By Michael Shermer — 2017
Memories, points of view and the self.
Read on www.scientificamerican.com
CLEAR ALL
In 2008, Eben Alexander, MD, an academic neurosurgeon for over twenty-five years, fell into a deep coma.
Once you begin meditating daily, life as you knew it will begin to take on some interesting twists and turns.
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If you’re anything like me, with eyes that roll over to the back of your head whenever you hear words like “reincarnation” or “parapsychology,” if you suffer great paroxysms of despair for human intelligence whenever you catch a glimpse of that dandelion-colored cover of Heaven Is For...
Looking to the future has always defined humanity. Will A.I. become the best crystal ball of all?
This is in fact the foundational assumption behind our notion of universal human rights: we are all conscious, and thus we all have needs and we all suffer.
To the list of identities Black people in America have assumed or been asked to, we can now add, thanks to this presidential election season, “Obama’s people” and “the African Americans.”
Our normal waking consciousness . . . is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.
It’s a surprising answer that looks far from obvious, but space joins a long list of candidates as old as the written word.