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In May 1996 I had a heart attack - and remained conscious as friends drove me to the emergency room. As we got close, I started to laugh. One of these guys was a paramedic and had never seen anyone laugh during a heart attack, and he asked me what was so funny. I told him. Everything was looking to be further away and all of the colors were muted, subdued, like I was looking at familiar signs and places through ginger ale. And it was easy to figure out why this was happening - we judge distance two ways, first by parallax, the angle between what each eye sees, and when that's out of range, by how much detail we see in familiar objects and the size of the image. I knew that blood was being obstructed to my optic nerve and eyes, losing the ability to see colors and to make out details, giving me a false impression of being more distant, etc. In that moment, it seemed to me like an important part of what people claim to experience in near death experiences was identified and answered without the supernatural at all - and it seemed to me funny at the time.
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Extremism in the defense of Liberty is no vice. . . Restraint in the pursuit of Justice is no virtue.
Senator Barry Goldwater, 1964
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