Confused Dr. Jeffrey Long thinks his book proves there’s an afterlife
January 20, 2010 12:43 pm
Dr. Jeffrey Long is a doctor who helps terminal cancer patients deal with their illness. He’s been fascinated with Near Death experiences for a long time, and he’s recently written a book about them called “Evidence of the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences”. He’s interviews thousands of people, and because of the remarkable similarity of their experiences, he’s concluded that it must be proof that there is an afterlife. I think it just proves that he’s a fucking idiot.
Dr. Long has obviously decided to abandon his objectivity, and I find his use of the word “Science” in his title extremely misleading. When you do science, you have to explain how even your own theories might be disproved; in his case, all that is necessary is evidence that the reason we experience similar effects during death is because of the way the brain reacts when it dies.
The effects of NDE’s have been recorded for a long time, and most serious scientists compare them with what we experience during lucid dreaming (this is where people are aware that they are dreaming, but still have very realistic experiences). Dr. Long is either unaware of these studies, or has already concluded that the only viable explanation must be that there is a supernatural world that people escape to during death. It’s a pretty weak conclusion, and it’s obviously not very scientific. Perhaps he’s never heard of Occam’s Razor; is it more logical to assume that people’s brains are freaking out and releasing a potent cocktail of chemicals to calm them down, or that a spiritual world beyond our comprehension exists so that our minds can live forever in some fantasy land paradise? I feel fucking stupid just proposing the latter, and so should he.
He claims that he’s a better physician now that he’s written this book. I would disagree, since he now foolishly believes he has enough proof to tell his patients that they don’t need to feel frightened about death since they will live forever in a magical playland created by a loving sky daddy. Maybe not everyone feels that it’s very healthy to endorse obvious wishful thinking. Sounds to me like he’s actually gotten a lot worse…
NOTE: I mistook Long for a clinical psychologist, but was disturbed to find he’s actually a medical doctor. How exactly does he think his skills have improved with his acceptance of fantasy?
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75 Comments
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January 20, 2010
Dr. Jeffrey Long is not a clinical psychologist. He is an M.D. that specializes in Oncology. You may want to view Dr. Long’s website and/or read his book before you comment further on his work.
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January 20, 2010
I’ll let the scientific community deal with his claims. Why do I need to concern myself with fantasy? What exactly is his proof other than “lots of people experience the same feeling”?
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January 20, 2010
I know nothing about NDEs but as I wont take esquizofrenics that hear voices as a serious evidence of god/unicorns/whatever existence… this is pretty stupid…
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January 20, 2010
good point. schizophrenics teach us about brain function. so can NDEs. IF we go about it rationally. human brains invented religious rigamarole, it stands to reason that there’s some core Jungian imagery locked in there…
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January 20, 2010
sorry for the misspelling.
and yes, I agree NDE should teach us about how the brain works, but it is stupid taking too serious our brain in such a stress-situation, think about hallucination when you have nothing to drink etc it is just our brain going crazy
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January 21, 2010
I saw this and had to shake my head. If someone had the same thing happen and claimed god told them to eliminate all blue objects, they’d be crazy. But claiming god told you it isn’t your time? PROOF!
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January 21, 2010
go to IANDS website and read the experiences submitted..they also have vedio interviews on youtube…they give strikingly similar account of their nde….
and mind you the so called science dosen’t know much..it just makes hypothesis, proves it valid after 10 years and discards it 50 years later
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January 21, 2010
i think you are an f***n idiot for assuming that you know Dr. Long and somehow that you even know how he treats his patients, or what he tells his cancer patients about the afterlife!!
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January 21, 2010
^ Ambi, if you think that all scientific findings are discarded completely every 50 years, you’re a fucking moron. As for you Antony, I actually read his first few chapters and read his website extensively. It’s more of this anecdotal bullshit i’ve seen in the past. If he had real scientific evidence for his findings, he would have published it in a peer reviewed journal.
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January 22, 2010
Ok…
Jacob, sine you rely so heavily on EVIDENCE…please furnish me with the evidence that consciousness is a by-product or process exclusively of the brain…
waiting????
.
Calling people fucking morons…is grade 2 at best…
and is employed by assholes that are dereft of scientific backing to their own position…to which you have NONE.
Consciousness is a scientific unknown/mystery, so your “position” is no more or less valid than Dr. Long’s.
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January 22, 2010
^ Aww, someone is upset now. Well, don’t get your panties in a twist; I’ve never claimed to be a scientist, so I don’t see why I have to provide you evidence of anything. In the meantime, I’ll stick to making fun of douchebags who think that anecdotal evidence is a type of scientific evidence, and leave cry baby bitches like you the opportunity to defend them.
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January 22, 2010
Don’t flatter yourself buckwheat.
Google is your friend.
You should try these topics:
1.) Transplant memories in recipients of organ donations:
2.) Veridical (do you know what that word means?)NDE’s:
3.)Pam Reynolds
4.) the NDERF website and check out Anita M’s NDE…BTW I see your lame “I don’t need to provide anything as goofy as evidence to back up my position but you must to back up yours” schtick
Perhaps you should look up hypocrit in the dictionary.
I just did and lo and behold there’s a picture of you.
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January 22, 2010
The Dr provided solid evidences, you offered nothing but silly conjecture as excuses to explain around the obvious, rational, common sense inferences made by the Doctor – then you make pretentious claims of science. What an idiot.
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January 22, 2010
The body of evidences provided by the Doctor cannot be dismissed with empty appeals to the best speculations of philosophical reductionist materialists masquerading as “science”. Real science is about discovering truth or probable truth wherever the evidences lead – not propping up the favored speculations of Naturalistic philosophers who wrap themselves in a false veneer of science.
Jacob, get your head out of your ass.
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January 22, 2010
Transplant memories in organs? are you for real? read this: http://www.skepdic.com/cellular.html
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January 22, 2010
Try this on for size:
This site might actually e-x-p-a-n-d your mind a little.http://scienceray.com/philosophy-of-science/a-medical-mystery-transferred-organ-donor-consciousness/
You may also want to Google Stephen E. Braude.
I have others.
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January 23, 2010
@Jacob Fortin first of all i would like that you don’t use foul language just to prove a point…and
everybody dies…you’ll know the truth soon enough
as for science…like all of life it changes…you can’t stop it..
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January 23, 2010
To me being an athiest is just another form of religion. While I am not sure where I stand on religion. From what I have heard and read about athiest beliefs. The believe in one thing, themselves. Which looks like they think they are thier own god or what ever the the higher being turns out to be. While they try to end the rights of others, like taking “In God We Trust” off of our money, they try to run over anyone that disagrees with them. Just like most religions do. Which in my way of thinking makes them as bad or worse than any one that believes in a god of some sort. Now go ahead, take your best shot, because that is how you all behave.
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January 25, 2010
I find your combative language and use of expletives to be offensive and over the top. It’s as though you are over compensating for not being able to present an intelligent argument to state your case. You would come across a lot more convincingly and appear a lot more intelligent if you were less confrontational in your opinion.
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January 25, 2010
This Jacob idiot reminds me of the deluded brain of silly little teenager that believes he knows everything.Give it a few years and you may realise how truly embarrassing you are but judging by your comments I doubt you possess the intalect to ever reach this conclusion.Ignorance is bliss.
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January 27, 2010
I’m actually in the bag for reincarnation and life-after-life, etc., but I found Dr. Long’s research to be seriously lacking.
His “10 year study” consisted of an online survey he kept up for 10 years. Clearly the only people who will take a survey such as that are people who are already interested in the topic. Someone who experienced a NDE but didn’t identify it as such will not take a 150-question NDE survey. In fact, no one outside the NDE/LAL community will ever hear about such a survey, generally.
Now this is overlaid against his discoveries from the survey which find a very similar story to traditional NDE reports. He concludes that, since everyone has a common thread to their NDE experiences this is proof of the NDE being more than just random neuron firings. However, if the only people taking your survey are people in the NDE community who have long been familiar with the typical progress of events as long described by other NDE researchers, they’re naturally going to all be describing the same thing.
Couple this with the fact that it’s very difficult to find detailed biographical info on Long (i.e. medical school attended, hospital of practice, etc.) and this just doesn’t pass the smell test. He is not a currently practicing physician as his license is expired (https://fortress.wa.gov/doh/providercredentialsearch/ProviderDetail_1.aspx?CredentialIdnt=409609).
There are many compelling indicators (I don’t use the term “evidence” because there is no “evidence) for NDE viability but Long’s work does not advance the field at all.
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January 28, 2010
Angry young man syndrome? Hard to know where to begin with this article, but i’ll try. For starters – if you want to be taken seriously id suggest dropping the technique of calling people who dont agree with you ‘fucking idiots’ – anyone who used that kind of terminology in a peer reviewed article simply wouldnt get published. Secondly, id suggest not using sloppy terms like ‘serious scientists’ in this context, this really doesnt amount to much more than: ‘scientists who agree with me’.
You also might want to think about what you mean by ‘objectivity’, im not entirely sure you know what the term means and can only imagine you mean something like ‘impartial’.
Also FYI occam’s razor isnt a scientific principle – it’s a heuristic guideline and has had numerous attacks/criticisms over the decade – you might want to look into that too.
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January 29, 2010
There are several good prospective studies that strongly point to survival. Their conclusions are not popular with mainstream science,of course. But what are we to do? Skew the data or stick our heads in the sand?
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January 29, 2010
I would just add that further research needs to be done(as in the Aware study) to pin down exactly when the experience occurs. If it can be shown that patients can have clear cognition,sight hearing and memory formation when the brain is down, then we have to postulate that our current ‘understanding’ is incomplete.
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January 30, 2010
I read this first 100 pages of his book last night in the bookstore and I think your analysis is mistaken. I’ve met Dr. Long personally and I know he is full aware of everything surrounding the NDE including common skepticism. I think your comments underline your own ignorance of the topic and not Dr. Long’s. I suggest you read the book at some point and find out what would convince someone like Dr. Long to take the stance he does. I am not personally convinced we survive death, but one thing I am sure of is that none of the skeptical explanations about the NDE adequately explain the mystery of it. Anyone who thinks they can explain the experience away or equate it with lucid dreaming is almost certainly ignorant of the subject.
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January 31, 2010
Apparently Jeff Long got his MD from the University of Iowa:
http://www.tgmc.com/press/release_view.aspx?id=313
He appears to be a legitimate medical doctor.
However, he is no researcher. It’s ridiculous to data mine stories posted to a website and infer that we survive death. The fact is that NDE’s are rare. Hardly anyone near death experiences an NDE. It makes far more sense to believe that the NDE is a product of brain activity than an indicator of life after death.
Will the Mohammadan doctor “Sam” Parnia once and for all prove that out-of-body perception occurs through his AWARE study, or will he (once again) cite some enormous difficulty that hindered his research, while covertly maintaining that we survive death, absent all evidence?
Let’s be clear. These people have decided that they want to survive death, and refuse to accept any evidence to the contrary. If sufficient evidence supportive of survival doesn’t exist, they’ll make it up!
While we may, contrary to our understanding of neuroscience, chemistry, and physics, survive death after all, are you willing to bet your life on it? If not, think carefully about how you want to live here and now, because there may indeed not be even a single tomorrow.
For the record, I hope that we survive death and I personally am desperate for the answer to be yes, but rationally, I can’t imagine how that could be the case.
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February 2, 2010
I think you are a fool. You know nothing about who Dr. Long is or how he treats his patients. He is a very good doctor and a very intelligent man. It’s you who has no evidence to attack him and his work this way. What he did was write a book about something he is passionate about and has spent a lot of time working on. All you’re doing with this is upsetting people and making yourself look like the real idiot.
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February 11, 2010
This article is a prime example of why I can’t stand Atheists. Every single Atheist I have ever met has been incredibly biased in their own views. You don’t know all the answers dude. I believe being Agnostic is a much better solution. Looking at every aspect of things and not just assuming you’re right is much better. It also ensures that you don’t end up looking like an ignorant fuckhead.
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February 19, 2010
Hello,
I would like to talk to someone about this book, and the near death experiances.
Thank You
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February 22, 2010
I do believe in god (though I don’t associate myself with ANY religion or cult) and an after-life but admitedly, Dr. Long’s research is inadequate to SCIENTIFICALLY prove anything. I agree with the contention that internet survey is NOT the best way to conduct a REAL research on this subject and even the video that I saw of him with an NDEr, the NDEr’s experience seemed like a whole lot of bullshit but ANITA M’s experience on Dr. Long’s site http://www.nderf.org/anita_m's_nde.htm is very good and I think everyone, whether you believe in an after-life or not, should check it out, the whole page is definitely worth a read.
I hope more research will be conducted on this subject but one wonders how it will ever happen when the scientific community is getting swept by atheism. I mean I find it laughable that we are nowhere near figuring out our world and yet so many of these atheists so conveniently dismiss the idea of a god(s), after-life, etc and they would rather believe in the big bang theories of the world and that everything in the universe happened by chance.(Those are just theories and just as fallible and just as much a product of our imagination as the religious texts of various religions are taken to be) These people claim to rely on science to find their answers and yet they overlook the first basic principle of science ie we must consider ALL the possibilities; even those which don’t seem likely and even still, leave room for those which we haven’t yet conceived and hence the best position one can take BASED ON SCIENCE is to be an agnostic so that they are open to any possibility.
As someone earlier said, we ALL (including scientists) bring our biased views and opinions to any debate so scientists, researchers and sections of masses which already have a belief that god, after-life, etc doesn’t exist, will always point out the things that will dismiss these NDE claims as halluciations and dreams, etc while those scientists and others who already believe in god, after-life, etc will always point out things that helps prove them right and between this tug-of-war, I’m afraid, the REAL SCIENCE will and often does get lost. I’ve always felt that when it comes to a belief or a disbelief in god, soul, etc are question which are so integral to all of our lives and existence that a belief or disbelief in these only points to a person philosophical standing rather than his/her scientific standing. And hence, it is almost impossible for any one of us to be absolutely objective about answers to these questions because our bias will never leave us completely but the best thing that we can do is to try and minimize that bias as much as we can if we are to EVER find these answers.
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March 11, 2010
What I find so intriguing is all the arguing over who’s right and wrong about whether or not we survive death. No one is talking about the actual experience and how life altering it can be. Sure it could be a potent cocktail of chemicals, but stories from experiencers consistently speak of being in a a profound state of love and all-knowing — 2 states of consciousness that us poor humans usually can’t attain without years of intense therapy or meditation to teach us how to get of our own way. For me the question is more how do I get to that place of all love and all knowing without having to die?
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April 1, 2010
Hi Debora,
I am a NDE researcher and would be pleases to talk to you on the subject.
My web site is http://bereaveementrescue.org.uk
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May 2, 2010
Dear Mr. Good Atheist:
Your reasoning is positively religious in it’s circularity. It is no different from saying, “The Bible says that everything in the Bible is true, so that’s my proof that the Bible is true.” I agree whole-heartedly with SS above who says that the more scientific and open-minded attitude would be one of agnosticism, not atheism. Your writing further convinces me that most atheists are actually true believers at heart; you just have a different set of beliefs that to you are self-evident truths. And, like the most bible thumping of religious fanatics, you don’t acknowledge that they are just that; beliefs.
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August 24, 2010
The truth is out there for anyone who truly wants to know it. Science is fundamentally observation, and observation is logical. If we are left to purely observe – nature, culture, history, etc., it is obvious that there is a “higher power.” Even by Occam’s Razor it makes the most logical sense. Every single people group on the planet believes in a “higher power.” Why do we even wonder these things? We wonder, not because our brains secrete some chemical cocktail, but because we were made to long for our creator. This is not religion! This is truth, observable and knowable truth. Whether by NDE’s or cellular mytosis or a star reaching supernova, God is communicating with us. It is not a weak, idiot who believes what is obvious, but a fool who does not.
By the way, the Bible does not say that there is “a spiritual world beyond our comprehension that exists so that our minds can live forever in some fantasy land paradise.” It says that we are eternal spiritual creations that CAN comprehend our maker but must choose him, not paradise. Its not paradise we’re after, its God. And God, the God of the Bible, has made himself known clearly. If you seek after TRUTH with all of your being you will find HIM.
“Truth springs up from the earth, and righteousness smiles down from heaven,” “God has made the truth obvious to men. Since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature.”
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August 28, 2010
Howdy y’all.Hyuck! Hyuck!
Anyways, there needs to be some clarification here as to why people believe in the things that are unbelieveable to most materalists. I have found that most atheists invaribly have never experienced a precognitive dream, NDE, deja-vu, or any other experience labled “paranormal”. It is for these reasons many people believe in that something more-something transcendental. Surely the Newtonian approach to explaining these weird phenomena leaves much to be desired and we are left with phenomena that are elusive and scientifically non-repeatable in a laboratory. On the other hand, Dr. Gary Schwartz has demonstrated a repeatable phenomena that mediums exhibit while doing readings on EEG and ECG-something not exhibited by Joe Schmuck under similar circumstances. Secondly, even the skeptic and naturalist Michael Persinger of the “God Helmet” has demonstrated telepathy in his lab. The staunch doubter is coming around to something akin to “belief”. My reasons for believing in the odd is tri-fold: personal experience with transcendental experiences that have been validated empirically to ME and not to some scientist under controlled lab conditions thereby rendering the experience as “anecdotal”. But nowhere in the literature does it say anecdotal accounts are automatically without merit, they just cannot be validated by science. But then again, neither can love and creativity be demonstrated on demand and is there anyone here that denies those are real? Secondly, the philosophical stance that atheism stretches credibility by insisting that inanimate star stuff had somehow found a way, as if by direction, to coalesce into sentient matter against an entropic ladder with subsequent mutations leading to a complexity that defies probability is enough reason for me to believe in a “God”. A lot of people are claiming that believers are “stupid”. Well, let’s see here, Max Planck, father of quantum mechanics believes and so did Newton. Sir Roger Penrose believes in non-local consciousness and he’s up there with Stephen Hawkings in the brain department. This is not an argument from authority but rather evidence that you can be VERY smart and still believe in things unseen. So you see, faith isn’t about smarts, it’s about revelation; some people get it and some people don’t. The NDE’ers ‘Got it”. Thirdly, quantum physics with its provable mathematics of superposition (one object being two or more places at once), the Double Slit experiment (whereupon a wave of potentiality collapses into a Newtonian reality only when a conscious observer watches the transitional event), and Entanglement (where what you do to one electron far removed from another gives similar reactions in both). All of this quantum weirdness allows for things indescribable in our universe and that’s not mentioning the some 11 dimensions physicists conjecture are real. As for NDE, here’s the real kicker: Vicki Noratuk. Here’s a woman who was born blind and who has never even dreamed in vision due to her inability to go into REM intrusion. She was and is incapable of seeing anything as she has no visual memories whereby she can formulate either real or even imaginary scenarios. She had an NDE and for the first time in her life she has seen. In the scientific literature, what has happened to her cannot happen. And as for NDE simply being hypoxia, everyone experiences hypoxia when clinically dead, but only 15% experience an NDE-why not everyone? Also, a Mr. Pring, an Air Force pilot for Britain has experienced both hypoxia at high altitudes and an NDE and insists they are nothing alike. Hypoxia was a state of delirium generating listlessness and disjointed hallucinations whereas the NDE raised his consciousness to a higher level and in veridical fashion. Heck, Hyuck! Hyuck! I could go on and on but if this isn’t enough to make anyone at least admit there’s much to learn about this universe, then your arrogance is truly unbounded by space and time and unwarranted. We are only aware of 5% of the matter in this universe and that isn’t counting the other 10 dimensions. In short, neither you nor I know Jack!
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August 28, 2010
Dr Long is right there is live after death. I have seen the proof and I have photographed it as have many others. You need to look at a new website http://www.Spiritsoultruth.com it is amazing.
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September 24, 2010
You are the idiot, Good atheist. First you got all his creds wrong.
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September 27, 2010
Whatever you believe, A second (or so) after you take that last breath…you’ll know.
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September 27, 2010
Btw, I believe in God!
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October 12, 2010
Jacob is right to call the NDE believers ‘fucking morons’ because that’s what science-deniers are. Nonsense, childish desires, & reactionary conclusions that reject reality even in the face of scientific evidence *should* be called out as batsh*t crazy, mocked & ridiculed so that everyone can see the pathology of the delusional.
I’m sure you’re the same crackpots who so smugly deny evolution & claim it’s ‘only a theory’ thus revealing the true depth of your ignorance. Clearly none of you know what constitutes scientific theory.
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October 12, 2010
Occam’s Razor is not a carte blanche for materialists. It says only that the simplest explanation of something is probably the most likely. It seems to me that the simplest explanation of NDEs is the WYSIWYG approach. But if you are a dyed-in-the-wool materialist, then such an approach can lead to a shocking and “politically unacceptable” conclusion, and so you have to concoct elaborate alternative explanations that stay within the blinkered materialist box.
What evidence is there to show that the NDE is nothing more than a chemical reaction? How can a mere chemical reaction put on such an impressive sound and light show that people’s lives are changed as a result? What is the mechanism that goes from chemical reaction to mind-expandng experience of a reality. When I switch on my radio, suddenly sounds blare forth from it. Is that evidence that the sounds come from the switch? Blaming the NDE on a chemical is this kind of argument.
Mere hallucinations are weird and highly variable. Everybody with hallucinations has different ones. NDEs are consistent, and have many elements in common, unlike hallucinations.
Long’s book includes at least 60 instances where the subject reported facts that they could not have already known, but subsequently checked out to be true. That is quite a trick for a mere chemical phenomenon in the brain? Many other NDEs not included in Long’s study have done the same.
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October 20, 2010
Read the book from cover to cover and it has an annoying habit of skipping over “data” that does not support the view NDEs are proof of life after death.
According to the book (page 124) 4 % of those who meet people during their NDE meet people who were still alive! NDEs can’t be a trip to the land of the dead then? Assuming those still alive were going about their daily business, how do you account for them being met by the dead in the “afterlife”? The book never attempts to explain the inconvenient data gathered.
There are numerous other examples of skipping over inconvenient data and ignoring the many inconsistencies in the experiences reported.
If we all go to Paris to see the Eiffel tower, then you’d expect us to see the same thing. The book with its own figures shows that there is not a universal common experience and hence the probable explanation is that the place visited is in the mind. The book does not attempt to explain the differences, but instead latches onto infrequent commonalities. How many people experienced all the elements of the NDE experience? Do the maths – because the book does not – and you’ll see that it is very few. How do you explain that if they have all visited the same place? Why does the experience vary so much if it is real and not in the mind?
The book actually helped convince me that NDE was all in the mind and seeing as that was not the intention of the book that should give you an idea of how badly it breaks down its own data.
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October 23, 2010
I too at one time did not believe. That was untill I experienced an Nde. took years to find out what it was called, let alone any information on it… five to be exact. alot claim it has to do with the brain. what i discovered was pure physical and can detail the soul leaving the body. Have had many unbelievers from my story over the years. that also stopped when I produced eight Pictures of a time of death scenerio.. You can see the souls in the pictures… and it was verifyed thru spiritual leaders. so wonder if you must. but I know what is there. and when your soul’s time comes to deploy this place we call earth you will verify it too….. good luck to all of you….
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October 27, 2010
I sure hope you are never diagnosed with a terminal disease, you wouldn’t want to have to walk that path, but if you were, then perhaps you wouldn’t be so flip! Knowing there is life after life and reading about the NDE’s gives at least a little hope to the terminally ill patient. Shame on you for knocking it.
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November 18, 2010
You seem quite determined to classify the evidence as flimsy. I have studied these experiences for thirty years plus. The physiological explanationa are totally inadequate and plain wrong
I am quite satisfied that something…call it your soul, your mind, your being…call it Bruce or Sheila if you want to….detaches itself from the physical body during NDE’s.For those who refuse to accept the possibility, wait untill it happens to you.
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November 24, 2010
jesus fucking christ Jerry, if you’re a moron with absolutely no understanding of science, please don’t post about it.
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November 29, 2010
we’ll if you think dr. long is an idiot then i must be one too.. for i have had a near death experienc. and out of my experience i was introduced to eight pictures of my biological grandmothers “time of death” they specifically show souls in them at the time her soul was leaving her body… so go ahead and denounce what is there. you will know you were wrong the minute you die! good luck.
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December 1, 2010
All of the posts on this site are so judgmental and filled with hatred. “The Good Atheist” doesn’t seem like a proper title. Although at least part of the hatred is coming from the posts, I really hope that you, as the author, are recognizing the hatred that you are propagating. It would be refreshing for “The Good Atheist” to at least be a little bit good instead of only striving to be “right”.
But thanks for the stimulating article/response/review nonetheless!
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December 2, 2010
You lost your argument in the first paragraph of this blog about Dr. Long. If you have to resort to using profanity to argue your point then you are the loser.
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January 16, 2011
I’m interested to find out what qualifies as acceptable evidence to The Good Atheist. What would change your view on the subject?
How exactly would one test NDEs in a scientifically controlled fashion?
Dr. Long’s research isn’t the only research done in regards to NDEs. Take for instance, a study conducted by Dr. Pim van Lommel that was published in the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet. In many cases, the subjects are able to accurately verify information that they would not have known otherwise, often from a great distance from their bodies.
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February 1, 2011
What I’d say to all that: “You know something is happening here and we don’t know what it is. Do we?” (Mr. Jones)
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February 13, 2011
I’m sure your religion of atheism will be alive an well for some time no matter what people discover. If you can prove you’re actually reading this email let the world know, because it’ll be the first piece of scientific evidence that is not a least somewhat of an approximation.
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February 19, 2011
The vast majority of physicians are not scientists. They have a few science course, but to be a competant researcher and qualify tor grants, one must have a Ph.D. in a science.
Physicians are diagnosticians using abductive reasoning with a preexisting list of medical conditions having lists of symptoms. They do not propose hypotheses or models that are testable.
Where Jeffry Long concludes that there is only one conclusion from his “studies” is not scientific in that there are always alternatives, even if they are not currently known. Scientists are best off testing multiple hypotheses. Physicians who do this often miss condtions that are not on those lists and are rare, and they do not creatively investigate other medical possibilities. They often blame undiagnosable conditions are “mental” problems. This is despicable!
If Long were right, then no science would be possible, since immaterial, disembodied entities are excluded (though not theoretical entities for theories). SUch entities violate the principle methodological assumption of all of science: methodological naturalism.
Furthermore, personal accounts do not constitute data for science.
Personal accounts, supernaturalism, and abductive reasoning from a preexisting list of conditions or personal testimony signal nonscience.
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March 14, 2011
some one mentioned Occam’s Razor- id go by that- after all being in practical medicine,trusting in diagnostic parsimony helped me more than thinking of Hickum’s dictum….. we are not even at the fringe border of understanding brain chemicals..let alone its awesomely complex neuronal wiring…OBE and NDE probably is just a lucid manifestation of its metabolism firing wrongly during complex wiring function..akin to sometimes perceiving vived dreams as reality ….
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March 19, 2011
If you are born blind and wish to see for the first time and in a far superior manner, and the same if you are born deaf, then wait till your brain goes WRONG and spews chemicals into a body with no pulse – than ZAP! You have it. I want my brain to fail please so that my senses in a pulseless body can be improved!!! If I can attain this I will become an ignorant atheist.
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March 19, 2011
When one studies ones own mind, one comes to realise how fragile it really is. look up research on the reliability of eye witnesses. If courts understood this they would never accept an eyewitnesses account. we are all so easily duped. Now on to near death experiences, the word is NEAR not dead! so the person is still alive but undergoing an event which without medical intervention would have resulted in death. by definition the person did not die. Therefore these experienced sensations can be the result of the trauma being endured. The body has an array of tools to defend itself against extreme circumstances. The release of these chemical tools could easily account for the “lucid dreaming”. So what about the common thread? well one common thread is we are all human. The other is these people discuss their experiences with others of the same ilk. Given the unreliable witness factor their stories start to align.
While Dr J Long may be a great doctor he has not used any scientific method in his book. Therefore simply calling it the science of NDE is itself deceptive. so in other words the book starts with a lie. I cant see it getting any better from there.
Only people who “want to believe” will believe this prattle. but then they believe a lot of nonsense already.
Always keep this in mind…
“50% of all people have below average intelligence, and average is pretty ordinary if you ask me!”
DC
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March 27, 2011
I doubt if anyone has done real research on brain activities. Isn’t it funny that everything we do is shaped by brain and how it functions and we have spent so little digging into this important issue? I have never seen a paper or a book that scientifically and comprehensively tell us how brain works. I am disappointed by reading books talking about the brain symptoms but never tangible research about the very root, which is the brain itself, how it functions, and what can be done to use it better. I hate to see that it remains as a mystery for a long time to come.
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April 9, 2011
And they laughed at people (Copernicus) who said the world was round, because there was no proof 400 years ago.
And they laughed at those who said that atoms and matter were not solid, but were only waves of energy, until scientists agreed that nothing was solid.
And so you are all allowed to laugh – that is your right. But just maybe, one day, there will be stronger proof. So I say let’s not be too strongly opinionate for or against at this stage.
What is interesting to me is that some blind people (who had never seen colours before)described what they saw in their NDE and did so mentioning colours of things that could not know about. How do you describe red if you have never seen it…. just interesting.
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April 21, 2011
Those born blind are completely unable to form concepts of colour, light & shade and perspective. Yet these blind subjects after expereincing NDE are completely able to understand and form concepts of the three mentioned. For example, if you tell a person born blind that buildings are smaller at a distance but always the same size at the same time at whatever distance, they are totally confused by the statement – but not after NDE. Some had 360 degree vision while the brain had quit giving signals. I suppose then to improve our sight we must shut the brain off!
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June 1, 2011
I appreciate the outrage of the author. I feel the same way but on differant points. I’ve listened to him several times and have come to the conclusion that
Long is mixed up and clueless. He relates his own personal experiences regarding “buffalo nickles” and is completely unaware of what synchronicity is and how it occurs.Later in the interview i listened to he DREAMS he died and he calls this a “NDE”. Dreaming that you died is NOT AN NDE.
NDE’s are intimately tied to clinical death .
I listened to this interview like I said a few times before i came to some conclusions and throughout I felt he is a vain self-promoter and wants to insert himself into NDE studies and research without regard for the many senior members in the field.
He’s a dope and I wouldn’t buy ANY of his books for all the tea in China.
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June 9, 2011
If you people want some hard scientific data to support the idea that consciousness is primal to the universe and not just some emergent property of some several ounces of meat called a brain, then may I suggest Robert Lanza’s BIOCENTRISM.Robert Lanza is a leading genetic engineer who is changing the world according to US News & World Report. He’s likened to the new “Einstein”. Are you changing the world with your “science”? Your atheism in no way is a statement of science but like the believer, it is an article of faith.
And oh yeah, our most brilliant minds cannot deliberately and conscientiously build a protein or enzyme (of which a million can sit on the head of a pin)that unwinds our DNA let alone the DNA, tissue, organs, or organisms with brains and nervous systems intact by scratch. If this is so, what makes you think something as complex as you came about by the random crashing of molecules like classic billiard balls? Laws are only principles observed repetively by existing elements but a law has never created anything. 2 plus 2 = 4 is a mathematical law, but that has never deposited $4 into my bank account. You’ve got your heads stuck under the hood of your Bentley and arrogantly proclaim, “Why, there’s no need for a maker of this vehicle you oaf! It’s very obvious how this machine works-by internal combustion”! That’s the problem with you materialist reductionist practitioners of scientism, you err in logic by mistaking mechanism with agency. Internal combustion is the mechanism, man is the agent. In the words of Max Planck: “As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter”.
Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944)
This guy’s the father of quantum physics. If he believes, what allows you the license to call anyone else on this post stupid? Let’s see you lay bare the mysteries of the universe as this man has-SO ARROGANT! And it’s an unjustified arrogance!Now, until you can send me data on the physiological processes that account for qualia or the subjective experence of emotions along with this sense of “I” along a sequential time trajectory despite the fact our cells are replaced many times over in a lifetime, then you’re not exactly in a position to proclaim with certainty there is no continuation of consciousness.And when i say account for the hard problem of consciousness, I don’t mean the “easy problem” as shown by neuronal correlates. As for Occam’s Razor (sheesh you atheists tire me-so overused), the simplest explanation “tends” to be the correct one-that means, not always so. Also, the simplest explanation is the one that is true whether it is perceived that way by us or not.
And before I depart and to satisfy your sense of entitlement, here’s the math behind the near death experience. And before you retort with a “That’s not proof”, crap, I already know that. It’s EVIDENCE-there’s a difference. Heres a quote and the math-you figure it out:
“It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning (Many Worlds in One [New York: Hill and Wang, 2006], p.176)”.
-Alexander Vilenkin / Professor of Physics and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University
The math:
Physicist Uses NDEs To Clarify The Nature Of Time
by Paul Bernstein, Ph.D.
This year at professional conferences in Oxford, Paris and Prague, as last year at academic gatherings in Germany, Italy, and Greece, European astrophysicist Metod Saniga explained to his scientific colleagues how the NDE research of Raymond Moody, Kenneth Ring and PMH Atwater has helped him to develop a mathematical model of time that seems to offer solutions to problems that have vexed scholars since Einstein.
Poster announcing the international Advanced Research Workshop on the natureof time, co-directed by Dr. Saniga.
In brief, Dr. Saniga takes seriously the testimony of NDErs when they describe being in a realm where “time stops”, and where some of them “see the past, present, and future all at once.” To this occurrence of what he calls “the Pure Present”, Dr. Saniga adds the experience of mystics, clairvoyants and others who’ve experienced suddenly being in the future, and still others who describe being drawn involuntarily back into the past.1 Saniga uses these “anomalous experiences” to show that a single mathematical model can account for both the conventional and the extraordinary ways that humans experience time. Yet the model also remains compatible with what is known about time throughout the physical universe, and even sheds interesting light on the possible nature of time and space at the very early period of our Universe just after the Big Bang.2
Because the same mathematical principles can connect all these different experiences—both physical and psychological— Dr. Saniga asserts that any attempt to dismiss non-ordinary states of consciousness like NDEs “as pure hallucinatory phenomena would simultaneously cast a doubtful eye on the very role of mathematics in our understanding of Nature. To the contrary, it is mathematics itself…that tells us that it is far more natural to expect all these ‘unusual’ perceptions of time to be simply as real as our ordinary (‘normal’) one.”3
Dr. Saniga’s model cannot be fully described without using the specialized mathematics known as ‘algebraic projective geometry’. And since most of us have not been trained in that math, I am forced to risk oversimplifying his explanation a little bit here, in order to share it with the general public.
Recall how we all commonly think of time, as we go about our daily lives: time seems to be a simple ‘arrow’ or straight line running from the past, through the present, and pointing toward the future. However,
Geometric representation of NDErs’ experience of time as “pure present”
as Dr. Saniga points out, the fundamental equations of physics do not really insist on such a one-directional experience of time:
It is a well-known fact that the fundamental equations of physics are time-reversible, i.e. they do not distinguish between the past and future. Moreover, the very concept of the present, the now, has no proper place in the temporal of physics at all; this holds true whether one is talking of classical physics, quantum mechanics, or relativity theory.4
In other words, our “arrow of time always moving forward” experience, seems to be strongly related to what we humans create as our experience of time, not to any invariable aspect of physical time itself.
So in order for Dr. Saniga to encompass within one model both the conventional notions of physical time and the subtleties of human ‘subjective’ time, he found it necessary to expand beyond the simple line model of time. Consequently, instead of representing each event as simply a single point along a line of time, he found that a single event can more accurately be represented as a curved line within a group of “conics” (curves like parabolas and hyperbolas). And to express that most precisely, most scientifically, Dr. Saniga found that he should use both geometry (which is the mathematics for describing shapes like those curves) and algebra (which is the mathematics for describing relationships among such shapes).
To his surprise and delight, this combined ‘algebraic-geometry’ description then accurately predicted many variations in time that scientists have already observed in both the physical and the psychological worlds. The resulting model is a series of diagrams and equations that embrace the “ordinary” and the “anomalous” manifestations of time, including the following near-death experiences Dr. Saniga selected from the writings of NDErs and their researchers:
(1) “After…going through this long, dark place, all of my childhood thoughts, my whole entire life was there at the end of this tunnel, just flashing in front of me….Not one thing at a time, but …everything at one time. It was just all there at once.” [An experiencer quoted in Dr. Raymond Moody’s 1975 book, Life after Life5].
(2) “Personal flash-forwards…take place while an individual is undergoing an NDE…It is as though the individual sees something of the whole trajectory of his life, not just past events…To the NDEr they represent events of a conditional future — i.e., if he chooses to return to life then these events will ensue. In this sense, a personal flash-forward may be likened to a “memory” of future events. [Dr. Kenneth Ring, in his 1984 book, Heading Towards Omega6].
When Dr. Saniga moves from such human experiences of time to cosmological conditions of time, his model suggests what might have occurred during the creation of our universe. “There is a growing suspicion among physicists,” he reports, “that the Universe might have been born with a different dimensionality than what we observe [today].” Specifically, instead of the 3 dimensions of space and 1 dimension of time that we are used to, the early Big Bang situation would seem to have been the opposite: only one dimension of space—accompanied by three dimensions of time.7 And instead of this startling notion having to remain a mere speculation, Dr. Saniga states that his model can, in principle, be tested by astronomers in the near-future, once sensing devices that look into deep space become more sensitive— because his equations predict that one of our current three dimensions of space should be slightly different from the other two spatial dimensions.8
Just as intriguing, this understanding of physical dimensionality matches some views of spiritual psychology, as expressed for example in a book by psychology-philosopher Michael Washburn, professor at Indiana University, and summarized years before Dr. Saniga had published his works, as follows:
Washburn asserts that who we ordinarily think we are (our ego) is only a part of our experience. The vaster part he calls the Dynamic Ground, in which he unites what others call our unconscious, our instincts, our libido, and the spiritual forces that inspire us. …
Because the ego will cause its own misery if it remains closed to the Dynamic Ground (which it made unconscious during early childhood), people can hardly avoid a spiritual life eventually. The everso- common ‘mid-life crisis’, like the ancient’s ‘dark night of the soul’, is the opening of the ego to the forces it had closed itself off from, during its earlier (and necessary) stage of development.
Our ego, in other words, is good enough at operating in the 3- dimensional world of matter and unilinear time, but cannot of itself encompass the world of eternity in which this 3-dimensional world is suspended.9
In agreement with this psycho-spiritual understanding, Saniga’s equations show that our 3-dimensional ‘time-bound’ world might indeed be suspended within a much vaster, endless, world of eternity. He adds a particular category of mathematics called “Cremona transformations” to reveal that our usual world of 3 spatial dimensions and 1 time dimension may very well be just an “island” in a much larger “sea” that is its opposite. As Dr. Saniga expressed this mathematical discovery to his academic colleagues:
There exists a totally amazing 3-to-1 splitting in the character of…fundamental elements. . . .The far prevailing mode is…one spatial dimension…and three time dimensions. The …. [everyday] configuration of 3 spatial with 1 time dimension can be seen as a mere ‘island’ in the ‘sea’ of 1+3’s.10
How have his colleagues responded to this model? “The reaction has been positive,” he wrote me, “but so far not many people have delved deeply into the ideas behind it.” Jonathan Smith, mathematician at the University of Iowa, said, “I’m skeptical at the moment—but I’m willing to be convinced.” At the same time, one Harvard astrophysicist wrote:
Saniga demonstrates that there are coordinate systems within a simple transformation of our present system that explain the broad range of time phenomena found in the psychiatric literature. Of course the demonstration that this is possible does not prove that it is true, but it does explain a lot of ‘data’. And that is all you can ever ask of such a theory, so it deserves to be read and pondered.
Consider an analogy to the Einstein relativity principle, which showed that you do some transformation of the time and space coordinate systems to produce the result that the velocity of light is always constant, and all mass has an equivalence principle where the gravity associated with mass is equivalent to acceleration. The report by Saniga reads a lot like Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, while the part equivalent to the General Theory of Relativity remains to be discovered.
Dr. Saniga (kneeling in center, hand on lawn) with international research colleagues
retired Air Force colonel from Texas wrote to Dr. Saniga:
I was most interested in your work on ‘dimensionality of space’ . …In 1957 when I was 13 years old, I was electrocuted with 7,200 volts and had the classic NDE experience. From that accident, and to this day, I am convinced … our world is not [just] a 3-dimensional one. …The conventional distortion is the construct of a “past”, a “now”, and a “future”… At the earliest level of my NDE journey…that human construct fell away, that ‘arrow of time’. …Then followed a series of increasing levels of consciousness. I clearly recall the joy of additional dimensionality, of wanting to pause and celebrate the arrival of each [additional dimension], …the blooming and opening up of another one….
At around the eighth level…I was beyond any joy I have ever known….But I was becoming distracted by the approach of the Light….The engulfing of the Light around me, the Being, and my Exchange with this Being, I strongly sense took place at a 10th or perhaps higher level of dimensionality.11
Back in [our daily] three-dimensional existence, I see those [other] levels reduced to something like the presence of multiple panes of glass you view through, to see your sweetheart approach in her car outside your office. You see your sweetheart and her smile, oblivious of the 12 panes of glass you are viewing her through. It is not germane to the human experience, but we coexist in this multidimensional world just as a cube drawn on a blackboard exists in ours….
I sense, Dr. Saniga, that you are perhaps far more courageous to present this to your peers than I was when I came forward finally in 1981 to discuss my 1957 NDE. What excites me is your apparent suspicion that science in its present structure and approach is wholly ill-prepared to address this domain….Your discipline in the sciences combined with your tolerance and appreciation of this material is very powerful.
Because Dr. Saniga continues to gather NDEs for his research, you may email him at msaniga@astro.sk if you wish to tell him about the role of time in your own particular near-death experience.
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June 9, 2011
Another point:
The near death experiencers born blind from birth can see for the first time during their NDE. It is a physical impossibility for the blind from birth to see any images in their dreams or any drug induced hallucination. They have no prior images to borrow from to reconstruct an image in their visual cortex and thus never enter REM intrusion. And yet, they can see for the very first time during an NDE. Now Gerald Woerlee likes to argue that they are assembling tactile experiences to construct an image, but there is no science to support that (just conjecture by a desperate atheist) and it still begs the question why is their seeing for the first time unique to the NDE? Why not have that experience in a dream, or better still, a nightmare which may parallel the trauma? Answer that for me and then we’ll talk.
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June 9, 2011
Oh yes, there are examples of pilots who have suffered anoxia and also had an NDE at a later date and there was NO similarity between the two. The one is foggy and confused while the other is super clear. So don’t give me the oxygebn deprived brain thing as an explanation-please!
As for Persinger’s God Helmet, it has never illicited a parallel NDE in the classic case and this materialist has recently announced that he has proven telepathy is real in his lab. He also said he suspects the materialists and old style paradigm adherents will never be able to accept this.
As for Ketamine, even the pioneer of this field, Dr Jansen, who originally believed ketamine reduced NDE’s to physical brain junk, has recanted and says he believes NDE’s may, in fact, be evidence for a soul. Here’s his words:
“I am no longer as opposed to spiritual explanations of near-death phenomena as my article . . . would appear to suggest. Over the past two years . . . I have moved more toward the views put forward by John Lilly and Stanislav Grof: namely, that drugs and psychological disciplines such as meditation and yoga may render certain ‘states’ more accessible [and toward] those who see drugs as just another door to a space, and not as actually producing that space. After 12 years of studying ketamine, I now believe that there most definitely is a soul that is independent of experience. It exists when we begin, and may persist when we end. Ketamine is a door to a place we cannot normally get to; it is definitely not evidence that such a place does not exist.”
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June 9, 2011
And if anyone here can explain the double slit experiment while leaving consciousness out of the picture, do two things for me:
1) Post that evidence here on this site
2) Publish your findings and win the Nobel Prize overnight.
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June 9, 2011
And oh yeah, Jim:
Rather than call me a moron, educate me on the science and go out and win that nobel prize that resolves the problem of the double slit experiment. Reduce that to a Newtoniam Paradigm that fits into your neat classic world. And I’m still waiting for you to create a protein from scratch that can unwind a DNA helix. What? You can’t do what blind unguided forces can do? That brilliant mind so sharp and so keen-the product of billions of years of evolution cannot replicate even the most mundane of of scientific wonders with focused and deliberate intent? You can’t do what particles randomly bumping into each other can do? Maybe you’re the scientific moron! Admittedly, I can’t make that stuff either which makes me a scientific moron too. The difference is, I know it. You are actually proof that you have an identification that lies outside your brain so you ought to be the first in line to believe in NDE’s: your immaterial ego is far larger than your material brain. There’s no match! Your dualistic nature must be true! Youre’ a dark soul Jim-constantly berating other’s for their faith. Do you spend as much time berating the Easter Bunny? Personally, I think you’re just pissed off at God. Why spend so much time berating what doesn’t exist? Why devote a website to the debunking of something that isn’t real? Talk about a waste of time! Talk about unscientific! You should be in a lab somewhere figuring this stuff out rather than posting blogs. Notice that the true great minds are not posting here. Ooops! I guess that means me too.
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June 9, 2011
Maybe you atheists can get back with me and tell me if you think astrophysicist Metod Saniga is “confused”. You want science? Chew on this…
R. Buccheri et al. (eds.); Endophysics, Time, Quantum and the Subjective; 245{272
°c 2005 World Scienti¯c Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
A GEOMETRICAL CHART OF ALTERED TEMPORALITY
(AND SPATIALITY)
METOD SANIGA
Astronomical Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences,
SK-05960 Tatransk¶a Lomnica, Slovak Republic
(msaniga@astro.sk)
Abstract: The paper presents, to our knowledge, a ¯rst fairly comprehensive and math-
ematically well-underpinned classi¯cation of the psychopathology of time (and space).
After reviewing the most illustrative ¯rst-person accounts of \anomalous/peculiar” ex-
periences of time (and, to a lesser degree, space) we introduce and describe in detail their
algebraic geometrical model. The model features six qualitatively di®erent types of the
internal structure of time dimension and four types of that of space. As for time, the most
pronounced are the ordinary \past-present-future,” \present-only” (\eternal/everlasting
now”) and \no-present” (time \standing still”) patterns. Concerning space, the most
elementary are the ordinary, i.e., \here-and-there,” mode and the \here-only” one (\om-
nipresence”). We then show what the admissible combinations of temporal and spatial
psycho-patterns are and give a rigorous algebraic geometrical classi¯cation of them. The
predictive power of the model is illustrated by the phenomenon of psychological time-
reversal and the experiential di®erence between time and space. The paper ends with a
brief account of some epistemological/ontological questions stemming from the approach.
Keywords: Mental Space-Times { Pencil of Conics/Lines { Cremona Transformations
1 Introduction
Time | \the supreme law of nature” after Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington,
a world-famous astrophysicist of the last century | is undoubtedly one of
the deepest mysteries science has ever faced. Indeed, one would hardly ¯nd
something that is, on the one hand, so intimately connected with our ex-
perience and yet, on the other, so di±cult to come to grips with. Nothing,
perhaps, can better illustrate this point than a large group of phenomena
that are collectively referred to as the psychopathology of time, that is, all
\anomalous/peculiar” experiences of time as invariably encountered and
reported in various mental psychoses, drug-induced states, deep meditative
and mystical states as well as in many other \altered” states of con-
sciousness [1{7]. For such peculiar fabric of psychological time comprises,
as we shall see in more detail, such bizarre, paradoxical and mind-boggling
forms as \eternity, everlasting now,” \arrested/suspended” time, time \go-
ing backward,” and even \disordered/fragmented” time, to mention the
most pronounced of them.
245
246 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
Up to date, there exists no acceptable psychological/neurological model
capable of properly dealing with these fascinating time constructs and un-
derpinning any logical classi¯cation of them. The reason why this is so
rests, in our opinion, upon the following two facts. First, these extraor-
dinary experiences of time (and, of course, space as well) are inherently
participatory, non-reproducible and subjective and, so, seriously at odds
with current methodologies/paradigms of science, which strive for repro-
ducibility and objectivity. Second, the most pronounced departures from
the \consensus” reality are so foreign to our \waking” mind that their
properties defy our common sense logic and cannot be adequately commu-
nicated in words; an interested scholar has to go through a large number
of relevant ¯rst-hand accounts/narratives and acquire the ability to read
between the lines in order to spot an(y) underlying conceptual pattern. We
are therefore convinced that further progress in our understanding of these
phenomena will inevitably entail a serious shift in the corresponding scien-
ti¯c paradigms to reveal their true epistemological/ontological status and
be accompanied by the increasing use of su±ciently abstract mathematical
concepts to properly grasp their qualitative properties.
Our study of psychopathological (space-)times has, from the very be-
ginning, been pursued in accordance with this strategy [7{9]. The model
discussed in the second part of the paper thus features not only a fairly high
level of abstraction, but it also poses a serious challenge to some generally
accepted dogmas in natural sciences. Formally, it employs advanced geo-
metrical concepts, like a projective space and/or Cremona transformations.
Conceptually, it relies on a daring and far-reaching assumption that the
anecdotal, ¯rst-person descriptions of extraordinary states of consciousness
are on a par with standard observational/experimental evidence in natural
sciences. It is this \abstract geometrization of the ¯rst-person perspective”
that gives our approach a remarkable unifying and predictive power and
makes it a very promising conceptual step towards the ultimate unveiling
of the riddle of time. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate this.
The presentation is focussed on conceptual issues rather than mathemati-
cal technicalities, the latter being reduced to the extent that also the reader
with a comparatively slight mathematical background can easily follow the
main line of reasoning.
2 Mental (Space-)Times: Most Illustrative Cases
We shall start with a compact, yet comprehensive enough, review of the
most distinguished forms of \anomalous” experience of time. This review
Metod Saniga 247
is unique in that it consists solely of ¯rst-person accounts/narratives, three
or four per each mode. This way even the uninitiated reader can get a fairly
clear idea about the nature of experiences involved and realize the source
and character of possible di±culties one is likely to face when attempting
to mathematically model these experiences.
2.1 \Eternity,” alias \eternal/everlasting now”
This is perhaps the most pronounced and in the literature best-documented
kind of profoundly \distorted” sense of time. It is a sort of compressing,
telescoping of past, present and future into the present moment that is
experienced as \eternal/everlasting now.” One of the best portrayals of
what this experience looks like is found in the following account [10, p. 46]:
I woke up in a whole di®erent world in which the puzzle of
the world was solved extremely easily in a form of a di®erent
space. I was amazed at the wonder of this di®erent space and
this amazement concealed my judgement, this space is totally
distinct from the one we all know. It had di®erent dimensions,
everything contained everything else. I was this space and this
space was me. The outer space was part of this space, I was in
the outer space and the outer space was in me. . .
Anyway, I didn’t experience time, time of the outer space and
aeons until the second phase of this dream. In the cosmic °ow
of time you saw worlds coming into existence, blooming like
°owers, actually existing and then disappearing. It was an end-
less game. If you looked back into the past, you saw aeons, if
you looked forward into the future there were aeons stretching
into the eternity, and this eternity was contained in the point of
the present. One was situated in a state of being in which the
\will-be” and the \vanishing” were already included, and this
\being” was my consciousness. It contained it all. This \being-
contained” was presented very vividly in a geometric way in
form of circles of di®erent size which again were all part of a
unity since all of the circles formed exactly one circle. The
biggest circle was part of the smallest one and vice versa. . .
This narrative is remarkable in a couple of aspects. Not only does the sub-
ject try to understand his uncanny experience of time in terms of a simple
geometrical model, but he also pays particular attention to the spatial fabric
of his extraordinary state, which also di®ers utterly from what is regarded
248 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
as a normal/ordinary perception of space; in fact, the subject ¯nds himself
to be one/fused with space!
Another description of the same kind of mental space-time structure is
taken from Atwater [11, Chpt. 2]. It is based on one of many author’s near-
death experiences, which was also accompanied by a fascinating archetypal
imaginery:
This time, I moved, not my environment, and I moved rapidly….
My speed accelerated until I noticed a wide but thin-edged ex-
panse of bright light ahead, like a \parting” in space or a \lip,”
with a brightness so brilliant it was beyond light yet I could
look upon it without pain or discomfort. . . The closer I came
the larger the parting in space appeared until. . . I was absorbed
by it as if engulfed by a force ¯eld. . . Further movement on my
part ceased because of the shock of what happened next. Before
me there loomed two gigantic, impossibly huge masses spinning
at great speed, looking for all the world like cyclones. One was
inverted over the other, forming an hourglass shape, but where
the spouts should have touched there was instead incredible rays
of power shooting out in all directions. . . I stared at the specta-
cle before me in disbelief. . . As I stared, I came to recognize my
former Phyllis self in the midupperleft of the top cyclone. Even
though only a speck, I could see my Phyllis clearly, and super-
imposed over her were all her past lives and all her future lives
happening at the same time in the same place as her present life.
Everything was happening at once! Around Phyllis was every-
one else she had known and around them many others. . . The
same phenomenon was happening to each and all. Past, present,
and future were not separated but, instead, interpenetrated like
a multiple hologram combined with its own re°ection. The only
physical movement anyone or anything made was to contract
and expand. There was no up or down, right or left, forward
or backward. There was only in and out, like breathing, like
the universe and all creation were breathing | inhale/exhale,
contraction/expansion, in/out, o®/on.
The last example, but by no means less astounding than the former two, is
borrowed from Braud [12] and depicts in great detail and clarity a gradual
transformation of our ordinary, waking sense of time (and space) into that
of \eternity” (and \omnipresence”):
Metod Saniga 249
I get up and walk to the kitchen, thinking about what a timeless
experience would be like. I direct my attention to everything
that is happening at the present moment | what is happening
here, locally, inside of me and near me, but non-locally as well,
at ever increasing distances from me. I am imagining everything
that is going on in a slice of the present | throughout the
country, the planet, the universe. It’s all happening at once.
I begin to collapse time, expanding the slice of the present, ¯ll-
ing it with what has occurred in the immediate \past.” I call
my attention to what I just did and experienced, what led up
to this moment, locally, but keep these events within a slowly
expanding present moment. The present slice of time slowly
enlarges, encompassing, still holding, what has gone just be-
fore, locally, but increasingly non-locally as well. By now, I
am standing near the kitchen sink. The present moment con-
tinues to grow, expand. Now it expands into the \future” as
well. Events are gradually piling up in this increasingly larger
moment. What began as a thin, moving slice of time, is be-
coming thicker and thicker, increasingly ¯lled with events from
the \present,”\past,” and \future.” The moving window of the
present becomes wider and wider, and moves increasingly out-
wardly in two temporal directions at once. It is as though things
are piling up in an ever-widening present.
The \now” is becoming very thick and crowded! \Past” events
do not fall away and cease to be; rather, they continue and oc-
cupy this ever-widening present. \Future” events already are,
and they, too, are ¯lling this increasingly thick and full present
moment. The moment continues to grow, expand, ¯ll, until it
contains all things, all events. It is so full, so crowded, so thick,
that everything begins to blend together. Distinctions blur.
Boundaries melt away. Everything becomes increasingly homo-
geneous, like an in¯nite expanse of gelatine. My own boundaries
dissolve. My individuality melts away. The moment is so full
that there no longer are separate things. There is no-thing here.
There are no distinctions.
A very strong emotion overtakes me. Tears of wonder-joy ¯ll my
eyes. This is a profoundly moving experience. Somehow, I have
moved away from the sink and am now several feet away, facing
250 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
in the opposite direction, standing near the dining room table.
I am out of time and in an eternal present. In this present is
everything and no-thing. I, myself, am no longer here. Images
fade away. Words and thoughts fade away. Awareness remains,
but it is a di®erent sort of awareness. Since distinctions have
vanished, there is nothing to know and no one to do the knowing.
\I” am no longer localized, but no longer \conscious” in the
usual sense. There is no-thing to be witnessed, and yet there is
still a witnesser.
The experience begins to fade. I am \myself” again. I am pro-
foundly moved. I feel awe and great gratitude for this experience
with which I have been blessed. . .
2.2 Time \standing still,” alias \arrested/suspended” time
Another well-documented and quite abundant anomalous temporal mode.
A couple of examples are found in Tellenbach [13, p. 13]:
I sure do notice the passing of time but couldn’t experience it.
I know that tomorrow will be another day again but don’t feel
it approaching. I can estimate the past in terms of years but I
don’t have any connection to it anymore. The time standstill is
in¯nite, I live in a constant eternity. I see the clocks turn but
for me time does not °ow. . . Everything lies in one line, there
are no di®erences of depth anymore. . . Everything is like a ¯rm
plane. . .
and [ibid, p. 14]
Everything is very di®erent in my case, time is passing very
slowly. Nights last so long, one hour is as long as usually a
whole day. . . Sometimes time had totally stood still, it would
have been horrifying. Even space had changed: Everything is
so empty and dark, everything is so far away from me. . .
I don’t see space as usual, I see everything as if it were just a
background. It all seems to me like a wall, everything is °at.
Everything presses down, everything looks away from me and
laughs. . .
Both reports are given by depressive (melancholic) patients. It is worth
noticing here that when time comes to a stillstand, perceived space seems
Metod Saniga 251
to lose one dimension, becoming thus two-dimensional. A slightly more
detailed description of this time pattern we succeeded in ¯nding in a paper
by Muscatello and Giovanardi Rossi [14, p. 784]:
Time is standing still for me, I believe. It is perhaps only a
few moments that I have been so bad. I look at a clock and
I have the impression, if I look at it again, that an enormous
period of time has passed, as if hours would have passed instead
only a few minutes. It seems to me that a duration of time is
enormous. Time does not pass any longer, I look at the clock
but its hands are always at the same position, they no longer
move, they no longer go on; then I check if the clock came to
a halt, I see that it works, but the hands are standing still. I
do not think about my past, I remember it but I do not think
about it too much. When I am so bad, I never think about
my past. Nothing enters my mind, nothing. . . I did not manage
to think about anything. I did not manage to see anything in
my future. The present does not exist for me when I am so
bad. . . the past does not exist, the future does not exist.
The following vignette is taken form a treatise on mescaline-induced exper-
imental psychoses by Beringer [15, p. 311]:
The strangest thing was that every once in a while my normal
time-awareness, as far as these ¯gures were concerned, got to-
tally lost; time was no longer a stream, which °ew away and
whose °ux could have been measured, but it was rather similar
to a sea, which as a whole stood still and which was in itself only
a chaotic and utter jumble. I was no longer able to understand
the continuous becoming of the ¯gures as a sequence in a cer-
tain time direction, but sometimes the colours and forms °ew
into an indescribable jumble, as if the previously alternating
¯gures were now experienced all simultaneously. Had I previ-
ously seen these ¯gures in a constant motion, so now it was only
a colorful and inexpressible manifold there in which I was not
able to perceive any motion anymore. When I totally sank into
the show of the ¯gures, it happened every now and then that I
also sank into this time-still-standing, where the succession was
transformed into a still standing present. Not only am I now
not able to formulate these interruptions of the normal time
experience, I am also almost unable to imagine my experience
252 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
of them any more. When I tore myself away from these ¯gures
and violently turned myself to the outer world, this anomalous
time experience was no longer here, but this disturbance of the
sense of time found its expression in a form of illusion that an
immense long time must have passed since my last waking-up.
2.3 Time \going/°owing backward”
This kind of time pathology is very often found in mental psychoses [1,2,5,16{
18]. Here is a representative case, communicated by a schizophrenic patient
of Fischer [19, p. 556]:
Yesterday at noon, when the meal was being served, I looked
at the clock: why did no one else? But there was something
strange about it. For the clock did not help me any more and
did not have anything to say to me any more. How was I going
to relate to the clock? I felt as if I had been put back, as if
something of the past returned, so to speak, toward me, as if I
were going on a journey. It was as if at 11:30 a.m. it was 11:00
a.m. again, but not only time repeated itself again, but all that
had happened for me during that time as well. In fact, all of
this is much too profound for me to express. In the middle of
all this something happened which did not seem to belong here.
Suddenly, it was not only 11:00 a.m. again, but a time which
passed a long time before was there and there inside | have I
already told you about a nut in a great, hard shell? It was like
that again: in the middle of time I was coming from the past
towards myself. It was dreadful. I told myself that perhaps the
clock had been set back, the orderlies wanted to play a stupid
trick with the clock. I tried to envisage time as usual, but I
could not do it; and then came a feeling of horrible expectation
that I could be sucked up into the past, or that the past would
overcome me and °ow over me. It was disquieting that someone
could play with time like that, somewhat daemonic. . .
A brief and concise description of \psycho-time-reversal” is found in Laing
[20, p. 148]:
I got the impression that time was °owing backward; I felt that
time proceeded in the opposite direction, I had just this ex-
traordinary sensation, indeed… the most important sensation
Metod Saniga 253
at that moment was, time in the opposite direction…. The per-
ception was so real that I looked at a clock and, I do not know
how, I had the impression that the clock con¯rmed this feeling,
although I was not able to discern the motion of its hands….
A similar depiction is also furnished by a depressive patient of Kloos [21,
p. 237]:
As I suddenly broke down I had this feeling inside me that time
had completely °own away. After those three weeks in a sick-
camp, I had this feeling that the clock hands run idle, that
they do not have any hold. This was my sudden feeling. I did
not ¯nd, so to speak, any hold of a clock and of life anymore,
I experienced a dreadful psychological breakdown. I do not
know the reason why I especially became conscious of the clock.
At the same time, I had this feeling that the clock hands run
backward. . . There is only one piece left, so to speak, and that
stands still. I could not believe that time really did advance,
and that is why I thought that the clock hands did not have any
hold and ran idle. . . As I worked and worked again, and worried
and did not manage anything, I simply had this feeling that
everything around us (including us) goes back. . . In my sickness
I simply did not come along and then I had this delusion inside
me that time runs backward. . . I did not know what was what
anymore, and I always thought that I was losing my mind. I
always thought that the clock hands run the wrong way round,
that they are without any meaning. I just stood-up in the sick-
camp and looked at the clock | and it came to me then at
once: well, what is this, time runs the wrong way round?!. . . I
saw, of course, that the hands moved forward, but, as I could
not believe it, I kept thinking that in reality the clock runs
backward. . .
2.4 \Disordered/fragmented” time
The following experience, voluntarily induced by mescaline, is the most
representative one we have been able to ¯nd in the literature available [22,
p. 295]:
For half an hour nothing happened. Then I began feeling sick;
and various nerves and muscles started twitching unpleasantly.
254 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
Then, as this wore o®, my body became more or less anaes-
thetized, and I became \de-personalized,” i.e., I felt completely
detached from my body and the world. . .
This experience alone would have fully justi¯ed the entire ex-
periment for me. . . , but at about 1.30 all interest in these visual
phenomena was abruptly swept aside when I found that time
was behaving even more strangely than color. Though perfectly
rational and wide-awake. . . I was not experiencing events in the
normal sequence of time. I was experiencing the events of 3.30
before the events of 3.0; the events of 2.0 after the events of
2.45, and so on. Several events I experienced with an equal de-
gree of reality more than once. I am not suggesting, of course,
that the events of 3.30 happened before the events of 3.0, or
that any event happened more than once. All I am saying is
that I experienced them, not in the familiar sequence of clock
time, but in a di®erent, apparently capricious sequence which
was outside my control.
By \I” in this context I mean, of course, my disembodied self,
and by \experienced” I mean learned by a special kind of aware-
ness which seemed to comprehend yet be di®erent from seeing,
hearing, etc.. . . I count this experience, which occurred when, as
I say, I was wide awake and intelligent, sitting in my own arm-
chair at home, as the most astounding and thought-provoking
of my life….
And here is another mescaline-borne episode of a very similar time’s sense
[15, p. 148]:
While walking upstairs, a sudden and as if nailed-down picture
of this moment, the momentary view of Dr. M., Dr. St. and
myself in space, attracted my attention. This repeated itself
on di®erent stairs. At the top of the stairway there seemed to
be no continutity of time at all, the whole course of events was
only a mess of separate situations without any connection. And
these situations, in case of active work, could later have been
connected in the same way in which one can observe a celluloid
¯lm. Yet at the same time these situations | in both experi-
encing and a direct reproduction of the happening afterwards |
carried the character of the independent and disconnected. A
Metod Saniga 255
strange next-to-each-other-ness, not a one-after-the-other-ness;
they have no position in time, time has no sense here. . .
From these ¯rst-hand accounts it is quite obvious that the fabric of psycho-
logical time is so intricate, complex and multifarious that, at ¯rst sight, it
may seem to lie completely beyond grasp of any mathematical framework.
Yet, the contrary is true. In what follows we shall introduce and describe in
detail a simple algebraic geometrical model that not only is capable of qual-
itatively accounting for all the \non-ordinary” time structures mentioned
above, but also predicts some novel forms of these.
3 Pencil Dimensions of Time/Space and Their Mental
Counterparts
3.1 Time dimension viewed as a pencil of conics and its
(mental) patterns
A cornerstone of our model of the perceived time dimension is conics and
their simplest, i.e., linear and single parametrical, aggregates, usually called
pencils [23{25]. A conic is an algebraic curve analytically de¯ned by a
second order (i.e., quadratic) equation. It is composite (singular) or proper
according as this equation is factorable or not. A hyperbola, a parabola
and an ellipse are all familiar (and the only) examples of proper conics
(with a non-empty image). A composite conic consists of either a pair of
(straight-)lines, which can be distinct or coincident, or of a single point.
Two distinct conics lying in the same plane have, in general, four points in
common (see Fig. 1, left); these, of course, need not be all distinct and/or
real. Any two coplanar conics de¯ne a unique pencil of conics, viz. the
totality of conics that pass through each of the points shared by the two
conics (see Fig. 1, right); these common points are called base points of
the pencil. Any pencil of conics in the real plane contains at least one
composite conic, and maximum three (not necessarily distinct and/or of
the same type). Given a pencil of conics, a point of the plane that is not a
base point of the pencil lies on exactly one (possibly composite) conic of the
pencil, henceforth called the \on-conic.” The remaining proper conics of the
pencil (\o®-conics”) are found to form two di®erent, in¯nitely large disjoint
families: one family comprises those proper conics which have the point
(henceforth the \reference point”) in their interior (\in-conics”), while the
other features those conics which have this reference point in their exterior
(\ex-conics”). For a given proper conic, a point, not on the conic, is its
exterior or interior point depending on whether or not it lies on a line
256 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
Figure 1. Two distinct conics (ellipses) in the real plane (left) de¯ne a unique pencil
(right). This pencil, which is the most general one, features four distinct base points
and three distinct composite conics (each being a pair of distinct lines). Out of its
in¯nite number of proper conics only nine are shown: four ellipses, one circle and four
hyperbolas.
tangent to the conic (see Fig. 2); the exterior/interior of the conic is thus
the set of all its exterior/interior points.
Figure 2. An interior (left) and exterior (right) point (small circle) of a given proper
conic (drawn as an ellipse); the right hand side of the ¯gure also illustrates existence of
(two distinct) tangent lines issued from the point to the conic. If the point in question
is regarded as the reference point, then the conic on the lef-hand side is an in-conic,
whereas that on the right-hand side | an ex-conic.
Why do we pay so much attention, and ascribe so much importance,
to this con¯guration? Simply because in the case when the reference point
falls on a proper conic this con¯guration lends itself as an enunciation of our
ordinary experience/sense of time (dimension). To spot this correspondence
[26] we take the reference point as a representation of the observer/subject
and conceive each conic of the pencil as a single event/moment of time, with
the understanding that the ex-conics represent events of the past, the in-
conics stand for events of the future, and that the unique on-conic answers,
naturally, to nothing but the present moment, the \now” | as depicted in
Metod Saniga 257
Figure 3. A non-trivial structure within a pencil of conics induced by a generic position of
the reference point (small circle) and qualitatively reproducing our common perception
of time. The single proper on-conic (solid curve, the present moment) separates the
proper o®-conics into two distinct domains; the domain of the in-conics (dotted, events
of the future) and that of the ex-conics (dashed, events of the past). In both the cases,
only a few conics are drawn.
Fig. 3. It is important for the reader to realize at this point a fundamen-
tal di®erence between the conventional, physical concept of time dimension
and that of ours. While the former portrays time, loosely speaking, as a
line and labels events by points on this line, our theory regards time as
a nontrivial geometrical con¯guration consisting of a given point and an
in¯nite collection of conics, each event being represented by a pair com-
prising the very point and a conic of the set. In other words, in our model
an event/moment of time, rather than being a structureless element/point,
possesses itself an intrinsic geometrical structure, in virtue of which we are
able to introduce a qualitative distinction between individual events (or,
better, groups thereof). And our next task is to show that this distinc-
tion is very sensitive to the position of the reference point with respect to
the distinguished objects of the set. And, indeed, apart from the \past-
present-future” pattern, our model gives rise to other two prominent, in a
sense dual to each other, structures. These correspond, as the reader may
have noticed, to the cases where the reference point coincides with a base
point of the pencil (Fig. 4b), or falls on one of its composite conics (Fig. 4c).
In the former case, clearly, all the proper conics are on-conics, whereas in
the latter case the pattern is lacking any such conic, being endowed with
ex- and in-conics only. Hence, the corresponding time dimension, in the for-
mer case, consists solely of the present moments (the \present-only” mode),
whilst, in the latter case, it comprises only the past and future, being devoid
258 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
Figure 4. The three qualitatively di®erent patterns of the pencil-borne temporal dimen-
sion according as the reference point (a small circle) is (a) incident with a proper conic
(see Fig. 3), (b) coincides with one of the base points, or (c) falls on a composite conic
of the generating pencil. In the case b, out of an in¯nity of conics incident with the
reference point only (the segments of) a few of them are illustrated. The pencil is, as in
Fig. 1, of the most general type.
of the proper moment of the present (the \no-present” mode). Let us try to
rephrase these two unusual temporal arrangements in terms of pathological
temporal constructs listed in the previous section. We readily ¯nd out that
the present-only pattern accounts for nothing but experiences of \eternity,”
\everlasting now.” The no-present design is seen to be a proper ¯t for the
time \standing still” mode; for our feeling that time \°ows,” \proceeds” is
unequivocally tied to the notion of the present moment, the \now,” as the
linking element between the past and future and so it is only too natural to
assume that the absence of this element in the pattern should correspond
to a complete suspension/cessation of the (sense of) time’s °ow.
At this point, it is instructive to make a slight digression and discuss a
very interesting feature of our approach that has a serious bearing on the
very meaning of the term \pathological” when it comes to the concept of
time. This feature tells us about a relative probability of the occurrence of
the above-discussed three patterns of time in the realm of psychopathology.
This probability should not be understood in a strict sense of the word,
but rather in a looser, algebraic geometrical sense. The reasoning goes as
follows. The conics of any pencil sweep up the whole plane and as the
latter contains 12 (double in¯nity) of points, there are 12 of potential
past-present-future patterns. Next, as our pencil features three composite
conics, each of these is a pair of distinct lines, and a line possesses 11
(single in¯nity) of points, we have 3£2£11 = 6£11 ¼ 11 of no-present
modes. And, ¯nally, as our pencil features four base points, there are
just four present-only structures. We see a clear predominance of the past-
Metod Saniga 259
Figure 5. The three distinct types of \line-related” pencil-patterns of time in dependence
on whether the reference line is incident with (a) zero, (b) one, or (c) two base points of
the pencil. In each case, every illustrated point (a small circle) of the line is accompanied
by a drawing of a small portion of the conic incident with this particular point.
present-future mode within the group; no wonder that it corresponds to our
\ordinary,” \consensus” experience of time. Equivalently, this explains why
experiences of \eternity” and/or time \standing still” are regarded/referred
to as \anomalous/peculiar;” for the relative probability of their occurrence
with respect to our \ordinary” experience of time is truly negligible.
Let us examine next the other conceivable forms of generic pencil-time.
We shall assume that instead of a single reference point there is a whole
in¯nity of them, and these are, for simplicity, taken to form a line. What
di®erent kinds of time dimension do we ¯nd in this case? Remarkably, there
are, like in the previous case, three of them. They di®er from each other, as
depicted in Fig. 5, in the position of this line with respect to the base points
of the generating pencil of conics, being in the sequel labelled, respectively,
as a zero-, one- and two-point pattern according as the reference line hits
no, one or two of the base points. Obviously, these line-related temporal
structures can each be regarded as composed of an in¯nite number of basic,
point-related patterns. This composition reads:
type past-present-future present-only no-present
zero-point in¯nity none six
one-point in¯nity one three
two-point none two in¯nity
The numbers in the ¯rst two columns are readily discernible from Fig. 5 and
the de¯nition of the corresponding elementary modes. It is only the last
(no-present) column that requires a word of explanation. Thus, the number
in the ¯rst line (six) is the number of intersections of the reference line with
the composite conics of the pencil; it follows from the facts that our pencil
260 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
features three composite conics, each of these is a pair of distinct lines,
and in a projective plane every line is incident with any other line. The
number in the second line (three) answers to the fact that if the reference
line passes through a single base point, the latter absorbs three of these six
points. Finally, when the reference line joins two base points, it becomes a
component of a composite conic, i.e., every point of it lies on the composite
conic in question. We further see that, among the composites, only one,
the one-point mode (Fig. 5b), features all the three types of elementary
patterns, and, similarly, only one, the two-point mode (Fig. 5c), lacks the
most familiar of them. On the other hand, there is only one elementary
pattern, the no-present one, that enters all the three kinds of composites,
and only one, the present-only mode, whose number is always ¯nite. It is
very intriguing to see that there is no homogeneous composite.
What are the phenomenological counterparts of these composite tem-
poral patterns? Clearly, each of them must be a mixture/superposition
of the time’s experiences we have found to correspond to the elementary
patterns involved. And these are strange constructs indeed. Thus, the zero-
point mode corresponds to such an uncanny state of consciousness where
the subject encounters an in¯nite tangle of \ordinary” experiences of time,
di®ering from each other in the location of the moment of the present and,
consequently, in the spans of the regions of past/future, this perception be-
ing accompanied by the sense of time \standing still.” The one-point case
is even more complex, as it includes, on top of the above, also the feeling
of \eternity.” And these experiences are very much like those of \disor-
dered/fragmented” time given in the previous section! But what about the
two-point structure, an intricate blend of the sense of \eternity/everlasting
now” and that of time \standing still”? This kind of experience was pri-
vately communicated to one of us by Linda Howe [27], an instructor in the
\akashic records” technique:
One common scenario is when the sense of the self is so ex-
panded, beyond any physical boundary…. In this aspect, the
awareness of being one with, or a part of, all that is can be
profound. The illusion of separation can be perceived as dis-
solving and, at the same time, the awareness of the oneness,
or unity,…becomes heightened, sometimes acutely so… In this
the experience of time is dramatic in its expansion and simul-
taneous contraction. There is a sense that there is only one
moment, that all of time/eternity is held in that instant, very
compressed and as powerful as one’s imagination can conceive.
Metod Saniga 261
Simultaneously, there is a sense that there is no time in the ex-
pansion. That all is holding still. Not even slow motion, but no
motion. A total suspension of time is experienced. This is the
all time/no time paradox.
There remains only one mode to be explained, namely the experi-
ence/sense of time \going/°owing backward.” To this end, we shall return
to our ordinary, past-present-future pattern (Fig. 4a) and examine what
happens to this pattern as the reference point starts \moving” away from
its original position. This \motion,” as delineated in Figs. 6a-c, is assumed
to take place in such a way that the point always remains incident with one
and the same conic. As it is quite obvious from this ¯gure, the qualitative
structure of the original pattern (Fig. 6a) is preserved until the reference
point, en route, hits a base point (Fig. 6b), in which case the pattern ac-
quires its present-only type. Further motion of the reference point clearly
leads to re-establishment of the original type, but with one remarkable
di®erence { with the in-conics and ex-conics having swapped their roles
(Fig. 6c)! This means nothing but that the time’s arrows generated by
the two past-present-future patterns, although sharing the same present
moment, point in the opposite directions! One could hardly ¯nd a more
elementary explanation of time-reversal.
3.2 Space dimension viewed as a pencil of lines and its
(mental) patterns
It is evident that that the concept of a pencil, with conics as its constitut-
ing elements, turns out to be an extremely fertile framework for getting a
Figure 6. An elementary explanation of the phenomenon of a psychological time-reversal
in terms of our pencil-borne model of time dimension. As in Fig. 3, the heavy curve(s)
is (are) the on-conic(s), while those drawn as dotted/dashed represent the in-/ex-conics.
A little arrow indicates the direction of the motion of the reference point (a small circle).
262 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
deeper qualitative insight into the ¯ne structure of psychological time di-
mension. Motivated by this ¯nding, it is only too natural to address also
the structure of psychological space in a similar fashion, i.e., retaining the
concept, replacing only its constituting elements. As to our senses, space
appears to have a less complex structure than time, and a line is a simpler
geometrical object than a proper conic; we shall take a spatial dimension
to be represented by a pencil of lines [8,9,25,26,28]. Our reasoning will par-
allel that of the previous (sub)section, which will enable us to see how our
approach gets to grips with the fundamental di®erence between time and
space at the perceptual level. Two distinct lines in a plane su±ce to de¯ne
a unique pencil, i.e., the set of all lines of the plane that pass through the
point shared by the two (the point in question being called the vertex of the
pencil). As any two lines in a projective plane have always one, and only
one, point in common, there exists only one type of a pencil of lines; this
is the ¯rst fundamental di®erence from the case of conics. Given a pencil
of lines, a point of the plane (the reference point) that is di®erent from the
vertex of the pencil is incident with exactly one line of the pencil (Fig. 7a);
this line will henceforth be called the on-line, the remaining lines of the
pencil being termed o®-lines. This particular a-pencil-of-lines-and-a-point
con¯guration qualitatively mimics our \ordinary,” \here-and-there” sense
of space, with the on-line standing for \here” and o®-lines for \there.” It
is a spatial counterpart of the \ordinary,” past-present-future pattern of
time (Fig. 4a). However, it must be pointed out here that, unlike o®-conics,
o®-lines have all the same footing with respect to the reference point; this
feature thus serves as a nice explanation why, in our \ordinary” state of
consciousness, perceived space has a rather trivial structure when compared
to that of perceived time. Another point-related spatial pattern is the one
where the reference point is identical with the vertex of the pencil (Fig. 7b);
as now all the lines of the pencils are on-lines, we get the \here-only” struc-
ture. Being a twin of the \eternity,” \everlasting now” mode (Fig. 4b),
this structure must necessarily be inherent to those \non-ordinary” states
of consciousness that are characterized by feelings of \omnipresence,” or
\fusion/oneness” with the universe. These here-and-there and here-only
modes are obviously the only elementary patterns of pencil-space; for a line
is so simple an object that there exist no singular forms of it and, so, there
does not exist any spatial analogue of the no-present pattern. And as there
are 12 potential here-and-there modes, but just a single here-only one, it is
only natural that it is the former that underlies our \consensus” perception
of space.
Metod Saniga 263
Figure 7. The two qualitatively di®erent elementary patterns of the pencil-borne space
dimension depending on whether the reference point is di®erent (a) or not (b) from the
vertex of the generating pencil of lines; in the latter case, out of an in¯nity of lines
passing through the reference point only (the segments of) several of them are shown.
Compare with Figures 4a and 4b, respectively.
Figure 8. The two composite modes of space pencil-borne dimension, di®ering from
each other in the position of the reference line (illustrated as a range of small circles)
with respect to the vertex of the generating pencil of lines. Similarly to Fig. 5, every
illustrated reference point goes with a drawing of a small part of the line incident with
this particular point.
The cases with the reference line are also structurally simpler than those
of time dimension. There are, as the analogy suggests, a couple of them ac-
cording as the line avoids the vertex (Fig. 8a) or is incident with it (Fig. 8b).
As it can easily be recognized from Fig. 8, the former case is a compound of
a single in¯nity of sole here-and-there modes, whereas the latter features a
combination of both the elementary modes, with the preponderance of the
more familiar of them. Accordingly, a subject experiencing the \avoiding-
vertex” mode feels to be localized at every point (\multipresent”) along the
particular space dimension, while that in a state backed by the \hitting-
vertex” mode should feel to be both localized at a particular position of
and simultaneously stretched out along the dimension in question.
264 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
4 Pencil-Borne Space-Time and the Varieties of its Internal
Structure
So far we have treated time and space as two completely unrelated dimen-
sions, which is of course in marked contrast to how the two aspects of reality
are perceived to exist. Moreover, we have dealt with a single space dimen-
sion only, while our senses tell us that there are (at least) three of them. So
we have to re¯ne our model accordingly to comply with these constraints.
To furnish this task, it is necessary to move from the (projective) plane
into the (projective) space and | following and extending our recent work
[26,28] | consider a speci¯c geometrical con¯guration comprising three
distinct, non-coplanar pencils of lines (generating spatial dimensions) and
a single pencil of conics (time). The planes carrying the pencils of lines are
taken to be collinear, i.e., having a line in common, and none of the vertices
of the pencils (denoted as Bi, i=1; 2; 3) is assumed to lie on this shared line
(LB). The pencil of conics is, naturally, situated in the plane de¯ned by
the three vertices (as these are assumed not to lie on a line), and its base
points are these vertices and the point (L) of incidence of the plane and the
line LB, as portrayed in Fig. 9. The reader may get an impression that our
option for this con¯guration is completely arbitrary. This is, however, not
the case, for this con¯guration plays a prominent role in the theory of so-
called Cremona transformations between two projective spaces of dimension
three.a For what follows it su±ces that the reader shares our intuitive belief
that there is indeed something special to the above-described four-pencil
con¯guration so that Nature found it worth making use of [26,28]. It is
evident that this remarkable con¯guration, as it stands, can represent only
a bare space-time, i.e., the space-time devoid of any subject/observer. So,
in order to introduce the latter into our model, the con¯guration has to
be endowed with an additional geometrical object. This can, of course, be
done in a number of ways, one of the simplest being in terms of a single line
(denoted as L¤ in Fig. 9). Armed with this premise and the postulates and
¯ndings of the previous section, we are able to ¯nd out which kinds of spatial
and temporal patterns discussed above are mutually compatible (i.e., can
form and \live together” on a single manifold) and thereby arrive at a ¯rst
fairly comprehensive and mathematically well-underpinned classi¯cation of
the psychopathology of time and space. It is not hard to see that this task
aA proper explanation of what a Cremona transformation is and what kind(s) of distin-
guished structures it entails would, however, take us too far a¯eld from the main topic
of this paper: the interested reader is therefore referred to consult our above-mentioned
papers [26,28] and/or a | though for ¯rst reading a bit di±cult | book by Hudson [29].
Metod Saniga 265
Figure 9. A particular geometrical con¯guration comprising three pencils of lines and a
single pencil of conics, the latter being located in the plane de¯ned by the vertices of the
pencils of lines. Out of an in¯nity of lines, only several are drawn in each of the three
pencils; similarly, only a few proper conics (all being ellipses) are shown in the pencil of
conics. The symbols are explained in the text.
simply boils down to examining all possible positions of the reference line L¤
within this con¯guration that lead to qualitatively di®erent arrangements
of pencil-patterns induced by the point(s) of intersection of the line with
the four pencil-carrying planes.
We shall, of course, start with the case when the reference line is in
a generic position with respect to the four planes. As it is obvious from
Fig. 9, in this case the line cuts each of these planes in a unique point. As
this point is clearly di®erent from any of the three vertices and from the
point L as well, it speci¯es in each of the three planes BiLB (henceforth
simply l-planes) a unique line, and in the B1B2B3-plane (c-plane) a unique,
in general proper, conic (see Fig. 9; the three lines and the conic in question
being drawn bold). Each of the three pencils of lines thus generates the
here-and-there mode, and the pencil of conics features the past-present-
future pattern. So, our generic pencil-borne space-time is, as expected, the
space-time as perceived in our ordinary state of consciousness.
In order to facilitate our subsequent discussion, we shall compactify our
notation for di®erent kinds of pencil-borne patterns. For each elementary
pattern we shall reserve one letter, uppercase for time and lowercase for
266 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
Figure 10. A diagrammatic sketch of an algebraic geometrical classi¯cation of pencil-
borne space-times. Each sub¯gure features the reference line, the four \fundamental”
planes and, in each of the latter, those fundamental elements that are \picked up” by
the reference line; the cases where the reference line is incident with all the fundamental
lines of a given l-plane and/or with an in¯nite number of the fundamental conics in
the c-plane, are illustrated by drawing several lines and/or conics, respectively. The
remaining symbols and notation are explained in the text.
space; a composite mode will then bear several letters, corresponding to the
elementary modes it consists of. As for time pencil-patterns, we shall adopt
the following symbols: \A” for the ordinary, past-present-future mode (the
\arrow” of time); \E” for the present-only (\eternity”) mode; and \S” for
the no-present (time \standing still”) mode. The composite modes will
then have the following abbreviations: \¹A¢S” for the zero-point mode;
\¹A¢S¢E” for the one-point mode; and \S¢E” for the two-point mode, with
¹ standing for \multi-” and signifying that the number of modes denoted by
the letter immediately following this symbol is unlimited/in¯nite. Concern-
ing space patterns, we shall use \h” for the ordinary, here-and-there mode
and \o” for the here-only (\omnipresence”) mode. Its composites will ac-
cordingly be denoted as \¹h” (vertex-avoiding) and \h¢o” (vertex-hitting).
Metod Saniga 267
So what are possible kinds of our pencil-borne, \Cremonian” psycho-
space-times? From an algebraic geometrical point of view, there are alto-
gether 19 di®erent types of them, as depicted in Fig. 10. And they are seen
to form a truly remarkable sequence, once being grouped into distinict rows
according to their number/abundance (the ¯rst column) and into distinct
columns according to the number of dimensions of localizability (the low-
ermost row) and/or the character of the Cremonian image of the reference
line in the second projective space (the uppermost row). As easily dis-
cernible from the ¯gure, the individual sub-¯gures di®er from each other in
the position of the reference line and each of them is accompanied by four
of the above-introduced labels/acronyms so that the reader can readily ¯nd
out the corresponding internal pattern of each spatial dimension and time
as well. The number/abundance of a particular type within the structure
is, as above, of a geometrical origin. Thus [30], there are 14 (quadruple
in¯nity) of lines in a three dimensional projective space and out of them
13 are incident with a given line, 12 with two di®erent (possibly incident)
lines, and 11 pass through a given point and simultaneously lie in a given
plane; a line is uniquely de¯ned by two distinct points (their joint) or two
di®erent planes (their meet). Non-localizability in a particular dimension
means that the reference line does not de¯ne a unique line in the corre-
sponding l-plane, or a unique conic in the c-plane; this, obviously, happens
when the reference line passes through a base point (or the point L), or lies
completely in an l-plane/the c-plane. Hence, \o”, \¹h” and \h¢o” are non-
local patterns of space dimensions, while \E”, \¹A¢S,” \¹A¢S¢E” and \S¢E”
are those of time; in Fig. 10, the former/latter are illustrated by drawing
several lines/conics in the corresponding l-planes/c-plane so that they can
readily be recognized.
A number of intriguing facts can be revealed from Fig. 10. First, and
perhaps the most crucial fact, is that our consensus space-time (represented
by the sub-¯gure in the top left-hand corner; this sub-¯gure is a fully equiv-
alent version of Fig. 9) is, as expected, by far the most abundant type in
the hierarchy, as there are 14 of its potential cases. On the other hand,
there is just one potential case of space-time where the subject is completely
non-localized (the sub-¯gure in the bottom right-hand corner; the reference
line is here identical with the line LB). Next, it is fairly obvious that the
most numerous patterns are those where the subject is completely local-
ized (the \all” column); as the number of dimensions of non-localizability
increases (i.e., as we move in the ¯gure from left to right), the number of
potential cases decreases (i.e., we move from the top to the bottom of the
268 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
¯gure). Further, we notice that if there are at least two dimensions of non-
localizability (the last three columns), one of them is always time. Also, for
the two non-ordinary elementary patterns of time, the S-mode prevails over
the E-mode. The most variegated row is seen to be the 12-one (featuring
six di®erent types of space-time patterns and spanning three di®erent levels
of non-localizability), the least variegated being the top and bottom ones.
It is also worth stressing that out of the spatial modes it is the h-one that
occurs most frequently, while amongst the temporal patterns it is the S-
and E-modes that enjoy this property. Also, there exists no pencil-borne
space-time whose space dimensions would be all of the o- or h¢o-type. In-
terestingly, the least frequently encountered patterns are h¢o (space) and
S¢E (time). Finally, there are pairs of patterns which are incompatible with
each other: the o-mode with the ¹h-one, the S¢E-mode with the ¹h-one
and the S-pattern with the o-one.
From the information gathered in Fig. 10 and the ¯ndings of the previous
section(s) it will represent no di±culty for the reader to infer and analyze
the \experiential contents” for each type of space-time. We only add the
following note. One of the most distinguished features of a great majority
of extraordinary states of consciousness is a seriously altered sense of indi-
viduality, ego, or self-hood. In particular, the greater the departure from
our consensus reality, the lesser the sense of ego; ultimately, in the most
abstract states, the subject feels to completely transcend/surpass his/her
sense of ego, and, so, the dichotomy between subject and object. That
important feature, too, has a proper place in our model, once we identify
the \degree” of the sense of ego with the level of localization of the subject
in our pencil-borne space-times. From Fig. 10 we then readily discern that
our consensus experience of space-time is characterized by the strongest
sense of the self. As we move across the ¯gure from left to right, the sense
of ego accompanying the individual types of space-times (or, better, the
corresponding states of consciousness) gradually \melts/dissolves,” until it
completely vanishes in the state represented by the sub-¯gure located at
the very bottom of the ¯gure. Here is a recently found ¯rst-person account
that describes in great detail not only this transformation of the sense of
\I,” but also accompanying profound changes in the perception of both
time and space, and which dovetails very nicely with the implications of
our model [31]:
For twelve hours I moved in and out of dimensions of both space
and time. The incomprehensible became comprehensible. Re-
alities within realities blossomed and faded. From the in¯nitely
Metod Saniga 269
large to the in¯nitely small, unbounded and unfettered mind
°ashed across landscapes of incredible depth and beauty…. I
was looking into the source of my very being, and without ques-
tion, my creator. And then I came to realize too that I was at
the interface between individual mind and absolute mind.
Entheogens, or in my case psilocybes, provide the pivotal role
of interfacing between individual consciousness and universal
consciousness. It is the crucial link or conduit that bridge the
two at a single point. That point then begins to widen, and
both entities slowly merge. As the interface grows, what were
initially two now opens into one. It’s not just a random happen-
ing though, an alignment process between the two takes place.
Actually it’s more a matter of one aligning itself to the other.
This is not a conscious operation, although consciousness is wit-
ness to it…. To experience this phase of the psychic event was
an absolute revelation with all the glory and beauty imaginable.
With my minds eye I was able to see the outline of the inter-
face where the two became the One, where duality merged into
unity…. I had the pleasant ability at the center of the interface
to merge in and out at will. In one moment I was myself, a
separate thinking entity with all my individual thoughts; as I
merged out my self-hood ceased to exist; my individuality gone;
my thoughts as unique things ceased to be, given way to abso-
lute thought. Time and space played an interesting part in this
experience. While in myself time existed, time °owed, there was
past and future, but while merged in unity time ceased, there
was no past or future. Everything was in a single instant; what
Plotinus called the \Eternal Now.” In myself space had dimen-
sion, there was up and down, limitations existed. Merged in the
other, there was no up, no down, no limitation, all was in¯nite
and absolute. This gave rise to another incredible phenomenon;
with time suspended and space without boundary omniscience
came into full awareness; yes, all things known; no limitations
to knowledge…. Omnipotence, and omnipresence also became
an awesome recognition, but not related to me personally since
the I had ceased to be; they were aspects of that great Oneness
that was the universe of consciousness. Merging back into my
own ego left me with only a memory of being present to it all….
270 A Geometrical Chart of Altered Temporality (and Spatiality)
5 Conclusion
A few weeks before his death, in a letter of condolence to the family of his
life-time friend Michele Besso, Albert Einstein wrote [32]: \For us believing
physicists the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illu-
sion, even if a stubborn one.” We have, however, rigorously demonstrated
that this \illusion” and its most pronounced \peculiarities/anomalies” are
underlaid by a de¯nite algebraic geometrical pattern. Does it mean that
our math is a sort of illusion, too? Or, rather, is it physics that falls short of
grasping the true nature of time [33]? To tackle this dilemma, we perhaps
need a new conceptual framework for physics [34,35], like, for example, the
relational blockworld proposed recently by Stuckey et al. [36]. The lat-
ter inverts the conventional physics paradigm/hierarchy by taking relations
(modelled by matrix variables) to be fundamental to relata (modelled by
single-valued variables) and viewing matrix variables as having no counter-
part in diachronic/trans-temporal objects, i.e. not having ontological status
as \real things.” This inverted paradigm is perfectly in the spirit of, and
lends support to, our model once we regard individual states of conscious-
ness (\mental space-times”) as relations not needing to have counterparts
in the \material world,” and so in the brain in particular. And this is
a truly powerful paradigm shift, supported by a number of extraordinary
human experiences, like the following one [37, pp. 26,27]:
I experience myself as beyond everything, literally everything,
. . . I am a silent witness, vast and unchanging, beyond time and
all space. . . The recognition, which is a direct perception, is that
everything is in me. The body, the universe, essence, person-
ality, everything that can become an object of perception, is
not me, but is in me. I am pure awareness, mere witnessing,
where everything arises and passes away. . . I am beyond space
and time; both space and time are within me. All of time is
a movement within me. Personality, or more accurately, the
personal experience or soul, is time. Time is the °ux of this
personal consciousness. Essence is timelessness. I see time as
the movement of the timeless within me. All of time, the time
of the body and of all of physical existence, is a small process
within me. I am beyond time and timelessness. I am the be-
yond, beyond all and everything.
Metod Saniga 271
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to Mr. P. Bend¶³k for painstaking drawing of the ¯g-
ures and Dr. R. Kom·z¶³k for the help with conversion of the latter into
postscript form. I would also like to express my cordial thanks to Miss D.
Veverkov¶a and Mr. P. Hahman for translating into English all the excerpts
taken from journals written in German. This work was supported in part
by the 2001{2002 NATO/FNRS ARF \Algebraic Geometrical Structure
of Spacetime,” the 2000{2002 NATO CLG PST.CLG.976850 \Structure of
Time and Quantum Computing,” the joint 2001{2003 CNR{SAV research
project \The Subjective Time and Its Underlying Mathematical Structure”
and a 2004 SSHN Physics Fellowship of the French Ministry of Youth, Na-
tional Education and Research (# 411867G/P392152B).
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June 10, 2011
A little more science for the believers…
In November 2006 I was invited to a meeting at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California called “Beyond Belief” (http://beyondbelief2006.org/). Other speakers and attendees were predominantly atheists, and harshly critical of the notion of spirituality. They included Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Patricia Churchland, Steven Weinberg (the least venal), Neil deGrasse Tyson and others who collectively vilified creationists and religious warriors. But the speakers also ragged on the notion of any purpose or meaning to existence, heaped ridicule on the very possibility of a God-like entity (and those who believed in such an entity), declared that scientists and philosophers should set society’s moral and ethical standards, and called for a billion dollar public relations campaign to convince the public God does not exist.Near the end of the first day came my turn to speak. I began by saying that the conference to that point had been like the Spanish Inquisition in reverse – the scientists were burning the believers. And while I had no particular interest in organized religion, I did believe there could be a scientific account for spirituality.
After pointing out faulty assumptions in conventional brain models for consciousness and summarizing the Penrose-Hameroff theory, I laid out my plausibility argument for scientific, secular spirituality, suggesting cosmic connections and influence in our conscious thoughts occurred via quantum interactions in microtubules. I closed with a slide of the DNA molecule which emphasized it’s internal core where quantum effects rule, suggesting a Penrose non-computable influence in genetic mutations and evolution (aimed at Dawkins in the form of a quantum-based intelligent design).
At the end a few people clapped loudly, but most sat in steely silence. The moderator and conference organizer Roger Bingham said I had enraged nearly everyone in the room. Indeed, I had raised a stink, and felt (happily) like the skunk at an atheist convention.
Comments from the audience were negative, but off base. Physicist Lawrence Krauss said my suggestion of backward time effects in the quantum unconscious (indicated by experiments, and required to rescue consciousness from its unfortunate characterization as epiphenomenal illusion) were impossible. He was apparently unaware of the verification of Wheeler’s delayed choice experiments which precisely prove such backward time effects. Krauss also questioned the possibility of biological quantum computation at brain temperature, but I pointed to evidence for warm quantum coherence in biological photosynthesis. Neuroscientist Terry Sejnowski attempted to criticize my view, but floundered, unable to explain how his conventional approach could explain 40 Hz gamma synchrony EEG (the best measurable correlate of consciousness) without quantum effects.
Our theory also chafes proponents of artificial intelligence (“AI”, including advocates of the so-called Singularity) who assume consciousness results from interactions among neurons with no consideration of deeper activities or quantum mechanisms. Along these lines I recently spoke at Google in Silicon Valley, my talk being titled A new marriage of brain and computer – Why the Singularity is bogus. That talk is at
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2069501759514424839
I am not by nature confrontational, but am happy to debate scientists and philosophers who oppose our theory. Atheism does not hold the scientific high ground. Secular spirituality based on quantum biology and the physics of spacetime geometry is a viable and important idea. I am not offering or suggesting any proof, just a plausibility argument.
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June 29, 2011
I read Dr. Long’s book. I thought that the fundamentalist Christians were anti science and dogmatic. yeah…looks like the atheists are even worse
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July 2, 2011
Damn people. I don’t quite agree with how the OP got his point across, however, I do agree with his point and several others made. Eye-witness accounts are just simply not evidence, it’s just that easy. There is an immense amount of empirical evidence AGAINST a life-after-death presented by actual scientists (Not an MD). The human brain is tailor-made to calm the body while it’s under intense stress, and I’d imagine being near death would be intense stress for the body. This “chemical cocktail” is released to ease the body to aid in healing or make death that much easier. To one woman (There may be others, if I missed you, you’re welcome to reply as well) who is using Occam’s Razor to state that the simplest answer is God; That’s utterly redundant. That just brings up a much larger question; What made God?
Also, I’d like to add that I’m an atheist, and these people making absurd generalizations towards atheists are sadly disillusioned and prejudice. It’s to the same degree that some atheists group all religious people into the category of these Young-Earth Creationists. Leave your prejudice behind when science is the topic or you’ve already lost any argument or case.
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July 3, 2011
Science is as dogmatic as religion, currently.
Qualitative measures and quantitative measures-are measures! the lack of openness to other understandings and considerations of what we are measuring is like a person who has never traveled but angry at those who don’t speak his (usually) language. Consciousness outside of the mechanical, or reductionistic models will not help our understanding of human experience, change, evolution- our human development. There are many realms of science, that live within the imagination. The extrapolation of statistical analysis and theoretical positions at the base of psychics; the understanding of the brain and consciousness; and the universe-prove scientific rhetoric wrong almost daily now. Every recent discovery proves the latest theory wrong, and lets not forget science community “politics”.
Science today is limited by its focus on function and technology and not on exploring the imagination, the various sources of creativity and the many ways and possibilities of the origins of how that represents life.
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July 6, 2011
Er??? … He’s an oncologist. His patients are dying in pain. Does he give them grade A pharmaceuticals to deal with the pain? Ja’ think this may have something to do with visions?
Ever hear of a Brompton Cocktail?
Morphine, Pharmacy grade Coke and a few other things in brandy. That’s just a little something to take the edge off the pain.
And you wonder why they see things?
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July 13, 2011
Hi there,
As a book critic, I must say that I was disappointed when I read your review. Your arguments against Dr. Long’s book are based purely on your experience with other Afterlife books — you have not read his book at all. Not that I have either, mind you; but I did read pass the blurb.
How can you be objective and hold your own beliefs, if you do not take the time to read and consider someone else’s mind and body of work? The only intelligent, proper way to fight an “enemy” is to know it.
You would have made a much stronger post if you had read the book, and not only the blurb. By reading past the blurb, you would be able to try and debunk some of the valid points the author makes — such as, how come blind people, who are blind since birth, have visual experiences when going through a NDE?
Simply calling a doctor a “fucking idiot” just makes you look like you can’t hold an argument, and that you are a cement-enclosed brick, impervious to any kind of argument that contradicts your own beliefs.
Think of it this way — by responding to a 224 page book with 4 paragraphs that don’t really mention anything specific to the book itself — only to the GENRE the book was written on — makes you seem close minded and lazy.
And of course, makes people shake their heads and write here on your page — either saying “Hmmm, weak argument” or saying “YEAH that’s right, the doctor is a dumb ass, pass me the beer.”
Maybe this is all you want for your website.
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September 2, 2011
My first impression is that “near death” is a very problematic phrase. It’s like nearly pregnant. You’re either dead or you’re not dead. Is an instant of death the same as being dead for twenty minutes or an hour or a year? The doctor who proposes the idea of life after death says, “Scientifically speaking, interviewing people that have permanently died is challenging.” Case in point.
Next, the doctor uses the term “permanent death” in this interview. This tells me that whatever he has studied or read about that provides a clue to the survival of physical death has nothing to do with people who have died for any length of time. Further, what is “permanent death” if not permanent? Seems rather unambiguous to me.
The notion of life after death and reincarnation is curious and offers much hope, including to the doctor in this interview who says that it helps him deal with cancer patients. However, for me it’s a quantum leap to say there is evidence for life after death when the evidence is inconclusive and so full of holes. They’re going to have to do better than testimonials and diagnostics on people who show no life signs for only a few minutes or so.
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November 29, 2011
You sound like a jackass! Keep talking!
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January 4, 2012
Angela, Bravo! You said everything! How can you expect to be respected by calling someone a “fucking idiot”…
I also believe today’s science is as dogmatic as religion is. I do hope one day they will both merge into something fundamental. Today none of them are holding the proper answers.
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