Bigelow Institute unveils $1M life after death essay prize winners

[papageorge1]

3 minutes ago, Saru said:

What makes your current consciousness 'you' and not someone else ? 

 

I believe we are more than a physical body in the first place. We have astral/mental components along with a Causal Body (soul). The Causal Body (soul) is really 'you' and what can initiate reincarnations for another 'you'.

[Saru]

3 minutes ago, papageorge1 said:

I believe we are more than a physical body in the first place. We have astral/mental components along with a Causal Body (soul). The Causal Body (soul) is really 'you' and what can initiate reincarnations for another 'you'.

It's quite possible, we have no way to know - some say that the brain is an interface through which the 'soul' 'drives' our physical bodies.

The beauty of all this is that it is a genuine mystery - I don't think the human brain is even capable of fully comprehending the nature of existence.

[XenoFish]

1 minute ago, Saru said:

What is existence, or even reality for that matter - is the physical world a construct of our minds ? We know so little about the nature of reality, how does anything exist ? How could it not ? No one has a good answer, only assumptions. We do construct a representation of reality based on sensory information. However that information is a little shaky. Same as our memories are. We could all be NPC's in someone's solipsistic universe. We could also all be the exact same 'person' with a massive case of multiple body disorder. If time outside of this reality isn't linear then you and I along with everyone else that has, will, or did exist is just one person. Even the word person might not even be correct. For all I know that could apply to every living thing. 

'Prison' is a human concept - you could just as easily suggest that you are a prisoner inside your own body, or that you are imprisoned in the universe.

This entire reality could be an illusion and we are just looking out the 'windows' of some poor creature we're possessing. 

Same answer I gave to Papageorge above - what makes you 'you' and not someone else ? You are only you as it is the developed personality that you currently possess, with the right head injury you could be forgotten and a new you take it's place, same body, different person. 

When you are born, you start to exist as a specific individual with the perception of that individual, how did that happen ? Genetics

 

[papageorge1]

Just now, Saru said:

It's quite possible, we have no way to know - some say that the brain is an interface through which we 'drive' our physical bodies.

The beauty of all this is that it is a genuine mystery - I don't think the human brain is capable of comprehending the answer.

Actually I am a more optimistic on this question. I do believe there are masters/clairvoyants/whatever-term that can perceive beyond the veil and tell us quite a bit about these things. I highly respect Vedic (Hindu), Spiritualist, Theosophical and other esoteric wisdom traditions that have grown from these with enhanced abilities to pierce the veil.

[Tatetopa]

2 hours ago, OverSword said:

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence.  People dying on the operating table and coming back accurately repeating a conversation people were having in the waiting room, etc (many examples of this I've heard but not personally experienced).  What you're asking for I think is proof, not evidence, and my example here is not proof but there are plenty of similar pieces of "evidence".

I will accept those stories as true.  They are proof that brain activity continues for a time after heart and lungs cease.  As yet, they are not proof of consciousness persisting after the body and brain have ceased functioning for any appreciable time. . 

[Tatetopa]

Well if life after death is as mundane and limited as returning reports have described, it is not a lot to look forward to.  

[papageorge1]

56 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

I will accept those stories as true.  They are proof that brain activity continues for a time after heart and lungs cease.  As yet, they are not proof of consciousness persisting after the body and brain have ceased functioning for any appreciable time. . 

The purpose of the winning paper in this contest was to show evidence for survival months and many years after permanent death. In fact the winner of the half-million dollar prize was the paper Beyond the Brain 'The Survival of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death'. This is not just about NDE patients.

[onlookerofmayhem]

1 hour ago, Saru said:

When you are born, you start to exist as a specific individual with the perception of that individual, how did that happen ?

"You" technically may start existing when egg and sperm meet, but you are a direct extension of all life leading back to abiogenesis.

Conciousness, in the sense of self awareness, seems to be limited to, what we consider, living things.

There's plenty of debate as to what constitutes a living thing.  Hell, some botanists argue that plants can be conscious. They surely are living.

But conciousness is only found in a portion of those living things.

This in turn points to conciousness being an evolved construct.

When does a fertilized egg start becoming aware of itself?

No brain, no conciousness?

Is a jellyfish conscious? 

I'm sure most people would consider a jellyfish to be a living thing, but does it have the hardware to be self aware?

Apologies for the rambling and possibly rhetorical questions. It's definitely a complicated subject.

As to the OP, it doesn't really do anything to move the needle on whether there is something after death or not.

It was an essay contest.

People can tell stories until the cows come home.

It will be interesting in the next week or two when BICS publishes the essays so they can be discussed.

[zep73]

Like @onlookerofmayhem said, it's just an essay competition, not a scientific study. Essays are about thoughts and experiences, not about collecting evidence or proving anything.

I'd also like to question the very concept that all of this discussion is based upon: Life.

Is there even such a thing in this universe? Or are cells, alone or together, just mechanisms? I believe they are, and if you studied biology very deeply, you'd agree. We are mechanisms.

Do mechanisms survive "death" (permanent defect)? Well sure, if you record them with a camera while they function, they survive in some sense.
So the next question would be, does the universe record us somehow? Well, that is the real question!

 

A.I.'s talking about love

[5:57]
Note: The people in the video are sophisticated avatars, not real. There are no humans, or human activity, whatsoever in the video! It's pure computer. All of it.

Edited November 9, 2021 by zep73

[Timothy]

@zep73 why did they make the guy look like a budget Lewis Hamilton?

[CigaretteSmokingMan]

Be sure to add it to the Fiction sections

[The_Phantom_Stranger]

13 hours ago, Saru said:

I always approach this topic by considering the following:

If your conscious existence (or potential for conscious awareness) did not begin until you were born, then it means you spent the entire history of the universe (or possible infinite cycles of the universe, the multiverse or whatever), not existing.

Then, you suddenly popped into existence - because you are here now, when you weren't before.

When you die, you might return to a state of non-existence. But you survived non-existence before - because you previously didn't exist, and now you do.

So what's to stop that happening again ? If you don't exist, time has no meaning, the entire age of a million billion cycles of the universe would pass in a nanosecond. So whatever set of circumstances needed to happen for you (i.e. a conscious entity that you perceive as 'you') to exist now, will surely occur again - an infinite number of times throughout eternity.

We don't even understand what consciousness is to begin with, perhaps we are all simply facets of an infinite, conscious universe.

I have had similar thoughts. I think of it as a conservation of matter and energy. I still believe that storms are the ultimate form of consciousness here on Earth.

[HandsomeGorilla]

this response has nothing to do with anything and I don't believe in life after death... 

anyway, this guy is cool as all hell. ever listen to him in interviews? he also has had a lifelong fascination with UFOs after his grandparents had a 'very scary' close encounter back in the 40s where a fiery ball of light approached their car and they thought they were going to die. very interesting guy, you don't get a 'billionaire' vibe from him 

[zep73]

7 hours ago, Timothy said:

@zep73 why did they make the guy look like a budget Lewis Hamilton?

If I remember correctly, "he" chose to look like that.

[Timothy]

12 hours ago, zep73 said:

If I remember correctly, "he" chose to look like that.

Must have been some F1 in the news that week…

[+Pettytalk]

I'm thinking, and I'm conscious that this topic could be the hottest, unexplained mystery to remain unexplained on unexplained mystery. How can I be sure? How can anyone be sure in a world that is constantly changing? Whenever I really want to know, I mean really, really know, I really read Plato. Because REALITY never changes, it is what it is. And it IS, and will forever be an eternal IS. Because there never was, nor will ever be anything other than IS.  Reality is reality. Consciousness? Consciousness is knowing, a knowing of oneself. Therefore let us be conscious of the true meaning of an old, and very wise saying. "Know thyself." Consciousness is more than a feeling, since it still survives after the body stops feeling anything. At least that's the feeling I'm getting from the $500,0000 winning essay.

To be conscious of reality is like jumping into a ring of fire, the further you go down the flames only get higher.  Without a doubt, reality cannot be known. I mean that in both senses of doubt. Philosophy begins with wonder. To wonder is to doubt, as I wonder if it's even possible to really know reality by us mere mortals. I wonder if we'll ever know reality. I suspect that only an eternal being knows reality, since we would have to travel to infinity to see if our universe is infinite. A point not easily reached, since it would take all the time in eternity to get there. Although I'm conscious that that's the only way of knowing that reality, I know that I cant get there to see infinity for myself.

There's some very interesting, and important concepts of doubts and knowing, being discussed here. And we have none other than the Administrator, as an active participant, also sharing personal thoughts on the matter. Well not really matter, since it seems that consciousness is not a matter of physical matter, and that does really matter, in this sense of matter. It's also another matter I also meant to indicate, the matter of anyone getting out of line from the lines drawn by the rules ruling over posting. We should all behave seemingly, since we'll be under the constant eye of the highest authority, because he too seems to have a dog in this fight, as they say.  Long live the king! And similarly, long live this topic/thread. And everyone is under the rules under a good administrator. Similarly, a good king places himself under his own laws. I've been known to be a rascal here, when it comes to this particular matter. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm conscious of the rules, if consciousness is equal to knowing. However, without intelligence there is no knowing of oneself, whether we are many or just one, in all.

This is not the usual tendering of an apple to the teacher, but I would say that Saru has made some very good comments which are difficult to dispute, like this one. "Consciousness is a matter that science does not know."  But It seems that there are some here arguing to contradict this not-knowing, as they argue that consciousness is a matter of having brains. And without brains we would not be conscious of anything, not even conscious that we are not conscious after the brains and the bodies that contains them are long dead. Or that there's no consciousness possible, even in a compromise, another condition, partly-dead, which is another matter, a condition that matters here too, and the condition is technically, and scientifically understood, and accepted as being, "brain-dead." There are a lot of living beings in this condition, and may I say, not only in medical facilities. Don't ask me why! As I would then be conscious of needing to violate the golden rule.

If we want to explore the corridors of our higher institutions, and ponder upon the wonder of consciousness, on whether this thing we call consciousness needs a physical body, or not, we: "First then, in my judgment, we must make a distinction and ask, What is that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that which is always becoming and never is? That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is."

 

 

[Tom1200]

On 11/8/2021 at 11:14 PM, zep73 said:

Like @onlookerofmayhem said, it's just an essay competition, not a scientific study. Essays are about thoughts and experiences, not about collecting evidence or proving anything.

Yet this bloke won half a million dollars for what he wrote!  Proof indeed that life's not fair (and death probably less so).

'Doctor' Mishmash's winning essay starts abysmally and just keeps getting worse.  Every new 'conclusion' is based on the acceptance that all previous speculation is proven, whereas nothing he writes has been (or even can be) verified.  Here's from page 7:

"There is only one reasonable way to account for this event, the most earthshaking and unforgettable of my young life. Uncle Harry actually visited me in a dream when he died. Extrasensory perception alone doesn’t account for the overwhelmingly potent emotions associated with his presence."

The author ignores every other sensible explanation - coincidence, déjà vu (discussed in many other threads), prior knowledge (Uncle Harry was 84 after all), lying, etc.  His back-up explanation is ESP!  No - for the purpose of this essay (ker-ching!) there is nothing to gain by introducing doubt - Harry must have done the rounds when he died but only Mishmash remembers.

Then on page 14:

"We have had excellent evidence for postmortem survival for over 160 years. This evidence has always been widely accepted, especially by those who have taken the time and trouble to study it carefully. However, with very few exceptions, academic and scientific institutions treat this evidence as if it never existed."

In other words - as long as you simply 'accept' stories as factual you will probably believe them; if you call it 'study' you're okay in his eyes.  But anyone who wants 'academic or scientific' proof is being deeply unreasonable - why can't you all just accept what you're told? 

The 'essay' continues with a whole bunch of stories.  (Almost as many as there are about goblins and fairies.)  Certain regular posters argue that if there is sufficient anecdotal evidence for X then it must be treated as true.  That is not a logical position - if you can't understand why, ask Santa to bring you wisdom this Christmas.  He's real, and so's his wife.

I haven't read every word of the 'essay' (although I bet I've read far more than most of the 'believers' here).  If you disagree with my interpretation could you please direct me to a specific page/story you feel best supports the theory?

[+Pettytalk]

BICS has assembled a competent board of directors with deep experience in the topic to provide advice on the strategic direction and priorities of the Institute.

The board of directors are:

• Robert T. Bigelow, BICS Founder
• Christopher C. Green M.D., Ph.D, Physician in Private and Governmental Forensic Neurology
• Leslie Kean, Journalist and Author
• Colm A Kelleher Ph.D, Molecular Biologist and Anomalies Researcher
• Jeffrey J Kripal Ph.D, Rice University Professor of Philosophy and Religious Thought
• Harold Puthoff Ph.D, Theoretical Physicist
• Jessica Utts Ph.D, Professor Emerita of Statistics UC Irvine
• Brian Weiss M.D, Chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai Medical Center, Miami

In reference to giving any scientific credibility to the subject and the contents of the essays, the Bigelow Institute board of directors lists some very prominent scholars. I would imagine they assured the so-called proof/evidence presented by the essayists in the contest was scrutinized by competent judges, in order to determine the order to assign a place of the one which was best, and down the line. I would be curious to see the content of the two other essays which placed. The title of the third place essay caught my eye.  Seems that there may be a little plagiarism going on.  I read that soon all the essays would be made available on their site.

"The Ghost in the Time Machine."

[IronGhost]

Whatever the case, I was thrilled that Jeffrey Mishlove won first place. I've been a huge fan for two decades ever  since he had his "Thinking Allowed" show on PBS and now has rebooted it with "New Thinking Allowed" on YouTube. 

Mishlove also wrote one of the most influential and compelling books on a paranormal topic ever -- "The PK Man." It details his 10-year study of Ted Owens, the telekinesis guy. 

 

 

Edited November 11, 2021 by IronGhost
typo

[Saru]

All 29 of the winning essays are now available to view online:

https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php

Should make for some interesting reading.

[okispider]

just watch Unexplained Caught on Camera on TV....you will see proof of life after death

[fred_mc]

On 11/8/2021 at 7:33 PM, papageorge1 said:

The accumulation of stories is evidence in my consideration when they form a coherent view as that quote alluded to.

Detection of things beyond the physical by physical senses and instruments is not possible at this time. However there are those claiming insight through psychic sensing too which I consider.

If you are a follower of science only (scientism) then you can only remain neutral to these cases.

Yes, we know that our instruments can't detect everything that exists. For example, most scientists agree on that dark matter exists, and that there is much more of it than normal matter. However, so far, nobody has been able to make an instrument to detect dark matter since it interacts very little with normal matter.

[papageorge1]

9 hours ago, fred_mc said:

Yes, we know that our instruments can't detect everything that exists. For example, most scientists agree on that dark matter exists, and that there is much more of it than normal matter. However, so far, nobody has been able to make an instrument to detect dark matter since it interacts very little with normal matter.

I'm thinking the key is that this matter is in dimensions (4th, 5th, ......) beyond the directly detectable three-dimensions of our physical senses and instruments. 

[+Liquid Gardens]

On 11/8/2021 at 4:17 PM, Saru said:

It's quite possible, we have no way to know - some say that the brain is an interface through which the 'soul' 'drives' our physical bodies.

The beauty of all this is that it is a genuine mystery

It's 'quite' possible also that that we exist only as characters in a role-playing game with no soul at all, just computation, driving 'us'.  Or that we all exist only as figments of Gandalf's imagination.  There are many possibilities that can be dreamed up and I'm not mentioning these to mock the idea that there is a soul driving our bodies, I'm just pointing out that the soul possibility has the same issue as the one where we only exist as rpg characters, no evidence, so I'm not sure how one idea can be more reasonable or feasible or possible than another.

I'm not sure what is needed either for 'quite' possible versus just possible.  It's possible that the world was poofed into existence 6 or so thousand years ago, complete with dinosaur fossils, as young-earth creationists argue. Given one's perspective there is potentially no possible evidence that can ever dispute it, but I don't consider 'is the world over 6000 years old' a genuine mystery.

I'll be interested to see what proponents see as one of the better points in these essays.  The one, "Long Concealed, Now Revealed – Overwhelming Evidence for Life after Death", essay was pretty terrible from what I read of it so hopefully there are some better arguments somewhere that go beyond, as @Tom1200 accurately noted, unverified stories and testimonials.