From: Avatar Polymorph (avatarpolymorph@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Sep 25 2002 - 02:32:15 MDT
Vanessa Novaeris:
Also note that spiders on LSD weave their webs in a different pattern (more
tunnel-like). There are lots of visual effects similar to those involved in
near-death cut-off.
I personally do not believe such near-death experiences (tunnels, lights,
out-of-body) result from actual failed transfer of a soul or even failed
(halted) quantum duplication a la Frank Tipler (superscience would be
unlikely to make an error like this). I would believe in it more if a brain
was mashed to a pulp and then the person came back. Or if a brain was
(blood) dead for ten hours and then came back. Mechanical injury can of
course extend up to as much as 30% or more of brain structure and still fail
to kill (in some cases).
I do not think ancient concepts of an afterlife were too related to this
phenomena, though it would have contributed. Most ancients (pre-1870) did
not live much longer than 30 on average (average varies from 20 to 40 by
place, and also by sex - one third of women died in childbirth). So they
were most used to violent, unexplainable deaths. This is itself is enough to
make them believe in spirits. Most probably experienced deliriums in fevers
(i.e. flus and secondary infections).
Celts for example had an idea of the Otherworld being all around, in
particular places, more a physical valley or an island than an after-death -
and they believed in reincarnation classical authors asserted anyhow.
Presumably a Hindu thinks the white light/out of body experience is the
transit lounge.
Drugs of course clearly point to the spirit world being real as anything
that is thought or emotion, and in particular representational reality, gets
heightened under drugs such as the walt disney one or liberty caps or peyote
- the effect is somewhat like paranoia in that it joins the (symbolic) dots
and brings forth "core beliefs"...
Also, mystical states of enlightenment could be equally a factor in forming
belief in an afterlife, whether for column ascetics in Coptic Egypt in the
4th century (when 20% of the population was still Graeco-Egyptian "pagan"!)
or Buddhist monks in Ceylon.
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