A major but biased new paper on consciousness

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.

I agree. Sam Parnia has also said (amongst many noteable others in the field) that it's not recomended. Apparently we are all here for a reason, however small that may be or may seem to be, it's still important. 

However, I don't believe that those who sadly do go through with it will be punished in any literal sense. It looks like they simply have to do it all again next time, so they are not escaping. That's what I've been able to determine, down the years (nearly 50 now) from reading thousands of testimonies as I'm sure everyone else has.  Sorry for the off topic.

I agree. Sam Parnia has also said (amongst many noteable others in the field) that it's not recomended. Apparently we are all here for a reason, however small that may be or may seem to be, it's still important. 

However, I don't believe that those who sadly do go through with it will be punished in any literal sense. It looks like they simply have to do it all again next time, so they are not escaping. That's what I've been able to determine, down the years (nearly 50 now) from reading thousands of testimonies as I'm sure everyone else has.  Sorry for the off topic.

Based on Stevenson's noting that there's no karma in the sense of reward or punishment, the ego may want to escape, but the soul is willing to try again and again. In some communities, some claim that the soul is "not me" and is "controlling and abusing" and stuff to that effect. As if it's a slaver or something.

It's rather just the lack of perspective... and also probably lack of knowledge about the works of Stevenson and Greyson on reincarnation, past-life memories, and NDEs / ADEs respectfully.

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.

I think there is a tribe where suicide is incredibly common, because everyone so adamantly believes in an afterlife.

Though I find it hard to believe that academic acceptance would lead to such strong public acceptance. Especially given the mysteries of what awaits, something that I think has been too sugar-coated in some cases.

Will have to dig a bit into suicide attempts that lead to NDEs and what ends up being communicated.

Based on Stevenson's noting that there's no karma in the sense of reward or punishment, the ego may want to escape, but the soul is willing to try again and again. In some communities, some claim that the soul is "not me" and is "controlling and abusing" and stuff to that effect. As if it's a slaver or something.

It's rather just the lack of perspective... and also probably lack of knowledge about the works of Stevenson and Greyson on reincarnation, past-life memories, and NDEs / ADEs respectfully.

That's interesting. What groups of people, what communities, might these be? Sources?

Durward (or somebody) apparently emailed the lead author of this paper, about the no coverage of NDEs issue. The following exchange apparently resulted:

"A simple question if I may?

Was there any reason or discussion around leaving out the NDE research?

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

Yes we consciously did that. Thanks

We really wanted the paper to get into a main stream journal and slightly open the door to such topics. We decided to exclude the NDE and reincarnation literature for that purpose. We are excited that it got in Frontiers. Slowly but surely we will open the door wider.
Thanks so much,
Helané"

I thank Durward (assuming it was his doing) for this laudable effort to get some direct information on the issue. It appears I was right that it was a deliberate exclusion, but rather than being motivated by scientistic dogmatism, it apparently was motivated by the strong desire to at least get published in a mainstream journal. I can understand that, but the excluded evidence (also from reincarnation research) has a strong bearing on which theory of consciousness is the more correct. Therefore the unfortunate result is that the survey article is irretrievably biased and incomplete. I think that may not be a good tradeoff.

But in any case none of this really matters. This is because given that according to Durward all the NDE and reincarnation evidence can plausibly be ascribed to other possible causes related to Living Agent Psi (LAP) or Super Psi, we can also ascribe this "information" on the email exchange with the lead author of the paper, as plausibly being a psionic construct of some sort and not what it seems on the surface to be, an apparent communication with a living person. After all, the psionic construct hypothesis is possible, isn't it?

That's interesting. What groups of people, what communities, might these be? Sources?

You really want to know... I feel bad for mentioning it now...

Dumpster fires like Reddit ~ r/consciousness and r/reincarnation mostly. r/nde seems more sane, in general. r/reincarntion got infected by the prison planet crowd... it's hard to argue against them on there, because it just gets tiring...

Therefore the unfortunate result is that the survey article is irretrievably biased and incomplete. I think that may not be a good tradeoff.

I agree with that, too. The problem is with NDE's in particular (as we all know) is that there's no model for 'spirits' or 'souls' or 'separate consciousness', however we care to label it. These academics are well aware it's happening. They'll talk about it in the pub (I know they do because my oldest friend is one) but because of it's 'model-less' nature, they publicly bracket it as supernatural or a matter of faith. If they do address it scientifically, it's always from a brain based explanation. 

Parnia is trying to bring it into the mainstream, insisting that it's simply an as yet undiscovered scientific entity and as such should given due funding and attention to reveal it's nature. And it should be, but will it ? Will they listen to Parnia if he gets the evidence ? Charlote Martial and her colleagues are now saying that you're not dead until you're irretrievably dead, hence the patients that Parnia is studying didn't really die. Therefore, they didn't come back from death at all so they can't tell us anything out of the ordinary or particulary important to science. The absurdity of this is laughable but sadly so predictable.      

Kicking materialism out or altering it with the addition of something else is going to be a monumental task on a par with booting out Marxism which is another falsehood and dead end. But such is life.

Studying-death-and-near-death-experiences-requires-neuroscientific-expertise.pdf (researchgate.net)

[Ninshub]

I can understand the authors of that article wanting to label "brain death" at another specific point in the dying process rather than another.

However, just reading the beginning, this is fatally problematic to me:

Here, the authors make a logical fallacy. It is a prerequisite for being able to report an NDE that [b]during the actual experience the person has had a functioning brain and has survived without extensive brain damage. Without a functioning brain, how would it be possible to have such a detailed experience, store it for long
periods of time, retrieve it from memory, and then narrate it eloquently many years later?

Yes 1) it is logical to say that it is a prerequisite to be able to report an NDE to have survived without extensive brain damage (or without sufficient amount of brain damage to prevent the reporting), but in the same sentence that 2) "during the actual experience the person had to have a functioning brain" is begging the question. They've already inserted the answer into the question they're supposed to be investigating.

Good point, Ian ! I think it's a ridiculous paper and intellectually completely dishonest. They are effectively stating that non of Parnia's patients really died because if they had really died, they couldn't have come back to tell the tale. 

If that's the case, Parnia may as well pack up. They've reset the bar forever beyond reach, materialism prevails.

I agree. Sam Parnia has also said (amongst many noteable others in the field) that it's not recomended. Apparently we are all here for a reason, however small that may be or may seem to be, it's still important. 

However, I don't believe that those who sadly do go through with it will be punished in any literal sense. It looks like they simply have to do it all again next time, so they are not escaping. That's what I've been able to determine, down the years (nearly 50 now) from reading thousands of testimonies as I'm sure everyone else has.  Sorry for the off topic.

Fred Wolf said he had encountered a place where the souls of suicides dwell, where they lived a sad parasitic existence...though I don't think he could say whether this a was a permanent place.

Admittedly this is one person's account that may have been more biased by his own expectations than the reality.

According to Shushan's The Next World, Kenneth Ring claimed suicide attempters who have NDEs are actually less likely to have life-reviews...but this was a publication in 1980:

Ring, K. (1980). Life at Death: A Scientific Investigation of the Near-Death Experience. New York: Coward, McCann, and Geohegan.

I'd have to look for more up-to-date sources to see if this holds, but perhaps you know whether this has been shown to be false?