I sometimes find support for the “Cheating The Ferryman” hypothesis in the oddest of places. In an earlier posting I mentioned that I discovered for the first time the very odd “PHI Phenomenon” that suggests that either the brain “buffers” information before presenting it to “consciousness” (whatever that is) which suggests that we are continually a second or two behind what is actually happening “out there” (whatever that is), or that all human beings have an ability to monitor the content of our immediate future before it happens (aka precognition), in a book entitled “Consciousness Explained” by eliminative-materialist Daniel Dennett. I have recently come across this amazing statement by famed NDE debunker Gerald M. Woerlee (I know that my good friend Terry Allen has had a long “discussion” with Dr. Woerlee about the NDE). In the quote below Dr. Woerlee is trying to prove that the NDE is, in fact, an hallucination (of course, calling it an “hallucination” explains nothing because modern science has no idea what an “hallucination is … this is just a nice label that they can hang on a mysterious experience in the pretence that giving something a name somehow suggests that it has been explained). What made me smile on reading this was in using this example he is presenting supportive evidence for “Cheating The Ferryman” in the time-dilation effect as death approaches is EXACTLY what has to happen for CTF to work … Here is what Dr. Woerlee writes:
“One way to identify the features endemic to the NDE itself is to examine the experiences of individuals who were never medically close to death when their NDEs occurred. Why do some people have NDEs under these circumstances, while others do not? One way to answer this question is to compare the experiences of those who survived jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge against the experiences of skydivers. From its completion in 1937 up until 2003, more than 1200 people have jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge in order to commit suicide (Friend 2003). The distance from the road surface of the bridge to the water is about 220 feet (67 meters), and it takes about 4 seconds to fall this distance before impacting at about 129 miles per hour (207 kilometers per hour). At this speed impact with the water is similar to high-speed impact with a concrete wall, so the resulting injuries are dreadful and nearly always fatal. Golden Gate Bridge jumpers who survived did not die because they entered the water feet first, suffering broken ankles and other lower limb fractures. At the time of his study, psychiatrist David Rosen interviewed 7 of the 10 people then known to have survived jumps from either the Golden Gate Bridge or the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The 7 persons interviewed were between 16 and 36 years old. Except for the various reasons that they attempted suicide, they were all in good health, and they all expected to die as a result of jumping from their bridge. Surviving jumpers reported undergoing the following experiences as they fell toward the water (Rosen 1975):
Time seemed to slow down, for the fall was experienced as taking a long time for each of them.
Feelings of peace and tranquillity.”
Exactly what my CTF hypothesis states will happen … of course what Dr. Woerlee fails to explain here is how objective time-flow” can subjectively be slowed down from the viewpoint of the experiencer. Indeed is this not reminiscent of one of the central incidents in the movie “Inception” when the bus drives off the bridge and is plummeting towards the water …. directed by, of course, Christopher Nolan who also has time dilation as a central plot device in his movie “Intersteller” …. yet more evidence that itladian themes are already in the zeitgeist? Below is the link to Dr. Woerlee’s article: http://infidels.org/…/mod…/gerald_woerlee/NDE-questions.html