…Mind you, said answer is “It depends on what you believed, going in.” Yes, I know. Not very helpful an answer, even if it is almost as accurate an answer as you’re likely to get prior to, well.
I found that dichotomy everywhere as I interviewed experts about the emerging science of spirituality. It’s kind of like a Rorschach test: Some researchers look at the data and say spiritual experience is only an electrical storm in the temporal lobe, or a brain gasping for oxygen — all fully explainable by science. Others say our brains are reflecting an encounter with the divine.
And almost invariably, where a scientist stands on that issue has little to do with the clinical findings of any study. It has almost everything to do with the scientist’s personal beliefs.
Via Fark.
This would be the point where I make a Flatliners
Kind of.
Not really, actually*.
Moe Lane
*Besides, it should have taken the researchers roughly thirty seconds to realize that a reliable method of recording and playing back memories would have guaranteed their research funding by the porn industry for the rest of their natural lives.
If you’ve never seen Strange Days (you probably didn’t, it made about a buck and a half), you may want to.
It’s *ABOUT* the recording and playback of memories.
It touches on the whole, ahem, point you mention in your asterisked portion but it takes an interesting direction from there. Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Michael Wincott and Vincent D’Onofrio. Produced by James Cameron!
How could you possibly go wrong?
Well, yeah. Its politics are, shall we say, muddled. If you can’t get past the fact that its makers were still in full “Rodney King” mode, you’ll probably have more fun MST3King (if not fast forwarding). If, however, you can say “knowing that everyone in Hollywood is a pinko, I will watch this movie”, you might dig it as the last unironic gasp of the cyberpunk movie.
Which, let me restate, *IS* about recording and playback of memories. So there’s that.