Ralph Waldo Emerson is often quoted to have said "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." I have been a small-minded fool for a long time, but I'm slowly improving. (If you want to cut that path a bit shorter for yourself, you'd better read this long post. :)
After reading Emerson's wikipedia page I surfed on to this and that and eventually ended up on the Swedish scientist Swedenborg's. What a stand-up guy! He independently of da Vinci came up with a sort of aeroplane. He published a scientific paper, he was a Swedish Board of Mines fellow, he helped construct a number of engineering masterpieces, he was a member in the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala and also in the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg, and fellow of Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He was offered a professorship in mathematics, but himself thought he wasn't competent.
He was internationally renowned, and didn't stop at innovations, physics and mechanics. He studied anatomy and all the great philosophers of the time. As with most people in the 1700s he studied Christianity. In his mid-fifties he realized a number of controversial things about the mind and the spirit and went on to be a mystic, totally forsaking traditional sciences. Now I know what he must have felt like. The mechanistic world-view totally looses it's radiance when you find something underneath. Something underlying which require totally different theories to encompass the new discoveries.
As I've mentioned earlier I've pretty recently come to realize that there is an afterlife. The evidence behind my conclusion goes something like this:
- Your mind is not executing in your brain;
- your brain is your soul's API to the body;
- your soul does not need your hardware/body to execute.
Before anything else I should say that, although still taboo, parapsychology today holds very high standards with extreme rigor in both statistics and experiments. I'll think you'll agree that it's not hard to imagine what decades of scrutiny from hardcore sceptics does to scientists any discipline. The articles I refer to here on are all peer-reviewed.
The first statement is in fact very easy to prove. This article shows that brains can be made to interact without direct communication. The setup is basically like this: two people meditate together for 20 minutes, to allow their minds to entangle. Then they are separated by sound-proof walls and Faradays chambers and EEG equipment measure their brain activities. One is exposed to 100 light flashes at random intervals, then EEG correlation between the two is computed. No data has been discarded except for segments where either subject moved, causing EEG saturation. Two types of control tests were performed: one without stimulation, one without any person in the room to safeguard against equipment failure. The probability of this happening by chance is 111:1.
This experiment checks if it's possible to detect if you're being stared at. Through surveillance equipment! The two subjects are separated by six or so rooms (map included in article), one either staring at the other through a monitor, or not staring. The result is weighted depending on if the subjects believe it's going to work or not. The article is joint-written by a sceptic and a proponent. Interestingly a conclusion is that your inclination or mindset affects your results (my stuff in color):
Swedenborg himself had a couple of well-documented remote viewings (i.e. experiencing things at a distance in time or space). This archaeological experiment in Egypt show the level of detail that can be produced with two good remote viewers at hand. The target site was Marea, an ancient city unknown to all but a few archaeological pros. The researcher performing the experiment was blind to the facts to avoid cold reading or such. Neither viewer had been to Marea, and were not beforehand informed that the project was taking place in Marea.
The lead archaeologist was a sceptic, thinking that it would be preposterous that remote viewing would succeed where sophisticated electrics had failed. He believed that if there was anything at the site, it would be the Roman acropolis. The two readers were instructed to:
This experiment checks if it's possible to detect if you're being stared at. Through surveillance equipment! The two subjects are separated by six or so rooms (map included in article), one either staring at the other through a monitor, or not staring. The result is weighted depending on if the subjects believe it's going to work or not. The article is joint-written by a sceptic and a proponent. Interestingly a conclusion is that your inclination or mindset affects your results (my stuff in color):
Swedenborg himself had a couple of well-documented remote viewings (i.e. experiencing things at a distance in time or space). This archaeological experiment in Egypt show the level of detail that can be produced with two good remote viewers at hand. The target site was Marea, an ancient city unknown to all but a few archaeological pros. The researcher performing the experiment was blind to the facts to avoid cold reading or such. Neither viewer had been to Marea, and were not beforehand informed that the project was taking place in Marea.
The lead archaeologist was a sceptic, thinking that it would be preposterous that remote viewing would succeed where sophisticated electrics had failed. He believed that if there was anything at the site, it would be the Roman acropolis. The two readers were instructed to:
- locate the ancient city of Marea. They were told it could be found within a square 24x24 km;
- locate a building within the city that has either tile, fresco or mosaic in it;
- In the building, locate the walls, the windows, the doors, and the depth at which the floor is found;
- describe artifacts or conditions within.
The first remove viewer, McMullen, had a go.
- Locating the city.
- McMullen placed the city on the map, and when transported to the site he provided a reconstruction of the city. What's the odds of that? They drove him by car to the site.
- He walked without hesitation up on a hill without any visible remains of a building. In the sand on the hill he sketched the outline and corners of a building beneath the sand containing several rooms. He set stakes in each corner and one for the door opening, and also stated that the building was part of a larger complex.
- After excavation the corners set were found to be located within inches, door opening was exactly where he said it would be. The building was part of a larger complex.
- He located walls and indicated that the culture which had built it was Byzantine.
- It was late Byzantine.
- He said the depth below ground to the top of the walls was three feet.
- They were four feet deep.
- Indicated there were debris dropped there after being taken from a different structure.
- Masses of pot debris uncovered.
- Said the west wall would have tiles on it. He said the floor would be 6-10 feet deep (although he said "I can't see the floor"). Later he stated that the floor would be marble, smooth on one side, rough on the other. The tiles were set in a chalky sub-flooring. The tiles were square 5/8 of an inch across and one color each. The tiles had be laid in a colored pattern once.
- No floor tiling found at first, but a hard chalk sub-floor was found. The lead archaeologist's assessment was that the covering floor had been stripped away. Later 11 round quarter-sized marble tiles were found, each in either red, black or white. Each smooth on one side, rough on the other. No wall tiling found, but it's not hard to imagine that it was stripped along with the floor tiling.
- He said that green would have been the most prevalent color, although he reported others.
- Substantial amount of green tile glaze found. Green color definitely standing out the most in a desert environment.
- At 8-10 feet there would be a ledge running around the walls.
- In most rooms ledges were found at 9 feet.
- Something would be found associated with baths or bathing. Also, after excavation had started (but not finished) he stated one part of the structure had to do with head and fire. And he also said that the building was generally Roman, but the earlier observation was equally accurate to him.
- Pieces of marble and a hydraulic mortar were probably debris from earlier Roman baths, which were currently excavated "down the hill."
- Hammid walked to the same hill, said the building was buried under the sand there and outlined the northwest corner.
- Highly accurate northwest corner, exactly coinciding with that stated by McMullen.
- She described walls, multiple colors but especially green. Tiles on the wall, possibly green. Said the building had multiple rooms. A sense of bathroom, something to do with baths and washing. A colored design laid polished stone floor, possibly in marble.
- Accurate and/or coinciding with McMullen's viewing.
- She saw an alcove containing a broken column or statue, and something round and free-standing but not complete.
- An alcove containing a free-standing, broken column with a round top was found. The column was definitely not part of the original site and it was the most confusing to the archaeologists, and the least probable to have been anticipated.
I urge any sceptic non-archaeologist to put a dot on a map, go there, tread up to the best dune you can find and start digging. Don't forget to guess the color, depth and shape of what you'll find beforehand. E-mail me when you've found anything ancient. I shan't be holding by breath.
What's the overall risk of lab-controlled experiments being bogus science? According to this meta-study in ESP the risk that the outcome of 108 studies in Ganzfelt is by chance is 18861051:1. The risk that the result in 37 studies in Anticipatory responses is chance is 2.9x1013:1.
So if science can prove that the mind is reaching outside the brain, and it is neither sound nor an electromagnetic field, then what? Whatever it is, it's not confined to your scull.
My next claim is that the mind uses the brain as the API to the body, what's the basis for that claim? Terminal lucidity is. That article is plain psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences btw, no new age mumbo-jumbo there. The term is coined from the unexpected return of mental clarity shortly before death in patients having severe psychiatric and neurologic problems. The stunning examples range from brain cancer to schizophrenia; some have been in catatonic state for years, then suddenly become normal shortly before they die. One former nun went raving mad, and was admitted to an asylum. Three weeks before she died she was completely normal. Which might be said to be strange as her brain was so swollen that the cranium could not be closed after autopsy; "[t]he blood vessels were engorged with blood, and the brain tissue itself was unusually soft."
They seem to have personality outside of their brains, don't they?
Near-death experiences (which of course is also well documented by materialistic science) show that a lot of people around the world have similar experiences. They almost die, come back, get better and tell about what they've seen; mostly it's cosy and nice. The new part for me here is "Peak in Darien", i.e. people who almost die, meet someone on the other side whom they don't think is dead, return and tell about it, then find out that the person had just died. Random dreams by coincidence? Well, when the EEG flatlines you're not supposed to dream, are you? To me this seems like the mind jacks back into the brain.
Finally, my third bullet. I've already touched upon it in the last paragraph, but here's the bulk of new age: the spiritual mediums. How about this article? In one of the experiments a photo is sent to a medium, and no further information is transmitted. The medium does a reading, the reading is recorded and transcribed. To each "sitter" 6 transcriptions are sent, where 1/5 is their own, and they rank them. The experiment resulted in a z-score of -3.89, which means the risk that this happens by chance is 1 in 10k.
If you have four more hours to spend, sneak a peak at these videos:
My next claim is that the mind uses the brain as the API to the body, what's the basis for that claim? Terminal lucidity is. That article is plain psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences btw, no new age mumbo-jumbo there. The term is coined from the unexpected return of mental clarity shortly before death in patients having severe psychiatric and neurologic problems. The stunning examples range from brain cancer to schizophrenia; some have been in catatonic state for years, then suddenly become normal shortly before they die. One former nun went raving mad, and was admitted to an asylum. Three weeks before she died she was completely normal. Which might be said to be strange as her brain was so swollen that the cranium could not be closed after autopsy; "[t]he blood vessels were engorged with blood, and the brain tissue itself was unusually soft."
They seem to have personality outside of their brains, don't they?
Near-death experiences (which of course is also well documented by materialistic science) show that a lot of people around the world have similar experiences. They almost die, come back, get better and tell about what they've seen; mostly it's cosy and nice. The new part for me here is "Peak in Darien", i.e. people who almost die, meet someone on the other side whom they don't think is dead, return and tell about it, then find out that the person had just died. Random dreams by coincidence? Well, when the EEG flatlines you're not supposed to dream, are you? To me this seems like the mind jacks back into the brain.
Finally, my third bullet. I've already touched upon it in the last paragraph, but here's the bulk of new age: the spiritual mediums. How about this article? In one of the experiments a photo is sent to a medium, and no further information is transmitted. The medium does a reading, the reading is recorded and transcribed. To each "sitter" 6 transcriptions are sent, where 1/5 is their own, and they rank them. The experiment resulted in a z-score of -3.89, which means the risk that this happens by chance is 1 in 10k.
If you have four more hours to spend, sneak a peak at these videos:
- Greyson (2008). Consciousness Without Brain Activity: Near Death Experiences (United Nations)
- Radin (2008), Science and the taboo of psi (Google TechTalk)
- Sheldrake (2008) The extended mind (Google Tech Talk)
Today I met a friend who had obvious spiritual abilities, but refused to believe it. ("I know it's impossible to explain that the deep freezer moved several meters in our basement by itself!!!") I for one need a bunch of evidence to believe, but I'm not ignorant. Swedenborg was way smarter and came to this conclusion by himself. Only little minds consistently agitate for materialistic science though evidence is staring you in the face.
