[extropy-chat] Death

[The Avantguardian]

--- spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:

> Avant, I will offer two explanations, from which you
> are to 
> choose your favorite.
> 
> 1.  Some supernatural or poorly understood force or
> phenomenon,
> such as angels, demons, god, evolution, ESP, etc,
> sent you the 
> information of your uncle's passing as you slept,
> thus causing 
> the dream.

These had crossed my mind. But which was it? Is it
precognition/ ESP by my brain? Was it a last desperate
telepathic push by his oxygen starved brain? (he
seemed happier in my dream than when I last saw him
alive). Or is there something to this soul stuff after
all? 
 
> 2.  Since your uncle was older (had a
> grand-daughter) and was 
> very sick (sleeping with an oxygen mask), your very
> conscious 
> mind knew he was playing out the endgame of life,
> thus causing 
> the dream.

This too had crossed my mind. But he had been very
sick for a long time, though the doctors felt he had
several more months left at the time, provided he used
the meds and the oxygen. So what are the odds of a
random dream as such that so perfectly captured his
personality within an hour or two of his actual death?
His chronic condition had lasted a couple of years and
could have gone on for another year if he had his
oxygen. For the whole time, I don't remember any other
dreams of him before even during a bad scare the year
before that put him the hospital over Thanksgiving.
The P-value of this is well below the .05 normally
judged in science to indicate significance. The other
explanations may seem hoaky to the skeptics of the
world but this explanation seems to be very
improbable. 



The Avantguardian 
is 
Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that they haven't attempted to contact us." 
-Bill Watterson


		
__________________________________ 
Yahoo! Mail 
Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour: 
http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html