Survival after Death

Are near-death experiences (NDEs) just elaborate hallucinations produced by a dying brain? Or the exuberant fantasies of attention-seeking narcissists? As the accounts in this book abundantly demonstrate: Neither!

This book contains over 100 reliable, often firsthand accounts of perceptions during NDEs that were later verified as accurate by independent sources. These near-death experiencers were everyday people from all over the world—many of whom were clinically dead, unable to see or hear, and yet able to perceive new vistas of a world beyond the senses and even beyond death.

The Self Does Not Die is a trailblazing effort to present the most confirmed cases of consciousness beyond death ever compiled. - (There now is a paperback and a kindle version.)

Here I bewail the slapdash and confusing way in which philosophers bandy about the word ‘incoherent’ (and ‘incoherence’ and ‘incoherently’).  To some it appears to mean: inconsistent; to others: pragmatically self-defeating; and to yet others: nonsensical, i.e. meaningless.  And often one is left guessing.

This paper explains symbolism and meaning in the film, "Personal Shopper" (Assayas, 2017).  Maureen observes many "signs" from her deceased twin brother Lewis who's fulfilling an oath to contact her after death. These include astral swirls, bangs, water flowing, glasses floating and other signs from Lewis. However, none of these paranormal occurances are convincing enough for Maureen. Here's the key to the film: Maureen is in a hotel room (the 2nd time) waiting for Ingo to arrive. She receives a series of desperate texts from him asking if she showed his prior texts to the police (they suspect him of killing Kyra). He knocks at the hotel door; we hear a banging noise as Maureen opens it; then, fade to black. This is when Ingo kills Maureen - no other explanation makes sense despite the simplistic Youtube theories. Maureen is dead because the elevator door (and hotel front doors) open and close for Maureen's spirit leaving the hotel. Then, the paintings in the hotel hallways change to artwork by the spiritualist artist Klimt (mentioned as an artist who channeled symbols from the afterlife). So, from this point on - Maureen moves into an "in-between death state." -This is exactly the same "place" as Lewis had told Maureen about when he was alive and saw their deceased mother. Maureen is creating her own reality now. She creates a scene with her ex-sister-in-law and meets her new boyfriend who explains the nature of "death" to her. After this, Maureen creates a scene in the "sacred spiritual" mountains of Oman. Upon arrival, she enters a monastary-like room where another glass is floating. She asks questions - bang once for “yes” and two for “no” (ala. the Fox Sister's & Hugo's mediumship mentioned earlier). However, upon asking if she – herself – is the cause of the bangs – the bangs indicate "yes." Finally, she realizes she’s creating this reality (like the Bardo) and knows it's time to free herself from grief within this "in-between death state." In the final shot, she enters into the peaceful whiteness of the afterlife.

In his clear and well-written Mortal Minds anesthesiologist Gerald Woerlee advocates the so-called extinction hypothesis, the theory that there is no immortal soul and no life after death.
However, Woerlee consistently gives his readers a distorted version of the positions taken by his opponents. He confuses plausible or implausible skeptical hypotheses with conclusive evidence for his skeptical views. And he almost exclusively uses skeptical sources about empirical evidence that might falsify his theory, without touching on the details of the main cases presented.
Nevertheless, the book does include some interesting information and it may be used as a source about skeptical misconceptions. It confirms that in general skeptics cannot deal with paranormal phenomena.

In spite of its popularity, mediumship is at odds with modern science. Since science is an extremely important part of our culture, mediumship will never be completely accepted until a scientific theory can explain how consciousness survives after the death of the material body. Even the presently available experimental evidence of survival is not enough to sway the opinions of scientists without a theory to support the data obtained from experiments. Only one theory, at present, can account for both consciousness and survival, the five-dimensional single field theory.

There is serious evidence for veridical perceptions during the stage of flat electroencephalogram (EEG) in so called Near-Death Experiences (NDEs). This paper addresses common counter-hypotheses for a survivalist interpretation of these experiences. The only possible alternative which would account for veridical NDEs is the false memory through retrocognition-hypothesis. It is shown why this alternative is less parsimonious than a straightforward survivalist interpretation of NDEs.

Three points of view on the problem of the answerability of philosophical questions are developed:
a) the traditional view that the questions are perfectly genuine but just very difficult;
b) what I call the 'nonsensicalist' view, characteristic of logical positivists and Wittgensteinians, that they are largely meaningless pseudo-problems;
c) the 'mysterian' or transcendental naturalist view that they are genuine problems but ones that our intellects are unequipped, or at least very ill-equipped, to handle.

Nestes breves apontamentos apresenta-se duas pressuposições que devem ser discutidas e resolvidas para a comprovação e validade da sobrevivência após à morte corporal, sob uma perspectiva pessoal (no lugar de apessoal) e que represente uma continuidade de nosso ordinário estado de consciência. A primeira delas é de ordem epistemológica e diz respeito a possibilidade de realizarmos um julgamento de identidade de modo que pudéssemos satisfatoriamente combinar a personalidade do comunicador em eventual contato mediúnico com a de alguém que um dia já vivera aqui na Terra. A outra nos faz questionar sobre o impacto da morte nas características psicológicas de uma pessoa até então corporalmente viva. Caso esse impacto provoque um estado alterado de consciência capaz de imediatamente dissolver a cadeia de memórias, o sentido de identidade e o caráter da personalidade ordinária ou comum, ainda que algo psíquico sobreviva, não estaremos mais falando de sobrevivência pessoal. Apesar das dificuldades, será visto que nenhuma dessas pressuposições são impeditivos, lógicos ou empíricos, para uma perspectiva de sobrevivência em termos de continuidade da personalidade pre-mortem.

This seminar/workshop will delve more deeply into and look more closely at the theoretical basis of the physical model involved, a theory of unification called single (operational) field theory or SOFT. It will also cover the biological and mental consequences of the new concept of a semi-physical pre-consciousness potential field that exists collectively in the discrete points of space (which has emerged logically from reworking the Big Bang model with respect to the new theory) on living organisms, including explanations of the survival of consciousness as a viable entity after death, the physics of paranormal phenomena, health and healing and their relationship to individual consciousness, collective consciousness, the relationship between Cosmic Consciousness and individual consciousness and how a separate but connected Cosmic Consciousness, if it exists, could manifest in our physical /material world through the human brain. All these topics would be open for discussion among the attendees after the theoretical basis of these concepts is explained. This Workshop will cover nearly everything, if not everything, that the ASCSI is about as an academic organization.

Draft of a brief commentary I prepared for the 2017 Parapsychology Research & Education massive-open online course (ParaMOOC 2017) discussion forums that highlights some of the critical issues inherent in recording and interpreting samples of ostensible instrumental transcommunication (ITC), which will be important to be mindful of, and address, in further empirical and field studies within this domain. Posted as a supplement to comments given in the discussion of Anabela Cardoso's "Paranormal Review ITC paper," which she hosted here on Academia in May of 2022 (https://www.academia.edu/s/ff796b3ae5).

Draft of a brief commentary I prepared for the 2016 Parapsychology Research & Education massive-open online course (ParaMOOC 2016) discussion forums that highlights some of the critical issues inherent in recording and interpreting samples of ostensible electronic voice phenomena (EVP), which will be important to heed and address in further empirical and field studies within this domain. Posted as a supplement to comments given in the discussion of Anabela Cardoso's "Paranormal Review ITC paper," which she hosted here on Academia in May of 2022 (https://www.academia.edu/s/ff796b3ae5).

Letter from Titus Rivas  to the Editor of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, "On Robert Charman's Research Note: Do Dying Rat Brains  Offer a Possible Explanation for the Occurrence of Near-Death Experiences. JSPR, 82, 3, 87-88.

This article, based on a more extensive paper within the context of the author's studies in systematic philosophy, deals with the philosophy of personal immortality. Materialism, personal identity, and analyutical demonstrations in this field are discussed. All this is preceded by the author's criticism of Kant's view of "rational psychology". The article closes with a consideration of the role of empirical research into the personal survival of physical death. - Published in 1996, in Tijdschrift voor Parapsychologie, 64, 3/4, 27-44.

Dutch Abstract:
Er bestaan globaal beschouwd twee soorten filosofische kaders voor theorievorming binnen onderzoek naar leven na de dood en spirituele evolutie over meer dan één leven. Het transpersonalisme is hier gedefinieerd als de theorie dat iemands ultieme geestelijke werkelijkheid niet persoonlijk is. Dit kan zo worden geïnterpreteerd dat er helemaal geen persoonlijke ziel bestaat of dat de persoonlijke ziel slechts een tijdelijke, vergankelijke manifestatie is van een alziel. Hier plaatst de auteur zelf een spiritueel personalisme in ultieme zin tegenover. Hij levert een paar filosofische argumenten voor deze theorie, en laat zien waarom wetenschappelijke argumenten niet doorslaggevend zijn in deze filosofische discussie. Het artikel pleit voor tolerantie tussen onderzoekers met verschillende filosofische achtergronden en besluit met een positieve uitwerking van een personalistische visie op dit gebied.