Originally posted by Deadline
With OBEs defintely NDEs are much better.
Everything I said earlier about OBE's applies to NDE's as well. Don't fool yourself into thinking there's a huge difference. We can trace physical correlates to most of the phenomenon involved. And the few that we can't certainly don't point to anything except a lack of knowledge, and certainly not to a divine God just because a doctor gets spooked and can't explain some things.
Originally posted by Digi
Everything I said earlier about OBE's applies to NDE's as well. Don't fool yourself into thinking there's a huge difference. We can trace physical correlates to most of the phenomenon involved. And the few that we can't certainly don't point to anything except a lack of knowledge, and certainly not to a divine God just because a doctor gets spooked and can't explain some things.
You didn't really go into detail about the reasons. No actually there is a big enough difference. In an NDE Dr Jeffrey Long kinda described that one of the criteria for an NDE is that you need to be so messed up if you don't receive immediate medical attention you're going to die. Can't remember exactly what he said but im pretty sure part of the criteria is that you have to die.
Taking drugs, hallucinations do not refute NDEs because these take place during cardiac arrest and they don't explain how a person with no brain actvity or very little have very lucid visions.
Thats why its called near death experience. Hallucinating, meditation etc do not apply.
Originally posted by DeadlineCauses for an NDE and OBE may be different (eg, cardiac arrest vs meditation), but they both involve radical shifts of attention which yield the same effect: an experience of consciousness being outside or independent of the body. This is the common point of contention. Often, NDEs start off as OBEs, depending on whether the cause was, say, a heart attack or meditation.
You didn't really go into detail about the reasons. No actually there is a big enough difference. In an NDE Dr Jeffrey Long kinda described that one of the criteria for an NDE is that you need to be so messed up if you don't receive immediate medical attention you're going to die. Can't remember exactly what he said but im pretty sure part of the criteria is that you have to die.Taking drugs, hallucinations do not refute NDEs because these take place during cardiac arrest and they don't explain how a person with no brain actvity or very little have very lucid visions.
Thats why its called near death experience. Hallucinating, meditation etc do not apply.
Originally posted by Deadline
You didn't really go into detail about the reasons. No actually there is a big enough difference. In an NDE Dr Jeffrey Long kinda described that one of the criteria for an NDE is that you need to be so messed up if you don't receive immediate medical attention you're going to die. Can't remember exactly what he said but im pretty sure part of the criteria is that you have to die.Taking drugs, hallucinations do not refute NDEs because these take place during cardiac arrest and they don't explain how a person with no brain actvity or very little have very lucid visions.
Thats why its called near death experience. Hallucinating, meditation etc do not apply.
Physical death =/= brain death, which actually doesn't take place until several days after a person is declared dead (with limited exceptions, of course). Your definition of death precludes the idea of brain activity, so it's a self-serving definition. If there is no brain activity but there is an experience, it only leaves a supernatural explanation, and thus becomes self-fulfilling to a believer, even without proof or evidence. In reality, it's incoherent when compared with facts.
Also, OBE's frequently happen during NDE's where there is enough physical trauma to potentially kill someone. The two experiences are not identical, but can be linked or even overlap. The affects of both have been recreated in laboratory settings by stimulating areas of the brain associated with intense trauma and terror. I didn't cite specific refutations earlier because, frankly, they're easy to find for anyone interested in finding them. I, nor anyone else, can't be expected to educate others on easily-accessed matters that the other party can't be bothered to look for. The fact that you seem to associate OBE's only with meditation or drugs suggests we're not even talking about the same things.
Originally posted by Mindship
Causes for an NDE and OBE may be different (eg, cardiac arrest vs meditation), but they both involve radical shifts of attention which yield the same effect: an experience of consciousness being outside or independent of the body. This is the common point of contention. Often, NDEs start off as OBEs, depending on whether the cause was, say, a heart attack or meditation.
There are similarities between them but an NDE is different enough for us to questions OBEs as an answer.
OBEs don't disprove that there is life after death because when people have OBEs they're alive. All OBEs prove is that when a person is alive they can hallucinate.
The whole reason why NDEs prove that there if life after death is because science tells us that its not possible for people to see anything in their current state and that they are dead.
In this regard an OBE is the complete opposite of an NDE and therefore does not provide an explanation as to why NDEs happen. At best it's a plausible explanation.
For the sake of argument imagine there was a phenomenon were people could see better when they were blind or their eyes were extremely damaged. Then trying to explain it by using examples of people who’s eyes are fully healthy who took drugs and meditated. That doesn't make any sense. The only similarity between the two is that you see shit but the state of the human body in both examples are completely different and therefore a conclusive explanation cannot be given.
Originally posted by Digi
Physical death =/= brain death, which actually doesn't take place until several days after a person is declared dead (with limited exceptions, of course). Your definition of death precludes the idea of brain activity, so it's a self-serving definition. If there is no brain activity but there is an experience, it only leaves a supernatural explanation, and thus becomes self-fulfilling to a believer, even without proof or evidence. In reality, it's incoherent when compared with facts.Also, OBE's frequently happen during NDE's where there is enough physical trauma to potentially kill someone. The two experiences are not identical, but can be linked or even overlap. The affects of both have been recreated in laboratory settings by stimulating areas of the brain associated with intense trauma and terror. I didn't cite specific refutations earlier because, frankly, they're easy to find for anyone interested in finding them. I, nor anyone else, can't be expected to educate others on easily-accessed matters that the other party can't be bothered to look for. The fact that you seem to associate OBE's only with meditation or drugs suggests we're not even talking about the same things.
I just don't feel like arguing with you but at some point I may respond to this post.
Originally posted by DeadlineI disagree, though not in principle. For Occam's sake, I would simply argue that NDEs may also be a hallucination, but one where brain activity has diminished to below what we can currently detect. In this vein, it is different from an OBE, ie, the NDEr certainly appears dead, whereas the OBEr does not.
OBEs don't disprove that there is life after death because when people have OBEs they're alive. All OBEs prove is that when a person is alive they can hallucinate.The whole reason why NDEs prove that there if life after death is because science tells us that its not possible for people to see anything in their current state and that they are dead.
In this regard an OBE is the complete opposite of an NDE and therefore does not provide an explanation as to why NDEs happen. At best it's a plausible explanation.
Still, the common controversial factor with either is that consciousness seems able to exist outside/independent of the body...and this may well be what's going on, which is why I don't disagree with you in principle. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and IMHO, neither prove (thus far) any sort of transcendent reality.
((Something that would prove con'ness can exist outside/independent of the body -- and by implication, strongly suggest life after death: if, during an OBE or NDE, the person witnessed, say, a far-away friend, saw what he was doing and noted the time, then later accurately conveyed this info to that friend -- and especially if this occured a few times: that would be tough to empirically explain away.))
Originally posted by Mindship
I disagree, though not in principle. For Occam's sake, I would simply argue that NDEs may also be a hallucination, but one where brain activity has diminished to below what we can currently detect. In this vein, it is different from an OBE, ie, the NDEr certainly appears dead, whereas the OBEr does not.
I agree it may well be but the point I'm making is that it does not explain how NDEs occur all it provides is a plausible reason.
Originally posted by Mindship
Still, the common controversial factor with either is that consciousness seems able to exist outside/independent of the body...and this may well be what's going on, which is why I don't disagree with you in principle. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and IMHO, neither prove (thus far) any sort of transcendent reality.
Which is actually the point I'm trying to make. How would one go about proving life after death? One such way is for somebody to die and come back. How on earth are we going to go about proving this? We would need some way of detecting wether a person is dead or not. The problem is you can't because certain people will always assume that the person is still alive. It's not that life after death is inherently irrational people just don't want to accept it because of culture.
I'm also glad that you seemed to have pointed out that assuming they are alive is Occams razor.
Originally posted by Mindship
((Something that would prove con'ness can exist outside/independent of the body -- and by implication, strongly suggest life after death: if, during an OBE or NDE, the person witnessed, say, a far-away friend, saw what he was doing and noted the time, then later accurately conveyed this info to that friend -- and especially if this occured a few times: that would be tough to empirically explain away.))
Stuff like that has happened apparently but I'm trying to do some research into this Pim Von Lomel talks about this in a scientfic article the only problem is he didn't give enough detail. Yes even if somebody has a flatline EEG they could still be alive but what you mentioned above would clinch it.
http://www.zarqon.co.uk/Lancet.pdf Look at page 3
How do you visualize God?
According to me !! I thought the God had a sense of humor or was at least considering the possibility. That's what I was responding to. I wasn't talking about potentially metaphoric descriptions but a very concrete one in this thread. Any omnipotent and all whatever God. Who has a sense of humor is laughable to me, for reasons stated above. It's not impossible but wouldn't warrant the term 'God'. The quality, I tend to see as "most basic" would be that "God" is Infinite.
Originally posted by DeadlineI'm not sure what you're saying here, the difference between "explaining" and "plausible reason."
I agree it may well be but the point I'm making is that it does not explain how NDEs occur all it provides is a plausible reason.
Which is actually the point I'm trying to make. How would one go about proving life after death? One such way is for somebody to die and come back. How on earth are we going to go about proving this? We would need some way of detecting wether a person is dead or not. The problem is you can't because certain people will always assume that the person is still alive.It is something of a catch-22: "If Jerry really had died, he couldn't've come back to tell us anything. But since he did 'come back', then he wasn't really dead." Time to go ghosthunting? 😉 This is why I posed the friend-spying situation.
Stuff like that has happened apparently but I'm trying to do some research into this Pim Von Lomel talks about this in a scientfic article the only problem is he didn't give enough detail. Yes even if somebody has a flatline EEG they could still be alive but what you mentioned above would clinch it.Looks interesting...if not exactly light summer reading. But yeah, lack of details can be problematic, and in all fairness to proper scientific research and methodology, any problems would need to be properly addressed.http://www.zarqon.co.uk/Lancet.pdf Look at page 3
Originally posted by Mindship
I'm not sure what you're saying here, the difference between "explaining" and "plausible reason."
What I mean by explaining is that it does not explain using current science why people can have very lucid experience while clinically dead. What I mean by plausible is that it may actually be true but in this case it's not the most likely explanation.
Originally posted by Mindship
It is something of a catch-22: "If Jerry really had died, he couldn't've come back to tell us anything. But since he did 'come back', then he wasn't really dead." Time to go ghosthunting? 😉 This is why I posed the friend-spying situation.
They are doing stuff like that but its not catch 22 because you're assuming that death is irreversible.
Originally posted by Mindship
Looks interesting...if not exactly light summer reading. But yeah, lack of details can be problematic, and in all fairness to proper scientific research and methodology, any problems would need to be properly addressed.
Well Sam Parnia is doing the AWARE study which is the biggest experiment on NDEs. So far he stated that there have been verdical NDEs where people have verified real life events but the results won't be published until 2012.
Originally posted by DeadlineThat is the crux of the matter.
They are doing stuff like that but its not catch 22 because you're assuming that death is irreversible.
Well Sam Parnia is doing the AWARE study which is the biggest experiment on NDEs. So far he stated that there have been verdical NDEs where people have verified real life events but the results won't be published until 2012.I look forward to this.
Originally posted by DeadlineI think you're disregarding perhaps the most common experience in life (understandable: denial of the finality of death is perhaps the second most common experience in life). There's plenty of reason to think death is irreversible, and given the current, dominant paradigm, I believe the onus is to prove it isn't. Hoperfully (and if there ever was a place for hope, it's here), the study you're talking about will at least begin to spider-crack that paradigm.
Yes but you need to prove that death is irreversible. Its a state just like any other and theres no reason to think it can't be reversed.
Originally posted by Mindship
think you're disregarding perhaps the most common experience in life (understandable: denial of the finality of death is perhaps the second most common experience in life).
That doesn't mean its irreversible. That just means theres a stage that you can't come back from, no offence im not forgetting anything.
Originally posted by Mindship
There's plenty of reason to think death is irreversible, and given the current, dominant paradigm, I believe the onus is to prove it isn't. Hoperfully (and if there ever was a place for hope, it's here), the study you're talking about will at least begin to spider-crack that paradigm.
No offence but you're just making a statement and haven't really given a logical reason as to why it should'nt be reversible. You're just saying it shouldn't be. There are 100s of things that are reversible but for some reason were deciding that death is unique theres no logical reason why it shouldn't be.
Originally posted by DeadlineAgreed, it doesn't necessarily mean it's irreversible. But the denial of the finality of death is deeply ingrained in the human psyche, so much so that one could argue this is the basis for the existence of religion, of culture, indeed of every breath, thought and action any living thing does.
That doesn't mean its irreversible. That just means theres a stage that you can't come back from, no offence im not forgetting anything.
No offence but you're just making a statement and haven't really given a logical reason as to why it should'nt be reversible. You're just saying it shouldn't be. There are 100s of things that are reversible but for some reason were deciding that death is unique theres no logical reason why it shouldn't be.I'm talking common experience, plain and simple. Indeed, common experience may be masking a deeper truth regarding life and death. But to deny the historic, cross-cultural, day-to-day consistency of death's apparent finality...this very neatly highlights what I'm saying above.
I appreciate your position and enthusiasm, and to an extent I share it. But I can't agree with the premise that one needs to prove death is final. Maybe it will be shown not to be in the long run. But for now, death's finality appears to be one of those things you can definitely count on, and the onus is to prove it is not as final as it appears. This is why studies like Parnia's are done: to show/suggest death is not an end, but perhaps a transition state.
I don't neccsearily disagree with you and I'm not completely satisfied with just clinical death, I'm just saying its a double standard. Not sure what you're implying about common experience, they hallucinated and saw what they wanted to see?
I don't think the AWARE study will prove anything people will just say veridcal NDEs are just a coincedence.