Dualism (Identity)

by David Turell , Tuesday, March 17, 2015, 00:36 (3538 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: None of this would make any sense if you believed even one NDE, in which patients claim to have communicated with dead people. In your post last Friday you argued that because the patient was still alive, consciousness was not yet dead. But the dead person's spirit would have to contain the information relevant to its identity, including memories, and would have to be conscious of these in order to communicate with the NDE patient. So in that case, consciousness could not have “simply ceased to exist” when that particular person died. No doubt I am being obtuse, but perhaps you could dispense with images and, just as plainly as you have said that consciousness dies with the body, tell us either how you think the spirit (energy) can retain its identity without consciousness or, alternatively, confirm that in your view the spirit (energy) that survives death has no identity.-As a physician, we observe no external evidence of consciousness capable of being functional. In Alexander's case seven days of a non-recording EEG. Flat lines! This mean the thinking cortex cannot be working. Could a deeper area of the brain be hiding a functional consciousness? Not in Alexander's neurosurgical opinion.