Near Death experiences and the scientific method.

[leroy]

That doesn't prove the subject had no prior knowledge of what shirt the person was going to wear.

Sure but the burden proof is on the skeptical guy, the burden proof is on the guy who claims that the subject had prior knowledge about the tshirt.


I get your point, sure if you adopt a possition of super skepticism there are always possible alternative explanations, but the same is true with everything else, ......maybe the earth is flat and all the evidence for a round earth is a fabrication.

The question is why are you only super skeptical about stuff that contradic your view?

 

[leroy]

But that point is wrong. We cannot use mere anecdote as a method of establishing knowledge.
If anecdote is all we have on an issue, then there is no "established knowledge" on that issue, only anecdote.

Well you claim that the boy in the NDE was lying.

I am waiting for you to show that this is the case without using anecdotal evidence......Demonstrate that the boy lied without anecdotal evidence

 

[George-ananda]

IOW, "I have nothing to support my claims other than my need for them to be true, because I already believe them to be true".

What a sad, bitter and inaccurate recap of what I said. I can see why I ended my conversation with you earlier.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

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

No, you wouldn't be. But that is because "the scientific method" is a myth that is unfortunately still taught in basic science classes up to and including undergraduate courses (particularly those that are for an introduction to some particular science with titles like University Physics with Modern Physics, Principles of Chemistry, Introduction to Biology, etc.).

“It’s probably best to get the bad news out of the way fi rst. The so-called scientific method is a myth” (p. 210)
Thurs, D. P. (2015). Myth 26. That the Scientific Method Accurately Reflects What Scientists Actually Do. In R. L. Numbers & K. Kampourakis (Eds.) Newton's Apple and Other Myths about Science (pp. 210-218). Harvard University Press.

“Scientists and historians do not always agree, but they do on this: there is no such thing as the scientific method, and there never was.” (p. 1)
Cowles, H. M. (2020). The Scientific Method: An Evolution of Thinking from Darwin to Dewey. Harvard University Press.

“If there is one thing that most people think is special about science, it is that it follows a distinctive 'scientific method.' If there is one thing that the majority of philosophers of science agree on, it is the idea that there is no such thing as 'scientific method.'” (p. 9)
McIntyre, L. (2019). The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science From Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience. MIT Press.

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

“Many scientists are materialistic, do not believe in “spirits” or God, and insist that the mind is created by the laws of chemistry and physics. Such scientists gloss over the question of where do the laws of chemistry and physics come from. Such a belief system is biased, logically unwarranted and arrogant. Such scientists violate the true spirit of science. Scientists do not know everything, and they don’t understand everything they think they know.
The near-death experience is a glaring example of something that seems to be spiritual yet very real. The mind-body enigma reaches a zenith in the reports of out-of-body experiences in people who have recovered from being clinically dead. Though electrical brain waves were not always recorded during near-death experiences, it is a good bet that when clinical signs indicate this transient death, the brain waves cease. Science has no way to explain how there can be brain function when there is no electrical activity in the brain. But there are just too many reports of such experiences for science to ignore. Books have been written about people who have been resuscitated from cardiac arrest and who report bizarre visions of tunnels or bright lights, or feel themselves hovering over their body, or feel sensations of overwhelming love. Sam Parnia, a physician at New York Presbyterian Medical Center claims that about 10% of patients who recover from cardiac arrest report some kind of cognitive process while they are clinically dead. That is just too many people to ignore.
Though science cannot dismiss such reports, it cannot do much about investigating them either. Science has no theory and no tools to examine such phenomena. Nonetheless, there is interest in obtaining more unequivocal evidence that such experiences are real.” (p. 8; emphases added)
Klemm, W. R. (2011). Atoms of Mind: The “Ghost in the Machine” Materializes. Springer.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Sure in my hypothetical example you can call leroy and ask him what video was he watching

In my hypothetical, rainbow eating unicorns are crawling out of my bum.

So would this hypothetical example vount as evidence for NDE and real out of body experience?

About as much as my hypothetical counts as an example of rainbow eating unicorns.

How do you know that tiktaalik is not a hoax ?

The same way I know that the people in the TV can't see me.

All you have is anecdotal evidence

No.
What we have, are heavily scrutinized peer review papers and a marvelous fossil found by prediction which you can go and look at a museum and, given the proper credentials and qualifications, you can also go and study up close.

, all you have is the testimony of scientist

Scientific peer reviewed papers, are not "testimony".

who claim to have donde the tests ......but maybe its all a fabrication.

It demonstrably isn't.

So ether
1 anecdotal evidence is not that bad

Or

2 you have to reject the validity of tiktaalik and pretty much all science

I opt for 3: dishonest pretending that heavily scrutinized peer reviewed scientific papers are on par with fantastical unverifiable anecdotal hearsay.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Sure but the burden proof is on the skeptical guy, the burden proof is on the guy who claims that the subject had prior knowledge about the tshirt.

Blatant shift of the burden of proof.

The question is why are you only super skeptical about stuff that contradic your view?

Not believing unverifiable fantastical anecdotes, is not "super skeptical".

 

[KWED]

All i am saying is that by your standards, you can't prove that the boy lied.

Indeed, they could be lying about lying, but that would still mean that they are lying.
However, if an extraordinary claim is made, and the only support for that claim is a person's testimony, if they then admit that they made it up, the most reasonable explanation is that the claim was false in the first place.

 

[KWED]

Sure but the burden proof is on the skeptical guy, the burden proof is on the guy who claims that the subject had prior knowledge about the tshirt.

That isn't how burden of proof works.
You made the claim that the subject could not possibly have had prior knowledge of the shirt colour.
I have not made any specific claim that they did know. I have merely pointed out that there are several means by which they could have had prior knowledge.
Given that there is zero evidence for magic, if the options are a magical or non-magical process, the non-magical is the most reasonable explanation.
If you insist that it was a magical process, it is your responsibility to demonstrate that.

I get your point, sure if you adopt a possition of super skepticism there are always possible alternative explanations, but the same is true with everything else, ......maybe the earth is flat and all the evidence for a round earth is a fabrication.

There is unequivocal, demonstrable, incontrovertible evidence that the earth is round and zero evidence that it is flat.
If there was a similar degree of evidence for a soul that is independent of the brain, I would accept it as a likely reality.

The question is why are you only super skeptical about stuff that contradic your view?

I'm not. I require evidence or reasonable argument before accepting any new claims.
The real question is why you believe stuff that is not supported, or is contradicted by evidence?

 

[KWED]

Science has no way to explain how there can be brain function when there is no electrical activity in the brain.

How do we know there is any brain function when there is no electrical activity in the brain?
Or IOW how do we know there is any brain function when no brain function can be detected?

The only way is anecdote. A subject claims they remember experiencing something and an assumption is made that that memory, if genuine, is of something that must have occurred when there was no brain function.
As I'm sure you have already spotted, this is just compounding anecdote with non sequitur. Hardly the basis for any reasonable explanation or claim, as you will no doubt agree.

People have hallucinations and dreams, especially under stress and trauma. I fail to see why some people get so excited about it.

 

[rational experiences]

When a living human applied all explanations science a topic of human choice never had a human answer.

As living humans want an answer.

To be alive is to have light support life and also death.

What science ignores. The state of death does not suddenly remove the reason why we are alive.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

How do we know there is any brain function when there is no electrical activity in the brain?

No idea. It seems an odd stance to take by the author of a scientific monograph on the emerging understanding of the "mind" in

Or IOW how do we know there is any brain function when no brain function can be detected?

Wrong question. We know that we can "detect" brain function using (at least previously) standard methods in the dead:
"In 2009, a highly remarkable scientific experiment was performed by Bennett, Baird, Miller and Wolford, four American brain researchers. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a brain imaging technique, to determine which brain areas respond to emotional stimuli in a test subject. The subject was shown several emotionally laden pictures and was asked to verbalize the emotion shown. The display of pictures was alternated with rest, and by comparing the brain readings between exposure and rest, the researchers were able to clearly identify a brain area that showed a response to the stimulus offered (Bennett et al. 2011).
What was so remarkable about this experiment? Certainly not the idea of measuring brain response to pictures using fMRI; this had been done countless times by other researchers in the past. Also not the statistical methods used to find the relevant brain regions by comparing exposure and rest states; the same techniques had been used in many influential publications in brain imaging before. The originality of the study lay in the choice of the test subject. This was not, as usual, a human, but an Atlantic salmon. Moreover, the salmon was stone dead, having been bought in the local supermarket on the very morning of the experiment." (emphasis added)
Goeman J.J. (2016) Randomness and the Games of Science. In: Landsman K., van Wolde E. (eds) The Challenge of Chance. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26300-7_5
Here is the original dead salmon imaging experiment:
"Neural Correlates of Interspecies Perspective Taking in the Post-Mortem Atlantic Salmon: An Argument For Proper Multiple Comparisons Correction"

The only way is anecdote. A subject claims they remember experiencing something and an assumption is made that that memory, if genuine, is of something that must have occurred when there was no brain function.

True. Of course, this is the basis of most of neuroscience. But if one doesn't have a way of explaining how, at least in principle, one could have cognitive processes without a brain with some functional capacity, then one might as well make claims akin to scanning dead salmon as they are "shown" visual stimuli.
Hence I would agree with the authors claim that at least currently, we don't have much in the way of methods to investigate NDE claims that can tell us about how they are experienced or not experienced physiologically. Scientific inquiry does have limits.

 

[KWED]

Wrong question. We know that we can "detect" brain function using (at least previously) standard methods in the dead:
"In 2009, a highly remarkable scientific experiment was performed by Bennett, Baird, Miller and Wolford, four American brain researchers. They used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a brain imaging technique, to determine which brain areas respond to emotional stimuli in a test subject. The subject was shown several emotionally laden pictures and was asked to verbalize the emotion shown. The display of pictures was alternated with rest, and by comparing the brain readings between exposure and rest, the researchers were able to clearly identify a brain area that showed a response to the stimulus offered (Bennett et al. 2011).
What was so remarkable about this experiment? Certainly not the idea of measuring brain response to pictures using fMRI; this had been done countless times by other researchers in the past. Also not the statistical methods used to find the relevant brain regions by comparing exposure and rest states; the same techniques had been used in many influential publications in brain imaging before. The originality of the study lay in the choice of the test subject. This was not, as usual, a human, but an Atlantic salmon. Moreover, the salmon was stone dead, having been bought in the local supermarket on the very morning of the experiment." (emphasis added)
Goeman J.J. (2016) Randomness and the Games of Science. In: Landsman K., van Wolde E. (eds) The Challenge of Chance. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26300-7_5
Here is the original dead salmon imaging experiment:
"Neural Correlates of Interspecies Perspective Taking in the Post-Mortem Atlantic Salmon: An Argument For Proper Multiple Comparisons Correction"

This detected brain function when there was none, not detecting no brain function when there was some.
As the report concludes...
"What we can conclude is that random noise in the EPI timeseries may yield spurious results if multiple testing is not controlled for. In a functional image volume of 130, 000 voxels the probability of a false discovery is almost certain."

So, the experiment merely highlighted the need for controlled testing.

But if one doesn't have a way of explaining how, at least in principle, one could have cognitive processes without a brain with some functional capacity, then one might as well make claims akin to scanning dead salmon as they are "shown" visual stimuli.

This is question begging. It is assuming that the experience memory occurred during a period of no brain activity.

Hence I would agree with the authors claim that at least currently, we don't have much in the way of methods to investigate NDE claims that can tell us about how they are experienced or not experienced physiologically. Scientific inquiry does have limits.

We know a fair amount about how NDEs occur. The issue is with the claim that they involve a "soul" that is independent of the physical brain. That is a claim that requires some evidence. Thus far there is none.

 

[tas8831]

Because it's just an unverifiable hearsay story.



You can not.
Seems like you don't really know how the scientific method works.




But you can't call Leroy.
You can only rely on the anecdote where all this is claimed.
There is nothing to be tested here. All you can do is rely on people's words.



That is simply extremely false.



It's properly documented.



And the fossil itself.



View attachment 56456

These things are on display, you know

Poor leroy. He tries so hard. If only he would give up on his lost causes...

 

[tas8831]

The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven is a known case of a false claim.

I hadn't heard of that one before - amazing. I wonder how many people still refer to that case TODAY as PROOF of Heaven/Jesus/God/NDE...
Of note, the book sold a million copies. If the family only got 1 dollar per book in profit, that is a big chunk of money - and for a lot less work than having to pretend to heal people from maladies that they later admit they never had...

 

[tas8831]

Ok, but it is still a fact that I didn’t ignored your refutation, at most you can say that you personally don’t agree with my reply,.

The point is that you wrongly accused me for ignoring your claims, when I didn’t.

Ok, you dutifully dismissed them without bothering to try to understand their impact on your original claim. But you definitely did not just ignore them - you actively dismissed them because you could not understand their relevance and/or you did not want to admit that your new hero is not the brilliant superstar you had set him up as in your head.

Yes, yes - that is much better for your integrity score than just ignoring them....

 

[tas8831]

There's an assumption behind the question. And that is that "Vishnu" is different. We might see the same reality but interpret it differently .

If that is so, then religion is just nonsense.

 

[leroy]

Indeed, they could be lying about lying, but that would still mean that they are lying.

Sure, the ´point is that you concluded that the boy is lying based on anecdotal evidence. And you already affirmed that anecdotal evidence is not good enough to establish knowledge so wich one is it?

1 ether the boy was demonstrably lying (and you accept anecdotal evidence as valid)

2 we can’t conclude that the boy was lying because all we have is anecdotal evidence?

Which one is it?

However, if an extraordinary claim is made, and the only support for that claim is a person's testimony, if they then admit that they made it up, the most reasonable explanation is that the claim was false in the first place.

So know you are changing your objection.,

Originally you said that NDE fail because they are based on anecdotal evidence, and know you are saying that they fail because they are extraordinary claims

So which one is it?

So seem to be jumping from one objection to another.+

 

[tas8831]

Dr. Jeffrey Long: “A number of experiencers describe out-of-body experiences (OBEs). These experiences frequently include visualization of their body from a vantage point outside their body. Much less commonly reported are visualizations of earthly events geographically far removed from their body. Michael Sabom, M.D, conducted an excellent study of OBE among experiencers. Dr. Sabom identified a group of thirty-two patients who had a cardiac arrest, experienced an NDE, and visualized their own resuscitation efforts during the OBE stage of their NDE.

“He found a group of twenty-three patients who had a cardiac arrest and did not have an NDE. Both groups were asked to describe their resuscitation. The NDE group was uniformly accurate, including correctly recalling readings on medical machines outside their potential line of vision. Twenty of the twenty-three patients who did not have an NDE were highly inaccurate in describing their resuscitation. This is verifiable and potentially reproducible validation of the OBE component of the NDE.


To me that’s scientific evidence for consideration (not even attempting a proof claim).

For me, it only brings up an obvious question - why didn't ALL of them have NDEs, if it is a real thing?

 

[leroy]

That isn't how burden of proof works.
You made the claim that the subject could not possibly have had prior knowledge of the shirt colour.

Sure you won’t get 100% certainty.

But if the guy with the t shirt came in to the hospital before the guy with the NDE then it is unlikely that he would have known about the t-shirt and lie about it.

If you are demanding 100% certainty, then by your standards you most reject all science, “maybe the earth is flat but you live in the matrix and the globe is part of the simulation”

I have not made any specific claim that they did know. I have merely pointed out that there are several means by which they could have had prior knowledge.

Ok but there are hypothetical scenarios where prior knowledge would be very unlikely.

There is unequivocal, demonstrable, incontrovertible evidence that the earth is round and zero evidence that it is flat.
If there was a similar degree of evidence for a soul that is independent of the brain, I would accept it as a likely reality

ok and what evidence woudl you accept? if the tshirt example is not good enough what evidence woudl you accept?
.

 

[tas8831]

Michael Sabom, M.D, conducted an excellent study of OBE among experiencers. Dr. Sabom identified a group of thirty-two patients who had a cardiac arrest, experienced an NDE, and visualized their own resuscitation efforts during the OBE stage of their NDE.

Dr. Michael Sabom
"And he scrutinizes near-death experiences in the light of what the Bible has to say about death and dying, the realities of light and darkness, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

Hmmm.... seems like a devoted supernaturalist seeking ways to prop up his spiritual beliefs...