Latest Near-Death Experience Research Hit Job |326|

This is perfectly simple, no need to make it complex. The EEG is a reliable indicator of the state of a persons brain, that's a fact. Dr Ernst Rodin kindly told me and he should know, he pioneered it's use.

For people in a coma, the EEG is very good indicator but....because the brain stem is still functioning (during coma) there will be some type of electrical activity. It doesn't mean that such activity is sufficient for any kind of normal consciousness but in theory there COULD be something going on.

However, in cardiac arrest the brain stem stops functioning in about 10 seconds and without a brain stem there cannot be any electrical activity, consciousness or experience. It's impossible because that is how the brain has been proven to work. You don't need to stick EEG leads on the head, no brain stem equals no function, no nothing. It's just a fact.

I'd just be repeating myself...
 
Max B are you updating your blog? You seem on the fence with NDE, but more open to telepathy?
 
I'm interested in the point being debated by Max and tim. This is purely motivated by my relative ignorance on the technical aspects here.

I guess my question to Max is can you offer any evidence of proven human brain activity (i.e., some level of "consciousness") in the absence of EEG readings? This doesn't seem like a point that should be conceded to "we'll have to agree to disagree" just yet. Right?
 
Max B are you updating your blog? You seem on the fence with NDE, but more open to telepathy?

I'm not very good at keeping my blog upto date. Not sure what you mean by 'on the fence with the NDE'?, but you could say I was leaning towards an explanation that would encompass phenomena like telepathy.
 
I'm not very good at keeping my blog upto date. Not sure what you mean by 'on the fence with the NDE'?, but you could say I was leaning towards an explanation that would encompass phenomena like telepathy.

I'll check your blog out soon, once I finish walking my dog. What is your stance on NDE?
 
I'm interested in the point being debated by Max and tim. This is purely motivated by my relative ignorance on the technical aspects here.

I guess my question to Max is can you offer any evidence of proven human brain activity (i.e., some level of "consciousness") in the absence of EEG readings?

I don't know it's possible to show 'consciousness', in the sense that they are having an experience, in any organism... you're back to the "I think therefore I am"...

But you can certainly see active (and apparently intelligent) behaviour in single and multi-cellular organisms that don't have any neurons. You wouldn't be able to measure any activity in these organisms neural networks... because they don't have any neurons. That said, your still going to be able to measure weak EM field activity in these organisms, but not by medical EEG - as the generated fields wouldn't be strong enough. You're also going to be able to measure lots of continuing activity from the cells of your body whilst it's in cardiac arrest. Even whilst there is no medical EEG.
 
Thanks Max, I appreciate the response.

What is the correlation you are making between active behavior in single and multi-cellular organisms and human consciousness? I'm afraid I'm not connecting the proverbial dots.

What tim put forth (EEG activity is required as the current, scientific de facto standard for a human to be conscious) is what makes me interested in NDE research. That perhaps, at some stage, evidence may show consciousness without an EEG and perhaps break/alter the brain-mind connection. Are you offering an alternative, materialist-based possibility or am I completely not following?
 
I'll check your blog out soon, once I finish walking my dog. What is your stance on NDE?

I don't think I can say the NDE tells us anything either for, or against an afterlife. If that's what you mean.

Very briefly, I think it's possible for the brain's networks to become at least partially entrained by any compatible external EM fields, when it becomes exposed, due to the reduction in power of its own EM field (for example during cardiac arrest).

This may initially allow some access to third parties objective sensory data (and experience) to explain the OBE.

As power becomes further reduced, the networks lose the ability to become entrained by individual external fields (to isolate and pick out compatible fields), and we move on to the later NDE stage.

Brain flooded with 'building' chemicals from the dying process, now totally exposed to external third party fields, which are sometimes laying down very new patterns on the networks, very easily.

The differences between these new patterns, and the persons older patterns are understood through the narrative/imagery of the NDE, and it's message. The person cannot resist because their Ego (EM field) is down, and tension between their previous beliefs (patterns) and these new external patterns is a revelation, and understood in terms of its repelling, or attractive nature. It's a bit like therapy on steroids, they get compatible third party patterns of thinking laid down directly on them, and the bigger the gap between their old beliefs, and these new beliefs, the stronger the NDE message will feel.

That's not a full explanation of my take on the NDE, but it probably gives you a flavour.
 
Thanks Max, I appreciate the response.

What is the correlation you are making between active behavior in single and multi-cellular organisms and human consciousness? I'm afraid I'm not connecting the proverbial dots.

These organisms move around, navigate spacetime, interact, and behave apparently intelligently, but they don't have any neurons. But they all have centrioles (microtubules). Something is controlling and directing their behaviour, and lots of research on cells suggests it's these regular protein structures that act like a sensor and processor, and can coherently interfere with one another. It's the cavities within these regular protein structures that seem to be important. The brain is packed full of these microtubule structures, and it seems to be them, rather than the neurons, where consciousness arises. The neurons seem like a later development in larger organisms, and they generally move signals back and forth (to and from the brain).

Effectively these neurons surround the brain in an artificial EM field of relayed sensory data, that the microtubules then can process, just as they would directly in smaller, simpler organisms without neurons.

When this EM fields power drops, the microtubules can become more exposed to external fields.

It seems that consciousness is group-like, but it became important for larger organisms survival, if they could also operate somewhat independently from the group. Individuals could then interpret things from their own perspective, and do what was best both for themselves, *and* the group.

We're all like one single organism, that is understanding things in terms of the individual vs the group, the group vs the individual, and the individual vs the individual. Both part of, and separate.

That's the dynamic we seem to be struggling with... how the group protects itself from the individual, and how the individual protects itself from the group and other individuals.

We seem to have forgotten somewhat that our reality is really shared...

The previous post above, may also give you some more detail on my specific ideas about my position on the NDE...
 
This may initially allow some access to third parties objective sensory data (and experience) to explain the OBE.
Why would they have experiences with their own dead relatives sometimes if this were the case?

I don't put a lot of eggs in the NDE basket when so many other baskets are overflowing with material that can clearly demonstrate the non-physical transmission of data. (See Phantasms of the Living Volume 1 and 2 by Gurney and Myers for instance -->http://www.esalen.org/ctr-archive/book-phantasms.html.)
 
Why would they have experiences with their own dead relatives sometimes if this were the case?

I don't put a lot of eggs in the NDE basket when so many other baskets are overflowing with material that can clearly demonstrate the non-physical transmission of data. (See Phantasms of the Living Volume 1 and 2 by Gurney and Myers for instance -->http://www.esalen.org/ctr-archive/book-phantasms.html.)

my suspicion is that third parties are thinking about the patient dying (or saving them from dying)... those thoughts have an EM pattern, and are sometimes compatible with, and able to entrain the patients brain... and these thoughts are given suitable narrative/imagery by the patient. Rather like dream imagery.

So say... two medical personnel are trying to save a person who is dying... the personnel have thoughts around this... remembering patients they have lost before etc... This might cause their patient to see imagery which is relevant to *them*, people *they* have lost... in that way both medical personnel and patients have imagery which is appropriate to their thought patterns.
 
I rarely critic personal hypotheses, its annoying to deal with the defensiveness, but... Did you know that there are reports of people "meeting" dead relatives that they did not know in these experiences? Or, more rarely, those that are "not yet born". Neither case would be a real loss.
 
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I rarely critic personal hypotheses, its annoying to deal with the defensiveness, but... Did you know that there are reports of people "meeting" dead relatives that they did not know in these experiences? Or, more rarely, those that are "not yet born". Neither case would be a real loss.

Yes, but I'm generalising, and my answer is in direct response to far.from.here's specific question.

To be thorough, each and every case would need to be looked at individually.
 
The brain is packed full of these microtubule structures, and it seems to be them, rather than the neurons, where consciousness arises. The neurons seem like a later development in larger organisms, and they generally move signals back and forth (to and from the brain).
Is there accepted science to support this notion or is this a theory not yet sufficiently tested? This seems to be at the crux of the EEG point that tim was trying to drive home.
 
Is there accepted science to support this notion or is this a theory not yet sufficiently tested?

There is sufficient evidence as far as I'm concerned that MT's, Centrioles, Cilia etc, are key to this.

There are all manner of published papers in lots of different fields supporting the importance of EM fields... and some more recent papers showing behavioral effects of hyper-weak magnetic fields that is almost certainly going to require new theories to explain such long spin relaxation times in warm wet noisy organisms.

I'm simply pulling together lots of different observations, which I think points towards a way of understanding much anomalous phenomena.

As for Tim, I've disagreed with his interpretation of NDE/OBE's for years, for what I feel are very good reasons. Our interactions are relatively good natured. Neither of us has really budged position. I think something is going into a NDE experient, where as Tim thinks something is going out, and scientists generally seem to think nothing is going in or out. :-)
 
There is sufficient evidence as far as I'm concerned that MT's, Centrioles, Cilia etc, are key to this.

There are all manner of published papers in lots of different fields supporting the importance of EM fields... and some more recent papers showing behavioral effects of hyper-weak magnetic fields that is almost certainly going to require new theories to explain such long spin relaxation times in warm wet noisy organisms.

I'm simply pulling together lots of different observations, which I think points towards a way of understanding much anomalous phenomena.

As for Tim, I've disagreed with his interpretation of NDE/OBE's for years, for what I feel are very good reasons. Our interactions are relatively good natured. Neither of us has really budged position. I think something is going into a NDE experient, where as Tim thinks something is going out, and scientists generally seem to think nothing is going in or out. :)

I think scientists are dotty for thinking the external doesn't affect the internal. I think Tim's misinterpreting the relocation of 'self' too literally as meaning an entity leaves the NDE OBE'rs body. I think there is enough data to show relocation of 'self' due to external input, and I'm just saying the input data is from third parties.
 
I think something is going into a NDE experient, where as Tim thinks something is going out, and scientists generally seem to think nothing is going in or out. :)

I suspect there is reason to believe there may even be a fourth option: there is something going in and out. For example, it appears to be possible to stimulate (external input) an OBE (a potential going out), well, at least a partial OBE.
 
Neither of us has really budged position

Your theory is novel, Max and you're certainly on the ball with what you're interested in but I can't even get close to accepting how it could work. Then again you think the idea of a floating soul is ridiculous and in many ways it is. But that is what the patients report.

A man told me recently that while he was on the fourth floor of a hospital in a 3 week coma, he observed his friend arriving in the lobby downstairs to visit him. He correctly described everything that his friend did including chucking a plate of food (intended for his friend) into a bin when he came back downstairs, amongst other things...and he has the witnesses to back it up.

He's adamant that he was walking around that hospital but no one could see him. If he's right then what are we to conclude.
 
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