Near Death experiences and the scientific method.

[leroy]

T

Is there any theist that can confirm them? I

I don’t, know that is why I claimed in my OP that I don’t know enough about this topic in order to have a position.

If the NDE are vague and ambiguous as you claim then I would reject them as evidence. If the descriptions are detailed and accurate like apologetics claim I would accept them as evidence.

 

[Fallen Prophet]

Near Death experiences are Testable (so lets test them)

Near Death Experiences (NDE) is a topic that I find fascinating, but for whatever reason (procrastination) I haven’t done any detailed research

But before doing any research I would like to know if I am applying the scientific method correctly.

· If there are verified examples of NDE I will conclude that NDE are probably real.

With this I mean that if the guy who had this experience most be capable of providing information about the external world that he could have not known before or during his “coma”

For example if he has an NDE in the hospital and he went to the room above and he provides an accurate description of who was in that room, what clothes where they using, what where they talking about etc. NDE should be considered real.

If such examples are inexistent then alleged NDE are probably just dreams or hallucinations.

So the next step is to do some research and see if there are verifiable examples of NDEs

So before doing the research would you add something? appart from verifiable examples would you add something else.

I had an out of body experience - but it was not a NDE - more of an attempted possession of my body by evil spirits.

During this experience I conversed with these evil spirits - saw the room where I laid with a complete 360 degree perspective - and was then saved by an angel.

I believe that all human beings are spiritual Beings currently sharing a mortal experience and that there are other spiritual Beings - both Good and Evil - all around us and affecting us in ways we cannot determine.

 

[leroy]

D
I do know that many of the supposed phenomena of NDEs are produced by anoxia, so rather than assume magical afterworlds, why not just look at neuroscience? Why assume mysticism?
Do you automatically see God's hand in cloud formations that sort of, kind of, look like an eagle? Or do you attribute that to human imagination?

The claim is that people who experience NDEs describe accursedly stuff from the real world, things like the could have not known before the “coma”………things like the color of the t-shirt of the patient that was in the next room.

If these r} testimonies are real, you can’t explain them with neuroscience……..agree?

 

[tas8831]

I don’t, know that is why I claimed in my OP that I don’t know enough about this topic in order to have a position.

If the NDE are vague and ambiguous as you claim then I would reject them as evidence. If the descriptions are detailed and accurate like apologetics claim I would accept them as evidence.

Why? Why would a detailed and accurate description mean that the event took place? The woman - girl, at the time - that claimed Emmett Till whistled at her, resulting in his lynching, provided a detailed description of the event and it was believed by a jury. She later admitted she had lied.

 

[George-ananda]

What is to respond to? Most of these are second hand accounts. Some are just made up. Some are real mysteries, but a mystery does not automatically mean afterlife.

Remember that Harvard neurosurgeon who wrote a book about his NDE, and we were all supposed to believe it was true because he was a neurosurgeon? Then little tidbits came out - like how he had been intubated at a time when he claimed to have called out for God's help (you cannot talk, much less call out, with a tube down your throat)... how he described test results that are not outcomes of the tests he described, etc.

People make things up. Sometimes, they really believe that these things happened to them. Lack of oxygen to the brain does weird things to people.

Looked up Pam Reynolds:

Reynolds' near-death experience has been put forward as evidence supporting an afterlife by proponents such as cardiologist Michael Sabom in his book Light and Death. According to Sabom, Reynold's experience occurred during a period in which her brain had completely ceased to function.[6]

Critics say that the amount of time which Reynolds was "flatlined" is generally misrepresented and suggest that her NDE occurred while under general anaesthesia when the brain was still active, hours before Reynolds underwent hypothermic cardiac arrest.[7][8][9]

Anesthesiologist Gerald Woerlee analyzed the case, and concluded that Reynolds' ability to perceive events during her surgery was the result of "anesthesia awareness".[10]

According to the psychologist Chris French:

Woerlee, an anesthesiologist with many years of clinical experience, has considered this case in detail and remains unconvinced of the need for a paranormal explanation... [He] draws attention to the fact that Reynolds could only give a report of her experience some time after she recovered from the anesthetic as she was still intubated when she regained consciousness. This would provide some opportunity for her to associate and elaborate upon the sensations she had experienced during the operation with her existing knowledge and expectations. The fact that she described the small pneumatic saw used in the operation also does not impress Woerlee. As he points out, the saw sounds like and, to some extent, looks like the pneumatic drills used by dentists.[2]​

I was already aware of these materialist/physicalists claims before I wrote my post. To me, I judge them to be a desperate attempt in the end to get these Veridical NDEs swept away as they are not within the worldview they have become attached to. Attachment to an ideology will make people do all types of contortionist arguing.

In my best assessment with the quantity, quality and consistency of anecdotal Veridical NDE stories I have heard I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt that something is occurring that radically does not fit into the materialist's view of consciousness (and they don't like that). I was a materialist once and had to go with the evidence instead of trying to make the evidence fit my worldview.

I can present ten more compelling Veridical NDE stories and I am sure a contortionist material explanation can be invented for all of them. I just don't find them in the end reasonable at all.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Also, NDE is a general term and not all people who report to have had one have reported to physically leave their body and go into other rooms and the like. Many report a variety of hallucination from various senses, vivid dreams, bright flashes of light, etc. There is no such thing as a "one size fits all" type of NDE.

@leroy - the above from @epronovost was something I was going to point out. You've already sort of missed the mark a bit on thinking "scientifically" if you've narrowed your field of vision on a fairly general term to mean something by which you can conclude that something like "astral projection" is possible. If you are looking to prove out-of-body experience, then that's where you need to focus. A near death experience means precisely that... the experience of a person during the moments they were near death - or possibly narrowed to meaning that they actually had to be "brought back" from some brink where no action would have left them in the relatively "dead" state they had entered. This doesn't have to include "floating around the room" or "seeing a bright light" or any of those things necessarily. In other words, you're not just studying "NDE" for what it really IS and what is truly observable if you are, instead, looking to pigeon-hole all your research toward the goal of proving out of body experience. Scientific study would definitely only rely on the realities that presented themselves and what was observable - not what they were hoping to see, or what they were hoping to have a particular participant in the research experience.

 

[George-ananda]

That is awsome, just wondering, if these stories are real, why arent they use more offten by apolegetics. ?

I think the answer is kind of in your opening OP statements. Most people and the media do not go that deep into the subject (as you yourself said you haven't). The entire field of the paranormal is under-examined in my opinion. Society still has a materialist bias.

is there any atheist that can refute these claims?

Take a look in this very thread and you will see materialists claiming to refute every one of these Veridical NDEs. They have to or their worldview breaks down and they have to give some credence to the other side of the coin.

The question a fair person can only decide for themselves is 'are these refutations for all these many cases really believable given the quantity, quality and consistency of Veridical NDE cases or a best attempt to keep a worldview (materialism)?'. I think the NDE is strong evidence that the essence of us is not stored in the brain but in the spiritual planes (astral/mental) as many wisdom traditions (Vedic (Hindu), Theosophical) hold.

thanks for sharing

I think this stuff needs to get out there more in this age.

 

[tas8831]

I was already aware of these materialist/physicalists claims before I wrote my post. To me, I judge them to be a desperate attempt in the end to get these Veridical NDEs swept away as they are not within the worldview they have become attached to. Attachment to an ideology will make people do all types of contortionist arguing.

Yes, it will, won't it...

 

[Kooky]

Why are we assuming prima facie that people who have NDE must necessarily have perceived an outside world, rather than experiencing strong hallucinations brought about by the extreme circumstance of being... well, near their death?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Why are we assuming prima facie that people who have NDE must necessarily have perceived an outside world, rather than experiencing strong hallucinations brought about by the extreme circumstance of being... well, near their death?

Ooh! Ooh! I know!!

Because they do not have anything else that even looks like objective evidence?

 

[viole]

Near Death experiences are Testable (so lets test them)

Near Death Experiences (NDE) is a topic that I find fascinating, but for whatever reason (procrastination) I haven’t done any detailed research

But before doing any research I would like to know if I am applying the scientific method correctly.

· If there are verified examples of NDE I will conclude that NDE are probably real.

With this I mean that if the guy who had this experience most be capable of providing information about the external world that he could have not known before or during his “coma”

For example if he has an NDE in the hospital and he went to the room above and he provides an accurate description of who was in that room, what clothes where they using, what where they talking about etc. NDE should be considered real.

If such examples are inexistent then alleged NDE are probably just dreams or hallucinations.

So the next step is to do some research and see if there are verifiable examples of NDEs

So before doing the research would you add something? appart from verifiable examples would you add something else.

NDE = BSI.
BSI meaning: barely still alive.

Ergo, all NDEs have been experienced by people still alive.

Which defeats everything they have to say say about any life after death. Since they never died to start with.

Which should settle the issue for ever. Unless some people are so anxious to see a life after their demise that they are ready to swallow anything in that direction, even if it is defeated by the most simple of arguments.

Hope springs eternal, as it seems.

Ciao

- viole

 

[leroy]

Why? Why would a detailed and accurate description mean that the event took place? The woman - girl, at the time - that claimed Emmett Till whistled at her, resulting in his lynching, provided a detailed description of the event and it was believed by a jury. She later admitted she had lied.

Because the probability of dreaming something by chance that happens to correspond to something from the real world is low, (especially if the observation is specific and detailed)

If I ever have an experience that “feels” like an out of body experience, go* to my mothers house, and see her eating popcorn while watching a specific show in the TV. I might wake up and conclude that it was just a dream

But if I call my mother and she tells me that indeed she was eating popcorn and watching that TV show I would conclude that probably* my NDE was real. And quote frankly I would say that it is a rational conclusion………………any disagreement? Wouldn’t you conclude the same?

 

[RestlessSoul]

I am in a perpetual near death experience all the time.

Media vita, in morte sumus... (In the midst of life, we are in death)

- Book of Common Prayer

There is no death; there is no life.
Indeed, the skies are cloudless
And the river waters are clear.

- death poem of Toshimoto (samurai)

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Near Death experiences are Testable (so lets test them)

Near Death Experiences (NDE) is a topic that I find fascinating, but for whatever reason (procrastination) I haven’t done any detailed research

But before doing any research I would like to know if I am applying the scientific method correctly.

· If there are verified examples of NDE I will conclude that NDE are probably real.

With this I mean that if the guy who had this experience most be capable of providing information about the external world that he could have not known before or during his “coma”

For example if he has an NDE in the hospital and he went to the room above and he provides an accurate description of who was in that room, what clothes where they using, what where they talking about etc. NDE should be considered real.

If such examples are inexistent then alleged NDE are probably just dreams or hallucinations.

So the next step is to do some research and see if there are verifiable examples of NDEs

So before doing the research would you add something? appart from verifiable examples would you add something else.

Correct me if I'm wrong... but it sounds to me like what you are about the "investigate", are just anecdotes that you can't actually verify and will be required to "just believe" whatever is said?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

is there any atheist that can refute these claims?

What is there to refute? They are just bare claims.
What is asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.

 

[HonestJoe]

Near Death experiences are Testable (so lets test them)

The first question would be what exactly are you trying to test for? We know the experiences are real because people experience them. The key question is what causes them (which can, and in this case probably does, have multiple answers).

The specific kind of test you're describing (which some people have been trying to do already) would only answer part of the question. The ability of some patients accurately describe things around them at a time they were believed to be unconscious doesn't prove anything in itself, since there are multiple means by which they could come about that information (especially if you're allowing for as yet unknown phenomena).

A more meaningful approach would require a hypothesis for exactly what actually causes these experiences because that should establish multiple possible aspects to test, potentially including some without the practical limitations of the patient narratively describing their own experience after the fact.

 

[tas8831]

Why are we assuming prima facie that people who have NDE must necessarily have perceived an outside world, rather than experiencing strong hallucinations brought about by the extreme circumstance of being... well, near their death?

Good question...

 

[tas8831]

Because the probability of dreaming something by chance that happens to correspond to something from the real world is low, (especially if the observation is specific and detailed)

So now NDEs are dreams?
Show me these probabilities.

If I ever have an experience that “feels” like an out of body experience, go* to my mothers house, and see her eating popcorn while watching a specific show in the TV. I might wake up and conclude that it was just a dream

But if I call my mother and she tells me that indeed she was eating popcorn and watching that TV show I would conclude that probably* my NDE was real.

Ah, so you think NDEs are dreams. Interesting.

And quote frankly I would say that it is a rational conclusion………………any disagreement? Wouldn’t you conclude the same?

No, I would conclude that dreams are weird sometimes. Think of all the times you had detailed dreams that did not correspond to ANY events.
What are the odds of that?

 

[night912]

I was already aware of these materialist/physicalists claims before I wrote my post. To me, I judge them to be a desperate attempt in the end to get these Veridical NDEs swept away as they are not within the worldview they have become attached to. Attachment to an ideology will make people do all types of contortionist arguing.

And you've shown us that your attachment to NDE made you judge the scientific explanation as something that you want it to be instead of doing actual research about the explanation.

In my best assessment with the quantity, quality and consistency of anecdotal Veridical NDE stories I have heard I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt that something is occurring that radically does not fit into the materialist's view of consciousness (and they don't like that). I was a materialist once and had to go with the evidence instead of trying to make the evidence fit my worldview.

And there lies the problem. You made a conclusion based on quantity and consistency of events that you had no explanation for. This is a flawed epistemological method to knowing what is actually happening and/or how it is happening.

I can present ten more compelling Veridical NDE stories and I am sure a contortionist material explanation can be invented for all of them. I just don't find them in the end reasonable at all.

The quantity of stories does not make them evidence. If material explanations can be invented for them, but no immaterial explanation can be invented as a rebuttal to those explanations, then that says a lot about your conclusion for the stories.

Keep in mind that I did say, explanation as to why the material explanations of the events are wrong, and not simply an explanation of why you dismissed them, ie "it's a desperate attempt by materialist to dismiss NDE."

 

[tas8831]

It's interesting that the skeptics have not responded to either of our posts on this topic.

Not as interesting as the credulity expressed by those that accept those anecdotes at face value.