Near-death experiences

Fairly interesting article at CNN on NDE's (near-death experiences). People want to think of them as portents of heaven but they're really just shows your mind puts on in extreme circumstances. Still, an interesting read.

When I was in a coma and no one thought I'd live, my experience wasn't like the stories you hear about NDE's. When I was coming out of the coma, first I was five beings, then four, then two (I was never three beings), and then one -- at which point I woke up.

To me, this confirms that our consciousness is the result of several brain functions coming together to create the illusion of being a unitary, conscious creature. We are not one, we are many disjointed functions coming together to focus. And focus is consciousness.

So much for heaven and the afterlife. But I like my experience better than that of the godders.

Why isn't life enough for some people?

I don't understand religious people's obsession with "the afterlife". Why isn't living enough? And more pointedly, why do they consider human life meaningless unless eternal life is waiting in the wings? I don't get it. These people need to get out more often.

Look at the universe we find ourselves in. It's a hostile place out there yet here we are, cozy and comfy on this warm blue marble of a world. There's water all over the place and tons of stuff to eat. Life is good.

Beyond this, we can't help but compare ourselves to the other life forms on this planet. They have it great, too; don't get me wrong. But we're the lucky ones, the creatures who can understand our world and manipulate it to improve our situation. Better yet, by studying the world around us we've discovered awesome things: general relativity, quantum mechanics, evolution, dark energy, dark matter and black holes! Woot!

As a species, we're sitting pretty (while ruining the planet, but that's another post). A human can have a very rewarding life on this planet. Yet somehow, all this is meaningless if there's no heaven? What is wrong with religious people?

John Lennon's lyric -- Imagine there's no heaven -- is ultimately silly. You don't need to imagine anything. Just open your eyes and what you see is a world without a heaven. You're in it, kid. Congratulations!

About that heaven idea

From an interview with Stephen Hawking:

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first," he told the newspaper.

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."