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Death!


I have had 4 NDE
I broke my neck twice, was buried while working in a trench and I was struck by lightning.
The first 3 I hovered over my body watching until I was "sucked" back in. The lightning knocked me out and I woke up with my left arm convulsing.
I have no fear of dying now.
 
“. . .The chemistry of the primordial soup, random mutations, geography, catastrophic events and countless other factors have contributed to the fine details of Earth’s diverse flora and fauna. But according to England’s theory, the underlying principle driving the whole process is dissipation-driven adaptation of matter.

This principle would apply to inanimate matter as well. “It is very tempting to speculate about what phenomena in nature we can now fit under this big tent of dissipation-driven adaptive organization,” England said. “Many examples could just be right under our nose, but because we haven’t been looking for them we haven’t noticed them.”

Scientists have already observed self-replication in nonliving systems. According to new research led by Philip Marcus of the University of California, Berkeley, and reported in Physical Review Letters in August, vortices in turbulent fluids spontaneously replicate themselves by drawing energy from shear in the surrounding fluid. And in a paper appearing online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Michael Brenner, a professor of applied mathematics and physics at Harvard, and his collaborators present theoretical models and simulations of microstructures that self-replicate. These clusters of specially coated microspheres dissipate energy by roping nearby spheres into forming identical clusters. “This connects very much to what Jeremy is saying,” Brenner said.

Besides self-replication, greater structural organization is another means by which strongly driven systems ramp up their ability to dissipate energy. A plant, for example, is much better at capturing and routing solar energy through itself than an unstructured heap of carbon atoms. Thus, England argues that under certain conditions, matter will spontaneously self-organize. This tendency could account for the internal order of living things and of many inanimate structures as well. “Snowflakes, sand dunes and turbulent vortices all have in common that they are strikingly patterned structures that emerge in many-particle systems driven by some dissipative process,” he said. Condensation, wind and viscous drag are the relevant processes in these particular cases.

'He is making me think that the distinction between living and nonliving matter is not sharp,' said Carl Franck, a biological physicist at Cornell University, in an email. 'I’m particularly impressed by this notion when one considers systems as small as chemical circuits involving a few biomolecules.'

If [the] new theory is correct, the same physics it identifies as responsible for the origin of living things could explain the formation of many other patterned structures in nature. Snowflakes, sand dunes and self-replicating vortices in the protoplanetary disk may all be examples of dissipation-driven adaptation. . . ."
Absolutely agre.

Life, and all self-organizing systems (sunspots being one example) require an energy gradient to structure, to still allow generalized thermodynamics to function.

In other words, they drive localized order through more generalized disorder. They consume energy to do so.

This is a big reason why it seems really, really, obvious to me that we are machines. Biological machines, but just machines.
 
Pixelsmith, I'd love to hear any further details about your NDEs if you'd care to provide them. Thank you for what you've posted so far.
Ok here is the first one... 4-6-1973 12:45 am I was driving home after a party with a friend following behind me.. it was dark foggy misty and all of a sudden there were red reflections in front of me that turned out to be tail lights lit by my headlights cuz the people parked in the lane of travel and got out to drink beer... yup.. left their car in the right lane of a major highway. I slammed on the brakes and as I hit the car my body floated above the scene and I saw my car veer around the one in front of me and come safely to a stop.. i hovered over the scene for what seemed like many minutes and then there was like this whoooshing sound and I started hearing mumbling sounds that soon cleared up and I heard "hey buddy you alright?" I came to and realized I hit the car square in the back at about 50 mph or so.. I fractured c-5 and was in a Halo cast for 7 months.

I will tell you about the other ones later..
 
Ok here is the first one... 4-6-1973 12:45 am I was driving home after a party with a friend following behind me.. it was dark foggy misty and all of a sudden there were red reflections in front of me that turned out to be tail lights lit by my headlights cuz the people parked in the lane of travel and got out to drink beer... yup.. left their car in the right lane of a major highway. I slammed on the brakes and as I hit the car my body floated above the scene and I saw my car veer around the one in front of me and come safely to a stop.. i hovered over the scene for what seemed like many minutes and then there was like this whoooshing sound and I started hearing mumbling sounds that soon cleared up and I heard "hey buddy you alright?" I came to and realized I hit the car square in the back at about 50 mph or so.. I fractured c-5 and was in a Halo cast for 7 months.

I will tell you about the other ones later..

Thank you. I've read only one account similar to yours in respect of the information highlighted in blue. It is vastly interesting that you and the other individual were aware of two possible outcomes even, apparently, as the impact itself occurred. How did you later interpret your having seen the car safely avoiding the crash from your out-of-body perspective? Also, four NDEs is a considerable number. Do you think that having had the first one made it easier for you to enter into the out-of-body state in subsequent life and death crises?
 
Absolutely agre.

Life, and all self-organizing systems (sunspots being one example) require an energy gradient to structure, to still allow generalized thermodynamics to function.

In other words, they drive localized order through more generalized disorder. They consume energy to do so.

This is a big reason why it seems really, really, obvious to me that we are machines. Biological machines, but just machines.


What does that belief mean for you relative to your own experiential stream of consciousness? And relative to your concept of mind?
 
What does that belief mean for you relative to your own experiential stream of consciousness? And relative to your concept of mind?
It means that "mind" like any other system in the universe, achieves internal order by eating energy and excreting disorder.

Just like the brain does.
 
Thank you. I've read only one account similar to yours in respect of the information highlighted in blue. It is vastly interesting that you and the other individual were aware of two possible outcomes even, apparently, as the impact itself occurred. How did you later interpret your having seen the car safely avoiding the crash from your out-of-body perspective? Also, four NDEs is a considerable number. Do you think that having had the first one made it easier for you to enter into the out-of-body state in subsequent life and death crises?
As I got out of the car I was wondering why the front was smashed so badly... I then passed out and woke up again in the ditch with a paramedic attending me.. as i was in the ambulance i kept saying "I missed him whats going on?" It took awhile to figure out i had an out of body experience. I can still to this day recall the vision perfectly. I can't really answer if it was easier the next times or not..

The next time was in 1982 I was operating an excavator digging a 12ft deep trench for some drain lines and had to dig narrower between two trees rather than destroying them. The soil was sandy and moist at top and dryer towards the bottom which made for very unstable banks.. I decided to make the next pope connection myself rather than put my laborer at risk. I instructed my guy to watch the banks and if he saw any crumbling and falling dirt to yell loud... he decided to sit and have a smoke instead.. i got a strange feeling and looked up in time to see one wall tipping in on me.. I instinctively started "climbing/swimming" up the falling dirt and actually made it near the top before the light went away and a tremendous pressure surrounded me and with every breath it constricted on me more and more.. after several minutes a calm came over me and i again rose above and saw my help running around in circles waving his hands... i saw him get in the excavator and try to make the thing work.. i felt a lot of pressure again then all of a sudden i came to gasping and choking.. i had been buried over 5 minutes. My boss had seen my helper trying to dig and came and took over and dug a hole about 6 feet away that allowed the dirt around me to fall away and free me.
 
Heart-stopping. These experiences are remarkable. There is a website on which people can post their OBEs and NDEs. I could try to find it again if you are interested in posting yours. It's a research site and I know your reports would be highly valued.
 
Perhaps I post lyrics for the same reason Constance posts poetry. The lyrics I've posted all deal with the topic of this thread ( Death ), and have a personal meaning to me ( as well as many other people ). So that seems to fit within the boundaries. If not, maybe you could explain why not, and based on that, I'll try to contribute something that is more on target to what you are after. I would have posted the music too, but you said you don't have a good connection, so I figured you could always acquire the music yourself if you were so inclined.

Posting lyrics is fine, my question was simply why, why did you post those lyrics ... I was looking for some connection between the two songs or in relation to posts on the thread.

Making the connection to personal meaning explicit helps, so in this case it's even better if you relate exactly what that personal meaning is for you - what the lyrics mean to you or or what they make you think and feel. Even better would be to post an original creation!

I first heard Don't Fear the Reaper in the movie Halloween (1978) and thought it was very effective in that context ... however, I've always felt the song needed more cowbell.
 
"It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than 'Try to be a little kinder.' " - Aldous Huxley
 
Posting lyrics is fine, my question was simply why, why did you post those lyrics ... I was looking for some connection between the two songs or in relation to posts on the thread.

Making the connection to personal meaning explicit helps, so in this case it's even better if you relate exactly what that personal meaning is for you - what the lyrics mean to you or or what they make you think and feel. Even better would be to post an original creation!

I first heard Don't Fear the Reaper in the movie Halloween (1978) and thought it was very effective in that context ... however, I've always felt the song needed more cowbell.

Earlier this year ( June 2014 ) there was a shooter in Moncton who killed three RCMP officers and wounded 2 others. After I heard the news I just happened to have an HMV 1970s hits compilation CD in the car that has Dylan's Knockin' On Heaven's Door on it. The news made me look at the song in another light, much different than in a 1960s anti-establishment context. It evoked a strong feeling of sadness for the dying officers. Recently I heard some grungy throw-back to the 60s busker wailing it out on the mall, and for some unknown reason it made me feel mildly contemptuous, as if his performance was hollow and lacked the insight I had just been granted, that the meaning of the song could cross cultural and political boundaries between generations because at it's most base level it is simply about a dying officer, a fellow human being who had been trying to protect the rest of us. I'm probably not making any sense, and right now because of the Ferguson Mo. incident, it's not popular to have empathy for police, and it wasn't my intent to disrupt the flow of the discussion. I'll go somewhere else now.
 
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Earlier this year ( June 2014 ) there was a shooter in Moncton who killed three RCMP officers and wounded 2 others. After I heard the news I just happened to have an HMV 1970s hits compilation CD in the car that has Dylan's Knockin' On Heaven's Door on it. The news made me look at the song in another light, much different than in a 1960s anti-establishment context. It evoked a strong feeling of sadness for the dying officers. Recently I heard some grungy throw-back to the 60s busker wailing it out on the mall, and for some unknown reason it made me feel mildly contemptuous, as if his performance was hollow and lacked the insight I had just been granted, that the meaning of the song could cross cultural and political boundaries between generations because at it's most base level it is simply about a dying officer, a fellow human being who had been trying to protect the rest of us. I'm probably not making any sense, and right now because of the Ferguson Mo. incident, it's not popular to have empathy for police, and it wasn't my intent to disrupt the flow of the discussion. I'll go somewhere else now.

It was just a matter of adding commentary to put the lyrics in context and tie it in with the thread, which you just did. That kind of personal reflection is one current of the thread - every day encounters with death or dealing with the death of a loved one or facing one's own death.

A second current is NDE/OBE/survival of bodily death and a third is the question of personal immortality in physical form - I've thought of too many "fates worse than death" to want this in the form you described in your hypothetical. It seems in fact that this kind of immortality is itself eventually a fate worse than death.

A simple example is you and your family are driving and have an accident and your car goes off a bridge into the ocean. Everyone is knocked unconscious and awakens on the way to the bottom ... of course only you will survive and you may or may not even be able to escape the car for some possibly greatly extended time.

Finitude seems to be at the root of being human ... without it, I think one would very nearly inevitably become something monstrous.

At any rate, since you are unlikely to get the opportunity to press that button, how do you plan or hope to face your own death?
 
At any rate, since you are unlikely to get the opportunity to press that button, how do you plan or hope to face your own death?
I once thought that I'd like to end it all by sliding down into a glacial crevasse where I would freeze and float out in a hundred years in a block of ice to be unfrozen like the iceman in the tabloids. Then I thought I'd order up a giant guitar case shaped coffin for my funeral at which all the celebrities would attend because naturally by the time I died a premature death in a plane crash I would have attained some sort of legendary status as a pop musician. That will obviously never happen, so I started hoping I'd be abducted by aliens to face an uncertain future on a distant planet, possibly as a zoo specimen.

My last kick was to go with Kurzweil's
Fantastic Voyage plan. I own the book, and Wikipedia sums it up well, "The basic premise is that if middle aged people can live long enough, until approximately 120, they will be able to live forever - as humanity overcomes all diseases and old age itself." At the present moment however, I've gone into a phase of denial, and I hope that strategy works until I'm 120. Otherwise if I do it like Kurzweil suggests, by the time I get to 120 I'll be totally broke and really old and unable to buy into the immortality serum, or the singularity, or whatever is around at the time. It's probably too late for me. Maybe not my grand kids though ( if that ever happens ) :rolleyes: .
 
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I once thought that I'd like to end it all by sliding down into a glacial crevasse where I would freeze and float out in a hundred years in a block of ice to be unfrozen like the iceman in the tabloids. Then I thought I'd order up a giant guitar case shaped coffin for my funeral at which all the celebrities would attend because naturally by the time I died a premature death in a plane crash I would have attained some sort of legendary status as a pop musician. That will obviously never happen, so I started hoping I'd be abducted by aliens to face an uncertain future on a distant planet, possibly as a zoo specimen.

My last kick was to go with Kurzweil's
Fantastic Voyage plan. I own the book, and Wikipedia sums it up well, "The basic premise is that if middle aged people can live long enough, until approximately 120, they will be able to live forever - as humanity overcomes all diseases and old age itself." At the present moment however, I've gone into a phase of denial, and I hope that strategy works until I'm 120. Otherwise if I do it like Kurzweil suggests, by the time I get to 120 I'll be totally broke and really old and unable to buy into the immortality serum, or the singularity, or whatever is around at the time. It's probably too late for me. Maybe not my grand kids though ( if that ever happens ) :rolleyes: .

Kurzweill ... is it true ...

1. He takes 150-200 nutritional supplements a day?
He owns his own company that sells his brand: Ray and Terry's Longevity Products

... a 60- day supply of his anti-aging formula will run you $86.75:
Anti-Aging MultiPack

3 pills in each day's regimen, so multiply that by 50 or so and divide by 2 (MATH!) to get a rough idea of how much it would cost to mimic Ray's personal regimen and you'll see immediately it's over 2 grand ...

2. He had bypass surgery around the age of 60? ... not a good marker for longevity

Here's a link to skeptic Michael Shermer's review of a documentary on Kurzweil:
Michael Shermer» Ray Kurzweil

And Archdruid John Michael Greer discusses Kurzweil in terms of "biophobia" in his blog The Archdruid Report

The Archdruid Report

You don’t hear the gospel of progress preached in quite so unrelenting a form very often these days, but the implications are still there. Consider the gospel of the Singularity currently being preached by Ray Kurzweil and his followers. I’ve commented before that Kurzweil’s prophecy is the fundamentalist Christian myth of the Rapture dolled up unconvincingly in science fiction drag, but there’s one significant difference. According to every version of Christian theology I know of, the god who will be directing the final extravaganza is motivated by compassion and has detailed personal experience of life in the wet and sticky sense discussed above, while the hyperintelligent supercomputers that fill the same role in Kurzweil’s mythology lack these job qualifications.

At any rate that leaves you in denial and the general question out there for thread on how you are preparing to face your own death?
 
Good topic Smcder! The other day I saw this and instead of writing something I got lost in my memories and forgot all about responding, lol. I have no final thoughts on death but instead my narrow view was yanked wide open when my best friend died from cancer. For six months we went through every step together basically getting her ready for her death. It was strange, deeply sad, mixed in with denial, anger and lots of spontaneous laughter. We got stoned, listened to everything from the Moody Blues to Kermit the Frog (rainbow connection). And every night when I went home I battled with ideas on how to help her beat this death. That was probably the most common reaction of those months, the absolute "need" to live, to keep living. The night before she died she gave me a hug and thanked me for all I'd done for the family and her. I was told that when she died she looked up and smiled and said, it's ok now. This was a huge comfort to hear, she was so scared of dying.
About a week later I had a dream where her and I were sitting on a hillside, talking....she was asking how things were and I was rattling away about mundane crap when I realized there was suddenly barbed wire between us. I said, "I guess I can't come over to that side?" and she said no but I wanted to tell you everythings good now. The next day her son came over to my apartment and told me he had the most intense dream of his mom and just needed to tell someone.
I guess I'm one of those people that doesn't need the mad scientist trailing behind me to tell me there's more to life, death, afterlife than facts bare out.
 
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