Yet Another Attempt to Explain Away NDEs

Yet another clueless mainstream materialist neuroscience attempt to "scientifically" explain and debunk NDEs, to reduce them to some sort of physical phenomenon with neurological and evolutionary origins. Of course this must (and does indeed) complacently ignore as worthlessly anecdotal any and all veridical features of NDEs, regardless of the voluminous empirical evidence revealed by careful investigation. There is also the obvious absurdity of trying to claim an evolutionary origin to NDEs when there is no survival and reproduction value to having a supremely joyful transcendental experience ending usually in death.

From https://www.slashgear.com/study-finds-wh...-04680991/ :

New research comes from the University of Liege and the University of Copenhagen suggests that near-death experiences are a type of survival mechanism with evolutionary origins. The scientists point toward thanatosis, a defense mechanism in which animals pretend to be dead, as the potential evolutionary basis for near-death experiences.

What about the complex perceptions and imagery a person may experience during an NDE? The study asserts that human development of language skills may have triggered an evolution in ‘playing dead’ that results in ‘rich perceptions’ when someone encounters a highly threatening situation that triggers an NDE.

Neurologist Daniel Kondziella explained:

"Of note, the proposed cerebral mechanisms behind death-feigning are not unlike those that have been suggested to induce near-death experiences, including intrusion of rapid eye movement sleep into wakefulness. This further strengthens the idea that evolutionary mechanisms are an important piece of information needed to develop a complete biological framework for near-death experiences."

I seem to recall this same ‘playing dead’ idea has been suggested before, though I don't remember the context. At any rate you are right that this line of 'explanation' requires discarding evidence, which in itself must surely require something more substantial in order to be justified. As others have found in the past, getting rid of unwanted evidence requires some very creative and desperate-sounding ad-hoc ideas.

I'd advise people to read the paper as well, the articles are pretty bare bones

https://academic.oup.com/braincomms/adva...32/6307709

So, my reaction upon just reading it. Bleeehhh I dunno. This one seems to be a reeeaaaal stretch to me. I never try to disgard new evidence attempting to explain NDEs, maybe it's my inherent speed to doubt but I always try and take it seriously. When I'm looking at the evidence, I tend to go in levels. First level is that NDEs aren't supernatural at all, and see how the evidence goes against that. To me, this idea doesn't even make it past that.

Just to start off, they put forward that NDEs are an evolutionary feining death response, as a last attempt at survival when flight or fight has failed. But not everyone has NDEs, so just that in itself is questionable. Following, they say it's in response to predators, but very few of the pool of examples they found suffered from things like physical assault or sexual assault. The largest amount of predator based examples they had were for car accidents, which while it can be meaningful is a bit up in the air since car accident survivors be anything from flung around in their seatbelt to knocked out unconscious on the side of the road. They also include NDEs and NDE-like experiences together. The rest were cardiac arrest, where this evolutionary adaptation serves 0 purpose. Not to mention something like drowning, where thanatosis will get you killed. 

Second thing is the reasoning for NDE's immagery. They say that REM is the most likely option compared to stuff like your brain dying, but then of course we have things like anasthesia which if I remember correctly, eliminates REM possibility. Then of course, there's the REALLY far fetched claim that all of the imagery associated with NDEs comes from language. Which is a really fuckin heavy claim to make, compared to thanatosis merely being the same as unconsciousness 

And this is with me approaching the idea like NDEs have NOTHING unique going on and there's a normal explanation for them. It doesn't even put forward enough to make me believe it then without considerable doubt. You guys know the whole shebang of what he's missing out on otherwise, 0 brain activity, weird visuals, OBEs ect ect.

Kondziella seems to be a smart dude, smarter than me a fuckin laborer, and I don't feel good about shoving someone off just cause they have opinions I don't like. He's also done the two studies I've linked here before where he replicated higher REM intrusion rates with NDEs (though not everyone had them and he didn't ask again whether or not it started before or after, so yknow) and where he said there's a correlation between migraine aura and NDEs (though without it being everyone, again). But he's either not read any of the more interesting parts of NDE literature, or he has and he's fobbing it off because he doesn't like it. And he seems like the kind of dude who's studying NDEs purely from a 3rd person perspective, never actually coming into contact with anyone who's had them.

Also Typoz I think Eban Alexander said it was one of the explanations he considered. That and it was mentioned in another paper about NDEs by this dude.

Meh, at least they're trying something I guess.

This reminds of when a band/singer that some people don't like becomes popular.

Haters come out of the woodwork to explain away the success, anything to diminish the phenomenon of the group's popularity.

From what I have seen here, it seems very highly speculative and somewhat absurd.  I'm 50/50 with regards NDEs but this "explanation" sounds like desperate reaching.  I was thinking earlier today that a physicalist will always consider a far-fetched physical explanation for strange experiences more realistic than a simple one that goes beyond the physical but explains better the details of the event.

I am here, with a somewhat contrary set of opinions.  The word evolution - means changing from one state to another.  The term: spiritual evolution, and the process maps that address it, are fine territory for research and documentation.  NDE's might not have a direct reflection of bio-evolution, but can be be modeled as a change of character and inner outlook.  The inner character of living things has structure and these structures can evolve.  NDE's may be explainable in terms of effective spiritual evolution, that has developed by minds over billions of years.

My feeling that our opponents are giving ground is consistently being reinforced, by what is researched. 

https://www.slashgear.com/study-finds-my...-29582302/

 The study, which was recently published in the European Academy of Neurology, analyzed the experiences of individuals from 35 countries. The types of near-death situations varied, including everything from combat situations to accidents like drowning and crashes, as well as medical emergencies like going into cardiac arrest.
Many of the reported near-death experiences were similar, however, with a huge number of participants reporting time changes, exceptionally fast thoughts, an enhancement of senses, and leaving their bodies entirely.
Based on their findings, the researchers report that near-death experiences impact 10-percent of people who are involved in a near-death situation, meaning they come close to dying but ultimately remain living. Of those people who had experiences, 87-percent reported experience abnormal time perception, 65-percent had ‘exceptional’ thinking speeds, 63-percent reported ‘exceptionally vivid’ senses, and 53-percent reported leaving their bodies entirely. - bolding mine

This kind of documented research is just what Psi needs!!!!!!!

From the linked article

 Little is known about this phenomena, which has been reported by people across the world. Historic accounts of near-death experiences, which were often perceived as religious in nature, can be found in writing going back to ancient times. Though we don’t know how these events happen, a new study may reveal why they occur.

Here are two research studies that say: NDE's happen all the time, in all cultures and throughout history.  Even if the materialists are having their say, the primary facts are being admitted.

It will be like this, until a process map for Psi and NDE's is conceptualized.

I am here, with a somewhat contrary set of opinions.  The word evolution - means changing from one state to another.  The term: spiritual evolution, and the process maps that address it, are fine territory for research and documentation.  NDE's might not have a direct reflection of bio-evolution, but can be be modeled as a change of character and inner outlook.  The inner character of living things has structure and these structures can evolve.  NDE's may be explainable in terms of effective spiritual evolution, that has developed by minds over billions of years.

My feeling that our opponents are giving ground is consistently being reinforced, by what is researched. 

https://www.slashgear.com/study-finds-my...-29582302/



This kind of documented research is just what Psi needs!!!!!!!

From the linked article

Here are two research studies that say: NDE's happen all the time, in all cultures and throughout history.  Even if the materialists are having their say, the primary facts are being admitted.

It will be like this, until a process map for Psi and NDE's is conceptualized.

I agree, but unfortunately the kind of evolution being assumed by the materialist neurologists in the study I posted about is the prevailing (though now thoroughly debunked) New Synthesis Darwinism with a few bells and whistles, which is really the essence of reductionist materialism. 

The study you posted about in the European journal is indeed extremely promising for open minded research on NDEs and the paranormal in general. I think it is telling that it was published in a European journal - it probably couldn't have been published in an American or British journal. Or at least without a bunch of gratuitous disclaimers that of course these experiences are hallucinatory in some sense. As Sci pointed out, it is non-Western countries and even to a lesser extent Europe as opposed to the USA and UK that are seeming to become more open to the paranormal and to research into the paranormal, rather than dismissing it out of hand on scientistic ideological grounds.

Interestingly enough,  the lead researcher of this this study you posted about (Dr. Daniel Kondziella), which researched the prevalence and description of extraordinary NDE experiences in the population, was the same neurologist who led up the study I posted about, proposing the rather preposterous "evolution of feigning death leads to NDEs" hypothesis. He seems to be a rather busy bee in this area.

I agree, but unfortunately the kind of evolution being assumed by the materialist neurologists in the study I posted about is the prevailing (though now thoroughly debunked) New Synthesis Darwinism with a few bells and whistles, which is really the essence of reductionist materialism. 

Your framing of the culture, when today's neurobiologists learned the material is surely correct.  But times have changed.  I googled the term - "new synthesis darwinism".

After some reporting on the history of the concepts - the listed articles by Denis Nobel and others put it in context.  

 Is Neo-Darwinism failing?

Neo-Darwinism has failed as an evolutionary theory that can explain the origin of species, understood as organisms of distinctive form and behaviour. ... First, Neo-Darwinism assumes random genetic variation followed by selection, whereas there is now evidence for a role of directed mutation in adaptive response. 

 

Here is a paper based on Epigenetic research from 2020.  Science is moving on. 

 Although the concept that one biological mechanism builds upon another in a non-random manner fell into substantial disfavor in the twentieth century, its basic validity has been resurrected on the basis of modern research in cell–cell signaling (Torday and Miller Jr 2017). It can be seen, then, that evolution has been the subject of intense and longstanding debate. Vigorous controversies remain about the primacy of natural selection, the role of acquired characteristics, sources of variation, and whether or not the evolution is random.

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/9...30-38133-2

One trouble with 'scientific' explanations of NDE's is that there are just too many of them. Each one implicitly recognises that the previous one was unsatisfactory.

All of them miss out the very best NDE's - those that show that the person became aware of information while in his/her NDE that he could not have known otherwise.