Do you think Parnia had a hit in AWARE 2, or not?

I've watched a lot of his videos, I try to second guess what he's thinking. In his latest video (aired on 6/10/2016, not in march 2017, so still some time into AWARE 2)


he compares NDEs to when sailors saw animals on other continents and were told they're crazy/drunk by people back home. And said they can't be hallucinations because of veridical perception, he's obviously aware of the numerous skeptical arguments against veridical perceptions, but still said this. In his videos many years before he seemed a lot more skeptical. His general tone in that video seems to be supporting NDEs.

However here https://medicine.stonybrookmedicine.edu/medicine/sleep/resuscitation/research
We further hypothesize that mental and cognitive activity and awareness during CPR may reflect verifiable events and is associated with the quality of brain resuscitation. This study is expected to end subject recruitment in July 2020.

this sounds like he doesn't believe they are real. What are your opinions? He's saying contradicting things. This guy potentially has the answer to the biggest question in the history of the universe, yet he won't say anything.
 
I've watched a lot of his videos, I try to second guess what he's thinking. In his latest video (aired on 6/10/2016, not in march 2017, so still some time into AWARE 2)


he compares NDEs to when sailors saw animals on other continents and were told they're crazy/drunk by people back home. And said they can't be hallucinations because of veridical perception, he's obviously aware of the numerous skeptical arguments against veridical perceptions, but still said this. In his videos many years before he seemed a lot more skeptical. His general tone in that video seems to be supporting NDEs.

However here https://medicine.stonybrookmedicine.edu/medicine/sleep/resuscitation/research


this sounds like he doesn't believe they are real. What are your opinions? He's saying contradicting things. This guy potentially has the answer to the biggest question in the history of the universe, yet he won't say anything.

He seems good at "playing to his audience".
 
My guess is he's walking warily among the wolves, but is more comfortable among the flock.

He probably has become convinced that something anomalous is going on but feels the need to be restrained as he doesn't have his smoking gun just yet.

Personally I think AWARE - at least as a means of confirming/disproving the afterlife - is ill-conceived and people shouldn't put too much weight on it. But that part you quoted seems more oriented toward recovery outcomes from a health perspective rather than him trying to lean back from the statements on the Dr. Oz show?
 
He seems good at "playing to his audience".

He doesn't seem to be after attention. He knows how much damage talking stuff like this does to his professional career. And I've never seen him on another show before with general audience, it's always professional interviews or conference, if you know a show with him please link.

My guess is he's walking warily among the wolves, but is more comfortable among the flock.

He probably has become convinced that something anomalous is going on but feels the need to be restrained as he doesn't have his smoking gun just yet.

Personally I think AWARE - at least as a means of confirming/disproving the afterlife - is ill-conceived and people shouldn't put too much weight on it. But that part you quoted seems more oriented toward recovery outcomes from a health perspective rather than him trying to lean back from the statements on the Dr. Oz show?

How else do you expect to empirically test afterlife? Skeptics argue veridical perception in proximity are hallucinations constructed from aural information, and veridical perception far way are suggestive questioning/confirmation bias/false memory/plain fraud.
 
How else do you expect to empirically test afterlife? Skeptics argue veridical perception in proximity are hallucinations constructed from aural information, and veridical perception far way are suggestive questioning/confirmation bias/false memory/plain fraud.

It's more the set up of the experiment makes a variety of assumptions about the nature of non-local consciousness and the universality of the potential for NDEs.

Really why AWARE is less about non-local consciousness and more about consciousness before/during/following the physical aspects associated with NDEs - namely the near death part.

If no one sees any stickers it'll be a definitive experiment, if someone gets a hit on the target the experiment will be dissected for decades for its supposed flaws.
 
I've watched a lot of his videos, I try to second guess what he's thinking. In his latest video (aired on 6/10/2016, not in march 2017, so still some time into AWARE 2)


he compares NDEs to when sailors saw animals on other continents and were told they're crazy/drunk by people back home. And said they can't be hallucinations because of veridical perception, he's obviously aware of the numerous skeptical arguments against veridical perceptions, but still said this. In his videos many years before he seemed a lot more skeptical. His general tone in that video seems to be supporting NDEs.

However here https://medicine.stonybrookmedicine.edu/medicine/sleep/resuscitation/research


this sounds like he doesn't believe they are real. What are your opinions? He's saying contradicting things. This guy potentially has the answer to the biggest question in the history of the universe, yet he won't say anything.

He has attempted to get a hit in various studies for 15 years now. Don't get your hopes too high. Think they got something like 2 OBE's in the first AWARE study after 5 years. These things rarely happens in the real world outside new age circles.

With that said - I believe Parnia thinks they are real. There's just no way he is going to get approved a study under such a headline. Hence it's wrapped under a story about 'quality of brain resusication'
 
He has attempted to get a hit in various studies for 15 years now. Don't get your hopes too high. Think they got something like 2 OBE's in the first AWARE study after 5 years. These things rarely happens in the real world outside new age circles.

With that said - I believe Parnia thinks they are real. There's just no way he is going to get approved a study under such a headline. Hence it's wrapped under a story about 'quality of brain resusication'

He got a single OBE, and there was no proper setup to test the premise, only some veridical information involving a resuscitation device. Also, the real number of patients that would really have a chance to see anything was much lower than the hundreds that were redundantly "recruited". Without those, the statistics are closer to previous studies.

Do they have a hit? It's impossible to know from a few interviews. What can't be denied is that the expansion of the project and involvement of new hospitals takes money, and securing funds takes the scientific equivalent of a "sales hook". I have noticed that he has been chipper since December, and that may suggest that at the very least there have been no "negative" results, but not necessarily that they have a hit.

The website description is the same given to the British health system and published in their clinical trials page. Given that Britain is notoriously materialistic, this is probably the only way to get funding.
 
It's more the set up of the experiment makes a variety of assumptions about the nature of non-local consciousness and the universality of the potential for NDEs.

Really why AWARE is less about non-local consciousness and more about consciousness before/during/following the physical aspects associated with NDEs - namely the near death part.

If no one sees any stickers it'll be a definitive experiment, if someone gets a hit on the target the experiment will be dissected for decades for its supposed flaws.

The best you can hope to get from the establishment is a half-assed recognition that there may be more to consciousness than we know. People have a hard time accepting that they paid for being taught BS (one of the reasons why there were so many still working under Freudian principles all the way up to the 1990s, despite the emergence of other schools) and will resist acknowledging the futility of the "old ways", meaning that it will take decades and many funerals before ideas change within the structure.

The biggest impact would likely be among the common folk, who would take it as literary separation of body and soul, giving more acceptance to non-local consciousness. I can see most religions trying to exploit it as well.
 
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The best you can hope to get from the establishment is a half-assed recognition that there may be more to consciousness than we know. People have a hard time accepting that they paid for being taught BS (one of the reasons why there were so many still working under Freudian principles all the way up to the 1990s, despite the emergence of other schools) and will resist acknowledging the futility of the "old ways", meaning that it will take decades and many funerals before ideas change within the structure.

That is true, there has been research suggesting science is stifled by an old guard that prevents new ideas from being properly examined:

Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?

We study the extent to which eminent scientists shape the vitality of their fields by examining entry rates into the fields of 452 academic life scientists who pass away while at the peak of their scientific abilities. Key to our analyses is a novel way to delineate boundaries around scientific fields by appealing solely to intellectual linkages between scientists and their publications, rather than collaboration or co-citation patterns. Consistent with previous research, the flow of articles by collaborators into affected fields decreases precipitously after the death of a star scientist (relative to control fields). In contrast, we find that the flow of articles by non-collaborators increases by 8% on average. These additional contributions are disproportionately likely to be highly cited. They are also more likely to be authored by scientists who were not previously active in the deceased superstar's field. Overall, these results suggest that outsiders are reluctant to challenge leadership within a field when the star is alive and that a number of barriers may constrain entry even after she is gone. Intellectual, social, and re- source barriers all impede entry, with outsiders only entering subfields that offer a less hostile landscape for the support and acceptance of “foreign” ideas.

And from what I heard from someone who recently retired from psychology after being in the field for years was that behaviorism was something that nobody truly believed in save for the professors. As he put it, "You have to get to graduate level to accept that kind of stupidity."

Dennet was a student of the behaviorist Ryle, and others have suggested his work on consciousness is ultimately a desperate attempt to preserve some artifact of the ideas behind behaviorism. I think there is similar desperation among the materialists and especially the computationalists.

As Searle once noted, there's an oddity to computationlists bordering on religious fervor about consciousness being a computer program.

The biggest impact would likely be among the common folk, who would take it as literary separation of body and soul, giving more acceptance to non-local consciousness. I can see most religions trying to exploit it as well.

I suspect parapsychology diminishes religious truth claims, but maybe that's just me.....
 
I've watched a lot of his videos, I try to second guess what he's thinking. In his latest video (aired on 6/10/2016, not in march 2017, so still some time into AWARE 2)


he compares NDEs to when sailors saw animals on other continents and were told they're crazy/drunk by people back home. And said they can't be hallucinations because of veridical perception, he's obviously aware of the numerous skeptical arguments against veridical perceptions, but still said this. In his videos many years before he seemed a lot more skeptical. His general tone in that video seems to be supporting NDEs.

However here https://medicine.stonybrookmedicine.edu/medicine/sleep/resuscitation/research


this sounds like he doesn't believe they are real. What are your opinions? He's saying contradicting things. This guy potentially has the answer to the biggest question in the history of the universe, yet he won't say anything.

I suspect he believes the experiencers are truthful, and that they sometimes report veridical content within their OBE. Suggesting that they have some type of awareness during resuscitation.

But what Parnia does is to personally redefine the state of 'cardiac arrest' as simply 'death'.

Then he can claim to the public that their cardiac arrest experience were *after* 'life', because he redefines cardiac arrest as death. To professionals he talks about some type of awareness being present during resuscitation.

If you don't first accept his personal redefinition that cardiac arrest = death, what he says will look like a contradiction.

Each side takes the label they prefer, because under Parnia's definition, they are interchangeable. Those who believe the cardiac arrest NDE is a glimpse of the afterlife probably prefer to use the term 'death'.
 
He has attempted to get a hit in various studies for 15 years now. Don't get your hopes too high. Think they got something like 2 OBE's in the first AWARE study after 5 years. These things rarely happens in the real world outside new age circles.

With that said - I believe Parnia thinks they are real. There's just no way he is going to get approved a study under such a headline. Hence it's wrapped under a story about 'quality of brain resusication'

Yes I know this skeptic argument. My impression is that there are only a few hidden target tests so far, and none of the OBErs have looked in the direction of the target, e.g. https://drpennysartori.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/obe-veridicality-research/
There were two patients who reported an OBE where they were high enough and in the correct location to view the symbols but they were not looking on the top of the monitor. One of those patients remarked that if he knew before his OBE that there was a hidden symbol there he would have looked at it and told me what it was.

that's what the problem with all hidden target tests so far, they are in some obscure location. Bruce greyson also commented on failed hidden targets in a video (forgot link). AWARE 2's hidden target is right next to the patient's body, so there's no chance the OBEr cant see it.

I really think the mind body problem alone defeats materialism. That doesn't logically imply afterlife of course, death might still be the end even if materialism is wrong.
But whatever the case materialism is wrong, I'd bet on it, there's just no way its true.

EDIT: I mean reductive materialism must be wrong, its possible for some form of emergent materialism to be true.
 
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AWARE 2's hidden target is right next to the patient's body, so there's no chance the OBEr cant see it.
There is still a chance that the OBEer will ignore it. The NDE reports do describe a whole range of veridical details, but we can never be sure what the person will find most important or most interesting at the time. For example there might be a report of vaguely noticing a screen, but having no recollection of what was on it. I think the experiment neglects to consider what are the patient's motivations at the time, usually concerned with the activities of the personnel, even their thoughts, maybe their clothing. Anything else is still an unknown, we can't force it to happen.
 
Yes I know this skeptic argument. My impression is that there are only a few hidden target tests so far, and none of the OBErs have looked in the direction of the target, e.g. https://drpennysartori.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/obe-veridicality-research/

It wasn't meant as a skeptic argument. High quality studies like the 2001 Lancet study also only found a very low percentage of OBEs among an already low number of NDEs. It just happens to be a very uncommen phenomena which makes it hard to study it in a controlled ssetting.

I really think the mind body problem alone defeats materialism. That doesn't logically imply afterlife of course, death might still be the end even if materialism is wrong.
But whatever the case materialism is wrong, I'd bet on it, there's just no way its true.

EDIT: I mean reductive materialism must be wrong, its possible for some form of emergent materialism to be true.

I agree. I also believe reductiive materialism is wrong for the same reason - but there's still quite a gap up to the existence of an afterlife even though I personally really want it to exist.
 
It wasn't meant as a skeptic argument. High quality studies like the 2001 Lancet study also only found a very low percentage of OBEs among an already low number of NDEs. It just happens to be a very uncommen phenomena which makes it hard to study it in a controlled ssetting.



I agree. I also believe reductiive materialism is wrong for the same reason - but there's still quite a gap up to the existence of an afterlife even though I personally really want it to exist.
I think we may have to be a bit careful saying NDEs are not common.

We don't know how many are not reported for a variety of reasons, plus we don't know how many have them but don't recall them and of course, some - maybe most - NDEs may turn into ADEs (Actual Death Experience - you like? :)) before they can be reported.
 
I think we may have to be a bit careful saying NDEs are not common.

We don't know how many are not reported for a variety of reasons, plus we don't know how many have them but don't recall them and of course, some - maybe most - NDEs may turn into ADEs (Actual Death Experience - you like? :)) before they can be reported.
Parnia already uses the term Actual Death Experience for the patients he studies. Do you mean something different (Permanent Death Experience perhaps)?

You are correct that NDEs are (according to research surveys) relatively numerous. It's just that Parnia has chosen to study a sub-group of the population which places a severe restriction on eligibility for consideration.
 
Parnia already uses the term Actual Death Experience for the patients he studies. Do you mean something different (Permanent Death Experience perhaps)?

You are correct that NDEs are (according to research surveys) relatively numerous. It's just that Parnia has chosen to study a sub-group of the population which places a severe restriction on eligibility for consideration.
Yes I meant PDE :) - damn I thought I'd coined a new acronym.
 
...

I don't really think that religions would be exposing their followers to the problematic NDEs. Or, they may simply discredit those as "satanic manipulation" as one user argued here. They are sly, Tom Campbell also acknowledged that 'proof' of his 'mind at large' model is likely to bolster their claims. It's a double edged sword if you ask me.

I think the Internet has shown how hard it is to contain information - look at the way it's eaten away at the materialist faith in academia. (Not to mention faith in academia itself.)

Fundamentalisms have a way of dissolving when information is available and top-down authority structures suffer critique.
 
I think the Internet has shown how hard it is to contain information - look at the way it's eaten away at the materialist faith in academia. (Not to mention faith in academia itself.)

Fundamentalisms have a way of dissolving when information is available and top-down authority structures suffer critique.
The internet has certainly made it easier to find the experts and the facts that make one feel better about one's chosen worldview.

A man looking to beat a dog will always find a stick, as someone once said.
 
The internet has certainly made it easier to find the experts and the facts that make one feel better about one's chosen worldview.

A man looking to beat a dog will always find a stick, as someone once said.

Sorry, I can't agree with either of you. I used to read books by science writers and actual scientists. I also read books by speculative authors who challenged the orthodoxy. I'd assume that before they got to publication, they had been edited, fact-checked and reviewed. So I sort of knew what I was dealing with.

The internet is awash with opinion and rhetoric. Proponents can't post a single piece of evidence for any of the subjects we discuss, from evolution to NDEs, without an immediate response from Malf or Bart or Steve001 containing a link saying that evidence is bullshit. Those links are countered with other links and so it goes on. Link tennis.

Perhaps my book authors of old were misinformed or publishing opinion pieces but they were more substantial than a blog page with Jerry Coyne or PZ Myers calling everyone who disagrees with them an idiot. I had things explained at length and in layman's terms so that I had a chance of understanding. Now I have to wade through pages of academic pissing contests and I have no idea who to believe.

So, Malf's experts might be those who are telling him what he wants to hear. Sciborg's experts likewise. I am not qualified to discriminate so I fall back on what makes sense to me and try my best to filter out the bias. When you have something like Wikipedia which is deliberately slanted in favour of one worldview and censoring the other, what chance does the internet truth seeker have?
 
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