Reading “Proof of Spiritual Phenomena”

Makes you wonder what deep selfishness lurks in the hearts of pseudo-skeptics that they reach for alternatives...is the battle against a God they say they don't believe in really worth it?

I believe beneath it all is existential terror.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6NztnPU-4

I believe beneath it all is existential terror.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6NztnPU-4

His mental state at 97 was awesome!

To me, the remarkable fact is that as a philosopher, it doesn't seem to have even occurred to him that there might be an afterlife - or at least if did, he didn't choose to mention it.

That is remarkable because physical reality doesn't explain consciousness, so it would seem reasonable to at least consider that consciousness belongs to a larger reality.

If you consider AI 'explains' consciousness, imagine spending time with one that was disconnected from the internet. The internet is
basically a phenomenon of multiple consciousnesses interacting. Thus you can't use it to explain consciousness.

David

The problem is that you implicit correlate the memory formation of these experiences with the exact timing of the CA (Some of them collected more than a year after the CA). But in fact there's no evidence from any of the cases you just listed that they didn't occur after restoration of blood circulation. Some of these people are in coma for weeks after restoration of spontanous blood circulation. CPR provides sufficient oxygen to the brain cells to keep them alive for an extended period. There are just so many possibilities for a mundane explanation for each of these reports that I don't understand how you can immediately jump to the explanation at most extreme odds with observational science.

There is plenty of evidence, like my own verified OBE, for the recall of anomalous visual information during the OBE. It’s ~20 years now since I started investigating NDE’s, still nobody is measuring the accuracy of visual information recalled during the OBE using general targets.

The short interview summaries in the s4 file of this study, suggest that case J may have had a single third-party first person perspective OBE (rather than a multiple third-party floating OBE from above). What use is hiding the visual target?

If people want to demonstrate the mundane explanation for the OBE is probably the correct one, they should demonstrate it, by using visual targets in a sensible way. Because there is already plenty of evidence, that some OBE’s contain anomalous visual information that experients shouldn’t know about.

There is plenty of evidence, like my own verified OBE, for the recall of anomalous visual information during the OBE. It’s ~20 years now since I started investigating NDE’s, still nobody is measuring the accuracy of visual information recalled during the OBE using general targets.

The short interview summaries in the s4 file of this study, suggest that case J may have had a single third-party first person perspective OBE (rather than a multiple third-party floating OBE from above). What use is hiding the visual target?

If people want to demonstrate the mundane explanation for the OBE is probably the correct one, they should demonstrate it, by using visual targets in a sensible way. Because there is already plenty of evidence, that some OBE’s contain anomalous visual information that experients shouldn’t know about.

The context of my post was the NDE reports of the study in question. If the study is not using a hidden target information leakage after the events can't be ruled out. Hence such a study is unlikely to be conducted.

The context of my post was the NDE reports of the study in question. If the study is not using a hidden target information leakage after the events can't be ruled out. Hence such a study is unlikely to be conducted.

If the study hides the visual targets (as this one did, see case J etc), how do you expect any useful scientific information to be gathered, other than the expected result, that no subject recalls the visual target?

You’re asking whether the visual information which has been recalled is due to a mundane explanation, or not.

These studies don’t address that question, they simply hide the visual target, and when they fail to get any hits on the visual target, they jump to mundane conclusions explanation… but they never even tested for that.

If the study hides the visual targets (as this one did, see case J etc), how do you expect any useful scientific information to be gathered, other than the expected result, that no subject recalls the visual target?

As I understand it the target is visible from a position above the "operating theatre" for someone looking down on the resusiciation process. OBEs supposedly frequently look down on their own body from an upwards position. So the hypothesis being tested is if anomalous information is obtained as if the patient really was floating above the operating theatre.

By the way, I do understand that what you propose is a different design where the anomalous transfer between participants in the operating theatre and the patient is tested.

The problem is that you implicit correlate the memory formation of these experiences with the exact timing of the CA (Some of them collected more than a year after the CA).

I'm not relying on this study to form an opinion. We already have more than enough reliable cases timed precisely to when there was no brain function, just that you (sceptics) keep denying it because you don't like the implications. The above study can be seen as reinforcing those cases without replicating them. 

But in fact there's no evidence from any of the cases you just listed that they didn't occur after restoration of blood circulation.

 
You've got blood flow to your brain now, haven't you. Are you having an NDE, seeing brilliant light, dead relatives etc. No you are not.  Therefore we can logically deduce that blood flow does not = NDE. The NDE occurs when the mind becomes separate from the brain (it could achieve this quite simply if it was never created by the brain in the first place) ie when the brain stops functioning.

It's quite obvious that it must have something to do with brain function ceasing, because brain function does not normally produce NDE's, but more to the point we already have hundreds of cases where it is documented that brain function had ceased and experience continued.

You can of course suggest that it must occur just before brain function has ceased, but people don't know when their hearts are going to stop, so they haven't got time to start confabulating heavenly scenarios (as if one can actually do such a thing...only in the minds of sceptics can they somehow do that).

So if it doesn't occur before they drop dead, it must occur just after their heart restarts etc, in the confusional state. The problem for sceptics is that NDE's are too well structured to be the product of a confusional state. There is no reason why the NDE should form in a confused brain, particularly in the brain of an atheist. 
 

CPR provides sufficient oxygen to the brain cells to keep them alive for an extended period.

 It can provide (not always) sufficient blood flow (about twenty percent) to prevent the cells from dying (apparently). It does not provide sufficient blood flow to make the brain work, nor does it restore the gag and the eye reflex.

There are just so many possibilities for a mundane explanation for each of these reports that I don't understand how you can immediately jump to the *explanation at most extreme odds with observational science.

The mundane explanations have been examined at 'ad infinitum' for nearly 50 years. They don't explain anything. I'm not jumping to any conclusions (*explanation), I've studied NDE's for 48 years. If you think that is jumping you need to alter your understanding of the word.

This is so much like what my mother saw, with some of her last words to me saying that "Everyone is alive!" in surprise.

It's hard to interpret that in any other way, Sci than what it appears to be

Makes you wonder what deep selfishness lurks in the hearts of pseudo-skeptics

But they would, of course they would.

I believe beneath it all is existential terror.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX6NztnPU-4

There was no need for him to go to his death with that attitude. The vast majority of people about to die see the next world or it's inhabitants. You can't change the mind set of people like him, best to let them be, I do believe they actually prefer extinction.

https://ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articl...23-04348-2
Another recent study.