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redqueen

(115,103 posts)
Mon Oct 15, 2012, 04:46 PM Oct 2012

Narnia is Real: A Skeptic’s Experience in Another Dimension

I haven't read the 'neuroscientist in heaven' thing, but I found this amusing nonetheless.

http://skepchick.org/2012/10/narnia-is-real-a-skeptics-experience-in-another-dimension/

As a skeptic and an atheist, I did not believe in a magical realm of talking animals that one can visit late at night. I’ve long been interested in science and critical thinking. I understand what happens to the brain when people are asleep, and I always believed that there were good scientific explanations for the detailed journeys to another dimension described by those who went to bed every night.

The brain is an astonishingly sophisticated but extremely delicate mechanism. Reduce the amount of pizza it receives by the smallest amount and it will react. In fact, it will literally react to just about anything. So it’s no surprise that people who had gone to sleep would awake with strange stories. But that didn’t mean they had journeyed anywhere real.

Although I consider myself a believer in magical extra dimensions where our souls can mingle in the ether, I was so more in name than in actual belief. Sure, I’ve attended Spectral Travelers meetings every Sunday night since I was a child old enough to understand the concept of inter-dimensional teleportation, but as a skeptic, I always figured it maybe sort of wasn’t entirely true.

But last night, after seven hours of rest during which the human part of my brain (i.e., all of it) showed significantly slowed brainwave patterns, I experienced something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in Narnia.

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6 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Narnia is Real: A Skeptic’s Experience in Another Dimension (Original Post) redqueen Oct 2012 OP
Hahahaha! AlbertCat Oct 2012 #1
Poe-ing New Agers is as tricky as Poe-ing fundies, for exactly the same reason. nt dmallind Oct 2012 #2
I once mixed a wicked cocktail of drugs Nevernose Oct 2012 #3
"I consider myself a believer in magical extra dimensions" FiveGoodMen Oct 2012 #4
The odd thing is that it seems really likely that the are many more dimensions Warren Stupidity Oct 2012 #5
Exactly. They just aren't magical. FiveGoodMen Oct 2012 #6

Nevernose

(13,081 posts)
3. I once mixed a wicked cocktail of drugs
Tue Oct 16, 2012, 06:17 PM
Oct 2012

On total accident, or at least mostly on accident. I've seen shit, been to places, experienced things this guy couldn't have imagined had he gone to a thousand "Spectral Travellers" meetings. As in, "I was naked, on the roof, hunting goblins that only I could see, when the voice of God erupted in my brain, transmitted from every electrical device in a hundred feet, and he told me to never use drugs again."

And though I took his advice and never used drugs again, I can say, without a doubt, that it was a total hallucination. Just because my brain told me it was real does not mean that now, when sober, I'm stupid enough to believe it was real.

I also think this guy is too dumb to know what "scientific reason" means.

FiveGoodMen

(20,018 posts)
4. "I consider myself a believer in magical extra dimensions"
Tue Oct 16, 2012, 06:22 PM
Oct 2012

To me, the inclusion of "magical" is a clue that this is a put-on.

Just guessing.

 

Warren Stupidity

(48,181 posts)
5. The odd thing is that it seems really likely that the are many more dimensions
Wed Oct 17, 2012, 07:50 AM
Oct 2012

Than the three spatial ones we perceive. They just aren't magical.

FiveGoodMen

(20,018 posts)
6. Exactly. They just aren't magical.
Wed Oct 17, 2012, 12:17 PM
Oct 2012

They also aren't vague enough that anyone can use them to justify any notion they might come up with. (Kind of like Energy and Quantum Uncertainty)

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