Laughing
Well-known member
Not sure what you mean red? Care to clear that up for me?
What happens when you die?
- Thread starter Scubahood
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red_harrington
Well-known member
OK sure, statements such as:
"At death, alomost universally our brain floods our system with seratonin, a happines hormone. It may explain near death experiences, but there is no explanation as to why our brain should do this. One thing we do know, at the point of death you will be as happy as you have ever been"
And
"There are actually loads of senses, but let's just think of the five major senses. This has never been proven, and billions have been spent on it by the american government, and probably the russian government too."
And
"The vast majority of our decision making happens at the sub-conscious level. For exmaple it is estimated that 90% of our desicion makine process' happen at the sub-conscious level. When buying stuff it goes up to 95%."
And
"Our subconscious mind never forgets anything. It has access to every word we have ever read or heard. To every interaction we have ever had. It can make connections that our conscious mind just isn't capable of."
None of this actually means very much, if true, and much of it seems like conjecture or lacks context. Have you got any sources to back any of these things up, for further reading, so I can educate myself?
Laughing
Well-known member
Right got it. Give me till tomorrow and I'll provide sources. I'll post them back on this thread. Watching sporting Lisbon atm
BoroBukowski
Well-known member
The reduced female pelvis size is the cause of birth after 9 months instead of much longer. The larger brain/skull of infant human beings would be too big after that hence birth has been perilous for the mother and child for much of human history. The baby must be born before it is too large to fit through the reduced pelvis...
SmogontheMarsh
Active member
Read a book titled 'Sum', fifty afterlives, quite entertaining
Laughing
Well-known member
Explained much better than I did it. No idea why our brains got so big though. Have you read anything that explains that? I can see an obvious survival reason behind it, but it's odd that we are the only species, still surviving, that had this evolutionary advantage.
I did read somewhere that it was to do with opposable thumbs, they made survival so easy, we had time to do other stuff, that additional time meant the bigger brained specimens started growing food, for example, and the bigger brained adults survived so prrocreated. As I said above, biology isn't my strong suite.
red_harrington
Well-known member
Thanks - not being bad but whenever I read something that makes me go Wow I always try and find something that will back it up; criticism is healthy and keeps us going forward on the straight and narrow
Laughing
Well-known member
No its good to question Red, it's how we learn. In my post about my history it's all I did, and still do. Drinking some beer so let me get resources for you. I'll find web resouces first off, then suggest some books you may want to read. Gimme half an hour. Listening to some folk music now so very chilled out
Laughing
Well-known member
BMJ article on how low levels of seratonin lead to depression: https://www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h1771/rr-10
Medical article on how to increase seratonin levels and a bit about death: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2077351/
A study on seratonin levels during death: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304394011005234
I loved this question because we all automatically assume we have 5 senses because we are taught this nonsense in school. Do you remember learning in school that the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees? It's not necessarily true, it works only on a flat piece of paper. Draw a triangle on a basket ball and measure the angles. So anyway, how many senses do we have, lots, think about your sense of balance or spatial awareness. These are senses because they tell us something about our surroundings, is the floor we are standing on moving, for example: https://www.livescience.com/60752-h...h, sight, hearing,,addition to the basic five.
Here is an article that gives a really balanced view on how we make decisions, remember this is difficult to prove:https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-28/february-2015/does-our-unconscious-rule
Another scientific article: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414145705.htm
For a one sided, but compelling argument read My Inner Chimp by proffessor steve peters, an absoloutely fascinating read.
Firstly, from my own personal experience, I have been hypnotized and had painful memories dragged from my past. Even as I was recounting an incident under hypnosis, I was alert enough to know I had supressed the memory. Our conscious memory is bloody awful, but I knew with certainty, what I was recounting was accurate, right down to a coat someone was wearing where we were sat, the sounds around me, Redcar train station, as it happens.
In any event some reading material: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/...s-memories-hide-in-the-brain-can-be-retrieved
If you want to follow up try the book origins of the consciousness in the bicameral mind by Julian Jaynes
Cheers for this, I had to look at my bookshelf and refresh my memory with a bit of reading whilst listening to some music.
What I would say is all the resources are articles I have read, and I am not above reading some crap or watching the odd youtube video from Giuana or some channel where the guy claims to be from another universe.
On a by-the-by. If anyone is interested in getting started in science in an easy manner do two things. Buy and read a brief history of time, then read it again a couple of weeks later. Then watch some hawking lectures on youtube, then deep dive with some feynman lectures on youtube.
Enjoy.
red_harrington
Well-known member
Thanks for that, will keep me busy for a bit, will reply again soon I hope cheers
Osboro
Well-known member
High Laughing, do you mean "my hidden chimp"? And would you recommend I read " the chimp paradox" first?
Laughing
Well-known member
Osboro the books coverr similar ground but are aimed at different audiences. The Chimp Paradox is aimed at adults trying to make sense of their decision making process' My Hidden Chimp I thought was more interesting as it covers a childs development and is aimed at parents to help their kids develop. If you have kids the second book is great. Actually they are both great.
I read them in the order they were published The Chimp Paradox first, but that's not necessary
I read them in the order they were published The Chimp Paradox first, but that's not necessary
Ingleby_Flash
Well-known member
OK, this is a true story. When I was about six I had a tonsilectomy, it went wrong, I nearly died and was rushed back into hospital on Christmas Eve. Same happened to two other kids at the same time and they died. But I don’t think this story is about me.
On Christmas day there were very few people staying in hospital, thinking about it now obviously only the serious cases, so they herded us all into one ward. I remember some important person coming round during the day (the mayor? an MP?). In the bed opposite me was an old lady, appeared very old to me. During Christmas night I awoke and I had a toy wooden airplane, my younger self recalling this story always assumed this to be a christmas present, not so sure now.
The toy airplane was broken and that made me cry. At the bed of the old lady opposite there was a long que of people, literally queuing up to see her one by one. A real variety of people, maybe twenty of them. There were no staff around that I was aware of. At the back of the que was a youngish guy wearing an old fashioned RAF uniform. He saw me upset, came across to me, smiled took the airplane and fixed it, he rejoined the que, I went back to sleep. Next morning the old lady had gone, the bed was empty.
For years, even into adulthood I took this memory at face value. Then in adulthood I questioned why there would be a big que of people in a ward full of people in a ward in the night, where had the lady gone. I have made some assumptions, I think this is the old lady’s story, but I don’t understand how I was pulled into it, or any of it to be honest.
Millbrook
Well-known member
There was a programme on Radio 4 recently which I only caught part of but I think it related human development and the increasing size of the brain with the ability to cook meat.
The brain uses a lot of energy and cooking meat made it easier for early humans to consume large quantities of protein.
It is more likely that the opposable thumbs made it easier to use tools, kill prey and butcher it with growing crops coming later as settlements developed. Early humans were hunter gatherers and once they mastered fire to go with hunting the ability to consume more would have improved their diet to a point where it impacted on their evolution.
BoroBukowski
Well-known member
It is a feedback loop between growth of neurons in the womb and developmental delay. The fact is in the womb at a certain stage of development the number of neurons and connections between them multiplies exponentially to a staggering number. In other animals the natural process of apoptosis (pre-programmed cell-death) occurs to the massive number of new neurons to sculpt the infant animal into what it will become e.g. a foal can walk and trot on all fours within 2 hours of birth
In humans the massive number of neurons and potential connections is left over and actually peaks at the age a child learns language. It will never have as many again in it's lifetime. No other animal has as many neurons or connections in it's brain hence the size
Human evolution has been driven very strongly by standing upright and becoming bipedal which closes the female pelvic gap forcing the child to be born early in a helpless state, but with a large brain and excess of neurons and potential connections and the extension of infant learning across it's life time.
WeeGord
Well-known member
It's events like these that fascinate me, they really do and it's great to see such an interesting thread hasn't become divisive or argumentative at all despite it's nature.
I have never experienced anything like this but I did have a very strange experience when I was in my teens. I had a very vivid dream that was bascially me looking out of a window across the beach and being able to hear the waves gently coming into shore and it was very peaceful. I had no idea where the place was because it wasn't anyhere I had ever been or experienced but the detail was superb; I remember the way the shape of the coastline along with the row of shops and houses along the sea front. I didn't think much of it at the time though couldn't believe how vivid the dream was. Being a teenager at the time I disappointed more than anything else as vivid dreams like that should have been the preserve of me and Kylie getting to know each other (hey, it was the early 90s!).
Anyhow I digress. Fast forward a couple of weeks and I was on a school trip to France and I awoke in the night and went to the window and the view I had was exactly the same as the view I'd had in my dream a couple of weeks previous. I had never been out of the UK at that point and it was well before the days of the internet where I could have somehow stumbled across a similar view.
I don't have any explanation at all as to what happened and don't necessarily think it adds a great deal to this conversation in itself but since then I have always been intrigued by the unexplained which is something my experience absolutely falls into. I can't see any logical or scientfic explanation that could justifiably explain what happened.
Colgates_shaving_foam
Well-known member
Things like that are really weird, for what it's worth (nothing) my view on stuff like this is that you had a dream about a beach, then you saw this actual beach and your brain went back and filled in the gaps in your dream to match the reality. So even though the dream came first, in your memory of it the dream was actually second after your brain edited it.
Laughing
Well-known member
Fascinating, I don't know much about biology as I said. Like reading simplified explanations of the workings though.
Laughing
Well-known member
I love stories like these too. The problem I have is a rationalize everything. As I am reading your account and Ingleby's my brains starts to automatically fit scientific explanation around the story. Your's has quite an easy explanation, Ingleby's not so much.
Ingleby_Flash
Well-known member
To add to my story and I didn’t put this in before because it’s very personal, but we’re all being sensible so I’ll share. I watched someone dying a year or two back, over a period of a few days, and one day he met and talked to all of the people who had been close to him including many who were long dead. He even introduced some of them to me, obviously he was in and out of consciousnes, but I could see he’d made his peace. There is obvious scientific explanations for this.
But I think the old lady was maybe doing the same, just how was I drawn into it and it became my perceived reality as well as hers. And why did it take me years to realise it.