Future ideas and experiments to prove the existence of non-local consciousness?

There is a thread here on ATS entitled "What is your problem with matter." in which the OP postulates that Consciousness is dependent on the brain, hence dependent on matter.
thread here

In particular is a poster named "Openlocks", who, if I'm not mistaken" told me in a nother thread the he works in the scientific community and is also witness to alot of the dogma and BS politics that go on in the scieintific community. Anyway, he posted this here:

What I am more interested is in this notion of yours that consciousness arises before the brain. I assume you assume the brain has taken its form through the direction or force of consciousness. In other words, the brain is a derivative of consciousness. If I am correct that this is your assumption, there is a similar theory called morphic field theory. It is a term coined by Rupert Sheldrake. Go look it up.

What I want to say is these 4 things.
1.I remember pre-existing prior to the body being born, which means at some point this pre-existant consciousness that was me at the time, had to enter the womb/fetus.

2. On another note, several times in my life, I as consciousness, had popped out of body floated around, and came back to the body.

3. There are several elder mystic monks within several monasteries that can actually pop out of their bodies on command.

4. And last, according to religions and accounts of regular non-religious folks in the events of NDE's (Near Death Experiences), upon death of the body, consciousness leaves the body.

So what we need to do is come up with some super sensitive instruments that might be able to detect this kind of non-local consciousness that could be measured outside of the body. In these instances we have 3 groups we can test on. The womb of a pregnant woman, those who can leave the body at will, and those on their death beds.

What this instrument is and constructed out of and its mechanics is beyond me, as my realm of expertise is philosophy, mysticism, and esotericism, however I bring this thread to you in the form of a very near possibility that needs to be done that will bring to light a lot of answers, as well as more questions and we can truly progress even more in science, life, and religion by answering this question.

Sadly, I think because of much bias and dogma within the scientific community, I think this test will fall on deaf ears for fear of, in the event that consciousness outside of the body proves true scientifically, this will certainly bring up the question of what is the source of this non-physical consciousness and how does it come to be ...which of course masses of folks will bring up the one word many in the scientific community possibly hate and/or fear ...... "God"

More goes on in the brain than we currently know, it is postulated that it could be a quantum computer.

Its my own personal view the brain is simply the vessel that holds our consciousness.

They may be anecdotal accounts, but there sure are a ton of them that refer to NDE, and out of body experiences in general.

Meditation, shamanistic type experiences, etc.

Even science shows there is more going on there than we know, with brain activity activating faster than the signal can travel and such.

reply to post by benrl

Hey thanks for replaying,
You just reminded my of a certain observation I had about experience and the brain.

All of life, every experience, happens prior to the brain, and then afterwards the brain fires away to label and make sense of what just happened, and yet that label and sense is just a concept and not the same as the actual event that just happened, which is then over, never to be again, and only remains as a conceptual imagined memory

Originally posted by dominicus
reply to post by benrl

 

All of life, every experience, happens prior to the brain, and then afterwards the brain fires away to label and make sense of what just happened, and yet that label and sense is just a concept and not the same as the actual event that just happened

that right there is the argument that some use that we don't have free will.

We respond and our brain tells us we did it willingly.

Thanks for the great thread OP!

Have you heard of or read about the study done by Dr. Pim Van Lommel? He's a Dutch cardiologist who interviewed around 400 cardiac arrest patients for a scientific study of NDE. He wrote an excellent book about it: Endless Consciousness. I highly recommend reading it! His theory is basically that consciousness is indeed non-local and that the brain is like a receiver/transmitter of consciousness, much like a radio is to radio waves.

If you look at it this way, and you apply everything you know to this concept, you will find that all the things we just can't seem to explain will suddenly make sense.

I had an NDE after a car accident 13 years ago, and after reading Dr. Van Lommel's book, I now understand what happened to me and how it affected me after.

You can also find some good interviews with him on youtube.

As soon as the rest of the scientific world opens its mind to this concept, we are going to see a completely new paradigm...

Its already been done!!

Some scientists decided to investigate NDE's.. after many, many cases they finally got proof of consciousness being out side the brain!!

A woman died whilst in theater, and they had monitors hooked up to her brain, and could see there was 0 activity, nada, nothing..

After a few minutes she was "revived" and when conscious again (ironic) she was able to tell the people in the operating theater what conversations they had had, and some of the actions they made! She relayed an entire conversation to them!

That case was a breakthrough, because although not the first NDE experience relayed to the scientists, it was the only one they could confirm!

Moral of the story is, THE BRAIN WAS DEAD, BUT SHE STILL EXISTED. WHICH MEANS WE EXIST OUTSIDE OF OUR MINDS, LIKE OUR BRAINS ARE MERE RECEIVERS.

Its actually ground breaking and life changing, I'm afraid I don't recall the papers I read on that, maybe a few hours searching might turn it up?

ETA: The guy above beat me to it, and has more accurate info on the matter! lol

Here is a very good interview with Dr. Pim Van Lommel explaining the concept:

www.youtube.com...

By the way: One of the effects my NDE had on me is losing all fear of death. I enjoy life just as much as ever, but I no longer worry about how long I'm gonna be here.

reply to post by Sinny

Its already been done!! Some scientists decided to investigate NDE's.. after many, many cases they finally got proof of consciousness being out side the brain!!

Yeah I knew about this, but when I bring this up to scientific minded folks, should you see the amount of and kind of skeptical feedback I get around this topic.

So in a sense I'm convinced that the naysayers won't be satisfied until they can actually measure non-local consciousness with instruments and be able to recreate this experiment globally and various major influential and accredited peer review journals .....and even then I think their will still be skeptics.

Sad really. Still someone has to make the first step, then when this is without a doubt proven, we can make interfaces that will allow consciousness to communicate with all of us on the physical reality.

Can you imagine that????? Consciousness communication devices!!! SO say your loved one dies, and they can still communicated with you from the other side and basically have closure and then both parties can continue on. Every once in a while the consciousness of the deceased can make a call over to this side and say all is well and check in on things and give us all sorts of insight from the other side!!!!!

The future is boundless if we can withold all bias and dogma in science and religion. Otherwise progress will be alot slower than the leaps and bounds that could be made with out all the "politics"

It simply depends on what your view on everything is. Develop a theory and test it.

Why, and for what reason, and don't forget how.

Originally posted by dominicus

So what we need to do is come up with some super sensitive instruments that might be able to detect this kind of non-local consciousness that could be measured outside of the body.

For the sake of argument, lets say you succeed in coming up with instruments like that. Let's say you use them to produce some evidence of non-local consciousness.

Then what?

Skeptics come forward. They want to try. They use your instruments the same way you did and...

...nada. They get nothing.

What happened?

You say they did it wrong. They say you are a fraud. Back and forth it goes.

Skeptics can't replicate these kinds of things. Without replication, no amount of evidence will convince them. The 'part' of God that wants to live life asleep as a skeptic won't allow it. The unconscious psi of a skeptic won't allow it... and skeptics will never acknowledge their own psi so as to account for its causal influence in experiments. Catch-22. After all, non-local consciousness is in them too. Their beliefs direct it, their desires aim it, even though they aren't consciously aware of it.

There will always be an 'out' for skeptics. There will always be a trickster archetype pattern in the collective unconscious. There will always be a sheep-goat effect. At least, in this age there will be.

There is already more than enough evidence out there for non-local consciousness. When a skeptic is ready to wake up, they will be led to it or to something else that will wake them. If a skeptic isn't ready, then a little more evidence will make no difference.

Pioneering Parapsychologist Gertrude Schmeidler Has Died

I just found out that a parapsychologist colleague of mine, Gertrude Schmeidler, died last month (1912-2009). I say colleague rather than friend, for while we were friendly there was a great age range difference so we never got to know each other well.

Gertrude made one of the most important discoveries ever in parapsychology, one with strong spiritual implications and one which I think none of the spiritual traditions knows about, for while it’s something that can happen in everyday life, it’s pretty much unobservable except under laboratory conditions. She gave many classes of students ESP tests, guessing at concealed cards, but, before giving or scoring the tests, she had students fill out questionnaires that asked, among other things, whether they believed in ESP.

When she analyzed the results separately for the believers – the “sheep” – and the non-believers – the “goats” – she found a small, but significant difference. The sheep got more right than you would expect by chance guessing, they were occasionally using ESP. The goats, on the other hand, got significantly fewer right than you would expect by chance.

Think of it this way. If you were asked to guess red or black with ordinary playing cards, no feedback until you’d done the whole deck, you would average about 50% correct by chance. If you got 100% correct, you don’t need statistics to know that would be astounding. But if you got 0%? Just as astounding!

The sheep thought they could do it, they got “good” scores, they were happy. The goats knew there was no ESP, nothing to get, they got poor scores, they were happy, that “proved” their belief. These were not people who were sophisticated enough about statistics to know that scoring below chance could be significant….

Many other experimenters replicated this effect over the years.

The only way I’ve ever been able to understand it is to think that the goats occasionally used ESP, but on an unconscious level, to know what the next card was and then their unconscious, acting in the service of their conscious belief system, influenced them to call anything but the correct one. The goats used a “miracle” to support their belief that there were no such things as miracles….

Talk about living in samsara, in a state of illusion!

Our human knowledge is richer for Gertrude’s work. She had been retired for some years and died peacefully in her sleep on March 9th.

reply to post by dominicus


I know! What will it take to satisfy some people aye?

Like this?



Also, can anyone who's had an NDE tell me a bit more about it please

Originally posted by Sinny

Also, can anyone who's had an NDE tell me a bit more about it please

For me, in a nutshell, it showed me that life in the reality we live in is very much overrated. Once you are convinced of the fact that you are dying, even if you end up surviving, life becomes relatively meaningless. Sort of like how you look back at going to school, after you have done some real living. At school, you had to obey all kinds of rules you didn't agree with, and you had to follow a certain path, like it or not. When you graduate, you choose your own path and all sorts of freedoms come into play.

I can honestly say that it no longer matters to me how long I will live, but it does matter very much HOW I live. It has become almost impossible for me to lie. I am the most openhearted person that I know. The reason is that I realize that there is no point to lying because when you die all is known and you will face this. So much so that I often say things that will degrade myself IN THIS LIFE. But it doesn't matter to me one bit because I have peace in knowing that it purifies my soul, which lasts a lot longer than this very short life. It also increases my chances of not having to come back.

I have become much more intuitive, and more connected with nature in general. When you no longer live in fear, you are automatically more in tune with the power of nature, or God if you will. And the more you experience that, the more you trust it and the more everything just has a way of working itself out.

An NDE is the greatest gift you could ever receive because it can give you true peace. But I can imagine that some people have a hard time integrating the experience. I have had to do a lot of soul searching to give it a place in my life and to learn how to still enjoy this life. And, at times, it can be frustrating to not be able to truly share it with others. But in the end, even that doesn't really matter, as long as I stay true to myself and to others.

ETA: You don't have to die to have this experience. Being convinced that you are dying can be enough, because that gives your soul the freedom of breaking the bonds with your body and this dimension. Sort of like when you're dreaming during sleep. There is nothing tying you to the physical world. You are set free. This wonderful feeling will not last once you are back in this dimension, but it will certainly be a part of you and will greatly increase your awareness. You will never be the same again.

reply to post by soulwaxer


Thanks Soulwaxer,

That's really riveting and interesting,

I like the comment you made on being honest, I like that out look on life, after all, you can't hide from your self

Originally posted by BlueMule

Originally posted by dominicus

So what we need to do is come up with some super sensitive instruments that might be able to detect this kind of non-local consciousness that could be measured outside of the body.

For the sake of argument, lets say you succeed in coming up with instruments like that. Let's say you use them to produce some evidence of non-local consciousness.

Then what?

Then what, you ask? Every criminal will claim innocence because the thoughts that drove him to kill. rape, molest, rob, were forced upon him by this outer consciousness.

Yeah, some are thinking of bashing me for this, but hey, these are not my thoughts. I'm just a receiver.

Originally posted by Sinny
reply to post by soulwaxer

 

Thanks Soulwaxer,

That's really riveting and interesting,

I like the comment you made on being honest, I like that out look on life, after all, you can't hide from your self

You're welcome! And you're exactly right: you can't hide from yourself. You could even say that that is the reason we are here. To know what we are and to be true to that. If you try and defy your own nature, you will come back, again and again, until you find it. After that, you can go to the next level...

Originally posted by jiggerj

Originally posted by BlueMule

Originally posted by dominicus

So what we need to do is come up with some super sensitive instruments that might be able to detect this kind of non-local consciousness that could be measured outside of the body.

For the sake of argument, lets say you succeed in coming up with instruments like that. Let's say you use them to produce some evidence of non-local consciousness.

Then what?

Then what, you ask? Every criminal will claim innocence because the thoughts that drove him to kill. rape, molest, rob, were forced upon him by this outer consciousness.

Yeah, some are thinking of bashing me for this, but hey, these are not my thoughts. I'm just a receiver.

You do have control over which thoughts you ACT upon.

If I receive a loaded gun from someone, I can still choose to unload it and throw it away.

reply to post by dominicus

4. And last, according to religions and accounts of regular non-religious folks in the events of NDE's (Near Death Experiences), upon death of the body, consciousness leaves the body.

Just so we're clear, death is permanent.

Death is an event that represents the permanent cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, suicide, murder and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury.[1] Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death.

en.wikipedia.org...

People who experience NDE's are not dead, only near death. In fact, their brain is still working, and most likely causing all phenomenon during said NDE.

Brain death is the irreversible end of all brain activity (including involuntary activity necessary to sustain life) due to total necrosis of the cerebral neurons following loss of brain oxygenation. It should not be confused with a persistent vegetative state. Patients classified as brain dead can have their organs surgically removed for organ donation.
Brain death, either of the whole brain or the brain stem, is used as a legal indicator of death in many jurisdictions.

en.wikipedia.org...

My problem with trying to measure the brain to find the mind or soul or what-have-you, is that I do not believe the mind is inside the body, as abstract as that sounds. Science tells us that everything we experience is only in our brains. When we touch something, we don't actually feel it with out fingers but with our brains that are sent a message from out fingers. We don't actually hear something with our ears but our brain that is sent a message from the ears. Every thing we see and experience only exists in our brains, not anywhere outside.

So, my theory is that the mind exists somewhere outside of the body but sends a message to the brain to receive it. The mind could be any where, technically. It could lie in the Heavens or in space but as long as it is sending a message to the brain, we will perceive it in our brains, and thusly our heads.

reply to post by TheSubversiveOne

People who experience NDE's are not dead, only near death. In fact, their brain is still working, and most likely causing all phenomenon during said NDE.

Just so we can be clear, there actually is some data that exists, of individuals having NDE's while brain dead:
EEG expert can't explain NDE Data

Or in the case of surgical procedures called "hypothermic cardiac arrest where doctors induce a lowered body temp down to 60 degrees F, heartbeat stopped, breathing stopped, and all brain waves stand still, yet an NDE still occurs:
hypothermic NDE

We can even go further and discuss the russian doctor who died, was dead for 3 days straight, kept for those 3 days in a morgue freezer, then came back to life during the autopsy. There was a show about it on discovery channel about 6-8 years back, can't seem to find the youtube vid but here's a blog reference to it, or you can do your own research on it:
blog reference

All of these would most definitely be chinks in the armor of a strong materialistic defense

Originally posted by ErroneousDylan
Science tells us that everything we experience is only in our brains.

So if we were to touch something, that something is in our brains? Including touch itself?

When we touch something, we don't actually feel it with out fingers but with our brains that are sent a message from out fingers.

So it would be safer to say: When we touch [nothing], we don't actually feel [anything] with ou[r] fingers but with our brains that are sent a message [not] from ou[r] fingers [which would have to be messages themselves].

I just want to be clear with what you're getting at.

We don't actually hear something with our ears but our brain that is sent a message from the ears. Every thing we see and experience only exists in our brains, not anywhere outside.

The fact is that a brain cannot see without the eyes and the eyes cannot see without the brain. Same goes with ears and sound, skin and touch, nasal system and smell, tongue, mouth and taste. "Consciousness" requires both mind and body to function. This can be observed. Someone who has been blind since birth doesn't dream in sight. Being blind is a physical, not mental, malady. This shows that the mind and ideas are dependent on sensual stimulus, not consciousness.