A new Guardian article on near-death experiences

[Laird]

It's the Guardian, so you can guess how it goes. I won't bother to quote from it.

The new science of death: ‘There’s something happening in the brain that makes no sense’ by Alex Blasdel on 2 April, 2024.

It's the Guardian, so you can guess how it goes. I won't bother to quote from it.

The new science of death: ‘There’s something happening in the brain that makes no sense’ by Alex Blasdel on 2 April, 2024.

There’s a good response to the Guardian article here: https://awareofaware.co/2024/04/02/media...-guardian/

Basically Borjigin‘s thesis has no supporting evidence at this point.

It's the Guardian, so you can guess how it goes. I won't bother to quote from it.

The new science of death: ‘There’s something happening in the brain that makes no sense’ by Alex Blasdel on 2 April, 2024.

I guess I'll still bother to furnish one quote, only because it shows the poor and biased quality of the thinking. Any physical brain function-based theory of NDEs has to contend with the empirical evidence of the many veridical NDE OBEs. Predictably, the article hardly mentions this problem except to dismiss it with an imperious scientismistic hand-wave:

"....none of the reports of post-death awareness holds up to strict scientific scrutiny. “There are many claims of this kind, but in my long decades of research into out-of-body and near-death experiences I never met any convincing evidence that this is true,” Sue Blackmore, a well-known researcher into parapsychology who had her own near-death experience as a young woman in 1970, has written."

As if the "strict scientific scrutiny" required could possibly apply to NDEs, which are practically impossible to investigate and replicate in some sort of laboratory, since they are by their very nature spontaneous , unpredictable and uncontrollable and generally happen during occurences of great trauma. And as if Susan Blackmore is some sort of an expert on NDEs - she actually is a well-known closed-minded biased sceptic materialist when it comes to this subject.

As mentioned, the Guardian article and theory of course ignore the very many investigated and confirmed veridical NDE cases, such as have been documented in the well-known book The Self Does Not Die by Rivas, Dirven and Smit. In particular, the article and theory ignore the good old principle of the one white crow, brought up originally by William James. All it takes to prove that white crows exist is to find just one out of all the crows alive. It is exceedingly unlikely that every single one of the more than 120 cases in The Self Does Not Die is due to misperception, fraud, etc.

This is not even to mention the fact that several other categories of paranormal phenomena support and confirm the message of veridical NDEs that the human mind is in reality a mobile center of consciousness that can under unusual circumstances leave the body and travel to other locations in the physical world and spiritual realms, and then return. Well investigated and confirmed cases of the reincarnation type (CORTs) are probably the premier examples of this. Of course the article writer and the researcher closed-mindedly reject such notions along with all the evidence associated with them.

I'm having problems with the reply/quote function so I'm working around it.

@nbtruthman  wrote :

Any physical brain function-based theory of NDEs has to contend with the empirical evidence of the many veridical NDE OBEs.

I hear the word "empirical" so many times that I had to get a definition.
https://www.livescience.com/21456-empiri...ition.html

Empirical evidence is information acquired by observation or experimentation. Scientists record and analyze this data. The process is a central part of the scientific method, leading to the proving or disproving of a hypothesis and our better understanding of the world as a result.

Empirical evidence might be obtained through experiments that seek to provide a measurable or observable reaction, trials that repeat an experiment to test its efficacy (such as a drug trial, for instance) or other forms of data gathering against which a hypothesis can be tested and reliably measured.

So where is all this empirical evidence?  I bet it's flimsy and highly debated if it exists at all!

I'm having problems with the reply/quote function so I'm working around it.

@nbtruthman  wrote :

I hear the word "empirical" so many times that I had to get a definition.
https://www.livescience.com/21456-empiri...ition.html

So where is all this empirical evidence?  I bet it's flimsy and highly debated if it exists at all!

"..information acquired by observation".  Are you claiming that physical world-verified details in NDE OBE accounts are not information? Or that these details were not acquired by the NDEr by personal observation during the experience?

"..information acquired by observation"

The foundation of empirical information is that it is measurable.  Subjective experiences of Psi should be embraced, each event can create data points in the collective picture!  But individual subjective reports are not directly quantifiable.  

Some Psi subjective reports come with predictive information.  They may qualify as empirical, as to their measurable outcomes in the future.

"..information acquired by observation"

The foundation of empirical information is that it is measurable.  Subjective experiences of Psi should be embraced, each event can create data points in the collective picture!  But individual subjective reports are not directly quantifiable.  

Some Psi subjective reports come with predictive information.  They may qualify as empirical, as to their measurable outcomes in the future.

I agree subjective reports also can be empirical evidence if they are commonly reproducible. Otherwise they are “anecdotal” evidence like the evidence for bigfoot and so forth.

"Anecdotal evidence is personal and informal, while empirical evidence is based on data and experiments. Anecdotal evidence is often used to support opinions or beliefs, but it is not reliable due to bias and lack of control. Empirical evidence is used to test and validate hypotheses, and it relies on rigorous methods and standards. It is important to rely on empirical evidence when making important decisions".

Sam Parnia tried to move the bar from anecdotal evidence to empirical evidence for veridical perception during NDES with his Aware studies. So far with scant success.

I agree subjective reports also can be empirical evidence if they are commonly reproducible. Otherwise they are “anecdotal” evidence like the evidence for bigfoot and so forth.

"Anecdotal evidence is personal and informal, while empirical evidence is based on data and experiments. Anecdotal evidence is often used to support opinions or beliefs, but it is not reliable due to bias and lack of control. Empirical evidence is used to test and validate hypotheses, and it relies on rigorous methods and standards. It is important to rely on empirical evidence when making important decisions".

Sam Parnia tried to move the bar from anecdotal evidence to empirical evidence for veridical perception during NDES with his Aware studies. So far with scant success.

This is an old debate of course, between adherents of scientism and more open-minded proponents of a non-materialist reductionist view of reality. It's a matter of abductive reasoning to the best explanation given the data. As mentioned already, it's also the "one white crow" principle identified by William James.

The paranormal hypothesis here is that veridical NDE OBEs consist of some occasions when the human mind leaves the often moribund physical body and brain and as an apparent mobile center of consciousness travels to other locations in the physical world or in some sort of spiritual realm, makes uncanny by ordinary principles of science observations and sometimes interactions with the living, and then returns to the body and brain.
 
In order to credibly dismiss this hypothesis it would be necessary to credibly explain away and dismiss as worthlessly anecdotal every single one of the more than 120 verified accounts documented in the well researched book The Self Does Not Die by Rivas, Dirven and Smit by some sort of alternate "normal" explanation, like claiming that the investigators were fraudulent, or that the experiencers just happened to come up with their veridical accounts by misperception or distortion of memory combined with simple coincidence that a hallucination just happened to be veridical, a combination of these factors, or whatever - it goes on. 

There is an old saying - "the Devil is in the details". I invite the nay-sayers claiming that this entire body of evidence is collectively worthlessly anecdotal to do what is necessary for their claim - to individually and credibly debunk in detail every single one of these cases. To debunk in detail means to furnish something more substantial than a blanket ideological dismissal because the observation was not obtained in a controlled lab experiment, which requirement of course is impossible with this particular phenomenon, due to its very nature.

This is an old debate of course, between adherents of scientism and more open-minded proponents of a non-materialist reductionist view of reality. It's a matter of abductive reasoning to the best explanation given the data. As mentioned already, it's also the "one white crow" principle identified by William James.

The paranormal hypothesis here is that veridical NDE OBEs consist of some occasions when the human mind leaves the often moribund physical body and brain and as an apparent mobile center of consciousness travels to other locations in the physical world or in some sort of spiritual realm, makes uncanny by ordinary principles of science observations and sometimes interactions with the living, and then returns to the body and brain.
 
In order to credibly dismiss this hypothesis it would be necessary to credibly explain away and dismiss as worthlessly anecdotal every single one of the more than 120 verified accounts documented in the well researched book The Self Does Not Die by Rivas, Dirven and Smit by some sort of alternate "normal" explanation, like claiming that the investigators were fraudulent, or that the experiencers just happened to come up with their veridical accounts by misperception or distortion of memory combined with simple coincidence that a hallucination just happened to be veridical, a combination of these factors, or whatever - it goes on. 

There is an old saying - "the Devil is in the details". I invite the nay-sayers claiming that this entire body of evidence is collectively worthlessly anecdotal to do what is necessary for their claim - to individually and credibly debunk in detail every single one of these cases. To debunk in detail means to furnish something more substantial than a blanket ideological dismissal because the observation was not obtained in a controlled lab experiment, which requirement of course is due to its very nature impossible with this particular phenomenon.

And by this reasoning both the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot are real too.

According to Live Science, there have been over 10,000 reported Bigfoot sightings in the continental United States.[156] About one-third of all claims of Bigfoot sightings are located in the Pacific Northwest

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigfoot

I invite you to “individually and credibly debunk in detail every single one of these cases”

Sam Parnia tried to move the bar from anecdotal evidence to empirical evidence for veridical perception during NDES with his Aware studies. So far with scant success.

AWARE 1 & 2 used secret and hidden visual targets, like other OBE researchers who use visual targets - the targets are secret, and they hide them so, no one can see them. The remainder of the OBE researchers don't even bother using visual targets.