NDE - Latest news supports survival

[steenkh]

It would matter, the same way it would matter if we had a believer in mediumship involved in a test about mediumship.

But in this case we can treat the patients as mediums. After all, it is THEIR story that we need to verify. They are not testing themselves.

 

[steenkh]

Can you explain your reasoning here? Why shouldn't appropriate alteration of the brain allow one to have a glimpse of a differing reality? I don't understand.

What I am saying is that you cannot call something a Near-Death Experience when the person is nowhere near death. They can experience the same hallucinations - which is my point. You cannot use it as evidence for a life after death. But if they can have "glimpses of a differing reality", out-of-body experiences, and if they can see things they should not be able to see, you might use it for psi evidence.

 

[Interesting Ian]

What I am saying is that you cannot call something a Near-Death Experience when the person is nowhere near death.

Well don't whine to me about it. That's the terminology we're stuck with. Get it through your head that the term NDE means a certain characteristic experience, not that one is necessarily near death.

They can experience the same hallucinations - which is my point.

Or the same reality. Induced ones are different though. They seem less real. More hallucinatory, but this doesn't meanly they are wholly hallucinatory.

You cannot use it as evidence for a life after death.

I can and I do.

 

[Dr Adequate]

Well don't whine to me about it. That's the terminology we're stuck with. Get it through your head that the term NDE means a certain characteristic experience, not that one is necessarily near death.

Oh come on... I refuse to refer to an experience which is not near death as a near death experience. I mean, what? Am I currently having an OOB which doesn't involve being out of my body? Can we have ESP which is not extrasensory? A UFO which we can identify? English words have a meaning. I shall not say that you are "whining" about it, because that would be pointlessly offensive. But I will point out that "that's the terminology we're stuck with" and that "near death" means "near death".

(Edited to add: but I don't see what the dispute's about, really. Ian: you're talking about people who, according to doctors, nearly died, aren't you? They were near to death, weren't they? We can leave the poor English language alone, surely?)

 

[steenkh]

You cannot use it as evidence for a life after death.

I can and I do.

So these NDE's although they do not happen when people are near death, can still be used as evidence of life after death! Your logic certainly seems impeccable

 

[Dr Adequate]

Originally posted by steenkh
So these NDE's although they do not happen when people are near death, can still be used as evidence of life after death! Your logic certainly seems impeccable

Um... steady on. I think sceptics and believers can agree that the experiences of people who nearly die are analogous to the dying experiences of people who actually die. It's certainly the most conservative hypothesis. Whether these experiences add up to proof of life after death is another matter. But if the experiences of the one group are evidence, then so are the experiences of the other group.

 

[CFLarsen]

So these NDE's although they do not happen when people are near death, can still be used as evidence of life after death! Your logic certainly seems impeccable

Why can't it be life before life (this one)?

Ian?

 

[steenkh]

Um... steady on. I think sceptics and believers can agree that the experiences of people who nearly die are analogous to the dying experiences of people who actually die.

I was comparing NDE's of people close to death with "NDE's" of people who are induced to have them through electrodes on their skull. I think Ian got the point.

(Edited to correct spelling)

 

[Interesting Ian]

I was comparing NDE's of people close to death with "NDE's" of people who are induced to have them through electrodes on their skull. I think Ian got the point.

(Edited to correct spelling)

Assuming an afterlife, then it is a working brain which prevents you from being there now. It is clear that you would be able to get a glimpse of it through appropriate manipulation of brain processes don't you think? I don't know about electrodes on their skull though. I've heard the best way to artificially induce NDEs is by taking ketamine.

 

[steenkh]

Assuming an afterlife, then it is a working brain which prevents you from being there now. It is clear that you would be able to get a glimpse of it through appropriate manipulation of brain processes don't you think? I don't know about electrodes on their skull though. I've heard the best way to artificially induce NDEs is by taking ketamine.

I cannot see why it should be clear that one can see glimpses of the afterlife if the brain is stimulated in certain ways, even if an afterlife actually exists. It must depend on your favorite theory of an afterlife. I think an afterlife is what lies after death, and you think it is what happens when the brain goes nuts!

 

[steenkh]

I googled for it myself and found this link to Nature Science Update . I must admit that the actual article only mentions out-of-body experiences, and not NDE's as such, so maybe we should stick to ketamine if we want a glimpse of the afterlife?

(Edited to insert missing word)

 

[Lothian]

Nearly all those who have had NDEs tell me that they no longer fear death. In fact, because of what happened to them while clinically dead, they say they are happy to go.

"Of those who have had NDEs, some have been quite religious while others were at best agnostics."

[/B]

So basically she is saying that the biblical theory of non-believers suffering in eternal torment in death and the believers living it up are wrong.

Despite being in a hotbed of religion she will fortunately get away with this scandalous claim because most of the 'readers' of the Western mail only buy it as a starter fuel for burning cottages or wiping their boots after indulging in some sheep rearing. [/Ann Robinson]

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Assuming an afterlife, then it is a working brain which prevents you from being there now. It is clear that you would be able to get a glimpse of it through appropriate manipulation of brain processes don't you think?

If death requires a non-working brain, how could you possibly simulate it with a working one?

 

[Dr Adequate]

Assuming an afterlife, then it is a working brain which prevents you from being there now.

Ingenious... but is that ALL it does?

It is clear that you would be able to get a glimpse of it through appropriate manipulation of brain processes don't you think? I don't know about electrodes on their skull though. I've heard the best way to artificially induce NDEs is by taking ketamine.

I don't know about electrodes on the skull, either... or ketamine. I think in the report I read they just artificially induced anoxia, a la Flatliners. But different strokes for different folks... that's another method of course... oh dear...

I think that that sort of NDE probably would be a fair model for a "real" one, since the (immediate) cause of the NDE is being mimicked --- arguably the subjects are being brought "near death".

I wouldn't do it. Not even in the Glorious Cause Of Science.

 

[c0rbin]

Concluding life after death based on the expiriences of someone "near" death is the same is concluding alien technology when unidentified lights appear in the sky.

It is someone not applying occam's razor.

It is someone imposing their own bias onto a very likely mundane expirience.

Is that bump in the night the lingering personality of a dead person? Or is it the AC switching on.

I personally hope there is something after I die, but nothing in this world has led me to draw conclusions that there are.

 

[The Mighty Thor]

Concluding life after death based on the expiriences of someone "near" death is the same is concluding alien technology when unidentified lights appear in the sky.

It is someone not applying occam's razor.

It is someone imposing their own bias onto a very likely mundane expirience.

Is that bump in the night the lingering personality of a dead person? Or is it the AC switching on.

I personally hope there is something after I die, but nothing in this world has led me to draw conclusions that there are.

I agree. Would research like this earn her a PH.D.?

That is why I think polls that ask "do you believe that there are UFO's?" must be terribly skewed. Most people have heard of, or even seen unidentified objects in the sky. But not all believe they are evidence of aliens. I once witnessed an amazing daytime UFO phenomena -- bright white lights in a clear blue sky, flying sometimes in formation, sometimes weaving about each other. Only when I got my binoculars out did it become clear that they were magpies far in the distance, their white bits reflected by a bright sun. Freaked me for a time, though.

 

[Ed]

I've heard the best way to artificially induce NDEs is by taking ketamine.

 

[LeFevre]

Ian want's to step into the K-hole. Use physical chemicals to alter your physical mind motor, hmmm doesn't look like evidence for some types of mental Dualism and does IMO point towards reductionist scientific studies to further flesh out what the smeg the mind is. At least in my view reductionism has the most going for it in regards to actually answering some questions about the mind like what NDE's are.

 

[Cynical]

OMIGOD. LeFevre is still here. What's more, the HAIR is still there! I was sure that LeFevre had gotten a haircut in the last year or two.

But in regard to this NDE stuff, why don't we here from someone who has been there and back or thinks they have? And you know-it-alls shouldn't be so pompass about the subject unless you HAVE had an experience.

 

[Belz...]

That they were all pretty much religious, but a few at a stretch could be considered agnostic (in other words they don't attend church very often)??

Perhaps it means that atheists don't tend to see God when they have an NDE. I wonder why.