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Old 06-27-2022, 01:15 AM
Lune Lune is offline
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As I've gotten older, I've found myself more frequently thinking about my death. I have been an atheist all my life, in spite of being baptized and forced into church occasionally as a small child. I found some peace in the notion that, at best, I'd get some kind of heavenly afterlife and, at worst, total oblivion and evaporation of my consciousness. I find the Abrahamic religious portrayals of heaven and hell utterly absurd, especially hell, with little to no basis in their respective textual dogma nor in basic logic.

I had an incredible childhood and a staggeringly terrible young adulthood before finally finding peace and happiness near the end of my 20's. As I've come to know so much about the world, life, our universe, and have revisited death, I find that my outlook has changed. While total oblivion wouldn't be horrible, as it's a total lack of experience, I truly hope that's not what happens.

However, I've found what I believe to be some evidence for some form of existence beyond this dimension in the scholarly study of near death experiences. While the field and the discussion on this topic are rife with hucksters and Christians, I have a doctorate and am good at parsing the quality of evidence, and there is nonetheless some intriguing evidence that people who have a near death experience (NDE) are experiencing something unique and profound. Here are the highlights:

1. Near death experiences are similar across cultures. People tend to report roughly the same basic phenomena, with different individualistic interpretations (such as Christians reporting seeing angels or Jesus, Hindu's seeing the messenger of the Gods, and atheists seeing an "entity" or "force". This archetypal near death experience is also seen in writings dating as far back as thousands of years.

2. Common features of an NDE include the sensation of traveling through a tunnel towards light, extremely intense and typically positive emotions, meeting deceased loved ones, perceiving a 'border' or 'threshold' between life and death, and having an out of body experience in which the person perceives their surroundings. NDE's may have all, some, or none of these features, but these are by far the most common. Panoramic life-review, or "life flashing before your eyes", is also common, with a sensation of increased acuity or resolution, with people reporting the ability to experience the memories of their life, all at once, in great detail that far exceeds their normal memory.

3. NDE's matching this archetype have been experienced by children, the blind, atheists, etc, who all overwhelmingly report the experience to be immensely positive, significantly lessening their fear of death and often having positive effects on their outlook for the remainder of their lives. Interestingly, even the congenitally blind have reported the tunnel of light and other visual phenomena with individual corroboration by researchers.

4. Studies have examined chemical and electrical (EEG) hallmarks of memory formation in the hippocampus and elsewhere and compared it to known configurations associated with both real memories and memories associated with dreams, hallucinations, and abstract experiences, and found that NDE's bear all the hallmarks of a real memory of an experience rather than a hallucination.

That said, this is ultimately unfalsifiable and therefore not a scientific explanation for the phenomena. There are some neuroanatomical explanations, among others, rooted in aberrations of multisensory integration as the brain dies, but these explanations have flaws as well. The main one is that NDE's have been known to occur in varying electrochemical and cognitive states, high oxygen, low oxygen, high CO2, low CO2, heart stopped, heart beating, and even in people who have not been clinically dead, such as climbers during a fall.

The more I read about this and the more I think about it, the more I believe there is something to it. Why is the universe 13.7 billion years old and not 18 billion? Why is there something instead of nothing? Why are the sun and moon the EXACT SAME FUCKING SIZE to an observer on Earth - the sun just happens to be 400x larger but 400x further away? (The odds against this coincidence are FUCKING ENORMOUS) How the fuck did we all begin as hydrogen 13 billion years ago, going through 13 billion years of stellar evolution to make all the carbon, phosphorus, calcium, iron, and such that just so happen to be able to be arranged into amino acids, phospholipid bilayers, and nucleic acids that allow biological information to pass onwards through time? The universe could have just as easily been nothing but a bunch of cold rocks.

Now, I don't believe some bearded old man is up in the clouds governing our fates, and I don't believe he sent Jesus to Israel to save only a small fraction of humanity.

I think our universe is a place where there is time. I think human beings are only capable of perceiving three dimensional space-time, but there has to be something more, some existence or dimension outside of time; there are many phenomena in physics that suggest this as well. Electrons and some other subatomic particles are thought to exist outside of time. There is even a theory that every electron is actually the same electron, as no two electrons can be in the same place at the same time.

What if our universe is a simulation, and I am some 4d entity that is dipping its toes in three dimensional reality? Ok, but what about Occam's razor? If this dimension created us, then what created that dimension? The thing is, that question assumes the existence of time. It's a question rooted in the human experience, with human perceptions and assumptions. Without time, there is no growth, there is no change, there are no sequential thoughts, causes, effects, plans, learning. An entity in a dimension outside time would look at our universe and our reality and see a flat circle or perhaps a line, with all the events of our universe happening simultaneously (Sound familiar?). In order to exist in the first place, outside of time, it would have to have always existed. Or not exist at all.

I think it's possible that when these people clinically died, they began to experience the transition back into the greater reality, beyond the third dimension, outside time. And for the majority, that transition was so euphoric, so peaceful and sublime that it changed their lives. Whether it's heaven, hell, nirvana, reincarnation, oblivion, hallucinations of a dying brain, or the end of the simulation, we can never know. But this atheist has found enough hints of evidence to hope and to believe that there might be something more than nothingness. And if not, oh well, after what appears to be a peaceful and painless transition, I won't be around to fret about it. And if it's hell, I guess I'll see you all there because even if Christians were the ones who were right, none of yall follow the actual teachings of Jesus.

TL;DR: Lune learns about near death experiences and begins to think there's a warm, euphoric light waiting for him when he dies.

So... anyone ever had or known someone who has had a near death experience? What do you think happens?
Last edited by Lune; 06-27-2022 at 01:23 AM..
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Old 06-27-2022, 04:06 AM
unsunghero unsunghero is offline
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Good post

There are a lot of really weird things about our moon, things that make it seem designed not naturally formed

I personally believe intelligent design (which may or may not be the “God” we think it is) is just as much a possible explanation for the harmony of our planet/universe than a series of completely randomly evolutionary occurrences in just the perfect/necessary sequence to create what exists today. But critics would say I only think that because I’m being optimistic and also don’t understand enough about evolution

In regards to near death experiences, and speaking of evolution, it is possible our brain is just flooding itself with naturally-occurring DMT or something similar to make us hallucinate to where death becomes slightly more comfortable/less traumatic. Haven’t really studied this possibility though in terms of the chemicals our brain produces as it is dying

In regards to personal experiences, nothing near death luckily. I’ve posted it before but my relatives were watching one of their family on her deathbed and the exact moment when she died something appeared on the wall they couldn’t explain, so they took pics of it. Makes me want to record everyone’s last moments…as morbid as that might sound
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Old 06-27-2022, 06:16 AM
GinnasP99 GinnasP99 is offline
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The white haired dude is a Hospitaler. An angel of God.
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Old 06-27-2022, 06:20 AM
GinnasP99 GinnasP99 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Why are the sun and moon the EXACT SAME FUCKING SIZE to an observer on Earth - the sun just happens to be 400x larger but 400x further away? (The odds against this coincidence are FUCKING ENORMOUS)
Because they are the same size. The sun is much closer to us than we are told. There is no outer space. The sun and moon are a part of this world, celestial bodies, created by God.
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Old 06-27-2022, 07:15 AM
nostalgiaquest nostalgiaquest is offline
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Over 100 thousand million stars in the Milky Way Galaxy, and an estimated 100 billion planets. And 200 billion trillion stars in the Universe. It's fuckin bananas to try to wrap your brain around. I don't want to say it's coincidence that the angular size of the sun and moon are the same, because that word doesn't do it justice. And it's not entirely true.

Since both the earth and moon are on orbital paths, the apparent size of the sun and moon varies, which is why you get varying degrees of eclipse's (partial, total, and annular)

I went to Wyoming with a bunch of photography nerds for the 2017 total eclipse that pathed across America. Here's some photos they took.

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Every taken hallucinogens and stared up at a cloudless, moonless night sky without any noise pollution? Horrrry shit. Probably the closest thing to a religious experience I've ever had.

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Old 06-27-2022, 08:12 AM
Ooloo Ooloo is offline
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The sun and moon aren't the same size in the sky, just very close. The moon is slightly smaller. It's just a coincidence, which seems significant because it's a coincidence and it has an intimate relationship with humanity. You probably don't wonder why jupiter's moons have subsurface oceans due to tidal forces heating their interiors, even though I'm sure that's also very unlikely and based on them being in very precise locations. It just doesn't seem significant to us here on earth, cause hey it's just jupiter's stupid moons who cares?

The amazing thing to me is that we were born on a planet this beautiful and we have minds capable of appreciating that beauty and considering it and putting it in a broader context. I bet those stupid birds living in beautiful tropical paradises in south america are just like duhhhh give me bugs.
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Old 06-27-2022, 09:06 AM
Ooloo Ooloo is offline
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Actually come to think of it the size of the moon in the sky varies a LOT based on it's phase and it's proximity to the horizon.
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Old 06-27-2022, 11:42 AM
Jibartik Jibartik is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
So... anyone ever had or known someone who has had a near death experience? What do you think happens?
I have not had a NDE but I do know for a fact that you can teleport to the same palce you go when you have a NDE by taking DMT because thats what happens when you have a NDE and we are all living in a simulation.

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Old 06-27-2022, 01:42 PM
Lune Lune is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by unsunghero [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Good post

There are a lot of really weird things about our moon, things that make it seem designed not naturally formed

I personally believe intelligent design (which may or may not be the “God” we think it is) is just as much a possible explanation for the harmony of our planet/universe than a series of completely randomly evolutionary occurrences in just the perfect/necessary sequence to create what exists today. But critics would say I only think that because I’m being optimistic and also don’t understand enough about evolution

In regards to near death experiences, and speaking of evolution, it is possible our brain is just flooding itself with naturally-occurring DMT or something similar to make us hallucinate to where death becomes slightly more comfortable/less traumatic. Haven’t really studied this possibility though in terms of the chemicals our brain produces as it is dying

In regards to personal experiences, nothing near death luckily. I’ve posted it before but my relatives were watching one of their family on her deathbed and the exact moment when she died something appeared on the wall they couldn’t explain, so they took pics of it. Makes me want to record everyone’s last moments…as morbid as that might sound
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Originally Posted by Jibartik [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
I have not had a NDE but I do know for a fact that you can teleport to the same palce you go when you have a NDE by taking DMT because thats what happens when you have a NDE and we are all living in a simulation.
Regarding the DMT, I used to think that was behind it too, but apparently researchers have found in the last 10 years or so that your body is unlikely to produce endogenous DMT in sufficient amounts to result in these experiences. NDE experiences also differ from DMT experiences in several important ways. It could play a role though in concert with other neurological or chemical mechanisms.
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Old 06-27-2022, 01:43 PM
Jibartik Jibartik is offline
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Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Regarding the DMT, I used to think that was behind it too, but apparently researchers have found in the last 10 years or so that your body is unlikely to produce endogenous DMT in sufficient amounts to result in these experiences. NDE experiences also differ from DMT experiences in several important ways. It could play a role though in concert with other neurological or chemical mechanisms.
I don’t know man the Egypt‘s built the pyramids and we still don’t know how they technically did it I think they just got everybody high on DMT and they were like holy shit were superheroes!

So I’m skeptical on the science behind DMT this early with this small a data set with such erroneous experimentation going on with it right now.

The small amount we have inside our head could just act as the fuel for a router or modem and I will just hope it’s that until proven with some real phizer science experiments.

I hardly believe that drugs are the answer like almost. 000 one percent chance that that is the true but I don’t know man the whole giant pyramids thing is fucking crazy and if you look at any of their hieroglyphics knowing what DMT is it completely demolishes our entire narrative of what that society was about and so much of it just points directly to DMT

And it’s just crazy to me if like DMT was what they were doing with all that crazy shit building pyramids and stuff maybe you can use drugs the way we use technology to do some crazy fucking bits of human ingenuity that was impossible to do at the time and we still don’t know how they do 3000 years later!

It’s just so fucking weird and random and crazy is all it just blows my mind all of this stuff blows my mind!
Last edited by Jibartik; 06-27-2022 at 01:50 PM..
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