Merged A new argument pro Near Death Experiences

[The Man]

A parsimonious question. However, folks that know consciousness does not arise from brain function would reply with this answer. The brain is like a radio receiver; when it becomes impaired it can't recieve as well. That's an analogy I've heard often. No matter what objection one might pose to folks, folks will believe what's emotionally satisfying. It's so frustrating.

Yeah, but unfortunately a faulty radio doesn't change folk music to jazz. You don't just channel some other person, as if tuned to a different station. You functionally change as a same person, your 'jazz' music becomes, 'folk', 'rap' or 'rock' (sticking with the analogy).

 

[Steve001]

Yeah, but unfortunately a faulty radio doesn't change folk music to jazz. You don't just channel some other person, as if tuned to a different station. You functionally change as a same person, your 'jazz' music becomes, 'folk', 'rap' or 'rock' (sticking with the analogy).

Looking at your analogy some of it is correct. Looking at it from the perspective of Maartenn or some members if Skeptiko your analogy would fall apart because they would reply transcendence proves otherwise as does say idiot savants. You gotta always keep in mind this is an intuitive, ideologically driven position, mind does not equal brain, immaterialism vs. materialism. Oh, and it's nearly impossible to sink a rubber ducky.

 

[The Man]

Looking at your analogy some of it is correct. Looking at it from the perspective of Maartenn or some members if Skeptiko your analogy would fall apart because they would reply transcendence proves otherwise as does say idiot savants. You gotta always keep in mind this is an intuitive, ideologically driven position, mind does not equal brain, immaterialism vs. materialism. Oh, and it's nearly impossible to sink a rubber ducky.

Oh, I know. It is just the radio anthology really sucks for anyone with any experience with or working on actual radios and radio communications. Heck, just Look at Maartenn100's own citation of the story of Jill Bolte Tayler. It wasn't that 'herself' was trapped or miscommunicating through some bad connection to her body it was that she, in and of herself, had fundamentally changed and was even vacillating between such modes of change. While I certainly don't expect Maartenn100 to understand, accept nor acknowledge how his own citations counter his own position, I'll still put it out there for others.

 

[Dancing David]

Consciousness is not the same as functions of the brain.

Prove it!

 

[Pixel42]

The scientific research: "decrease or disfunction or RIGHT parietal lob of the brain causes experiences of self-trancendence".

Jill Bolte Tayler says: "my left brain didn't work anymore and I exprienced nirvana"

No contradiction?.

No contradiction between the brain malfunctioning and consciousness malfunctioning, no.

You can call that malfunctioning "transcendence" or "nirvana" or "enhanced consciousness" all you like, it remains a malfunction.

The malfunctioning of the brain caused by alcohol or heroin may feel pleasant too, but it's still a malfunction.

 

[MaartenVergu]

It's so sad to see how beginning scientists are brainwashed in college:
One student says about the book of neuroanatomist dr. jill Bolte Tayler the following:

"I am an undergraduate taking a course in Clinical Neuropsychology. We read this book as well as a textbook chapter on the organization and function of the brain.
I dislike that a trained scientist talks about new age stuff, making angels, and transmitting energy from one human being to another. As scientist Jill should not devote more that one short chapter to such matters, since it is impossible to prove whether they actually work or not."
https://goo.gl/H6JxaQ

This undergraduate is already so brainwashed by the materialistic view, that she can not accept the core essence of the experience of neuroanatomist dr. Jill Bolte Tayler: the experience of another dimension. Even when it's written in a book by a neuroscientist who had these experiences of angelic beings and energy and the experience of unity with everyting around her body, the eyes of this undergraduate student are already blinded by pure materialistic thinking. She cannot value the experience of this other dimension of reality.
Very sad.

 

[MaartenVergu]

Confirming evidence FOR the afterlife may not be dismissed, just because you do not like these kind of explanations.

 

[Hokulele]

How is the article you linked evidence for an afterlife?

 

[fibbermcgee]

I'm an ex Air Force Officer. My particular job consisted of aircraft ground control. One of the things we were always on the lookout for was any sign of Oxygen deprivation in pilots under our control.
To understand what deprivation does we were sent to Homestead AFB. At the base they had an altitude chamber. We started out at 10,000 ft where no one felt distress. We where given oxygen masks and the chamber was blown out to 40,000 ft. The NCOIC said he was going to ask one person at a time to remove his oxygen mask. At that time the subject was to count a series of ten bolts on a panel in front of them. Within 10 seconds of slow counting all we heard was 1,6,4,9,92,0 or something similar. The subject was told to put on the mask again. He was perturbed because he said he was perfect in his counting. Another 20 seconds without oxygen and he would have been unconscious.
Every one tested the same way and no one mentioned any difficulty in counting even though no one could do it.
A pilot probably would not have such a quick loss of oxygen just a malfunction in his equipment but it would catch up to him. In all cases the pilots and the subjects in the chamber did not remember any thing close to actual facts.

 

[Pixel42]

Confirming evidence FOR the afterlife may not be dismissed, just because you do not like these kind of explanations.

I would very much like to believe there is an afterlife, so I will certainly not dismiss confirmatory evidence for it if any ever turns up.

 

[Porpoise of Life]

I would very much like to believe there is an afterlife, so I will certainly not dismiss confirmatory evidence for it if any ever turns up.

This.
I would be thrilled if the afterlife turns out to be real.
However, I can't let my personal desires get in the way of reality. At the moment, there is as much evidence for afterlife as there is for werewolves.

 

[abaddon]

I would very much like to believe there is an afterlife, so I will certainly not dismiss confirmatory evidence for it if any ever turns up.

Sure. Except that none ever has, nor will, if past performance is any guide. One of the huge problems that Maarten100 has is that he is fixated on the mere existence of some form of afterlife. Suppose, for a moment, that we grant that. All of a sudden, he is stuck in an eternal battle with every other flavour of claimant as to the nature of said afterlife with not a single claimant having the foggiest clue as to what that might be like, yet with every single one claiming to "know" exactly what that is like on the basis of nothing at all.

 

[steenkh]

Maartenn, Jill Bolte Taylor may have experienced nirvana, and being one with the universe, but that does not mean that nirvana exists, or that the universe is something you can be one with. Experiences are not the same as reality.

 

[MaartenVergu]

I'm an ex Air Force Officer. My particular job consisted of aircraft ground control. One of the things we were always on the lookout for was any sign of Oxygen deprivation in pilots under our control.
To understand what deprivation does we were sent to Homestead AFB. At the base they had an altitude chamber. We started out at 10,000 ft where no one felt distress. We where given oxygen masks and the chamber was blown out to 40,000 ft. The NCOIC said he was going to ask one person at a time to remove his oxygen mask. At that time the subject was to count a series of ten bolts on a panel in front of them. Within 10 seconds of slow counting all we heard was 1,6,4,9,92,0 or something similar. The subject was told to put on the mask again. He was perturbed because he said he was perfect in his counting. Another 20 seconds without oxygen and he would have been unconscious.
Every one tested the same way and no one mentioned any difficulty in counting even though no one could do it.
A pilot probably would not have such a quick loss of oxygen just a malfunction in his equipment but it would catch up to him. In all cases the pilots and the subjects in the chamber did not remember any thing close to actual facts.

Then maybe you have heard of the study of Dr. James Whinnery about G-LOC (G-force induced loss of consciousness) syndrome symptoms.

"Whinnery (1997) revealed the similarities between NDEs and G-LOC (G-force induced Loss Of Consciousness) episodes. Based on the observations of G-LOC, Whinnery noted how the experiences often involved "tunnel vision and bright lights, floating sensations, automatic movement, autoscopy, OBEs, not wanting to be disturbed, paralysis, vivid dreamlets of beautiful places, pleasurable sensations, psychological alterations of euphoria and dissociation, inclusion of friends and family, inclusion of prior memories and thoughts, the experience being very memorable (when it can be remembered), confabulation, and a strong urge to understand the experience."
(source: Wikipedia)

 

[Cosmic Yak]

Then maybe you have heard of the study of Dr. James Whinnery about G-LOC (G-force induced loss of consciousness) syndrome symptoms.

"Whinnery (1997) revealed the similarities between NDEs and G-LOC (G-force induced Loss Of Consciousness) episodes. Based on the observations of G-LOC, Whinnery noted how the experiences often involved "tunnel vision and bright lights, floating sensations, automatic movement, autoscopy, OBEs, not wanting to be disturbed, paralysis, vivid dreamlets of beautiful places, pleasurable sensations, psychological alterations of euphoria and dissociation, inclusion of friends and family, inclusion of prior memories and thoughts, the experience being very memorable (when it can be remembered), confabulation, and a strong urge to understand the experience."
(source: Wikipedia)

I think anyone who's read anything more than the last page of this thread will be aware of that study, and others like it. They have been cited repeatedly to show that what people are describing as an encounter with the afterlife is nothing more than hallucinations brought about by a lack of oxygen to the brain.
I'm glad you're finally on board with this, Maarten100. The ISF has done its job, and we can move on to the next woo claim now.

 

[MaartenVergu]

I think anyone who's read anything more than the last page of this thread will be aware of that study, and others like it. They have been cited repeatedly to show that what people are describing as an encounter with the afterlife is nothing more than hallucinations brought about by a lack of oxygen to the brain.
I'm glad you're finally on board with this, Maarten100. The ISF has done its job, and we can move on to the next woo claim now.

Don't be too glad too soon: I interprete this as: too much brainfunction impairment = individual is going up into trancendency. It's a matter of interpreting the studies differently.
See also: Self-Transcendence Correlates with Brain
Function Impairment

 

[Hokulele]

Don't be too glad too soon: I interprete this as: too much brainfunction impairment = individual is going up into trancendency. It's a matter of interpreting the studies differently.
See also: Self-Transcendence Correlates with Brain
Function Impairment

Why do you interpret it like that? How exactly are you interpreting the data, so we can follow your logic?

 

[Crossbow]

Confirming evidence FOR the afterlife may not be dismissed, just because you do not like these kind of explanations.

What a load of crap.

Just because some people have some elements of their dreams in common that does not mean that there actually is some sort of afterlife.

 

[Donn]

Don't be too glad too soon: I interprete this as: too much brainfunction impairment = individual is going up into trancendency.

Sure. Makes sense. Transcendency is the sensation of a lessening of self as various brain functions fail. It ends in death, or recovery.

Here's an equivalent: Have you ever seen a rotting corpse (say, a bird)? Does the process improve the bird's body in some way? Would you call a skeleton a more efficient body?

Your idea that a mind becomes better as it decays is like that.

 

[MaartenVergu]

Sure. Makes sense. Transcendency is the sensation of a lessening of self as various brain functions fail. It ends in death, or recovery.

Here's an equivalent: Have you ever seen a rotting corpse (say, a bird)? Does the process improve the bird's body in some way? Would you call a skeleton a more efficient body?

Your idea that a mind becomes better as it decays is like that.

Donn,

The brain is not efficient anymore to function in this world, that's right.

Bernardo Kastrup says:

"The self-transcending character of experiences that accompany certain types of brain injury has been evocatively described by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, following a stroke that damaged her brain’s left hemisphere:

"my perception of my physical boundaries was no longer limited to where my skin met air. I felt like a genie liberated from its bottle. The
energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a great whale gliding through a
sea of silent euphoria. (Taylor 2009, 67)."


Consciousness is more enhanced, while the brain is malfunctioning more and more.

Even more significantly, “the magnitude of this decrease [in brain activity] predicted the intensity of the subjective effects” of the psychedelic (Ibid.). As such, the significant self-transcending experiences that follow psychedelic intake are—counterintuitively—accompanied by reductions of brain activity.
Source:http://jcn.cognethic.org/jcnv4i3_Kastrup.pdf