Annaka Harris, the wife of Sam Harris, says in an article Each transformative shift in our understanding of the universe has delivered the ego-shattering message that we’re not special-Earth is not the center of the universe, and life, including the human brain, is made up of the same particles as…

All aspects of consciousness — whether pains, perceptual experiences, thoughts and so on — can be changed, attenuated, modulated, even stopped altogether by the brain. Those who are skeptical of the existence of a soul make great play of this and appear to think this presents almost incontrovertible evidence that…

1. Introduction I read this article by a professor of philosophy called John G Messerly. He says: There has been a dramatic change in the last few centuries in the proportion of believers among the highly educated in the Western world. In the European Middle Ages belief in a God was ubiquitous…

No, I've never had an NDE. Nor had a mystical experience. Nor had a psychedelic trip (these can resemble NDEs, such as DMT trips). I guess you haven't either? I think we might both be in a better position if we had an NDE to better assess whether it's a…

I don't understand what is meant by saying an NDE is a "preparation" for an afterlife. The NDE is where the soul becomes detached from the body, full stop (or period as the Americans say). It's not a preparation, we need to do that before we die! …

I don't understand why having NDEs where one isn't anywhere near death somehow provides a reason to suppose NDEs aren't a glimpse of an afterlife? Why does one necessarily have to be near death in order to have a glimpse of the afterlife realm? And even if we accept that…

I’m sure that all of us are astounded that the squares A and B are actually the same colour. It is the shadow cast over B by the cylinder that makes us think otherwise. What this suggests is a quite incredible illusion. However, I think there is a pervasive naivety…

"[M]any distinguished thinkers [have] despair[ed] of ever being able to explain how a mind emerges from a brain, despite overwhelming experimental evidence that it does". I don’t believe there’s actually any evidence whatsoever. I presume you’re referring to the fact that damaged brains lead to damaged minds. Well.. . …

There are 2 possibilities: 1) This is the only life there is. When we die we simply cease to exist. Our lives and the Universe are, in a sense, ultimately absurd. In that case nothing we do ultimately matters. How much money we accumulate and our social status are transitory…