First hint of 'life after death' in biggest ever scientific study

originally posted by: Murgatroid

originally posted by: Tangerine
This is hilarious. First, he wasn't dead or he wouldn't have "come back". Secondly, your source couldn't spell atheist and obviously isn't legitimate.

You sound exactly like Dr. Eby's doctor.

Denying facts while staring right at them.

Experience ALWAYS trumps opinion...

Not to mention the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, Lazarus, and countless others throughout history.

I'll take God's word over yours any day.

His actions speak much louder than any man's words.

When Jesus died there was a violent earthquake and the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom. The Bible says tombs were opened and many bodies of saints arose from the dead. It says that after Jesus' resurrection they went into Jerusalem where many people witnessed their return to life. ~ Mt 27:51-53

You've topped your previous hilarious post with one that is even more hilarious. Resurrections? Where's the testable evidence. Oh, that's right, you have none. There's also no contemporaneous documentation proving that Jesus or Lazarus ever lived let alone died and were resurrected. When you get some evidence, alert world media. They'll be very interested. Meanwhile, I won't hold my breath.

originally posted by: GetHyped

originally posted by: Avoiceinthewilderness
a reply to: surrealist

I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want the hope or belief in an after life.

Credulously accepting bad science and rejecting evidence to the contrary simply because you want to believe something is true really isn't a noble goal.

Almost every discovery ever made is because someone dared to go against the grain.
Because they believed in something. They stuck with it, even though many got jailed or executed as heretics.
And then many years later its become scientific fact.
Not that long ago the quacks thought it good practice to drill holes in the heads of mental patients.
If the history of mankind is anything to go by, then Id rather think outside the box than confine myself to commonly accepted explanations.

originally posted by: OneManArmy

originally posted by: GetHyped

originally posted by: Avoiceinthewilderness
a reply to: surrealist

I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want the hope or belief in an after life.

Credulously accepting bad science and rejecting evidence to the contrary simply because you want to believe something is true really isn't a noble goal.

Almost every discovery ever made is because someone dared to go against the grain.
Because they believed in something. They stuck with it, even though many got jailed or executed as heretics.
And then many years later its become scientific fact.
Not that long ago the quacks thought it good practice to drill holes in the heads of mental patients.
If the history of mankind is anything to go by, then Id rather think outside the box than confine myself to commonly accepted explanations.

It becomes fact when testable evidence proves it not when unsubstantiated claims are made. It's a great idea to investigate the existence of consciousness outside the brain. Personally, I think it's likely. It's not a great idea to claim that NDE's prove life after death because they don't. Nearly dead is not dead. The claims being made are the equivalent of someone jumping off a roof and claiming that it proves that humans can fly.

As far as life after death, I never really thought about it... until someone on this thread mentioned we ALL die... which is base fear mongering, but still...

I mean I know guns, car accidents and cancer kill... of course some people die, otherwise what would TV plots be about? But if I, too, might someday die, careful eater and driver as I am ...well, that's scary.

I would hope there is a purpose and repository for all the nifty information accrued and quips I've made... otherwise it all seems so... pointless...

(end lame sarcastic idiocy)

originally posted by: Tangerine
You've topped your previous hilarious post with one that is even more hilarious. Resurrections? Where's the testable evidence. Oh, that's right, you have none. There's also no contemporaneous documentation proving that Jesus or Lazarus ever lived let alone died and were resurrected. When you get some evidence, alert world media. They'll be very interested. Meanwhile, I won't hold my breath.

Where's the testable evidence proving that the elite offed JFK?

What about 9/11, got any contemporaneous documentation proving that?

No, of course you don't...

Your 'world media' gives you ALL the evidence you need I'm sure.

I mean we all KNOW they are all about truth and the American way right...?

And even if we did, I am sure it wouldn't meet your standards of perfection since it wasn't even 'pal reviewed' and all.

And you have the gall to say that MY stuff is hilarious?

At this point, all I can say is that I can't possibly take you seriously any more...

Charlie Brown and gullibility come to mind.

originally posted by: Murgatroid

originally posted by: Tangerine
You've topped your previous hilarious post with one that is even more hilarious. Resurrections? Where's the testable evidence. Oh, that's right, you have none. There's also no contemporaneous documentation proving that Jesus or Lazarus ever lived let alone died and were resurrected. When you get some evidence, alert world media. They'll be very interested. Meanwhile, I won't hold my breath.

Where's the testable evidence proving that the elite offed JFK?

What about 9/11, got any contemporaneous documentation proving that?

No, of course you don't...

Your 'world media' gives you ALL the evidence you need I'm sure.

I mean we all KNOW they are all about truth and the American way right...?

And even if we did, I am sure it wouldn't meet your standards of perfection since it wasn't even 'pal reviewed' and all.

And you have the gall to say that MY stuff is hilarious?

At this point, all I can say is that I can't possibly take you seriously any more...

Charlie Brown and gullibility come to mind.

I haven't mentioned JFK or 911. You DID mention Jesus and Lazarus. You DID mention resurrections. I'm still waiting for you to cite testable evidence proving your claims of fact.

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Krazysh0t
You go on and on about peripheral vision but this is just nonsense.

So then people don't have peripheral vision in NDE's?

Show me a NDE experience were the person said they recognized every random thing in the room while they're bodies was being operated on. This is just an asinine statement and it has nothing to do with actual NDE's. Most of them are focused on their bodies, families and things going on around them. Not random pictures or penguins.

Sounds like you are apologizing for other people's failures here. I'm just trying to look at things objectively.

Give me an NDE experience where the person recognizes and names every small detail in the room. The NDE is usually focused on their bodies being operated on, their past and present loved ones and the fact they're seeing things they don't understand. They're not focused on every small detail in the room. They have expanded awareness but they don't lose their focus. There's no reason to focus on a random picture or penguin at the top of the room when dying.

Right, so that leads credence that it was really a dream. You don't remember all the little details in dreams either.

You then made a general statement that only supports your subjective personal belief. It has nothing to do with the research that has been done for many years in this area.

These things do support life after death.

Yeah I thought you didn't know how to do research. You just proved it here.

Nobody is saying how long this life after death occurs or some Doctors are suggesting that the definition of when someone is dead needs to be expanded.

The material brain isn't magic and it can't do all things. It processes vast amounts of information but science has no idea as to how consciousness can emerge from the material brain or how we can do a simple thing like recall a specific memory.

I'm not the one making assumptions here. You are. I just want to follow the evidence then posit a conclusion based on the evidence. You are the one getting upset with me because I'm challenging your preconceived notions.

How does the material brain know which memory I wish to recall? How does it know the difference between specific memories? How does the material brain know which neurons to activate that our associated with a specific memory?

The point is, it's not science to say we don't know these answers BUT WE KNOW THE ANSWERS CAN ONLY BE FOUND IN THE CONTEXT OF MATERIALISM.

Well until you can devise an experiment with this spiritual world that can be repeatable and produces the same results every time it is carried out, then we are forced to stick to the physical explanation. Right now, we can't even produce an experiment to prove the spiritual world EXISTS let alone manipulate it. So we should start there.

This isn't science, this is belief. A belief and faith that materialism can answer these questions.

Somehow I doubt that you know how real science works.

What we know based on research is that awareness expands at death and people report these experiences. You can't just say, the brain did it because you have blind faith in materialism.

ACTUALLY, this whole time I've been suggesting possible alternatives to the idea that NDE's are evidence of an afterlife. I'm not affirming one way or the other which is more true. I just see that my explanation requires a few less assumptions to make about things we don't know. So at this time with our current knowledge of the universe, it is the safe bet for what is the reasonable explanation. If you can produce some credible evidence that the spiritual world exists outside of someone's testimony (because again, testimony ISN'T scientific evidence), then I may have a different opinion.

The hypocrisy of materialism is evident. On one hand you say we can't trust people experience and then in the next breathe you say the brain can do all these things.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THE BRAIN CAN DO ALL THESE THINGS?

I don't. I'm just trying to give an alternate explanation that doesn't require an assumption about something that we don't know exists. I want to further study this event OUTSIDE of people's testimony since testimony ISN'T scientific evidence. You can't prove anything with it. So obviously we need to study the workings of the brain more thoroughly.

What you will say is, there have been experiments were some of these things were reproduced in a lab when the brain was stimulated.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THESE EXPERIENCES OCCURRED WHEN THE BRAIN WAS STIMULATED?

??? Why are you speaking for me?

You know because of the subjective experience being told to you by the person whose brain is being stimulated.

SO WHICH IS IT????

DO YOU ONLY TAKE INTO ACCOUNT SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE WHEN YOU THINK IT SUPPORTS YOUR BELIEF??

Why are you yelling at me? I'm just trying to talk reasonably with you. I'm not even sure what you are talking about here. Are you talking about giving someone a CAT scan and trying to reproduce the events in question? Or hooking diodes up to the head to read brain activity during these events? Because last I checked, a machine reads that information. Though maybe calm down a bit and try reexplaining yourself here.

I will say that if you are ever relying on testimonial evidence for your scientific study then you have to be aware that the data is probably faulty and you need to make concessions for that. For instance, the more people you interview, will give a better idea of what the average experience is.

You should never be relying on individual testimony. For instance you keep going on and on about this one event with this one woman. Well that, scientifically, is just a cool story. It means nothing by itself as far as science is concerned. Except maybe as an indicator that something may be going on there.

For instance, they will say a drug may cause nausea. How do they know it may cause nausea? Because of the subjective experience of some of the patients in the trial.

Look, this is what I've been getting at from the beginning. The doctor devised an experiment to test the "awareness" of the people having these experiences since there are all these claims that people say they are seeing things that they shouldn't be seeing while being operated on. Then the doctor samples MANY of these claims and not a SINGLE one mentions the objects that he placed in the room. THAT is a statistically significant thing. It says that more research needs to be conducted on this subject before science can make a ruling one way or the other, because AGAIN testimonial information is so unreliable. ALSO, at no point would this study ever prove that an afterlife exists, because testimonial evidence isn't good enough to do that.

Like I said, you can't just say it's the brain like the brain is magical and can do all things without question. This is just your material belief system not science.

It's better than inventing something we don't know exists and using that to explain what is happening.

a reply to: OneManArmy

That's true, but that doesn't excuse people from presenting bad evidence as proof of their claims. These people's ideas were accepted eventually because they presented GOOD evidence. THEN their claims were later verified by other people when they reproduced the results to get that evidence. THEN their claims were further validated when additional evidence surfaced from even MORE people. But all this starts and relies on a foundation of GOOD, SOLID evidence. Right now, there isn't a good nor a solid foundation of evidence for NDE's.

I want to stress that I am NOT saying these things don't exist. I am just saying that the evidence isn't there to say that they do. EVERY thread needs to be followed. Even if it looks like it will lead you in a direction that you don't want to go. Which seems to be a problem of the people who believe so fervently. Hence the other poster I'm talking to apologizing for OTHER people's failures to see something all because he already has committed in his heart that an afterlife exists. So he doesn't want to follow the thread that says that maybe there is more going on then his preconceived notions are suggesting.

For the record, I'm not saying these things don't exist. But it helps to steal yourself in case you are wrong. Because there is always a chance that you very well might be wrong (in fact it is likely no matter who you are, even me).

a reply to: Krazysh0t


Again, an entire posts filled with nothing but the same nonsense you keep repeating. You said:

So then people don't have peripheral vision in NDE's?

I think it's pretty clear you don't have any idea about NDE's because you keep making this blanket statement about NDE's and peripheral vision. What does this mean in the context of NDE's??

This is why I keep asking you to present NDE experiences where the person going through this experienced remembered and lists every small detail in the room.

Again, this has nothing to do with NDE's and this is why I keep asking you for evidence from actual NDE experiences that support this silly notion and you don't offer anything but long winded posts a that have nothing to do with the actual experience.

Secondly, you make the materialist mistake and that's not surprising. When materialist can't debate the issue they talk about pseudoscience, quantum woo or the SPIRITUAL WORLD. As you talked about.

Again, you spent your post debating against a SPIRITUAL WORLD but I never said anything about a SPIRITUAL WORLD. This shows that you can't debate the issue and you have to resort to the usual materialist tactics.

I said at death people go from a local to a non local awareness. I talked about a quantum mind. In a quantum mind, proto-consciousness is embedded in space-time geometry at Planck scales. When did I mention anything about a SPIRITUAL WORLD??

You said:

I don't. I'm just trying to give an alternate explanation that doesn't require an assumption about something that we don't know exists.

What don't we know exists? First off science is about exploration because WE DON'T KNOW about everything that exists. I take your statement is about this SPIRITUAL WORLD that you spent most of your post debating. Again, something I never mentioned.

We do know about space-time geometry, decoherence, quantum information and more. Like I said I talked about things like entanglement and non-locality not a SPIRITUAL WORLD.

Please try to debate against things that I actually said instead of debating against things that you're making up.

You said:

You should never be relying on individual testimony. For instance you keep going on and on about this one event with this one woman. Well that, scientifically, is just a cool story. It means nothing by itself as far as science is concerned. Except maybe as an indicator that something may be going on there.

Again, another statement that makes no sense. Whose talking about individual testimony. These studies talk to groups of people. This isn't about individual studies but a multitude of experiences over many years.

If you're actually interested in looking at some of the mountains of research into these areas vs. debating against the SPIRITUAL WORLD, you can start here.

www.near-death.com...

I think it's obvious you have your mind set based on your beliefs and it's obvious that you haven't looked into these things. Please try to debate against things I said and you will not have to spend entire posts debating the SPIRITUAL WORLD.

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Krazysh0t
Again, an entire posts filled with nothing but the same nonsense you keep repeating. You said:

I think it's pretty clear you don't have any idea about NDE's because you keep making this blanket statement about NDE's and peripheral vision. What does this mean in the context of NDE's??

Well last I checked, peripheral vision was part of someone's vision experience, so it helps to get a baseline of what is and isn't functioning during these events. You know, trying to see things from all angles; I'm not sure why that isn't important to you.

This is why I keep asking you to present NDE experiences where the person going through this experienced remembered and lists every small detail in the room.

Again, this has nothing to do with NDE's and this is why I keep asking you for evidence from actual NDE experiences that support this silly notion and you don't offer anything but long winded posts a that have nothing to do with the actual experience.

The better question is, why don't you want to look at evidence outside of people's testimonies?

Secondly, you make the materialist mistake and that's not surprising. When materialist can't debate the issue they talk about pseudoscience, quantum woo or the SPIRITUAL WORLD. As you talked about.

Again, you spent your post debating against a SPIRITUAL WORLD but I never said anything about a SPIRITUAL WORLD. This shows that you can't debate the issue and you have to resort to the usual materialist tactics.

Spiritual world, afterlife, what do you want to call it? You are the one suggesting that these people are transcending death. I'm just trying to give it a label.

I said at death people go from a local to a non local awareness. I talked about a quantum mind. In a quantum mind, proto-consciousness is embedded in space-time geometry at Planck scales. When did I mention anything about a SPIRITUAL WORLD??

Can you prove any of that outside of people's testimonies?

What don't we know exists? First off science is about exploration because WE DON'T KNOW about everything that exists. I take your statement is about this SPIRITUAL WORLD that you spent most of your post debating. Again, something I never mentioned.

Since you seem to take objection to my labels, I'll use your words to answer your question. "I said at death people go from a local to a non local awareness. I talked about a quantum mind. In a quantum mind, proto-consciousness is embedded in space-time geometry at Planck scales." We don't know if any of that is true or exists. As of now, it is all assumption to make the claims you made. Then using those assumptions to describe what is happening during an NDE is intellectually dishonest, ESPECIALLY since you are so emotionally attached to those assumptions being true.

Yes science studies the unknown, but science doesn't make assumptions then try to fit evidence to the assumption. Science just follows the evidence, then explains what the evidence is saying.

We do know about space-time geometry, decoherence, quantum information and more. Like I said I talked about things like entanglement and non-locality not a SPIRITUAL WORLD.

Where is your evidence for these things? Outside of testimony that is. I want to see scientific experiments that PROVE these things exist. Start with a peer reviewed journal. I won't accept someone's blog as evidence.

Again, another statement that makes no sense. Whose talking about individual testimony. These studies talk to groups of people. This isn't about individual studies but a multitude of experiences over many years.

Yes and the fact that none of them saw the pictures or the penguin is a statistically significant event. You don't get to hand wave the event away by saying that these people were only focused on their loved ones. It's not YOUR job to explain away a statistical discrepancy. It's YOUR job, as an observer, to acknowledge the discrepancy and then try to find an explanation for it through further testing. You, INSTEAD, came up with your own answer without ANY further testing. That's not science my friend.

If you're actually interested in looking at some of the mountains of research into these areas vs. debating against the SPIRITUAL WORLD, you can start here.

www.near-death.com...

I think it's obvious you have your mind set based on your beliefs and it's obvious that you haven't looked into these things. Please try to debate against things I said and you will not have to spend entire posts debating the SPIRITUAL WORLD.

It's pretty clear that you aren't even attempting to understand my posts that I am trying, rather patiently (especially for me), to explain to you. You are so blinded by your beliefs that you won't even entertain my ideas or try to see things from my point of view. I HAVE seen things from your point of view. I have looked through the evidence and using my skills in scientific evidence gathering, I haven't found the credible evidence to say that ANYTHING you are saying is true. All I've found is that we need to study these things more before we can say anything one way or the other.

I've also pointed out that this could (I put that word in italics since I want to emphasize that I'm not saying that it IS happening) all be occurring in your brain and your brain is playing a trick on you. But you don't want to entertain that idea. You've chosen to believe that THAT is the extraordinary thing in all of this and all the crap you made up is normal. I really don't know how to help you either. You get angry at me for questioning your world view and skim my posts without truly considering what I'm saying. Then you use condescending slurs like "materialist" to describe me while speaking for me to further your own argument (strawman mixed with ad hominem).

For the record, I'm an agnostic, and I use that methodology (that we don't know anything for sure) when I apply the scientific method. It allows me freely to entertain any idea and elevate or deelevate ideas depending on credible evidence without getting emotionally invested in one idea or another. My biggest suggestion to you is to stop getting so emotionally attached to one answer to the problem.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

You said:

Well last I checked, peripheral vision was part of someone's vision experience, so it helps to get a baseline of what is and isn't functioning during these events. You know, trying to see things from all angles; I'm not sure why that isn't important to you.

Again, you don't provide any evidence of actual NDE experiences as to how this relates to them seeing every small detail in a room. You keep making these silly in a vacuum but you're not providing any evidence to support this nonsense.

This has nothing to do with actual NDE experience.

It's not important to me because out of thousands of NDE cases, I havn't seen one where the person saw and listed every small detail because of peripheral vision.

We're debating NDE's, so instead of making these statements that make no sense as it pertains to NDE's, try quoting actual evidence from actual experiences that supports what you're saying.

It's asinine to debate peripheral vision in these cases as it pertains to them seeing and listing every little detail in a room when this isn't part of the actual experience that you're researching.

You said:

Can you prove any of that outside of people's testimonies?

Can you prove people are nauseas without them telling you about their feeling of being nauseas?

Can you prove people have a headache without them telling you about their feelings of having a headache?

Can you prove someone is dizzy without them telling you they're dizzy?

Science does work with subjective experiences especially in the cases of Medical research. This is why the Doctor asks you how do you feel when they're trying to diagnose your problem.

Peoples experiences are very important because you have a biological baseline that happens when these things occur.

You said:

Yes and the fact that none of them saw the pictures or the penguin is a statistically significant event. You don't get to hand wave the event away by saying that these people were only focused on their loved ones. It's not YOUR job to explain away a statistical discrepancy.

Why is it statistically significant? Explain the statistics involved.

For instance, tell me how not seeing a penguin on a shelf statistically affects the p-value. You're the one claiming this is statistically significant, so let's see some statistics.

Again, you have provided ZERO EVIDENCE to support anything you're saying. You keep talking about peripheral vision and how they should see every small detail in a room, but you don't provide actual NDE's that support this notion.

How can you say, that an NDE should see a penguin on a shelf, when there's no evidence
that people having NDE's are aware of everything in a room when they're going through this experience?

This is why I have asked you post after post to show NDE's that actually support what you're claiming and you provide nothing. You just repeat the same nonsense.

You said:

Since you seem to take objection to my labels, I'll use your words to answer your question. "I said at death people go from a local to a non local awareness. I talked about a quantum mind. In a quantum mind, proto-consciousness is embedded in space-time geometry at Planck scales." We don't know if any of that is true or exists. As of now, it is all assumption to make the claims you made. Then using those assumptions to describe what is happening during an NDE is intellectually dishonest, ESPECIALLY since you are so emotionally attached to those assumptions being true.

First, we do know these things are true based on years of research. One of the common traits of NDE's across thousands of cases is that people become more aware as they're having this experience and it's different than the awareness they have while in the body.

I proposed a quantum mind is one way that explains all the features of these experiences. This is better than saying the brain is responsible for all of these things when you have no evidence that the brain can do all these things.

You can't even show me how the brain is responsible for conscious experience or basic things like recall of specific memories. How does the material brain know which memories you wish to recall? How does the material brain know which neurons to activate that's associated with a memory you wish to recall? What's the source of EEG rhythms?

The point is, you can't say, I refute these things because the brain did it. You have to provide actual evidence to support your position.

You can't make blanket statements about peripheral vision and NDE's seeing every detail in a room, when you don't provide a SHRED OF EVIDENCE that these things have anything to do with actual NDE experiences.

You talk about how seeing a picture of a penguin is STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT, yet you provide us ZERO EVIDENCE as to why this is statistically significant based on NDE's. What statistics are you talking about? Break them down and explain them to us using actual evidence and statistics.

You talk about the scientific method but everything you're saying is just nonsense and has nothing to do with science.

originally posted by: neoholographic
We're debating NDE's, so instead of making these statements that make no sense as it pertains to NDE's, try quoting actual evidence from actual experiences that supports what you're saying.

Why wouldn't that be important to you? Even if you already know the answer, it's always a good idea to verify the results with experimentation.

It's asinine to debate peripheral vision in these cases as it pertains to them seeing and listing every little detail in a room when this isn't part of the actual experience that you're researching.

That's because you don't know how to look at things objectively.

Can you prove people are nauseas without them telling you about their feeling of being nauseas?

I'm pretty sure someone vomiting is a good indicator of nausea too. Though if you opened the person's stomach up and looked at it, you'd see that it was behaving in a way that isn't normal.

Can you prove people have a headache without them telling you about their feelings of having a headache?

Actually you can. There are plenty of physical symptoms of headaches that you can use to determine if someone is experiencing one.

Can you prove someone is dizzy without them telling you they're dizzy?

There are also physical symptoms of dizziness. Namely in your ears, where your sense of balance is. If the fluid pressure in your ears is off, then you experience dizziness.

Even depression has physical symptoms we can detect in the brain man.

There are physical symptoms of just about all medical conditions. The only ones that there aren't always physical symptoms for are mental disorders (and psychology is a field of study in its infancy), but even most of them have physical symptoms. The reason that medical doctors are able to use patient testimony to verify illness is because they are familiar with the physical symptoms and know where to check to verify the account. Or they could if they need to.

Science does work with subjective experiences especially in the cases of Medical research. This is why the Doctor asks you how do you feel when they're trying to diagnose your problem.

Peoples experiences are very important because you have a biological baseline that happens when these things occur.

You are making the mistake of comparing a medical doctor to a research scientist studying cutting edge science. They aren't the same thing. A medical doctor deals in things that are already known to science, so they can more easily rely on testimonial evidence. A research scientist is trying to increase the scientific knowledge base and needs better quality evidence to corroborate his claims, so he cannot rely on testimonial evidence.

Why is it statistically significant? Explain the statistics involved.

For instance, tell me how not seeing a penguin on a shelf statistically affects the p-value. You're the one claiming this is statistically significant, so let's see some statistics.

Ok. A scientist (in this case a surgeon) devises an experiment to see if people experiencing NDE's are REALLY leaving their body for these experiences. He places the items in question around the room then interviews all the people he operated on that were close to death about their NDE experiences and NONE of them report seeing these objects around the room. Being that the objects in the room are your variables while the person's natural perception of the room from the ground is the control, if no one notices these things, THAT is something that needs further study as to why it wasn't seen. Sure, maybe your answer to why they didn't see it is correct, but you certainly shouldn't be making up excuses FOR them for not seeing it.

To help you understand what I'm getting at. Let's look at it another way. What if a few to all of the people interviewed mentioned seeing these things? Wouldn't you say that would be significant evidence that they were in fact seeing the room from the ceiling? Even I would admit that it is largely compelling. But, what we have is that no one mentioned them. So that raises questions about what they experienced. These questions need answers. These answers need to be forthcoming BEFORE we can make a decision on what these people are experiencing. That means additional testing needs to be conducted.

Again, you have provided ZERO EVIDENCE to support anything you're saying. You keep talking about peripheral vision and how they should see every small detail in a room, but you don't provide actual NDE's that support this notion.

Actually I'm just wondering why they didn't see the objects and why you keep making up excuses for their failings without knowing that that is the case or not.

This is why I have asked you post after post to show NDE's that actually support what you're claiming and you provide nothing. You just repeat the same nonsense.

I'm not suggesting that is the case. You've been putting words in my mouth. I'm just asking why they didn't see them and that because they didn't it shows that the study doesn't do anything towards confirming or denying that NDE's are anything more than your brain doing something (which we don't know what that something is).

First, we do know these things are true based on years of research. One of the common traits of NDE's across thousands of cases is that people become more aware as they're having this experience and it's different than the awareness they have while in the body.

All we know is that people experience a strange dream when they are near death then revived. We don't know if that dream is reality or not and they are truly ascending to the afterlife then sucked back into their bodies.

I proposed a quantum mind is one way that explains all the features of these experiences. This is better than saying the brain is responsible for all of these things when you have no evidence that the brain can do all these things.

I may not have evidence of this occurring in the brain, but it's better than making things up to explain what is going on.

You can't even show me how the brain is responsible for conscious experience or basic things like recall of specific memories. How does the material brain know which memories you wish to recall? How does the material brain know which neurons to activate that's associated with a memory you wish to recall? What's the source of EEG rhythms?

Well the brain is the control mechanism of the body, so until it can be shown otherwise, that is the default location we assume these things are occurring.

You talk about the scientific method but everything you're saying is just nonsense and has nothing to do with science.

You say that because you don't understand how the scientific method truly works and are incapable of being objective.

originally posted by: Tangerine
It's not a great idea to claim that NDE's prove life after death because they don't. Nearly dead is not dead. The claims being made are the equivalent of someone jumping off a roof and claiming that it proves that humans can fly.

Not really, this study doesnt claim to "prove" anything.
If that same person jumps off the roof with a glider, then man can fly.

This study isnt unsubstantiated claims, its a comprehensive study over 4 years of 2000 patients.

Brain dead is brain dead. If there is no electrical activity in the brain then it is dead and cannot possibly be processing thoughts. This could simply show that the brain isnt the seat of consciousness, maybe the cells are the seat of consciousness. Or maybe like the doctor claims, it HINTS at "something" beyond physical death.
Hardly a bold claim, or "bad science".
But I suppose if it goes against a belief system it must be bad science right?

a reply to: Krazysh0t


Another long winded post providing zero evidence.

You said:

I'm pretty sure someone vomiting is a good indicator of nausea too. Though if you opened the person's stomach up and looked at it, you'd see that it was behaving in a way that isn't normal.

Nope, I could tell a Doctor I'm nauseas and he would have no way of knowing whether I'm nauseas or not outside of me telling him my experience.

You said:

Actually you can. There are plenty of physical symptoms of headaches that you can use to determine if someone is experiencing one.

Again, no. I can tell the Doctor I'm having a headache and tell him physical symptoms that I'm having and he would only have my subjective experience to go on and the same with being dizzy.

I know a person who was saying they had a back problem in order to get pain medicine and they would resell the medicine. They got caught selling the medicine but it was after the Doctor gave him prescription after prescription based on his subjective experience. So no matter how familiar a Doctor is with physical symptoms, in some cases they still only have the subjective experience of the patient.

You said:

Ok. A scientist (in this case a surgeon) devises an experiment to see if people experiencing NDE's are REALLY leaving their body for these experiences. He places the items in question around the room then interviews all the people he operated on that were close to death about their NDE experiences and NONE of them report seeing these objects around the room. Being that the objects in the room are your variables while the person's natural perception of the room from the ground is the control, if no one notices these things, THAT is something that needs further study as to why it wasn't seen. Sure, maybe your answer to why they didn't see it is correct, but you certainly shouldn't be making up excuses FOR them for not seeing it.

To help you understand what I'm getting at. Let's look at it another way. What if a few to all of the people interviewed mentioned seeing these things? Wouldn't you say that would be significant evidence that they were in fact seeing the room from the ceiling?

This would just be more evidence for these things. If you actually read NDE reports, they describe accurately what they see going on in the room around their bodies and what's going on in other rooms where they're loved ones might be.

Again, this is why I keep asking you for evidence from actual NDE cases and you just keep bloviating about this nonsense.

I'm not making excuses as to why they didn't see it, I'm telling you what actually occurs in an NDE. You're the one living on Fantasy Island and saying that people having NDE's should see random penguins on a shelf. YOU ARE THE ONE MAKING THIS CLAIM. You should provide evidence to support your claim.

You said:

Well the brain is the control mechanism of the body, so until it can be shown otherwise, that is the default location we assume these things are occurring.

You assume this is a default location where these things are occurring even though you have zero evidence to support it. You need to learn the difference between objective and subjective.

It's your subjective opinion to assume this is where these things are occurring without a shred of evidence. This is called faith.

There's growing evidence everyday that this isn't the case, but you will blindly accept your assumption because this is what you want to believe.

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Krazysh0t


Another long winded post providing zero evidence.

You said:

I'm pretty sure someone vomiting is a good indicator of nausea too. Though if you opened the person's stomach up and looked at it, you'd see that it was behaving in a way that isn't normal.

Nope, I could tell a Doctor I'm nauseas and he would have no way of knowing whether I'm nauseas or not outside of me telling him my experience.

You said:

Actually you can. There are plenty of physical symptoms of headaches that you can use to determine if someone is experiencing one.

Again, no. I can tell the Doctor I'm having a headache and tell him physical symptoms that I'm having and he would only have my subjective experience to go on and the same with being dizzy.

I know a person who was saying they had a back problem in order to get pain medicine and they would resell the medicine. They got caught selling the medicine but it was after the Doctor gave him prescription after prescription based on his subjective experience. So no matter how familiar a Doctor is with physical symptoms, in some cases they still only have the subjective experience of the patient.

You said:

Ok. A scientist (in this case a surgeon) devises an experiment to see if people experiencing NDE's are REALLY leaving their body for these experiences. He places the items in question around the room then interviews all the people he operated on that were close to death about their NDE experiences and NONE of them report seeing these objects around the room. Being that the objects in the room are your variables while the person's natural perception of the room from the ground is the control, if no one notices these things, THAT is something that needs further study as to why it wasn't seen. Sure, maybe your answer to why they didn't see it is correct, but you certainly shouldn't be making up excuses FOR them for not seeing it.

To help you understand what I'm getting at. Let's look at it another way. What if a few to all of the people interviewed mentioned seeing these things? Wouldn't you say that would be significant evidence that they were in fact seeing the room from the ceiling?

This would just be more evidence for these things. If you actually read NDE reports, they describe accurately what they see going on in the room around their bodies and what's going on in other rooms where they're loved ones might be.

Again, this is why I keep asking you for evidence from actual NDE cases and you just keep bloviating about this nonsense.

I'm not making excuses as to why they didn't see it, I'm telling you what actually occurs in an NDE. You're the one living on Fantasy Island and saying that people having NDE's should see random penguins on a shelf. YOU ARE THE ONE MAKING THIS CLAIM. You should provide evidence to support your claim.

You said:

Well the brain is the control mechanism of the body, so until it can be shown otherwise, that is the default location we assume these things are occurring.

You assume this is a default location where these things are occurring even though you have zero evidence to support it. You need to learn the difference between objective and subjective.

It's your subjective opinion to assume this is where these things are occurring without a shred of evidence. This is called faith.

There's growing evidence everyday that this isn't the case, but you will blindly accept your assumption because this is what you want to believe.

I agree.
There are so many things that we only have the persons subjective experience and explanations to go by.
In my opinion, bad science consists of thinking we already have the answers.
Climate science is bad science, as has been proven a few times, but that doesnt stop the global warming brigade getting all self righteous does it?

One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter.
One mans heretic is another mans pioneer.

originally posted by: neoholographic
a reply to: Krazysh0t
I know a person who was saying they had a back problem in order to get pain medicine and they would resell the medicine. They got caught selling the medicine but it was after the Doctor gave him prescription after prescription based on his subjective experience. So no matter how familiar a Doctor is with physical symptoms, in some cases they still only have the subjective experience of the patient.

Apparently you missed where I said that a medical doctor diagnosing you isn't the same thing as a scientist researching new material. A doctor relies on known things to diagnose. A research scientist is trying to learn something new. They AREN'T comparable. But in any case, there are physical symptoms for illnesses, just because a doctor doesn't verify them every time they diagnose someone, doesn't mean they aren't there. Stop obfuscating here.

This would just be more evidence for these things. If you actually read NDE reports, they describe accurately what they see going on in the room around their bodies and what's going on in other rooms where they're loved ones might be.

I have read NDE reports, but I've already told you that I distrust testimonial evidence.

Again, this is why I keep asking you for evidence from actual NDE cases and you just keep bloviating about this nonsense.

The reason I'm not giving it to you is because testimonial evidence ISN'T scientific evidence or proof of explaining what is happening. All it can say is that SOMETHING is occurring. But you can't seem to accept that.

I'm not making excuses as to why they didn't see it, I'm telling you what actually occurs in an NDE. You're the one living on Fantasy Island and saying that people having NDE's should see random penguins on a shelf. YOU ARE THE ONE MAKING THIS CLAIM. You should provide evidence to support your claim.

Um... Why wouldn't someone be able to see the penguin? You've told me because these people are focused on their loved ones, so it reasons that if they weren't focused on their loved ones and looked elsewhere in the room then they would be able to see the penguin. They are supposedly at a vantage point in the room where they should be able to see it, so why don't they ever look at the penguin? Your response to me "they are focused on the operating table and their loved ones" is making excuses for them. They failed to see the penguin for WHATEVER reason and YOU are explaining why without any further research.

You assume this is a default location where these things are occurring even though you have zero evidence to support it. You need to learn the difference between objective and subjective.

I think the field of neurology disagrees with you here.

It's your subjective opinion to assume this is where these things are occurring without a shred of evidence. This is called faith.

No, I just listen to the field of neurology that maps the human brain and observes what happens to the brain when we do or experience different things.

There's growing evidence everyday that this isn't the case, but you will blindly accept your assumption because this is what you want to believe.

There you go, speaking for me again. Why do you do that? That is very insulting and makes me not want to talk to you anymore. You clearly don't respect me or my opinion. That is gratingly clear over the course of our conversation.

a reply to: OneManArmy

Here's the thing with that. Subjectivity isn't measurable. So it becomes hard to create a baseline and control group that you can experiment on to determine how things work. That's why science doesn't deal in subjectivity, or tries to stay as far away from it as possible. If these things are only subjective, then science may never be able to answer the question if they exist or not. Though that still doesn't give you the authority to say that they do exist. Just because the evidence can't be produced, doesn't mean you can go ahead and make the assumption. There are too many unknowns and subjectivity doesn't do anything to answer them.

originally posted by: Baddogma
...I would hope there is a purpose and repository for all the nifty information accrued and quips I've made... otherwise it all seems so... pointless...

Yeah...the idea that "who we are" and all of our memories are just chemicals and brain matter that will all die when we die is certainly a depressing thought, but it may still actually be the case

The idea that what we call "consciousness" can somehow exist independent of our brains and can thus live on once we die is a far less depressing thought, but that does not necessarily make it any more true.

Double post

a reply to: Krazysh0t

First, you're the one that claimed a Doctor could tell if someone was dizzy or had a headache and this is just nonsense. Again, you make these silly claims and when you have no evidence you just keep making the same silly claims.

If a person goes to the Doctor and says they have a headache, the Doctor doesn't say no you don't have a headache. These symptoms depend on the subjective experience of the patient. The most a Doctor can do is look for the cause of the headache and rule out certain things. He can't tell someone they don't have a headache.

Again, Medical research depends on the subjective experience of the person in the trial.

Are you feeling better?

Have the headaches gone away?

Do you have stomach pains?

Do you feel dizzy?

All of these things depend on the subjective experience of the individual that's going through these trials. So if you do a trial with 20 people and 7 of them get dizzy, this can eventually lead to a side effect listed for the drug if it's FDA approved.

This depends on the subjective experience of the individuals.

You said:

I have read NDE reports, but I've already told you that I distrust testimonial evidence.

This is just asinine.

What are you even debating if you distrust subjective experience in Medical research?

You're a Conspiracy Theorist not anyone trying to research the truth. On one hand you say that NDE's should be able to see penguins on a shelf, but then in the next breathe you say you distrust these people giving their experience.

WHICH IS IT??

Why do you distrust what they're saying when you already admitted that you believe what they're saying is true??

You said the brain could explain these experiences and that it could be like a dream or an illusion. So you do trust these subjective experiences and you're just debating the cause or you don't trust these subjective experiences and you don't know what you're debating?

You're just all over the place.

Are you debating the origin of these experiences or whether these experiences occur?

You're not making any sense. You then said:

Um... Why wouldn't someone be able to see the penguin? You've told me because these people are focused on their loved ones, so it reasons that if they weren't focused on their loved ones and looked elsewhere in the room then they would be able to see the penguin. They are supposedly at a vantage point in the room where they should be able to see it, so why don't they ever look at the penguin? Your response to me "they are focused on the operating table and their loved ones" is making excuses for them. They failed to see the penguin for WHATEVER reason and YOU are explaining why without any further research.

This again stems from your illogical positions. You don't trust subjective testimony in these cases, but you construct a test that's not based on the actual experiences.

You keep saying these silly things. Why should they see a penguin on a shelf from their point of view? HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT THERE POINT OF VIEW IS IF YOU DON'T TRUST EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY??

You said:

The reason I'm not giving it to you is because testimonial evidence ISN'T scientific evidence or proof of explaining what is happening.

The reason you're not doing this is because you can't. You're not talking about NDE's. You're building up a strawman argument that has nothing to do with the actual experience. There's no reason, based on NDE's, why they should be focused on a penguin on a shelf.

When you're doing Medical research, you do take into account subjective experience. You want to know things like is there any blood flow going to the heart? What's happening in the brain while they're having these experiences? You want to look at different explanations for these experiences.

It all starts with the experience and again you're talking out of both sides of your mouth.

In one breathe you don't trust these subjective experiences but in the next breathe you try to give an explanation as to why these subjective experiences are occurring. WHICH IS IT?????

If you don't trust these subjective experiences, why are you trying to explain why the subjective experiences you distrust are occurring?