Near Death experiences and the scientific method.

[Lekatt]

That's a whole bunch of assertions.
Do you also have the tiniest speck of verifiable evidence in support of any of these?

If not, then what is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Sure I have given a lot of evidence in the form of videos.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

What is your evidence the brain creates the person.

Literally everything we know and have discovered about brains.

 

[Lekatt]

What do you mean “create”?

You claim everything we are resides in the brain, right. Then the brain creates us or do you have a different way of saying that?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

All that can be explained in a different way,

You are being very lose here with the word "explained".

Sure, you can make up any "explanation" about anything.

For example... why a rock is falling down a mountain slope. You could explain it with gravity.
You could also make stuff up about undetectable fairies "guiding the rock down the slope" and that it just looks like it is falling.

And you could further "support" this explanation by claiming that when you entered the "spiritual realm" while in a coma, you met one of these fairies and he explained it to you.

But why in the world would we take such extra-ordinary magical claims and put them on par with the scientific explanation of gravity, or even worse: why would we think that magical claim is more likely?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Ben says "There is a reality represented by the concept God, that reality is all that exists".

TagliatelliMonster says..... I don't believe in gods


TagliatelliMonster further also says "...and that sentence looks like pure meaningless word salad / gibberish to me"

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

How do you know whether they know or not, were you there, or are you just guessing as usual.

I just told you none of them know.
Instead, they believe.

I don't doubt for a second all of them had some experience.
The problem is not acknowledging that they experienced something.
The problem is their own explanation for what they believe they experienced.

There's a huge difference between both. A difference that you don't seem to be comprehending at all.

The experience and the explanation thereof, are 2 different things.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Sure I have given a lot of evidence in the form of videos.

Videos of people piling on even more claims, is not evidence.
Claims require evidence.

Piling on claims only results in having an even bigger burden of proof.

 

[Lekatt]

Literally everything we know and have discovered about brains.

And that is practically nothing. Imaging is all you got.

Literally everything we know and have discovered about brains.

Below is part of an article I wrote years ago called "The Magic Brain." I think it sums up the problems with saying we are our brain.

The brain has been studied by researchers for over 100 years looking for consciousness. I know I am conscious, aware of myself, and my surroundings. I believe my consciousness would need to have, and use memory, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and maybe other things yet unknown. But, brain research has revealed no such physical memory, thoughts, beliefs, or emotions. How can this be when some researchers believe the brain is responsible for creating consciousness, and without the brain, consciousness would not be possible. What if they are mistaken, it just might be the reason for them not finding consciousness in the brain.

I believe I am not only conscious, but consciousness itself. “I” (me, myself) being something greater than the brain and body. Now there must be evidence for this, and I will provide it later in this writing. In order to study this “I” that we call ourselves, we need to determine exactly what this “I” is as close as possible. One way to do this is by the process of elimination. Those things that can be eliminated without eliminating “I” will allow us to focus closer on the “I.” “I” being mine or your consciousness.

Earlier we said consciousness would need to have, and use memory, thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. Now would “I” be lost if any of these parts of consciousness were lost or changed. I don’t think so because many have lost their memory, even severely, as in amnesia, but retain their “I.” They still know they are themselves. The same with other parts of consciousness. Thoughts, beliefs, and emotions can change, and even be forgotten without loss of the “I.” These are the parts and tools of consciousness: memory, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and maybe other parts yet unknown. We (being consciousness) use these tools to gain knowledge and understanding of the world around us enabling us to live, and survive. However, these tools are not us. We (“I”) are still greater than the tools of consciousness we have learned to use.

To bring this into better focus, think of being in a room full of people. No one in that room will have any difficultly in ascertaining themselves from the others. They may have forgotten their own name, what they are doing there, where they came from and most anything else, but they will still know “I” am, and can easily distinguish themselves from the others. They may even be mentally ill, and believe they are God, but they will still be able to conclusively distinguish themselves from the others. I have never heard, or read of a single case where someone lost his/her “I,” and confused themselves with people standing nearby. Everyone knows “I am” and “you are” even if they don’t know anything else about themselves or about others. This is a critical understanding for learning about yourself.

Now consciousness is unique for each person, like snowflakes, no two are exactly alike, even identical multiple births don’t have the same consciousness. They may look alike, but they don’t act, and think alike. So if consciousness is a product of the brain, why don’t identical babies have identical consciousness’. Another thing about consciousness is, no one can see it, it remains invisible to the human eye. We can’t measure it either, how big, how much does it weight, what color is it, are all unanswered questions.

From what I can understand brain research is all about brain activity. The brain activity is studied with many different machines in many different ways. But what is brain activity? Is it consciousness, or only the footprint of consciousness, the end result of having an active consciousness, and not consciousness itself. No one can tell from just looking at brain activity what is happening. Is the activity a thought, an emotion, or just a dream? No one knows what is taking place merely by looking at brain activity. Now the brain may be artificially stimulated in a certain area, or areas, and the person the brain belongs to may see a light, or a scene, or something else. It is therefor thought that this part of the brain controls whatever the patient saw. But is this true. This has been called brain mapping, and it is far from being accurate.

 

[SkepticThinker]

All that can be explained in a different way, such as the TV example.

But they haven't been explained in a different way. Your analogy about TV's doesn't do that - it's just an analogy.

There is no storage of memory ever found in the brain.

You've already asserted this several times. I refuted it earlier and again in this very post.
We know that memories are stored in the brain via the hippocampus, as I just pointed out.
Your response: "No it doesn't!" Well, I'm sorry but it does. I gave you a ton of links demonstrating that it does. You can't just wave that away in favour of your unevidenced belief.

The brain is not a computer only an interface to the spirit.

More hand waving, more dismissal of evidence against your beliefs.
And more claims. Please demonstrate that the "brain is only an interface to the spirit."

Just because you don't seem to understand how brains work, doesn't mean that nobody does.

Millions of experiencers will tell you that.

As noted before, this doesn't tell us much of anything other than some people experienced a thing. It doesn't tell us anything about the mechanisms involved or what actually happened. People are mistaken about things all the time. Our brains hallucinate, our brains fill in gaps in information, our brains piece together inaccurate information when they're breaking down, we know that our brains can create false memories, etc. We know these things happen.

And as noted before, this is another logical fallacy - Argumentum ad Populum - the number of people that believe in a thing has no bearing on the veracity of a claim. EVIDENCE is required. I've pointed this out to you at least 3 times now. Please take it in and understand it so that you don't repeat yourself again.

How do you explain Savants.

"How do you explain that?" Is a logical fallacy (Argument from personal incredulity). A lack of an explanation for something doesn't mean your belief is just true by default. You still have to demonstrate your claims are true.

How do you explain identical twins totally different personalities.

Why do you think they should have identical personalities in the first place?

There seems to be a need to believe in the brain in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

There is no evidence to the contrary. You have repeatedly ignored all evidence we have about how brains operate, despite my pointing it out to you several times now. When it's pointed out to you how brains operate and how these operations easily account for the things you are asserting take place outside of brains, you just say "Nuh uh" and cover your ears.

We know the brain exists. We know brains do the things I've pointed out, and more. We know that if our brains are damaged, our minds are also damaged. On the other hand, we don't know that spirits/disembodied minds exist. You have given no explanations or have described any mechanisms that are involved anything you claim about disembodied minds. All the arguments you've given in this post (and many others) are logical fallacies.

I know people tend to fear death and some fear the religious teaching of Hell. But there is nothing to fear. Believers, nonbelievers, kind people or hateful people all go to the same place from which they came --the Spirit World. There is no hell, no judgment, or no punishment. This is a learning and growing situation filled with Love and Caring. Nothing, no nothing to fear.

You have provided zero evidence that any of this is true. Just wishful thinking.[/QUOTE]

 

[SkepticThinker]

And that is practically nothing. Imaging is all you got.


Below is part of an article I wrote years ago called "The Magic Brain." I think it sums up the problems with saying we are our brain.

The brain has been studied by researchers for over 100 years looking for consciousness. I know I am conscious, aware of myself, and my surroundings. I believe my consciousness would need to have, and use memory, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and maybe other things yet unknown. But, brain research has revealed no such physical memory, thoughts, beliefs, or emotions. How can this be when some researchers believe the brain is responsible for creating consciousness, and without the brain, consciousness would not be possible. What if they are mistaken, it just might be the reason for them not finding consciousness in the brain.

I believe I am not only conscious, but consciousness itself. “I” (me, myself) being something greater than the brain and body. Now there must be evidence for this, and I will provide it later in this writing. In order to study this “I” that we call ourselves, we need to determine exactly what this “I” is as close as possible. One way to do this is by the process of elimination. Those things that can be eliminated without eliminating “I” will allow us to focus closer on the “I.” “I” being mine or your consciousness.

Earlier we said consciousness would need to have, and use memory, thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. Now would “I” be lost if any of these parts of consciousness were lost or changed. I don’t think so because many have lost their memory, even severely, as in amnesia, but retain their “I.” They still know they are themselves. The same with other parts of consciousness. Thoughts, beliefs, and emotions can change, and even be forgotten without loss of the “I.” These are the parts and tools of consciousness: memory, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and maybe other parts yet unknown. We (being consciousness) use these tools to gain knowledge and understanding of the world around us enabling us to live, and survive. However, these tools are not us. We (“I”) are still greater than the tools of consciousness we have learned to use.

To bring this into better focus, think of being in a room full of people. No one in that room will have any difficultly in ascertaining themselves from the others. They may have forgotten their own name, what they are doing there, where they came from and most anything else, but they will still know “I” am, and can easily distinguish themselves from the others. They may even be mentally ill, and believe they are God, but they will still be able to conclusively distinguish themselves from the others. I have never heard, or read of a single case where someone lost his/her “I,” and confused themselves with people standing nearby. Everyone knows “I am” and “you are” even if they don’t know anything else about themselves or about others. This is a critical understanding for learning about yourself.

Now consciousness is unique for each person, like snowflakes, no two are exactly alike, even identical multiple births don’t have the same consciousness. They may look alike, but they don’t act, and think alike. So if consciousness is a product of the brain, why don’t identical babies have identical consciousness’. Another thing about consciousness is, no one can see it, it remains invisible to the human eye. We can’t measure it either, how big, how much does it weight, what color is it, are all unanswered questions.

From what I can understand brain research is all about brain activity. The brain activity is studied with many different machines in many different ways. But what is brain activity? Is it consciousness, or only the footprint of consciousness, the end result of having an active consciousness, and not consciousness itself. No one can tell from just looking at brain activity what is happening. Is the activity a thought, an emotion, or just a dream? No one knows what is taking place merely by looking at brain activity. Now the brain may be artificially stimulated in a certain area, or areas, and the person the brain belongs to may see a light, or a scene, or something else. It is therefor thought that this part of the brain controls whatever the patient saw. But is this true. This has been called brain mapping, and it is far from being accurate.

How do you explain mirrored-self misidentification that occurs in people suffering from dementia, Parkinson's and other disorders, as a result of right hemisphere dysfunction?

 

[Lekatt]

Just science babble and guesses.
Some just have to experience it, and all will in time.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

TagliatelliMonster says..... I don't believe in gods


TagliatelliMonster further also says "...and that sentence looks like pure meaningless word salad / gibberish to me"

What is your understanding of what I mean by the concept of God?

 

[gnostic]

Just science babble and guesses.

Only someone who are science illiterate would say something like this.

You clearly haven't study biology, and much less of (human) brain biology or neurology.

You are only basing your belief in spirits and afterlife on hearsay of some NDE.

Claims of spirits and afterlife aren't evidence. Claims of any sort are not evidence, and certainly not videos posted on YouTube.

You can believe in whatever you want, Lekatt, but don't call these pseudoscience videos "evidence".

How many of these absurd videos are going to post up?

 

[joelr]

All that can be explained in a different way, such as the TV example. There is no storage of memory ever found in the brain. The brain is not a computer only an interface to the spirit. Millions of experiencers will tell you that. How do you explain Savants. How do you explain identical twins totally different personalities. There seems to be a need to believe in the brain in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. I know people tend to fear death and some fear the religious teaching of Hell. But there is nothing to fear. Believers, nonbelievers, kind people or hateful people all go to the same place from which they came --the Spirit World. There is no hell, no judgment, or no punishment. This is a learning and growing situation filled with Love and Caring. Nothing, no nothing to fear.

We have extremely limited capacity to study living brains.
We do know that simple creatures with very basic nervous systems can do a limited amount of things. Then as we see complexity and organisms become larger they have far more complex behavior. So we can see that brains evolved to function as the "computer" running the organism. So where does the spirit come into play? Do insects have a soul? Is all life connected to some spirit? Even microscopic life?
There are no aspects of the brain that suggest a soul. No specialist who studies the brain suggests that there are things that we do not understand that must be solved by asserting a soul?

A savant has a highly functioning area of the brain while often other areas lack. Twins have different personalities because their brains are not identical. You are assuming identical bodies means the exact same brain but neural pathways develop different no matter how similar the person.
There is literally no evidence for a soul? Any neuroscientist will explain this. The evidence you are talking about sound like assumptions.
What does happen is your personality can radically change when the brain changes. There are many examples of personality changes after some type of damage to the brain.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

How do you know whether they know or not, were you there, or are you just guessing as usual.

The won't provide evidence. Sort of a familiar we see repeated here.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

How do you know whether they know or not, were you there, or are you just guessing as usual.

I cannot say that Bigfoot is not real, but the person that "knows" Bigfoot is real offers nothing to support that "knowing" so that we all can "know" too.

Videos of others declaring that they believe him or her or that they themselves believe is not evidence of Bigfoot. Claiming that science hasn't answered the question of Bigfoot's existence is not evidence for Bigfoot. That gap in valid knowledge of Bigfoot is not evidence that Bigfoot exists. Any unexplained event or observation attributed to Bigfoot is not evidence for Bigfoot.

So how is anyone else to know, given all that failure?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

And that is practically nothing. Imaging is all you got.

Sounds like an opinion.
My opinion is that they know quite a few things about the brain.

Below is part of an article I wrote years ago called "The Magic Brain." I think it sums up the problems with saying we are our brain.

"..."

I think it rather sums up the problems you have with it.

Now consciousness is unique for each person, like snowflakes, no two are exactly alike, even identical multiple births don’t have the same consciousness. They may look alike, but they don’t act, and think alike. So if consciousness is a product of the brain, why don’t identical babies have identical consciousness’.

Who says identical babies don't have identical consciousness? Or first of, what does it even mean to have "identical" consciousness'?

No matter how genetically identically 2 individuals are, they will not be having identical lives. Their personhood is going to be molded and shaped by the experiences they have in life over time. So with that in mind, I don't know what you mean by "identical consciousness".

Another thing about consciousness is, no one can see it, it remains invisible to the human eye. We can’t measure it either, how big, how much does it weight, what color is it, are all unanswered questions.

I'm typing this in a browser called Edge. This browser is an entity and some programming language is its DNA.

Show me where it is. Where is its physical manifestation? How big is it? How much does it weigh? What color is it?

From what I can understand brain research is all about brain activity. The brain activity is studied with many different machines in many different ways. But what is brain activity? Is it consciousness, or only the footprint of consciousness, the end result of having an active consciousness, and not consciousness itself.

I'ld figure that consciousness is more then likely a result of the sum of all parts.
But in any case, sure science hasn't figured that one out yet.
So are you going to put all in the basket of the argument from ignorance?

"science has no answer, therefor my idea is valid"?

No one can tell from just looking at brain activity what is happening. Is the activity a thought, an emotion, or just a dream?

That's not exactly true.

No one knows what is taking place merely by looking at brain activity.

You do know that the science these days is already at a stage where it is being implemented into technology at MIT etc, in devices that do exactly that?

Use brainwaves to find out what someone is thinking, to receive commands (like some sort of telepathic Alexa or Siri or whatevs),...

There are even startups with investments who are trying to create tools to enable paralyzed people to communicate easier. Or communicate at all.

Seems like you aren't aware at all of how far along these sciences and technologies already are.

This has been called brain mapping, and it is far from being accurate.

If you say so.


Anyway, do you have something more then trying to put down the science? Like you know? Some positive evidence for your idea? It's starting to look as if your entire case for your idea consists of nothing more then semi fallacious rants against what you perceive to be rivalling ideas...

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

How do you know whether they know or not, were you there, or are you just guessing as usual.

Knowledge is demonstrable.

To quote the infamous AaronRa:

You don't know it, if you can't show it.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Just science babble and guesses.
Some just have to experience it, and all will in time.

Is this the best response you can muster. Can't the spirits help you with a better answer?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Sure I have given a lot of evidence in the form of videos.

Which is the equivalent of a gish gallop.