The Lemon Fool

servodude wrote:It's not uncommon to watch the EEG activity therein to determine if you're "conscious" for medical procedures
- we've not yet been able to transplant consciousness

Possibly O/T, but I vividly remember a properly chilling half-hour TV drama from the seventies, in which a team of scientists were trying to pick up sentient signals from the preserved brains of various experts which were being kept in tanks on some sort of life support. After months of trying, they started getting feedback from one of the brains, which became stronger and stronger - but not necessarily in a good way.

Completely panicky, in fact. Eventually, the brain communicated to one of the scientists the appalling reality of being trapped inside itself, with no physical input, no way of controlling its fate, and the terrifying prospect of being kept like that in perpetual blackness for all eternity. It kept me awake for a week or two, I can tell you. Quite a lot more troubling than The Fly, where they did transplant consciousness!

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:

servodude wrote:It's not uncommon to watch the EEG activity therein to determine if you're "conscious" for medical procedures
- we've not yet been able to transplant consciousness

Possibly O/T, but I vividly remember a properly chilling half-hour TV drama from the seventies, in which a team of scientists were trying to pick up sentient signals from the preserved brains of various experts which were being kept in tanks on some sort of life support. After months of trying, they started getting feedback from one of the brains, which became stronger and stronger - but not necessarily in a good way.

Completely panicky, in fact. Eventually, the brain communicated to one of the scientists the appalling reality of being trapped inside itself, with no physical input, no way of controlling its fate, and the terrifying prospect of being kept like that in perpetual blackness for all eternity. It kept me awake for a week or two, I can tell you. Quite a lot more troubling than The Fly, where they did transplant consciousness!

BJ

That TV drama doesn't ring any bells but reminds me very much of the film 'Johnny got his gun', also from the seventies and something I wish I'd never seen and never want to see again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film)

Steve

bungeejumper wrote:

servodude wrote:It's not uncommon to watch the EEG activity therein to determine if you're "conscious" for medical procedures
- we've not yet been able to transplant consciousness

Possibly O/T, but I vividly remember a properly chilling half-hour TV drama from the seventies, in which a team of scientists were trying to pick up sentient signals from the preserved brains of various experts which were being kept in tanks on some sort of life support. After months of trying, they started getting feedback from one of the brains, which became stronger and stronger - but not necessarily in a good way.

Completely panicky, in fact. Eventually, the brain communicated to one of the scientists the appalling reality of being trapped inside itself, with no physical input, no way of controlling its fate, and the terrifying prospect of being kept like that in perpetual blackness for all eternity. It kept me awake for a week or two, I can tell you. Quite a lot more troubling than The Fly, where they did transplant consciousness!

BJ

Probably not this one then! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_with_Two_Brains

bungeejumper wrote:I vividly remember a properly chilling half-hour TV drama from the seventies, in which a team of scientists were trying to pick up sentient signals from the preserved brains of various experts which were being kept in tanks on some sort of life support. After months of trying, they started getting feedback from one of the brains, which became stronger and stronger - but not necessarily in a good way.

As always, Edgar Allan Poe was the master of this genre: read The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar. The ending alone is enough to put you off your dinner:
"For what really occurred, however, it is quite impossible that any human being could have been prepared.
As I rapidly made the mesmeric passes, amid ejaculations of "dead! dead!" absolutely bursting from the tongue and not from the lips of the sufferer, his whole frame at once—within the space of a single minute, or even less—shrunk—crumbled—absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome—of detestable putrescence."

stevensfo wrote:

bungeejumper wrote:

servodude wrote:It's not uncommon to watch the EEG activity therein to determine if you're "conscious" for medical procedures
- we've not yet been able to transplant consciousness

Possibly O/T, but I vividly remember a properly chilling half-hour TV drama from the seventies, in which a team of scientists were trying to pick up sentient signals from the preserved brains of various experts which were being kept in tanks on some sort of life support. After months of trying, they started getting feedback from one of the brains, which became stronger and stronger - but not necessarily in a good way.

Completely panicky, in fact. Eventually, the brain communicated to one of the scientists the appalling reality of being trapped inside itself, with no physical input, no way of controlling its fate, and the terrifying prospect of being kept like that in perpetual blackness for all eternity. It kept me awake for a week or two, I can tell you. Quite a lot more troubling than The Fly, where they did transplant consciousness!

BJ

That TV drama doesn't ring any bells but reminds me very much of the film 'Johnny got his gun', also from the seventies and something I wish I'd never seen and never want to see again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film)

Steve

Never saw the movie, but the book was very good.
-sd

The song is pretty intense...

What if this is purgatory. Good and you may get to leave early ... the not so good are left to suffer longer.

Only the good die young and most priests tend to be old.

1nvest wrote:What if this is purgatory. Good and you may get to leave early ... the not so good are left to suffer longer.

Only the good die young and most priests tend to be old.

Not sure about purgatory, but the theory that we're part of some kind of virtual reality or 'Matrix' type scenario makes more sense every year. Or maybe it's me getting older and crankier? Seriously though, so many things happen that seem to make no sense, whether they're wars, mad politicians, Trump, Putin, Brexit or mundane things like changes in work Admin, IT and policies that cause confusion and stress with no added benefit whatsoever...etc. I often feel that I'm part of a computer game played by some spotty teenager in the tenth dimension. I just know that as soon as I/we have completed a level of the game - e.g. Covid cured/I finally get the hang of new software at work - this spotty pan-dimensional twerp is going to press a button and suddenly introduce more problems.

Steve

stewamax wrote:

bungeejumper wrote:I vividly remember a properly chilling half-hour TV drama from the seventies, in which a team of scientists were trying to pick up sentient signals from the preserved brains of various experts which were being kept in tanks on some sort of life support. After months of trying, they started getting feedback from one of the brains, which became stronger and stronger - but not necessarily in a good way.

As always, Edgar Allan Poe was the master of this genre: read The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar. The ending alone is enough to put you off your dinner:
"For what really occurred, however, it is quite impossible that any human being could have been prepared.
As I rapidly made the mesmeric passes, amid ejaculations of "dead! dead!" absolutely bursting from the tongue and not from the lips of the sufferer, his whole frame at once—within the space of a single minute, or even less—shrunk—crumbled—absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome—of detestable putrescence."

I will never forget reading a collection of his stories that an uncle gave me when I was a teenager. Poe's 'The Tell-tale Heart' actually gave me a recurring nightmare that lasted many years. No idea why.

Unless it was something to do with all those teachers I buried in the back garden.

Steve

I think it would devalue life. Your loved one was murdered - oh that doesn't matter, their sould is still living somewhere. One of the reasons we value life is because we think we only get one shot at it.

This discovery would just alter the debate from whether there was such a state to what it would be like.

This extra existence would be considered by groups as heavenly, purgatory or hell, depending upon their beliefs.

Sort of reminds me of HHGTTG, having got the answer one then needs to work out the question.

stevensfo wrote:

scrumpyjack wrote:It is such an absurd idea, I don't know where to start but there might be an awful lot of suicides in the middle east as all the young lads wanted to get to their 76 virgins ASAP

and if all life (down to bacteria etc) had this continued existence it could be very crowded

Who Knows? Research allows scientists to finally prove that there is an existence after death and they confirm that souls simply leave their four dimensions but enter others. That's all.

Scientists never prove anything. They merely offer theories which they believe fit observable evidence. And those theories may persist until someone comes up with a counter-example which disproves the theory. Which leads to a new and better theory.

So sure a scientist might claim that he has observations that prove there is an after-life. But how could we test that hypothesis and prove it wrong? Because if a scientist cannot describe a test that could disprove his theory then it is not science but rather speculative conjecture or metaphysics.

I cannot conceive of what would constitute proof of your hypothesis. Nor how it can be tested. So how can it be science?

Lootman wrote:

stevensfo wrote:

scrumpyjack wrote:It is such an absurd idea, I don't know where to start but there might be an awful lot of suicides in the middle east as all the young lads wanted to get to their 76 virgins ASAP

and if all life (down to bacteria etc) had this continued existence it could be very crowded

Who Knows? Research allows scientists to finally prove that there is an existence after death and they confirm that souls simply leave their four dimensions but enter others. That's all.

Scientists never prove anything. They merely offer theories which they believe fit observable evidence. And those theories may persist until someone comes up with a counter-example which disproves the theory. Which leads to a new and better theory.

So sure a scientist might claim that he has observations that prove there is an after-life. But how could we test that hypothesis and prove it wrong? Because if a scientist cannot describe a test that could disprove his theory then it is not science but rather speculative conjecture or metaphysics.

I cannot conceive of what would constitute proof of your hypothesis. Nor how it can be tested. So how can it be science?

Maybe just coincidence, but interesting how three of you have managed to resurrect a thread believed dead a year ago. Time to persecute the unbelievers?

stevensfo wrote:

Lootman wrote:

stevensfo wrote:Who Knows? Research allows scientists to finally prove that there is an existence after death and they confirm that souls simply leave their four dimensions but enter others. That's all.

Scientists never prove anything. They merely offer theories which they believe fit observable evidence. And those theories may persist until someone comes up with a counter-example which disproves the theory. Which leads to a new and better theory.

So sure a scientist might claim that he has observations that prove there is an after-life. But how could we test that hypothesis and prove it wrong? Because if a scientist cannot describe a test that could disprove his theory then it is not science but rather speculative conjecture or metaphysics.

I cannot conceive of what would constitute proof of your hypothesis. Nor how it can be tested. So how can it be science?

Maybe just coincidence, but interesting how three of you have managed to resurrect a thread believed dead a year ago. Time to persecute the unbelievers?

Cannot speak for the other two but in my case I just look at recent posts. I don't usually look at the age of the original topic nor even which board it is on.

stevensfo wrote:
Maybe just coincidence, but interesting how three of you have managed to resurrect a thread believed dead a year ago. Time to persecute the unbelievers?

Is that proof of life after death?

Lootman wrote:

stevensfo wrote:

Lootman wrote:Scientists never prove anything. They merely offer theories which they believe fit observable evidence. And those theories may persist until someone comes up with a counter-example which disproves the theory. Which leads to a new and better theory.

So sure a scientist might claim that he has observations that prove there is an after-life. But how could we test that hypothesis and prove it wrong? Because if a scientist cannot describe a test that could disprove his theory then it is not science but rather speculative conjecture or metaphysics.

I cannot conceive of what would constitute proof of your hypothesis. Nor how it can be tested. So how can it be science?

Maybe just coincidence, but interesting how three of you have managed to resurrect a thread believed dead a year ago. Time to persecute the unbelievers?

Cannot speak for the other two but in my case I just look at recent posts. I don't usually look at the age of the original topic nor even which board it is on.

Me too .

1nvest wrote:What if this is purgatory. Good and you may get to leave early ... the not so good are left to suffer longer.

That's pretty much the belief of the Cathars, a christian movement brutally suppressed by the catholic church in the 13th century.

They believe that there were two gods; an evil god of the old testament and a good god of the new. The evil god was the god of the physical world and humans were fallen angels, condemned to eternally live and be resurrected on Earth (effectively Hell), unless and until they renounced the material world and were able to return to the spiritual world of the good God's Heaven.

Is it assumed that only people have a second life?
What if you met the chickens ducks geese grouse sheep goats wild boar you'd eaten... and alligator was popular back in the 80s... they'd all be pretty pissed.
It might encourage vegetarianism.

V8

88V8 wrote:Is it assumed that only people have a second life?
What if you met the chickens ducks geese grouse sheep goats wild boar you'd eaten... and alligator was popular back in the 80s... they'd all be pretty pissed.
It might encourage vegetarianism.

V8

It is an honour to serve. It is, therefore, an honour to be served up.

Bear in mind that, in this scenario, death isn't the end.


Julian F. G. W.

Is there a third life? So after we've enjoyed the second life we come back again, perhaps as some other type of being, or on some other planet, or in another 'dimension'. Is it possible to commit suicide in the second life? So many questions

The more one thinks about it, the more absurd it seems!