at hypnotising the masses that it still works however this video provides a few alternative explanations for this phenomenom.
Way to go! more of the wormhole series. Vlatko knows what we like!
Einstein showed that energy cannot cease to exist, it merely changes form. Taking this into account, it seems obvious that when we die,the electrical energy which carries our consiousness must go somewhere. Since it cannot cease to exist, it must go into the ground, just like any other arrant electrical current. The question is, does this electrical energy continue to carry our individual consiousness? I believe that our energy becomes part of the cosmic whole. That we literally become one with the universe. The information that is our consiousness continues to exist, but we become one mind. This is consistant with some reports of near death experiences where people claim that they could travel to anywhere in the universe with a mere thought. If your consiousness is part of the whole of all cosmic energy, then it should be easy to move throughout the universe at will.
That would be the SHIT! Wish I could do that right now instead of sitting in my office getting ready to organize the bills. At least I can watch this doc with a cold sippy while I do.
@Nakor420:
Yes, you cannot destroy energy, matter turns to energy.
But the only thing that is obvious about death is that we can see it only in the third person, never the first.
So when a person dies, the body consciousness ceases, and then what? goes into the void? There is no void.
Try to imagine a state where nothing exists. Such a state is impossible even contradictory since the concept existence is necessary to comprehend it. Therefore existence exists necessarily, even if nothing else exists. So there is always something instead of nothing.
I have a question, I believe the concept of nothing as something is termed as "nihilism" in philosophy (i,e: nothing is something and hence cannot be called "nothing"). I have often heard the narrators in many docs about the origins of the universe say that "Before the big bang there was nothing, not even time". What is the "nothing" that they talk about? I am also quite confused when they say that time itself came into existence after the big bang?. Does time have a separate existence (in physics)?. Could you answer those in a lay persons term (I am not well versed in physics or math for that reason). Cheers
@ Abhinav Asokh
You are not so much asking a question as presenting a paradox.
However, I can say that, though for us, a photon exist in time, traveling at 186,000 miles/sec, for the photon, there is no 'time'.
For the photon, it is all just 'now'.
0z
@Ahinav Asokh:
Nihilistic usually means, that life is without objective meaning purpose or intrinsic value. Belief is that everything ends at death, no afterlife.
At the BB 10^34 sec the universe came into existence along with time.
Before the BB nobody knows what there was, that is the big question. Some say a big void, but what is a void, can't be defined. There are different theories if there even was a BB.
Actually no one really knows what time is. Time is a human construct, all time does is that it defines movement, and time is relative to the observer. At a photons perspective, because it travels at its speed of light time stands still, everything is static.
In the quantum world there is no time and space, what you are witnessing is illusion, Einstein even said that time and space are illusions, everything happens at once, is static.
Yes time and macro level has an existence but only in Newtonian and Einstein physics. Breaks down when you get to the micro quantum level. Even the laws of gravity break down at the quantum level.
This saying by an unknown ancient Indian seer from the Ajivika school of thought came to my mind. It mildly echoes of what you just said about time.
"If all future occurrences are rigidly determined ..., coming events may in some sense be said to exist already. The future exists in the present, and both exist in the past. Time is thus on ultimate analysis illusory" "Every phase of a process is always present. ... in a soul which has attained salvation its earthly births are still present. Nothing is destroyed and nothing is produced. ... Not only are all things determined, but their change and development is a cosmic illusion."
Sorry if this sounds ignorant, I have also heard that Gravity tends to act weirdly at microscopic levels (I believe even atoms tend to slip in and out of existence when observed at microscopic levels and the theory of multiverse was borne to explain that). Why does Newtons law of gravity break down at such microscopic levels? If a well established and tested theory such as newtons law is not applicable everywhere (both and micro and macro levels), don't you think that another theory that is applicable at both levels has to be formulated to explain it?. Also, if a theory such as the theory of gravity works only at a certain level and completely disintegrates at another level, don't you think that there is something wrong with the theory or maybe a bit of tweaking needs to be done to explain why the theory breaks down at such a fundamental level of existence?.
This saying by an unknown ancient Indian seer from the Ajivika school of thought came to my mind. It mildly echoes of what you just said about time.
"If all future occurrences are rigidly determined ..., coming events may in some sense be said to exist already. The future exists in the present, and both exist in the past. Time is thus on ultimate analysis illusory" "Every phase of a process is always present. ... in a soul which has attained salvation its earthly births are still present. Nothing is destroyed and nothing is produced. ... Not only are all things determined, but their change and development is a cosmic illusion."
Many thanks for the previous comment.
P.s: I read somewhere that no one fully understands quantum mechanics, we know it is true because its predictions turned out to be true (quarks etc), not sure of the validity of the story though.
@ Abhinav Asokh
If you think you understand quantum mechanics,
you don't understand quantum mechanics.
~ Richard Feynman
Gravity tends to act weirdly. PERIOD.
At he sub-picoscopic levels we really have no description of gravity. The so-called 'Standard Model' does not have a quantum theory of gravity.
Quantum gravity is a prediction made by String-Theory(now dubbed M-Theory ? the 'M' stands for membrane ? in M-Theory, one no longer speaks of 'strings' but rather of 'branes', from 'membrane'). M-theory does not contradict the Standard Model, it subsumes the Standard Model and then goes on further to explain gravity.
But there's a fly in the ointment.
For M-Theory to work, you need a whopping 11 dimensions, 10 spatial dimensions, and one for time. Also, M-Theory comes in many 'flavors' and nobody knows which, if any, is the correct 'flavor'.
This is changing(not the 11 dimensions, but the 'flavors' (lol).
There is now some evidence that M-Theory is the way to go and this evidence also says that one, and only one, of the M-Theory versions is correct. But the jury is still out. The evidence is very scanty and very difficult to verify.
As far as Newton's theory of gravity, that was proven wrong in 1919 by Sir Arthur Eddington who provided conclusive evidence that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is the correct theory.
Newton's laws of gravitational mechanics are still used because the math is simple and because the predictions are virtually 100% accurate(within sub-light-speed systems). Newton's theory of gravity only breaks down at speeds approaching the speed of light and when dealing with hyper-super-duper massive objects.
So, unless your visiting a black hole at warp drive speed, Newton's gravity predictions are just fine even though, strictly speaking, Newton was wrong. We went to the Moon, and back, on Newton's gravitational model.
As wonderful and as perfect as it is, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity breaks down at sub-picoscopic levels. In other words, Einstein's General Theory of Relativity says squat about gravity at the quantum level and the Standard Model of Quantum Mechanics doesn't say anything at all about gravity.
And now there is trouble in Paradise for General Relativity.
General Relativity can only stand with its mouth wide open at the fact that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate! This demands an hypothesized 'dark energy'. And 'dark matter' has to be hypostasized to explain why galaxies are not behaving as General Relativity says they should.
As far as "...atoms tend to slip in and out of existence when observed at microscopic levels..." ? almost ? but, actually, it's even more weird.
First off, it is not atoms going 'in-and-out', but rather sub-atomic particles(the stuff atoms are made of) that go 'in-and-out'. The level at which this occurs is way lower than even sub-picoscopic.
What you refer to are known as 'virtual particles'.
They are interesting. A pair of particles(one, the anti-particle of the other) bursts out of literally nothing then dives back into non-existence as quickly as it appeared.
At the quantum level anything can, and does, happen.
In this case, it's kind of like a bank embezzler who steals money from the bank where he works, goes out and invests it, makes a killing(he'd better, or he's in deep doo-doo) and then replaces the money he stole before anyone notices and then pockets the profit he made from the investment ? something out of nothing(just like the Fed (lol).
In quantum mechanics, energy with which to create a pair of virtual particles can be 'borrowed' from the future. The resulting particle-antiparticle pair then self-annihilates giving off just that energy needed to pay back what was stolen. But it has to happen so quickly that nothing else in the system has time to notice and react to the original theft.
This is happening all the time, everywhere, and gives rise to what is called 'quantum foam'.
I'd love to go into the multiverse theory, but it would take too long.
Instead, I recommend SeeUat videos?SCIENCE:
243. What Happened Before the Beginning?
[available, but not so good]
244. What Happened Before the Big Bang?
[real good, but blocked by the BBC, at least where I live]
These are also very good. SeeUat videos?SCIENCE:
8. Absolute Zero
19. ATOM
31. Chemistry: A Volatile History
37. Dangerous Knowledge
64. Fermat’s Last Theorem
205. The Secret Life of Chaos
210. The Story of Maths
236. Uncertain Principles
0z
@Ozyxba1:
Good stuff, but concerning the expansion of the universe, Re: dark matter, Einstein had it right all along in GR when he came up with his "cosmological constant" even though he said it was his greatest blunder.
By supernova observation, ushered the cosmological constant back into the limelight, the cosmological constant does not dilute, every cubic meter of space contributes a repulsive gravity. By about the 7-billion year mark, the cosmological constants repulsive gravity is causing the universes acceleration, and continuing acceleration.
So, Mr. Razor: Do you believe in a SOUL or conciousness after death, or what? If you're voiding the "void" then what is your concept of what happens to us after we die?
@ Achems_Razor
Yes, I know about Einstein's greatest blunder, but even his gravitational constant would not have solved the problem of
a universe expanding at an ACCELERATING rate!
0z
Science has studied in depth the process that our cells go through in order to produce the energy that drives our bodies. Humans are not closed systems our cells convert mass into energy all the time, just as we use the energy we have produced constantly. It is transformed into work, the work of moving our limb or heating our bodies. When someone dies the remaining energy is lost as heat that dissipates into the surroundings or as nerve impulses that cause the dead body to actually move. We have studied this as it happens and made very close observations in an attempt to find the "soul" or "spirit" of a person leaving their body at death. But, we have found nothing that can not be explained by simple physical processes, in other words no extra energy that should not be there.
Waldo, shall we assume you or they have means to measure quantum energy? If this involves physical equipment, can you provide a brief outline of any calibration required? For real, I'm not just teasing you.
What happens when you turn a computer off ? The energy that makes it go is cut off and what remains is dissipated into the environment. All processing stops, a memory remains in a physical state of flipped switches and recorded bits on some form of media that allows it to resume its functions as if it was never turned off. Is a human brain any different beyond its level of complexity ? Our brain is unpowered and our physical media is not normally preserved after death so its reasonable to assume that we, as an organized assemblage of information, are lost.
look up electric universe it goes with what you are saying like a glove
Alright, I'll check it out. It's a book I presume?
@ Nakor420
"Since it cannot cease to exist, it must go into the ground, just like any other arrant electrical current. The question is, does this electrical energy continue to carry our individual consiousness[sic]?"
Matter-Energy?Energy-Matter is conserved.
Less well understood (by me, anyhow) is the law of Conservation of Information. To a layperson such as myself, Conservation of Information might be taken to mean that all information, inclusive of that information determining the 'me' of me, is in some way 'conserved'.
But, alas, this is not the case. Conservation of Information refers to the immutability of the corresponding probability-wave histories of physical quantum-states of Matter-Energy?Energy-Matter. Crude and sloppy though it may be, this is my understanding of:
Conservation of Information.
'Hawking's Paradox' violates this law. Many ingenious hypotheses have been set forth to resolve Hawking's Paradox. Amongst them stands the Holographic Principle(see Wikipedia).
Bottom line:
Understand that Conservation of Information pertains exclusively to the corresponding probability-wave histories of physical quantum-states of Matter-Energy?Energy-Matter, and not, most unfortunately, to your 'youness'. Put bluntly, at some, or another, 'sometime', it's going to be:
Hasta la vista! baby.
0z
I think a much easier way to say it is that everything that has ever happened from the moment space time was created forward, left information markers. These markers may have interacted with other entities and consequently changed form and their magnitude or intensity may have diminished over time, but the information is passed on. For example when hydrogen is fused into helium a neutrino is formed, this is a marker for that event. That neutrino may come to earth and pass into a detector were it collides with a deuterium atom and produces a muon or electron, this is the information once again being passed on in the form of a marker.
If you have a closed deterministic system you should logically be able, if you had means of making very precise measurements and the correct theories to make predictions, to trace a marker backward through the system to the point when the information was created, in our case the birth of the universe. This is how most comic processes have been predicted in fact. We look at the properties of the markers created and deduce what processes would be needed to produce this marker, or we say here is the process it should create these markers and then try to find them in the quantities and having the properties that our event suggested. Gravity waves are a good example and so is the cosmic background radiation left over from the big bang.
Quantum information is of course unintuitive and odd seeming to us mere humans. An entanglement pattern would definitely be considered information, but I don't understand enough about it to talk intelligently on the matter. It would seem to me that entanglement pattern would need a nervous system of some kind to be conscious as we understand it.
True enough, but to date, the simplest and most convincing explanation for the observations of accelerated expansion is that the cosmological constant doesn't vanish, and so space is suffused with dark energy. But what is dark energy? that is the big question!
@ Achems_Razor
"...what is dark energy?"
'Dark energy' has been hypothesized in order to save the theory of General Relativity.
It's real simple. If Einstein is to remain 'correct', then there must be this xxx to kiss his theory and make it well again. And since we don't want Einstein to be wrong(he was such a nice guy), there simply MUST be this xxx.
That's logical. (lol)
The only 'evidence' for 'dark energy' is that if there isn't any,
we're f'kt! (lol)
Same goes for 'dark matter'.
0z
I should of said dark matter, that's what I meant to say.
Dark matter 73% the rest of the universe 27%
Am delving into "Brian Greene's" latest work, "The Hidden Reality" will see what is said about dark matter.
@ Achems_Razor
Exactly!
To make Einstein's General Theory of Relativity keep on working, one must posit the existence of dark matter and, further, that dark matter comprises 73% of the mass of the universe.
But maybe there is no such thing as dark matter. Maybe we are witnessing the first ever violation of General Relativity.
I am not saying that we are witnessing that violation. I am saying there is no more reason to assume that dark matter comprises 73% of the universe than there is to assume that Einstein must
be wrong, after all.
Either what we are measuring is PROOF that Einstein is wrong, or there must be dark matter. But if there is dark matter, then why can't we detect it?
There are experiments underway to detect, directly, dark matter. So far, nothing. But the experiments are very difficult, take years to execute, and require enormous patients. (The experiment that showed the neutrino has mass took TWENTY YEARS to complete!)
We cannot assume so quickly that dark matter will not be detected, someday. Nevertheless, until it is, there is no good reason to assume that it is real(unless, of course, you believe that 'Goddunit' (lol). At this point it is equally possible that we
are witnessing the crack up of General Relativity.
You won't hear Brian Greene say this. You won't here a physicist say this. They are human, too. They want, desperately, for Einstein to be right ? so much rests upon it ? so much is at stake. Still, 'wanting' and 'proving' are two different things.
Dark matter and dark energy are, at the moment, matters(no pun intended) of faith. And General Relativity, at the moment, has the status of religion. OMG! Did I just say that?! :-))
0z
Just because not know what dark energy/matter is will not disprove Einstein GR and SR has been proven many times.
Will revamp my numbers, Dark energy 73%... Dark matter 23%...ordinary matter 4%.
Except the quantum revolution is coming and with that who knows what wonders may transpire?
@ Achems_Razor
Newton's theory of gravity successfully withstood every conceivable challenge to its veracity for three hundred years (REPEAT: THREE HUNDRED YEARS!). And then, as telescopes improved, and the ability to make precise and accurate measurements of the planets became extremely refined, guess what? The orbit of Mercury was found not to conform to Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation.
The discrepancy was slight, but unmistakable. Every effort was made to explain it away within the prevailing paradigm. After all, many apparent anomalies had been observed over the centuries, and each and every time, a discovery was made that explained perfectly the reason for the apparent deviation, and all went back to normal AND scientists, via the exercise, learned something new!
So why should it be any different with the orbit of Mercury?
Surely, something had failed to be taken into account, just as with all other past challenges over the centuries. Surely! Nobody stopped trying. The fact that every explanation failed did not deter astronomers, because they just KNEW Newtonian gravity was right. THREE HUNDRED YEARS said so. Then a lowly patent clerk said to himself:
What if Newton is wrong.
He worked out the theory of General Relativity and, suddenly, Mercury was behaving perfectly. The final test was the measurement of the bending of light from a star observed during a complete solar eclipse. The angle of deviation was exactly what Einstein's theory had predicted.
Furthermore, there was a competing theory based on Newtonian Mechanics that had been worked out by the Dutch physicist, Hendrik Lorentz. It also predicated curvature, but of a slightly different angle. Einstein's angle was right, Newton's angle wrong.
And at that instant, after THREE HUNDRED YEARS, Newton fell apart, forever. All the King's Horses and all the King's men couldn't put poor old Newton back together again.
The unthinkable had happened.
When news reached New York that Eddington had established once and for all that Newton had been WRONG, and that Einstein was right, the New York Times could not find type-face big enough to print Einstein's name on the front page.
At that instant Einstein burst into superstardom. Oh, well, decidedly that ? burst into a Super Nova ? and stayed that way. There is not a person on the face of the planet who does not know his name or what he looked like ? and all because of little ol' Mercury.
Einstein has been proven, and reproven, hundreds of times, successfully surviving every conceivable challenge ? precisely! Maybe this is one challenge that he will not survive.
And, by the way, if such comes to pass it will not mean that
E ? mc². That is not here in question. It is General Relativity's gravitation predictions that will be in question, at least in such scenarios as involve the way galaxies behave.
No one has any evidence independent of General Relativity that Dark Matter is real. Zip.
Personally, I think Einstein is right AND that there is also NO dark matter('dark matter', that you can't see, feel or touch but makes up 73% of the universe ? who do they think they're kidding?!).
I think we are witnessing a phenomenon that does not contradict Einstein but that is hinting that there may be a universe 'over the hill' that we know nothing about, either an extension of what we think is our whole universe or something disconnected, except for the tug of gravity.
And I think General Relativity will serve to give such an hypothesis form. General Relativity will tell us things that would be otherwise unknowable.
And do not forget, in M-Theory, the graviton is a closed loop, NOT bound to any brane and can thus pass through the multiverse freely. That's why gravity is so weak. The strength of the force is 'smeared' throughout multiverses, and we get only our fair share, and that ain't much. So the tugging might even be coming from a parallel universe.
That's what I think!
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is trying to tell us that our universe is not alone.
0z
@ wald0, thank you for the link -- was/is great!
0z
Maybe this is a stupid question, so apologies if it is, but I'm really not well versed in these matters at all. Is it possible that this energy just converts into heat, and then dissipates as the body cools?
I guess another question might be, if as has been said, our brains are a type of computer, what happens to the data, when death "shuts us down?"
*edited to add - ok, so I've now gotten around to reading all the earlier posts, thanks guys! :)
according to some very wise teachers going back millenia: .. after death the spirit leaves the body and enters a fine material dimension belt around the planet, just like where the akashic records of the planet are stored [every thought,action and feeling are stored in a fine material bank around the planet..edgar casey was just one to talk of this] then the consciousness block which contains all the lifes information and all outstanding thought processes is resolved in seconds and a new consciouness block is created that serves the next evolutionary step of the spirit which has to gain knowledge and wisdom over countless life times, then the spirit can either return immediately to the course material world or enter a fine material world.
of course I or WE can not prove these wise teachings yet, but we are beginning to see scientific proof of the positive results of daily repetitive meditation on the brain which has been in these teachings for millenia and which scientists giggled at.
science will never be complete until it endevours itself around the laws of nature , the spirit , the consciousness , and the Creational consciousness , which is without form and animates every spark of life and every created spiritform , every quark, every electron, every dimension , universe , spacetime and for all great times , constantly evolving, and expanding from within while rushing out at incalculable speeds spreading its creational love through an eternal void of endless nothingless!
Will reply to your subsequent posts here. Yes, seems that some eastern thoughts run parallel to the scientific advances of today.
You said in the eastern thoughts..."coming events may in some sense be said to exist already"
That is what an eminent theoretical physicist "Julian Barbour" says also, in his theory "the end of time" his theory in a nutshell states that time is an illusion, that everything happens at once, past, present and future, everything is static, that time is nothing but a series of "nows" one after another, but each now' is forever frozen in time, we are pulling out the nows,' snapshots if you will, out of our picture album every Planck second by our probabilistic actions that form our ongoing reality, but the snapshots we do not pull are still there and viable. And yes, he is a "bonafide quantum physicist", (basically saying that for the other eyes)
Gravity still works at Newtonian macro levels, but has been updated by Einstein. Einstein has gravitons in the picture, Einsteins theory if the Sun suddenly disappeared, it would still take approx 8 minutes for the Earth to veer out into space, because of gravitons. Goes against what Newton said.
And no, there is no marriage between macro gravity and micro quantum gravity, the two do not mix. No other theory has been found as yet.
And "Hawking" says, quantum physics tells us that no matter how thorough our observations of the present, the (unobserved) past, like the future, is indefinite and exists only as a spectrum of possibilities. The universe, according to to quantum physics, has no single past, or history. The observations you make on a system in the present affect its past.
And besides "Hugh Everett's" many worlds theory, "Richard Feynman" demonstrated that subatomic particles traverse infinite paths through spacetime, implicating infinite histories for any one particle. In other words many different worlds, or universes.
@Abhinev Asokh:
Seems I got the posts mixed up, My post meant for you went to Nakor420 instead, was no direct reply available to you, sorry about that.
@Achems, Oz, Waldo, Earth, Nakor and other....great conversation, enjoyed reading every words!
az
I agree, I learnt more about such varied subjects.
sry for late reply just got your email. no its a video(but sure they have written a book)"thunderbolts of the gods" look it up on youtube. i watched it again and it really does fit in with what your saying. please let me know how you liked it after you watched ty
So do we lose our individual consciensness or just become part of the greater mind? Why do NDE people still have their own unqiue selves felt?
Once Chaung-tzu dreamt that he was a butterfly, fluttering around, happy with himself and absolutely carefree. He didn't know he was Chaung-tzu. Suddenly he woke up: there he was in the flesh, unmistakably Chaung-tzu. But he didn't know if he was Chaung-tzu who had just dreamt that he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming that he was Chaung-tzu.
I guess the way to be sure is to determine when you are absolutely happy.
Then you will know that you are dreaming, or in love.
There's no need to awaken from either.
~ The Way of Chaung-tzu, by Thomas Merton
0z
I have a new slide show on myspace. I will start it with a butterfly.
az
Azilda, ur too sweet for own good :-))
(lol)
Here's another, just for you:
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
~ W.B. Yeats
0z
You are right to take this 25thumbs up as an "encore" stand-up ovation.
It has been a pleasure to discover your scientific thought process in the Wormhole docs.
I mainly had met you as a "religion-free" activist at the head of the pack...lol...and a gay one at that!
Take care and care to take for life is generous, imagine death or whatever is in between!
az
I have just sent in info about an "out of time" psi experience about my own mother on the day she died while i was napping Fiammetta Rubin
Good comment