A new Guardian article on near-death experiences

I was most struck by this Parnia quote from the article; I've never heard him make such a bold prediction before.

Parnia, the resuscitation specialist, who studies the physical processes of dying but is also sympathetic to a parapsychological theory of consciousness, has a radically different take on what we are poised to find out. “I think in 50 or 100 years time we will have discovered the entity that is consciousness,” he told me. “It will be taken for granted that it wasn’t produced by the brain, and it doesn’t die when you die.”

I was most struck by this Parnia quote from the article; I've never heard him make such a bold prediction before.

Which article, please?

[Ninshub]

Which article, please?

The Guardian article in the OP.

Today, there is a widespread sense throughout the community of near-death researchers that we are on the verge of great discoveries. Charlotte Martial, a neuroscientist at the University of Liège in Belgium who has done some of the best physicalist work on near-death experiences, hopes we will soon develop a new understanding of the relationship between the internal experience of consciousness and its outward manifestations, for example in coma patients. “We really are in a crucial moment where we have to disentangle consciousness from responsiveness, and maybe question every state that we consider unconscious,” she told me. Parnia, the resuscitation specialist, who studies the physical processes of dying but is also sympathetic to a parapsychological theory of consciousness, has a radically different take on what we are poised to find out. “I think in 50 or 100 years time we will have discovered the entity that is consciousness,” he told me. “It will be taken for granted that it wasn’t produced by the brain, and it doesn’t die when you die.”

I was most struck by this Parnia quote from the article; I've never heard him make such a bold prediction before.

It's an interesting prediction for sure.

The estimated timescale of 50 or 100 years are the sort of numbers I was estimating when I looked at the first AWARE study - the number of useful cases gathered over the multi-year duration of the study could be extrapolated to predict something very definite and repeatedly showing up provided one could keep the studies running for that length of time. Of course experimental methods and technologies will continue developing independently of this, which may play a role - but mostly it seems to be out of reach of any technological innovation - unless of course one holds to a purely physical explanation, which is not what Parnia is suggesting.

The Guardian article in the OP.

"50 to 100 years"?  I hate to be a pessimist, but I don't think the facts support that, at least judging by the lack of much progress so far of a lot of evidence of paranormal phenomena to convince the legions of brainwashed adherents of scientism. The extreme cultural/social inertia in this case seems to militate against such a breakthrough occuring in the forseeable future.

And this doesn't even figure in the probability that our reality may be deliberately set up to prevent scientific establishment of the existence of the paranormal including NDE OBEs. The basic nature of NDEs as relatively rare, unpredictable, uncontrollable and usually requiring extreme trauma to be triggered all mostly prevent "scientific" investigation.  

This situation regarding the culture war over the existence of a soul and the afterlife seems to me to be in some ways analogous to what has developed regarding Intelligent Design vs. Darwinism, in that a boatload of evidence and excellent scientific arguments have been developed that absolutely debunk undirected semi-random-walk Darwinistic evolution as being capable of anything but trivial microevolution, Darwin's finches' bird beaks for instance. But the forces of entrenched scientific dogmatism have successfully marginalized ID with the big lie that it is a pseudo-scientific religious creationist cult, and there are no signs of a breakthrough.

"50 to 100 years"?  I hate to be a pessimist, but I don't think the facts support that, at least judging by the lack of much progress so far of a lot of evidence of paranormal phenomena to convince the legions of brainwashed adherents of scientism. The extreme cultural/social inertia in this case seems to militate against such a breakthrough occuring in the forseeable future.

And this doesn't even figure in the probability that our reality may be deliberately set up to prevent scientific establishment of the existence of the paranormal including NDE OBEs. The basic nature of NDEs as relatively rare, unpredictable, uncontrollable and usually requiring extreme trauma to be triggered all mostly prevent "scientific" investigation.  

This situation regarding the culture war over the existence of a soul and the afterlife seems to me to be in some ways analogous to what has developed regarding Intelligent Design vs. Darwinism, in that a boatload of evidence and excellent scientific arguments have been developed that absolutely debunk undirected semi-random-walk Darwinistic evolution as being capable of anything but trivial microevolution, Darwin's finches' bird beaks for instance. But the forces of entrenched scientific dogmatism have successfully marginalized ID with the big lie that it is a pseudo-scientific religious creationist cult, and there are no signs of a breakthrough.

I agree, I don't even know if we'll have the answers in thousands of years (If humans are still alive by then) just because the tricky nature of proving something that's outside the perception of the living. I'm pretty agnostic on if Christianity is true or not but I'm very open to it and love Jesus. But one thing relating to Christianity I felt like almost strengthens NDEs, is divine hiddenness. The idea that God stays hidden so people can choose to believe in him or not.
I feel like this goes along with all the OBEs that happened outside of controlled studies. Almost as if we're not ready or not supposed to have the answers.

I agree, I don't even know if we'll have the answers in thousands of years (If humans are still alive by then) just because the tricky nature of proving something that's outside the perception of the living. I'm pretty agnostic on if Christianity is true or not but I'm very open to it and love Jesus. But one thing relating to Christianity I felt like almost strengthens NDEs, is divine hiddenness. The idea that God stays hidden so people can choose to believe in him or not.
I feel like this goes along with all the OBEs that happened outside of controlled studies. Almost as if we're not ready or not supposed to have the answers.

As far as I can see, the bulk of NDE's don't confirm Christianity because the judgement seems to be a personal review of how they did, rather than a judgement from on high. However of course there are many versions of Christianity.

I think there is a danger that materialist zealots impose ever stricter requirements for phenomena to be accepted. This inevitably reduces the success of these studies.

For example, in many NDE's that happen in hospital there is good evidence that the person can actually see all sorts of what is happening in the resuscitation room. The standard counter to this is that there might be some residual vision left or hearing (perhaps slightly more likely). Vision involves moving the eyes to position them and/or re-focus them - so how is that supposed to happen without oxygen, and wouldn't doctors report this if it happened regularly?

I certainly find that when I sit wide awake in the dentist's chair, I see very little that makes sense.

David

When looking at  the trend, the direction of travel, I won't attempt to look into the future. However, it does seem that the ability to simply speak openly about having had such an experience has already changed. Not so long ago if a person talked about having something which sounds to us like an NDE, they would be shut down by either the priest - who might tell them it was the work of satan, or the psychiatrist who might recommend treatment for mental illness. Progress in allowing people to talk about their experiences is itself not necessarily a smooth path without obstacles, but I consider it is a major part of the sort of shift in perspective to which Parnia pointed.

"50 to 100 years"?  I hate to be a pessimist, but I don't think the facts support that, at least judging by the lack of much progress so far of a lot of evidence of paranormal phenomena to convince the legions of brainwashed adherents of scientism. The extreme cultural/social inertia in this case seems to militate against such a breakthrough occuring in the forseeable future.

And this doesn't even figure in the probability that our reality may be deliberately set up to prevent scientific establishment of the existence of the paranormal including NDE OBEs. The basic nature of NDEs as relatively rare, unpredictable, uncontrollable and usually requiring extreme trauma to be triggered all mostly prevent "scientific" investigation.  

This situation regarding the culture war over the existence of a soul and the afterlife seems to me to be in some ways analogous to what has developed regarding Intelligent Design vs. Darwinism, in that a boatload of evidence and excellent scientific arguments have been developed that absolutely debunk undirected semi-random-walk Darwinistic evolution as being capable of anything but trivial microevolution, Darwin's finches' bird beaks for instance. But the forces of entrenched scientific dogmatism have successfully marginalized ID with the big lie that it is a pseudo-scientific religious creationist cult, and there are no signs of a breakthrough.

I am less pessimistic than you because I really see science being questioned more and more in the mainstream press and on YouTube.

One of the things I liked about Skeptiko (I can't remember now if you used that site) was that it did explore topics that showed the shortcomings of science on a broader front.

This matters because people are more likely to accept parapsychology if they realise just how dodgy 'real' science is regarding things that obviously matter to them - like health.

To avoid going into dangerous topics except to put up a video from YouTube that anyone can listen to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT18fL9OopQ

Closer to home, I can see conventional biology hitting a crunch point at some point. Clearly enough scientists are so sick of Darwin's theory that they set up "The Third Way". The scientists in that group seem happy to come up with obscure explanations in terms of informational flows etc. (see @stephenw for details) so that they can get grants to explore just how wrong Darwin's theory really is!

Maybe soon they will come out and say it - "All life shows strong signs that it was designed!"

David

This matters because people are more likely to accept parapsychology if they realise just how dodgy 'real' science is regarding things that obviously matter to them - like health.

Whereafter you link to a video emphasizing the issues with the 'file drawer' effect, I think you are showing double standards. What about GLP-1 agonists—are they good or bad? That’s where the serious money is in the pharmaceutical industry these days, not in cheap generic statins produced in India.