Mark Alexander, who sometimes comments on this blog, has a new Kindle ebook out called "Imagination." I've bought it and started reading it. (The price is only $2.99.) Written in the brisk style of a seminar presentation, the book talks about limits that we impose on ourselves, restricting our creativity and blocking us from achieving our full potential. Take a look at "Imagination" at this link:

http://tinyurl.com/7ywb9rb

Comments

[Ray]

Thanks for the recommendation Michael. I always enjoy reading Mark Alexander's thoughts on this blog so I will certainly check out this book by him. Television has become so trite nowadays that I do nothing but read anymore and go through books rather quickly so this will be a treat.

[Kevin]

I bought a copy. It's interesting so far. Really enjoyed the video links at the beginning. If I become an enlightened master after I finish it, I'll come back and let you know!

[leo]

What does everyone think of this particular article by Physicist Sean Carroll http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/05/23/physics-and-the-immortality-of-the-soul/ He proclaims that physics shows life after death to be scientifically impossible.

[Sleepers]

Leo: read it awhile ago. Good argument, but presents nothing we haven't heard before. Its conclusory and doesn't even begin to go into the evidence for life after death. There's too much out there that goes unexplained by physics that is truly extraordinary.

[sbu]

What does everyone think of this particular article by Physicist Sean Carroll http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/05/23/physics-and-the-immortality-of-the-soul/ He proclaims that physics shows life after death to be scientifically impossible.

What do you expect when looking at this matter from a pure reductionist physical perspective? Since Descartes it's been an issue how the immaterial mind could interact with matter in a dualistic worldview.

There's however no evidence that the true underlying reality correspondes to a set of mathematical equations. It's just an assumption by Sean Carroll and the majority of contemporary physicists.

[Ray]

I see these articles as nothing more than a "rallying the troops" type of expose for skeptics Leo. This argument has been presented and packaged over and over by arch skeptics it almost assembly line essay writing. It is only based on kind mans opinion of a theory which IMO adds nothing to the overall debate. I see arch skeptics like Shermer do this a lot...belching out anti paranormal essays on journals and magazines already hostile to such phenomenon. Both sides are guilty of it but I fail to see how it is scientific to dismiss something based on a theory.

[Ray]

Sorry for grammar I'm in a boring meeting on my iPhone

[Ben]

Thanks for the recommendation, Michael. Looks really interesting.

[Juan]

Leo

The author of that article makes many dubious assumptions, such that modern physics is a complete description of reality, ignoring the empirical evidence on the etheric body and put forward the theory of evidence, among others. Would be worth doing a post on this topic.

[Leo MacDonald]

Yeah I did a rebuttal on this awhile back. Just wondering what others thought of it. You can read the rebuttal here.
http://paranormalandlifeafterdeath.blogspot.com/2011/11/rebuttal-to-physicist-sean-carroll.html

[Mark Alexander]

Thanks for the mention, Michael. By the way, if those of you who downloaded it early on notice typos in a later chapter, they have been corrected. Just send an email to Amazon Customer Service and ask to be sent the updated version and they will arrange it. (I have found that simply reloading your archived version does not give you the uodated version.

Also, ruthless feedback is appreciated, particularly since this Kindle approach bypasses professional editors. I'm especially interested in whether if the final About the Author piece is off-putting. I'm thinking of reducing it to a simple paragraph.

Thanks to youall.

[Kris]

Well I have posted my opening comments about Dr Woerlee and I posted the link to the amazon discussions he has had on the Reynolds case. Let's see if we can get a few hawks after this silly pigeon.

http://www.pointofinquiry.org/gerald_woerlee_and_susan_blackmore_near-death_experiences_and_consciousness/

[Ian Wardell]

Regarding Leo's link. I find it amusing that people think the laws of physics rule out consciousness surviving death when those very same laws -- assuming the world is physically closed -- also rule out the existence of consciousness before death too!

The author says:

"If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?"

The soul/self is neither complex, nor is it physical, hence it would not be made of particles. Nothing is holding it together since there is no propensity for it to explode. The question of how it interacts with matter has as much meaning as asking how matter interacts with matter -- namely it's simply a brute fact about reality.

All these "difficulties" stem from an assumption that the self/soul must be physical. A question: How many of those who subscribe to the survival hypothesis think the self/soul is physical??

'Nuff said.

[someone]

http://research.obe4u.com/nde-simulating-experiment/
hey Michael though you should read this ( I already have come to a conclusion, however you could start some discussion I hope)

[Bruce Siegel]

Someone, that article is interesting. I have to study it more, but my initial reaction is that this part seems questionable:

"Assuming that such near-death experiences indeed take place during REM sleep, spontaneous out-of-body travel and flight through a tunnel could be ascribed to the expectation of experiencing them. For example, a person begins to realize that he is near death, and starts expecting an imminent exit from the body and flight through a tunnel, as he has heard many stories to that effect."

My impression is that rather than expecting to see it, many experiencers are surprised at the sudden appearance of a tunnel.

[Bruce Siegel]

Here's a question I don't have an immediate answer for. When children have NDEs, do they go through tunnels? You certainly wouldn't think they'd be expecting to based on an exposure to NDE lore.

[Juan]

Ian Wardell

I believe that the soul is physical, ie there is a invisible and intangible body made of an energy unknown to modern physics that persists after death and that is the authentic vehicle of consciousness. In fact the evidence for the existence of the astral or etheric body tell us that there is something that can detach from the body, which occupies a place in space: Durville experiments on the exteriorization of sensibility, Osis experiments on experiences outside the body, among others. And if something takes a space, then it is physical, material.

We can consider that the soul is not the same as the astral body, but then I do not know what we mean by soul. The important thing is that there is convincing evidence of the existence of the ethereal body as an authentic vehicle of consciousness and modern physics gives us certainly not a complete description of reality.

[unreal]

someone I read that article but the obvious questions have to be asked, where is the Life Review, where is communication with deceased relatives and told it is not their time and they have to return to their earthy life, Overall it sounds an unconvincing experiment IMO and the researcher sounds biased towards skeptical explanations for NDE's.

Bruce: Melvin Morse would be a good person to ask that question, I do recall one young girl who had a NDE says she went through a Tunnel that was lined with Bricks.

[someone]

I think some of the experiences did involve communication with deceased relatives