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Studying Death
Scientist Working on Studying Near Death Experiences. I'm VERY glad to see things like this getting studied with a scientific approach, precisely because I believe two things that many believe to be contradictory:
1. Everything in the universe can be explained scientifically.
2. Some "paranormal" things, such as ghosts, the 6th sense, etc., exist.
I've had (what I consider to be) an encounter with a ghost, which really challenged my world view at the time, and so I've thought about this a lot. To sum it up, I believe in the unexplained, but I don't believe in the unexplainable. But too often, things that are unexplained get shunted into that second category, and it suddenly becomes taboo to try to explore them scientifically or try to understand them. So what is a ghost? Is it the echo of a person who once lived? Is it a trick of biochemistry? We don't know, because it's not considered "okay" to study it scientifically. So I hope that that article represents one of the instances of a brave scientist taking a different approach - unfortunately, it wasn't all that useful an article over all, but I still feel like it's moving in the right direction. :)
1. Everything in the universe can be explained scientifically.
2. Some "paranormal" things, such as ghosts, the 6th sense, etc., exist.
I've had (what I consider to be) an encounter with a ghost, which really challenged my world view at the time, and so I've thought about this a lot. To sum it up, I believe in the unexplained, but I don't believe in the unexplainable. But too often, things that are unexplained get shunted into that second category, and it suddenly becomes taboo to try to explore them scientifically or try to understand them. So what is a ghost? Is it the echo of a person who once lived? Is it a trick of biochemistry? We don't know, because it's not considered "okay" to study it scientifically. So I hope that that article represents one of the instances of a brave scientist taking a different approach - unfortunately, it wasn't all that useful an article over all, but I still feel like it's moving in the right direction. :)
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Though I'm not sure whether we as humans will ever be able to explain all things scientifically, that's not the same thing as saying they can not be explained scientifically. I think what was seen as "mystical" before is the same thing as science today in a lot of respects. When we see books like Harry Potter using "magic" to make things happen, but then studying the magic and understanding the rules that it follows, I think, "But that IS basically how the world works." (Obviously with a different sort of "magic," but it's still fascinating to think about all the things we don't understand and yet could still be.)
(That's a different subject from the article, of course, and I hope it doesn't sound like I'm belittling it with that comparison. Harry Potter is obviously pretend while the article is serious.)
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http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~epnichol/files/epn/Life_Flashing.pdf