Guest Editorial: Who's Afraid of Life After Death?

The evidence for an afterlife is sufficiently strong and compelling that an unbiased person ought to conclude that materialism is a false theory. Yet the academy refuses to examine the evidence, and clings to materialism as if it were a priori true, instead of a posteriori false. I suggest several explanations for the monumental failure of curiosity on the part of academia. First, there is deep confusion between the concepts of evidence and proof. Second, materialism functions as a powerful paradigm that structures the shape of scientific explanations, but is not itself open to question. The third explanation is intellectual arrogance, as the possible existence of disembodied intelligence threatens the materialistic belief that the educated human brain is the highest form of intelligence in existence. Finally, there is a social taboo against belief in an afterlife, as our whole way of life is predicated on materialism and might collapse if near-death experiences, particularly the life review, were accepted as fact.     

Introduction: Attaining a New Stage

The current issue of The Journal of Adult Development addresses one of the threads of adult development, namely stage and stage change. There are four major forms of adult developmental study that can be identified: positive adult development, directionless change, stasis, and decline. The first of the four forms, positive adult developmental processes, is divided into at least six areas of study: hierarchical complexity (orders, stages), knowledge, experience, expertise, wisdom, and spirituality. The topic of this special issue, stage and stage change, is therefore part of the study of positive adult developmental processes. Finally, the manner in which these topics are studied both in this special issue and elsewhere can be characterized in terms of three broad classifications (Commons & Bresette, 2000, Commons & Miller, 1998) for the acquisition of knowledge and the verification of truth in general. These classifications include analytic, experiential, and empirical means to reach truth.     

Predicting consumer satisfaction from CD players

This paper explores the relationship between expectations and product satisfaction evaluations in a high‐involvement product category. While doing so, the paper attempts to develop a regression model to predict the overall level of consumer satisfaction derived from CD players, using a number of explanatory variables within an ordinary least squares framework. This regression model links overall satisfaction to confidence in other people's opinions, expectations of product quality, experience with product quality, replacement rate and the importance of price. The model predicts fairly well for cross‐sectional data, with an adjusted R² of 57 per cent, and appears to be robust. Finally, the implications of these results for marketers are discussed. Copyright © 2002 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Hyperdimensional Perspectives in Out-of-Body and Near-Death Experiences

Recent theories of modern physics predict that the universe has more dimensions than are apparent to us. Many near-death experiencers report the perception that there are more dimensions than we are commonly aware of. These two statements might be related. This article examines the possibility of additional dimensions (hyperdimensions), what they would seem like, and whether they seem to be described by the unusual visual perspectives found in out-of-body and near-death experience accounts. I examine some implications of a hyperdimensional model of the universe.     

At the Edge of Eternity's Shadows: Scaling the Fractal Continuum from Lower into Higher Space

In this paper, I elaborate the hyperspatial implications of the fractal-scaling scheme that I introduced previously. Four case examples where out-of-body experiencers reported heightened and amplified visual capacities are correlated with this explanatory model. Three of these cases are identified as including an additional hyperspace signifier, the reported capacity to see through solid and opaque physical obstructions. One of these cases included yet another hyperspace signifier, the reported capacity to pass through such obstructions. Additional evidence supportive of this thesis is drawn from the literature on ecstatic experience, including out-of-body, near-death, and other varieties of mystical or visionary experience, and from that on psychedelic experience. Yet other hyperspace signifiers reported by ecstatic voyagers are also considered, including sensations of seeing outward spherically in 360 degrees and of seeing on all sides of three-dimensional solids simultaneously.     

DNA世纪之回顾——浅析科学发现的要素

DNA作为生物遗传物质,它的发现是一个伟大的历史事件,具有所有科学发现的共性,回顾一个世纪的DNA发现的科学史,可以升华出许多的哲学观点和理论。经验和推理是科学赖以建立的两根支柱,一定历史条件下学科的交叉与渗透对科学发现有重大意义。分析科学的继承与DNA双螺旋结构的提出、DNA双螺旋发现中科学家的创造性思维及思维方式的选择等几个方面,旨在总结科学发展的经验,从而更加理性、主动地发展科学。     

Assessing affective experience of in-situ environmental walk via wearable biosensors for evidence-based design

In environmental psychology research, the most commonly used methods are phenomenological interviews and psychometric scales. Recently, with the development of wearable bio-sensing devices, a new approach based on bio-sensing data is becoming possible. In this study, we examined the feasibility of using wearable biosensors to document affective experience during in-situ walk. An eight-channelled Procomp multi-bio-sensing devices (EKG, EEG, skin conductance, temperature, facial EMG, respiration) were used, in addition with a GPS tracker, to measure the in situ physiological affective responses to environmental stimuli. This pilot experiment revealed consistent results between bio-sensing measures and two traditional methods, i.e. phenomenological interviews and psychological Likert scale rating, which indicated that mobile bio-sensing could be a promising method in measuring in-situ affective responses to environmental stimuli as well as diagnosing potential environmental stressor. This new bio-sensory method, as exemplified in this paper, could help identifying negative stressful stimuli and providing evidence-based diagnosis to support design strategies.     

The body in analysis: authentic movement and witnessing in analytic practice

This paper will describe a form of active imagination called authentic movement, in which attention is given to the somatic unconscious. In authentic movement, patients are encouraged to focus inward and attend to any bodily sensations, images and feelings which may arise. In the process of focusing inward on one's bodily-felt experience, images, somatic memory and the accompanying feelings which arise are then available to be explored as a communication from the patient's unconscious. Authentic movement supports the individual in linking image with affect in that the individual re-experiences the somatic aspect of symbolization. What was previously conserved on the somatic level as unmentalized experience, can now begin to be taken up into the mind, thought about, and made available for analysis. In authentic movement, the analyst acts as a silent witness to the patient's explorations. The quiet focused attention of the witness helps to create a secure containing environment in which the person moving can experience a sense of feeling held and seen. The function of the witness is to hold the patient's experience in his own mind, particularly what is not yet mentalized. The witness utilizes his somatic countertransference, including any images, feelings and bodily responses which are generated by what is being communicated non-verbally, as a means of understanding and responding to the patient's material.