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Originally Posted by beautyscientist  Yes quite right, that an OBE implies the existance of is not that rigorous. It is just that when you get reports from people near to death saying that they seemed to be floating above their bodies is rather consistent with the completely irrational belief that we have a soul that leaves our body when it dies. I accept that it is a long way from proving it. It is just that for me personally the consistent nature of reports of OBEs was the biggest challenge to my reason based world view. This research has removed that challenge. |
......Um, what research? All that article says is that they created a virtual reality simulation of what it would be like to be out of body and people said it felt like they were really outside their bodies..... I could be way off base here, but that doesn't tell me very much. Basically all it told me was that if you screw with your brains visual perspective of where your body is, it screws with your mind/brain's ability to determine its physically relative location. For some reason that doesn't seem very profound to me. OBE's may not be real, but this article doesn't provide much evidence to refute their "realness". It doesn't refute the hundreds of documented cases where NDE'ers observe physical phenomena clearly outside the range of the scientifically categorized 5 senses.
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Originally Posted by beautyscientist I think that the great beauty of science is its ability to explain things that our intuitive brains just can't get. Out of body experiences have bothered me for years because they seem to imply the existance of a soul. If we have a soul than that implies all sorts of other things which are very hard to understand. I didn't think that OBEs would ever be something that could be studied objectively - not in my lifetime at any rate.
But now it turns out that they can be produced at will in the laboratory.
This pleases me immensely. Another area that had seemed beyond the power of reason and rationality has been explored, and found to comply with the rules that apply elsewhere. |
I'm curious as to why you feel threatened by the existence of a soul. Sure, maybe it makes the world a little or perhaps even a lot more complex, but if you ask me, that could be a good thing.
For a different perspective on this issue, and other kicks and giggles, you should read:
Amazon.com: Lessons from the Light: What We Can Learn from the Near-death Experience: Books: Kenneth Ring,Evelyn Elsaesser Valarino,Caroline Myss
and
Amazon.com: Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation: Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged: Books: Ian Stevenson