Anaesthesia's effect on consciousness solved

Glad to hear, Omni. Also, a brief follow-up to clarify re this:


Are you referring to Psience News?

Yup. That's been a feature of this place that makes it unique to other forum sites-it's a database too.

[Laird]

Yup. That's been a feature of this place that makes it unique to other forum sites-it's a database too.

Interesting. You're the first person I know of who's expressed appreciation for it. Chris, for a long time, performed an essentially thankless task in keeping it going. I wish he could see your post. I haven't found the drive to keep it going in his absence for more than a couple of weeks. It takes a significant investment of time on a daily basis. And nobody else has expressed any desire to help out either.

I doubt very much if there is anything anyone can say about our mortality, that is ever going to remove the doubts. Reading persuasive veridical accounts of NDE's (or whatever you prefer) gives you confidence for a while (if you are open to it of course) but then you go back to the general source wanting more. Just one more persuasive experience..and then I'll be convinced. 

If you are the kind of person that prefers to take a definite position on this question, then based on the evidence we already have, it's perfectly acceptable to believe in life after death. If you have had an experience of actually being dead (cardiac arrest), floating out of your body and seeing it below, you don't have to wonder anymore, you know it anyway.  

But of course, sceptics object. They always have...it's an illusion, you imagined it..etc etc. So researchers painstakingly assemble hundreds of verified veridical cases. And what do the sceptics do ? They pick them apart and do everything they can to debunk them, lifting the bar higher and higher and demanding ever more controls whilst desperately trying to come up with an explanation, no matter how outlandish.

Here we are 45 years later, with Parnia trying to nail jelly to the wall (as Sabom once said). There is life after (physical) death, I know there is because I know there's life before birth. But I'm beginning to think that proving it might not be a great idea now. Not after witnessing the recent events in the world and the hysteria that grows around everything.
 
I fear that if life after death was "proven", it might be hijacked by zealots of some well meaning kind.

The primary reason I haven't (yet!) gotten too rattled by scientific materialism is that it is ultimately faith-based.  They never admit it (see our resident skeptics here for example) but its undeniable.  So many unanswered questions remain but the materialist dons his priestly robes and tells you "Have faith brothers and sisters! Science will find the answer!".

They have a term for my continued "faith" in something other than materialism: "God of the Gaps".  I find it to be a fair criticism from their vantage point as well.

However, here's were we stand IMO: there is no iron-clad case that can be made for or against materialism.  Again, that's my personal opinion.  Both positions require "faith" which is a word that has been anathema to me personally.  (Hence why I'm continually trying to find the iron-clad case.)

So, when facing existential anxiety this provides some comfort as I'm forced to choose where to stand, ultimately, on faith.  What makes most sense to me is that there is more to this story.

All that "for what its worth".

However, here's were we stand IMO: there is no iron-clad case that can be made for or against materialism.  Again, that's my personal opinion.  Both positions require "faith" which is a word that has been anathema to me personally.  (Hence why I'm continually trying to find the iron-clad case.)

While I would agree that some sort of faith is necessary, for example I realised a long time ago that it was necessary to have faith that the floor would be able to support my weight, or I would not be able to step out of bed and place my feet upon it.

However I don't think everything is dependent on faith. We can progress by observation of the evidence, at least as we each experience it. The difficulty as I see it is in the area of communication. A person may have an experience, such as seeing a ghost, but upon sharing that with another person, it becomes just a story. This gap in communication, the inability to properly share things with anyone else, that is a real obstacle.

Even so, all is not lost. One way forward is for individual people to observe and examine with curiosity, their own experiences. This is how, to give some basic examples, human beings learned how to control fire, and to cook food, or to create clothes and pottery. Each of these probably started with individual people learning a little bit about these things for themselves. Just as we can observe these things in the external world, we can observe things in our inner experience too.

Another way is to learn from the experiences of other people. This allows us to avoid, literally, re-inventing the wheel. It also means we don't have to experience many other things for ourselves, for example we don't all need to have an NDE, we can learn from the experiences of others.

In fact, I find faith is an obstacle rather than a help, a lot of the time. Much misinformation is shared, and others believe it, take it on faith, even though it may be false or misleading. Thus it is absolutely necessary to root our understandings at some point in actual evidence. This is a foundation in real facts, not faith.

While I would agree that some sort of faith is necessary, for example I realised a long time ago that it was necessary to have faith that the floor would be able to support my weight, or I would not be able to step out of bed and place my feet upon it.

However I don't think everything is dependent on faith. We can progress by observation of the evidence, at least as we each experience it. The difficulty as I see it is in the area of communication. A person may have an experience, such as seeing a ghost, but upon sharing that with another person, it becomes just a story. This gap in communication, the inability to properly share things with anyone else, that is a real obstacle.

Even so, all is not lost. One way forward is for individual people to observe and examine with curiosity, their own experiences. This is how, to give some basic examples, human beings learned how to control fire, and to cook food, or to create clothes and pottery. Each of these probably started with individual people learning a little bit about these things for themselves. Just as we can observe these things in the external world, we can observe things in our inner experience too.

Another way is to learn from the experiences of other people. This allows us to avoid, literally, re-inventing the wheel. It also means we don't have to experience many other things for ourselves, for example we don't all need to have an NDE, we can learn from the experiences of others.

In fact, I find faith is an obstacle rather than a help, a lot of the time. Much misinformation is shared, and others believe it, take it on faith, even though it may be false or misleading. Thus it is absolutely necessary to root our understandings at some point in actual evidence. This is a foundation in real facts, not faith.

I don't think faith is required, just logic. Materialism is self-refuting in many ways. One way: According to materialist neuroscientists and others our sense of self, our consciousness, is a neuronal illusion. It is in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assemblage of neural cells, their interconnected synapses, and associated molecules. This has to be the case under reductionistic materialism, for nothing else exists than configurations of matter and energy.

But the materialist edifice topples due to the obvious self-contradiction of this notion. What exactly is this "I" who reads and learns, and believes in materialism, and knows it itself is illusory? And why should this illusory self believe his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” as he passionately argues for materialism?

Multiple reasons personally, some of which are my own fault (I'll be ranting a lot here so please bearwith):

1. These sensationalised studies and misleading articles never seem to end and are paraded around on other forums. It was back in January I stumbled upon a forum that seemed to be quite large and old. They'd only just started discussing NDEs back in 2019 and the pseudo-skepticism and anti-skepticism on their was disgusting. The ringleaders weren't just cynical, they were bullies. They'd make unproven assertions, viciously attack or mock proponents and break the rules of their own forums, while avoiding threads with evidence against their beliefs. One of them for example, upon reading an article in Psychology Today about Peter Fenwick that was from 2019, referred to him as a 'crackpot old fool' and then began to praise the likes of Sean Carroll, Richard Dawkins etc. as 'real scientists'. There was a lot of laziness and poor debating on there but the things they said about anyone who dared to oppose materialism were so hurtful they sometimes trouble me to this day. I will gladly drop the name of said forum if necessary, especially since sometimes I worry they're still just harassing anyone who isn't a materialist who decides to voice their views (they also still believe that nonsense written about Eben Alexander in the Esquire article despite IANDS having debunked it). 
   
2. I was sick of seeing the skepticforum crop up whenever I looked for things like the NDE cases covered in The Self Does Not Die. Even though I've found flaws in this 'Shen's' so-called 'skeptical looks' myself (I even posted a lengthy response to his thread on Lynnclaire Dennis' NDE back on Reddit), it's still annoying knowing it gets some attention. It makes me feel more alone and hopeless sometimes knowing poorly researched articles get attention they don't deserve. That's why, when I was on Reddit, I made a whole post basically recommending this place to those interested in legitimate discussion, news, research and evidence. 
   
3. These articles never seeming to end makes me doubt myself and my own experiences and research. I'm pessimistic and have anxiety/confidence issues that I'm working to improve via CBT and whatnot, so I tend to play Devil's Advocate with myself. 
   
4. There are still other theories of consciousness besides the emergent theory that don't allow for consciousness survival that trouble me. 
   
5. I'm upset that the research from the likes of the UVA is met with extreme cynicism sometimes. This includes on their YouTube videos, as well as on (you guessed it) Reddit. There was genuinely a post I'd seen on the r/Skeptic subreddit that was trying to debunk the methods the UVA apply in their research into evidence, and even the skeptics on there didn't approve of the OPs attitude to their work. 
   
6. Many average folk still believe that some NDErs may just be liars or biased. I know this from my time on other social media sites and news articles. 
   
7. Prominent neuroscientists who are generally informed about NDEs like Steven Novella are still not convinced and are more intent on debunking them. 
   
8. I fear that veridical NDEs will never be captured in the settings necessary for some people to take them more seriously. The fact that some people still Judy dismiss them as mere stories baffles me.  
   
9. I suffer from thanatophobia, though it's not as bad as it used to be, it did lead to an existential depression that lasted for many months and I'm recovering from. 
   

I do apologize that I'm repetitively overreacting to these studies, but things like 'consciousness' are my trigger words. I'm trying not to rely on reassurance too much but with the news wiki down I'm having to rely on this for updates:

https://mobile.twitter.com/neardeath/sta...4248270848

I will gladly make a thread about this kind of stuff if approved where I can vent my worries, frustrations and fears. Alternatively I am open to talking to those who are open-minded. I have before already, and I appreciated it.

Well I don’t think that’s a rant at all. It’s a very clear answer thank you.

I do sympathise with feeling disturbed by people seeming to undermine things that you may  have made a provisional decision about (if I’ve understood you correctly). I don’t think that’s unusual, even without your negative personal experiences online.

To my mind, the only way to get a reasonably stable position is to do our own research. Whilst I wouldn’t recommend simply ignoring the opinions of others, I do think it is important to trust our own judgement and reach our own conclusions about research by looking at it For ourselves with an open mind. In my experience so-called “Skeptics” rarely have more than a superficial knowledge and/or cherry-pick information or rumour that suits their preconceptions, and ignore what doesn’t. 

it can make for a rough ride but in time I’ve found I can reach a point where, whilst listening to comments by those who disagree, I have read so much myself and even had one or two experiences which I am satisfied mean I am on broadly the right track but I definitely don’t think I know the complete answer (or even most of it).  This also makes it easier to change my mind when new information emerges without feeling like I’ve wasted my time. Making contact with others who are genuinely interested helps too I find.

Finally, I try to be careful who I engage with. I am happy to spend energy exchanging views and information with people who are clearly genuinely interested. However if I don’t get that impression, I don’t feel the need to defend my own opinions (or even express them).

Hope this makes sense and is of some small help at least.

I appreciate this feedback immensely. I've elaborated on some things here: https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-f...and-advice