Merged Near Death Experience Study

[bruto]

My best argument is that there are some studies with induced cardic arrest in people and in animals. When you induce cardiac arrest, then within one second the blood flow to the brain is zero. Within one second people are unconscious. The body reflexes are gone, wich is a function of the cortex of the brain. The brainstemreflexes are gone. People don't breath anymore. When you measure the EEG of the brain, after an average of 15 seconds: a total flatline. So, in the studies of induced cardiac arrest in people or animals, the brain doesn't function anymore after an average of 15 seconds.

Ergo, in the studies of NDE's, most people must have a flat EEG after an average of 15 seconds and yet they have an enhanced consciousness, a coherent experience and all the logic thinking faculties seem to function well.

By whose account does this enhanced consciousness and coherent experience occur during the time that the brain is not operating?

I can report from unfortunate direct experience that the time during which a brain is not working (as in a coma) certainly can count as no time at all for the owner of that brain. It is empty of experience and memory. What reason is there to believe that in one sort of experience alone, the illusion of continuity is not an illusion?

 

[MaartenVergu]

I advise you to read the book of Pim van Lommel, "beyond life".
I have the dutch version but you will find a lot of answers in this book.

 

[Slowvehicle]

My best argument is that there are some studies with induced cardic arrest in people and in animals. When you induce cardiac arrest, then within one second the blood flow to the brain is zero. Within one second people are unconscious. The body reflexes are gone, wich is a function of the cortex of the brain. The brainstemreflexes are gone. People don't breath anymore. When you measure the EEG of the brain, after an average of 15 seconds: a total flatline. So, in the studies of induced cardiac arrest in people or animals, the brain doesn't function anymore after an average of 15 seconds.

This is, simply, incorrect.

Brain activity persists from 3-11 minutes after the heart stops, gradually falling to zero. Interestingly enough, once the person suffers brain death (one of the medical and forensic criteria for determining PMI), the person does not recover.
http://etiskraad.dk/upload/publications-en/organ_donation/organ_donation/kap04.htm
http://www.wakeems.com/ICE/Hypother...n after resuscitation from cardiac arrest.pdf
(Not to mention both the Forensics texts and the A&P texts from which I teach.)

Ergo, in the studies of NDE's, most people must have a flat EEG after an average of 15 seconds and yet they have an enhanced consciousness, a coherent experience and all the logic thinking faculties seem to function well.

When one argues from incorrect facts, one reaches incorrect conclusions.

If the EEG is, indeed, "flat", there is no brain activity. If there is brain activity,the EEG is not "flat".

 

[Slowvehicle]

Did you measure the EEG? How do you know that? Did you use an EEG-monitor?
The studies of induced cardiac arrest are more convincing then your argument.

Did you?

Brain activity (and EEG trace) persists uop to 11 minutes after cardiac arrest.

The brainstemreflexes are gone. The body reflexes are gone.

These are two different criteria.
http://www.wakeems.com/ICE/Hypother...n after resuscitation from cardiac arrest.pdf

Absence of body reflexes, especially if hypothermic prophylaxis is induced, is reversible.

Brain death is not reversible.

And there is even more consciousness then the normal waken consciousness we have now. How do you explain that?

Given that characteristic brain activity is indicative of consciousness, this is, simply,not true. If the EEG is "flat", there is no brain activity.

I do not have to "explain" unsupported assertions; it is up to you to support them with more than anecdote.

I, too, can state from experience that coma is not an occasion of heightened consciousness. That anecdote is not the reason that the suite of hallucinations reported soi dissant "near 'death' experiences" have anything at all to do with actual death.

 

[Slowvehicle]

I advise you to read the book of Pim van Lommel, "beyond life".
I have the dutch version but you will find a lot of answers in this book.

Right.

van Lommel is the one that postulates that consciousness is inherently "beyond the neurological processes of the brain", but is, instead, a function of "nonlocal access" provided by "non-functioning DNA and "quantum mechanics", because (according to him,and with no experimental demonstration), consciousness must, in fact,be "eternal". A startling amount of his "research" consists of uncritical reporting of the anecdotes of psychics.

Another who does not understand the burden of proof, or the concept of evidence.

 

[Donn]

My best argument is that there are some studies with induced cardic arrest..

But you've been accusing us of saying this. We ask for the studies and you just get ruder.

Weird.

Ergo, in the studies of NDE's, most people must have a flat EEG after an average of 15 seconds and yet they have an enhanced consciousness, a coherent experience and all the logic thinking faculties seem to function well.

Seconds and flatness aside, how do you know when they have the experience? It could be in the first second.

They remember it because:
1. They did not actually die.
2. It's a recent and strong memory.

 

[mstricky]

Perhaps you should all read the account of NDE in Dr Eden Alexander's book Proof Of Heaven. He's a neurosurgeon

 

[Belz...]

Please learn to use the quote function. You've been here 4 years, for pete's sake.

Did you measure the EEG? How do you know that? Did you use an EEG-monitor?

Because unlike you I don't think ignorance is a good thing, allowing me to make **** up as I go, and thus I try to actually know things about stuff.

 

[Donn]

Perhaps you should all read the account of NDE in Dr Eden Alexander's book Proof Of Heaven. He's a neurosurgeon

He's a neurosurgeon who is wrong about neurons.

 

[Belz...]

Brain activity persists from 3-11 minutes after the heart stops, gradually falling to zero.

But in what capacity ? (my PDF reader doesn't work right now) It's my (limited) experience that people going into immediate cardiac arrest (not gradually) just shut off and have no time between that and waking back up.

In any case, I don't think Maartenn knows the circumstances of these events. If someone is fibrilating or being revived, that doesn't count as flatlining.

 

[Slowvehicle]

But in what capacity ? (my PDF reader doesn't work right now) It's my (limited) experience that people going into immediate cardiac arrest (not gradually) just shut off and have no time between that and waking back up.

In any case, I don't think Maartenn knows the circumstances of these events. If someone is fibrilating or being revived, that doesn't count as flatlining.

The question of "how much 'brain activity' is 'consciousness',and to what degree" is a different set of issues. In a typical cardiac arrest, the arrestor is not, in fact, attached to an EEG, and the sort of faint, irregular, epispodic brain activity characteristic of brain cells slowly poisoning themselves with carbon dioxide and calcium buildup is the least thing on the code team's set of priorities. In truth, cardiac arrest may be such a trauma (and of such a nature) that conscious awareness fades early, and quickly; but to say that the EEG "flatlines" in 11 seconds (as Horizon does) is to ignore biology, and biochemistry, in the uncritical service of woo!, begging the question while pleading specially.

What is also being ignored is that the experience of the passage of time is, in fact, a brain function. The experience of briefly waking to notice one's alarm will go off in 5 minutes, then drifting back to sleep and dreaming a dream that lasts for subjective hours, even days or years, is common, as is the back-plotting of a dream to incorporate the alarm or other new stimulus.

As for Dr. Alexander, it is interesting the degree to which his story of a "persistent brain-dead state" with no consciousness. caused by a meningeal E. coli infection differs from the descriptions of his caregivers of the medically-induced come during which Alexander was "conscious, but delirious". Further, Alexander is another "witness" to the "process of dying" who did not, in fact, die. Much of a muchness.

 

[Belz...]

Understood.

 

[Aepervius]

Philosophers are asking many questions and are using rational or logical arguments to answer them. They also ask fundamental questions about the postulates of the scientific method (Popper et al), about materialism etc... It's a free and open discussion with rational arguments.

By descrediting philosophy, you can belief in the ilusion that your basic concepts of reality are like dogma's (can't be discussed), and you don't have to argue them or confront them with other philosophical concepts of reality, then you are narrow minded in my opinion.

And fancy that term which were chosen and used in the past make people misunderstand things.

NDE is one my my favorite. Neard-death is about as suefull a definition as near-pregnant. You aren't near pregnant. The same for death you are dead , and this is an irreversible process, or you are not then you were under some form of unconsciousness which is not "near death".

Same with the pointless distinction usage of the "death" word between clinical death (which is not death at all, it simply means you heart & breathing intentionally or not stops - it is sometime induced intentionally for operations) better named cardiac & pulmanory arrest and in which the brain is not dead, and real death aka brain death, when the self really die. ETA: I am aware this was the case decades ago that when you stopped breathing and heart stopped beating it was the end, but this is not the case anymore so contynuying to use the clinical DEATH as a term is misleading.

NDE are misnamed the same way.

 

[Aepervius]

Did you measure the EEG? How do you know that? Did you use an EEG-monitor?
The studies of induced cardiac arrest are more convincing then your argument.

The brainstemreflexes are gone. The body reflexes are gone.
And there is even more consciousness then the normal waken consciousness we have now.

How do you explain that?

Which do not mean the neuron are dead. At best it only means neuronal activity is *minimal*.

There is a huge difference biologically between minimal activity and irreversible stops of activity.

You know what is the problem ? The fact many woo believer about NDE keep missing ?
What would be the experience of a brain neuron network at minimal work, suddenly restarting to get in normal work would experience ? Hint : the answer might not be as far as you would think.

 

[Belz...]

NDE is one my my favorite. Neard-death is about as suefull a definition as near-pregnant. You aren't near pregnant. The same for death you are dead , and this is an irreversible process

Well if you mean "dead" to mean "heart doesn't beat" then it's quite reversible. If you mean "beyond revival", then sure.

 

[MaartenVergu]

People who want to be open minded can see that this experience is very precious for the experiencers. The experience changes the lives of the experiences on a very fundamental level. They come back with a whole new set of values in this world. And I trust their experience when they say that it is more real than here. I trust that these people can validate their own perceptions and that they can see the difference between reality and illusion or hallucination. These NDE-people are not stupid and they can think for themselves. They don't need others to do that for them.

 

[Slowvehicle]

People who want to be open minded can see that this experience is very precious for the experiencers. The experience changes the lives of the experiences on a very fundamental level. They come back with a whole new set of values in this world. And I trust their experience when they say that it is more real than here. I trust that these people can validate their own perceptions and that they can see the difference between reality and illusion or hallucination. These NDE-people are not stupid and they can think for themselves. They don't need others to do that for them.

This is an intresting speech of Pim van Lommel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avyUsPgIuQ0

...so is the experience of religious conversion.

Your point?

 

[Akhenaten]

People who want to be open minded can see that this experience is very precious for the experiencers.

It doesn't really take much open-mindedness to see that being at death's door and yet surviving is going to have a profound affect on most people.

The experience changes the lives of these people on a very fundamental level.

More information please.

They come back with a whole new set of values in this world.

All kinds of experiences can have that effect, especially the more traumatic ones.

And I trust their experience when they say that it is more real than here.

That's more the result of a predisposition to believe in the supernatural than the result of critically analysing the evidence.

I trust that these people can validate their own perceptions.

There's considerable evidence that people are the worst possible judges of their own perceptions. There's nobody in the world easier to fool than oneself.

These NDE-people are not stupid and they can think for themselves. They don't need others to do that for them.

Whether they're stupid or not isn't the question. What's at issue is their (and some of those who attempt to interpret their experiences) ability to be objective.

 

[bruto]

People who want to be open minded can see that this experience is very precious for the experiencers. The experience changes the lives of the experiences on a very fundamental level. They come back with a whole new set of values in this world. And I trust their experience when they say that it is more real than here. I trust that these people can validate their own perceptions and that they can see the difference between reality and illusion or hallucination. These NDE-people are not stupid and they can think for themselves. They don't need others to do that for them.

This is an intresting speech of Pim van Lommel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avyUsPgIuQ0

I do not see any contradiction here. An experience that has meaning can be meaningful. It does not matter for this what its source is.

When you nearly die and do not end up dying, it changes the way you look at a lot of things. If in the process your brain produces an impressive experience, then the experience will be impressive no matter where it comes from. In my case it has shortened my patience with fools, but that is best left as an abstract idea for another time.

Many intelligent people find their lives significantly informed and changed by faith even though what they have faith in can never be confirmed. The fact that confirmation is impossible and faith is not science, and that it can be argued against, does not make them stupid even if many other intelligent people believe they are wrong.

 

[Belz...]

People who want to be open minded

Being open minded doesn't mean you endlessly consider all possibilities. At some point, evidence has to point you in one direction.

And I find it ironic that you, of all people, would talk about open mindedness, since you ignore all evidence and arguments put forth to you.