A major but biased new paper on consciousness

Given that response, tim, I affirm that both moderators view things the same way you do. You wrote nothing disrespectful, and the comment of Durward's that you quote was in particular disrespectful. The moderation statement to which you object was generic because Durward already feels like the bullied new kid, and singling him out for being disrespectful seemed to be unhelpful in dispelling that feeling. You're right, though, that - although it wasn't intended - the generic nature of the statement might seem to have implied that you, too, were disrespectful, which is unfair to you, and which is why I'm offering this clarification.

Cheers ! and matter dropped.

Mainstream acceptance might also open a mass suicide mentality, where people think they can just hit the reset button and all is well. Let's remove the existential anxiety caused by reminders of our own mortality, and replace them with evidence of immortality. Hopefully there will be something that appears in this research showing repercussions and consequences of unethical and immoral actions. Otherwise we might be headed for a horrifying free-for-all.

On the flip side fear of death is how tyrannies retain their power.

But I don't think academic acceptance of discussing something like NDEs will immediately lead to mass suicide. If nothing else, no one seems to know where they will end up in the afterlife.

[Laird]

Counter-claim: The memory of the OBE and the veridical experiences during it might have been constructed after awakening via some sort of psi. Thus, NDEs are not proof of that consciousness can exist without a working brain, and are of limited evidential value in support of the possibility of survival of consciousness after biological death.

In the meantime, here are some of my own thoughts in the moment: this is quite an elaborate and implausible suggestion compared to the straightforward, literal interpretation that the OBE really occurred. Furthermore, all participants in this conversation apparently accept that OBEs can and do occur. Why, then, would it - apparently uniquely - be the case that they are false memories reconstructed after the fact via some sort of psi for NDEs, but in (all?) other cases real experiences? Am I misunderstanding? Maybe the claim is that in all cases, OBEs are false memories reconstructed after the fact. Why would we entertain this possibility though? Is there any good reason to?

You asked "Am I misunderstanding?"

Yes, misunderstanding mine if you are asking me.

At least my points are not aligned with what I think you are saying in some of these statements.
Not even close.

Can you clarify then exactly what you are (counter-)claiming? If you do, I'd really appreciate it if you kept it to a brief summary, so as to avoid confusion, and so as to avoid the possibility of us getting into the weeds rather than sticking with the core (counter-)claim(s).

Here's the core dynamic as I see it re the contention over NDEs in this thread.

Claim: NDEs that occur when a person is clinically dead, and when that person reports having an OBE during which they report veridical* experiences of events in the physical environment that occurred while they were clinically dead, prove that consciousness can exist without a working brain. This is prima facie evidence for the survival of consciousness after biological death.

* Those which are later confirmed to be accurate.

Counter-claim: The memory of the OBE and the veridical experiences during it might have been constructed after awakening via some sort of psi. Thus, NDEs are not proof that consciousness can exist without a working brain, and are of limited evidential value in support of the possibility of survival of consciousness after biological death.

I know that I have seen this counter-claim before, as well as refutations to it, but right now I can't remember where, nor dig them up. If anyone else can, then please do.

In the meantime, here are some of my own thoughts in the moment: this is quite an elaborate and implausible suggestion compared to the straightforward, literal interpretation that the OBE really occurred. Furthermore, all participants in this conversation apparently accept that OBEs can and do occur. Why, then, would it - apparently uniquely - be the case that they are false memories reconstructed after the fact via some sort of psi for NDEs, but in (all?) other cases real experiences? Am I misunderstanding? Maybe the claim is that in all cases, OBEs are false memories reconstructed after the fact. Why would we entertain this possibility though? Is there any good reason to?

Tragically, this thread isn't even about NDE, but about leaving NDE out of the newly published paper. And the claim is they are biased for leaving it out, which I happen to agree with, since it should be included, as far as I'm concerned. I think leaving it out was likely political or some slant by the scientists involved. I know I want to think Dean would have included it. And I think we should send them an email and ask them about it.

My version of NDE facts: (Please share your own, correct me if you think I'm wrong by using real science and data, etc.) No more hitting below the belt or complaining that I ramble, please, thank you.

NDE's occur because people are clinically dead. (We do have many events that share the same types of experiences in the living, but science is not including these OBE's or other data for comparison, while still calling them OBE. They want NDE to stay pure or what?)

• This makes them an altered state of awareness, induced by death, where the claim is the brain is dead (as far as our science can tell) (As far as we understand where awareness resides). You see how I am leaving these options open until we understand more about the nature of our awareness, and where and how it "resides" and not making assumptions?
  
• See Terminal Lucidity for other forms of consciousness / awareness where the brain is damaged beyond repair and people are still functional and talking.
  

NDE experiences are then collected from those revived. So after death and revival. The actual point in our physical space / time where the NDE events happen have not been determined, to my knowledge. Assume what you will here.

NDE experiences appear to be colored by people's beliefs, religions, and other life-related experiences. This is highly suspect of brain interference, memory interference, intent interference, other people's interference, etc. 
Like many of my own altered states, coloring is where my awarness tends to fluff and fill in gaps, my beliefs or expectations are recombining things and mixing things up. 
It is never a pure or precise rendition of what is being experienced. 
Present and past overlap, and so much more. 
These can often be colored by OTHERS in the vacinity, or the negative and positive intent of others, the thoughts of others, beliefs, etc. 
Altered states can be very telepathic, very sensitive, so can all other psi phenomena. 
Where there, many people think and feel it all a personal event, they own it, this is not shared. 
My experiences tell me that is not always the case, and that is also rare. 

Yet in NDE science and circles, these obvious psi related twins tend to be ignored or overlooked. My question was, why do we do this?

NDE experiences are often relatable to OBE experiences. OBE experiences are not subject to NDE only, they occur during life.

NDE experiences can INCLUDE many types of information gathering in the local environment. We have these exact same types of psi information gathering when people are alive. Plenty of evidence of telepathy, remote viewing, AP, and more. They are not subject to NDE only.

I don't really see them as "false memories" or reconstructed. I guess that might be an option.
Every OBE is experienced and then brought back to the brain, the memory, and repeated by the person experiencing it. This doesn't make the OBE or NDE experience itself false or reconstructed.
Every single altered state I have experienced has been filtered through my known faculties or memory, or some relatable human sensory system. So if this is the reference, it isn't false or reconstructed, it is sensory dependent, or expressing the only way it can.

In all Psi, we didn't actually see anythng, we didn't actually hear anything. I suppose that might be considered "false" data.

If we strip the NDE down to the experiences, and remove the death and revival part, and don't tell the scientist that it is NDE, what are we left with? 
What categories of psi phenomena would they use to catalog these events? Hmmm, these categories all look familiar to me.

This is the logic where I personally, in my own humble opinion, can't just assign these experiences as empirical evidence of life after death. I can't assign these experiences that we ALSO can have while alive, and then call that proof of anything but an altered state of awareness that was generated, stimulated, or experienced because of death and revival. 
What's next? All OBE are proof of life after death?

We don't know what happens if people are not revived. Whatever residual energy is there might dissapate. It might be in any number of realms or dimensions and then get incarnated or not. It might be absorbed by something it is just a part of. We can go on and on all day with those types of ideas. For all we know, it goes to Hades. Making assumptions is always wrong unless we find ways to prove or disprove one thing or another.

Psi phenomena doesn't usually maintain any repeating time / space definition. One of my favorites was when the remote viewing exercise revealed a past history structure that nobody knew existed until after researching that location. It was wrong information until they did further research and determined it was actually correct, and that they were viewing the past. 
This is impossible if we try to use our current brain, and this current space / time information (like we are using in these arguments) to try and define something outside of space / time. 
So perhaps the mistake is claiming which part survives death? Since obviously, some evidence states that our altered state condition moves past the initial death stage. Since it can time travel, move objects, see and hear without eyes and ears, read minds, and more, that statement doesn't surprise me at all.

So toss the time portion, or when this event happens, we don't really know. I know I have had extremely long dream events, and science tells me this was likely a few seconds or minutes in waking time. This matches the many other experiences i have had of compressed information psi, and the fraction of a second that it takes to download extremely complicated and detailed remote viewing data. Which later has to be unpacked and interpreted by the RV person.

So you have to consider that this might be what is happening with NDE experiences, where time is compressing like many other psi events, and is not equal to anything our brain time understands, and cannot be measured using our normal standards. I try not to assume that everything about psi or altered states somehow has to fit whatever time and space box we want it to fit in, and dance to our limited understanding of everything.

One final note: People that can be revived are not dead to me, so my opinion. They are headed to death, and will continue to die if someone doesn't intervene. So we could define death in many ways. Lack of brain function is obviously not death, if you can be revived and then share your experience.

[Laird]

@"Durward"#545, I'm a little confused, but I think I now understand your position better. Here's an attempt to check:

Note that we are talking about OBEs during NDEs in which veridical experiences pinpoint the exact time and place during and at which the OBE was situated.

Now, unless I'm misunderstanding, you are arguing that this is not anyway proof of consciousness existing independently of a functional brain because the OBE could have occurred after resuscitation, with the experiencer travelling back in time during the OBE.

Am I understanding you correctly yet?

I'd really appreciate it if you kept it to a brief summary,

Sorry, it's like asking me to explain spooky action, but brief...

@"Durward"#545, I'm a little confused, but I think I now understand your position better. Here's an attempt to check:

Note that we are talking about OBEs during NDEs in which veridical experiences pinpoint the exact time and place during and at which the OBE was situated.

Now, unless I'm misunderstanding, you are arguing that this is not anyway proof of consciousness existing independently of a functional brain because the OBE could have occurred after resuscitation, with the experiencer travelling back in time during the OBE.

Am I understanding you correctly yet?

Nope, sorry. But I think I get where you are at.

Veridical experiences pinpointing some exact time are first. So a memory that shows a true timeline that they couldn't have otherwise known. Which makes it a psi phenomena memory, which is what I have been talking about the whole time. A brain memory would require the brain to be intact.
 
In psi phenomena, there is never necessarily any matching time function that we could use as any comparison to time in our current condition. 
I'm not sure why people think this OBE experience is exempt from all other psi phenomena experiences, or somehow different or special. From what I can gather from the evidence, it is a psi phenomena, and these rarely, if ever, are explained by the brain, time, or any of our common physics methods.
So why the trouble putting it where it belongs, as psi phenomena?

The events experienced could have happened anytime, and are still experienced as now to the subject. 
Not that it matters to the NDE experience itself. Or that it really matters except that NDE memory can just as well be clairvoyant, why not? You see what I mean?
We don't know for sure how or why these happen, they are psi, so that makes the assumption that it is somehow brain related irrelevant to the experience. Unless people are now claiming that all psi phenomena has to be caused by, initiated by, controlled by, the brain. Which is something I feel is very wrong.

It might be real to those who just accept that everything psi is functioning in some normal physical mode. Time and space and our brains are the center of the universe and explain all... if you get where that logic takes you.

But we are dealing with psi phenomena, and psi phenomena is rarely about this time and space.
So, assume time can be running at the same "speed", why not? This is still a plausible option in psi phenomena.

Funny how they want to use the brain as a measure of evidence, then toss that out and switch to impossible phenomena as real evidence, while they claim that psi phenomena doesn't exist.

We can consider this as data or proof of a timeline without this changing anything about how I see the OBE or memory for this NDE. 
Let's apply the ability to repeat a timeline as memory, as the evidence of an Earth timeline, no problem.

I have not said that awareness can't function without the brain. 
I have actually supplied evidence of awareness without a functional brain, to include glimpses into my own psi phenomena, and Terminal Lucidity.

I am not claiming that the OBE is always time travel. Even if OBE have been, can be, have been, can be. 
We can drop that for discussion. The brain was dead, and at no point did this OBE supply forward or backward data, fine.

I am not claiming that the OBE is anything but an OBE.
I am saying that we have plenty of OBE without NDE. I am claiming these are not special to NDE only. These are some of the very basics of psi phenomena.

We seem to be stuck in something similar to proof / not proof using the wrong set of variables. At least to me they are the wrong set.

Mainly, I think you might be more interested in whether the brain was still exhibiting brainwaves as the only real evidence. While avoiding how the experience is possible without brainwaves, or the psi component.

In other words, how can you have an OBE when the brain is dead, and if you can, this proves awareness exists beyond the death of the brain. 

And then the problem I see is science trying to take this a step further, claiming that the brain is the only proof of awareness, no brain, no existence. 

If you can still somehow function and remember, even on a psi phenomena level, it is proof of life after death. When it is simply proof that they must be wrong about life: Like where awareness resides, what it really is, and that the brain is a container / tool and not the giver of life and death.

We have no way of proving what any altered state is. We have evidence and information. Thus, we don't know what type of life or existence pure psi is.

They base the whole thing on the concept that awareness in the brain, and life, is "usually" accompanied by these brainwaves (plus other functions).
OMG, the psi phenomena and awareness continue after the brain stops! And I go.. duh?

So, in order to properly discuss this, as I've mentioned before, people could try to approach it from my psi phenomena point of view, where all the psi phenomena known to science is existing, does exist, no doubts (that we have evidence for). 

To me, it was never just using the brain, or brainwaves in this case. as the only proof that life or consciousness exist. I find that silly.
My body is rarely functional when I am in the middle of psi phenomena, lol.

To me, all of these psi phenomena things function just fine while I'm alive, and we see they are still functioning after the brain stops. It has nothing to do with the timeline, memory, etc. It has to do with altered states, psi phenonema, twilight zone... and it likely proves that these functions are not in and of the actual brain itself. That is likely all they have shown. We are not just a brain, and psi phenomena continue after that stops, so we are the phenomena, and not the brain. Life or living, being alive, is not whether the brain functions. The brain function is our bubble in this place that we use. If that is stopped, how long can we hold on here without this bubble, etc.

What I said is, I don't know how long awareness continues, and in what manner, after the body continues to die. None of us do at this point, and we can't make assumptions based on these experiences. We hope we can, and that this is evidence, but we don't know for sure, beyond any doubt, hundred percent. To make a case that says you are, is simply not science. It is assuming. All we have is a psi phenomena, which is the same psi phenomena I have while alive.

What I can do, is show that these psi experiences are there while alive, as altered states of awareness. 
An altered state of awareness continues on for a time after death, showing they are likely much more than our brain or body. Still not impressive. We see Tulpas and other partial life forms can do that.

What this momentary survival means is not clear. To believe otherwise makes it a religion, not a science, at best a hypothesis.

I can hope it means that since I live in altered states on a regular basis, and if something lives on after the brain shuts down, then I can hope that this means I already live and work in what survives.

[Laird]

Youch. After that long, sprawling post, in which you seem to walk back claims or admit claims that you seemed to previously object to, I now have very little idea what your objections are, to what you object, why you object, nor what your (counter-)claims to whatever it is to which you object are.

I tried hard to understand, but that post (which I read twice) is just too much for me to wrap my head around in terms of any clarification it might provide: for me, it provides none to very little.

The best sense I can make of it all is that although you believe that consciousness can exist without the brain, and that (maybe? It's not really clear to me) veridical OBEs during NDEs demonstrate as much, you object to this as proof of the long-term survival of consciousness after death. I don't think, though, that many if any members here disagreed with that in the first place. I think many (most? all?) members here consider it to be strongly suggestive of, and very consistent with, the long-term survival of consciousness after death, but not quite reaching the level of "proof" (whatever that would consist in).

But I don't think academic acceptance of discussing something like NDEs will immediately lead to mass suicide.

I've seen this claim made on occasion, and it confounds me, because it makes no logical sense to me, but I'm not entirely sure how to respond to it.

[Ninshub]

A lot of people are aware of NDEs, without needing "academic acceptance of it", and we don't hear much about them committing suicide because of that awareness.

I'm tempted to think it would be a small minority, no greater (and most probably much less) than the amount of people who commit suicide on the assumption that there's nothing afterwards and just want out of their suffering.