I was reading the latest SPR journal the other day and someone had written a book review for a new book on near-death experiences (cant remember the book or title - but I think it is written by Sam Parnia).
Anyway, the reviewer claims that Parnia asks the main question (something like) "just how can a brain that is dead support human experience and produce an NDE"? This apparently is the major question Parnia explores and it is regarded as the now 'big burning' question in the field.
It is of course - total nonsense. It is a completely loaded question and one that starts with assumptions that have never been shown to occur. On these grounds I reject the idea that it is the 'burning' question.
The BIG problem is none of these researchers have any cases at all that convincingly show the OBE / NDE occurred at the time of brain death - there is no reason or evidence to support this. So if there is no evidence for the observation it undermines the whole question above.
Its like asking "how is it that some people can levitate for hours and defy gravity just by the power of their minds..." - as this has never been shown to be true - the question is a nonsense :o
The question assumes to be true, that which it seeks to establish (circular reasoning). What amazes me is how many NDE researchers are taken in by it.
The best case I know of is that of Mrs Reynolds - who had a 4-hour operation on her brain. The op requires the brain to be cooled and blood to be drained from it. Its very lengthy and very complex (I believe the surgeon was one Robert Spetzler or something similar). However, the brain is only really 'dead' for about 3-4 mins of the entire 4 hours. There is no evidence that the NDE reported by Mrs Reynolds occurred at that time and indeed, there is plenty of evidence that it occurred over two hours earlier during the initial stages of anesthesia!
Why dont woo's bother with facts????
Because some of them, if they allowed a tiny woo-free thought into their minds, the entirety of their lives would crumbleOriginally Posted by Dr B
Why dont woo's bother with facts????
Also in the words of the cliche, why let the facts get in the way of a good story?
???
How dead is dead?
Surely there must be some brain activity even it's just extremely slow metabolism. Or, does cell death not occur at these low temperatures in the absence of oxygen uptake, for a short while at least?
I agree that Parnia is begging the question here. His assumption, it seems to me at least, is that the brain is actually dead in such cases. It depends on how brain death is defined.
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I think that is very true. However, I always expect more from educated people who should know better. The mistakes above are not high-level logical ones - merely simple factual ones....
Because some of them, if they allowed a tiny woo-free thought into their minds, the entirety of their lives would crumble
Also in the words of the cliche, why let the facts get in the way of a good story?
Last edited by Dr B; 25th September 2007 at 09:40 AM.
Indeed. Also - 'when' in the time-line is one dead....that is the crux I feel. Flat EEG is insufficient to establish brain-death. In the case of Reynolds, the brain stem was deemed inactive - but only at one point (the four min period) and this is not when the experience took place so its irrelevant.
It is difficult to say - but activity is likely to be reduced during the crucial 4-min period. Cooling the brain stops cells from dying as it reduces their burning of nutrients - but as you note - it can only be done for a very short while.Surely there must be some brain activity even it's just extremely slow metabolism. Or, does cell death not occur at these low temperatures in the absence of oxygen uptake, for a short while at least?
Yes - but they also assume that the experience occurs when the brain is at its most inactive - thus - the NDE cannot be based in brain activity (by their argument). For the reasons I have given above - it is clearly nonsense. 8)I agree that Parnia is begging the question here. His assumption, it seems to me at least, is that the brain is actually dead in such cases. It depends on how brain death is defined.
Ah! yes.
If the brain is at its most inactive then it is not likely to be experiencing anything. Of course this inactivity could be the argument supporting an external source of the experience (soul, spirit, etc.); but, there's the (insurmountable as I see it) problem of ascertaining when during the unconscious time the experience occurred.
If a patient wakes up and reports an NDE then it can only be assumed that it occurred during the time of minimal brain activity. Again, the assumption that this is so supports the hypothesis in a circular fashion.
Is there any way of discerning between normal brain activity in anaesthetised brains from the activity shown by someone reporting an NDE experience under the same conditions?
What I'm thinking is that if there's a difference in brain activity between a person who experiences an NDE and someone who doesn't then it may be possible to to look for the absence of this activity in a case like the above (for the amount of time it can be measured) so that it would be more reasonable to conclude that the NDE occurred during minimal brain activity.
Just a thought. Obviously, I know little about this type of research.
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Why dont woo's bother with facts?Perhaps there is an ability of generating/considering counter explanations or perhaps a persistence of set, similar to those found in problem solving?However, I always expect more from so-called educated people who should know better. The mistakes above are not high-level logical ones - merely simple factual ones....
possibly - but its the aversion to simple facts that is worrying. Its like a kind of 'mind-blindness' to the obvious.....a basic training in science would generate the questions i did above for anyone....so why not Parnia? Its very worrying....
Indeed - thats my whole point above - they take an experience and 'brain inactivity' and assume the two are causally linked. If you think about it as a 4-hour period of which only 4mins involved almost total inactivity you can see that the laws of probability would predict it happened during some activation rather than during reduced activation.
Hallucinatory activity looks seizure-like and is the most likely type of activity underlying NDE. The problem is that medics are trying to save lives rather than hook people up to EEG and gather data - though there are some instances in the literature which support my argument.Is there any way of discerning between normal brain activity in anaesthetised brains from the activity shown by someone reporting an NDE experience under the same conditions?
As a wise man once said, "You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true".Why dont woo's bother with facts????
How bloody inconsiderate of them. >:(
Well it seems the reports of these people's deaths have been greatly exaggerated!
There are many people who claim that NDEs are compelling evidence in support of the afterlife hypothesis but when looked at a little closer it is not really any less speculative than other forms of evidence.
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I though NDEs and 'religious' experiences in general could reliably be produced by trans-cranial magnetic stimulation.
Of course saying that I can't find a reference anywhere.
No - TMS cannot do this.
TCS trans-cerebral stimulation is what can do this (see the work of Persinger). TCS uses weak complex fields. TMS uses very strong simple ones.
Possibly even more so. I can never help being amused at people citing living people as proof that there is something after you die. No matter how "near death" their experiences are, they are not actually death and so prove nothing about what happens afterwards. In fact we are all continuously having an NDE, it's called living, but that doesn't mean we all know what will happen once it's over.
It amazes me as well.....
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