Why Are We Here? : George Ellis

Science isn't maths.

David

My education is in mathematics and computer science. My knowledge of QM stems from the study of quantum computing. I don't have a real science leg to my education except from highschool physics and chemistry.

Has it occurred to you that it may be that psilocybin sometimes gives people a glimpse of a larger reality/afterlife?

David

I haven't tried psilocybin myself and it's not currently on my TODO list. But googling psilocybin does not indicate an experience similar to the NDE experience. Which one is the true afterlife experience? A more 'simple' altered state of consciousness is regular dreaming. I don't personally feel there's anything paranormal or otherworldly to dreaming. The experience in my opinion fits very much with the sub-conscious information processing hypothesis.

First of all I think NDEs and Death Bed visions are too fairly distinct phenomenas even though there are some overlapping characteristicas. If we stick the NDE land we can with certainty state that an NDE often is characterized by changes to consciousness. But we also know of physical agents that can cause dramatic changes to consciousness like psilocybin. Apparently even a one time psilocybin experience can cause lasting spiritual change to an individual. For this very reason I think it’s a stretch to conclude NDE survivors catches glimps of an afterlife - one can only conclude they experience a changed conscious state.

Once again I am struck by your implicit disregard of the voluminous amount of empirical evidence for existence of spirit in the form of independently investigated veridical NDEs and other veridical paranormal experiences, and the many cases where there are reported experiences and observations of various sorts while the brain was completely dysfunctional (implying the ultimate independence of consciousness from the physical brain). Both being kinds of paranormal experiences that though not proving actual survival and an afterlife, very strongly imply it. And then there is the body of investigated mediumistic communications accumulated over the years, and investigated reincarnation memory cases, that are direct evidence of survival and an afterlife. This evidence is less powerful than the veridical NDE evidence, but it still significantly adds to the case. 

Your position seems to me to be a sort of selective hyper-skepticism. Again, I point to William James' observation that to prove that black swans exist all that is required is one true example of one found in the wild. Just one example.

Once again I am struck by your implicit disregard of the voluminous amount of empirical evidence for existence of spirit in the form of independently investigated veridical NDEs and other veridical paranormal experiences, and the many cases where there are reported experiences and observations of various sorts while the brain was completely dysfunctional (implying the ultimate independence of consciousness from the physical brain). Both being kinds of paranormal experiences that though not proving actual survival and an afterlife, very strongly imply it. And then there is the body of investigated mediumistic communications accumulated over the years, and investigated reincarnation memory cases, that are direct evidence of survival and an afterlife. This evidence is less powerful than the veridical NDE evidence, but it still significantly adds to the case. 

Your position seems to me to be a sort of selective hyper-skepticism. Again, I point to William James' observation that to prove that black swans exist all that is required is one true example of one found in the wild. Just one example.

Even if we unconditionally accept the best researched NDEs they don’t prove that consciousness continues if resusication doesn’t happen. Maybe consciousness stops with the death of the cells in the brain and body. It’s extrapolation to imagine what would happen next. 

However my main concern with this is how exceptionally rare those spectacular NDEs really are.

My guess is our evaluation of how probable the afterlife is will likely depend on priors that influence our assignment of "likelihood".

I would agree that the rarity is something of an issue, though IMO from a "legal" standard there are enough witnesses for me to feel Survival has been shown as a reasonable position. Of course for me Survival is what you should expect metaphysically as well...

It's a bit tricky, because I would accept there's enough room for some "reasonable doubt". Though I think there's more than enough evidence to merit proper funding and research. 

If there were some phenomena of similar evidential status but more friendly to the atheist-materialist faith I think we'd at least have as many scientists looking into Survival as wasted their time - and public money in some cases - on theoretical physics that doesn't seem to accomplish much...

Even if we unconditionally accept the best researched NDEs they don’t prove that consciousness continues if resusication doesn’t happen. Maybe consciousness stops with the death of the cells in the brain and body. It’s extrapolation to imagine what would happen next. 

However my main concern with this is how exceptionally rare those spectacular NDEs really are.

So the issue with that is, how do we know that NDEs are even relying on brain cells in the first place? We hardly understand the human brain and there's the hard problem of consciousness. I think if we 100% prove a workable theory for non-local consciousness through quantum entanglement it would be reasonable to assume NDEs are the real deal and not relying on the brain. It would also explain terminal lucidity

My guess is our evaluation of how probable the afterlife is will likely depend on priors that influence our assignment of "likelihood".

I would agree that the rarity is something of an issue, though IMO from a "legal" standard there are enough witnesses for me to feel Survival has been shown as a reasonable position. Of course for me Survival is what you should expect metaphysically as well...

It's a bit tricky, because I would accept there's enough room for some "reasonable doubt". Though I think there's more than enough evidence to merit proper funding and research. 

If there were some phenomena of similar evidential status but more friendly to the atheist-materialist faith I think we'd at least have as many scientists looking into Survival as wasted their time - and public money in some cases - on theoretical physics that doesn't seem to accomplish much...

I think there’s an enormous amount of room that points to something beyond our current knowledge sphere. If we again limit the scope to NDEs we have Sam Parnia who have spent 20 years of research into proving objective attributes of NDEs. Sadly it’s not an overshelming amount of data he has created even though of course he has made some discoveries. But I think such a relative lack of return could prohibit further research. If at least it could be predicted who would have an NDE it would be a quantum leap for the scientific investigation into the phenomena. As it is you will as a researcher need to interview a lot of people for one ‘spectacular’ NDE. This is also prohibitive for the research.

Just remember that believe in dualism does not imply belief in survival. David Chalmers is a good example of this position.

No it doesn't, but it shifts the odds enormously in favour of an afterlife, because it admits the concept that the mind exists separately from the brain.

Put another way, the reason that science is so opposed to the evidence for an afterlife is because it contradicts materialism - just as Dualism (and indeed panpsychism) does.

This is very much the same as psi in general. Psychic phenomena are more or less defined by the fact that they have no materialistic explanation - telepathy isn't telepathy if people use mobile phones! This incidentally is what I think makes "superpsi" such a peculiar concept. If you have to "explain" mediumship by postulating an incredibly powerful form of psi, you might as well explain mediumship (at the high quality end - see Julie Beischel) by postulating an afterlife!

I think it is important to realise how all these various concepts change their probability in the Beysian sense if just one of them falls or is discarded hypothetically.

David

My education is in mathematics and computer science. My knowledge of QM stems from the study of quantum computing. I don't have a real science leg to my education except from highschool physics and chemistry.

Well of course, high school science experiments are great for helping you realise how any experiment could be criticised in an endless loop - Dean Radin's dirty test tubes.

Changing tack a bit, do you have any feel for how quantum computing is getting on behind all the hype? Looking at the best such computers, how many qubits do they successfully couple together? I ask that way because it is possible to imagine a  computer built out of a number of smaller quantum computers coupled together classically.

David

I think there’s an enormous amount of room that points to something beyond our current knowledge sphere. If we again limit the scope to NDEs we have Sam Parnia who have spent 20 years of research into proving objective attributes of NDEs. Sadly it’s not an overshelming amount of data he has created even though of course he has made some discoveries. But I think such a relative lack of return could prohibit further research. If at least it could be predicted who would have an NDE it would be a quantum leap for the scientific investigation into the phenomena. As it is you will as a researcher need to interview a lot of people for one ‘spectacular’ NDE. This is also prohibitive for the research.

The problem is that every time someone comes up with strong evidence of an afterlife, someone comes up with an objection which makes the research harder and harder to perform.

Thus most reasonable people would say that people who give every impression of being unconscious and are being resuscitated would not be capable of hearing what is going on around them, or seeing what is going on from the vantage point of the ceiling!

However this preposterous suggestion meant that Sam Parnia had to try to set up an experiment involving placing shelves in a busy hospital so that only people viewing from the ceiling would be able to see what is on the shelf. I would bet that even getting the agreement of the hospital for such an experiment would consume vast amounts of time!

David