the idea of reincarnation--in india, anyhow--was formulated not because of a bunch of flakes "remembering" past lives, but as a solution to the problem of theodicy.  i must say, it does an admirable job, except of course for the nagging problem of infinite regression.

I think the best source of evidence is Dr. Ian Stevenson, who spent researching accounts of reincarnation in many cultures. He studied cultures where reincarnation is not taken for granted and cultures where it is. He studied children and adults. He also studied body marks and links to the alleged way of dying in the past life. For example, getting shot in a chest may produce some kind of skin markings in next life on the same spot. I think he was very thorough in his research and didn't make any obvious mistakes.

http://reluctant-messenger.com/reincarnation-proof.htm 

My sources suggest that reincarnation is actually a much more complex process than it seems. All the life experience is stored in the soul, which is a super-conscious entity with its own will. The people as we know them are merely temporary autonomous vehicles of the soul. The soul constructs them according to its best abilities and experience, sends them to be born with certain goals and then after death it evaluates the results. It may retract the personality entirely into itself and construct a new better one. It may receive experience from multiple personalities, some of them often living within the same time period or even meeting each other. And some personalities last longer than others, they have distinct timelines of lives, while some seem to be one-shot tries with no past lives at all.

And the absolutely most strange thing is, some sources suggest that the soul has a different perspective on the time dimension. We are locked in time, but the soul isn't. So some incarnations may not be chronologic. I don't know how much it is true, but all sources say that weird things happen with time in the upper dimensions.

The meaning of energy to which that rule applies has a very specific definition in science. Simply declaring something energy does not make it energy. Declaring a soul is energy as absurd on its face unless one has in fact quantified exactly how much energy, in what form and demonstrated its existence. I have read lots of gibberish about this "energy" but not a single description that was not gibberish.

 

I'm curious, could you please explain your views more in detail? What are the other reasons for reincarnation? Why would a sudden and unexpected death lead to reincarnation and not otherwise? 

In my opinion, a sudden and unexpected death would leave the discarnate highly unprepared, confused, scared or even completely unaware that he's dead. Such discarnates do not get far from the place of death or they get stuck not very high on the inner planes. (all temporarily, of course) Which only complicates things and hinders reincarnation, instead of making it faster. Other than that, there are more factors that may make the stay in between longer or shorter.

I'd say that a sudden or unexpected death (or highly traumatic one) would leave more physical and mental marks on the next life, making it more obvious that the person had a past life at all. I guess this might be the origin of your opinion. OTOH, I think you're right in the sense that eastern religions claim that people may reincarnate into animals, which is a complete bullshit. It's either a folk superstition or possibly a religious parable equivalent to Christian hell in its logic. Some authors I've read say some early Church fathers like Origen taught reincarnation to trusted disciples, but they publically condemned this folk animal version.

 

Carl Sagan was a highly advanced person, initiate of 2.4th degree according to my scale of measuring. There are only thousands, maybe a ten thousand people in the world like him. Darwin was 2.0. Einstein 2.2. Benjamin Franklin 2.5. Newton 2.2. Nikola Tesla 2.0.

Where do you think such an advancedness comes from? I don't think they got it all right on one try. 

 

To me the latter seems much more logical, instead. So I guess your spiritual beliefs are different. Could you please describe them or link me to them?

My mom was a regression therapy practitioner for years. She routinely took people through their past lives, the past lives which ended so badly that it made a lasting mark on the person. The theory is following: During a narrowed state of consciousness (traumatic circumstances) our thoughts and sensory signals are not "archived" correctly in the subconsciousness. They do not get assigned the time and place tags in which they happened. These tags tell the body when, where and why this and this traumatic experience happened - and that it is not happening right now. Such bad experiences may happen in this life also and regression therapy deals with them, but mostly they could not, because they led to the person's death.

So there is the phenomenon of "restimulation". If a person has an (seemingly innocuous, harmless) experience that corresponds to a traumatic and badly archived subconscious memory, the body goes into the state of shock, of automatic defensive reaction against the old subconscious memory. This may manifest as a phobia, fear of water for example. The therapist's job is to take a person in the state of restimulation and consciously reveal the badly archived experience. They have to go over it several (or many) times, till the body de-sensitizes to it, till it realizes that this is not happening here and now. 

Therefore as for the cancer, you are very correct, it takes time to die of it and people do not get into this state of shock or narrowed consciousness that misplaces the memories. It's all about mental preparation.

For example, years ago we had visitors over here, which is usual. One of them was a man with a metallic thing on his calf, I think it's called a brace or orthesis. I think it's meant to keep bones together in case of fragmented fracture. My dad soon went into the state of restimulation. He started having sudden problems with his lower leg and foot, it got swollen and inflammed. My mom, being the therapist, took him into the regression. In regression my dad had experienced that he was a trapper in North America or Canada in one of his past lives. He made a living by laying traps and catching fur animals. Fur-bearers have the best fur in winter. But in winter there's snow everywhere. And the snow makes it diffcult to see the traps. So the trapper one day accidentally stepped into his own steeltrap. It was in the middle of nowhere and there was nobody to save him, so he died caught with his foot in the trap, in winter. This was a traumatic death, which got wrongly subconsciously archived and it was restimulated by seeing a stranger with his leg suspended in irons.  Mystery solved, Dr. Watson

I see these people have valid data, but very incomplete picture of things. So they jump to completely unjustified conclusions. People report that after death their consciousness is raised, which is possible, beyond the biologic limitations of the brain. They report that they get into a highly attractive and pleasant environment. Often with their dead relatives. A wonderful place, as you say. And these are NDE reports, as you say. No wonder they don't hear of reincarnation, when they're hardly entered the place and when it seems so pleasant. They certainly won't be in hurry to get back the hard way. They'll be eager to have as much fun as they can.

However as I said, the picture is very incomplete. What these people describe is the astral realm and there is much more to it than the pleasant entrance facade. Astral matter shapes itself according to the forces of our astral body, the body of emotion and desire. This is why it is VERY deceptive and addictive. Most of astral forms were created by humans according to their desires and imagination. Not objective facts. It is an image of our world, our culture and our average person. In a sense, our eagerness to respond to all things astral/emotional/desirable is the root of all evil and irrationality of human race.

If you read up on other sources than NDE, mainly accomplished explorers of inner planes like Robert Allan Monroe, the picture will be a little different. It will include what you already know, but it will put it into a more complete frame of reference. If you allow me, I can point you towards a place where you can obtain these books easily. They're absolutely fascinating and better than any other NDE literature I've read, like Raymond A. Moody and so on.

Yes, from the subjective, deceptive, wishful astral vantage point it certainly seems pointless to go back. But the astral world with all its seven sub-levels is only one subtle realm. If you read Robert A. Monroe, you'll see there are higher worlds and they have a say in what is important and what isn't. What we call person is not all of the human being. There is the so-called soul or superconsciousness, that is the true identity and power behind personal evolution. It constructs the personality and deliberately sends it to incarnate in the material world to gather the experience, explore the world and master all that there is to be mastered. The purpose is to create an ego module that allows the soul a fully controlled manifestation in lower worlds, mental, astral and physical. For thousands of years the ego does as it wants and develops little or not at all, enjoying the rough ride through incarnations and astral pleasures. Eventually the ego goes into a profound crisis and calls on for the soul for help. (or on a deity, but the soul  takes the call) This begins an era of hesitant but increasing cooperation of ego with the soul. The soul considers the ego as its instrument to be supported and protected, if necessary also disciplined and... taken away from incarnation. The ego sees the soul as a source of power and good ideas, and an unwelcome discipliner to rebel against to pursue its own less or more selfish or misguided interests. The two battle for control and eventually the soul wins. Anyway, the personal evolution is greatly speeded up, dozens of lives instead of tens of thousands.

I believe in the future there will be a superior science of psychology, focused on work with the superconsciousness, instead of the average Joe's consciousness or subconsciousness. The influence of the soul is a rare, but specific and profound power in people's lives. (though often veiled by personal and religious views) It will be a most interesting thing to study. 

If you remember any point, be it this: The astral world is the kindergarten. This world is the university.

 

Why? Do you assume that most of people are incarnated? (why? astral sphere of Earth is bigger and doesn't need food) That there may be only one ego vehicle per one soul? Instead I don't believe that a more evolved ego (human) could possibly fit into animals or even insects, as some people believe.

In my experience extreme materialists haven't ever heard of reincarnation and are so narrow-minded, that they prefer to haunt the place they wanted to keep, or alternatively retreat to the astral realm and live there in an imaginary reality-bubble shaped by their desires. They'll continue to do so, until they exhaust the emotional force that holds their astral body toghether. Then they'll be ready to reincarnate, but the seed of materialism will stay in them. But indeed you're right, in some cases a parent may incarnate as a grandchild right back into the household. We had such a case in my mother's friend family. It seems people "recycle" in their family lines pretty often, ocassionally taking in a relative stranger. 

Advancedness is not just about ideas, it's also about personal qualities and the power to manifest them despite of the world's opposition. It's about personal charisma, influence on people and the number of people that we make an impact on. It's about the total quality of our bodily equipment to manifest the soul activity here and now in the world, less or more distorted by our imperfections.
Anyway, this scale is for informative purposes only, it applies to the esoteric model of human development and is provided by a clairvoyant source.
Nevermind

We will? Oh.

Yes, let's say that can be called an ultimate goal. But there's a long road from here to there, many roads with many waypoints and challenges. How do we go from here to there? You look like someone more concerned with essence of things than their form, goal instead of the path. It's nothing wrong, just remember that reality tends to be complicated. 

What the people with NDE describe seems more like a welcome cocktail you get at the entrance. Things look different and more prosaic behind the scenes. If you assume that upon death and entering the astral realm everyone will become happy, spiritually advanced and morally superior, I think you'll be very disappointed. There is as much crime in astral realm as on Earth, where do you think all the criminals end up after death? Only they have it actually closer to us, because they tend to gravitate to lower and denser and darker astral levels. And they're interested in communication, in contacting mediums and gathering followers. They're interested in people to work for them and give them their time and energy. It's a form of parasitism. 

 

I doubt that it is all. We might remember all our life with greater clarity, maybe even some previous lives, but I doubt normal people may remember all their previous lives. There is no reason for that, to consciously remember all that junk in subconsciousness. It would overwhelm us and prevent us from doing anything in this life. We may eventually develop to be able to do that, but we're far from it yet. 

My information is, that the soul (superconsciousness) is best equipped to manage past lives and provide a distilled wisdom and guidance from that experience. We could not deal with all these data. Just processing this life in astral realm and preparation for the next one may sometimes take many years.

 

Again, you make an assumption that the purpose of life is to learn something, to ascend somewhere, to become experienced. This is far from the complete picture. The main purpose is actually a work. Not theoretic learning, but a practical manipulation of material world. Human kingdom as a whole has a great importance for evolution of plant and animal kingdoms, although we haven't yet started doing this properly but soon we will. Humanity is sort of a divine intermediary between lower and higher kingdoms. For that purpose we need to stay here and now in the matter, we can't do this work as disembodied spirits. We need to channel ideas and energy from "above" (much more above than astral) and to transform the Earth conditions accordingly, including ourselves. It's good to be all learned and have good will, but that's for the purpose of an actual work. And a great part of that work is to control our astral nature and stop treating astral cooperation as something higher when it's actually lower, our astral nature is of animal origin.

 

Altruistic inner motivation is a typical sign of the soul influence, but often in early stages where the ego is not yet very powerful. Later the ego wrestles with soul for power to use for its own purposes. Eventually the soul wins, but there is no law saying that an initiate must always be a nice guy. There are several forces that shape the personality and not all of them are loving. There are multiple paths to greatness. 

As for Gandhi Mohandas and Indira, they both had 2.0 degree at the time of their death, also Hitler. (who was much more powerful because of historical circumstances) Initiates around that degree are often busy with creating some kind of ideology as their "graduating project". It's not perfect, but they're often well-known. Lesser initiates below 1.6 may be often found in high political seats, surprisingly. 

I think this article should be interesting to you.

Reincarnation is just bullshit woo, PERIOD!

Once the structure of your brain dies and decays, you are dead. A single atom is not an entire brain nor a living thing once broken down to it's single form, thus our consciousness does not get passed on.

Superstition is superstition. No one was a rat or a frog in a prior life.

Our consciousness is nothing more than an outcome, just like speed is an outcome. If your car breaks down beyond repair or gets totaled it cannot speed, much less transfer that speed to another car.

 

AND ANOTHER THING, DO NOT TRY THE FOLLOWING AT HOME. What I am about to type is merely an example of the absurdity of claiming their is a separation of "I" from the material brain.

If that were true, then you should be able to blow your brains out with a shotgun and then prove in a lab that you survives you. We could take samples of 2 or 3,000 people and conduct that experiment. Name me one person willing to do that. NOT ME.

Again, no human ever in our species history has survived the obliteration of their brain. The idea of an afterlife is merely the flaw of evolution in that comic book stories arise from our imaginations because of our real desire to survive.

Dawkins aptly describes this flaw in "The God Delusion" as the moth mistaking the light bulb for moonlight.

"Afterlife" is merely a sugar pill. It can act as a coping mechanism, but it is as real as the sun being a god. The sun being a god acted as a sugar pill that helped the Ancient Egyptians survive for 3,000 years, but the sun, in reality was never a god. The motif of an after life is just another sugar pill.

OK, I suppose if you stay open-minded, you just adapt to a situation whatever it turns out to be. Sometimes less is more. Maybe you can remember my opinion just in case it turns out to be a useful information.

I just suspect that the dream activity uses the same astral body as the afterlife, the animal part of us. If my dream activity is anything to judge by, then I don't really feel spiritual when I wake up. Actually, I feel like a pig, just like everyone else, I suppose. Granted, in afterlife I should be much more conscious, but it changes nothing on my suspicion that astral body is mostly an animal equipment, held together by desires and illusions, highest and lowest and all in betwen. My best sources say it's alike to a drug rush mistaken for a real enlightenment, fairy gold and Hollywood tinsel. And escapism, which I struggle with.

Yeah, stay away from New Age, that's what I'm trying to tell you. New Age is just stealing all fancy words and putting them back together in random order that they sound good but make no sense at all. Theosophy precedes NA by half a century or so. 

Btw, do you have any reasons for your beliefs, or you go by the intuition? You may filter out explicit lies, but what about lies of holding back information?

Well, they aren't that invisible when they want to. People who offer their services to our common cause sooner or later get to see enough evidence that they are real or may be real. I prefer a hands-on experience correlated with a written teaching as the second best thing to objective science. I tend to give low priority to beliefs, because things can be completely different than we believe and I was wrong more than once. One thing we can always do is to check our beliefs for consistency or logic. I have a deep belief that reality is logical and consistent.

 Damn, what a good quote! I'll remember that.

 

All right, this tells very much about you. Nice to meet you. I feel what you mean. But let's make a libation to the heartless god of formal logic. This is not about criticism, just asking some hard questions and examination how much bulletproof your beliefs are. I hope it will not feel unwelcome but instead it will help you to put your worldview into more specific words - and make it easier to explain to others. You of course don't have to know everything. 

What's so terrible about death? If afterlife is such a wonderful, beautiful place, what is wrong about sending people there? What if all these warlords and mass murderers actually helped masses of people into heaven? What is the reason for staying here, in the valley of tears? 

What if there are great leaders who see a higher goal and grand purpose for humanity? Yet this goal will probably involve some deaths in the process? Does it make the goal unworthy? In this case even building a car factory would be wrong, because every such a big industrial project has statistically inevitable injuries and deaths. So where is the difference? 

Let's say, if all human life is equally valuable, how do we distinguish it? How do we make tough decisions about who lives and who dies? What is your opinion on abortion and plugging out people in vegetative state of coma? Or saving life of a newborn child vs the mother? I suppose you'd choose by number of lives saved vs. number of lives sacrificed, whenever possible.

What is so significant about most of people's lives, that they do not need to reincarnate by default? To me most of people seem... small. Small hearts, small minds, small worlds. And there are greater people. It is not easy to see the greater people, but it's possible if you know what to look for. But even they are not perfect and would benefit from repeated incarnations. Also, the world would benefit if they returned. People would benefit from that. Would it be moral to refuse to reincarnate and help others grow? What is the difference from escapism?

And what I hear is "My hypothesis is unfalsifiable."

Here's an idea, how about you tell me what conceivable observation would be utterly impossible if people are in fact getting reincarnated?

I dont' believe this. From my studies NDEs are SO different and so more intense that they are utterly different from ANY dream you can have.

But I have that feeling too, that our soul, even on the other plane keeps lots of vices and desires that had on this plane. And this can keep the soul "stuck" on the earthly plane. The profound love experimented on the other side comes with complete and utter "nakedness". In other words, everything that you are and did will be known. In many reports, some had feelings of absolute shame and undeserving. So this many times this self alienates people from this higher plane. They feel they are not ready, undeserving, ashamed and they can't stay in the "light". Will this be a reason to come back to Earth? Possibly. But I have no evidence or indication of such.
 

To put it briefly. I had an experience when I was 5-7 years old. This experience is not explainable in naturalistic scientific ways. I lived for a long time with this and did a Biotechnology course... so I'm also all into science.

At some point in my life my curiosity and lack of answers from science and religion led me on a search. Nothing convinced me of the truth. Let's just say that I used my intuition, the seemingly honest NDE research done by MDs and published in scientific magazines and my experience to reach the beliefs I have today. Some pieces of the puzzle started to come together. There is still a lot of unknown but I already know so much more than many that I don't mind the unknown.

Reincarnation is an unknown. It probably happens, but the mechanism is an unknown for me. But I'm not worried about it too much. The conventional mechanism of reincartion did not convince me as you see.

Today I feel that science is blind to a big piece of truth about reality. Religion is a fairy tale and much of the New Age thing ( on which I include theosophy) is 95% a money making scam. So I'm very selective and very strict on what I accept as truth because since science has no step on this field I have to do ALL the "filtering". Science is the best filter of truth. However I cannot use it here, I'm alone in this search. Only some brave scientists risk their careers exploring this "dark" side of reality. The woo woo stuff

 

Well I still believe that theosofy was a scam of Helena Blavatsky. I read a book or two and spoke to some people who claimed to study theosophy and I was far from being convinced. I also think that reality must be logical. I have many unknowns though.

There was only one religion that I admire since I found of it's existence: the Bahai faith. Most of what they say makes perfect sense. The most important reason I'm not Bahai is because I don't believe in the infallibility of books or prophets.

 

You are never unwelcome And those are very good questions I have thought myself.

Nothing is terrible about death. Only our biological STRONG wish to stay alive makes it terrible. That and the deep and dreaded fear of oblivion most people feel. Atheists and theists alike. (yes most people who believe, don't really believe, they just fear NOT believing...). I actually don't suffer as much with the death of friends and such, since I have these beliefs. Because I'm absolutely sure they are still alive and near, and I will see them again.

From all the research and experiences it also seems obvious that we have some sort of task to do here. Like a baby has a task of growing strong in the womb to survive life outside. The voluntary interruption of that task (like murder or suicide) is a grave offense to this order of things somehow. As if we are betraing a great trust that was put on us. This trust has to do with our mission which seems to be connected with helping others with their own tasks and help ourselves in the process

Finally I confess that I'm still battling with the question of why we really need to be in the material world. I'm still waiting for an answer that convinces me.

 

the difference lies on motivation. There are accidental deaths and there are deaths made on purpose. The accidental are perfectly OK in reasonable situations (obviously) the others are profoundly reprehensible.

Hitler saw a higher goal and purpose in humanity... yet this goal involve some deaths in the process... yes it makes the goal unworthy!

Living is a risk... not just building a car factory. Going on a plain can kill you. Should we ban plains because you can statistically die from them? No because it's no intentional and it's voluntary. As long as we do everything possible to increase our safety. Like do a correct maintenance on the plains. This has everything to do with intentions and motivations.

 

Human "awareness" or life only starts when higher brainwaves in the cortex start. So I agree with abortions made previous to this, not after. I agree on pulling the plug on vegetative people, specially if they are brain dead because nobody's home... mother vs. son is a tough decision... I don't know about that one, but I have a tendency for the son, because in most cases that's what the mother would have wanted. Altruistic decisions seem to be highly praised. Yes in most cases I would choose the utilitary approach in saving lives... however I'm behind Kant too on the focus in the agent as the start of ethics. So for example if an assassin would tell me to choose between my brother or my sister, and if I didn't he would kill both... the best thing to do, I think, would be to not choose anything and the assassin killed both.

The real thing here is the Agent! If I didn't choose anything here I would be absent from any decision. The ONLY agent would be the assassin. So I'm not 100% utilitarian in ethics.

I also don't agree with the extent of life at any cost. When people are really old and sick they should be allowed to reject medicin and that's not a "sin", not even for the sick person.

 

Let me tell you something - Greatness can be on the lady that goes clean toilets everyday and knows nothing about internet, teosophy, God, or politics... No one knows her.

You can only see greatness if your heart is so humble that "even the dust would step on you"... ok this last part was Gandhi... he exageratted everything ... intentions and motivations my friend... everything is in there.

No one knows who will reincarnate or not. not me, not you. I just believe that there is another world out there where we can grow more. This one is just a preparation stage. We may come here more than once, I think that happens, but we don't need to complete our evolution here. That's not even possible... this state of being is too limited

Luminion: Plenty of people have funded research in those areas.  It just never went anywhere because it's a bunch of failed hypotheses.

Here's another idea, come up with a technological application of the stuff you claim science has suppressed and market it.  If what you claim is true, you could make millions.

 

http://xkcd.com/808/

 

You could at least go with that Randi prize...

 

 

I don't know about you, but every time someone I knew became brain dead, I never again saw any signs of consciousness from them.

For those of you on either side of the question, a few questions....

1. Could is be possible to transfer your conscience to a supercomputer or another brain?

2. Could a computer have a conscience and be self-aware? If so, how complex must the computer be? If not, how are human brains different that a computer simulating a brain?

3. If scientist could completely separate your brain's left and right hemispheres and keep them alive, would you still have a consciousness? Would it be 0, 1 or 2 consciences?
 

 

 

You know what? I really can't blame them. In most of cases they deal with New Age bullshit (Sungazing! The new ancient method to gain energy and improve your eyesight! I'm not fuckin' kidding!) or people who peddle it to make money. If they ocassionally stumble upon something that is commonly used and works (for example regression therapy) they don't see any difference. They can not see a difference, because there are no scientific technical terms and numbers. And if there are, it's for the experts, not woo woo warriors. And the experts are unreachable, not in contact with the public.

To me it looks like a system perfectly defended against external interventions. The line of research is set, the new things are allowed to exist (or to be researched) only on nanoscale or cosmic scale. Nobody is concerned with human-sized vital energy fields, that may outlive our death.

And maybe people are afraid to try anything new. It's not just Wilhelm Reich. In my country there is Mr Vasicek who got imprisoned by the local petrol lobby (he wanted to break the monopoly by a cheap petrol from depolymerization process) and there was Dr Karel Foltyn, who had success as with devitalization of tumors, but had to flee the country or get locked up too. The lesson is, never step between rich people and their money, or you're so... in trouble.

 

Yes, it should be theoretically possible to record both memories and neuron connections with some technology we don't yet have. The consciousness is not in memories nor neurons. It is very much a process, like a beam of light that shines through the brain. So it is possible to divide the hemispheres and they'll have their own opinions each. But taking them out of body to be still conscious, I doubt so. 

Of course, a brain can be removed and kept biologically alive, in a healthy state. There are already technologies for that, based on the properties of polarized and/or monochromatic light that stimulates cellular activity. (some simplier devices are commercially available) The brain is and remains a functional computer, but the user is not sitting at the keyboard anymore.

 

What a nice coincidence. I just finished a 2 hour meditation and went to fix myself a dinner. During that I turned on the TV and on the main national channel there was a document about three people who underwent OOBE and/or NDE. After meditation I always have lots of energy... If the skeptic in you asks what kind of energy, let's say it's ATF energy. (all ten fingers)

One man, a businessman got cancer and underwent treatment. Chemo decreased his hemoglobin to 80 bpi...or somethings and he was very weak for a long time. He sat on a chair and leaned forward. And then he wondered why the hell is his body lying on the floor, when he is still sitting. The experience lasted for 3 weeks, he said something like that. And there was always something that was holding his incorporeal head by the top, some kind of conical balloon or something that comforted him and commented the events around, what is wrong and what is right. Now he has a deep belief and awareness (he said he'd have to write a very thick book) of an unseen higher orderly system and that there is something higher that sent him here for a purpose and that guides him. (he basically described the Theosophic model)

Another man had an accident when he was just 17 years old. He was a normal guy, his main interests were girls. Once in August he took a jump in water straight ahead, but his foot slipped. He turned over too much and his head hit the water in such an angle that it twisted too far back and shattered his 4th, 5th and 6th vertebra. Then he sunk below the water. He turned back to his left and saw his body floating down. He felt nothing about the body, realizing that it was only a place where he lived. And he went upwards into a tunnel. The tunnel brought him into a place where he had never been before, yet he instantly felt at home. It was filled with yellow-pink light. There he met a being that he recognized as Jesus Christ who told him to go back, that it's not yet his time. This young guy completely changed his values and became interested in God...

As a third case there was a lady, who worked very hard in her life and started to have problems with her gall bladder and everything around. And doctors instead of fixing her life had just cut out the organs that failed from the strain and called that a solution. She suffered pain for many years and had to receive monthly blood transfusions. During one of checkups she collapsed and went into coma. She went into a tunnel of white light, there was nobody but the light and the tunnel got more and more infinitely long and twisting, but still narrowing as it gradually embraced her. She felt an immense bliss and heard a beautiful soft music... But she was still aware of her surroundings, her husband walking with canes behind the door at the hallway, for a couple of weeks. And this knowledge that he was waiting prevented her from taking one step further in the tunnel, one that she believed would be final. Now they are a happy couple.

There was a doctor too, but all the medical hypotheses he mentioned were lack of oxygen or changes in brain PH. Which is completely inadequate. The consciousness during NDE seems working in the same quality or better, there is no pain, there is bliss and a deep awareness of things we shouldn't even be aware, spontaneous knowledge that the body is just a vessel that we inhabit for some time and then discard it. I think the whole body and brain is in too much trouble than to pay attention to New Age beliefs (which the person didn't even have) and to imagine a classical book case visions of OOBE. More than that, those who had this mystical experience in NDE say, that they wanted to tell people about it, but they couldn't. It was impossible to express in words. I'd say nothing like this exists in our daily reality. 

I have. Except I didn't know them.

www.ini.uzh.ch/~kiper/Van_Lommel.pdf

http://youtu.be/CSuUk9lNM-U

 

I didn't say that ONLY organic neural processes can give rise to conscience. I say certain systems cannot, others may. Certain physical eyes can see only black and white others can see colour. I say it's not a case of information contained in a specific mathematical formula of 1 and 0.  Human conscience is not defined by 1 and 0. Quantum computing has a radical new way of working problems which jumps a step ahead from 1 and 0, and I said it may give rise to conscience. Besides QM computing will probably allow indeterministic states which are impossible in silicon based computing. 

Me doing a neural network simulation on a computer is just like me doing a simulation on a computer of the electromagnetic spectrum of blue light. I'm representing it mathematically but I'm not creating it

I'm not actually creating conscient awareness.

The biggest evidence towards this is that computer power has already far exceeded the human brain both in processing power and memory capacity. BUT We are still unable and clueless as how to create an aware conscience.
 

A artificial created "complexity" with the correct structure (that we may call a computer) can give rise to conscience which is indistinguishable from you or me. It is not something magical happening, it is something that is for now unknown. I said quantum computing MAY create one, I'm not sure about that. QM computing is still in it's infancy. But if I'm correct we may still see if my theory is correct in our life time.

"A patient with a split brain, when shown an image in his or her left visual field (the left half of what both eyes take in, see optic tract), will be unable to vocally name what he or she has seen."

Perfectly consistent with my dualistic theory. If the mind interacts with the brain thus allowing physical effects then we would expect this. It's not 2 different people.

The case studies on the website you showed me, clearly indicate 1 unique person, not 2 different people living each on a different part of the brain.

Moreover the brain has more structures which do not use the Corpus callosum. I don't know which structures of the brain are directly related with the mind/brain relationship.

We also know that different parts of the brain can replace the function of damaged parts to some extent.

If you break your TV and you get a split image - National geografic on one side and the sci fi channel on the other it's not 2 TVs... it's just a broken TV.

it seems arthur c. clarke at least might have deemed it possible.  this is the explanation given in 2061: Odyssey Three of how bowman, HAL, and floyd have been able to survive in disembodied states inside the great wall on europa.  in fact, floyd's consciousness is copied (without his knowledge) into the supercomputer while he himself is still alive physically, so that as long as the physical floyd lives, there are basically two floyds.

these "uploaded" consciousnesses continue to be aware and develop and learn as they would in their original forms.  essentially there is no disconnect.