Near Death experiences to atheist

[George-ananda]

We have no reason to assume otherwise.

From my side of the coin: After my study of paranormal phenomena and the 1,001 stories I've heard I have no reason to assume the materialist/physicalist view is correct; in fact I'm pretty sure it can't be correct..

Hence two schools and a never-ending debate.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Wouldn't it be expected that if the atheist's view of the brain and consciousness were correct these people would experience nothing, and if anything, a very random weird firing of the brain that would not all be similar person to person.

Our physiology is similar. Why wouldn't we expect that when different brains are subject to the same effect, they'd have similar experiences?

 

[apophenia]

Do you 'not believe' in astral and etheric bodies or are you saying you're unsure.

Are you saying your experiences happened and you have no clue of the mechanism? Certainly you've pondered this and possible theories.

Sure I have.

I have the experiences, but I do not endorse or see the need for theories, though of course I have created various mental models over the years. And disposed of them.

You are more likely to have the experience without the model, which has undesirable effects.

 

[SkepticThinker]

This is the strange conundrum for me. I am a skeptic. I do not 'believe' anything about astral and etheric bodies. But I have a collection of experiences which involve confirmation from outside me, and which are simply not possible if consciousness is limited to the physical brain, unless we include the idea of amazing capabilities of the human brain which we currently can't explain.

I have been visited by a friend 'astral traveling', who drew a precise picture of my room (she had never been there physically, nor had I ever described it), and where I was in it when she visited, for example. I have 'traveled' to other places and seen precisely what was happening there - and my cheating partner 'knew' I was there ! - what I saw was accurate in every detail, despite me never having even met the dude she was with before, I was able to describe him in detail. I have cursed a guy who threatened me with death, and he was immediately hospitalised with inexplicable anemia and bleeding from the kidneys. He stayed that way (for 6 weeks) until he contacted me and asked for my forgiveness, even though I had not told him I had cursed him. Then he immediately recovered. I have put a 'magic circle' around my unborn daughter 4 weeks into her gestation, and the doctors at her scheduled abortion simply changed their minds for no apparent reason and refused to carry out the abortion - the mother was shocked and angry as we left the clinic ( I did not attempt to stop her, I just maintained a mantra and my intention, which was unassailable. I had no contact whatsoever with the doctors or staff, I sat in a public waiting room). After more 'activity' on my part a few days later,she decided to go ahead with the pregnancy. And, btw, a painting of the four-armed form of krishna had 'come to life' a few days previously and told me that I need not worry, or argue, and that my child would certainly survive.
And lots of other stuff.
I am unable to explain these things - or to deny them.Which is a weird position to be in, but such is life.

So, I certainly have 'reason to assume otherwise'.

The human brain does apparently have amazing abilities. Who would have thought a person could fly a helicopter using only their thoughts, or that a rat could press a lever to receive water using only its mind? All of these things certainly seem unbelievable or almost magical to me (and probably to most people), and yet we have explanations for them. We made them happen by manipulating the brain. In fact, what we’ve learned from studies just like this is that our imaginations and our physical brains are intertwined and almost indistinguishable from each other. In other words, thinking about an action in our mind is practically the same thing as taking that action, according to our brains. Another example would be that if you imagine playing a piece on the piano without actually playing it and practice the piece in your mind, you can teach your brain and thereby your fingers (your motor cortex) how to play the piece. This works almost as well as actually physically playing the piece over and over. Amazing, right?

Maybe your friend pieced together their vision of your room from knowing you, knowing what you’re like, what your hobbies are, from references you may have made to your room in regular conversation, etc. Or maybe she didn’t describe it perfectly but you were so impressed she could describe anything at all you just overlooked the discrepancies. Maybe it’s like when you sit down with a psychic (or whatever they call themselves) and throw a whole bunch of names at you that you’ve never heard before, but then s/he gives you the name of your dead grandmother and some other somewhat accurate details about her and suddenly you forget about all the stuff she got wrong!

Maybe when you thought you were travelling to other places or saw Krishna, you were dreaming. I travelled somewhere I’d never physically been before with my dead father once – I thought and felt like I was actually there with him. I could feel him, smell him, touch him. That is, until I woke up. Dreams can be very powerful experiences and they’re definitely something we haven’t quite got figured out yet.

Maybe the guy you cursed was going to get sick anyway, and it just coincided with you putting a curse on him. Or maybe just the thought that you he knew you wanted to hurt him was enough to convince his brain that he was ill. To me, the thing about this is, if curses or spells or whatever were real things, people would be dropping dead all over the place for no apparent reason whatsoever. Wouldn’t somebody put a curse on Hitler, or Osama Bin Laden or any random bad person you can think of? Or if you could put a “magic circle” around loved ones, then why are kids still dying from cancer or being molested by pedophiles? Why do children suffer at all?

I don’t want to tell you that you didn’t actually have these experiences, because I’m inclined to take your word for it. And they sound pretty fantastic. How we interpret our experiences compared to what actually happened though, are different things. I don’t know that we can just say, “well I don’t have an explanation for it, so I must have been leaving my physical body, for lack of a better explanation.” Especially in light of what we do actually know about the human brain.

Just my two cents.

 

[1137]

Like check this out, this not only proves the power of the mind but disproves that things like prayer and such are actually answered by external forces

PLOS ONE: Placebos without Deception: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Irritable Bowel Syndrome

 

[George-ananda]

Our physiology is similar. Why wouldn't we expect that when different brains are subject to the same effect, they'd have similar experiences?

OK, I can pretty much agree with what you're saying there but it doesn't address my main point:

Why do people with no brain activity report seeing their resuscitation efforts and other scenes during times of no brain activity. (earlier in this thread I posted a link showing a case where the patient was aware of things DURING the time of no brain activity) If the materialist/physicalist view is correct I would expect them to experience nothing during times of no brain activity. No only do they have experiences but they remember them and actually don't believe they were dreams. And claim the experiences were more rich and vibrant than any dreams and where from an outside the body perspective. I am saying the materials/physicalist attempt to explain the NDE is not the more reasonable view. It just sounds like an explanation created to come to the desired conclusion.

 

[George-ananda]

The human brain does apparently have amazing abilities. Who would have thought a person could fly a helicopter using only their thoughts, or that a rat could press a lever to receive water using only its mind? All of these things certainly seem unbelievable or almost magical to me (and probably to most people), and yet we have explanations for them. We made them happen by manipulating the brain. In fact, what we’ve learned from studies just like this is that our imaginations and our physical brains are intertwined and almost indistinguishable from each other. In other words, thinking about an action in our mind is practically the same thing as taking that action, according to our brains. Another example would be that if you imagine playing a piece on the piano without actually playing it and practice the piece in your mind, you can teach your brain and thereby your fingers (your motor cortex) how to play the piece. This works almost as well as actually physically playing the piece over and over. Amazing, right?

Maybe your friend pieced together their vision of your room from knowing you, knowing what you’re like, what your hobbies are, from references you may have made to your room in regular conversation, etc. Or maybe she didn’t describe it perfectly but you were so impressed she could describe anything at all you just overlooked the discrepancies. Maybe it’s like when you sit down with a psychic (or whatever they call themselves) and throw a whole bunch of names at you that you’ve never heard before, but then s/he gives you the name of your dead grandmother and some other somewhat accurate details about her and suddenly you forget about all the stuff she got wrong!

Maybe when you thought you were travelling to other places or saw Krishna, you were dreaming. I travelled somewhere I’d never physically been before with my dead father once – I thought and felt like I was actually there with him. I could feel him, smell him, touch him. That is, until I woke up. Dreams can be very powerful experiences and they’re definitely something we haven’t quite got figured out yet.

Maybe the guy you cursed was going to get sick anyway, and it just coincided with you putting a curse on him. Or maybe just the thought that you he knew you wanted to hurt him was enough to convince his brain that he was ill. To me, the thing about this is, if curses or spells or whatever were real things, people would be dropping dead all over the place for no apparent reason whatsoever. Wouldn’t somebody put a curse on Hitler, or Osama Bin Laden or any random bad person you can think of? Or if you could put a “magic circle” around loved ones, then why are kids still dying from cancer or being molested by pedophiles? Why do children suffer at all?

I don’t want to tell you that you didn’t actually have these experiences, because I’m inclined to take your word for it. And they sound pretty fantastic. How we interpret our experiences compared to what actually happened though, are different things. I don’t know that we can just say, “well I don’t have an explanation for it, so I must have been leaving my physical body, for lack of a better explanation.” Especially in light of what we do actually know about the human brain.

Just my two cents.

I want to butt in to your guy's conversation with one observation.

The 'amazing abilities' described and accepted by SkepticThinker can still fall nicely within the physicalist/materialist paradigm.

The events Apophenia described do not seem to be explainable within the materialist/physicalist paradigm. So the only position for the physicalist is to deny the data (i.e. people are misinterpreting a sequence of normal phenomenon; this is the position I am claiming has become unreasonable and contrived).

 

[ImmortalFlame]

OK, I can pretty much agree with what you're saying there but it doesn't address my main point:

Why do people with no brain activity report seeing their resuscitation efforts and other scenes during times of no brain activity. (earlier in this thread I posted a link showing a case where the patient was aware of things DURING the time of no brain activity)

Question: How do you test for a lack of activity in the brain? How was it quantified that their brain was not "active", how was this state induced, and how did they measure it?

 

[SkepticThinker]

I want to butt in to your guy's conversation with one observation.

The 'amazing abilities' described and accepted by SkepticThinker can still fall nicely within the physicalist/materialist paradigm.

The events Apophenia described do not seem to be explainable within the materialist/physicalist paradigm. So the only position for the physicalist is to deny the data (i.e. people are misinterpreting a sequence of normal phenomenon; this is the position I am claiming has become unreasonable and contrived).

I don't think I'm denying any "data." I mean, sorry, but I'm going to explore all possible empirical explanations before I even begin to start considering supernatural explanations because so far as I can tell, most, if not all things actually do have empirical explanations behind them. Thousands of years ago people thought lightning was caused by supernatural forces, now we know they're just physical events.

Sorry, but people misinterpret things all the time. A lot of times when we're dreaming, we feel like the dream is real. We have no idea it isn't until we wake up.
Try reading accounts of exorcisms some time and then watch the tape of the same exorcism. When you read the accounts, they sound fantastical, like something amazing and unexplainable happened. But then you find when you watch them that what was described was nothing close to what actually happened and it's actually quite uneventful and even boring, compared to the eyewitness accounts.

 

[1137]

OK, I can pretty much agree with what you're saying there but it doesn't address my main point:

Why do people with no brain activity report seeing their resuscitation efforts and other scenes during times of no brain activity. (earlier in this thread I posted a link showing a case where the patient was aware of things DURING the time of no brain activity) If the materialist/physicalist view is correct I would expect them to experience nothing during times of no brain activity. No only do they have experiences but they remember them and actually don't believe they were dreams. And claim the experiences were more rich and vibrant than any dreams and where from an outside the body perspective. I am saying the materials/physicalist attempt to explain the NDE is not the more reasonable view. It just sounds like an explanation created to come to the desired conclusion.

Your problem is you think there was no brain activity, yet I'm pretty sure if this was true there would be no coming back.

 

[George-ananda]

Question: How do you test for a lack of activity in the brain? How was it quantified that their brain was not "active", how was this state induced, and how did they measure it?

I'm not a Doctor or scientist so I use the language and terminology of those who are:

See my post #34 where I provide a link to an article: I think it will answer many of your questions.

 

[George-ananda]

but I'm going to explore all possible empirical explanations before I even begin to start considering supernatural explanations

I agree with the above position. Our difference is probably when the threshold is ever reached that you 'begin to start considering supernatural explanations'.

 

[George-ananda]

Your problem is you think there was no brain activity, yet I'm pretty sure if this was true there would be no coming back.

As I said above to ImmortalFlame; see my post #34

 

[1137]

As I said above to ImmortalFlame; see my post #34

Even assuming her brain was not functioning show me the hallucinations occured at the time and not before / after.

 

[George-ananda]

Even assuming her brain was not functioning show me the hallucinations occured at the time and not before / after.

the fact that she could describe events DURING the brain shutdown (the operation). That is the key point.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I agree with the above position. Our difference is probably when the threshold is ever reached that you 'begin to start considering supernatural explanations'.

That's probably it.

 

[1137]

the fact that she could describe events DURING the brain shutdown (the operation). That is the key point.

You've never had surgery have you. I've had 7, and I could tell you exactly what the doctors did in each because they explain the process beforehand.

 

[George-ananda]

You've never had surgery have you. I've had 7, and I could tell you exactly what the doctors did in each because they explain the process beforehand.

But, the key point to her story is she relayed DETAILS of conversations and unexpected events. Please re-read the story.

 

[1137]

But, the key point to her story is she relayed DETAILS of conversations and unexpected events. Please re-read the story.

During my third back surgery the doctor's scalpl slipped and made a small incision in the tissue. It wasn't anything bad, some simple disolvable stiches fixed the problem.

Now am I magical or is it possible the doctor explained the unexpected event to myself and my family? Lose your bias and all your arguments fall apart. That's how you know you're dealing with desire rather than objectivity.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

I'm not a Doctor or scientist so I use the language and terminology of those who are:

See my post #34 where I provide a link to an article: I think it will answer many of your questions.

All the article cites is instances of deep hypothermic circulatory arrest in which a state of clinical death is induced. The brain doesn't "cease to function" entirely during these procedures, so any experiences had while under its effects can safely be dismissed as hallucinations or dreams. The patient does not die, therefore no glimpse into any "after-life" can be said to have occurred.