Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by kkawohl

Fact or fiction?

Neither, IMHO.

“Fact” implies something objectively, scientifically observably real. Based on years of studying claims like these, I agree with Turtle that they are the result of real subjective experiences, but not experiences of objective reality.

“Fiction” implies that the accounts on which these claims are based are intentional fabrications, understood by writer and reader to be unreal. While many such claims have been shown, some by the admission of their authors, to be fraudulent, I’ve personally known several such account-givers who I’m convinced believe their experiences to be factual.

Although claims that paranormal experiences such as NDEs cannot be scientifically tested are common, I don’t believe that to be the case. For example, people surviving NDEs commonly report looking down on their own bodies from an unusual height. For an account of my attempt to test this experimentally, see ”My humble (but troubled) experiment”.

Scientists agree that the biggest problem is finding these parallel universe entry points in out vicinity and most of us are literally “blind” and need special vision devices that can reveal parallel dimensions.

Although most people with a modicum of education in modern physics are acquainted with the Many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics that is considered to have originated the phrase “parallel universe”, a feature of nearly all such interpretations is that interaction of any kind between such universes is impossible. I don’t believe any legitimate, qualified scientists agree that “parallel universe entry points” can in principle exist, or can seriously propose the design of a device to detect them.

In his highly acclaimed science fiction trilogy “The Neanderthal Parallax”, writer Robert Sawyer described the accidental creation of such a portal, and its eventual controlled reproduction, when an attempt to perform a very large number of high-precision arithmetic operations using a quantum computer “uses up” all of the existing parallel universes, which, though commented on yet unexplained, are far fewer in number than predicted. Though interesting and written in a scientifically plausible style, Sawyer’s work is speculative fiction, not real science.