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

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?
I don't think this is at odds with what I wrote... you're making the same point.

True open-mindedness keeps all worldviews on the table. The skeptiko version of open-mindedness means keep them all on the table, but kick physicalism off...That seems like the opposite of open-mindedness.
 
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'.

See now, I'm going to hop in with another link. This is from an interview for Wired:

Sam Parnia said:
Sam Parnia: There’s a point used to define death: Your heart stops beating, your brain shuts down. The moment of cardiac arrest. Until fifty years ago, when CPR was developed, when you reached this point, you couldn’t come back. That led to the perception that death is completely irreversible.

But if I were to die this instant, the cells inside my body wouldn’t have died yet. It takes time for cells to die after they’re deprived of oxygen. It doesn’t happen instantly. We have a longer period of time than people perceive. We know now that when you become a corpse, when the doctor declares you dead, there’s still a possibility, from a biological and medical perspective, of death being reversed.

Of course, if someone dies and you leave them alone long enough, the cells become damaged. There’s going to be a time when you can’t bring them back. But nobody knows exactly when that moment is. It might not just be in tens of minutes, but in over an hour. Death is really a process.
 
I don't think this is at odds with what I wrote... you're making the same point.

True open-mindedness keeps all worldviews on the table. The skeptiko version of open-mindedness means keep them all on the table, but kick physicalism off...That seems like the opposite of open-mindedness.

And yet that's still an infinite number of world views more than you'll find in places - including many academic halls - where only some variation of physicalism is allowed.

This whole attempt at guilt-tripping Skeptiko proponents amuses me to no end. Take this scolding to Jerry Coyne's or Novella's website please lol.
 
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And yet that's still an infinite number of world views more than you'll find in places - including many academic halls - where only some variation of physicalism is allowed.

This whole attempt at guilt-tripping Skeptiko proponents amuses me to no end. Take this scolding to Jerry Coyne's or Novella's website please lol.
Why would I do that? I'm a member of this forum and no other.
 
See now, I'm going to hop in with another link. This is from an interview for Wired:
Regarding the definition of 'death' it is certainly a fact that cardiac arrest is used to define death. Particularly in the context of what goes on the death certificate. A person may have a hugely complex medical condition involving many factors, but the death certificate may simply state the cause of death as 'cardiac arrest'. This is entirely conventional and a matter of routine, not some wild fantasy invented by Dr Parnia.
 
Parnia explains in this video, starting at 08m 35s ...




Yeah, you can wind back a little @ 5:30 in the video, and also listen to what Kevin says, which on this point, is the most accurate of the panel... (it's also just common sense...).
 
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.

In my experience, living most of my life as a materialist and only coming around a few years ago, the availability of information only really sways those that are on the fence. The internet existed for years prior to that and even if something troubling appeared, like say a poltergeist report near my town, I would google it and a page of the CSICOP-affiliated subsidiary that claimed the "scientific study of the paranormal" would appear near the top results insisting that "we would love for there to be evidence for the paranormal, but there simply isn't". Confirmation bias sets in and presto, everything is fine. Creating that chink in the armor is not easy.
 
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?

This is one awesome post.
 
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.
Almost right - Steve001 is no longer with us!

David
 
I don't think this is at odds with what I wrote... you're making the same point.

True open-mindedness keeps all worldviews on the table. The skeptiko version of open-mindedness means keep them all on the table, but kick physicalism off...That seems like the opposite of open-mindedness.
Malf, if what you have written were true, do you think you would still be able to post here :)

Thus you have written one of those logically impossible sentences - if you can write it, it follows that it isn't true!

David
 
That actually makes me sad. I don't love banning. I get it, really I do, but diversity of opinion is so important on forums like this one.
It is a very subjective decision, and people can be as materialist and sceptic as they like and remain on the forum - think of Paul or Malf, for example, but when they become rude and aggressive that oversteps the mark. Really the question is (as far as I am concerned) not whether someone 'believes' but whether someone - sceptic or proponent - is engaging in conversation in a constructive way!

If someone is sceptical, and wants to discuss some evidence that seems to show that reality really is materialistic - bring it on, but interestingly enough that isn't what seems to happen. I mean, I think that is what struck Alex in the early days - the proponents that he interviewed were cautious and self-critical, whereas the materialists passed off shallow explanations and ducked and weaved awkward questions.

David
 
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.

Surveys are a poor source of primary information. I prefer to set the bar just a little higher. There's also surveys showing people has met Elvis after he died etc.
 
If someone is sceptical, and wants to discuss some evidence that seems to show that reality really is materialistic - bring it on, but interestingly enough that isn't what seems to happen. I mean, I think that is what struck Alex in the early days - the proponents that he interviewed were cautious and self-critical, whereas the materialists passed off shallow explanations and ducked and weaved awkward questions.
You do understand that if someone believes that NDEs are a glimpse of the afterlife, then any "materialistic" explanation is going to seem shallow, right? That's because the materialistic explanation is necessarily preliminary and lacking in details, whereas the afterlife explanation can be decked out with all sorts of presumptive details without need for evidence.

~~ Paul
 
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