Ray A wrote:marg wrote:There's nothing wrong with the Parnia study and I haven't suggested otherwise. Finally a simple objective study to find out if out of body experiences are truly real. Great, I suspect it will finally put to rest the paranormal NDE fanatics on the net being influenced by the shoddy science of Lommel.
That's amazing. Have you had a change of heart? You're actually prepared to wait for the conclusion of a study?
There's nothing amazing I'm not saying anything new. Does doing this test mean these scientists truly believe NDE's are paranormal? No it doesn't. Can we conclude anything reliable with regards to the issue of NDE's from the fact they are doing a test of putting above the operating table a platform on which they will place something no one else will see to have objectively verify if OBE patient can identify later? Again no.
It's of interest that you offer that study up but it's evidence of nothing of significance to the issue. It doesn't mean I should be agnostic rather than reject the paranormal claims of NDE & OBE's.
marg wrote:Ok well that's worse than I thought. You've been studying this for 39 years..oy vay.
Is "oy vay" a new word that's been recently added to your already limited vocabulary?
I'll let you know what I think about you later.
marg wrote:Wow that's really arrogant of me to assume you got into this because of your brother. How terrible!
Admitting arrogance, is, again, something rarely seen in you.
Whether I'm arrogant or not doesn't affect the truth claims of the issues.
marg wrote:Because you told me you read an enormous number of stories describing near death experiences. I believe you estimated around 300.
I never "estimated" "around 300". I never gave you a figure.
Well what have you been reading for 39 years? Obviously not the science behind it. It doesn't matter how many NDE stories you've read the point is you based your evidence on there being many claims of NDE's & OBE's. And then coupled that with Lommel's article..at least that's essentially all you've presented.
marg wrote:Even if you read thousands it wouldn't make much difference..because Ray people who have induced NDE's and OBE feel the experiences as real. Even people on drugs, the fact that they can be induced and felt as real indicates the same phenomenon existing for people who experience them in near death situations. That they truly feel real doesn't mean they are real. Surely you can appreciate how easily the mind can play tricks and how perception can be affected.
And this is why your arrogance is unlimited. You said from the very start of the Pearl Curran thread, "it has all been explained". "Science has explained it!". But even Blackmore won't go that far these days.
Blackmore does go for that these days. She says science sufficiently explains NDE physiologically and she rejects the paranormal explanations.
You fail to understand the concept of skepticism & burden of proof. You think rejection of a claim is closed minded and agosticism is open minded. And then you claim you're open minded because you don't hold a position on NDE paranormal. This is not true ..you do hold a position. You believe in the paranormal re NDE's.
Blackmore and myself are not agnostic, we are skeptics, we are open minded (to evidence and changing our minds should the evidence warrant it)and we reject the paranormal claims based upon lack of rigorous science and objectively verifiable evidence to warrant acceptance.
marg wrote:At least I offered my own critical assessment of Lommel why his findings were flawed. The 3 scientists as well found his findings flawed, and so does Blackmore given her stated position. So you've got Lommel and some anecdotes. What other scientists have you got who have done rigorous scientific studies and have found evidence for more than physiology involved?
What "3 scientists"? Three bloggers on the Internet? Why have they not approached
The Lancet with a reply? I'll tell you why, because none of them have applied anything that can be called "rigourous anaylsis" backed up by solid practical research. It's all opinion!
So you didn't read their articles. I'll only quote portions, mainly conclusions and leave out technical explanations.
Crislip is an Infectious Disease doctor in Portland, OregonMark Crislip wrote:
*I read the article (Lommel's article) from the perspective of a practicing physician who spends all his time in an acute care hospital and has been involved with many cardiac arrests over the years. The NDE question in this study hinges on whether the were dead or nearly dead.
*So the real question is whether patients who had brain anoxia had an NDE, and there is no way to determine that in this paper.
*The point is that during a resuscitated cardiac arrest the ability of the brain to get oxygen can be quite variable, and if the CPR is done effectively the brain gets enough oxygen that it is not damaged. By the definitions presented in the Lancet paper, nobody experienced clinical death. No doctor would ever declare a patient in the middle of a code 99 dead, much less brain dead. Having your heart stop for 2 to 10 minutes and being promptly resuscitated doesn’t make you “clinically dead”. It only means your heart isn’t beating and you may not be consciousness. Declaring someone dead if their heart isn’t beating is not a good definition.
*The discussion also greatly exaggerates the conclusions that can be drawn from their data. “We did not show that psychological, neurophysiological, or physiological factors caused these experiences after cardiac arrest.” Of course not, since the study could not have any reliable data as to causation of NDE’s.
This is followed by “NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation.” I do not see this conclusion from the data in this article. Upon close reading I think the only thing this paper is qualified to determine is a description of who get NDEs and what patients report. As to etiology of NDEs, much less mind-brain relations, it can say nothing. The authors’ reach exceeds their grasp.
I am not saying NDEs don’t happen, and I am certainly not going to disagree with the idea that nearly dying is transformative. It is probably why real NDEs have greater effects on people than lab induced NDEs. The knowledge that you are truly mortal is life altering. Cancer survivors can have the same epiphany without the cardiac arrest.
The devil is in the details. As is so often the case, when you go back and read the original paper and its references, what the paper says and what the paper is purported to say often turn out to be two very different things.
and
NDEs Redux . "Sebastian Dieguez worked for a time as a clinical neuropsychologist and is currently a graduate student at the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience of the Brain Mind Institute, at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. He investigates the neural correlates of bodily awareness and self-knowledge, as well as a number of obscure neuropsychiatric syndromes. He has written on varied topics such as disorders of the body schema, cursing in aphasia, the neuropsychology of empathy, near-death and out-of-body experiences, and is a regular contributor to Cerveau & Psycho, the French edition of Scientific American Mind. "
Sebastian Dieguez wrote:I agree one hundred percent with everything Dr. Crislip wrote in his recent article published in eSkeptic. In fact, I have co-authored a forthcoming book chapter that makes similar points (Blanke & Dieguez, 2009). It is perfectly true that loss of consciousness and brain status were not satisfactorily assessed in the NDE Dutch study (van Lommel et al., 2001) and that all claims of cerebral inactivity, or even dysfunction, were largely unwarranted by the methods used. It is also an understatement to say, as Crislip rightly does, that NDE research crucially depends on how NDEs are defined.
*All these facts, in my opinion, do point to biological and psychological factors involved in the probability to endure and recall an NDE. At the very least, the findings of the study should have been properly discussed by its authors before jumping to the outrageous conclusion that because no consistent biological explanation could be found (never mind that, as Crislip notes, none was really looked for), then NDEs are not biological by nature. Actually, any person who sees the point of the principle of parsimony should agree that the prospect of NDEs challenging any tenet of biological naturalism, for the time being, simply vanish in the light of a large number of observations.
*First, it is indubitable that most, if not all aspects of the NDE fit entirely into neuroscientific knowledge: observations from reduced cerebral oxygenation, drug intake, sleep-wake cycle disturbances, awareness during anaesthesia, brain damage, epilepsy and direct brain stimulation all clearly point to neural correlates of NDE-related phenomena. Then, there is the embarrassing failure to find even one irrefutable case of “veridical perceptions” during brain inactivity (or simply unconsciousness), whereas such cases should be all over the place according to any transcendental or non-reductionist account. Finally, we have the mounting evidence of crosscultural differences in NDEs, various suggestive psychological correlates associated with those who report these experiences, and the largely silenced cases that indicate plainly hallucinated (i.e. non “veridical”) features (Augustine, 2007a, 2007b).
And then there's the slouch Dr. Woerlee, an anesthesiologist whose job requires him to understand well how to keep patients alive and the affects to the body from lack of oxygen and various drugs..whose arguments I will leave out for brevity.
The problem is either you don't or can't understand or appreciate anything these guys say or you are too heavily and emotional invested in the NDE paranormal that you are too closed minded to even attempt.
marg wrote:This is not discussing an issue Ray, this is resorting to ad hom in lieu of discussing. That's been your tactic.
You initially called me "gullible", a "New Ager", "irrational", and your offensive and insulting characterisations are the reason I cannot take you seriously, nor do I wish to be your "friend". To put it in plain terms, you are a bigot. Your bias in regard to the Spalding theory sickened me. And giving up your moderator position is probably the most honourable thing you've done in your life.
First of all you asked me if you were gullible. I asked you some questions, in particular whether you believed your passenger truly was cured of her migraines by sleeping with the Bible and you said I believe "yes" to which I responded with that answer yes you are, that I wasn't going to lie to you.
Second Susun Blackmore used the term New Ager and it seems to apply to you with your belief that consciousness exists outside the body and the brain might be a receiver of information rather that the generater. She said New Agers call her closed minded. So the term I thought seemed applicable to you.
And third "irrational" I explained why. I said most people don't like the term applied but it means a belief is formed based on lack of evidence. You beleive in consciousness outside the body ..and it's based on poor evidence at best..essentially anecdotes..hence why I said based on that you held an irrational position. .
As far as bias Ray you've pretty much demonstrated that this whole issue you've had both in the NDE thread and Spalding complaint one, is really about your insecurities of yourself. Your inability to discuss issues without getting emotional and feeling insulted. Yet you freely have spewed out excessive amounts of insults at me. This issue about my moderating with favoritism was never really the real issue. You've been pissed off at my position on NDE's from the get go. You asked for opinions but then got pissed off when I and antishock gave us our. You took it personally, and as an afront to your intelligence.
As you know Ray from the beginning I wasn't keen on moderating. By not moderating I will no longer have to visit here as often and be reminded of what a vindictive, silly, petty, insecure individual you are, that's my main motive for wanting to quit it. There was nothing honorable about the decision it was a selfish one, doing what is best for me.