Is the Filter Theory committing the ad hoc fallacy and is it unfalsifiable?

Do you have any evidence that terminal lucidity happens in patients more than would be expected by chance? People sometimes have good days and sometimes have bad days. If their last day is good, other people remember it. If their last day was bad, people expect it, and don't think about it.

If a person's last day is good in terms of motor skills, would you say that is a sign that people will move their physical arms and legs long after death? If not, why is a good day mentally considered a sign of soul survival?

True, there are different types of dementia, some types are correlated with the presence of good days and bad days, and if a good day occurs at the end of a persons life, that 'might' define this temporal relationship to lucidity.

But good days, and bad days is not a satisfying explanation, neither is chance, and neither does the existence of this unexplained phenomenon demonstrate an afterlife.

I mean, you have to go and read the papers researching dementia type diseases, and incorporate the observations into some halfbaked theory, that might allow you to move forwards...

Perhaps a screen-capture or photograph or just a text quote of a whole paragraph or couple of sentences would help everyone to see the Kenneth Ring comment in context?

This whole thread goes as surface deep as arguing about third parties opinions, it won't make any difference...

This whole thread goes as surface deep as arguing about third parties opinions, it won't make any difference...

That's because there's largely nothing new to be said in these skeptic/proponent debates. At the very least the debate would have go beyond most laypersons - myself included - to be novel.

I've actually wondered if this section of the forum should only be open for a few months at a time, but I don't think that'd be workable either.

The better conversations here are really between proponents debating their varied thoughts/positions.

[Ninshub]

Perhaps a screen-capture or photograph or just a text quote of a whole paragraph or couple of sentences would help everyone to see the Kenneth Ring comment in context?

FWIW, here it is. It starts the conclusion of the chapter.

In an email exchange with Bruce Greyson and me regarding the contemporary of of AVP research (my note: AVP = apparently nonphysical veridical perception), eminent NDE researcher Kenneth Ring said:

There is so much anecdotal evidence that suggests (experiencers) can, at least sometime, perceive veridically during their NDEs...but isn't it true that in all this time, there hasn't been a single case of a veridical perception reported by an NDEr under controlled conditions? I mean, thirty years later, it's still a null class (as far as I know). Yes, excuses, excuses - I know. But, really, wouldn't you have suspected more than a few such cases at least by now?...

My (tongue-in-cheek) interpretation: The NDE is governed by The Trickster who wants to tease us, but never give us the straight dope, so people are left to twist in the wind of ambiguity, and meanwhile the search for the elusive white crow in the laboratory...continues to frustrate researchers and gives ammunition to the skeptics. Maybe Raymond (Moody) is right about there being an imp in the parapsychological closet, and with a sense of humor, too. (personal communication, September 7, 2006)

Janice Miner Holden, Bruce Greyson & Debbie James, eds., The Handbook or Near-Death Experiences (2009), Santa Barbara: CA, Praeger Publishers, p. 210.

Regarding Terminal Lucidity:

From the Guardian - 'The clouds cleared': what terminal lucidity teaches us about life, death and dementia

The opportunities, [Doctor] Eldadah says, are immense. “It gives us some pause with regard to our current theories and understanding about the nature of dementia. We’ve seen enough examples of this to be reassured that dementia can be reversed – albeit temporarily, very transiently – nevertheless, it does reverse. And so the question then is how.”

From Scientific American Blogger Section - One Last Goodbye: The Strange Case of Terminal Lucidity

I'm as sworn to radical rationalism as the next neo-Darwinian materialist. That said, over the years I've had to "quarantine," for lack of a better word, a few anomalous personal experiences that have stubbornly defied my own logical understanding of them.

Also looks like Sam Harris is agnostic about Survival? Or maybe he's against personal Survival but not an Idealist-esque "unified with the Ur-Mind" type Survival?

“Most scientists consider themselves physicalists; this means, among other things, that they believe that our mental and spiritual lives are wholly dependent upon the workings of our brains. On this account, when the brain dies, the stream of our being must come to an end. Once the lamps of neural activity have been extinguished, there will be nothing left to survive. Indeed, many scientists purvey this conviction as though it were itself a special sacrament, conferring intellectual integrity upon any man, woman, or child who is man enough to swallow it. But the truth is that we simply do not know what happens after death. While there is much to be said against a naive conception of a soul that is independent of the brain, the place of consciousness in the natural world is very much an open question. The idea that brains produce consciousness is little more than an article of faith among scientists at present, and there are many reasons to believe that the methods of science will be insufficient to either prove or disprove it.“

 -End of Faith

FWIW, here it is. It starts the conclusion of the chapter.

In an email exchange with Bruce Greyson and me regarding the contemporary of of AVP research (my note: AVP = apparently nonphysical veridical perception), eminent NDE researcher Kenneth Ring said:

There is so much anecdotal evidence that suggests (experiencers) can, at least sometime, perceive veridically during their NDEs...but isn't it true that in all this time, there hasn't been a single case of a veridical perception reported by an NDEr under controlled conditions? I mean, thirty years later, it's still a null class (as far as I know). Yes, excuses, excuses - I know. But, really, wouldn't you have suspected more than a few such cases at least by now?...

My (tongue-in-cheek) interpretation: The NDE is governed by The Trickster who wants to tease us, but never give us the straight dope, so people are left to twist in the wind of ambiguity, and meanwhile the search for the elusive white crow in the laboratory...continues to frustrate researchers and gives ammunition to the skeptics. Maybe Raymond (Moody) is right about there being an imp in the parapsychological closet, and with a sense of humor, too. (personal communication, September 7, 2006)

Janice Miner Holden, Bruce Greyson & Debbie James, eds., The Handbook or Near-Death Experiences (2009), Santa Barbara: CA, Praeger Publishers, p. 210.

The first paragraph does indeed state that controlled studies do consistently show veridical perception in NDEs to be a false claim. The second paragraph does nothing to refute that claim. So there's that.

Regarding the claim of a meta analysis of studies verifying mediums, I would need to look into that further. That paper appears not to have been published under normal journal review safeguards. If a paper passes legitimate peer review, non-experts can assume this paper has at least some validity in the field. I don't think we get that assurance in articles in Explore. There are many ways a meta analysis can go wrong. That doesn't necessarily mean this study is wrong. I would want expert confirmation before trusting something there.

The first paragraph does indeed state that controlled studies do consistently show veridical perception in NDEs to be a false claim. The second paragraph does nothing to refute that claim. So there's that.

You're just reading what you want into it.  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

You're just reading what you want into it.  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Yeah I think Parnia relayed an NDEr did see something but it wasn't the stickers on the ceiling. So [if I'm right about that,] it isn't a "hit" in the controlled study [setting] but it is another in the witness testimony pile.

A person can say that they won't personally believe OOBEs occur until a hit comes in a controlled study, everyone has their own standard. But saying the claim is false due to lack of hits is reaching.

Though I suspect all of the combination locks could be opened and all the stickers in AWARE could be seen and it wouldn't matter for those who have a strong bias toward disbelief in anything but what Harris rightly refers to as a kind of religious faith in Materialism/Physicalism.

The first paragraph does indeed state that controlled studies do consistently show veridical perception in NDEs to be a false claim.

As Brian has already pointed out, lack of hits on the visual target under controlled studies, doesn't mean the hypothesis has been disproved.

But the reason I'm responding, is because nobody is even testing for veridical visual perceptions - at least not in anyway that makes sense. Firstly there are researchers like Olaf Blanke ( https://doi.org/10.1038/419269a ) who don't even test for it, they simply assume it doesn't occur, and don't bother testing for it. Then there are the other researchers like Penny Sartori, and Sam Parnia, who hide the visual targets up high, so that they are hidden and secret.

Neither of these study designs help us with a third option (my own strong suspicion), that the typical spontaneous veridical NDE OBE in a hospital setting, might be the result of anomalous transmission of information from third parties.

If I take just Blanke's study. I’m speculating that Blanke’s report of induced ‘hallucinatory’ experiences, associated with electrical disruption of the patients neural network, might be the result of anomalous transmission of information from the researchers undertaking the experiment.

    Blanke says:

When asked to look at her outstretched
arms during the electrical stimulation
(n42; 4.5, 5.0 mA), the patient felt as
though her left arm was shortened; the
right arm was unaffected.

That’s certainly not excluded, as the researchers – presumably working on the right hand side of the patients head as mentioned in the paper – would perceive the patients left arm (which is further away from them) as shorter than the right arm which is nearer to them.

If the researchers perception of the patients arms, is anomalously transmitted to the patient, whilst the patient’s neural network is electrically disrupted. The shortened perception of the left arm might, become combined with the patients own perception, resulting in a hallucinatory perception within the patient that their left arm is shorter than their right.

Some images to illustrate:


Fig 1. Assumed position of Patient and researcher


Fig 2. Patients normal perception of arms.


Fig 3. Researchers normal perception of patients arms.

As Blanke’s patient is wakeful, when their neural network was destabilised. I’m speculating that anomalous local transmission of perceptual information from the researchers undertaking the experiment, can become combined with the patients own sensory perception, because the patients neural network is disrupted.

The problem we have is that no one is even testing for this idea. Researchers either don't test using targets, or they do test, but make the targets secret and hidden.