Do you believe in a 'Afterlife'?

I found this to be an interesting read.
I only read very little in here, but I thought it might be appreciated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/ma...1&ref=magazine

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Originally Posted by hypnocella

Ghosts, one of the finest pieces of evidence of afterlife, and NDE's. Ghost stories are creepy because they're so real.

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Please tell me you're kidding. :shakehead2:

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Originally Posted by Xei

Go away.

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aww that i make you mad...LOL...damn Xei you so sensitive.

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Originally Posted by Carôusoul

Your evidence of the existence of ghosts is that ghost stories are creepy.

I see.

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Psychics solving impossible crimes by communicating with the victim's spirit. I mean what do you call that exactly, evidence maybe.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_data_so_far.png

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Originally Posted by HaRd_WiReD

aww that i make you mad...LOL...damn Xei you so sensitive.

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Ah, trolling at its finest. Go away, failed troll.

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Originally Posted by hypnocella

Psychics solving impossible crimes by communicating with the victim's spirit. I mean what do you call that exactly, evidence maybe.

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So I go from close-minded to too open-minded in about a day, okay just checking, need to backtrack. If you had an experience like that you might think differently about afterlife. But you don't always have to 1st hand experience something to know it, what you need is a series of very similar but distinct experiences shared by a reasonable number of people, with some of them not believing it before but becoming themselves advocates of that phenomena. I just don't mean ball lightening, but real experiences, interactions with that yield remarkable proof, with the unknown.

...of course, those experiences being purely subjective and not taking place under reasonable experimental conditions. I'm not saying that there is no way in hell that the afterlife exists, but I remain quite skeptical. Why should humans, a tiny speck in the universe, have a paradise engineered for us and waiting for us when we die, which as far as we know consists of only chemical processes shutting down? It seems rather ridiculous to me.

I believe that we all become what we have lkabeled as "ghosts".

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Originally Posted by Conkt

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_data_so_far.png

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If you're talking about psi, than that is not true.

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Originally Posted by dajo

If you're talking about psi, than that is not true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw_O9Qiwqew

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It's from xkcd -_-

Well it fit anyway.

And Conkt wanted to make a point, didn't he?

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Originally Posted by dajo

Well it fit anyway.

And Conkt wanted to make a point, didn't he?

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I actually don't think he did....

Hehe, oh well. Maybe I wanted to make one ;)

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Originally Posted by Mario92

...of course, those experiences being purely subjective and not taking place under reasonable experimental conditions. I'm not saying that there is no way in hell that the afterlife exists, but I remain quite skeptical. Why should humans, a tiny speck in the universe, have a paradise engineered for us and waiting for us when we die, which as far as we know consists of only chemical processes shutting down? It seems rather ridiculous to me.

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Why does the 'afterlife' has to be something resembling a paradise? Could be quite mundane actually.

Or something entirely else.. ?

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Originally Posted by Xedan

Yeah, I'm lazy. That's pretty much all I can read when I'm wide awake. For some reason I can read more when I'm tired. But anyways, would this be anything like 'Manifestation'? Also, what is LOA, I'm not familiar with the abbreviation.

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LOA is the law of attraction. What you feel good about and what you focus on you attract to you.

Science proves that nothing is truly solid. In truth, everything is simply energy that vibrates, everything. If you meditate, you can actually make parts of your body vibrate faster. This is how Reiki energy-healing works. Positive emotions cause things to vibrate faster.

The human body has an invisible electromagnetic field around it.

http://www.lawyertopeacemaker.com/images/heartfield.gif

We affect each other's EM-field through emotions. Yes, we in control each other's feelings. You may walked into a house full of depressed people and feel that bad vibe. Or you may get around a fun person and just plain feel better, and happy and have more energy.

You may not notice this, but you definitely are aware of this on weed. I'm not condoning this, I just wanted to note this.

For example, if you compose music like me, and you go into your home-studio, pumped up, feeling good, positive mind set, that energy reaches your keyboard your speakers, your microphone or whatever. You are better, creativity flows through you more easily, what you come out with is going to be sounding good. This also gives you more energy.

If you are depressed, and full of negative feelings/emotions, you will have LESS energy. You'll stress. And you might not come up with a good composition.

When you change your personal electromagnetic field from negative/depressed to happy/positive, you WILL influence others. It STILL amazes me that this is actually true. This is why I quote ghandi on saying be the change you want to see in the world. Because all of us really are in a big unified electromagnetic field effecting each other with emotions.

When you change your EM-field with positivity/laughter/happiness, you automatically change other's EM field. Then they end up changing someone else's EM-field, and so on and so on.

For the Law of attraction, you simply feel good about and visualize what you want like you already have it, and the universe WILL make it work for you. You will get inspiration, motivation...and there will be "coincidences" that will be beneficial to your aspiration.

But don't just listen to me on this, do it yourself, experience will be your own proof of this.

The answer is simple though...be HAPPY. And not the fake happy, the real genuine inner-you happy. It will liberate you and make your life better ways you didn't think were possible

I find it funny that they say I'M trolling, yet they are skeptics that are constantly in a religion/spirituality sub-forum trying to debunk all of it and get tlol. Someone's looking for answers are they?

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Originally Posted by dajo

Why does the 'afterlife' has to be something resembling a paradise? Could be quite mundane actually.

Or something entirely else.. ?

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If the afterlife is mundane, I will kill my afterlife self.

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I find it funny that they say I'M trolling, yet they are skeptics that are constantly in a religion/spirituality sub-forum trying to debunk all of it lol. Someone's looking for answers are they?

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aww that i make you mad...LOL...damn Xei you so sensitive.

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THAT is trolling...

The afterlife and Psi are completely different things.
Science has proven that you are your brain. That is to say, by altering the brain you effectively become a different person. By destroying the brain, you are no more. In death, the brain is destroyed, or in Walt's case, made inactive and unusable.
PSI is still within the realm of possibility. It has not been scientifically proven, but there are reports of it such as the previously posted Youtube video. It should be noted that there is evidence that Whales have ESP, and can communicate telepathically.
My XKCD comic was a bit of a joke, but it was also there to punctuate Mario's video on how there have never been any result-yeilding instances of PSI in a scientifically controlled environment.

Edit: HaRd_WiReD, the Law of Attraction likewise has no scientific backing, and is a member of the New Age Club.

umm, actually psi has been proven in a laboratory environment. Or at least one kind of psi, ESP.

Hardwired, you need to join reecejones87's mass meditation sessions. Your most recent post here is pretty much what the whole thing is about. Raising your vibrational pattern to project confidence and love throughout the world.

This is the bit where you're supposed to give some kind of evidence for your claims.

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Originally Posted by Conkt

The afterlife and Psi are completely different things.
Science has proven that you are your brain. That is to say, by altering the brain you effectively become a different person. By destroying the brain, you are no more. In death, the brain is destroyed, or in Walt's case, made inactive and unusable.
PSI is still within the realm of possibility. It has not been scientifically proven, but there are reports of it such as the previously posted Youtube video. It should be noted that there is evidence that Whales have ESP, and can communicate telepathically.
My XKCD comic was a bit of a joke, but it was also there to punctuate Mario's video on how there have never been any result-yeilding instances of PSI in a scientifically controlled environment.

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Neuroscience does point to us being our brain. I'm just not very sure that
this is the end of it. For example entanglement shows us that there can be
direct connections between particles that have no obvious connection.

Anyway - psi and the afterlife are not neccessarily unrelated, imo.
Because the idea of conscious activity outside of the brain would point
to 'us' not being only limited to the brain and therefore opening up
entire new possibilities of 'us' existing outside of the brain or our body.

You may of course also argue that even if psi does turn out to be true
that this is no evidence at all for there being an afterlife, but I do think
it would just open up a new perspective, or basis for argument, for us
existing outside of our brain and therefore maybe transcending after death.

What do I think? I really don't know.

You can take this as you want to but...

I believe we are all energy, and energy cannot be created or destroyed.

The rest is all theories and things we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better about death.

*Clarification*

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Originally Posted by Jesus of Suburbia

I believe that we all become what we have lkabeled as "ghosts".

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This.

Also something a clairvoyant said to me once. I was relating to her about how I was excited because I might have seen an orb on the camera at work. But I went on to say that my building doesn't feel haunted. She kind of laughed and said, "Spirits don't just go off to a magical place when they die, Star. They are around us all the time."

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Originally Posted by dajo

Neuroscience does point to us being our brain. I'm just not very sure that
this is the end of it. For example entanglement shows us that there can be
direct connections between particles that have no obvious connection.

Anyway - psi and the afterlife are not neccessarily unrelated, imo.
Because the idea of conscious activity outside of the brain would point
to 'us' not being only limited to the brain and therefore opening up
entire new possibilities of 'us' existing outside of the brain or our body.

You may of course also argue that even if psi does turn out to be true
that this is no evidence at all for there being an afterlife, but I do think
it would just open up a new perspective, or basis for argument, for us
existing outside of our brain and therefore maybe transcending after death.

What do I think? I really don't know.

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I repeat, ESP has been proven. But this doesn't entail the Afterlife existing because it could just as easily be a function of the mind. Ever moved out of the way just in time so that something from behind you didn't hit you? Maybe that reflex is like ESP. Maybe ESP is a survival instinct that, under intense concentration, can be consciously controlled.

I don't know if I really made my point clear in this post, but put simply, the brain would be the most likely source of psi, not the "soul".

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Originally Posted by Xedan

I repeat, ESP has been proven. But this doesn't entail the Afterlife existing because it could just as easily be a function of the mind. Ever moved out of the way just in time so that something from behind you didn't hit you? Maybe that reflex is like ESP. Maybe ESP is a survival instinct that, under intense concentration, can be consciously controlled.

I don't know if I really made my point clear in this post, but put simply, the brain would be the most likely source of psi, not the "soul".

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Whatever a soul is supposed to be.

But I know of the research done on ESP and Remote Viewing and I
know it is supposed to be valid (I posted that video up there, also).

But you are making a good point!

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Originally Posted by dajo

Whatever a soul is supposed to be.

But I know of the research done on ESP and Remote Viewing and I
know it is supposed to be valid (I posted that video up there, also).

But you are making a good point!

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Oh trust me, it's valid. I'll go look for that thing Nina posted a while back.

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Originally Posted by Aquanina

Psi has been proven many times.

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Successful psi experiments definitely have been replicated by different researchers and laboratories. One famous solid example is the series of telepathy studies known as the ganzfeld experiments, in which subjects guess target images while sitting with ping pong ball halves over their eyes and listening to relaxing white noise designed to deprive them of sensory stimuli to heighten their intuition and psychic abilities. Dean Radin, in the same book quoted above describes the replicability of the Ganzfeld experiments: (page 78-79)

"At the annual convention of the Parapsychological Association in 1982, Charles Honorton presented a paper summarizing the results of all known ganzfeld experiments to that date. He concluded that the experiments at that time provided sufficient evidence to demonstrate the existence of psi in the ganzfeld…….. "

"At that time, ganzfeld experiments had appeared in thirty-four published reports by ten different researchers. These reports described a total of forty-two separate experiments. Of these, twenty-eight reported the actual hit rates that were obtained. The other studies simply declared the experiments successful or unsuccessful. Since this information is insufficient for conducting a numerically oriented meta-analysis, Hyman and Honorton concentrated their analyses on the twenty-either studies that had reported actual hit rates. Of those twenty-eight, twenty-three had resulted in hit rates greater than chance expectation. This was an instant indicator that some degree of replication had been achieved, but when the actual hit rates of all twenty-eight studies were combined, the results were even more astounding than Hyman and Honorton had expected: odds against chance of ten billion to one. Clearly, the overall results were not just a fluke, and both researchers immediately agreed that something interesting was going on. But was it telepathy?"

Radin further elaborates on how researcher Charles Honorton tested whether independent replications had actually been achieved: (page 79)

"To address the concern about whether independent replications had been achieved, Honorton calculated the experimental outcomes for each laboratory separately. Significantly positive outcomes were reported by six of the ten labs, and the combined score across the ten laboratories still resulted in odds against chance of about a billion to one. This showed that no one lab was responsible for the positive results; they appeared across-the-board, even from labs reporting only a few experiments. To examine further the possibility that the two most prolific labs were responsible for the strong odds against chance, Honorton recalculated the results after excluding the studies that he and Sargent had reported. The resulting odds against chance were still ten thousand to one. Thus, the effect did not depend on just one or two labs; it had been successfully replicated by eight other laboratories."

On the same page, he then soundly dismisses the skeptical claim that the file-drawer effect (selective reporting) could skew the meta-analysis results in favor of psi: (page 79-80)

"Another factor that might account for the overall success of the ganzfeld studies was the editorial policy of professional journals, which tends to favor the publication of successful rather than unsuccessful studies. This is the "file-drawer" effect mentioned earlier. Parapsychologists were among the first to become sensitive to this problem, which affects all experimental domains. In 1975 the Parapsychological Association’s officers adopted a policy opposing the selective reporting of positive outcomes. As a result, both positive and negative findings have been reported atg the Paraspsychological Association’s annual meetings and in its affiliated publications for over two decades.

Furthermore, a 1980 survey of parapsychologists by the skeptical British psychologist Susan Blackmore had confirmed that the file-drawer problem was not a serious issue for the ganzfeld meta-analysis. Blackmore uncovered nineteen complete but unpublished ganzfeld studies. Of those nineteen, seven were independently successful with odds against chance of twenty to one or greater. Thus while some ganzfeld studies had not been published, Hyman and Honorton agreed that selective reporting was not an important issue in this database.

Still, because it is impossible to know how many other studies might have been in file drawers, it is common in meta-analyses to calculate how many unreported studies would be required to nullify the observed effects among the known studies. For the twenty-eight direct-hit ganzfeld studies, this figure was 423 file-drawer experiments, a ratio of unreported-to-reported studies of approximately fifteen to one. Given the time and resources it takes to conduct a single ganzfeld session, let alone 423 hypotheitcal unrepoted experiments, it is not surprising that Hyman agreed with Honorton that the file-drawer issue could not plausibly account for the overall results of the psi ganzfeld database. There were simply not enough experimenters around to have conducted those 423 studies.

Thus far, the proponent and the skeptic had agreed that the results could not be attributed to chance or to selective reporting practices."

Another skeptical argument against the ganzfeld studies is sensory leakage. Radin addresses this as well: (page 81-82)

"Because the ganzfeld procedure uses a sensory-isolation environment, the possibility of sensory leakage during the telepathic "sending" portion of the session is already significantly diminished. After the sending period, however, when the receiver is attempting to match his or her experience to the correct target, if the experimenter interacting wit the receiver knows the identity of the target, he or she could inadvertently bias the receiver’s ratings. One study in the ganzfeld database contained this potentially fatal flaw, but rather than showing a wildly successful result, that study’s participants actually performed slightly below chance expectation………

Despite variations in study quality due to these and other factors, Hyman and Honorton both concluded that there was no systematic relationship between the security methods used to guard against sensory leakage and the study outcomes. Honorton proved his point by recalculating the overall results only for studies that had used duplicate target sets. He found that the results were still quite strong, with odds against chance of about 100,000 to 1."

Where skeptic Ray Hyman disagreed with Charles Honorton was in the role of randomization flaws affecting the ganzfeld results. However, as Radin points out, the consensus of the experts on meta-analysis is against Hyman’s hypothesis: (page 82-83)

"A similar concern arises for the method of randomizing the sequence in which the experimenter presents the target and the three decoys to the receiver during the judging process. If, for example, the target is always presented second in the sequence of four, then again, a subject may tell a friend, and the friend, armed with knowledge about which of the four targets Is the real one, could successfully select the real target without the use of psi.

Although these scenarios are implausible, skeptics have always insisted on nailing down even the most unlikely hypothetical flaws. And it was on this issue, the importance of randomization flaws, that Hyman and Honorton disagreed. Hyman claimed that he saw a significant relationship between randomization flaws and study outcomes, and Honorton did not. The sources of this disagreement can be traced to Honorton’s and Hyman’s differing definitions of "randomization flaws," to how the two analysts rated these flaws in the individual studies, and to how they statistically treated the quality ratings.

These sorts of complicated disagreements are not unexpected given the diametrically opposed conviction with which Hnorton and Hyman began their analyses. When such discrepancies arise, it is useful to consider the opinions of outside reviewers who have the technical skills to assess the disagreements. In this case, ten psychologists and statisticians supplied commentaries alongside the Honorton-Hyman published debate that appeared in 1986. None of the commentators agreed with Hyman, while two statisticians and two psychologists not previously associated with this debate explicitly agreed with Honorton.

In two separate analyses conducted later, Harvard University behavioral scientists Monica Harris and Robert Rosenthal (the latter a world-renowned expert in methodology and meta-analysis) used Hyman’s own flaw ratings and failed to find any significant relationships between the supposed flaws and te study outcomes. They wrote, "Our analysis of the effects of flaws on study outcome lends no support to the hypothesis that ganzfeld research results are a significant function of the set of flaw variables.

In other words, everyone agreed that the ganzfeld results were not due to chance, nor to selective reporting, nor to sensory leakage. And everyone, except one confirmed skeptic, also agreed that the results were not plausibly due to flaws in randomization procedures. The debate was now poised to take the climactic step from Stage 1, "It’s impossible," to Stage 2, "Okay, so maybe it’s real."

Even after the successful replicable series of ganzfeld experiments, further replicability was found in the computer-controlled autoganzfeld experiments, designed to be even more efficient and controlled than the original ganzfeld experiments (although not shown to be significant as mentioned above). This time though, two magicians who specialized in mentalism were brought in to check the protocals for cheating loopholes, as Radin describes: (page 86)

"In addition, two professional magicians who specialized in the simulation of psi effects (called "mentalists" or "psychic entertainers") examined the autoganzeld system and protocols to see if it was vulnerable to mentalist tricks or conjuring-type deceptions. One of the magicians was Ford Kross, an officer of the Psychic Entertainers Association. Kross provided the following written statement about the autoganzfeld setup:

In my professional capacity as a mentalist, I have reviewed Psychophysical Research Laboratories’ automated ganzfeld system and found it to be provide excellent security against deception by subjects.

The other magician was Cornell University psyhcologist Daryl Bem, who besides coauthoring a 19954 paper on the ganzfeld psi experiments with Honorton, is also a professional mentalist and a member of the Psychic Entertainers Association."

Radin summarizes the results of the autoganzfeld experiments as follows: (page 86)

"The bottom line for the eleven series, consisting of a total of 354 sessions, was 122 direct hits, for a 34 percent hit rate. This compares favorably with the 1985 meta-analysis hit rate of 37 percent. Honorton’s autoganzfeld results overall produced odds against chance of forty-five thousand to one."

Further replications beyond the ganzfeld and autoganzfeld experiments include the following: (page 87-88)

"The next replications were reported by psychologist Kathy Dalton and her colleagues at the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Scotland. The Edinburgh experiments, conducted from 1993 through 1996 (and still ongoing), consisted of five published reports and 289 sessions using an improved, fullyl automated psi ganzfeld setup. It was based on Honorton’s original autoganzfeld design and implemented in stages first by Honorton, then by psychologist Robin Taylor, then by me, and finally by Kathy Dalton. Other replications have been reported by Professor Dick Bierman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Amsterdam; Professor Daryl Bem of Cornell University’s Psychology Department; Dr. Richard Broughton and colleagues at the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina; Professor Adrian Parker and colleagues at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden; and doctoral student Rens Wezelman from the Institute for Parapsychology in Utrecht, Netherlands.

While only the 1985 meta-analysis, the autoganzfeld study, and the Edinburgh study independently produced a hit rate with 95 percent confidence intervals beyond chance expectation, it is noteworthy that each of the six replication studies (after the autoganzfeld) resulted in point estimates greater than chance. The 95 percent confidence interval at the right end of the graph ois the combined estimate based on all available ganzfeld sessions, consisting of a total of 2,549 sessions. The overall hit rate of 33.2 percent is unlikely with odds against chance beyond a million billion to one."

Finally, at the end of the chapter, Radin concludes what the findings of the ganzfeld experiments and others before it suggest: (page 88)

"Now jointly consider the results of the ganzfeld psi experiments, the dream-telepathy experiments of the 1960s and 1970s, the ESP cards tests from the 1880s to the 1940s, Upton Sinclair’s experiments in 1929, and earlier studies on thought transference. The same effects have been repeated again and again, by new generations of experimenters, using increasingly rigorous methods. From the beginning, each new series of telepathy experiments was met with its share of skeptical attacks. These criticisms reduced mainstream scientific interest in the reported effects, but ironically they also refined the methods used in future experiments to the point that today’s ganzfeld experiments stump the experts."

Thus from all this, it is indisputable that we have solid scientific and statistical evidence that one of the most successful and controlled series of telepathy experiments in history, the ganzfeld experiments, were definitely replicable. Therefore, the skeptical challenge of Argument # 16 has been met, and it’s up to them to accept the obvious data or reject it. Radin’s book describes many other replicable psi experiments as well, including ESP, clairvoyance, remote viewing, and psychokinesis. So I highly recommend it. The book, The Conscious Universe: The Scientific Truth of Psychic Phenomena, can be ordered from Amazon.com. For more details about the ganzfeld experiments, see the following detailed articles which can be viewed online:

http://www.psych.cornell.edu/dbem/ganzfeld.html

http://www.psych.cornell.edu/dbem/does_psi_exist.html

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And eternalstar01, saying we are all just energy is just new-age BS. I'm sorry, but it's fluff. It doesn't explain anything. It doesn't mean anything. You might as well say the universe originated from a wollywinkle. Energy is just the manipulation of matter (which is why I've always thought that potential should not be called a type of energy)