Mod+ 281. DR. EVAN THOMPSON FINDS NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE EVIDENCE UNCONVINCING

I should clarify - my idea is that assuming an NDE starts as the mind breaks away from the brain, that process might cause some sort of disruption in the brain.

This is totally different from suggesting that the NDE happens in the brain!

I guess the main reason for this suggestion is that that surge is very curious - and seems to occur about the time you might expect the separation to begin. However, note Max's contribution above - he thinks the experiments picked up human brain waves, and were simply flawed.

I don't like to just throw away awkward information - that is what sceptics do!

David

I, too, find the brain activity to be interesting. Could it have a link to NDEs? There was a prospective study done looking for NDEs in patients undergoing a procedure which induces cardiac arrest for up to about 8 seconds but found zero NDEs. The rat study suggests that the brain activity starts at about 3 seconds after cardiac arrest. Is 5 seconds just too short for any NDE experience? Is it possible that certain brain activity can be involved in some way with an NDE (without explaining it entirely)? It is odd that the activity was supposed to be consistent, but we know reported NDEs run about 10-20%. What could explain this? Do not all people remember NDEs? Or perhaps the time frame for an NDE can vary and they were recucitated before their NDE would have occurred?

I guess I am saying that we know conscious experience typically has a high correlation with brain states, so I would not be surprised or concerned if there was some sort of involvement of brain activity at some point which may be responsible for something. I don't think that this would necessarily explain the entire NDE, either. Just like with telepathy, brain activity is obviously involved, but that doesn't explain everything that is going on.
 
But do we really have any right to expect all aspects of existence to be able too be mathematically described? Have we now realized Wigner's unreasonableness of mathematics to describe the world? What sort of shake up would this cause science?

right. I think it would put science out of business... or at least recast it as a complimentary branch of engineering. i.e. how to make stuff work.

also, I don't think we can go too far down this path without asking serious (and uncomfortable) questions about spirituality. no one wants to ask (or, face the folly asking):
- how many angels fit on the head of a pin?
- what is the mind of god/God?

but this is kinda where we're heading. at some point we gotta tackle spirituality head-on.
 
what do make of Radin's recent experiments?
http://deanradin.com/evidence/Radin2012doubleslit.pdf

I wanta do an interview on this... just never seem to be able to clear the time. y'all need to stop suggesting such great guests :)

I would LOVE to hear you interview Radin about this subject. I think this is a majorly important type of psi test that gets at answering the measurement problem. I want to hear about what he has done or is doing with double slit devices using single photons. I think this could prove to be one of the most important psi experiments ever if there is a repeatable effect replicated by various labs.

I personally think that his experiments suggest that conscious awareness has the ability to directly extract quantum information from systems. I am not sure that it demonstrates conscious collapse of the wave function, but I do think that it at least suggests some level of state vector reduction. I think retroPK experiments more directly get at the conscious collapse question.
 
there's nothing to suggest that the rat studies are measuring NDEs.

We now know there is highly syncronised activity in the rats brain much further into cardiac arrest than previously known, I think it's reasonable to suggest a similar activity will be occurring in humans...

...and from the study, this activity in the rats brain apparently looked very similar to the activity in a wakeful human undertaking a visual task.

I think it's reasonable to suggest they have stumbled across an effect that is correlated with the NDE.
 
Alex is so stuck on the idea of consciousness being separate from the brain...

- you've misunderstood my point... I'm just saying the mind=brain has been falsified. I think it's a life's work to fully take that in.

...explore the idea of consciousness merely requiring a brain...

- explore away, but along with not seeing a lot of evidence pointing in this direction, I just don't see where that path takes us.
 
I think it's reasonable to suggest they have stumbled across an effect that is correlated with the NDE.

There was no correlation with NDEs in any way. All the rats died, and even if they were recucitated, there is no way to find out if they had an NDE since at this time they are phenomenological and judged by the NDE scale.
 
Thomas Kuhn had the notion that different paradigms are incommensurable; one cannot understand one paradigm through the conceptual framework and terminology of another. If one is approaching the issue through the paradigm of scientific materialism one cannot see the rational structure of a paradigm that holds consciousness to be independent of the brain.
When we perceive and know the world we do so through an explanation or theory. We don’t perceive the world in the raw as it is in itself, but rather as we interpret it. We see it in terms of meanings and significances, which are mental constructions.

great stuff. and I learned a new word today :)
 
There was no correlation with NDEs in any way. All the rats died, and even if they were recucitated, there is no way to find out if they had an NDE since at this time they are phenomenological and judged by the NDE scale.
exactly. moreover, the study doesn't even pretend to consider any NDE science. the fact that so many have linked this study to NDEs says more about the state of science-as-we-know-it than anything.

we're living in a Bill-Nye-the-science-guy world when it comes to debunking NDE science.
 
Thomas Kuhn had the notion that different paradigms are incommensurable; one cannot understand one paradigm through the conceptual framework and terminology of another. If one is approaching the issue through the paradigm of scientific materialism one cannot see the rational structure of a paradigm that holds consciousness to be independent of the brain.
When we perceive and know the world we do so through an explanation or theory. We don’t perceive the world in the raw as it is in itself, but rather as we interpret it. We see it in terms of meanings and significances, which are mental constructions.

Kuhn's conception of incommensurability is controversial and I think to a degree highly overemphasized. Yes, there is a degree to which there are problems of terms used, concepts, metaphysical assumptions, etc., but to say that there is incommensurability in the sense that the two groups talk right past each other and that communication is almost impossible I think is incorrect.

Just like very different languages can be translated, and even very different concepts fr different cultures can be described to help understanding, the same can be said of scientific paradigms.

For example, even though there is no direct translation for the Sanskrit word "cit" into English, it can be communicated by first translating into consciousness, and then describing how it differs from the western use and definition of the word.

I think that if dialogs are rushed, or there is too much prejudice and no genuine interest of communicating ideas and understanding the other paradigm's position, you can have more talking past each other. However, with the right conditions of interest, openness, patience, and effort, translations can be done to greatly minimize incommensurability. The real problem isn't some almost impossible incommensurability, it is a lack of these positive conditions and characteristics that cause the problems, emphasizing the sociological issues with scientific knowledge rather than logical issues.
 
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There was no correlation with NDEs in any way. All the rats died, and even if they were recucitated, there is no way to find out if they had an NDE since at this time they are phenomenological and judged by the NDE scale.

Don't make me laugh... talk about having your blinkers on... This highly syncronised EM activity is correlated with both a physiological state, a similar time period as commonly reported human NDE's, and makes the rats EM activity, look like the researchers EM activity.
 
Don't make me laugh... talk about having your blinkers on... This highly syncronised EM activity is correlated with both a physiological state, a similar time period as commonly reported human NDE's, and makes the rats EM activity, look like the researchers EM activity.

There was no way of knowing if any NDEs occurred, therefore there cannot be any correlation with NDEs.

A variation that COULD establish a correlation would be monitoring EEG of patients undergoing induced cardiac arrest, seeing if there were any NDEs, looking at brainwave activity, and then seeing what correlations there may be.

I do not have blinders on...I am stating the obvious logical deductions. Perhaps you should consider that you are being credulous in order to support a confirmation bias.
 
There was no way of knowing if any NDEs occurred, therefore there cannot be any correlation with NDEs.

A variation that COULD establish a correlation would be monitoring EEG of patients undergoing induced cardiac arrest, seeing if there were any NDEs, looking at brainwave activity, and then seeing what correlations there may be.

I do not have blinders on...I am stating the obvious logical deductions. Perhaps you should consider that you are being credulous in order to support a confirmation bias.

Lol... This is the most detailed study of its type... and observed that the energy compromised rats EM fields suddenly begin to resemble those of wakeful humans undertaking a visual task.
 
Lol... This is the most detailed study of its type... and observed that the energy compromised rats EM fields suddenly begin to resemble those of wakeful humans undertaking a visual task.

And no evidence of NDEs, so no correlation with NDEs.
 
You may have noticed in the Borjigin et al. paper that they state "Predictably, these correlates decreased during general anesthesia."

Yet about a quarter of NDEs occur under general anesthesia.
 
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