More near-death nonsense

[Mulder]

Actually mulder when you go through the accounts - they are not that accurate so its a red herring really....See the work of Keith Augustine for an in-depth analysis.

If they are not that accurate, it would tend to support my view that they are based on, also not very accurate, TV medical dramas!

[Dr B]

Indeed - or even just hallucinations built out of fragmented information from the other senses at the time.

For example, I dont need vision to hear a conversation between the nurses - I dont need vision to have an idea as to where they are in space in relation to me, to each other, and other medics around me. I dont need vision to hear the implements being prepared, in addition - some visual information can enter the brain if the eyes are open and one is only partially sedated.

My point is - you dont need to explain the accuracy because it does not exist. However, it is important to try to understand the mechanisms sub-serving the hallucination and the convinction in it being reality.

[Admin]

Another factor that people probably don't realise is that when people are anaesthetised and undergoing operations, they are not always completely unconscious. Although this is monitored for (thankfully!) it is quite possible that people who are assumed to be totally unconscious might actually at times become aware of conversations etc. around them and be able to recall the incidents later on.

Also, a bit more controversially, experiments have been done whereby anaesthetised patients (monitored to ensure they are truly unconscious) have been played words while they were being operated on and later, when they were fully conscious, given a word-stem completion task and the results seemed to show that the information played to the subjects when they were unconscious did have an effect on their performance when fully conscious.

The implication here is that even being completely unconscious does not preclude us from acquiring information from our surroundings even though we may be completely unaware of having done so.

Now I'm not claiming that this is the answer to NDEs but it's a factor that needs to be considered when people report recalling certain conversations - of course things like confirmation bias and subjective validation could apply here too just as they do with psychic readings.

[Mulder]

We know the senses are still working when we are unconscious. If they weren't, alarm clocks would sell well.

[Porterhood]

I am writing some more articles on NDEs and what cognitive neuroscience has to say about them (though dealing with different issues across the papers).

I am still amazed at the poor standard of reasoning and science coming from the survivalist faction.

Here is one for you (common to the field): NDEs are reported by people who are congentially blind. Thus, (their reasoning goes), it cannot be imagination / imagery - it must be paranormal! Therefore, this is supposed to be strong evidence against a psychological / brain-science - driven explanation for NDEs.

Do me a favour. Did anyone spot the hidden assumption (I will be writing about this soon)? Basically, why do survivalists think that cogentially blind people don't have a form of graphical imagery?

NDE's are a most "interesting" subject, Dr B. I take a different position to you, but I see that's OK. The Skeppies on this forum don't mind a Woo-Woo like me dropping by.

I've been lurking on this thread for some time and I see other Woo's have already challenged your Skepperistic position here. I can't find the post, but at the beginging of an exchange with one of us you asked him not to use the word "dimension". That's fine; I wasn't planning on using it anyway. However I must ask in return that you kindly refrain from using the words: "onus", "parsimony", "preponderence", nor would you utter the phrases: "That old chestnut again!" or "Please try to read my posts more carefully". Of course if you think I'm not reading your posts carefully then you have a right to challenge me on it, but could you please paraphrase.

Thanks.

[skbuncks]

NDE's are a most "interesting" subject, Dr B. I take a different position to you, but I see that's OK. The Skeppies on this forum don't mind a Woo-Woo like me dropping by.

I've been lurking on this thread for some time and I see other Woo's have already challenged your Skepperistic position here. I can't find the post, but at the beginging of an exchange with one of us you asked him not to use the word "dimension". That's fine; I wasn't planning on using it anyway. However I must ask in return that you kindly refrain from using the words: "onus", "parsimony", "preponderence", nor would you utter the phrases: "That old chestnut again!" or "Please try to read my posts more carefully". Of course if you think I'm not reading your posts carefully then you have a right to challenge me on it, but could you please paraphrase.

Thanks.

I'm am unsure of which post(s) you are referring too, and in all honesty I cannot be bothered to review 10 pages of posts to find them. I will therefore make an assumption in the following:
The use of 'dimension' is perfectly acceptable when its meaning is clearly defined. For example the three spatial dimensions and 1 time dimension commonly encountered in everyday life. When it is used by, shall we say 'those of a spiritual bent', it is less clearly so and thus serves no purpose other than to obfuscate.
Words such as onus, parsimony, and preponderance have clear meanings and as such can be used wherever they are an aid to communication.

skb

[Dr B]

NDE's are a most "interesting" subject, Dr B. I take a different position to you, but I see that's OK. The Skeppies on this forum don't mind a Woo-Woo like me dropping by.

I've been lurking on this thread for some time and I see other Woo's have already challenged your Skepperistic position here. I can't find the post, but at the beginging of an exchange with one of us you asked him not to use the word "dimension". That's fine; I wasn't planning on using it anyway. However I must ask in return that you kindly refrain from using the words: "onus", "parsimony", "preponderence", nor would you utter the phrases: "That old chestnut again!" or "Please try to read my posts more carefully". Of course if you think I'm not reading your posts carefully then you have a right to challenge me on it, but could you please paraphrase.

Thanks.

I am equally miffed by this nonsense (not sure where i said all this - but dont let facts get in the way). Listen, i have seen some comments which are supposed to be apparent 'rebuttals' - but they are nothing of the sort. They fail to read and consider the arguments actually posed and as woo's always do, they duck the real issues and try and hide out in their own confusion.

All I can see is circular nonsense based on a non-falsifiable notion of dualism that hides out in the gaps in knowledge - this is not, in anyway, a rebuttal to a scientific argument. If you set out assuming to be true, that which you seek to show is true, you just end up going around in circles.

Trust the survivalists to totally misunderstand an article directed at clearing up their confusions. Without their confusion....what would they have???

[Harryprice]

Talking of confirming assumptions, here's something to consider. There is no reason to think that early man would not have experienced OOBEs, NDEs, sleep paralysis and so on. It would be easy to see such bizarre experiences, which research suggests are caused by the brain, could have affected the development of religions. The idea of a soul, for instance, being independent of a physical body could easily have arisen from OOBEs. Similarly, an afterlife involving a journey to heaven could have arisen from NDEs. If this is true it would be a circular argument to say that such experiences confirm religious ideas when they might actually have been their original cause.

[Dr B]

Hi Mulder

I've been making these arguments for years, on this forum, on others, at conferences, presentations etc, - so I certainly concur....

I think you also need an element of irrational thought (fallacies of causal reasoning etc) to arrive at some of the most striking early beliefs (i.e., crops failing etc) - but you can see how all this comes together and explains a great deal

[chaggle]

Who?

[tolman]

There is no reason to think that early man would not have experienced OOBEs, NDEs, sleep paralysis and so on.

Not to mention various kinds of epilepsy, some of which seem fairly strongly linked to people seeing visions, and then there are all the deliberate/accidental cases of consuming psychoactive plants...

[DrS]

The BBC is carrying THIS report today:

Near-death experiences during cardiac arrest - from flashing lights to life flashing before one's eyes - may be down to carbon dioxide, a study finds.
Examination of 52 patients found levels of the body's waste gas were higher in the 11 who reported such experiences, the journal Critical Care reports.
The Slovenian researchers hope to move on the debate over why so many cardiac arrest patients report the experiences.
Reasons previously suggested for the phenomenon include religion and drugs.

[Porterhood]

I am equally miffed by this nonsense (not sure where i said all this - but dont let facts get in the way). Listen, i have seen some comments which are supposed to be apparent 'rebuttals' - but they are nothing of the sort. They fail to read and consider the arguments actually posed and as woo's always do, they duck the real issues and try and hide out in their own confusion.

All I can see is circular nonsense based on a non-falsifiable notion of dualism that hides out in the gaps in knowledge - this is not, in anyway, a rebuttal to a scientific argument. If you set out assuming to be true, that which you seek to show is true, you just end up going around in circles.

Trust the survivalists to totally misunderstand an article directed at clearing up their confusions. Without their confusion....what would they have???

I've read your statements where you say that Fenwick, Sheldrake, Parnia and whoever else's science is flawed. However I've seen some of their material and they counter-claim that the materialists' science is flawed. These "survivalists" (I always thought that word meant these nutty Americans who live out in huts in the woods and have underground bunkers full of tinned food!) have the same scientific training and occupations as the materilalists. How can I tell who's right and who's wrong? I know that the "survivalists" are in a small minority, but hey! Life is not an election! I'll have to listen to both sides of the story and decide.

Actually there's a side of me that doesn't want to be a Woo any more, at least over this particular subject. I often hear it said that those Woo's like me who believe in the Afterlife are just wishful-thinkers who can't face the unpleasant truth that when you die that's it: Lights Out; Forever! And so it's occurred to me that those people like you who don't believe in the Afterlife are being very courageous and pragmatic. It's quite a macho thing to discard a belief the Afterlife actually. It makes you something of a hero! You who reject the Afterlife truly constitute a kind of intellectual, philosphical and social Elite. I'd like to be a part of that.

[Croydon Bob]

I've read your statements where you say that Fenwick, Sheldrake, Parnia and whoever else's science is flawed. However I've seen some of their material and they counter-claim that the materialists' science is flawed.

I can't comment on the others but some years ago I looked at Sheldrake in depth, have been to talks by him, etc. His work isn't just flawed, he's an attention-seeking fake who deliberately misrepresents evidence. He doesn't do science, he does playing with statistics to create the false impression of something interesting.

Actually there's a side of me that doesn't want to be a Woo any more, at least over this particular subject. I often hear it said that those Woo's like me who believe in the Afterlife are just wishful-thinkers who can't face the unpleasant truth that when you die that's it: Lights Out; Forever! And so it's occurred to me that those people like you who don't believe in the Afterlife are being very courageous and pragmatic. It's quite a macho thing to discard a belief the Afterlife actually. It makes you something of a hero! You who reject the Afterlife truly constitute a kind of intellectual, philosphical and social Elite. I'd like to be a part of that.

Interesting point of view. Almost the opposite of how I used to feel. I didn't "choose" to not believe in an afterlife, I just don't. I didn't choose to like certain foods or music, it's just the way I'm wired. Certainly at one time I'd have believed in an afterlife if I possibly could have, far more comforting than the nothing I expect. It would be nice to think that I was part of an intellectual, philosphical and social Elite, the stupidity of some of the woo-mongers can tempt one in that direction, but then I look at my fellow skeptics and realise that I'm smarter than them too.

[Drop Bear]

I didn't "choose" to not believe in an afterlife, I just don't.

Same here . It took me over 20 years to reach the inevitable conclusion of disbelief.It was not a matter of choice. I don't see anything heroic about the position. I'm not afraid of dreamles sleep nor of the aeons I did not,and will not exist.Why should I be afraid of being dead? ---I'm afraid of DYING,all animals are,but the state of death is not an experience.


About 25 years ago I visited Pompeii. Our guide translated the inscription on a tomb as

I was not. I was. I am not, I don't care.