(2021-06-22, 07:51 AM)Smaw Wrote: [ -> ]I mean you know I don't think it is. To throw wild points it could be relevant to the survival vs super psi debate. I'm mostly asking since I don't know, and I feel like it's good to get your feelers out on new developments. If a lot of subconscious stuff is related to the brainstem and potentialy even some regular conscious activity related too, AND there's still brainstem activity during NDEs, what does that mean for NDEs? Certainly not that they're all bunk, but it's relevant.
Thanks for the reply. How do you think it's relevant, what would it mean for you?
The reason I asked the original question about veridical information is that it gets close to at least one aspect of the NDE phenomenon. A rhetorical question (no need to answer unless you wish) is this: why does anyone talk about NDEs at all, why are they interesting?
Is it because people have hallucinations and delusional visions, entering into some crazy dream-world? No, it is because they seem level-headed and to contain both factual information and timeless wisdom. If it was all crazy stuff, no-one would care, certainly not me, it wouldn't be discussed on this forum, or have attracted so much attention.
Around the edges there are those who attach themselves, these include both debunkers and some types of religious fanatics, each trying to put their own spin and interpretation on things.
Well, here, yes we're open to evidence-based challenges, but I don't see where the brainstem or other brain-related questions play any role. If someone has a conversation with someone who is deceased, returning accurate factual information which they could not have known, yet they had every reason to think the person was still alive and well in this physical world, then to the brainstem question I can only say so what? If we have contact with the deceased, that is news, do we discount it because we think it should come from a different type of messenger? Why do our expectations on the messenger matter so much?
I have long held the view (in agreement with NDE researchers such as Jan Holden) that NDEs can take place in circumstances where the brain is healthy and functioning normally. Here's one definition of an NDE which I found online:
Quote:NDEs are "profound psychological events with transcendental and mystical elements, typically occurring to individuals close to death or in situations of intense physical or emotional danger"
Thus for myself personally, I place far less emphasis on the state of the body, for example if we invoke anoxia in the case of say drowning or suffocation, we cannot do so in the case of someone who is simply going about their ordinary life and continues to do so after the NDE, with no physical trauma. Likewise, if we invoke some burst of hallucinatory chemicals into a healthy brain, we know those same chemicals will do nothing in the case of a brain which is shut down. Again, chemicals or lack of them doesn't offer anything useful in terms of explaining veridical information.
Did you read the book, "
The Self Does Not Die: Verified Paranormal Phenomena from Near-Death Experiences"? Highly recommended, and two of the co-authors have been members of this very forum, but that's not the sole reason for the recommendation.