I am pointing out a possibility how the soul could interact with the body without being detected by physicists and neuroscientists.
Interaction between body and soul
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I am pointing out a possibility how the soul could interact with the body without being detected by physicists and neuroscientists.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
This only matters if you can prove the soul exists and has the properties necessary to operate according to your "possibility." Speculation is not argument. You've speculated that some unknown force might exist that has exactly the properties your belief needs. That is not science.
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None. So what? How many neuroscientific experiments have you done?
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
So how can you be so sure their information is as good as you need it to be? All other things being equal, who is more qualified to assess the validity and reliability of NDE reports: someone who has had an NDE himself, or someone who has not and has merely read the reports?
Ad hominem.
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It is also not science to claim that if the soul interacted with the body, scientists would notice it.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
If this is what you think, then you haven't understood a word I've said regarding science. Current models are complete and parsimonious. When you have to propose a new force and new interactions, whose only purpose is to enliven one desired belief, science can quite rigorously say "No."
I don't know whether the information is 'as good as I need it to be', but I note that there are thousands of reports with common elements.
Are you joking? The Standard model is missing dark matter and gravity and has not been reconciled with general theory of relativity.
Saying it's a fact does not make it a fact.
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Then how do you know whether you can safely ignore Abbadon's experience and disregard his judgment? You didn't answer my question. Do you consider yourself a better judge of the reports than Abaddon?
Exactly how many? Show me the controlled statistical profile on the coherence of the reports. Last I checked, they were all anecdotes, variously reported, variously verified. How does your claim jive with Charlotte Martial's findings? I'm prepared to concede that NDE is a real phenomenon. But I don't think it's as clear-cut as you want it to be, and I don't agree at all that it "appears" to have anything to do with a soul.
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JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
Fair enough. How exactly does that result in the magical force you invented?
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What variables? Wouldn't we notice if a variable was changed by a supposed simulator?
No, but Abaddon didn't describe his experience so there is nothing for me to regard or disregard.
I just saw this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-death_experience
It doesn't have to be any more 'magical' than familiar forces and resonance is a familiar physical phenomenon. The new particle(s) might be incorporated in an extended Standard model
JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
That wasn't the question.
Yes, that article lists a number of occurrences that it says are "commonly reported." That list relies upon about half a dozen sources, nearly all of them publications in the popular press. Not all sources are cited as authorities for all claimed traits. If one source reports one trait and another source reports a different trait, what would be the statistical basis for combining them together and calling that a list of truly common traits? Of the sources that listed their sample sizes, most were on the order of N=100 or less; one gives N=154. This therefore can't be the authority for your claim that there are "thousands" of congruent reports.
And more importantly, how does the alleged commonality in the reports support the conclusion you drew from it?
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JayUtah
Penultimate Amazing
But it's not a familiar force, and you present no evidence that it exists. And you speculate it to have exactly the properties you need in order for your belief to be true, with no evidence that the belief is a fact that needs to be explained. This is what we mean in argumentation when we say it's "magical." There is no need to extend any model to incorporate an ad hoc element that remains in search of an actual observation to explain.
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The Norseman
Meandering fecklessly
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That's exactly right. Thing is, theoretical physicists who do this sort of a thing for a living -- such as Dr. Sean Carroll -- have actually done the hard work and have presented their findings and conclusions, so... you know. Those facts. Don't be the guy staring at my pointing finger, rather look to the moon I'm pointing at.
Dr. Carroll explicitly laid out precisely why you're wrong and the kinds of things you will have to address if you really truly think that there are unknown forces that can interact with the human brain, such as transfers of memory, or life after death or souls or whatever.
Of course you blithely ignore the questions, even after I had quoted them here verbatim. I'm beginning to think that you have no answers and that you don't even have the requisite background to even begin to understand the questions that scientists have already figured out.
And of course, it isn't me per se that you'd have to convince but theoretical physicists like Dr. Carroll that you'll have to convince; but if you can't even get past the basics -- which ISF is a great place for -- then... well... what can I say?
jrhowell
Muse
You are still ignoring the implications of a soul that does not experience life until just prior to death.
If you decide to raise your arm and then do so, what just happened? If your hypotheses is true then the “you” that did that was just your physical body and your soul played no part in that action. If you kill someone that was your body acting, your soul is still innocent.
In this scenario how would you know that you even have a soul? Perhaps only those who experience NDE’s actually have souls. The rest of us, including you and I, are just meat puppets.
Loss Leader
I would save the receptionist., Moderator
No, it is not. There is no reason a soul has to be involved in NDE. Nobody who had zero brain activity has ever been revived and reported an NDE. All those people died. They died when the activity in their brain ceased. So you have a sample size of exactly zero.
All the people who you say are reporting NDEs had some brain activity and then lived. Current medical science is fully capable of explaining NDEs without inventing a new notion of a soul and shoving it into the material theories. And medical science says that people dream, they hallucinate, and that they have poor memories. All of this fully explains NDEs.
Name three. Name three neuroscientists and/or doctors who think that. Provide contact information for each.
Of course, plenty of scientists disagree on plenty of things. That still doesn't mean that a fully new theory of "souls" needs to be invented to resolve those disagreements. And even if it did, the scientists would then test it. They'd make predictions about it and then test them.
Can you suggest a repeatable, falsifiable test for the existence of souls - a test where, if souls exist, the result will confidently be positive and if none exist, the results will confidently be negative? If so, please lay out your planned test.
Well, that's kind of an ignorant thing to say. Modern humans have been on this planet for at least 200,000 years. The whole idea of the scientific method - falsifiable, repeatable tests - only dates back to the 1600s. The first experiments to determine that chemicals were the transmitters of information between cells were performed by Otto Loewi starting in 1921. For reference, that's 199,902 years after modern humans arose.
EVERYTHING scientists do is after the fact. It's close to 200,000 years after the fact.
Also, seeing a phenomenon and then testing a theory to explain it is exactly how science works. Then scientists can test other things predicted by that theory that haven't been observed yet.
Neuroscientists currently have a theory regarding NDEs that has nothing to do with souls. There's no new phenomenon that doesn't fit current medical and physical theories. There's no reason to run a test for a soul, even if anyone could devise such a thing.
Can you?
But we know certain drugs can do that. We know partial wakefulness during sleep paralysis can do that. And we know that lots of people who report NDEs had been given powerful drugs and (in cases of surgery) paralytics.
What remains to be explained? What does a "soul" add to our understanding of what we can observe?
It's apparent to me if I go outside and walk as far as I can, that the earth is flat. It's apparent to me that my phone hates me, especially when I try to use the camera. It was apparent to me when I was a child, that there were definitely monsters in my closet.
Plenty of things are apparent to an individual that aren't true. Appearance is just a signal that we should run falsifiable, repeatable tests to confirm or disprove our perceptions. That's what they did to determine the earth was round.
You're still starting with your conclusion. You're assuming a soul exists and then dismissing instances that don't line up with your conclusion.
Great. End thread. Get some proper data and we'll reconvene then.
Name three. Name three people from three different cultures who reported NDEs that have common elements. Provide the names and contact information and I'll interview them myself.
See, I think that all you have are nameless stories. I don't think they can be traced back to any particular person. It's always an unnamed nurse at a hospital who heard an unnamed patient say something. Can you provide any names of anyone who reported an NDE and who is still alive to be interviewed?
I don't think you can.
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As long as one begins with reality as a material / physical world, then the notion of a soul can never gain any traction. A material / physical world has no explanaition or possibility of a living conscious being, much less a conscious being that survives death. Yet consciousness is - so begin with a different model. I don't know what the term 'soul' refers to, so this is not my wheelhouse.