“‘Oh wow.’ Two words that can have many meanings,” ,” Christopher John Farley writes for The Wall Street Journal. “Steve Jobs’s sister Mona Simpson has a moving tribute in the New York Times detailing some of his final moments and his last words. According to the article… Jobs’s last words were ‘OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.’ (The words were rendered in all capital letters in the essay.)”
“People are fascinated by last words,” Farley writes. “They can be viewed as a summing up of a life. Because the person saying them has nothing left to gain (except in terms of their legacy), they can be seen by some as an honest a representation of a person’s true opinions as one can get in this life. And there’s a mystical quality to last words–we hear them and wonder if the person saying them can give us any insight or information about what’s really on the other side.”
“Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson, in a recent interview on ’60 Minutes,’ said that in his final encounters with his subject, the Apple founder began to talk more about his thoughts on God and an afterlife,” Farley writes. “Was Jobs’s final wow somehow connected? Inventor Thomas Edison’s last words were close in spirit to Jobs’s reported exit line.”
Farley writes, “According to various sources, including the book ‘Edison: Inventing the Century’ by Neil Baldwin, hours before his death, Edison emerged from a coma, opened his eyes, looked upwards and said ‘It is very beautiful over there.'”
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
A sister’s eulogy reveals Steve Jobs’ final words – October 30, 2011
I hope these are mine….
“It’s been one helluva party.” – Gus McCrae, “Lonesome Dove”
DMT and perhaps that is all
Exactly what I was thinking.
Thank God for DMT and the Pineal gland. The true seat of the soul, Mr. Descartes? .:.
my mom said that when my dad died his last words were ‘Jesus Christ.” Of course he was Jewish and was never religious. He would go to the synagogue sometimes just to socialize.
He saw the light at the end of the tunnel and immediately had some ideas how to polish it a little to make it much easier to use. Heaven will change a lot in the near future, no doubt. The new Heaven OS will be presented fairly soon.
I love the comment! Right on.
and just one more thing…
Bravo!
The only same thoughts on God and an afterlife is that they’re both farcical pipe dreams.
Sane*
First-hand experience?
Riiiiight…. because after all, believing that billions of forms of life could have evolved within the limited constraint of the age of the universe is more realistic. What people teach about an afterlife may be inconsistent and incorrect, but believing that every lifeform on this earth, every insect, fish, bird and reptile around us came from nothing is ridiculous. Many honest scientists admit that their conclusions have been shoehorned to fit popular opinion.
Problem is, millions of people just accept the conclusions of what they read, watch discovery channel and read wikipedia… and then assume they’re experts on where life came from without having actually done the research.
Two extremists walk into a bar… never mind, not funny.
Newsflash can’t assert scientifically that there is no God or afterlife. But, there is plenty of empirical, scientific evidence that evolution occurs. Darwin had lots of evidence to back up his theory at the time, and all the newer discoveries since then, like DNA, makes it even stronger.
You claim to have done the research disproving evolution, cite your sources.
Darwin’s theory is replete with a lots of “maybe” “most probably” and a lot of speculations. What man knows is only a tiny speck of nature’s knowledge. Man calls this portion of knowledge as “science”. Science’s discoveries of the “truth” are mostly accidental and are dependent on the laws and principles of nature that existed beforehand. Whatever thoughts that the discoveries were new is facetious because the potential of the discoveries were in existent before time. The laws of, say, gravity, electricity, electronics, etc were established from time immemorial: the only thing was that man has not stumbled upon them yet. Nature will reveal its truth at its own pace and time. If men are too arrogant to think that just because they had acquired a tiny portion of knowledge they could dismiss nature’s relevance. That would be a mistake that man has found out time and time again throughout history.
Evolution is part of my plan.
That “limited constraint” is over 4 billions of years. Also, how is having an invisible man in the sky who existed since always making everything even WORSE? And I’m not even entering in the 7 days and man-made-of-clay debate, I’m talking just about the idea of a deity creating everything
And you fall into the same category as the fundamentalist who also takes the bible literally. You both believe that for God to exist he must do his work with a giant hand descending from a cloud. There are numerous research scientists who believe in a supreme being or force in the universe. They are not kooks and nut jobs, but neither do they believe God is limited to accomplishing his work by means we can understand or comprehend, or that he must do these things within a time frame we can understand. That’s just silly.
If God created the world in 7 days it surely wasn’t 7 of our days. A literal reading of the bible tells us that the sun was not created until the 4th day. So what is God’s definition of a day? Is time even relevant to him? Is there some reason God can not be the force behind evolution? Our scientific laws do not dictate how the universe actually behaves. They merely attempt (often poorly) to describe it. The tail does not wag the dog. There’s more to this universe than we can comprehend. We need to drop our arrogance about that.
Good call, Zeke. I’m with you on this!
“Many honest scientists admit that their conclusions have been shoehorned to fit popular opinion.”
I hope you are talking about Global Warming and not Devine Intervention.
If Global Warming, you are absolutely correct.
If Devine Intervention, your pet scientists are blinded by their faith.
When Darwin was making his observations and conclusions he was devastated. He was a very religious man and he was very upset that the Bible’s version of events was a total allegory and not actual fact.
He was intimidated by the backlash from the clerics and delayed publication until just before his death.
Evolution is a fact, not only a theory. In fact even we humans are still evolving. Slowly, but surely. For example : the ligamentum palmaris longus (a tendon) is already not present in 15% of the population. It’s a legacy tendon from our ape-like ancestors. In the coming centuries and millennia more and more people will lose that special tendon as it is simply superfluous.
In addition : evolution takes place multiple times in parallel, not sequential. For example the eye was independently “invented” several times.
The problem evolution skeptics have, is that they are not able to think abstractly, but rather like a child. No Virginia, not everything must have a mastermind, a plan, a goal. The “invention” of the eye (there are several variants of eyes in nature (like our eye, insects eyes, fish eyes, etc)) or ear happened not to make our life nicer, neither was it gift. It was a long string/chain of necessities to improve survival rate.
There are lab tests that can prove how amino-acids (the lego pieces of life on earth) have developed. In fact it has been shown beyond doubt that evolution and development of amino-acids is quasi inevitable and need no wonder. Molecular self-organisation is the key word. It’s natural and needs no “intelligent design” (yuck!).
It’s only ridiculous for YOU, ’cause have no sufficient and correct information, no scientific grasp, and a low intellectual horizon. Sorry, but that’s a matter of fact. It’s easier and soothing for you to assume that you are special and want an easier, fairy-tale like explanation.
There is NO (Zero) evidence that any species has ever evolved into an entirely different species. Micro-evolution is provable and able to be duplicated. You can demonstrate trait manipulation through breeding, but you will never be able to get a cat from a goat by selective breeding—NEVER.
And for those of you who disbelieve intelligent design because it is “faith-based”, you who think I’m a fanatic for believing that all life comes from a Creator are the ones that believe that everything comes from nothing, and life evolved from sludge. Who’s faith-based hypothesis is more inane?
Yours!
Oh countraire mon ami.
Yes you can. What you fail to grasp is that in biology there are : Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family,Tribe,Subtribe, Genus.
Goat and cat are of the same class (mammalia), but different order. However all mammalia are derived from pelycosaurs (a special order of dinosaurs-like creatures). So, a dinosaur-like creature developed over the course of millions of years to cat and goats. It’s like a tree.
Yes, you can’t swing from one “tree branch” to another one. But one branch can develop into several new, different branches. And as such you are wrong. Totally. Species DO evolve into other, different species. Happens since millions and billions of years. It takes time. A lot of time. But it happens. That IS evolution.
Wrong… dogs were an evolution from wolves as some of them were tamed and bred as companion animals and hunting helpers by humans. Just watch how the domestic dog can be “modified” through selective breeding for looks, temperament, specific characteristics seen as beneficial by the people doing this. This may not have resulted in a complete genetic evolution, but it certainly can model the effects of environmental changes over thousands of years in a few short generations.
Is is possible for a man and monkey to mate and produce offspring? Evolution has not proven that it is true.
You’ve never seen a picture of Steve Ballmer, have you?
Maybe it means he caught a vision of “One more thing.”
We are all agnostics in the sense of “without knowing.” (Belief is not knowing). No one knows whether there’s another something, or if our “selves” are just hard drives. Nor has anyone ever come back or texted after death or whatever. So you can’t rule it out, or in. As far as evidence, there’s existence itself, and the fact that all life is programmed to mutate and to die. Evolution is therefore inevitable, but to what end (if any), no one knows. And all religions are made up.
Mysticism is wonderful thing, but the science solved the mystery behind beauty of sights and feeling of near-to-death conditions.
The brain, right before shutting down the organism and itself, generates specific hormones that would easy both the pain and overall death process. The results of it are visions and unusual experiences people talk about it.
Oh puh-lease
That is the (oft repeated) rantings of a anti-spritual nut job, not science, and it is no no means widely accepted as scientific fact.
Some real science for you: just as we discovered the true vastness of the universe (ie Hubble) early in the last century, we have discovered (early in this century) that we can’t see (or detect) 96% of the matter around us. That’s right, what you can see touch, ect only accounts for 4% of the actual “stuff” around us (now called “dark matter” because they don’t know what else to call it.)
Also, as we begin to discover more about the realities of the way observable universe functions (the 4% we can see) we begin to suspect that there are likely “unlimited” other dimensions in several different categories existing in parallel, in the same space, with us now.
Anyone claiming science has “solved” anything concerning what is beyond what we can directly observe is only kidding themselves. As we discover more we it begins to dawn on us that we have virtually no idea what the “big picture” really is.
There are over sixty hormones that regulate human organism. There are very concrete things, so this science findings about certain hormones pears in critical conditions has nothing to do with the universe.
*peaks’ in critical conditions has nothing to do with the level of uncertainties in the theories of universe.
I was simply demonstrating that your scientifically “solved mystery”, isn’t.
And specifically (if you actually put some logic to it) the entire hypothesis is flawed. Why would the body evolve a mechanism to ease us into death?
All other evolved characteristics have to do with keeping us alive (and making us fight to stay alive) and reproducing (and caring for offspring) Postulating that we developed a mechanism that helps ease us into death runs counter to the theory of darwinian evolution.
So the question is why? What benefit is it to continuation of the species to develop something that makes it easier or more pleasant to die?
This is not mechanism specific to death, this is mechanism that supposed to allow organism survive in critical conditions.
Most of the time conditions are so critical that there organism dies anyway, but the mechanism still exists “just in case”.
And while these questions you ask are interesting from philosophical point of view, the scientific findings on this matter are very clear. Inject a combination of hormones to a hamster and brain’s electric activity will match to one of actually dying animal. It is not matter of theories, just science. Chemistry, hormones — not less, but not more than that.
Wow, do you not understand natural selection and evolution….
A mutation (particularly a complex chain of events like you are talking about) must have a definite and positive effect on the organism surviving.
Any ER physician can tell you if, don’t fight (in critical situations) slip away, those who do live. The mechanism you are talking about would not be likely to cause a significant number to survive rather than perish (actually the reverse) which is the basis of natural selection.
@Tessellator: wow, it looks like it is you who does not understand natural selection or evolution.
Only part of organism features are defined by whether it is life critical or not. Others develop and mutate almost freely without ever going through life-and-death selection.
For example, when human race moved from africa/asia to nothern europe territories, none black-haired people of them died out because their hair were black or skin too dark. Yet dark skin and black hair were gone, and the population evolved to have light skin, light hair colour.
Dude you are clueless, check out a book on evolution/natural selection, you have a secondary school (at best) comprehension of it, unless you are being purposely obtuse… and if so, to what end?
My education is perfectly fine in that (well, actually, in everything; equivalent of A+).
Anyway, what I wrote above initially is findings of experimental medical/biological science. Hormones cause visions and unusual sensations/experiences in critical conditions.
It is not possible to argue with that. No mud to raise, nothing to question.
And what actually happens after death was solved long, long ago…
The “soul” that is sinning it itself will die (Ezekiel 18)
“For the living know that they will die, but the dead are conscious of nothing;” —- Eccl. 9:5
The soul and body cease to be conscious after death. Steve Jobs is simply in a deep dreamless sleep with no conscious thought. A little bit like when you turn your Mac off. Of course, his data is still backed up in the Cloud. Just think, if humans can invent cloud storage and “Time Machine” then surely the creator of humans can do the same thing with our thoughts and memories… Restore them.
Thus said the Flying Spaghetti Monster!
RAMEN!
Seriously, what is wrong with you people? Believing in a supernatural deity is one thing… but believing in the freaking BIBLE?
+1
And the funny thing is that the extreme ends (spiritualists and anti-spiritualists) are both claiming with such certainly that it is “solved” (one by literally interpreting the bible (or other religious tome) and the other with “scientific fact”)
When the truth is that we have no idea, and (given our current level of comprehension) no way of figuring it out.
Your logic is sound, yet I would classify myself as an atheist simply due to the burden of proof: Orbiting teapots, Invisible pink unicorns and dragon in someone’s garage… *everything* has a chance, if minimal, of existing. But should I “keep my mind open” to all of those possibilities, no matter how minuscule, I’d eventually become insane.
Therefore, I adopt a skeptical point-of-view, therefore sparing me of certain madness and worshipping Flying Spaghetti Monsters, but also taking any deity off my list because they’re all in the same boat.
I hope I managed to explain that clearly.
Anyway, I am an atheist, but respect (to varying extents) agnostics, deists and some deistic religions and philosophies, like pantheism (Einstein’s belief) Theists, however, I think they have it all wrong.
I consider myself agnostic, however having been a scientist I bristle at the people trying to twist logic and interpretation to force specific conclusions and then pronouncing them “scientific facts”. (is absolutely counter to the scientific method, but sadly common today, “science” is the new religion)
We know little (and are learning just how little) about the nature of existence in general and more specifically about how and why consciousness (self awareness) exists at all.
I think I would agree on the orbiting teapots, however the nature of consciousness and spirituality is much less certain…
(and FTR I am on the fence about the likelihood of pink unicorns existing invisibly in parallel universes in the garage, for sure the current state of thinking in theoretical physics makes that seem tame ;-))
Lukeskymac
Surely your name speaks volumes about who you are and what you think, well, at least about the topic at hand.
Your skepticism about the Bible is understandable; obviously, you have spent little, if any, time reading it. Pity! The irony is that someone with your child-like (sine qua non) persona would have an excellent proepect of believing it.
OH SNAP!! lukeskymac just got punked and called child-like by a person who believes that there’s a magical man in the sky who created everything, grants wishes to those who pray to him, and controls everyones destiny.
I have to say, I read Genesis, it came across to me like a children’s book, and I was just rolling my eyes and got bored with it. I do want to continue with the Bible, there might be some clever quotes and insights later in the book. But no matter if I do find something that makes me go, “Oh! That’s clever and interesting.”, I know I won’t end up putting much faith in it since it’s an ancient text written by people who had no clue of what was going on with the planet and universe around them. It’s just a story time book. I mean, seriously, a magical man in the sky who created everything. You might as well believe and have faith in unicorns and leprechauns. Now, THAT’S child-like.
I hesitate to jump in here, but @Sanity, I must correct you on a few points:
– God is not magical, and is not a man.
– God does not grant wishes like some cosmic genie.
– God does not control everyone’s destiny. He gave you free will. That is why you have the ability to doubt His existence and to affect the course of your own life.
Read the gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Those were written not by some “ancient people”, but by people who lived during the time of the Roman empire – certainly more sophisticated than even some third world countries today. The Old Testament is a lot of history and it’s easy to get bogged down. It mostly points to the New Testament which is the stuff you really need to read to understand the point of what we believe.
What are u talking about ? You are confused my dear because all of the bible prophesy is coming true.. you can see how many of it is already fulfilled , search it if you don’t believe me.
Everyone will have at least one chance to hear about Jesus and that he is the only way to heaven simple yet hard for people to accept. God bless all the best!
D
ops i think i replied to the wrong person!
There’s also the “Tunneling Effect” caused on the retina, isn’t there?
Yes, you are right.
I’ve done end of life care for over 34 years. Near death the veil parts and the dying see loved ones who have already passed over, and see glimpses of heaven. Very beautiful, beyond words. And there is a welcoming party.
Dying takes work, often hours or days of intense breathing and the energy withdrawing from the body. Often a dying person has visions of what is to come before that arduous physical journey of death commences. The dying who have led a good life go to a far better place than Earth. Also, Steve is connected to Paramahansa Yogananda who will usher kindred souls to the astral world with tremendous love and kindness.
Jobs said those words some hours before he died when he was looking at his assembled family.
It was probably a realisation that the end was nigh seeing all his family gathered.
Most realistic scenario on this page… Bam!
… of course it’s fun to imagine what he may have been thinking or seeing at that exact moment, so the notion of God (or whoever or whatever bearded dude was there) appearing to Steve and saying, “oh… one more thing, bro! You’re gonna love this…”
And then sometime late next year Apple mysteriously releases an unannounced, updated version of FaceTime. As Jonny Ive wraps up his presentation, he stops, looks up at the huge monitor. The last slide fades out, and then suddenly Steve’s face appears. As the audience falls silent, not quite grasping the moment… the image of Steve says, “Oh… one more thing! We’ve been working on an improved FaceTime app, using technology that has never been used before… Are you getting it now? I’d like to introduce you all to whole bunch of people I’ll bet you never thought you’d get to meet…”
The theory that these visions are the product of a dying brain has been proved untrue. Shared death experiences, where ppl by the bedside experience what the dying person does, are widespread and show this is not biological. This is another dimension.
Glimpses of Eternity: Sharing a Loved One’s Passage from this Life to the Next, by Raymond Moody, documents this.
I myself have had several experiences with the dying that have convinced me that there is extraordinary vibrant life beyond this dull earth. I have seen it and experienced it, both at the bedside and also when ill. It is real, far more real than earth life which is constricted.
Remember that we all die, billions have before us and billions will after us, and a lifespan is short. Death is not the end. The Journey is a continuum. And how we live our life is vitally important.
Occam’s Razor says hi.
It also says you’re wrong.
Nope, you’re wrong. There is a TON of information out there on this. Open your mind while you’re still on this earth.
There are many sources of information to expand your thinking what’s really going on around you.
You should definitely start to Think Different.
Here’s a few links for you to start…
This is the first of 16 parts. Believe or don’t believe, but at least listen. This video was from 1997.
Another….1996
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8316692185126189734
More…you don’t have to believe, just listen
Investigative journalist…a real one unlike any from lamestream media
Researchers
Harvard psychiatrist.
Some of that information is over 15 years old. Some last year. Some is this year. But even though they seem like different topics, they’re all connected is some small way.
Grow your mind. There’s old saying I adopted a long time ago…
“Don’t let your schooling stand in the way of your education.”
Famous quotes about learning for those who think that they know it all and they’ve got it all figured out….lol
‘To develop a complete mind, study the science of art, study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realise that everything connects to everything else.’
— Leonardo Da Vinci
‘The more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know.’
— Albert Einstein
‘Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning today is young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.’
— Henry Ford
‘Belief gets in the way of learning.’
— Robert Heinlein
‘In order to learn one must change one’s mind.’
— Orson Scott Card
‘It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot, irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it.’
— Jacob Bronowski
‘I am still learning.’
— Michaelangelo
‘Some people never learn anything because they understand everything too soon.’
— Alexander Pope
‘I said that an expert was a fella who was afraid to learn anything new because then he wouldn’t be an expert any more.’
— Harry S. Truman
‘The illiterate of future are not those who can’t read or write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and re-learn.’
— Alvin Toffler
AFAIK, the decreasing oxygen-saturation in the brain creates most of these effects (tunnel, white light .etc.pp.).
He probably knew all this publicity was coming – that’s why he fought it so hard while he was alive.
Never going to know so I don’t see the point in speculating.
People are going to believe what they want to believe, read into it what they want to read into it.
You’re right, nobody knows. They should stop pretending they do.
When a person nears death… Angel of Death approaches… before the soul is taken they are shown their place… if heaven they will be happy… if ‘not heaven’… AKA Hell… they would be horrified.
So I guess ‘Oh Wow’ is heaven 🙂
RIP Steve Jobs
Didn’t Captain Kirk say something similar when the writers killed him off? Just sayin’. 🙂
“Oh my…”
I believe Kirk whispered: “Oh my”.
Found Edison’s last words:
“Thomas Edison’s last words were ‘It’s very beautiful over there’. I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska
I believe in Evolution as a matter of faith. I believe that everything created itself out of nothing. With no plan, no purpose and no designer.
Trouble is, that theory only works for me when I’m tripping on purple microdot: and the last time I did that was at the 1969 Hendrix concert at the Gardens.
🙂
Baffling how many people suggest that the pre-Big Bang universe was “nothing”.
A massive surge of endorphins swamps the brain, according to something I read in a science mag, and give you that pre-op euphoria.
You people are putting a lot of imagination into a simple morphine rush felt by a dying man in great pain.
It was Steve Jobs leaving us with the ultimate “one more thing” to ponder…
Perhaps the afterlife runs on Vista? The Wow starts now?
I like to think he had a glimpse of something wonderful…
It takes over 40 chemical reactions to happen in order for blood to clot. If one of them does not happen blood flows and the organism dies.
I wonder how that was evolved.
You’ll have to read a science book to find out.
A science book will not explain how the clotting process has evolved, because it has not yet been explained. The theory put forth takes more faith to believe than the story of creation by an all powerful, all knowing God.
But you go ahead and have your beliefs, and I’ll have mine.
I like to think he was looking at his children. Call me soft but that’s my proudest achievement.
‘Oh Wow!’ Steve was referring to the revelation that there are no Windows in Heaven, just a Gold Gated Walled Garden (of Eden)!
Steve is a happy camper…
Why guess? We’ll all know for ourselves one day.
I’ll never know or at least I won’t be able to recall what happened at that millisecond before I died, because I’ll be dead.
As in all mysteries we will never know, though the beauty of such an exclamation, like most poetry, is lost on most. Whatever it was referring to, we each have our own opinion. It is amazing what process ensues when someone asks for opinions, and others decide that some are right and others wrong. What folly. Much love to the Jobs family.