I'm sure Stafford is one of the good guys, but once again, there's a lot of fuzzy thinking going on, starting with the notion of free will. If we define free will as the ability to make conscious decisions ( as Stafford seems to do ), then there's no such thing as free will. It's been scientifically proven that our decisions are fully formed before we ever become aware of them. Consequently, no "conscious decisions" are being made.
Then there are all the problems with typical notions of afterlives and reincarnation. That's not to say that people aren't having experiences that lead them to believe in such things, but that's just the data, what
@Alex calls the "Level 1" discussion. If "Level 2" is "the deception", then the nature of the deception lies in the
interpretation, and that's where I've made it my job to remove as much noise and fuzzy thinking as possible.
When Stafford says, "We can't determine whether or not we're going to survive the near death experience." he's either saying that we can't predict the future ( which applies to everything ), or that there's no way to determine if there is an afterlife. The former may be true, but the latter isn't — at least not the way most people seem to interpret it ( as a continuity of personhood following the death of the body ).
If we look at afterlives that way, the best that any "you" in an "afterlife" can be, is some sort of copy. There appears to be no way around that other than a couple of loopholes that end-up with us either not being what we think we are in the first place, or that we're already always copies, in which case the issue is moot. The show and the forum keeps on encountering these same issues over and over again without making any progress past them.
That's not to say that these discussions aren't worth having, because to my knowledge,
nobody I'm aware of ( including me ) has made it past them either. But maybe — just maybe, if we keep on having these discussions, some way forward will become apparent. Or at least, maybe these discussions will inspire others to take-up the quest — so good show. Keep them coming !