New Sam Parnia book!

BTW, I am never sure as to whether to refer to you as She or He!

I suppose you could point out David Chalmers' hard problem of consciousness and ask him for his take on that!

I sort of feel the book is covering two topics and they are a bit confused as a result.

1)      He reports evidence that brain cells can survive without oxygen or fuel in a dormant state for much longer than the 4-5 mins typically quoted. However, it is difficult to revive them after that time because resuscitation is likely to kill them!

2)      He reports lots of evidence for NDE's and emphasises the difference between consciousness 'here' and the enhanced consciousness employed 'out there'.

It is not clear  to me how these two concepts are linked, except perhaps more people can be revived to describe their NDE's.

David

I am a she, thank you!

1)      He reports evidence that brain cells can survive without oxygen or fuel in a dormant state for much longer than the 4-5 mins typically quoted. However, it is difficult to revive them after that time because resuscitation is likely to kill them!

2)      He reports lots of evidence for NDE's and emphasises the difference between consciousness 'here' and the enhanced consciousness employed 'out there'.

Without reading the book...I think Parnia is trying to legitimize NDEs for the more materialist/skeptic medical research academics?

I will probably read it eventually, maybe sooner than later if the people who read it here give it positive reviews.

Having read a lot of the book by now (it is the sort of book that invites skipping about), I'd say that Sam Parnia has become totally converted to a view of reality that is non-materialist!

He quotes from a large number of NDE experiences and tries to pull the subject into a viewpoint that most of us find very recognisable.

I think he must have realised that simply interviewing NDE experiencers is the best way to explore this subject - not pandering to those who want to propose successively more extreme objections.

If this book goes mainstream it might change mankind's understanding of itself.

He has also made a video about the subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_18UdG4STHA

I wish he were a member of this forum.

David

I think he must have realised that simply interviewing NDE experiencers is the best way to explore this subject - not pandering to those who want to propose successively more extreme objections.

If this book goes mainstream it might change mankind's understanding of itself.

I read elsewhere that he apparently has given up on the veridical perception part of the research. That’s a shame I think. That will leave many unconvinced.

I read elsewhere that he apparently has given up on the veridical perception part of the research. That’s a shame I think. That will leave many unconvinced.

His sticker idea was bad anyway, so if he is rethinking his approach that's a good thing. Even if he had gotten a few hits the chances of replication are low so it would not have achieved much.

My suggestion is to try and figure out the people who might have really good chances of getting a hit - say people who have lived out their lives in some spiritual practice.

The other alternative is to try and focus on OOBE hits outside of NDEs, then come back to NDE OOBEs.

I read elsewhere that he apparently has given up on the veridical perception part of the research. That’s a shame I think. That will leave many unconvinced.

I have gradually come to realise just how hard it is to research NDE's. For example, my nephew - a GP - had a spell in accident and emergency while being trained, and he told me that He was in a situation to use CPR on just two occasions - one inside a hospital and one outside. He didn't succeed in resuscitating either person. I generally get to meet him on summer cycle rides with his children and I don't get the chance to have long conversations with him, so I didn't explain my interest further.

Parnia makes the point that it is almost impossible to raise the chances of investigating a suitable NDE case high enough to make it worth further effort. Very few cardiac arrests get reversed, and very few of those that do result in an NDE report.

However, in my view we have got into this mess by continually pressing for more evidence. Every time the controls are made more extreme you possibly filter out some false cases but cut the total number of cases to explore. Forever tightening the controls is ultimately completely futile.

The very fact that some people recover from a cardiac arrest and report all the typical NDE phenomena is remarkable - why keep on trying filter these reports further.

Instead, Parnia seems to have finally realised that the NDE phenomenon is recognised down through history - including the contact with dead relatives, and many of these report what he terms "hyperconscious awareness". He found one doctor who had endured multiple cardiac arrests with CPR, and expounded at length on the nature of hyperconsciousness.

I would strongly advise you to read "Lucid Dying", which is available cheaply as a Kindle book. That also goes for anyone else here who hasn't read the book.

David

His sticker idea was bad anyway, so if he is rethinking his approach that's a good thing. Even if he had gotten a few hits the chances of replication are low so it would not have achieved much.

My suggestion is to try and figure out the people who might have really good chances of getting a hit - say people who have lived out their lives in some spiritual practice.

Given the wealth of other information that he presents, I think the time has come to move on.

The other alternative is to try and focus on OOBE hits outside of NDEs, then come back to NDE OOBEs.

I think the best way to proceed is to recognise that every phenomenon that implies that consciousness can do things directly (not via its brain) destroys the idea of materialism.

Without materialism, there is absolutely no reason to expect consciousness to die at death, or to be created at birth or some point after conception.

Given that fact, when vast numbers of NDE experiences come back and report what happened after death, we should actually believe them!

David

Given the wealth of other information that he presents, I think the time has come to move on.

I think the best way to proceed is to recognise that every phenomenon that implies that consciousness can do things directly (not via its brain) destroys the idea of materialism.

Without materialism, there is absolutely no reason to expect consciousness to die at death, or to be created at birth or some point after conception.

Given that fact, when vast numbers of NDE experiences come back and report what happened after death, we should actually believe them!

David

Well my position is that there's enough evidence + a prior considerations there to have confidence in Survival, but the varied descriptions of what awaits us combined with the way the afterlife - at least the part we first encounter after dying - shapes itself to expectations leaves the exact nature of said afterlife unknown.

But science in general seeks out phenomena that can be replicated. And if we want to move the needle from "Belief in the afterlife is a reasonable position" to "The afterlife is a Scientific Fact" we would need replicable OOBEs at minimum.

Given that fact, when vast numbers of NDE experiences come back and report what happened after death, we should actually believe them!

Vast numbers? As you mentioned in an earlier post, most people who suffer a cardiac arrest die, with less than 10% surviving long term. Of those survivors, maybe 10% experience an NDE, and of that group, perhaps 20% have detailed memories of their 'experience.' It's a very uncommon phenomenon, with reports heavily influenced by cultural background. It’s difficult to draw significant conclusions from individual reports.

For example, one retrospective German study found that:

The patterns of the NDEs did not seem to correspond to earlier findings: aside from being much more diverse, they also differed with respect to cultural variables, particularly the difference between religious interpretations and the differences between post-socialist East Germany and West Germany.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication...in_Germany

I remain extremely unconvinced that NDEs have much to say about a possible afterlife.

Vast numbers? As you mentioned in an earlier post, most people who suffer a cardiac arrest die, with less than 10% surviving long term. Of those survivors, maybe 10% experience an NDE, and of that group, perhaps 20% have detailed memories of their 'experience.' It's a very uncommon phenomenon, with reports heavily influenced by cultural background. It’s difficult to draw significant conclusions from individual reports.

For example, one retrospective German study found that:


https://www.researchgate.net/publication...in_Germany

I remain extremely unconvinced that NDEs have much to say about a possible afterlife.

Yeah I've seen this one, and frankly this paper doesn't really give us much beyond the stats.

And the survey apparently included people who weren't even sure they had an NDE:

Following this filtering question, the rest of the survey was administered only to those who gave positive or ambivalent answers (for example, “I am not sure”) to this first question. Survey respondents were asked to fill out the questionnaire by themselves. In addition to these data, we also had access to the sociodemographic data of our sample and of the general survey.

With respect to the NDE, 118 persons (6 percent) completed the entire questionnaire. However, that number exaggerates the percentage
of NDErs in the sample, since it included respondents who stated that they were not sure whether they had had an NDE. On the basis of the
multiple-choice and open-ended questions, we eliminated those questionnaires that described experiences not directly related to NDEs, such
as death shocks, death presentiments, and reports of NDEs occurring to persons other than the respondent. With those extraneous questionnaires eliminated, we found that 82 respondents (4 percent of the sample) reported an NDE.

Actual descriptions of the NDEs would give us way more to work with, just having the survey conclusions makes it difficult for me to take this one seriously.