h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm trying to say it's an idea.
As for the whole world or an area of flood. Does it matter?

I've heard the same theory about the garden of Eden, that is was a pleasant area that people were exiled from.

Maybe you're misrepresenting the Bible, Adib. In my version it talks about 'the earth' not 'the world'. The earth, the air and the waters are mentioned in similar ways. It isn't clear that 'the earth' means anything more than 'the land area'. It doesn't say that all the world's land area was flooded.

Consequently the Bible, much more ancient than the Quran, tells much the same story, it seems.

or we could stop arguing about the simalarity between several of the religious texts

Not to mention the 'Epic of Gilgamesh'. And given that Abraham came originally from Ur in Mesopotamia, that can't be a coincidence. And the historian David Rohl claims to have located the original "Garden of Eden" near the headwaters od the Tigris and Euphrates, in the area associated withe first domestication of grain crops. (Cain and Abel - the agriculturalist and the huntergatherer).

NDEs: Does the experience occur while the brain is shutting down (or possibly starting up again?) or while it's "dead"? Reports given once the experiencer is conscious again are not likely to settle that question one way or another.
Why do some people have them, and not others?
Is the experience "reconstructed" after the event? I've said before that I think all memory is a bit like that, but it's normally more like "tidying up" so that the narrative runs smoothly, rather than actual invention, so it shouldn't be seen as invalidating the original experience.

On the other hand some hundreds (thousands) of people remember being abducted by aliens? Were they?

The notion of an actual life after death doesn't sit easily with my worldview, so I'm resistant to the idea, but there's obviously something going on, whether "physical" or "spiritual". Given either view I don't think the evidence is sufficiently compelling yet to oblige anyone to change their mind as to which.

Quantum mechanics and the mind: I'm sceptical, but as yet we know too little for an informed judgement.

Noggin

if aliuans are smart enough to build giant space ships you think that thay would at least whipe the memmory of thair victoms

- Jordan

why

Good point. If I were a super-intelligent alien wanting to hide my existence, and I were prepared to abduct people to learn stuff from/about them, I'm sure as hell they wouldn't be going home without a bit of tinkering!

And I /don't/ mean that in a sexual way!

- Jordan

see i have a point
oh yes i have a point yes yes i got one

YAY!!!

- Jordan

Jordan, out of (a) (b) or (C) I think it's probably (c) = Dubya... But I like a and b, too.

- Jordan

Thanks Hasslefree, I just went and had a quick look, very interesting! I wish we'd seen the doco you mention, problems of not being in the UK..sigh.

I saw that documentry. It was really good. With the guy traveling through Iraq.
I would love to see them citys some time.

Adib

Yo Noggin. I'm gonna put on my psychologist's hat and say that memory of past events is, for the most part, reconstruction. That doesn't mean that it's inaccurate reconstruction, of course.

As to the other stuff, I'm beginning to doubt that there is life before death.

Even if you believe in the old whole big bang/evoloution theory

Where did the original atom/element come from to go bang with?

I can confuse myself so easily, all ideas have merit and/or believers.

The only thing I truly believe in is that if I think I know the answer, I havent got the truth.


This is how my affair with 42 started some 20 years ago.

Noggin
The question about when NDE occurs was pivotal in the programs research.
First when you are unconscious, you are not in a state of sleeping.
You do not dream, you do not have recorded memories and you can be stabbbed with a knife and not feel it.
One woman in the program had a brain operation. To do this she had to be 'shut down' her breathing stopped, her heart stopped and her brain stopped. This is termed clinically dead. She had her eyes taped and had things placed in her ears that were clicking (I think this was about registering brain activity to make certain it was not)
she had her NDE and was later able to describe to doctors what they did, what instruments they used on her (although these were covered by sterile packaging when she was in the operating room before anaethesia) the team of surgeons verified all of this was correct and that there was no way she could have heard or seen them. there was also now way she could have retrofitted the recollection as no body told her what had happened.
I was also aware of what had happened to me fully, before I spoke to anyone. In fact I didn't tell anyone for some time.
My recollection from the moment I opened my eyes was vivid and not dream like. Neither did the memory dissipate with the years as dreams often do.
Another incidence was a woman blind from birth whose NDE was about seeing things she could not really identify as a blind person.
She had no idea of what light was or colours were.
to me she was the most important subject, since how could she manufacture visions of things she had never experienced. She said that in her dreams she only ever dreamt of taste and smell and sound and touch.
she said that people used to ask her if all she 'saw' was black and she replied that she didn't even 'see' blackness .

the fact that not everyone has a NDE is something that discounts the theory that the brain activates like this as a norm when dying.
Tests are always carried out on people who have had cardiac arrest.
It may be the difference then between Near death and actual death that creates this situation.
Once your heart and breathing stops, the brain has eight seconds of functioning 'normally' before it begins to shut down.

Yes I get the comparison with alien abduction, and I have trouble believing that these things happen to people, but at least NDE has some circumstacial evidence, ie that a person can be seen to actually die. Other people doctors , surgeons, nursing staff can verify a persons death , very often an alien abductee is singular in their experience.
I'm happy that NDE is being seriously researched, because evidence that it is real, rather than an imaginary state, will have huge implications for the human race.
I suppose that scanning brain activity whilst a patient is unconscious would be a way forward, but no surgeon expects or hopes for a patients near death.

In the Quran it says that when one is sleeping his soul is taken up to Allah and when he wakes up his soul has been returned to that person. When you die your soul leaves your body and returns to Allah but something else is taken as well which makes your body stop. Or some thing like thsn. I will look up the acctualy verse for you lot. I know its not what your actually talking about but still.

Adib

Adib
I can see this as a way of stating something similar.
During sleep the conscious is free 'roaming' and the places it 'roams' may be shaped by the days events. I feel there is a purpose to it even if it is not entirely understood at present.
The idea that upon death a consciousness returns to Allah is in keeping with my idea that the conscious returns to the collective consciousness. Which many people have give different names to.

Which then leads me to the idea that if we all listened to our conscious, (the thing that 'visits' God as per Adibs teachings, in dreams and death)then we would be better off and and lead better lives than reading the various books on the subject.
By your words Adib you suggest that each night of dreaming is being with Allah, so why would this direct contact take second place to the second hand words of others?