Debunk my experience

Come on skeptics - you are always implying that something can't be true because it isn't scientific so I want to know what science might say about these experiences.  If it cannot say anything then I wonder why you bother to post on Psience Quest at all!  You never seem to approve of purely philosophical reasoning and you never seem to take into account the evidence of personal accounts.  Your comments in this thread so far are a pointless cop-out!  My reason for starting this thread is because of Linda's accusation that we appeal to "metaphysical presumptions"  Well she appeals to materialistic presumptions.  Evidence is evidence whether scientists can use it or not.  That is unless you believe that everybody who claims something that doesn't fall within the realms of science is a liar.  These two experiences are not presumptions - they happened and I personally know of no science that can explain them.  Maybe you do in which case please point it out.

Come on skeptics - you are always implying that something can't be true because it isn't scientific so I want to know what science might say about these experiences.  If it cannot say anything then I wonder why you bother to post on Psience Quest at all!  You never seem to approve of purely philosophical reasoning and you never seem to take into account the evidence of personal accounts.  Your comments in this thread so far are a pointless cop-out!  My reason for starting this thread is because of Linda's accusation that we appeal to "metaphysical presumptions"  Well she appeals to materialistic presumptions.  Evidence is evidence whether scientists can use it or not.  That is unless you believe that everybody who claims something that doesn't fall within the realms of science is a liar.  These two experiences are not presumptions - they happened and I personally know of no science that can explain them.  Maybe you do in which case please point it out.

Ah, I understand now. By "debunking", you meant "debunk my claim that science cannot explain these experiences." I did not realize that was what you were going for.

I don't see why, given sufficient information (measures of distance, size, and movement, adequate illumination, video recording, etc.), the cause couldn't have been discovered, including the possibility of an alien craft. But I don't know what it was, based on the wholly inadequate information available to us (I'm not a "make shit up to avoid saying "I don't know"" kind of person). Are you trying to claim that an argument from ignorance is likely to be valid?

I'm not a Materialist, by the way, nor do I appeal to materialistic presumptions. At most, I appeal to validity and reliability with respect to events and experiences, which is a methodological naturalism assumption. And I'm comfortable with not having an answer yet.

Linda

Given the ability of our malleable human memory to lead us astray, we need to be very wary of basing a model of reality around our ‘experiences’.

We also need to be extremely wary about dismissing every 'case' simply because human memory can sometimes be flawed.

Elizabeth Loftus : " I study (examples of people) when they remember things that didn't happen or remember things that were different from the way they really were"  

The vast majority of patients reporting veridical OBE/NDE's during cardiac arrest, report things that actually happened, not some variation...but just the way they saw it (whilst unconscious) which are later confirmed. Furthermore, when brains undergo such massive trauma, memory should be the most susceptible function, not the least (apparently according to experts)

Come on skeptics - you are always implying that something can't be true because it isn't scientific so I want to know what science might say about these experiences.  If it cannot say anything then I wonder why you bother to post on Psience Quest at all!  You never seem to approve of purely philosophical reasoning and you never seem to take into account the evidence of personal accounts.  Your comments in this thread so far are a pointless cop-out!  My reason for starting this thread is because of Linda's accusation that we appeal to "metaphysical presumptions"  Well she appeals to materialistic presumptions.  Evidence is evidence whether scientists can use it or not.  That is unless you believe that everybody who claims something that doesn't fall within the realms of science is a liar.  These two experiences are not presumptions - they happened and I personally know of no science that can explain them.  Maybe you do in which case please point it out.

Channeling a bit of Sniffy the Atheist with this thread.

Channeling a bit of Sniffy the Atheist with this thread.

Blimey that’s going back!

Ah, I understand now. By "debunking", you meant "debunk my claim that science cannot explain these experiences." I did not realize that was what you were going for.

I don't see why, given sufficient information (measures of distance, size, and movement, adequate illumination, video recording, etc.), the cause couldn't have been discovered, including the possibility of an alien craft. But I don't know what it was, based on the wholly inadequate information available to us (I'm not a "make shit up to avoid saying "I don't know"" kind of person). Are you trying to claim that an argument from ignorance is likely to be valid?

I'm not a Materialist, by the way, nor do I appeal to materialistic presumptions. At most, I appeal to validity and reliability with respect to events and experiences, which is a methodological naturalism assumption. And I'm comfortable with not having an answer yet.

Linda

A nice parry and thrust. Will he reply?

Come on skeptics - you are always implying that something can't be true because it isn't scientific so I want to know what science might say about these experiences.  If it cannot say anything then I wonder why you bother to post on Psience Quest at all!  You never seem to approve of purely philosophical reasoning and you never seem to take into account the evidence of personal accounts.  Your comments in this thread so far are a pointless cop-out!  My reason for starting this thread is because of Linda's accusation that we appeal to "metaphysical presumptions"  Well she appeals to materialistic presumptions.  Evidence is evidence whether scientists can use it or not.  That is unless you believe that everybody who claims something that doesn't fall within the realms of science is a liar.  These two experiences are not presumptions - they happened and I personally know of no science that can explain them.  Maybe you do in which case please point it out.

Because something might not be scientific is no reason that's correct. What are reasons to be dismissive is sloppy thinking, wishful thinking aka motivated thinking, biased thinking aka cherry picking, post hoc ergo propter hoc, unwarranted speculation, thinking if something is repeated enough it becomes factual.

[quote pid='27470' dateline='1555604326']
The vast majority of patients reporting veridical OBE/NDE's during cardiac arrest, report things that actually happened, not some variation...but just the way they saw it (whilst unconscious) which are later confirmed. Furthermore, when brains undergo such massive trauma, memory should be the most susceptible function, not the least (apparently according to experts)
[/quote]

You describe it like an everyday event, while in reality maybe 4-5 of these veridical experienced have ever been reported in prospective studies using a proper methodlogy. Your position seems very biased.

[quote pid='27470' dateline='1555604326']
The vast majority of patients reporting veridical OBE/NDE's during cardiac arrest, report things that actually happened, not some variation...but just the way they saw it (whilst unconscious) which are later confirmed. Furthermore, when brains undergo such massive trauma, memory should be the most susceptible function, not the least (apparently according to experts)

You describe it like an everyday event, while in reality maybe 4-5 of these veridical experienced have ever been reported in prospective studies using a proper methodlogy. Your position seems very biased.
[/quote]

Tim bases his bias on the presumption all brain activity ceases immediately once blood flow to the brain stops. Research indicates that may not be so.

"Report things that actually happened..."

Looking into these reports more carefully, what is malleable is who was the source of the specific information in the first place. When the telling of the story and the subsequent feedback ("confirmation") are documented, what we see is that the initial patient statements are not specific until they receive feedback relating to a specific event. Then the story is subsequently told with the specific event, rather than with the original non-specific statements.

For an example of this (https://www.researchgate.net/publication...ed_Healing):

The patient said, "I could see one of the doctors pulling my eye, what for I didn't know."

The story on subsequent tellings becomes, "the patient correctly identified the consultant as having shone the light in his eyes, rather than one of the junior doctors with whom he was familiar."

What is lost is that the patient did not specify which doctor it was, nor that a light was shone in his eye. And what is amazing about this, is that both parties may be completely unaware of the substitution on subsequent questioning. Almost always, what we hear is what the story has become after feedback is given, so we can no longer discover who was the original source of the veridical information. What also is lost/discarded, are the many statements made by the patients which could not be matched to a specific event during the feedback process.

As far as I know, Sartori's work offers the only prospectively documented "veridical" experiences, and none of them hold up. And what's worse, is that we can see the process of providing specific information to the patient at work, in that documentation. Sartori was trying to be a careful researcher, and she still did it. In the loosey goosey give and take of informal discussion of an NDE, it's going to be even worse, not better. I think bringing up this research is treated as "debunking" in the derogatory sense, though.

Linda