Mega-thread for help with rebuttals against skeptical talking points

I thought this might be appropriate for the Discussion section, since I'm not absolutely sure what the implications of this are for skeptics or proponents. Someone mentioned this study on the AwareofAWARE blog, and I'm curious as to what relevance this might have to veridical NDE evidence and research, since this paper does mention NDEs briefly. The commenter seemed to think it had some relevance at least. There might be some implications for Terminal Lucidity here too, but I'm far less certain in that. 

I highly advise reading at least most of the paper in case I skip over some important details in my summary. 


https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67234-9

There is a persistent belief, however, that some unresponsive patients may still be aware of touch and sound1, despite being unable to reliably signal their awareness. Much of this belief comes from reports of near-death experiences (NDEs), where a common recurring element of this experience is hearing unusual noises or hearing oneself pronounced dead2,3,4. Reports from NDEs, however, are difficult to interpret, because incidence of NDEs is low, between 6%5 and 12%6 of cardiac arrest survivors, and the cognitive neuroscience underlying NDEs remains hotly debated7,8,9 and poorly understood10,11,12. Further perpetuating the belief that “hearing is the last to go” are some family members and health care providers who have reported that unresponsive patients will occasionally groan or make a small facial movement in response to hearing a familiar voice, but to our knowledge there is no empirical evidence to corroborate these anecdotes13...

...Because synchronous gamma oscillations have been linked to conscious cognitive processing in humans27,28,29,30,31, increased gamma synchrony could generate an NDE immediately after cardiac arrest (this interpretation is, however, debated)26. Although these studies point to the potential for awareness in the dying brain, they speak to neurophysiological states after sudden cardiac arrest, and may not be generalizable to the period of unresponsiveness that can occur before death from other “natural” causes. In a scoping review of 39 human and animal studies investigating brain activity in the period before cardiac arrest, Pana et al.32 found that “[t]here are no studies describing clinical brain function in the context of progressive hypoxia or ischemia leading to circulatory arrest (pg 79)”. Whereas there is some, but limited, physiological and anecdotal evidence to support the assertion that “hearing is the last to go”, the capacity for awareness during the unresponsive period leading to a “natural” death remains unknown...

...We have presented evidence that at least a few actively dying hospice patients, when they are unable to respond to family or healthcare provider verbal stimuli, nonetheless seem to be hearing and giving neural responses to sequences of simple auditory stimuli. This is consistent with the trope that hearing is one of the last senses to lose function when a person is dying, and lends some credence to the advice that loved ones should keep talking to a dying relative as long as possible... 

...At the least, the presence of local and/or global effects in a DOC or unresponsive patient in this paradigm implies that auditory change networks in these patients are functioning similarly to those of young, healthy participants. Moreover, a few patients in UWS also give fMRI evidence that they can control their brain responses on request44,49,50,51,52,53,54,62. Thus, either when severely damaged or even when near death, some brains can evidence functioning in some systems....

...We simply do not know how much cortical and sub-cortical functioning is required to support even simple phenomenal conscious awareness. We do know that conscious awareness is not lost even when up to half of cortex is removed during resections done to ameliorate epilepsy, although of course there are clear cognitive deficits in these cases. We also know that in patients with DOC a “cognitive-motor dissociation” can occur. In this state, patients can be behaviourally unresponsive to verbal commands but can display EEG evidence of function in relevant areas of the brain, implicating cognitive function, in response to the same verbal commands. In some cases specific connections between cortical and sub-cortical motor areas have been lost, whereas in others there might be multiple reasons for the lack of motor responsiveness. In the dying brain, it is likely that different areas and connections lose function at different times, with motor loss often preceding cognitive loss, as we seem to have discovered, but there may be no one route to complete loss of function. Clearly though, it is possible that even partial functioning of a cortical-sub-cortical system could result in some awareness even if that awareness cannot be communicated to observers via the usual motor responses.

I'm not sure what 'stages' of death they're specifically referring to in this paper, meaning it's difficult to know whether this is relevant to understanding veridical NDE cases, and if skeptics will use this to try and say that it's just 'subconsciously hearing conversation' (even though we do have several cases of verdidical NDEs where information was acquired and verified from well outside the rooms of experiencers).


Thoughts?

Disclaimer:
As noted here there's a good reason to reject this is proof materialism/physicalism is true, given these skeptical parties that continue to doubt the physicalist/materialist faith.

Additionally, whatever is shown by parapsychology or neuroscience, here are four good reasons to reject the religion of physicalism/materialism.

A good example of the research data on NDEs is the book The Self Does Not Die by Rivas, Dirven and Smit, which contains numerous investigated veridical NDEs, divided into several categories, such as extrasensory veridical perception of the immediate environment, extrasensory veridical perception of events beyond the reach of the physical senses, awareness and extrasensory veridical perception during cardiac arrest and other conditions, telepathy, after-death communication with strangers, and after-death communication with familiar people. There are also a number of other additional categories of paranormal veridical phenomena accompanying some NDEs. Overall, more than 100 investigated veridical paranormal NDE cases are described.

In most of these cases, some sort of dim residual awareness and perception through the normal senses of hearing and vision on the part of the dying patient (as in "the hearing is the last to go" sort of medically observed phenomena investigated in the research paper of the OP) could not possibly account for the remembered veridical perceptions many of which are visual later reported by the patients in their accounts of the experiences.

The power of numbers also operates here, in that even if some few of the cases actually have ordinary medical of other explanations, this cannot possibly account for all of the cases. Even one truly anomalous paranormal veridical case constitutes strong prima facie empirical evidence for separation of consciousness from the physical body during the reported NDE.

Also, looking at the big picture, parapsychology and psychical investigation over the last 130 years have accumulated a very large body of other types of empirical verified evidence for separation of the mind from the physical body (or in some cases veridical perceptions while conscious in the body that imply independence of consciousness from the physical brain). Furthermore, a number of very strong philosophical arguments in the discipline of philosophy of mind have been developed that very logically establish the untenability of physicalism in general and specifically in philosophy of mind. Again, the power of numbers operates. Even if ultimately some of this empirical data and some of these philosophical arguments are somehow invalid, all it takes is one valid one to establish the case against physicalism.

Further still, the numerous neuroscience studies researching neural phenomena such as revealed by FMRI scans and the like are ultimately interpretable as just as likely to be mere correlations of neural activity with consciousness, as they are interpretable as evidence that mind = brain.   

Accordingly, this research paper and I think all such research papers should be considered mostly irrelevant to the issue of the reality of survival of physical death, which has been established as having both a very strong evidential and a very strong philosophical/metaphysical basis.

This argument (residual hearing =NDE) has been presented and re-presented since 1975. Sabom dealt with it fairly conclusively in 1982. Woerlee brought it back along with NDE by CPR much more recently. There's never been any good reason why we should link a patient's hearing to the construction of an NDE with sight and veridical perception. There is no evidence that patients do that. Sceptics just blithely assume it but assumptions are not evidence.

Patients that are accidentally awake with their eyes closed (or not actually quite as dead as they appear to be) don't automatically create an NDE with all the features including viewing the OR etc. They just report being able to hear, sometimes being scared or terrified as in the majority of cases in anaesthesia awareness. 

Sometimes this may lead to an NDE but there are just too many cases where hearing could not possibly explain what the patient reported. They are so numerous, as in the 'Self Does not die', it makes the question redundant. 

Everyone hears all the time in different states of consciousness. We don't have an NDE just because we hear something. We don't believe we've seen our surroundings from a position up near the ceiling, just because we heard... It makes no sense.

With all the information on this site, it really isn't a worthy topic IMHO.

With all the information on this site, it really isn't a worthy topic IMHO.

I'm going to second this. I realize there are people who think mind=brain and when you're gone you're gone across the internet offering all sorts of explanations/arguments, but I really don't think it's a good use of time to just keep trying to answer every argument random people bring up.

If I had a phobia of death I would read up on the varied resources on this site. For one thing if this is the only life, isn't it better to spend it educating one's self rather than jumping around the internet in desperate hope of alleviating all doubt?

I'm going to second this. I realize there are people who think mind=brain and when you're gone you're gone across the internet offering all sorts of explanations/arguments, but I really don't think it's a good use of time to just keep trying to answer every argument random people bring up.

If I had a phobia of death I would read up on the varied resources on this site. For one thing if this is the only life, isn't it better to spend it educating one's self rather than jumping around the internet in desperate hope of alleviating all doubt?

Parnia has already stated that in the first period after death, consciousness remains.  Not many people realise how significant that statement is. When the brain has stopped functioning, the mind continues (for some period) apparently. In one case 3-5 minutes. 

He did the study, he should know better than 'Mr Sceptic', who has never done any studies of his own, probably never even spoken to someone who's had an NDE. Why should we listen to Mr Sceptic ? 

We don't know what the mind is or what it's capable of but if it can somehow hang together often with improved capabilities when the brain is not functioning... ?

So I don't know whether or not this is a 'skeptical talking point' but I've been meaning to get this off my chest fully for a while now. 

I despise Goop, Gwenyth Paltrow's exploitative company, and think non-materialist doctors and scientists should avoid them for their credibility's sake. 

I'm aware they occasionally have useful resources and articles on things like psychedelics, the Ice Man guy, and have interviewed the likes of Jeffrey Long before, but I don't know about you guys, but I simply cannot support the company in any way. Much of what they peddle is shamelessly, ridiculously expensive and more than likely to be genuine pseudoscience, not just what pseudo-skeptics like to label because they can't refute it or refuse to look into it, I mean actual pseudoscience that vaguely borrows ideas from other fields and isn't properly tested. Their products have been found to be dangerous or unhelpful too, or just flat out ridiculous, such as the infamous 'vagina candle'. 

Julie Beischel is someone I've always had very mixed thoughts on since I read about her work, and I agree that her reputation has been seriously damaged by choosing to associate and appear on their Goop Lab.  The same can be said for Laura Lynne Jackson, the alleged medium featured on the series. IMO, she's either lazy with her gift or fraudulent based on her reading she gave, which did unfortunately come off as just cold reading andtand/or hot reading to me, and was not nearly as impressive as some of the readings I've been to or heard about. I also noticed on social media that one or two other mediums had comments implying that even they thought Jackson probably wasn't the real deal. This is a shame, since IIRC, Jackson was one of the 'approved' mediums of the Forever Family Foundation. Of course, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater, but again this feeds into my doubt. I still maintain confidence however that at least some of the FFF mediums may be genuine. 

I'm sorry if I offend anyone here through this but I just can't stand the woman and her company. In my view, they take spirituality, transpersonal psychology and parapsychology and milk them for money, rarely choosing to delve into the detailed research of some people they interact with. It is interesting to read interviews with those we may recognise on this forum nonetheless even if it's with a very shady company. 

I'm assuming I'm not alone on here in my opinion of Goop given what I've seen posted of them in the past on here, but I felt just getting this out of my system.

An interesting new article on a case of personality changes after brain injury, claimed by the writer to be actually a new identity. The writer is apparently also his psychotherapist, who specializes in treating people with neurological disabilities. 

"On Matthew’s mind: An operation to remove a brain cyst changed Matthew’s identity. Who will he become after the next round of surgery?"

I thought I would post this to beat OmniVersalNexus to the draw. At first glance this looks like fertile ground for skeptic materialists to claim strong evidence against the existence a soul and an afterlife.

Actually reading the essay reveals that the protagonist had grievous losses including constant fatigue, memory problems and depression, some of which were probably predictable physical and psychological consequences of his brain surgery. However, I don't think there is any indication at least in the essay that his identity or persona fundamentally changed. He remained an alienated materialist nihilist loner, a computer programmer by profession, dedicated to his work and to the reign of logic.

My impression is that the words "changed Matthew's identity" were tacked on without justification within the essay, just to add a little verve to the title. Or the writer added it on as an automatic-to-a-materialist assumption.

A case like this might look like an acid test for survival and the afterlife, but all the evidence and arguments against physicalism and against the mind being a physical artifact of brain functioning remain. These facts and arguments are powerful and stubborn. I don't think this case or any others like it are any logical justification for neuro-materialism. Obviously the mind and the physical brain are very closely and complexly intertwined in life. And serious brain injury even when due as in this case to surgical insults to the brain incurred in order to remove a life-threatening ventricular cyst, are going to have severe consequences, even if the core of the person's self cannot really be damaged. The human person obviously is damaged.

Accommodating these facts of the existence of an immense amount of grievous innocent human suffering into a viable spiritual belief system is another thing entirely, a problem not related to the issue of the existence of an afterlife. But of course materialists will always bring it up, the problem of suffering to any spiritual belief system. It's irrelevant to the central issue.

Samples from the essay:

"There was a time when I would have tried to talk Matthew round on the subject of counselling. For the 10 years I’ve known him, he has seemed to live in a condition of deep psychic unease. There are periods when, by his own report, he barely sleeps. He often comes to the centre in the morning already exhausted, his eyes puffy. He complains of his bones aching. At his lowest ebb, he will spend his days silently washing up in the centre’s busy kitchen, barely interacting with others, executing his voluntary role with joyless determination. He isolates himself socially, spending his free time on long bike rides and watching YouTube videos. At one stage, when things were particularly bad, he described visions of self-harm, images that would spring into his mind without warning, of his own hands cut and covered in blood; of his body falling from the Tube platform into the path of an oncoming train. He has admitted to ‘ruminating’ about his fate and, when asked, speaks bleakly about the future. ‘I used to have a plan but now I have no ability to make plans happen. I try to take one day at a time.’

For many years, I was convinced that talking therapy might help, but Matthew would always turn it down. ‘Way too invasive,’ he would say. ‘I like my emotions where they are: in a box.’ I remember him making a shape with his hands, a square-sided container for his mind. He stared intently into that space between his palms. His own, inviolate territory.

As far as I understand it, this isn’t a new disposition. Before his injury, Matthew was a computer programmer who defined himself largely by his work. He was renowned among his friends for his stubborn pursuit of logic, and for never discussing emotions."

..............................

"Matthew sees himself as a materialist – as someone committed to the idea that only matter exists, and that the mind is nothing more than an ‘epiphenomenon’, a ghost in the machine. Where I think of the mind and body as two sides of the same coin, he sees a clean dichotomy. Where I see the mind as native to and inextricable from the body, Matthew sees software: beautiful but ephemeral routines that, in some sense, only ‘exist’ when they’re ‘running’; that are infinitely replaceable, rewritable. Abstract."

Yeah I read the article and it just confused me. It seemed the author was fishing for a book deal or something, with the unnecessary dramatics actually making it hard to see what the argument was.

At the very least it seemed to confuse Computationalism with Materialism. While often conflated, it is possible to be a Materialist without thinking your brain is a computer program. 

I also couldn't really understand the identity change taking place.

The article ends with a cliff-hanger unresolved - how did Matthew respond to his second brain surgery? Was his identity changed? Matthew posted responses to some of the comments sent in on the essay, and he answered this question in his last message in the comments section. His identity or persona basically remained the same. The words in the article's title were just a teaser it seems. 

"The surgeons were correct all along. Having more surgery wasn’t going to help with my circumstance. I am still in the same boat. Fatigued, Depressed and not remembering much from day-to-day. But at least I was rid of the cyst - at least for a while. The result of my last MRI wasn’t great news. The cyst in my brain is back - so no solace to be found there.

With respect to materialism – I am not in any way psychologically affected or moved by it. For me, it is just a means of understanding the world using the model of software in a computer’s memory. Objects have states. The states can be transformed. The states can be stored. And, those states are retrievable. It seems a very brutal way of looking at life. It is stark. It seems emotionally barren too. But not quite - it seems like it offers no space for emotionality. The emotions are part of the collected sets of states. It just depends if you have a cacophony or symphony of emotions no matter what they are. I grew up in a Christian family so my insistence on being purely materialistic might be nothing more than ego. I have been known to pray spiritually."

Thanks for that article. I agree that the title seems to be somewhat misleading and exaggerated. Out of curiosity, is the author saying that he himself is a monist? What's the difference between monism and materialism btw? 

The author does say the Descartian dualism is:

 ...where humans and other animals must either be composed of two different properties or be entirely without reason (which seems a harmful, fragmentary way to frame the world)...

Philosopher Sam Wilkinson also said this:

Often physicalism gets equated with reductive physicalism. But that’s an extreme and pretty minority view. Reductive physicalism would say that everything reduces to the physical. (For example, minds just are brains.) But the most popular view is a form of non-reductive physicalism. This is achieved using technical concepts like “emergence”, “supervenience”, “multiple realisability”

Frankly, I have no idea where he got the impression that reductive physicalism is uncommon, because it certainly isn't online at least. I've seen it many times. 

I did also notice that, as you say, the title is misleading and exaggerated. Based on the fact that Matthew himself comments and explains his current situation, he heavily implies that he hasn't changed. 

Edit: Oops, seems you beat me to it nbtruthman!