Green Comet

See also parts one and two.

Near death experiences(NDE) have interested people for a long time. They are so powerful and mysterious that we invest them with deep meaning. The earliest recorded example we have is from Plato in, “The Myth of Er,” the concluding legend in “The Republic.” Er dies in battle and revives ten days later on his funeral pyre. He tells people of his time in the afterlife, celestial spheres and reincarnation. Supposedly, moral people are rewarded and immoral people punished after death. Continue reading →

See also parts one and three.

Last time, we looked at our amazing brains and how they can build large, complex representations of reality from patchy information supplied by our senses. Although our eyes and ears have small sensors that can only transmit approximations of what they detect to our brains, those amazing organs reconstruct a three dimensional replica of it which is sufficient for our needs. And they do it many times a second. Continue reading →

See also parts two and three.

The brain is an amazing organ, or collection of organs, depending on one’s point of view. It all seems to work together as one, but it is composed of many different subsystems. Neurologists have been able to map specific functions onto specific brain regions, such as so-called “speech centers” and parts associated with emotions, but the brain brings it all together to form one sense of self existing in one version of the world. Continue reading →