Continued: The Debate With marg on NDEs.

[_marg]

Where in Lommel's article does he that objective evidence was used to determine that the people who experienced NDE's did so when their brains were fully unconscious?[/u]

From The Lancet:

We included consecutive patients who were successfully resuscitated in coronary care units in ten Dutch hospitals during a research period varying between hospitals from 4 months to nearly 4 years (1988-92). The research period varied because of the requirement that all consecutive patients who had undergone successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) were included. If this standard was not met we ended research in that hospital. All patients had been clinically dead, which we established mainly by electrocardiogram records. All patients gave written informed consent. We obtained ethics committee approval.

See "Methods".

Ray that doesn't answer my question. How has Lommel established that the patient''s NDE's occurred when the patient was fully unconscious and not while the patient may have been going into or coming out of a fully unconscious state while they were in a semi-unconscious state? Specifically how did he establish that? I don't want a link I want you to either tell me or to quote him.

[_Ray A]

Ray that doesn't answer my question. How has Lommel established that the patient''s NDE's occurred when the patient was fully unconscious and not while the patient may have been going into or coming out of a fully unconscious state while they were in a semi-unconscious state? Specifically how did he establish that? I don't want a link I want you to either tell me or to quote him.

I don't believe that can be established. It's one possibility that they might occur while going into or coming out of an unconscious state.

That doesn't have much bearing on the overall phenomena, which is reported in the article (and in many other places).
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[_JAK]

Ray,

The inherent problem in any report of near death perspective is that it’s made by individuals who are personally involved. Death, the approach of death, or a believed certainty that death is eminent, all make individuals subjective and emotional in their view. “Near death” is not death. No one is interviewing people who are dead, embalmed, or buried. So near death is not death.

There are numerous examples of the perception that death is emanate. People on a plane which appears certain to crash are gripped by fear and believe they are near death. Only those who survive the experience are able to give a report. If the plane crashes and kills all aboard, there is no report by the dead. What they thought or contemplated cannot be known by those investigating the crash. Nor can they be interviewed about their perspective moments before they were dead.

However, persons in a medical setting who contemplate their impending death may have hours or weeks to contemplate. Such individuals are also likely to be on medications which alter their perceptions. Morphine, for example produces a sedative effect. It also may produce hallucinations. Neither medical near death nor the plane near death example are likely to produce rational, objective thinking.

While there may be a report by living people of what they felt or thought when confronted with the perceived certainty of death, that report is subjective. Such people report what they thought, felt, hallucinated.

None of that is genuinely after death. If such individuals made “report,” they did not die. To leap to the conclusion that thinking exists past death, burial, cremation, etc. is an irrational leap to conclusion. No serious, objectively reviewed evidence is presented. Speculation is easy.

It appears in your discussions with marg that you wish to believe something for which no objective data has been presented – let alone established.

When you claim that we must wait for further evidence, you irrationally extend willing suspension of disbelief.

No evidence has been presented or has established that any level of thought exists beyond death – the real thing. A report of someone living, no matter how close the brush was with death, is a report of someone living who makes a report or even a claim for what he/she saw or experienced. Such report is subjective and most likely fraught with emotion of fear and gratitude for the fact that such a person did not die.

You have not made a case for what appears to be your implied claims in your discussions with marg. She, on the other hand, has provided detailed analysis of problems with what some have described as “near death experience.” None of them gives meaningful insight or justification to conclude that there exists some level of consciousness after death. While superstition/religion make a variety of “claims,” none of those claims can be regarded as reliable.

[_marg]

Ray that doesn't answer my question. How has Lommel established that the patient''s NDE's occurred when the patient was fully unconscious and not while the patient may have been going into or coming out of a fully unconscious state while they were in a semi-unconscious state? Specifically how did he establish that? I don't want a link I want you to either tell me or to quote him.

I don't believe that can be established. It's one possibility that they might occur while going into or coming out of an unconscious state.

That doesn't have much bearing on the overall phenomena, which is reported in the article (and in many other places).
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RAy the article offers a conclusion which is that physiology alone can not account for NDE's. So what they are saying is though they are not explicit but if physiology alone can not account for NDE's then necessarily something more must...in other words something outside the body, inother words what we term paranormal..a consciousness outside the body.

How can the authors of that article make that claim? You just said it can not be established at what point the NDE occurs, but that's not what the authors are concluding. Am I making sense to you?

[_marg]

When you claim that we must wait for further evidence, you irrationally extend willing suspension of disbelief.

I've said that to him in different words but Ray doesn't appreciate the concept of irrational. Most people view it as being highly derogatory which I think he does as well.

No evidence has been presented or has established that any level of thought exists beyond death – the real thing. A report of someone living, no matter how close the brush was with death, is a report of someone living who makes a report or even a claim for what he/she saw or experienced. Such report is subjective and most likely fraught with emotion of fear and gratitude for the fact that such a person did not die.

There is no objective evidence ...there are lots of anecdotes. The article by Lommel use anecdotal evidence as well and because of that his findings are not justified. Basically he used claims of people who have had NDE's and reported what happened in the room or what they saw while they were allegedly completely unconscious as proof that NDE's must be more than physiological manifestations. So then his article is now used by NDE believers as evidence that scientists have evidence that out of body experiences exist, when all he ever used was subjecive anecdotal evidence in the first place.

[_Ray A]

RAy the article offers a conclusion which is that physiology alone can not account for NDE's. So what they are saying is though they are not explicit but if physiology alone can not account for NDE's then necessarily something more must...in other words something outside the body, inother words what we term paranormal..a consciousness outside the body.

How can the authors of that article make that claim? You just said it can not be established at what point the NDE occurs, but that's not what the authors are concluding. Am I making sense to you?

I think that makes fair enough sense. If it can't be determined exactly when an NDE occurs, then all NDE phenomena which appear subjective, such as seeing Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, tunnels, caves, etc., or even a Being of Light, could be subjective. Personal transformation may not say much either (but I'll discuss that more later). People have transforming religious conversions without being near death, and their lives can change in exactly the same way an NDEr's does. Though one significant difference is that while a religious conversion does not usually alleviate a fear of death, almost all who have experienced NDEs say that they have lost all fear of death. Many say they are "certain" of an afterlife, because they "saw it". You are welcome to conclude that it's "all in the mind". I have talked to people who have had NDEs, and their certainty has also made me do some thinking, and I'm not prepared to flippantly dismiss what they told me.

Here is a typical NDE posted just a few days ago:

I slipped back into an unconscious state and I remember seeing this VERY bright, yet not blinding light. I had the sensation of floating upward through darkness and past shadows that had no form. Then as I continued upward, I got to a point where I couldn't go any closer to the light...my loved ones were there and the kept telling me to go back, that it wasn't my time yet. I wanted to stay. I felt love, peace, as if I were home. Then I felt like I made a decision. And at that very moment I made my mind up, I was "sucked" backwards into life. Back onto Earth. I woke up inside an ambulance. I do remember prior to waking hearing a man say "we lost her". And then when I came back...."she's ok".
NDE due to accident.

I really don't know if this was real, imagined, or some kind of subconscious experience generated by a "near death experience", but this is what is commonly reported, though I wouldn't describe this one as particularly "core". And it's very brief, not explaining the circumstances, nor giving any verification from independent witnesses, so I generally don't pay much attention to those. It's the more descriptive ones, verified by independent witnesses which I'm interested in.

This is an outline of typical post-NDE behaviour:

V. The Most Common Negative Reactions From Near-Death Experiences:

A. Anger--for having been revived and forced to leave wherever they were.

B. Guilt-ridden--for not missing or even being concerned about their loved ones.

C. Disappointed--at discovering they are once again encased in their physical bodies and they will have to breathe, eat, etc.

D. Horrified--if their experience was frightening or hellish or unpleasant.

E. Dumbfounded--if they want to talk but can't or are afraid to.

F. Depressed--at realizing they must now resume their former lives, that they must find a way to go on with regular living regardless of what happened to them.

There is such a thing as immediate post-traumatic-NDE stress, and this is only a small part.

On the positive side:

VI. The Most Common Positive Reactions From Near-Death Experiences:

A. Ecstatic--at the wonder and beauty and glory of it all.

B. Thrilled--because they feel so privileged to have experienced such a miracle.

C. Grateful--that anything so incredible could have happened to them.

D. In Awe--possibly unable to speak or find words.

E. Evangelistic--immediately desirous of telling others the good news about death and God and the power of love.

F. Humbled--by the magnitude of the incident and what it may portend.

I don't consider this normal behaviour, by any stretch.


You said that van Lommel didn't present any evidence, but he did, and you haven't given an explanation for it, so I'll post it again:

"During a night shift an ambulance brings in a 44-year-old cyanotic, comatose man into the coronary care unit. He had been found about an hour before in a meadow by passers-by. After admission, he receives artificial respiration without intubation, while heart massage and defibrillation are also applied. When we want to intubate the patient, he turns out to have dentures in his mouth. I remove these upper dentures and put them onto the 'crash car'. Meanwhile, we continue extensive CPR. After about an hour and a half the patient has sufficient heart rhythm and blood pressure, but he is still ventilated and intubated, and he is still comatose. He is transferred to the intensive care unit to continue the necessary artificial respiration. Only after more than a week do I meet again with the patient, who is by now back on the cardiac ward. I distribute his medication. The moment he sees me he says: 'Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are'. I am very surprised. Then he elucidates: 'Yes, you were there when I was brought into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them onto that car, it had all these bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer underneath and there you put my teeth.' I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of CPR. When I asked further, it appeared the man had seen himself lying in bed, that he had perceived from above how nurses and doctors had been busy with CPR. He was also able to describe correctly and in detail the small room in which he had been resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present like myself. At the time that he observed the situation he had been very much afraid that we would stop CPR and that he would die. And it is true that we had been very negative about the patient's prognosis due to his very poor medical condition when admitted. The patient tells me that he desperately and unsuccessfully tried to make it clear to us that he was still alive and that we should continue CPR. He is deeply impressed by his experience and says he is no longer afraid of death. 4 weeks later he left hospital as a healthy man."

What is your explanation?

He also mentions what Sabom wrote:

Sabom22 mentions a young American woman who had complications during brain surgery for a cerebral aneurysm. The EEG of her cortex and brainstem had become totally flat. After the operation, which was eventually successful, this patient proved to have had a very deep NDE, including an out-of-body experience, with subsequently verified observations during the period of the flat EEG.

So I'd like you to do two things:

1) Show how you can disprove the first non-core NDE account.

2) Show how van Lommel's two examples are false. Or give an explanation for them.

[_Ray A]

The inherent problem in any report of near death perspective is that it’s made by individuals who are personally involved. Death, the approach of death, or a believed certainty that death is eminent, all make individuals subjective and emotional in their view. “Near death” is not death. No one is interviewing people who are dead, embalmed, or buried. So near death is not death.

I think we all realise that, JAK.

There are numerous examples of the perception that death is emanate. People on a plane which appears certain to crash are gripped by fear and believe they are near death. Only those who survive the experience are able to give a report. If the plane crashes and kills all aboard, there is no report by the dead. What they thought or contemplated cannot be known by those investigating the crash. Nor can they be interviewed about their perspective moments before they were dead.

But those who survived the crash can give a report. I don't think this is a very good or pertinent example.

However, persons in a medical setting who contemplate their impending death may have hours or weeks to contemplate. Such individuals are also likely to be on medications which alter their perceptions. Morphine, for example produces a sedative effect. It also may produce hallucinations. Neither medical near death nor the plane near death example are likely to produce rational, objective thinking.

NDEs have occurred after drowning (but naturally being resuscitated), accidents, sudden heart attacks, etc., none of which gives a person a chance to be on morphine for months, nor to even have time to contemplate death. That is, no time for "irrational thinking", or even much thinking. When you have a stroke, as a friend of mine did last year, and you lose consciousness within seconds, I presume all you really wonder is "what's happening?" I've had the experience of losing consciousness (as most may have had), and I honestly can't say I had much time to think about anything, not even whether my life insurance policy was up to date.

None of that is genuinely after death. If such individuals made “report,” they did not die. To leap to the conclusion that thinking exists past death, burial, cremation, etc. is an irrational leap to conclusion. No serious, objectively reviewed evidence is presented. Speculation is easy.

Evidence is presented. Maybe you just haven't read it, or prefer to ignore it.

It appears in your discussions with marg that you wish to believe something for which no objective data has been presented – let alone established.

See above.

When you claim that we must wait for further evidence, you irrationally extend willing suspension of disbelief.

Those with open minds, who've read the evidence, have a different opinion.

No evidence has been presented or has established that any level of thought exists beyond death – the real thing. A report of someone living, no matter how close the brush was with death, is a report of someone living who makes a report or even a claim for what he/she saw or experienced. Such report is subjective and most likely fraught with emotion of fear and gratitude for the fact that such a person did not die.

See above. "Most likely" scenarios don't establish much either. They too are speculation.

You have not made a case for what appears to be your implied claims in your discussions with marg. She, on the other hand, has provided detailed analysis of problems with what some have described as “near death experience.” None of them gives meaningful insight or justification to conclude that there exists some level of consciousness after death. While superstition/religion make a variety of “claims,” none of those claims can be regarded as reliable.

Have you read van Lommel's article?

[_Ray A]

For those lurking on this thread (with open minds that is), I offer another link that might interest you:

The Campaign for Philisophical Freedom.

These debates and controversies go back even to 1874:

Sir William Crookes.

Adrian Berry, the science correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, says that few subjects more infuriate scientists than claims of paranormal phenomena, because if confirmed, "the whole fabric of science would be threatened."

This statement is not correct because nothing can threaten science - the Latin name for seeking after knowledge. The only thing that is threatened by uncomfortable discoveries in physics are pseudo-scientists.

Read and draw your own conclisions.

[_marg]

Ray,I just did a search because I was going to print out what the various scientists had to say and in teh citations from Sebastain Dieguez is a reference for a Lancet article about Lommels Lancet article. You had mentioned previously why hasn't anyone counter Lommel's Lancet article in the Lancet.

Well here is one and because I had to register I'll make it easy for you and copy it all. I skimmed the first paragraph and briefly noted the person is making the same or similar points I've brought up.
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The Lancet, Volume 358, Issue 9298, Pages 2010 - 2011, 15 December 2001
<Previous Article|Next Article>
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(01)07133-1 Cite or Link Using DOI
Dying to know the truth: visions of a dying brain, or false memories?

by Christopher C. French


The nature of mind-brain relationships and the possibility of life-after-death are some of the most profound issues relating to mankind's place in the universe. The report in today's Lancet by Pim van Lommel and colleagues of near-death experiences (NDEs) in survivors of a cardiac arrest provides intriguing data that are relevant to these issues. Theirs is the second prospective study of this type, the first being a smaller-scale study done in Southampton by Parnia and colleagues.1 Both groups of researchers think that their findings indicate a need for radical revision of current assumptions about the relationship between consciousness and brain function. van Lommel and colleagues ask, “How could a clear consciousness outside one's body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG?”. But the truth is that nobody knows when the NDEs reported by these patients actually occurred. Was it really during the period of flat EEG or might they have occurred as the patients rapidly entered or gradually recovered from that state?
Elsewhere, Parnia and Fenwick have reviewed NDEs during cardiac arrest and have considered the latter possibility.2 They think that such an explanation is unlikely, mainly because of anecdotal reports of patients accurately recalling events that took place during the actual cardiac arrest, apparently during the out-of-body experience (OBE) phase of the NDE. An OBE can be defined as an experience in which a person seems to perceive the world from a location outside the physical body. One such anecdote was reported to van Lommel and colleagues during the pilot phase of their study by a coronary-care-unit nurse. Unfortunately, they do not report whether any attempt was made to corroborate details with the patient. On many previous occasions such attempts at corroboration have revealed that the evidence was not as impressive as it initially seemed.3 Blackmore4 lists several alternative non-paranormal explanations as to why people may sometimes seem to accurately describe events occurring during their NDEs. These include “information available at the time, prior knowledge, fantasy or dreams, lucky guesses, and information from the remaining senses. Then there is selective memory for correct details, incorporation of details learned between the NDE and giving an account of it, and the tendency to tell a good story”.
Having said that, the OBE component of the NDE offers probably the best hope of launching any kind of serious attack on current concepts of the relationship between consciousness and brain function. Parnia and colleagues1 had hidden targets on boards suspended from the ceiling of the wards used in their study, in the hope that if any patient reported an OBE during their cardiac arrest, they would subsequently be able to identify the targets. Unfortunately, none of the four patients who experienced an NDE in the study experienced an OBE as part of the NDE. However, if reports of veridical perception during OBEs were to be forthcoming in future studies, they would represent a very strong challenge to any non-paranormal explanation of the NDE.
van Lommel and colleagues' report raises the possibility of a new potential artefact in such studies. It seems that at least some NDEs may be the result of false memories, of the mind trying to retrospectively “fill in the gap” after a period of cortical inactivity. The investigators report that, at the 2-year follow-up, four of 37 patients contacted to act as controls (ie, people who had not initially reported an NDE) reported that they had had one. Although these patients represent fewer than 1% of the total sample, they represent over 10% of the 37 patients interviewed with a view to acting as controls. If this subsample is at all representative, it implies that around 30 patients from the sample of 282 who initially denied an NDE would, if they had survived for another 2 years, be claiming that they had had one. van Lommel and colleagues suggest that these patients may have been unwilling or unable to describe their NDEs in the first interview, but no attempt seems to have been made to corroborate these possibilities with the patients themselves. It seems likely that at least some patients, on hearing about other survivors' NDEs, would start to imagine what it would have been like if they had had the same experience. Recent psychological studies have shown conclusively that simply imagining that one has had experiences that had in fact never been encountered will lead to the development of false memories for those experiences.5—7 Interestingly, susceptibility to false memories correlates with tendency to dissociate,8, 9 which in turn correlates with the tendency to report NDEs.
Perhaps the switching of classification of patients represents nothing more than changes in definition of NDE at different stages of the study. This possibility may receive some support from the fact that, at the 2-year follow-up, over a third of the 17 patients who had originally reported superficial NDEs were then deemed to not have had NDEs at all. Another possibility is ordinary forgetting. Such problems must be rectified in future studies because their overall effect would be to blur the distinction between NDE and non-NDE-patients. This overlap would make it much more difficult to identify possible physiological and psychological differences between the groups. Nevertheless, the prospective nature of the studies by van Lommel and colleagues and Parnia and colleagues is to be welcomed as a major advance over previous retrospective approaches.
References
1 Parnia S, Waller DG, Yeates R, Fenwick P. A qualitative and quantitative study of the incidence, features and aetiology of near death experiences in cardiac arrest survivors. Resuscitation 2001; 48: 149-156. CrossRef | PubMed
2 Parnia S, Fenwick P. Near death experiences in cardiac arrest: visions of a dying brain or visions of a new science of consciousness? Resuscitation (in press).
3 Blackmore S. Dying to live: science and the near-death experience. London: Grafton, 1993.
4 Blackmore S. Out-of-body experiences. In: Stein G, ed. The encyclopedia of the paranormal. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1996: 480.
5 Garry M, Manning CG, Loftus EF, Sherman SJ. Imagination inflation: imagining a childhood event inflates confidence that it occurred. Psychonomic Bull Rev 1996; 3: 208-214. PubMed
6 Goff LM, Roediger HLM. Imagination inflation: the effects of number of imaginings on recognition and source monitoring. Memory Cognition 1998; 26: 20-33. PubMed
7 Loftus EF. Imagining the past. Psychologist 2001; 14: 584-587. PubMed
8 Heaps C, Nash M. Individual differences in imagination inflation. Psychonomic Bull Rev 1999; 6: 313-318. PubMed
9 Hyman IE, Billings FJ. Individual differences and the creation of false childhood memories. Memory 1999; 6: 1-20. CrossRef | PubMed

[_marg]

From that article by C. French

the truth is that nobody knows when the NDEs reported by these patients actually occurred. Was it really during the period of flat EEG or might they have occurred as the patients rapidly entered or gradually recovered from that state?
Elsewhere, Parnia and Fenwick have reviewed NDEs during cardiac arrest and have considered the latter possibility.2 They think that such an explanation is unlikely, mainly because of anecdotal reports of patients accurately recalling events that took place during the actual cardiac arrest, apparently during the out-of-body experience (OBE) phase of the NDE.

That's exactly why I thought Parnia is doing the objective test not because he believes he's going to find evidence for paranormal NDE's but to put to rest the claim that NDE out of body experience occur in actuality. You were arguing that because Parnia was taking the paranormal seriously be doing tests that was an indication he thought NDE's were seriously in contention for being likely true.

With all the millions of claims of NDE's one would think those wanting to present the claim that consciousness outside the body that NDE paranormal claimers would be keen on presenting objective evidence rather than subjective anecdotal evidence but they apparently aren't that keen and would rather just rely on anecdotes.

And of note at the time of the article 2001 no evidence by Parnia has been found. It's now 2009 and it doesn't appear that evidence has yet come. So Ray, do you know when Parnia is planning to publish the results?