Follow-up thread for discussing existential thoughts, fears and advice

Trust me I'm not promoting them. I stumbled onto this account because he was preaching on the near-deathnews account on Twitter, on one of their latest posts. It's true that I need to work on accepting other people's beliefs even when they're as extreme as Hsi were.

Trust me I'm not promoting them. I stumbled onto this account because he was preaching on the near-deathnews account on Twitter, on one of their latest posts. It's true that I need to work on accepting other people's beliefs even when they're as extreme as Hsi were.

I just had a glance at the Twitter feed of https://twitter.com/neardeath
There were a lot of references to news stories in the Daily Express. Those tend to be 'noise' in my opinion. In the past I tracked down the original source of several of those Daily Express NDE stories. They tend to be low-quality reporting of seemingly random items selected from rather old accounts published years ago on NDERF. I'd have to recommend going direct to the NDERF site and not to bother with the trashy pop-culture reporting of the Express, which frequently distorts and misquotes things. For example they had Dr Sam Parnia seemingly saying something which he would never have said and seems to be fiction.

Twitter does have its uses - for example Sam Parnia occasionally posts there:
https://twitter.com/SamParniaMDPhD/statu...1273117696

I am pleased to mention that we officially launched a study of consiousness during deep hypothermic circulatory arrest and recruited our first participant.

I had to smile at one of the responses:

Dr pernia , I have been following your research diligently for 7/8 years now .I don’t have any background in medicine or resuscitation ,but I find your work extremely appalling.

I think that should read 'appealing' - otherwise it sounds too much like one of my old school reports.

I just had a glance at the Twitter feed of https://twitter.com/neardeath
There were a lot of references to news stories in the Daily Express. Those tend to be 'noise' in my opinion. In the past I tracked down the original source of several of those Daily Express NDE stories. They tend to be low-quality reporting of seemingly random items selected from rather old accounts published years ago on NDERF. I'd have to recommend going direct to the NDERF site and not to bother with the trashy pop-culture reporting of the Express, which frequently distorts and misquotes things. For example they had Dr Sam Parnia seemingly saying something which he would never have said and seems to be fiction.

Twitter does have its uses - for example Sam Parnia occasionally posts there:
https://twitter.com/SamParniaMDPhD/statu...1273117696
I had to smile at one of the responses:
I think that should read 'appealing' - otherwise it sounds too much like one of my old school reports.

Haha, that's Twitter for you! 

I do know the Twitter account is directly linked to the Near-Death.com website, which is where is started out learning about NDEs IIRC. I don't know whether it's a bot, one guy or multiple people, but unfortunately the feed does tend to get clogged with those kinds of articles, which seem to correlate to the hashtags employed. I hate the Express frankly-it's absolutely nothing but sensationalism, clickbait and flat out lies as you say.

I was thinking about how to think more optimistically in the light of rampant militant atheism and materialism on the net, and I've come to realise that there are many examples of things they say that don't age well at all, or end up heavily criticised. This means that I shouldn't take them seriously, especially when I learn that plenty of other people don't either. Here's an example, an 8 minute video of a militant atheist YouTuber (one who has been criticised before of course, many times in fact) refuting the claim for God's existence based on the mystery of consciousness: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6M9E6hUY740

The video only has 50k views and, like I said, is only 8 minutes long. A common trend on these channels is making videos throwing around the word 'debunked' constantly, especially this 'RationalityRules' guy. The most common criticism is a misuse of the term, when in reality they mean 'refutation', and even then, their refutations tend to have flaws. It also notably came out in early 2017...so again, comments claiming NDEs and such have been debunked are even more irrelevant and ignorant now than they were years ago.*

*What's interesting is that this video does a terrible job at refuting the argument, as it's entirely based on: assertions without evidence or citations, fallicious thinking, ignoring the hard problem completely and misunderstanding the argument. I originally ignored the comments section for the most part until I noticed several comments that heavily criticised him for this, including ones explaining these flaws, such as him incorrectly defining consciousness as similar to intelligence and claiming it is a product of natural selection without any supporting evidence. These comments got lots of likes as well which suprised me, even if they mean very little at the end of the day. When the YouTuber responded to one commenter and asked for evidence of disembodied consciousness, he refused to look into it or any of the other comments because it would involve too much reading (lol). He then disappeared and didn't address any comments criticising him. 

What's even more impressive is a video this guy made, also with only an unimpressive view count from a few years ago, claiming to 'debunk' channeling. I decided to see if there were more critical comments, and lo and behold, there were! Lots of people rightly pointed out that right off the bat, the guy didn't debunk anything! He cherry picked a single video of a channeling experiment and stawmanned it effectively. Not only that, but he made several factually incorrect claims as well that angered a lot of his own fans, such as ignorance of the several types of waves identified in the brain, the resorting to petty insults, and editing the video in a misleading manner. Again, these weren't hard to find and were largely ignored. 

But after all, in my opinion, anyone who has a general understanding of topics such as consciousness will know that videos only a few minutes long claiming to have 'debunked' something involving it most likely haven't. It baffles me how some people cannot see the warning signs just from that alone. 

Skeptic channels on YouTube don't like to admit it, or will deny it, but they've been dying out for quite some time. Their subscriber and view counts aren't that impressive, and they are known for picking easy targets on their own platform rather than more complex ones, such as written studies and articles. Many gradually move on to discuss other topics, or upload sparingly, because they run out of ideas. 

With the example referenced, it seems safe to conclude for me, given my experience with such YouTube channels and reading or watching many criticisms of these folks, that I shouldn't pay them much mind, and I should continue to avoid comments sections however given their reputation. But it is abundantly clear to me that, given the history of this 'community' being rife with plagiarism, misinformation, questionable ethical behaviour and clickbait, their credibility is exceedingly low. 

It's comforting and reassuring to know however that much of the content featuring folks like Greyson, Parnia, Fenwick, Sartori etc. has been more recent and up-to-date than these pseudo-skeptical videos. Not only that, but they feature in interviews and documentaries with millions of views that still hold up today (and yet somehow a lot of people online that discuss NDEs don't seem to know who they are, even when they get cited). And yet, people will still try and debunk NDEs, but can't name a single doctor or scientist who is an expert in them, because most of them believe NDEs are probably the real thing. You cannot even begin to claim to have debunked NDEs if you don't even address the evidence and arguments made by those who are the experts on the subject. 

I feel like that's just par for the course Omni. A lot of researchers like Greyson ect have to keep up to date on lots of new research to make sure they know what's going on and it lets them keep a fresh stance against any kind of debunking. Debunkers don't generally do that, they just take the stance they already had and tout it off without looking at the stuff that dismisses it back.

I feel like that's just par for the course Omni. A lot of researchers like Greyson ect have to keep up to date on lots of new research to make sure they know what's going on and it lets them keep a fresh stance against any kind of debunking. Debunkers don't generally do that, they just take the stance they already had and tout it off without looking at the stuff that dismisses it back.

Yeah, that's why I'm always wary of folks who start making bold assertions and are clearly militant in their belief or lack thereof when it comes to consciousness. It wouldn't surprise me if that's why not many of these atheistic channels talk about it much or in a lot of detail-because deep down they know it's a bad idea. The 'science' and philosophies of consciousness aren't set in stone for very long at all. There are so many theories out there, so many philosophies, all with strengths and weaknesses, that I am baffled by people who assert that 'science' is against anything but materialism/physicalism, which simply isn't true. 

That doesn't excuse though the number of people I see claiming that consciousness is just 'brain chemistry' or 'projected' by the brain (actual comments from Instagram btw, from a very young person who chose to block me instead of properly respond to my polite corrections). It doesn't take very long, especially today, to look up evidence and explanations of how consciousness is still regarded as a mystery and isn't just 'self-awareness' or 'feedback looped memories' or something. 

But as you say the UVA, Parnia and other experts are the ones who pay attention to research and are making progress. They are the ones who have made up their minds or remain on the fence because of studies they conducted that meet scientific critieria, but unfortunately are not 'empirical enough' for some people, and many more just don't know about them. That's why it's exceedingly rare that I see someone acknowledge that the actual experts on NDEs, the ones who have studied them and investigated them for the longest, mostly don't agree with the skeptical takes at all.

I didn't know whether or not to post this on this thread or a different one, but I was wondering if any of you yourselves have had to deal with say, bullying, mockery, harassment, ridicule etc either online or in person due to your beliefs? Especially when it was unprovoked or unwarranted? 

It sounds childish and babyish I know, but it's come to a point now where I sometimes feel ashamed for believing in non-physical stuff, like consciousness survival. I'm not trying to mislead or misinform people or exploit them. I don't think any proponents on here currently want that either. 

I know I shouldn't keep worrying about what other forums and bloggers think but it's so difficult for me, especially for ones that are still active and popular to this day (the UM forum I've complained about before, for example). 

I don't intend to offend any skeptic here when I say that the 'skeptic community' and other militant groups are the reason I'm probably a pain in the ass to some forum members here, and the reason I'm not doing well. 

I didn't know whether or not to post this on this thread or a different one, but I was wondering if any of you yourselves have had to deal with say, bullying, mockery, harassment, ridicule etc either online or in person due to your beliefs? Especially when it was unprovoked or unwarranted? 

It sounds childish and babyish I know, but it's come to a point now where I sometimes feel ashamed for believing in non-physical stuff, like consciousness survival. I'm not trying to mislead or misinform people or exploit them. I don't think any proponents on here currently want that either. 

I know I shouldn't keep worrying about what other forums and bloggers think but it's so difficult for me, especially for ones that are still active and popular to this day (the UM forum I've complained about before, for example). 

I don't intend to offend any skeptic here when I say that the 'skeptic community' and other militant groups are the reason I'm probably a pain in the ass to some forum members here, and the reason I'm not doing well. 

It's a group pressure kind of thing, least thats how I feel about it sometimes. You can have your own opinions on stuff, but if everyone else around you thinks not only a different way, but your opinions are stupid, its gonna create a lot of anxiety. 

I generally haven't had to deal with any problems about it unprovoked, mainly online if I decide to bring it up. I'm not any master advocate, only an enthusiast, so just linking to studies and have people call you crazy, yknow, just a thing that happens.

We are interested in a niche field that carries numerous years of baggage from crazy people who have been into it or popular debunkers that have made a characteur out of it. I say nowdays best thing to do is sit back and let scientists do their work. Parapsychology will continue to slowly get more results and we'll take it from there, at the very least we know we are GETTING results and I can't imagine that stopping or suddenly being all wrong.

As for skeptics, I know how you feel Omni. I use to be all over stuff in my late teens, hours every day reading about NDEs, rebuttals, responses, skeptical talking points trying to find people who changed their minds. 
I don't know what it was, but I think one day I just passed a treshold and stopped caring. I lost faith in skeptics ability to be reliable and do research, for their opinions to be valid and for them to be actually anything more than paradgim defenders.

I think seeing the responses to Cardene's meta analysis being what did it for me. These aren't people who are open to evidence, who are willing to change their minds, they're debunkers and gotcha men who believe they know better who're pretty much only useful for calling us out for coming to too strong a conclusion and seeing potential faults in our methology, a lot of what I've seen on here. I'm not entirely unsympathetic to the layperson though, the consensus is a comfortable position to be in, I can't fault anyone for not wanting to or being too scared to move out of it.

It's easy for a skeptical blog or article with half a dozen echo chamber comments to fill you with doubt and anxiety towards all your current opinions towards stuff. I'd say 1, obviously, stop looking them up, look up rebuttals and read some books by advocates because they're gonna give you a better idea of what its all about. 2, remember what these blogs are, echo chambers for a handful of fans or people who already know better, witten by single people in off corners of the internet, to sit around and pat each other on the back and say good job every time they prove young earth creationists wrong. They're not people who have gone over the different fields, people who have an answer for every case or line of evidence beyond just promissory materialism, if they did then fuckin hell I'd be over there then. 3, if you're so bothered, go read something like the PSI Encylopedia, look at the wealth of knowledge we've got and remember it's only going to increase.

Maybe came off as too dismissive in that last post. There's definitely degrees of psuedoskepticism, but remember that the regular man's skeptical position is merely one of personal experience and easy evidence. Well known skeptics, neuroscientists and physicists say that, of course parapsychology evidence cant be valid and people who believe in it are fools. People see that, know its from an authorative force and sit with it.

 Regular people and normal skeptics simply go "Alright, here's where I noticed problems and you haven't got anything solid or plentiful enough to convince me yet, so come back with more.", and so that's what we do and keep doing. To me, that's where most of the skeptical people here fall under. It's only people who are obviously malicious that you need to be wary of and avoid, I don't think you're going to get any new of balanced perspectives from someone like Steven Novella, Sean Carroll or anyone who feels the need to slap the word "Skeptical" over anything and everything they're about.

It's difficult to keep that in mind at times though, again depending where you are online. Take that forum I referenced (unexplainedmysteries or whatever)-they have nearly 190,000 members apparently. Although it's true that a lot of those are probably inactive accounts or from years ago (from the 2000s by the looks of it) since forum accounts can't be deleted by their own users. It still troubles me places like that and BoingBoing are probably more popular than more proponent-friendly sites. 

In the last few months alone, the regular skeptic 'gang' on that forum continues to belittle anyone who believed in an afterlife with the same old arguments: "Sean Caroll says the laws of physics don't allow for it and he's absolutely right on all counts", "it's just wishful thinking", "it's just faith in anecdotes and not science" etc. I noticed that routinely, whenever evidence seemed to be brought up, there was little to no analysis of it, just dismissal. Dismissal and more arguing that should have gotten them banned but didn't. And since I'm not a member of that forum I can't do anything. 

As long as people out there exist and I know about them then I don't know how I move forward because I always have this voice in the back of my head asking 'what if they've debunked your evidence?' or something like that. Although the U-M forum's most recent post on NDEs was more positively received by proponents (and I'm fairly certain the skeptic gang in there are using sock puppets or not accounts to earn likes and whatnot), it's still troubling to me that the skeptic's in there are well-known and usually 'travel in packs' so to speak. 

I did attempt to look for terms I've used or come across on this forum a lot, or doctors and scientists who are proponents, and for some reason it seems to limit results by a year despite the inputs I gave for the search. Didn't find anything besides their bashing of Peter Fenwick from January of this year, which was rather unwarranted. 

I know I can't keep checking other forums and blogs all the time but it's my curiousity that gets the better of me, my need to have certainty. Obviously the commenters on forums do not usually represent the majority of members or visitors to a forum (there are always more guests than members), but still. I wish they'd just go away, or be more respectful.