See. The only problem with Deepak's philosophies is that he uses juuust enough bullshit mumbo jumbo not to be taken seriously.

Other than that, he's got some nice ideas.

"discussing the scientific evidence for life after death"

must be a short discussion.

man, Chopra is so full of shit.

evidence for life after death:

1) something about biology/physiology responding to hypothermia...
2) ...
3) prophets?

Old idea that the mind and the brain are one??? What the...?! The OLD idea is the shit that they're talking about, where the brain and mind/consciousness are separate! The NEW idea is still that an organ can create consciousness, and with damage/injury/drugs that consciousness and even ones personality is altered.


... this was the biggest bunch of bullshit I've heard in a long time. Maybe I'm biased (as my user icon demonstrates, I'm a brain nerd).

So you take the position that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain and that consciousness does not exist outside of the mechanisms of the central nervous system? If so, then how do you reconcile the "Hard Problem" of consciousness? I suppose the accounts of individuals who recall events that occurred during periods of documented "brain death" are using mere telepathy to find out what happened while their brain and body has been cooled to temperatures below 24 degrees celsius.

>> ^bamdrew:

Old idea that the mind and the brain are one??? What the...?! The OLD idea is the shit that they're talking about, where the brain and mind/consciousness are separate! The NEW idea is still that an organ can create consciousness, and with damage/injury/drugs that consciousness and even ones personality is altered.

... this was the biggest bunch of bullshit I've heard in a long time. Maybe I'm biased (as my user icon demonstrates, I'm a brain nerd).

Cooling down an organ or organ system doesn't mean its dead. We ship cooled donor organs all the time. Cooling something down just means things happen slower, and at a certain point too slow for cells to operate normally.

Also, the CNS is a particularly protected system, a system that can't really be shut down and started up again, so its the last thing to loose blood flow. In other words I am in no way awed by someone being very cold, surviving the ordeal to the degree that they are communicative, and remembering the things that happened.

>> ^Trancecoach:

So you take the position that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain and that consciousness does not exist outside of the mechanisms of the central nervous system? If so, then how do you reconcile the "Hard Problem" of consciousness? I suppose the accounts of individuals who recall events that occurred during periods of documented "brain death" are uses mere telepathy to find out what happened while their brain and body has been cooled to temperatures below 24 degrees celsius.

The nervous system (brain, spinal cord, nerves) is an organ system just like your digestive system ( liver, intestines, salivary glands, etc.). People injure and mess up parts of their nervous system all the time, through accidents and what-not. While liver damage can lead to things like renal failure, injuries to the brain can lead to changes in memory access and retention, cognition,... interesting things that make up 'personality'.

I think consciousness is biological, and human consciousness is as biological as the consciousness of other animals. I think we are extraordinary at communication, and that's the major thing making us special in the animal kingdom... we love sounds and music and seeing friends and talking and learning about people and things. We are hyper vigilant with respect to personalities, and the fine details make everyone's unique in our eyes. So when a friend dies this personality that we knew so well now only exists as a detailed set of memories in our brain. And because this isn't terribly comforting, and because we're so keen on other people, we like to think that such an amazing thing as a personality continues on somehow after death.

my two cents!

And how about that ridiculous word play?

The opposite of death isn't life, it's birth? Okay, but that just means the opposite of "Life" (the state of being alive) isn't the exact moment of your death, but everything that comes after that "arbitrary moment."

And, I'm not poo-pooing the idea that how we think of death isn't completely accurate. It makes sense to me that, depending on the cause of death, different systems will shut down at different rates. And as our abilities and technology advance, we'll be able to "fix" or at least slow these shutdowns. I don't see how that suggests there is anything after death.

Also, upon looking into claims of "remembering" things that occur after brain death, I've always been able to find a competent neurosurgeon's response, or an obvious bias, that discounts supernatural phenomena.

Trancecoach, do you have a specific case you are referring to with this "Hard Problem"? Seriously, I'm interested.

Joker said it best: "The dead know only one thing: It's better to be alive."

>> ^Trancecoach:

So you take the position that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the brain and that consciousness does not exist outside of the mechanisms of the central nervous system? If so, then how do you reconcile the "Hard Problem" of consciousness? I suppose the accounts of individuals who recall events that occurred during periods of documented "brain death" are uses mere telepathy to find out what happened while their brain and body has been cooled to temperatures below 24 degrees celsius.
>> ^bamdrew:
Old idea that the mind and the brain are one??? What the...?! The OLD idea is the shit that they're talking about, where the brain and mind/consciousness are separate! The NEW idea is still that an organ can create consciousness, and with damage/injury/drugs that consciousness and even ones personality is altered.

... this was the biggest bunch of bullshit I've heard in a long time. Maybe I'm biased (as my user icon demonstrates, I'm a brain nerd).



you and these people with documented periods of "events" during braindeath are making an assumption... that the brain functions normally all the way from regular activity to braindeath in the same way... ie the processes don't require a set amount of electrical activity to continue normal operation

you are saying a person whose brain is operating normally records memories, recalls memories, accesses critical/creative thought in the exact same manner and efficiency as a person who's brain isn't operating normally

to use computer lingo, you are saying that power fluctuations in no way affect the integrity of data stored in physical memory... that memory buffers couldn't get backed up, or random memory access/deletion/corruption wouldn't occur

you resort to telepathy as an answer before you would look at random synapses firing, and low level electricity distorting one's sense of time (its pretty subjective even in a person operating at 100%)

now obviously the brain is more complex than just electicity, there's chemical processes going on as well... an again you want to resort to mystic mumbo jumbo rather than provable, repeatable science?

"it's been proven that consciousness exists outside of the framework of time and space" (not a perfect quote, but it'll point you to the one i'm refering to) immediately convinced me that he's making those leaps too... its mumbo jumbo meant to sound scientific (as someone pointed out earlier)

A short course in neurobiology teaches us all of what Deepak is saying is rubbish. We experience emotion due to various combinations of neurotransmitter release and physiological changes in the body.

What he seems to be trying to do is use the theory of quantum fluctuation and the wave/particle duality of electrons to justify his own theory that if it can't be measured or explained properly/precisely then it must lie outside the realm of our physical entity. Where is argument falls short is that what we perceive as physical matter IS made up of all this weirdness that physics is only just beginning to explain.

So I guess my point is that he's indicating that some weird stuff is going on, perhaps even outside what would currently be defined as our physical bodies. I don't disagree with this, but my point is that it is the definition of a physical body that needs to be altered, and this will improve as our understanding of physics improves. So we should be looking to physics for answers, not for mind/body dualism.

Steven Pinker's (indirect) response to Chopra:

http://videosift.com/video/Steven-Pinker-on-Mind-Brain-Unity

Moving this video to Trancecoach's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

Deepak make statements regarding the brain, mind, consciousness, that he cannot back-up with any evidence at all. He obviously likes to hear himself talk.

When the brain dies the mind is gone — period.

Also, Gupta stating that death is a process and doesn't happen all at once. Well ask that bug that hit your windshield how long the death process took.

actually, check out "The Serpent and the Rainbow." In it, Wade Davis describes that the pronouncement of death is actually a much trickier and more ambiguous process than is commonly understood. People have recovered after being "clinically dead" (i.e., no brain activity, no heart rate, etc.) for several minutes, or even longer. If a person goes into cardiac arrest during a coma, the declaration of the time of death is, in this sense, simply the time at which the doctors have decided to stop working on revival.

>> ^steama:

Deepak make statements regarding the brain, mind, consciousness, that he cannot back-up with any evidence at all. He obviously likes to hear himself talk.
When the brain dies the mind is gone — period.
Also, Gupta stating that death is a process and doesn't happen all at once. Well ask that bug that hit your windshield how long the death process took.