There are many reasons why people have peak experiences. The researcher I quoted from states some obvious reasons, traumatic experience, being one of them. Existential crisis would be another. Or just some deep subconscious need that surfaces and makes a break-through for that person. Lots of reasons.
None of which are good reasons to point to reality and stop distinguishing its fiction and realism in order to call it all fiction.
That's ridiculous, actually. Any scientific researcher studying the brain and what occurs in NDE experiences, speculating metaphysically that it either proves or disproves some afterlife is full of ****. That's not science. That's injecting their personal belief systems into these things, and you should know that. There's a really long video about these very things by a brain scientist who was a partner of Dr. Persinger who created the "God Helmet" studying what goes on the brain. He is extremely clear that this research in no way makes conclusions about a God or an afterlife. That is up to the individual to conclude what they will in their own personal beliefs (which you are doing).
And what was Charles Tart doing?
I'm not saying NDE's disprove the afterlife, I'm saying scientists have proven that a number of NDE's, and likely all if they could study them all, are nothing more than the brain releasing DMT chemicals to cause rapid imagination. If I were to form a hypothesis why this is, it'd probably be because the brain attempts to override the experience of dying.
The point you are missing, is so is your's right now, every moment. So is everyone's. We all make models of the world and interface with those models - not reality itself. Models, frameworks of understanding and seeing the world, change. And with those changes, reality for us changes. It is literally a different reality than the one we lived in before, even though it's the same world! I'm hoping to get you to see this.
I never said mine is any different. Perhaps you should not make assumptions about what points I'm missing when it is apparent you know none of the points I am making.
The problem is people don't see the eyes they are looking out through. They are simply assumed and ignore. It's not until you can actual see the eyes themselves that you are looking out through, that you see it is not reality at all, but the lenses over our eyes. That's what mystical experience offer someone, and an NDE is a mystical experience.
Yes, and I'm a huge reality-is-perceived-subjectivist, that is my primary belief. I do agree that NDE's are mystical experiences, but the way they are taken is silly and un-mystic-like.
Neither do I, but what this researcher, this man of science has exposed in his research which is considerable,
Why is it considerable?
is exactly what the mystics have been saying through the ages.
Entirely depends on what mystics you're talking about.
He reveals the why and the how of it, why the world is actually and illusion of the mind. It is. It's a mesh of culturally constructed mental objects we interface with, and call reality. It the eyes we look through, not the world as it actually is.
And why does it matter?
This is what science shows to be true.
I've heard that before. Religious people claiming science backs their beliefs, when in all reality it hardly does if it does at all.
When in truth, if any of the scientific research that you didn't present, proves this, it must not be very hard research in the first place. Such discoveries would get a man billions of dollars, be up on thousands of popular news boards, be taught globally in schools, be considered a major topic of discussion at board meetings, etc. If such an extraordinary discovery exists, it would inevitably have extraordinary stumbles upon it.
This is what mystical experience exposes.
No, this is what some mystical experiences expose. Unless you assume every mystic who has thought otherwise is wrong (which is really no different than "I'm right, you're wrong"), there's thousands of mystical expositions that are not shared among mystics and ideas formulated by certain mystics that are disagreed upon by others.
That this man says this, should be considered carefully. He's qualified.
Yes. Let's take the word of this ONE man simply because he is enlisted as a scientist, simply because he has a major in a field and appears to be qualified. The next step up, let's believe every single thing Stephen Hawking says.
Because the OP is saying that life is fulfilled through giving of ourselves, rather than being greedy. This is a realization that stood out profoundly to them through the nature of what their experience revealed. I completely relate to this, and it is true on a deep spiritual level. And it does not matter whether or not the person takes objects of their experiences as literal beings, persons, angels, spirits, or not. If what is imparted is a deep universal truth,
who cares whether or not God is a scientifically verifiable being? That's utterly beneath the point!
I find quite the opposite, which is why I disagree. I find greed to be a useful motivational tool and giving to be parasitic unless something equal comes in return, which would simply be neutralism. While greed on the other hand, when fair (as in actually defining proper ownership and following those terms), is true Commensalism.
I'm not saying that I'm right and you both are wrong. Basically, all I'm saying is, watch out for glitches in what you find truth.
But what if these visions are in fact simply a face of a deeper and higher reality? I'm calling them visions to separate them out from brain-farts - they're not hallucinations in this sense at all - they're more mental object that represent higher truths from the subconscious mind, not just a bunch of bizarre stuff without meaning. They archetypal in form. Whopping big difference than seeing wild colors flashing and stuff. They are in fact reflecting a deep, cosmic, universal reality that we are all part of. So what if it's a difference face on them?
I addressed this in my previous post. Some do, some don't. Whether they have metaphysical meaning or not, visions or brain-farts do not hold literal reflections of reality. I may see a brain-fart of a spider crawling up my wall, or ginnie pigs scattered all over my room and squeaking annoyingly for minutes (both of which I had experienced) and at the time I could not distinguish them from reality. I may see a brain fart of a friend in my basement asking me for a cigarette and I hand him one, and the next day remember that my friend never came over and wonder where that cigarette went to, which I also had experienced.
Then, I may have a vision of leaving my body, tasting the words coming out of my mouth, and feeling emotion as if it were physical and feeling physical as if it were emotional, and as I move further and further from my body, I'd feel more and more comfortable as if I were getting closer to some kind of divinity, as if it were just around the corner and I'd feel complete perfect emotion in another couple of steps, only to find out that this perfect emotion was not around the corner but may be nearby, but never was. Which I also had experienced multiple times.
All of them: The brain farts and the visions... they all never really happened. They were a mentally generated experience that was filled with meanings my unconscious mind recently uncovered and put them consciously into play. However, the only difference between brain farts and visions would be that visions seem more appropriately meaningful and not random than brain farts.
I very much am a mystic. And I certainly do not miss the reality that each person is individual and what is exposed for them, is for them, from them. That's why I say it is entirely valid for it to take many and varied forms. And it should. And it does. But, there are universal truths that are in fact shared through mystical experience. That all is One, that all is connected, that our perceptual realities are relative, and not absolute, and so forth. As it says in my signature, at the peak we all gaze at the single bright moon. There is the Absolute, and the relative. The universals is that we are all experiencing these things in their many and varied forms, towards the realization of the Infinite Ground, or Source which every single one of us arise from.
Many mystics I've talked to as well, including myself, will agree with what you said, that all is One. However this doesn't mean it's a universal truth, as reality is truly defining only under perspective, most of reality is subjective, and thus most of reality is personal. There are plenty of dualist mystics out there as well. There are also mystical reality-objectivists out there.
My point is, there is no common grounds that ALL mystics agree on.
