General Chat

A British scientist Dr Sam Parnia, studying heart attack patients says he is finding evidence that suggests that consciousness may continue after the brain has stopped functioning and a patient is clinically dead. The research, presented to scientists last week at the California Institute of Technology, resurrects the debate over whether there is life after death and whether there is such a thing as the human soul.
Since the initial experiment, Parnia and his colleagues have found more than 3,500 people with lucid memories that apparently occurred at times they were thought to be clinically dead. Many of the patients, he said, were reluctant to share their experiences fearing they would be thought crazy.
Dr Sam Parnia is a graduate of Guys and St. Thomas’ medical schools in London. .He is currently a fellow in Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical Centre, In New York. He also holds an honorary position as Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Southampton in the UK where he heads the Consciousness Research Group and is a Specialist Registrar in Internal and Respiratory Medicine in North West Thames Region in London. His past positions have been at The Hammersmith Hospital, London and Southampton University working towards a PhD in the molecular biology of asthma. He was a member of the Southampton University Trust Hospitals resuscitation committee between 1998 and 1999.

While working on the medical and coronary care units of Southampton General Hospitals and together with Dr Peter Fenwick he set up the first ever study of near death experiences in the UK. The results of this study have received widespread coverage in the national and international press and have been published in the medical journal "Resuscitation".

As the human (or any) body is essentially a mass of electrical impulses and energy - something's got to happen to that stored energy when a body dies!
Could it be the 'soul'?

I remember my mother telling me of what she "saw" when she was very ill in hospital once. She had been in great pain and "suddenly the pain was gone and ... " she told her story. She found out afterwards that she had officially "died" and regained consciousness to find a whole crowd of people around her bed resuscitating her and the pain back as well.

I've read in the past of other similar things so I am sure there is something - maybe death is not "instant" and some people are brought back to life before death finally comes? All a bit of a puzzle though.

Jill

One of the most fundamental concepts of science is energy. A body in motion possesses kinetic energy as a result of the work done by the forces creating the motion. But a force which does work to stretch a spring, for example, does not create motion. Instead, the work is stored up in the spring and is an example of potential energy. A lifted body also possesses potential energy which turns into kinetic energy when the raised object falls. The heat energy contained in a body is the sum of the kinetic and potential energy of the constituent atoms which are vibrating all the time. Heat and motion are obtainable from electrical, magnetic, chemical, atomic, nuclear and other sources and scientists therefore define corresponding forms of energy. The vital point is that all forms of energy are transferable into one another without loss or gain and cannot be lost or destroyed. This is one of the most fundamental laws of science. Since Einstein, it has also been recognised that mass is interchangeable with energy. Einstein's theory (e=mc²) proved that energy is interchangeable with mass. Neither mass nor energy can be destroyed, only chand to a different form

Unfortunately, science recognises consciousness, argues about it; and there are lots of books on the subject. They recognise that it exists but have failed to define it except as a brain function. Now even that is debatable and the "con" evidence is steadily accumulating. It’s very hard being a scientist. Anything which cannot be weighed or measured really cannot officially be recognised. Moreover, scientists being human, therefore political, competitive and often vindictive would be torn to shreds by their peers should they offer hypotheses without cast-iron proof. Even then, they usually get the thick end of the stick e.g. Galileo, Louis Pasteur, Darwin and others.

Roll on quantum mechanics. Quantum Mechanics may sound like the title of a book about cars but actually is a branch of science. About 100 years ago Newtonian ideas, which seemed to explain most physical phenomena very neatly, began to show cracks and "physics" began to be faced with fundamentals for which there were no adequate theoretical explanations. Enter Einstein and the "Theory of Relativity". That seemed hopeful but eventually began to creak under the weight of apparent contradictions then, about 20 years ago the concept of Quantum Mechanics began to dominate. Whereas "Relativity" was concerned mainly with the physics of massive and fast moving objects, QM describes and seeks to understand physics from the viewpoint of the infinitely small (atoms, electrons, particles etc.). Believe it or not, it is now scientifically acceptable that a particle may be in two places at once!
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Is consciousness a form of energy? Many believe so - in fact this is borne out by it being associated with a chemical/electrical activity in the brain so it follows, particularly if it is not a brain function, that when the body dies, consciousness cannot be lost but, to obey the laws of physics, must be transmuted into another form …..Spirit?

On the other hand, 'transmutation' may not be the right word as there is a good case for consciousness being an entity in its own right with freedom to leave the brain maybe to return - or maybe not.