I read an article by Ralph Lewis M.D entitled: Is There Life After Death? The Mind-Body Problem He attacks any possibility of an afterlife. He says: Mind-brain dualism is the view that brain and mind are derived from entirely different kinds of things — physical stuff and mind-stuff. Dualism assumes that both kinds of stuff exist in the universe and that science has simply not yet detected and discovered the mind-stuff. Dualism feels intuitively correct to most people, as it fits with our subjective experience. But it is completely contradicted by science. Some clarity is in order here ..read more

Preamble The rally, or the last hurrah, which in recent years has been termed terminal lucidity, refers to where a person, typically suffering from dementia or some other neurological disorder, suddenly and seemingly miraculously reverts to their pre-dementia original selves. This usually occurs shortly before death. I recently read a book on this topic called Threshold: Terminal lucidity and the Border between Life and Death by Alexander Batthyány. I'll provide a summary of the salient points of this book followed by a few of my thoughts. A summary of the book According to Al ..read more

People ask what's the point of life, what's the point of the Universe, and even if there's an afterlife, what would be the point of it? Inevitably, they always seem to be depressed, or give off that impression. What's the point of life, what's the point of the Universe, indeed what's the point of the whole shebang? What's the point of ourselves existing at all? Why wasn't there just eternal nothingness? Why wasn't there no Universe, no consciousness at all? Nothing at all, forever? All similar questions. I suspect that deep inside they think that life and the Universe is absurd.  I defi ..read more

All 29 essays from the 2021 BICS essay contest that have been awarded a prize are now available to download and can be read for free from here. Thus far I have only read the winning essay, which was written by Jeffrey Mishlove. I had previously heard of Mishlove, but had not hitherto read anything by him nor had I watched any of his interviews. So I was not previously aware of his specific beliefs on the afterlife and hence am reading this without any preconceived ideas. Here are my thoughts on his winning essay. Ideally, how should we judge whether there’s an afterlife? I suggest, firstly, th ..read more

I read this Mail article concerning ghosts. In the comments someone says: Why we pay the BBC to promulgate such nonsense at further expense to the vulnerable sadly bereaved I have no idea. I often hear this sentiment that such anomalous experiences shouldn't even be mentioned. So, there are certain characteristic anomalous experiences that have been experienced across human history and across all cultures, but they shouldn't even be mentioned? Shouldn't even be discussed? Why? Because it's obvious that people are simply making up these stories? And this explanation is so obvious that no one s ..read more

I read the following article two days ago: Can We Explain Near-Death Experiences? The author concludes that, "NDEs are probably caused by changes in brain activity rather than direct contact with a supernatural dimension". Why does he think this? Briefly because: Strokes, seizures, and brain injuries can lead to experiences reminiscent of NDEs. Brainwave oscillations have been observed in rats having heart attacks. Psychoactive drugs -- ketamine, DMT -- resemble NDEs. First of all, the author assumes the idea that the brain produces consciousness is entirely unproblematic. That's false ..read more

The falsifiability criterion was advanced by Karl Popper to demarcate scientific from non-scientific theories. The idea is that if one has a scientific theory explaining some aspect of reality, but all conceivable observations of the world are compatible with the theory being either true or false, then, at least from a scientific perspective, your theory is devoid of any content. You're not actually saying anything about the world since all possible physical states of affairs are compatible with the theory. So Popper held that scientific theories must be falsifiable, that is we ..read more

Steven Novella, an American clinical neurologist, is well-known in the skeptical community and is co-founder of the New England Skeptical Society. He also has a blog that he regularly contributes to. I occasionally read it, and I usually find him refreshingly level-headed and sober in his assessment of the relevant issue at hand. Indeed, in the majority of his blog posts that I happen to read, I find myself in more or less full agreement with him. I do, however, very much disagree with him both regarding the possibility of an afterlife and on the existence of psi. Recently, Novella published ..read more

Two Alleged Challenges to the Reincarnation Hypothesis   The following blog post is someone's* summary of the research into reincarnation, which on the whole seems fair and balanced. There are two alleged challenges to the reincarnation hypothesis in there that I'd like to address. These challenges are not confined to this specific writer as I occasionally see them expressed elsewhere too. Regarding the first challenge, the author says: One of the most significant challenges for the theory of reincarnation is the lack of any scientifically verifiable mechanism by which it could occur. I ..read more

I frequently come across the claim that it is very important to eat a breakfast since skipping breakfast is associated with a high prevalence of obesity and being overweight. I confess, I never eat breakfasts and have scarcely done so my entire life. I simply do not feel hungry immediately after getting up. It takes about 3 or 4 hours after getting up before I start to feel hungry. It seems peculiar to me that for those similar to me and are averse to eating food in the morning, that they will actually lose weight or stay slim by forcing themselves to eat food, which is quite the opposite to ..read more