Testing the consistency

My earlier post "The desert and the sea" attracted a lot of comments. I admit that I was basically thinking aloud when I wrote that post, and in retrospect I shouldn't have said that desert and ocean environments never show up in NDEs and channeled accounts of the afterlife. Several readers provided examples of seascapes appearing in afterlife reports, though I continue to think that descriptions of such environments are pretty rare.

One puckish reader rewrote my own words in the post, as follows:

If the various accounts of the afterlife were purely the product of fantasy, one might reasonably expect some of those fantasies to include bananas or hot pants. As far as I can tell, none of them do. Perhaps this argues that there is an underlying reality to these reports.

Then he added archly:

Or perhaps such ruminations are as silly as they sound.

I see his point, but as I replied in the comments:

From my perspective, though, it's something of a mystery that such a popular locale as the beach doesn't show up in NDEs, channeled communications, or deathbed visions very often, if at all. Given the thousands of reports, we might expect to see more of a variety of environments.

A garden seems to be the overwhelming favorite, showing up far more often than other settings. Why should this be? Is there something hardwired into the human psyche that makes us imagine a garden paradise as opposed to some other environment? Is it purely the result of childhood exposure to stories about the Garden of Eden? I don't know.

It's also interesting that the cliches of pearly gates, angel choruses, clouds, etc. are very seldom mentioned in NDE accounts, channeling, or deathbed visions. If hallucinations and fantasies account for these experiences, why do they run contrary to so many people's expectations?

A commenter named Aftrbrnr contributed this thought:

One thing I wonder about NDEs is if they are hallucinations, why does everyone dream about dying and going to the afterlife? I'm actually expecting to hear accounts where people experience near death but don't report going to the afterlife but just dream as if they were asleep, which is where I think you should be seeing things like the beach, ocean, etc. that we're discussing here.

I also recall a study I can't remember off the top of my head that found that NDEs didn't conform to any religious beliefs. The study did Christians and Hindus, and with Hindus you have to remember a core part of their beliefs is reincarnation. Working on that, if NDEs are a result of expectations, one would imagine a Hindu NDE may consist of dreaming of living in your next life on Earth. However, the study found that Hindu experiencers went through the similar spiritual world scenario that most people go through, which in the light of Hindu beliefs of reincarnation doesn't make sense.

Not using this is evidence or proof, but just something to think about.

To which I replied:

That's a good observation, Aftrbrnr, and brings out a serious point made (perhaps inadvertently) by the commenter I quoted. Namely, if NDEs are hallucinations, why don't they include "bananas and hot pants"?

A hallucination, like a dream, can have pretty much any content imaginable. So why aren't there NDEs where the person sees himself playing piano at Carnegie Hall, or winning the Super Bowl, or seducing a supermodel, or hang-gliding in Hawaii, or ...?

Considering the possible range of human fantasies, which is at least as broad as the range of things we dream about, it's surprising (to say the least) that NDEs tend to reproduce the same patterns and environments over and over again.

Skeptics try to explain this by saying either a) there are variations in NDEs, or b) the commonalities can be explained as reactions to specific kinds of brain trauma. (E.g., the "tunnel" is a reaction to the brain's visual center shutting down.) The trouble is that a) the variations are minor compared with the repetitive patterns, and much less significant than would be expected in hallucinations; and b) NDEs occur in all sorts of circumstances in which the brain is traumatized in very different ways. (And sometimes in cases where the brain has not been physically traumatized at all - for instance, cases of mountaineers who had an NDE while falling, but landed safely.)

Though I didn't mention it in the comments thread, this issue is addressed at some length by Keith Augustine in his essay "Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences." Much of his article is devoted to showing that NDEs are not as consistent in their contents as some people maintain. In contrasting Western and non-Western NDEs, he writes:

Of the 8 prototypical Western NDE elements, only 'meeting others' is truly universal in non-Western cultures. Landscapes are nearly universal, but quite variable in their details. Even the OBE does not appear to be a universal NDE element, though it is more common than many of the other elements sought in non-Western NDEs. Encountering a barrier that one cannot cross was equally prevalent. Perhaps most surprising of all is the absence of feelings of peace, a clear tunnel experience, an experience of light, and a life review in almost all of the non-Western NDE reports, given their prominence in the prototypical Western NDE....

Simply reviewing the existing cross-cultural literature on NDEs led Kellehear to the surprisingly modest conclusion that "the major cross-cultural features of the NDE appear to include encountering other beings and other realms on the brink of death" (34). No other features identified with the prototypical Western NDE appear to be universal....

Since far more differences than similarities have been found between Western and non-Western accounts, the commonalities between different Western NDEs require a special explanation. What could possibly explain consistency between Western accounts but not cross-cultural consistency?

He notes that the explanation sometimes offered - that Raymond Moody's 1975 book Life After Life popularized NDEs in Western society and led to imitative reports - doesn't hold water, because many Western NDEs reported prior to the publication of Moody's book contain some of the same elements.  What, then, is the explanation?

With Keith's permission, I'm reproducing a more extended excerpt from his essay, which grapples with this question.

With that caveat [that a given NDE typically does not contain all the elements identified by Moody] duly noted, we must return to our original question: How do we explain the consistency between Western NDE accounts? Perhaps Western NDE motifs are found in some part of the Western cultural background other than the NDE literature since Moody. But then one is nagged by a poignant issue raised by Fox:

[I]n the cases where NDEs with classic features such as tunnels and lights are reported, we might wish to question where NDErs actually derive their cultural-linguistic NDE pattern from.... For it is clear that such experiences, complete with recurring motifs such as traversing a period of darkness towards a light, do not represent part of any of the religious traditions of the West (Fox 117).

Specific NDE motifs certainly are absent from the standard depictions of the afterlife provided by Western religious traditions. But Irwin carried out a systematic survey of Western stereotypes of the afterlife to test the hypothesis that NDE motifs derive from social conditioning (Irwin, "Images" 2). Irwin puts that hypothesis as follows: "[I]n a situation of sudden confrontation with death people might draw upon their common cultural heritage to generate comparatively uniform hallucinatory images about a state of existence that is independent of the physical body" (1). Irwin first considers the biblical depiction of Heaven offered in Revelation 21, but quickly notes that biblical sources not only fail to account for the uniformity of Western NDE motifs, but are actually at variance with such motifs:

The difficulty here is that the biblical account is somewhat at odds with the descriptions of the afterlife realm given by subjects of the NDE.... [T]he general public would be well aware of [the biblical] representation of heaven as a city of buildings and streets of pure gold and a surrounding high wall with [pearly] gates. In the NDE on the other hand, the post-mortem realm commonly is reported to comprise a pastoral setting, one with rolling green hills, trees, flowers, perhaps a stream and a blue sky above (Irwin, "Images" 1-2).

As Irwin notes, prima facie "this disparity does not sit well with the view that the near-death experient's image of the afterlife springs largely from social conditioning" (2). However, he cautions that such biblical imagery does indeed feature in some NDE reports, but more importantly, it is questionable "that the portrayal of heaven in Revelation 21 forms the popular stereotypical image [of the afterlife] in our culture" (2).

Consequently, Irwin set out to determine the most common Western visions of the afterlife by administering a questionnaire survey to 96 introductory psychology students at the rural University of New England in Australia. The survey concerned such variables as the appearance, inhabitants, and means of travel of the afterlife, as well as its auditory features (2). He found that (of each questionnaire item) the most common Western images of the afterlife included a cosmic existence simultaneously everywhere and nowhere in the universe (40%), a pastoral scene of "lush green hills, trees, flowers and streams" (30%), and a formless void of pure being (29%) (2, 3). A mere 7% of respondents selected the biblical image, and 9% expected large gardens to figure prominently in the afterlife (3).

Irwin draws three key conclusions on the basis of this data. First, there are several different Western visions of the afterlife, not just one. Second, the biblical image of Heaven—though widely known—is not widely held, and thus sociological sources of NDE motifs "can not be denied on the grounds that the account of the afterlife in NDEs fails to correspond to the biblical representation" (3). Finally, the image of the afterlife as a pastoral scene—an image often represented in NDEs—is quite commonplace, even though respondents' questionnaire answers indicate that "the pastoral stereotype generally is not based on familiarity with NDEs" [emphasis mine] (3).

Like the image of looking down upon the Earth from the clouds in the afterlife, a pastoral scene appears to have an obscure but clearly Western cultural source independent of NDE reports themselves. And in turn this image—like that of a garden or the pearly gates—appears to have influenced the content of some Western NDE reports. As Irwin notes, religious indoctrination is one possible source for the pastoral image: "the Bible frequently appeals to pastoral metaphors ... [and] Sunday School classes often include exposure to pictures of Christ standing in a grassy, sunlit field" (3-4). And the 'cosmic' image of the afterlife, which Irwin suggests is "rooted in diverse mystical and non-Christian traditions," appears to have been represented in a 'meaningless void' experience in which a 28-year-old woman reported encountering a small group of jeering circles 'clicking' back and forth from black to white, and vice versa, which she later discovered were Taoist yin-yang symbols—a symbol she likely was subconsciously aware of but had consciously forgotten about (Greyson and Bush 102).

One prototypical Western NDE element may be represented by two items in Irwin's questionnaire (#6 and #7), which combined indicate that a full 57% of respondents anticipated some sort of illuminating light in the afterlife (3). If we combine being "bathed in perpetual sunshine" with being "illuminated by a soft, diffuse light with no apparent source," respondents anticipated illuminating light more than any other particular item concerning the appearance of the afterlife, and this was the only feature anticipated by a majority of the respondents. Though 'illuminating light' may be too vague to be identified with it, an experience of light is a major Western NDE motif—perhaps the most prominent feature of NDEs in the popular imagination.

Though no other NDE elements are evident in Irwin's survey, OBEs appear to represent the most natural way to imagine what will happen to your soul immediately after the death of the body (as noted in Veridical Paranormal Perception During OBEs? above). Moreover, Heaven—which polls indicate is where the vast majority of people expect to end up after death (Gallup 5)—is explicitly conceived of as a place of bliss and peace. Tunnels might be the most natural representation of transition for Westerners, as Kellehear has argued. And, as is evident in one of the creation accounts in Genesis, light is often associated with what is good in Judeo-Christian tradition, and God is conceived of as perfectly good. It is not much of a leap to associate God with light, and to think that God would be found on the other side of a transition between life and death. Individuals universally expect to meet others in the afterlife, and most contemporary religious traditions posit some sort of postmortem accounting or judgment of one's actions during earthly life. Consequently, it is possible that NDErs are interpreting their experiences of specific physiological events in terms of their cultural expectations.

So there's a well-thought-out, skeptical appraisal of the relative consistency of Western NDEs.

Comments?

Comments

[Erich]

First, I agree with that puckish reader and aftbrnr that if these experiences were just hallucinations then we would have reports of visions flying purple pigs and talking bananas and dracula and sexy babes and god knows what else. More importantly, the fairly consistent reports of deep spiritual insights would be generally absent. In their place would be goofy incoherent nonsense; like what you would expect from a conversation with a flying purple pig.

Observe reports from people who were very ill with high fevers, but not actually dying or dead. Observe reports from morphine addicts.

So, when faced by a more savvy opposition keith is forced to evolve his argument from mere hallucinations to something a little more advanced in a pseudo-intellectual way.

So now we have hallucinations by people who know they are dying and, therefore, somehow (as always per sloppy skeptic speculation never explained by what mechanism) direct their hallucinations to conform to a cultural expectation of what death is like.

Of course, this tactic only attempts to address phenomena like the tunnel of light. It does nothing to address very common - and somewhat veridical - experiences of floating disembodied around the room, or hospital or over the scene of an accident and observing the rather mundane occurences taking place. This sort of experience is common - maybe more so than the tunnel of light - and is found in all cultures and I don't see how "the expectation of what death is like forming the hallucination" theory explains this at all. Often people who have had this type of NDE express how surprised they were. I would think that the element of surprise would be absent if Keith's theory were true. People would report something like, "as the car impacted the lightpost, I found myself hovering above the scene of the wreck. Just as I expected, I was able to see everything going on from my position above and was even able to read the thoughts of the EMT guys, like I knew I would." But you don't hear this. Instead, you get total surprise and amazement at the experience of dismbodied awareness in reports.

Here's a link with some non-western NDEs: http://www.nderf.org/non_western_ndes.htm

These seem pretty darn similar to western NDEs to me.

I have even read of accounts from such culturally different societies as those of the pacific islands that are pretty much the same as those in the link I posted; which are pretty much the same as western NDEs. most of the differences could reasonably be attributed to linguistic incompatibilities

I think that Keith is, as usual, ignoring/distorting the evidence and engaging in his favorite tactic of throwing everything he can against the wall and hoping something sticks.

There are large enough samples of experiences from a number of different cultures that a study of points in common versus expected points in common and not in common can be conducted. I think Long did something like this, but I haven't read anything other than a synopsis and reviews. Maybe someone else here knows.

[Erich]

I should add that the tunnel of light leading to the all loving god figure type experience that skeptics like to attack is, for them, the lowest hanging fruit on the tree of the evidence for survival.

It smacks of feel good pop culture and it smacks of being the product of a money making machine. If Keith wants to whack of this limb and burn it; let him. Every hard hunting dog deserves a meaty bone once in a while.

It's the NDE - or the part of the NDE - than remains within the earthly realm and contains veridcal evidence that defies the skeptic hallucination fall back position.

[Sam]

Nice link, Erich. It's interesting because even several of those NDEs included typical western features such as a life review, traveling through a tunnel, experiencing a bright light, or experiencing beautiful natural landscapes.

Regarding the article, I don't think the fact that what one experiences during an NDE depends heavily on preconceived notions is particularly new or groundbreaking.

As stated earlier, NDEs are remarkably consistent not just in what they do typically contain, but also in what they don't contain as compared to the average dream or heavy psychedelic trip. I've never heard of a psychedelic that could produce as consistent a result as an NDE does. And aren't there cases of people having NDEs who hadn't even realized they had died when the experience started?

Also, the end of the article states:

Consequently, it is possible that NDErs are interpreting their experiences of specific physiological events in terms of their cultural expectations.

This basically sounds like rewording of the dying brain hypothesis to me. The fact that NDE experiencers regularly report complete lucidity in their thoughts and perceptions sort of suggests that this hypothesis is not the case.

[Erich]

Agreed, Sam. Not ground breaking at all. Really, quite ho hum.

Keith could hire some actors, have them peform a scene involving a somewhat complex and nuanced interaction in a public place an film it too so as to memorialize what actually took place. Have the unsuspecting be, say 30 members from each of 10 different cultures. Have the members of each culture report what took place. This would be the sort of material test that Keith loves.

I would wager that there would be significant cultural differences in descriptions of what the actors were depicting. These kinds of studied have been done and that is what the results tend to show.

Culture plays a huge role in how we interpret and understand reality. This is known.

[dmduncan]

"The difficulty here is that the Guidebook's account is somewhat at odds with the descriptions of the state of New York given by visitors.... [T]he general public would be well aware of [the guidebook's] representation of New York as a city of buildings and wide streets, surrounded by water with many bridges across. In the visitor accounts, on the other hand, New York commonly is reported to comprise a pastoral setting, one with rolling green hills, trees, flowers, perhaps a stream and a blue sky above."

I changed a few words.

[Michael Prescott]

Incidentally, today I started reading Jeffrey Long's book about NDEs, "Evidence of the Afterlife," and on page 11 there's a description of an NDE that features a beach:

"It was like the wind carried me so fast, and I saw a bright, bright light very quickly and then a beach, and then I saw my mom and daughter [both deceased] standing on the beach; my daughter was grown up."

[william]

NDE’s are only a snapshot of the afterlife but an important one. But they contain a lot of variation but anyone that takes the time to study them finds there are some aspects of an NDE that cross validates very well.

Now as far as religious in nature some are religious as some report back they have seen a religious figure such as Jesus. Now if one inquires they will find that most often they met a Being of light that gave to this person such love they felt it was Jesus.

I met a lady once that had had a profound NDE and claimed to have seen Jesus in her NDE but when I questioned her she had only seen a side view of this entity but it gave out such a bright loving light she of course with her Christian childhood felt it was Jesus. But what I noticed about this person was the love and kindness and peace that she reflected to everyone that came in contact with her. Her NDE had transformed her life.

I have been blogging recently with a person that had an OBE and it was a profound one where she visited several dimensions and felt she met God and received information from God. Now my belief is she met an advanced entity that gave off a bright light and it appears to have given her very profound knowledge about life and its meaning and purpose.

Susan Blackmore claims to have had an NDE and her writings are not in the same ballpark as this person’s. Even NDE’s show great variation as of course there is great variation in our levels of consciousness from one soul to another. Consciousness evolves so it makes sense that different levels of consciousness exist and this means different levels of NDE’s exist. Variation of Phenomena is not restricted to just this earth environment.

[Keith Augustine]

Erich: More importantly, the fairly consistent reports of deep spiritual insights would be generally absent. In their place would be goofy incoherent nonsense

Maybe; maybe not. But obsessing about "deep spiritual insights" is one of the symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy, and we don't typically reify epileptic hallucinations when they have this feature. (Mark Fox discusses the symptom "hypergraphia"--writing obsessively about "deep spiritual insights"--and how his sample of NDErs, some pre-Moody, appear to exhibit it.)

Moreover, this is a rather subjective observation; one man's "deep spiritual insight" is another man's ubiquitous commonplace ("all you need is love"). One typical complaint about mediums' descriptions of "the next world" is that they tend to be rather Pollyannish, in contrast to the "grittiness" of this world. It is an open question whether NDErs offer anything new in this regard.

Erich: Observe reports from people who were very ill with high fevers, but not actually dying or dead. Observe reports from morphine addicts.

But if they had no expectation of imminent death, there is no reason to think that their hallucinations would conform to fantasies of dying; whereas if they did have such an expectation, their hallucinations might very well so conform.

Erich: So, when faced by a more savvy opposition keith is forced to evolve his argument from mere hallucinations to something a little more advanced in a pseudo-intellectual way.

That was unnecessary. There is no earlier argument of mine that needed "evolving," and had there been, modifying one's hypotheses when new data warrants modification is how science is usually done.

In any case, I don't believe that anyone who has viewed NDEs as hallucinations has ever suggested that they were typical hallucinations. Obviously, if they are hallucinations, they are a very specific kind of hallucination. Even going back to the early days of near-death studies, researchers like Russell Noyes and Roy Kletti were suggesting that NDE imagery is based on expectations of imminent death. So I don't see much "evolution" of explanation here. Of course, it you've never bothered to look into explanations other than "something leaves the body," other explanations might be new to you; but that doesn't make them new in the literature.

Erich: So now we have hallucinations by people who know they are dying and, therefore, somehow (as always per sloppy skeptic speculation never explained by what mechanism) direct their hallucinations to conform to a cultural expectation of what death is like.

I understand that you think this "pseudointellectual" (whatever that means) when I suggest it. But is it "pseudointellectual" when Harvey J. Irwin takes it seriously enough to test it? And if not in the latter case, then why in the former case? Mere anti-skeptic prejudice? And if not prejudice, then what? Why the discrepancy, depending on who is considering the possibility?

Erich: Of course, this tactic only attempts to address phenomena like the tunnel of light.

When Parapsychology Association President Harvey J. Irwin tests it, is it a "tactic" or a "hypothesis"?

Erich: It does nothing to address very common - and somewhat veridical - experiences of floating disembodied around the room, or hospital or over the scene of an accident and observing the rather mundane occurences taking place.

Out-of-body experiences were well-known long before NDEs were. What is new about out-of-body NDEs? There are the same claims of veridical perception now, the same kinds of anecdotal corroboration now, and the same failure to demonstrate veridical paranormal perception under controlled conditions now. What else is new? (Perhaps that will change with AWARE; we'll see.)

Erich: This sort of experience is common - maybe more so than the tunnel of light - and is found in all cultures and I don't see how "the expectation of what death is like forming the hallucination" theory explains this at all.

In van Lommel et al. (the most reliable indicator of incidence since the study was prospective and had more NDErs than other prospective studies), 31% of NDErs had a tunnel experience ("Moving through a tunnel") and 24% had an OBE.

Yes, out-of-body experiences are cross-cultural. But as components of NDEs, they are not cross-cultural, though they are occasionally present. It's an interesting question why OBEs rarely if ever feature in NDEs from India or Thailand, or why they are absent in 76% of van Lommel et. al's NDErs.

It is surprising that OBEs are not more prominent in NDEs given that, to quote Carol Zaleski, "There simply is no other way for the imagination to dramatize the experience of death: the soul quits the body and yet continues to have a form." At the same time, though, how does the hypothesis that "something leaves the body" explain the failure of most NDErs to notice leaving the body?

Erich: Often people who have had this type of NDE express how surprised they were. I would think that the element of surprise would be absent if Keith's theory were true.

Have you ever been surprised to dream about something you were not consciously thinking about? I have. That doesn't mean that my dream world existed outside of my imagination.

Erich: Instead, you get total surprise and amazement at the experience of dismbodied awareness in reports.

I think that's pretty much guaranteed to be true for all but OBE adepts who practice at "astral projection," regardless of the true nature of OBEs.

When you read a case like Glen Gabbard and Stuart Twemlow's NDEr who only had an NDE because he dropped a dummy grenade that he thought was live, it's hard to believe that the perception of immiment death has nothing to do with why NDErs have NDEs.

Erich: These seem pretty darn similar to western NDEs to me.

We need non-Western NDE accounts least likely to be contaminated by knowledge of Western culture. So, for example, NDEs from India recounted in Hindi are a better sample than those recounted in English, because Indians who can speak English probably have a pretty decent knowledge of the West. (See Allan's Kellehear criticism of Susan Blackmore's Indian NDE tunnel experiences on exactly this point.)

Erich: I have even read of accounts from such culturally different societies as those of the pacific islands that are pretty much the same as those in the link I posted; which are pretty much the same as western NDEs.

Perhaps; but this is not true of "mininally contaminated" NDEs. Reading the near-death literature on such (citations abound in my essay if you want to check them), Kellehear's modest conclusions about the extent of consistency across cultures is right on the mark.

Erich: most of the differences could reasonably be attributed to linguistic incompatibilities.

That's a bald assertion. Do you have any evidence that using a different translator would make the description so much less starkly variable? That seems doubtful. The differences don't just concern the words used, but even the general outlines of the accounts. Changes in language aren't going to make the Yamatoots of Thai NDEs appear in Western ones, and merely being able to see the environment around you isn't going to mesh as "an experience of light" either.

Erich: I think that Keith is, as usual, ignoring/distorting the evidence...

Accusations are easy. Feel free to actually supply decent evidence, the sort which would be acceptable to near-death researchers themselves. My conclusions are straightforward findings from their data--that's why I so clearly cited it (even showed it in a chart) all over the place in my essay. So your characterization of "throwing everything he can against the wall and hoping something sticks" is way off the mark. But it is not unexpected, since I will always be "the enemy." Does it "stick" when Allan Kellehear is the one saying it? Why or why not?

Erich: There are large enough samples of experiences from a number of different cultures that a study of points in common versus expected points in common and not in common can be conducted. I think Long did something like this, but I haven't read anything other than a synopsis and reviews. Maybe someone else here knows.

Jeffrey Long's data comes from English-speaking people who sought out his website. It's not minimally culturally contaminated in the way that an account from an anthropologist interviewing an African bushman with no electricity, Internet access, or understanding of English would be. Surely you see that the difference is enormous? Long's conclusions about NDEs across cultures are not at all representative of extant minimally contaminated NDE accounts, which is why they are at such variance with Allan Kellehear's conclusions about such.

Erich: I should add that the tunnel of light leading to the all loving god figure type experience that skeptics like to attack is, for them, the lowest hanging fruit on the tree of the evidence for survival.

Where do you see special emphasis on that? Not from me.

Erich: It smacks of feel good pop culture and it smacks of being the product of a money making machine. If Keith wants to whack of this limb and burn it; let him. Every hard hunting dog deserves a meaty bone once in a while.

Again, something I've said nothing about, and thus a straw man.

Erich: It's the NDE - or the part of the NDE - than remains within the earthly realm and contains veridcal evidence that defies the skeptic hallucination fall back position.

Yes, provided that the quality of the evidence in such cases is outstanding. The issue is the quality of the evidence for such, not whether hallucinations can explain the accounts taken at face value. Skeptics cannot explain the reported physics-defying manuevers of UFOs taken at face value, either; but the issue is whether the reported manuevers actually happened as reported. Do we have outstanding evidence that they did? That's the most crucial question for these sorts of issues.

Sam: This basically sounds like rewording of the dying brain hypothesis to me.

I worried about that final line causing confusion when it was reprinted here up to that point. I think that the expectation of dying is more important than a dying brain, since some NDEs occur when there is no "dying brain" at all (when one merely thinks that one is dying, or when under mere general anesthesia). That said, obviously the brain state of someone undergoing an NDE can't be one's brain state during normal waking consciousness, else we would just have normal waking consciousness. So there is an underlying physiological condition that is abnormal in some way during NDEs. The "abnormal brain hypothesis" would be a better term than "dying brain hypothesis" since one need not be dying to have an NDE.

I was thinking of "specific physiological events" in a broader sense. When I used that phrase in my reconstruction of the Pam Reynolds case earlier in that paper, I meant simply the generalized things happening to her body during her procedure, like the lowering of her body temperature. (There I was concerned with "some independently verifiable means to correlate specific elements of her NDE to specific physiological events" in the operating room in order to establish when specific elements of her NDE occurred--the only correlation possible being when her OBE began, since she overheard a conversation about groin artery bypass then, which we know occurred at a particular time, and thereby can know when her OBE began.)

In this case I had brain physiology specifically in mind, not overall bodily physiology. Irwin, for example, notes that OBEs can be caused by extremely low nervous system arousal (e.g., meditation) or extremely high arousal (e.g., a near-death crisis). Either change in arousal is a specific neurophysiological event, but one's state of arousal still concerns a rather generalized condition. Obviously something neurophysiological is causing an altered state of consciousness, else the experience wouldn't be happening. In that sense I think there are specific neurophysiological events going on. And there is probably some temporal lobe activity contributing to the experience, given that it is plausibly implicated elsewhere. But I don't know if I'd want to get more specific than that, since doing so becomes the realm of pure speculation, speculation that may well be wrong.

I would not insist, for example, that endorphins or endogenous opioids that affect the NMDA-receptor must initiate NDEs, causing feelings of peace as a side effect (a la Daniel B. Carr or Karl Jansen), because were that true, "uncontaminated" non-Western NDErs should report feelings of peace, and they don't.

A neurophysiologist might conjecture that multisensory disintegration caused by a conflict between visual and vestibular sensations may yield an OBE (a la Olaf Blanke), which may evolve into a tunnel-and-light experience because of disinhibition in the visual cortex (a la Susan Blackmore), which may become a life review because endorphins or other opioids destabilize the temporal lobe and limbic system areas responsible for consolidating memories, and so on.

However, that sort of conjecture aims to provide a neurophysiological, rather than sociological, source of NDE motifs. In other words, were something like that the case, the sociological account I offer would be false--or at least incomplete.

A sociological account does not deny that NDEs occur under specific neurophysiological conditions, though; so do dreams. The issue here is not what accounts for the NDE's occurrence, but what accounts for its specific phenomenological features--the NDE motifs of tunnels and lights and so on. If we had evidence that these motifs truly were cross-cultural, then perhaps speculating about mechanism-motif correlations during NDEs would be warranted; but as it turns out, there is more diversity than consistency in NDE motifs across cultures from the least contaminated sources.

Thus I think that speculating about specific neurophysiological mechanisms for specific NDE elements is both premature and unnecessary; we don't posit neurophysiological mechanisms specifically for dreams of sailing, for example, or dreams of running away from aliens. We take dream motifs to be derived primarily from cultural sources and individual imagination. I think NDE motifs are best accounted for in a similar way, and only because that is where the extant cross-cultural data itself points.

Of course, it is nevertheless possible that the sources of NDE elements are "mixed"--that some NDE elements are primarily due to specific neurophysiological mechanisms, whereas others are sociological motifs. The only NDE elements that might warrant positing a specific brain mechanism, IMO, would be the OBE and maybe the life review, for OBEs (and to a much lesser extent memory flashbacks) have been known to occur outside of near-death contexts under a variety of conditions, including complete relaxation or meditation. All of the other NDE elements seem to be unique to the expectation of dying. And in the cases where similar elements occur in non-near-death contexts, the elements may only be superficially similar, so that the cause of epileptic memory flashbacks is not the same as the cause of near-death life reviews (say). Bruce Greyson made this point in response to my Part 3 contribution, and I don't disagree; the data aren't strong enough to know whether the similarities are superficial or related.

My own suspicion is that the near-death OBE is primarily the result of psychological processes, namely dissociation from a threat by generating an alternate mental model that allows one to "escape" the harm about to be inflicted on one's body. There is plenty of evidence for this hypothesis, particularly so-called "fear-death experiences" where there is no physiological threat of death but the false perception that death is imminent. Dissociation due to a perceived threat of imminent death can account for the euphoria, detached indifference to what's happening to the body "down there" (as "I" am safe "up here"), vivid imagery, lucid thinking, time slowing down, and memory flashbacks.

An experience of light could plausibly have a common physiological cause, since cardiac arrest NDEs affecting the brain state more profoundly are more likely to have tunnel and light elements. In one particular NDE account from The Truth in the Light, a woman reported floating up to a green field that had a large tree "with a brilliant white light on top" (p. 29). The fact that this light it not a personality, as it often is, but is ubiquitous in this field, makes me wonder if there is something neurophysiological going on there. On the other hand, if some specific neurophysiological mechanism were responsible, we would expect an experience of light to feature cross-culturally, but it doesn't clearly feature in our extant, minimally contaminated non-Western NDE accounts. So the absence of a clear light motif outside of the West is reason to think it sociological.

The remaining NDE elements seem to me to be clearly culturally conditioned responses to an expectation of dying. One would expect to "run into" primarily deceased relatives or semi-divine beings in "the next world." One might expect his or her "book of life" to be reviewed. Some sort of transition or border between life and death is prevalent, and expected afterlife imagery--like crossing the River Styx. And one is obviously going to encounter some kind of "environment" in virtually all widely held conceptions of the afterlife.

[Erich]

Keith,

I am not going to comment too much more because I am busy and because I am sensitive to the possibility of taking over a comments thread. I am more interested in what others have to say and look forward to their input.

I do want to mention this: Keith, "So there is an underlying physiological condition that is abnormal in some way during NDEs. The "abnormal brain hypothesis" would be a better term than "dying brain hypothesis" since one need not be dying to have an NDE."

So, sometimes, Keith, you are proposing a physical brain structure or electro/chemical abnormality occurring as the result of impending death, as the cause of NDEs.

How does this account for those cross cultural differences? If physiological processes cause hallucinations that are NDEs, then we would expect the hallucinations to be the same across the globe, right? Or are you saying that the brains of Hindus structurally different than those of westerners such that westerners see tunnels and Hindus do not?

If you say that the brains are the same across the globe and that the differences are due to cultural filters working interpretations of the same physiological processes, then I would say you are now sounding like a "believer". You are now willing to state that objective reality is experienced in subjective ways. And once you arrive at that point, you cannot logically state that it is not possible that differences in NDEs are due to cultural filters being applied to real visits to a real and objectively existing spirit world. Your line of argument that Michael addressed in his post, collapses.

I am going to reiterate that reports of NDEs are just that, reports. Eye witnesses emphasize different aspects of the same witnessed event in reports. This is a well known scientifically proven phenomenon. Then, to further complicate the matter, reports coming out of other cultures have to go through the process of language interpretation. On top of that you have the interpreter possibly emphasizing and filtering according to his/her own predjucices. Finally, you to question how the sampling from other cultures is done.

[Kris]

Keith

Do you plan on following up the Pam Reynolds case now that we know the earplugs worked at the beginning of the surgery.

I am curious to know now.

a.) why didn't she hear the clicking, but she heard the conversations around her?

b.) How could she hear the conversation period with such a constant clicking in her ears?

I think that issue is very difficult for your theories to explain, however a separation hypothesis can easily explain it.

She didn't hear the clicking cause she was no longer in her body. The clicking did not block her hearing of conversations cause she was no longer in her body.

[Erich]

Now that I'm sufficiently caffineated I see things more clearly......

Sam noted, "Also, the end of the article states:

Consequently, it is possible that NDErs are interpreting their experiences of specific physiological events in terms of their cultural expectations."

This statement really contains the bottom line.

After all is said and done, the argument comes down to everyone agreeing that something tangible and real is being interpreted to some extent by the experiencer via cultural filters; either a pyschological/biological process or a visit to a spirit realm.

Keith says pyschological/biological process. Others, like myself say a visit to a spirit realm. Deciding which it is causes us to fall back to all of our old presentations of eveidence.

I don't see how Keith's essay adds anything new to the debate.

[Sam]

Thanks for the response Keith. I'm honestly not interested in belonging to either side of the survival issue, but this type of debate is good for allowing me to hone in to my own thoughts and figure out where I actually stand.

Because there are cases where people who are only in perceived danger experience have NDE-like experiences, I agree that there must be a neurophysiological correlate to the NDE experience. There is, after all, a correlate to every other possible brain-state one can experience. If I had to take a guess I would agree that the temporal lobe is probably involved and perhaps the chemical DMT. Even if this is the case I still don't think we can rule out the NDE as a purely subjective hallucination. The reality we are experiencing at any given moment is determined entirely by the chemical cocktail that makes up the brain, whether it be everyday consensus reality, the reality brought on by smoking enough DMT, or the NDE experience, and I don't necessarily think any particular brain-state is more valid than any other. It's very hard if not impossible to establish the objective from the subjective.

Also I'm not sure how convincing I find the article, despite the survey. Erich's link alone featured a number of foreign NDEs that exhibited the classic western features. Also what about the NDEs of children too young to have been influenced by cultural expectations that still feature typical elements? And as I said earlier, I could be mistaken, but I feel like I've heard of cases where a person hadn't even realized that they had died when the NDE initially began. Of course this type of account-based evidence is always arguable, but if there's a good account of even one of these cases occurring, it would start to poke holes in the article's hypothesis.

[Erich]

Well, how does an unconscious, flat lined person, like Pam Reynolds and numerous other operating room cases have a psychological reaction? How does they know they are dying?

[Keith Augustine]

Erich: So, sometimes, Keith, you are proposing a physical brain structure or electro/chemical abnormality occurring as the result of impending death, as the cause of NDEs.

An NDE is an altered state of consciousness. Obviously, if one is in an altered state of consciousness, one's brain state is not that of normal waking consciousness. If fear initiates that altered state of consciousness as in a "fear-death experience," something is happening in the brain to cause that change in consciousness; perhaps something like a fight-or-flight response.

This seems to me straightforwardly true, no matter what interpretation of NDEs you have, whether you think that NDEs are hallucinations or that something separates from the body.

Erich: How does this account for those cross cultural differences?

The same way that it accounts for cross-cultural differences in dreams. REM dreams are a different brain state than normal waking consciousness. Nevertheless, the dreams of an African bushman may well be quite different than the dreams of a Western businessman, given their different circumstances in life. I thought I made this clear when referring to dreaming in my earlier comment, but evidently not.

Erich: If physiological processes cause hallucinations that are NDEs, then we would expect the hallucinations to be the same across the globe, right?

No. Physiological processes causes hallucinations called REM dreams, and those hallucinations are quite variable across the globe, and almost certainly culturally influenced. A Westerner who watches Close Encounters of the Third Kind may well dream about little grey aliens while a bushman who has never seen a television probably never would. Nothing controversial there, I would think.

Erich: Or are you saying that the brains of Hindus structurally different than those of westerners such that westerners see tunnels and Hindus do not?

You seem to have missed my point entirely. If "minimally contaminated" (by Western influences) Indian NDErs don't report tunnels, whereas Westerners do, than Western tunnel experiences are probably culturally conditioned motifs, just as Indian Yamatoots that don't feature in Western NDEs are culturally conditioned motifs.

Erich: If you say that the brains are the same across the globe and that the differences are due to cultural filters working interpretations of the same physiological processes, then I would say you are now sounding like a "believer".

I'm not suggesting that all NDErs see the same being of light, but sometimes Westerners call it Jesus and sometimes Indians call it Yama. That glosses over the actual reports and is not faithful to their content. I'm suggesting that Westerners actually see a being that looks and functions as Jesus is said to look and function in Western tradition, whereas Indians actually see a being that that looks and functions as Yama is said to look and function in Hindu tradition.

In other words, the content of their NDEs is not the same but merely interpreted differently. The content itself is different. Simply reading the minimally contaminated non-Western cases makes this clear. There is no debate here; that's what the data itself shows.

Erich: You are now willing to state that objective reality is experienced in subjective ways.

I'm not sure what that means. Objective reality is always experienced in subjective ways by a given subject, all of the time. Sometimes the subject's subjective experience corresponds to objective reality, as can be verified when others experience the same thing, and sometimes it is purely internally generated in a given subject's head, as with schizophrenic hallucinations. Nothing new here.

Erich: And once you arrive at that point, you cannot logically state that it is not possible that differences in NDEs are due to cultural filters being applied to real visits to a real and objectively existing spirit world.

"...differences in NDEs are due to cultural filters being applied to real visits..." What does that mean in practice?

When an Indian NDEr describes a meeting a person "sitting on a high chair with a white beard and wearing yellow clothes," as the Hindu god of death Yama is traditionally portrayed, and a Christian Westerner reports meeting a person "dressed in a long white robe, his hair to his shoulders, ginger-auburn, ... [with] a short beard," as Jesus is traditionally portrayed, how could those possibly be two different descriptions of the same person? If you take that disingenuous move, you might as well say that two different NDErs seeing visions of their different aunts are really seeing the same person. On the face of it, they are seeing different things--just like the Hindu NDEr versus the Western one. End of story.

Mere "cultural interpretation" cannot explain the following two descriptions as two different descriptions of the same place:

1. "[T]he clerks had a heap of books in front of them.... Yamraj was there sitting on a high chair with a white beard and wearing yellow clothes. He asked me, "What do you want?" I told him that I wanted to stay there. He asked me to extend my hand. I don't remember whether he gave me something or not. Then I was pushed down [and revived]" (Pasricha and Stevenson 1986, p. 167).

2. "[T]he tunnel was made of polished metal, jointed and held together with something like rivets.... I felt it should have been more ethereal somehow ... My feet felt like lead but as I walked back to life the light threw my shadow on to the floor of the tunnel as I walked away from it" (Fenwick and Fenwick 1997, p. 55).

As an aside, the latter is another reason to doubt Blackmore's supposition that tunnel experiences are caused by disinhibition in the visual cortex; it seems more likely that different NDEs have different features for the same reason that different dreams have different features. It's not as if anyone's claiming that disinhibition in the visual cortex is causing dreams of sailing; and I don't think it necessary to posit a physiological mechanism for the specific tunnel element of NDEs, either. That's why I suggested that the commonalities are primarily derived from cultural conditioning, not any specific neurophysiological mechanism. Landlocked people might not be expected to dream of sailing, whereas coastal people might be expected to dream of such.

Erich: Your line of argument that Michael addressed in his post, collapses.

I disagree, since Irwin was positing sociological/cultural motifs, not neurophysiological ones. In order to think otherwise, you'd need to ignore everything that Michael reprinted up to the last sentence, and only misinterpret the last sentence. Physiological explanations are nowhere mentioned until that point.

I will explain it again, since evidently I was not clear enough in my first comment. "[I]t is possible that NDErs are interpreting their experiences of specific physiological events in terms of their cultural expectations" in the same way that dreamers are interpreting their experiences of specific physiological events in terms of their expectations." Does that not make it clear?

Obviously, the brain is under a specific physiological condition during dreaming (REM sleep), or during hypnagogic/hypnopompic hallucinations at the onset of sleep or waking up. Nevertheless, the content of the dream is largely based on cultural and personal expectation. That's what I'm suggesting for NDEs. That the content of the NDE is largely based on cultural conditioing, while the condition that makes the NDE possible is what causes the NDE instead of normal waking conscious. I don't know how I can be any clearer than that.

Erich: Eye witnesses emphasize different aspects of the same witnessed event in reports.

This is a rather tepid attempt to explain the differences between reports #1 and #2 above. Obviously the Hindu NDEr and the Western NDEr I quoted are seeing two different persons, not the same persons "interpreted" or "described" differently. Obvious, a Hindu NDEr who reports bureaucratic "clerks ... [with] a heap of books in front of them" sitting in an office is not describing the same place as a Western NDEr who finds himself in a garden. And so on. Such attempts to gloss over the cross-cultural differences demonstrably don't hold water. No "language interpretation," "interpreter filtering," or "sampling" will change the fact that these different NDErs (in #1 and #2 above) are obviously seeing different persons.

Erich: After all is said and done, the argument comes down to everyone agreeing that something tangible and real is being interpreted to some extent by the experiencer via cultural filters

I don't agree with this in the sense of "interpreted" that you are using here. What everyone should agree on is that NDE diversity across cultures is real, not merely apparent. We're not talking about different descriptions of the same seen thing; we're talking about seeing different things and therefore describing them differently, because they aren't the same to begin with. That is faithful to the minimally contaminated non-Western accounts on offer. Mere ambiguous description or translation is not a viable explanation, because the descriptions of what is seen are quite unambiguous.

Sam: Erich's link alone featured a number of foreign NDEs that exhibited the classic western features.

I assure you that the minimally contaminated, most reliable extant sources of non-Western NDE accounts do not exhibit the features of the prototypical Western NDE. Check my chart in the original paper. All of the relevant sources are listed in the chart. I didn't make up those studies. I simply surveyed them, all of the relevant ones. The findings are clear if you take the time to review them. Similar surveys, with similar findings, can be found in "Phenomenology of Near-Death Experiences: A Cross-Cultural Perspective" (March 2008) and "Cross-Cultural Perspectives on the Near-Death Experience" (1994). I didn't know about either at the time of publishing (the former was published after I was, of course).

Sam: Also what about the NDEs of children too young to have been influenced by cultural expectations that still feature typical elements?

See the last paragraph of the "Cultural Differences" section, right before the "Random Memories" section, in the online version of my paper. See also case #3 at the very beginning of that section for a particular instance of a clear cultural influence on a childhood NDE.

Sam: I feel like I've heard of cases where a person hadn't even realized that they had died when the NDE initially began

That's possible, of course, but I think that the evidence that this happens is not very strong, if it is reported at all (and it would have to be reported pretty rarely, since NDEs have always been associated with proximity to death, whether real or imagined proximity). In the Handbook of Near-Death Experiences, Greyson, Kelly, and Kelly write: "NDEs are generally understood to be the unusual, often vivid and realistic, and sometimes profoundly life-changing experiences occurring to people who have been physiologically close to death, as in cardiac arrest or other life-threatening conditions, or psychologically close to death, as in accidents or illnesses in which they feared they would die." (p. 213)

Erich: Well, how does an unconscious, flat lined person, like Pam Reynolds and numerous other operating room cases have a psychological reaction?

Do you even bother to read what I've already written on this case before asking me about it?

Pam Reynolds was unconscious but nowhere near flatlined when she had an OBE. She had an OBE about two hours before doctors even began to cool her blood. So either dissociation due to fear or simply being anesthetized caused her NDE; no other candidate cause exists for why her experience began. And we have no reason to believe that it extended into the time when she flatlined, though of course it might have.

Erich: How does they know they are dying.

That's simple: Pam Reynolds was told that she'd be brought to the brink of death before she went under. So she knew it was coming, but not "when" once she was "out."

Kris: Do you plan on following up the Pam Reynolds case now that we know the earplugs worked at the beginning of the surgery.

Though this has nothing to do with the opening post and I fear it will lead to digressing even further from it, I'll answer your question.

If it has been documented, rather than merely inferred, that Pam Reynolds indeed had clicking sounds in her ears that would've drowned out any intraoperative conversations, then normal hearing cannot account for her knowledge of an intraoperative conversation.

I have yet to see such documentation, however. Jan Holden, for example, cites a paper by Robert Spetlzer in June 1988 in which AEP clicking occurs throughout a standstill procedure. However, that paper does not address Pam Reynolds' NDE itself, for her NDE took place in August 1991, more than 3 years after the cited paper finally went to print after being refereed for at least several months even before publication. We still need confirmation that the conditions described in that paper apply to Pam Reynolds' case specifically. It is reasonable to infer that they would, but that's still not quite the same as knowing that those conditions were reproduced in that case. Just because an anesthesiologist writes a paper describing his prior use of a certain amount of an anesthetic doesn't mean that he will thereafter never deviate from that amount, or never use some other anesthetic, in future cases.

This question could be resolved definitively if we had access to Pam Reynolds' records themselves. Evidently Michael Sabom has access to them, because Tart claims to have reviewed them in The End of Materialism to determine that she was heavily anesthetized at the time. So why not just cite these records themselves, instead of inferring from some other source?

Note that I'm not saying that Holden is wrong; it may very well be the case that the clicking was occurring without interruption at around 8:45 AM, the time of Pam's OBE. What I'm saying is that if that is a fact, then it should be documented to the fullest extent, since the crucial claim that her hearing was impossible at that time rests almost entirely on the accuracy of that single point. It's not the sort of thing that one can afford to make a mistake about.

For the sake of argument, if Holden is right, then Pam's hearing of an intraoperative conversation cannot have been through Pam hearing it at the time through normal means. This does not rule out the possibility that Pam could've learned that information through normal means in other ways, for example by some hospital staff having told her about it after the fact at any time during the three-year gap between her NDE and her interview with Sabom. That's a rather implausible explanation, IMO, but it is not impossible. And as Holden herself concedes, because such possible normal explanations aren't entirely ruled out, it would not be scientific to conclude that veridical paranormal perception occurs in NDE until controlled studies (like AWARE) demonstrate that it does.

Nevertheless, if Holden is right about the timing in Pam's case, I can't think of any plausible normal explanation for Pam's knowledge of her overheard conversation. But that still falls short of scientifically knowledge that veridical paranormal perception occurs in NDEs (a point that Holden herself explicitly makes), because my (or your) inability to explain that case (or any other) might be because it is genuinely inexplicable, or it might simply reflect my (or your) lack of imagination in discovering the explanation. I could never explain the radiation burns of the Cash-Landrum incident, for example, or why radar returns "corroborated" eyewitness testimony of black triangles capable of "impossible" aerial maneuvers in Belgium in the 1980s (where fighter jets were even scrambled to pursue the mysterious "objects"!)--but I recently learned that those radar returns occasionally placed the Belgian UFOs below ground level--a physical impossibility--verifying the wisdom of not embracing the extraterrestrial visitation hypothesis in order to explain them. Some other fact, similar to those "impossible radar returns," might come to light in the future putting the Pam Reynolds case in doubt. For example, Julio Siqueira recently entertained the possibility that Pam's AEP clicking was uninterrupted and present but infrasonic--below the range of human hearing--which if true would've (almost) totally demolished the argument that Pam could not have heard an intraoperative conversation at the relevant time.

For these reasons I'm personally waiting out the results of the AWARE study to answer this question definitively. Since the results of that study will be available in either a few months or a few years, it's best to take a wait and see approach, IMO. If there are positive results to be had, we'll know one way or the other soon enough.

[Leo MacDonald]

Keith,

We have numerous reasons to think that Pam Reyolds experience continued when she was flatlined

1.] She was able to hear and see and describe in detail what the saw looked like.
2.] She described all of the people who were operating on here while flatlined.
3.] All three clinical tests found that her EEG was silent and that her brain stem was completely absent.

There is the typical skeptical argument that their is some deeper brain activity that the EEG can't pick up. This argument is however refuted by Dr. John Greenfield a EEG expert in his field.

He states

“It’s very unlikely that a hypoperfused brain [someone with no blood flow to the brain], with no evidence of electrical activity could generate NDEs. Human studies as well as animal studies have typically shown very little brain perfusion [blood flow] or glucose utilization when the EEG is flat. There are deep brain areas involved in generating memories that might still operate at some very reduced level during cardiac arrest, but of course any subcortically generated activity can’t be brought to consciousness without at least one functioning cerebral hemisphere. So even if there were some way that NDEs were generated during the hypoxic state [while the brain is shut off from oxygen], you would not experience them until reperfusion [blood flow] allowed you to dream them or wake up and talk about them”, Greenfield stated.

The above statement came from the Skeptiko Podcast so credit goes to it.

[Keith Augustine]

Leo, do you even bother to read what I've said about this case before commenting?

The saw Pam described was not being used when she was flatlined. Even if she perceived it by astral eyes, she perceived it about 2 hours before her blood was even being cooled--and well before flatline.

I don't recall her describing any of the people working on her--certainly not in Light and Death, and in any case the people she mentioned working on her (whom she did not describe) were doing so over 2 hours before Pam flatlined.

"All three clinical tests found that her EEG was silent and that her brain stem was completely absent"--over 2 hours after her OBE began, over 2 hours after she described the saw and anything else. And we have no reason to think her NDE lasted more than 2 hours, though it conceivably could have.

[W Vogt]

I wonder what the Keith Augustines of this world believe it is that they are doing. I appreciate the clarity and organization of thought. I understand the position that they are, quite aggressively, defending, because I too occupied that position--a long time ago. Now I do not reside in the same place, but I wouldn’t care to contradict any specific assertions based on that position for fear of bringing down upon myself a torrent of syllogisms. Or a blizzard of facts regarding brain functioning, of which I know as much already as I want to know. It tires me so much to just imagine what might happen to me that I can hardly get out of my rocking chair.

But what I wonder about is the effect of what these Augustines are doing. I realize that this has nothing to do with the truth value of any propositions put forward, but what about the effect of ideas in human terms? I am an old man, writing the last chapters of my book. One of the few features of old age that brighten the landscape is the hope of once more meeting with loved ones from the past. Some say that this is a belief founded in wishful thinking, but I can assure you, based upon experience, it is surrounded much more by fearful thinking, apprehensions that life after death is an illusion.

Mr. Augustine seems to be counseling me to abandon all hope. If I accept his counsel he will usher me into a world of nihilism. Now this may not be true of himself. He might be constitutionally immune to such nihilism. But it would be true of me. I have to agree with the philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno, who wrote, “If consciousness is, as some inhuman thinker has said, nothing more than a flash of light between two eternities of darkness, then there is nothing more execrable than existence.” This is, unfortunately for me, the way I see it.

So what are the Keith Augustines about? The world they invite me into gives me the creeps. And I think maybe there should be founded a Raskolnikov Society. Raskolnikov, as you probably know, was a character in Dostoevsky”s novel, Crime and Punishment, who planned the murder of a pawnbroker based on the idea that he was superior to the common run of people and was more rational. When he actually carried out his plan events led to his killing of the sister of the pawnbroker, an event that did not fit at all with his plan.

Individuals nominated for membership in the Raskolnikov Society would have to believe in their superior rationality and not care a whit for the unintended results of their actions.

[Kris]

Keith

I think by now it has been documented that earplugs were operating the entire time .

Here is why. As you said Sabom has Reynold's medical records. Unless the man is dishonest his question about Reynolds not hearing the clicking makes no sense, unless the records state the earplugs were activated.

Consider this comment by Spetzler, Reynolds surgeon.

" At that stage in the operation nobody can observe, hear, in that state. And I find it inconceivable that your normal senses, such as hearing, let alone the fact she heard clicking modules in each ear, that was any way to hear through normal auditory pathways.

I don't have an explanation for it. I don't know how it's possible for it to happen, considering the physiological state she was in. At the same time, I have seen so many things I can't explain, that I don't want to be so arrogant as to be able to say there's no way it can happen."

It seems if the earplugs had yet to be turned on Dr Spetzler just would have said that. If not why not.

Unless you wish to enter the realm of conspiracy I think your statement hear sums it up:

"For the sake of argument, if Holden is right, then Pam's hearing of an intraoperative conversation cannot have been through Pam hearing it at the time through normal means. This does not rule out the possibility that Pam could've learned that information through normal means in other ways, for example by some hospital staff having told her about it after the fact at any time during the three-year gap between her NDE and her interview with Sabom. That's a rather implausible explanation, IMO, but it is not impossible. And as Holden herself concedes, because such possible normal explanations aren't entirely ruled out, it would not be scientific to conclude that veridical paranormal perception occurs in NDE until controlled studies (like AWARE) demonstrate that it does."

You concede that regular hearing was impossible and that only leaves the possibility, in your own words " implausible" that somehow she gained it from the hospital staff.

This tends to be the overall problem with your arguments. While not logically impossible, they are so seemingly unlikely that other explanations should be used.

In many ways you remind me of an Evangelical I knew at my old college. He was completely and utterly sold on the Bible, much like you are convinced of your own brand of naturalism. Whenever you would discuss Bible difficulties with him he would accept any explanation that removed the error, no matter how far fetched. The reason for this was it was so evident to him that the Bible was correct that the unlikely explanation seemed far more reasonable then the error. Your arguments will only convince someone deeply committed to your view. For any fence sitter I would say they would find the separation theory to be easier to accept.

Last comments

Siqueira's infrasonic argument was based upon a flawed reading of the medical report. That was corrected by Dr Greyson. Needless to say if that argument worked it would have been discovered a long time ago.

Here is Siqueira's retraction of that argument

"No, you have confused two potentials that Spetzler described on page 869 of his 1988 article. The BAEP is the auditory (sound) evoked potential that was delivered by loud clicks in Pam Reynolds's ears, and they were delivered at a rate of 11-33/sec -- that is, 11-33 Hz. It was not that auditory stimulation (BAEP), but rather the SSEP (somatosensory evoked potential, a touch stimulation) that was Spetzler wrote delivered to the median nerve on the wrist at a rate of 4-8 Hz."

I am curious if the AWARE study does produce vertical evidence why won't you just dismiss it by comparisons to UFO events and saying just because we cannot explain something does not mean we should use paranormal explanations?

[Erich]

Keith, you use the word "obviously" quite a bit in your responses.

I don't agree that anything you say by way of your theories is obvious.

Just one example (in reference to the Pam Reynolds case), "So either dissociation due to fear or simply being anesthetized caused her NDE; "

This is an extraordinary claim. You have no scientific proof at all that either fear or anesthesia can create the type of experience reported by Pam Reynolds. This is mere speculation on your part. Yet, there you are confidently asserting that they do as if fact.

"An NDE is an altered state of consciousness. Obviously, if one is in an altered state of consciousness, one's brain state is not that of normal waking consciousness."

Prove that all altered states of consciousness are associated with changes in the physical brain.

And there's what follows, "If fear initiates that altered state of consciousness as in a "fear-death experience...."

I guess you are implying that NDEs are fear generated. Prove it.

Here's counter to your extraordinary assertion. You have obviously never been in combat. It is the most frightening and death proximate experience you could ever imagine. If your theory was correct then front line troops would lose their combat effectiveness because they would all be having NDEs instead of engaging the enemy. Sometimes troops do break down out of fear, but they are not having NDEs. Rather they have classic psycholoical reactions like paralysis, infantile regression, nervous breakdown in which they sob and shake, etc. Why are they not having Pam Reynolds type experiences as bullets crack past them and high explosive shells detonate around them?

"If "minimally contaminated" (by Western influences) Indian NDErs don't report tunnels, whereas Westerners do, than Western tunnel experiences are probably culturally conditioned motifs"

I don't think that we have a large enough representative sample or peer reviewed survey techniques and interview techniques to draw any conclusions about similarities or differences re; non-western experiences. Sampling and analysis are of concern to me. For someone who claims to be an adherant of the scientific materialist method you don't seem very interested. I can find examples of non-western NDEs that contain much similarity to western NDEs. You can find some that, ostensibly, do not.

"I assure you that the minimally contaminated, most reliable extant sources of non-Western NDE accounts do not exhibit the features of the prototypical Western NDE."

Pardon me if I am not willing to change my outlook based on your assurence. I'd like to know about each of the cases in detail and I would like to know the background of the study as well as the methodologies involved.

"Check my chart in the original paper." I did. It is vague and general and limited in scope and based on your subjective and, agruably, biased assessment.

"Do you even bother to read what I've already written on this case before asking me about it?

Pam Reynolds was unconscious but nowhere near flatlined when she had an OBE"

It is you that is having reading comprehesion challenges. Note the use of the word "like" in my statement. I will let someone else speak to the accuracey of what you say about timing in the Pam Reynolds case. I believe that your assertion concerning it has been called into question previously. There are plenty of other NDEs occurring in hospitals where the patient who had the NDE was flatlined.

[william]

it appears that with the pam reynolds case there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

pun intended.

belief and non belief at two sides of the same coin.

for the person with a belief in NDE's little if any evidence is needed.

for the person that has a non belief in NDE'S no amount of evidence changes their nonbelief.

[Art]

"One of the few features of old age that brighten the landscape is the hope of once more meeting with loved ones from the past. Some say that this is a belief founded in wishful thinking, but I can assure you, based upon experience, it is surrounded much more by fearful thinking, apprehensions that life after death is an illusion." - W Vogt
--------------------------------------------

I can really relate to this. My mom died of stomach and intestinal cancer when I was 15 1/2 years old. I just turned 57 years old. My parents were divorced when I was in the first grade and I was a real momma's boy. I cried for three days when she died. It was the worst experience of my life. I have a baby sister that was 10 years old when mom died; and she feels the same way I do. We both think about her every single day.

For me the idea that I will never see my mother again or ever be reunited with her is intolerable. It is only in the last 10 years since studying near death experiences, death bed visions, and the holographic universe theory and quantum physics that has given me hope that perhaps life has meaning after all we are more than just our physical bodies. Perhaps "there is a reason" after all?

I have painful arthritis in my hips and back and I'm not the man I used to be. I'm thinking and hoping that the pains I suffer now are imprinting on my soul the bits of information, like pixels on a TV screen, it will use to reproduce a new body in heaven, I believe is a place where thoughts are things and consciousness creates reality.

Anyway W Vogt, I really liked your post. It was very well thought out and expressed a lot of ideas that are similar to things I've thought myself.

[Keith Augustine]

Although I regret the change of subject, I'll play along with the predictable derail from the opening post.

Kris: As you said Sabom has Reynold's medical records. Unless the man is dishonest his question about Reynolds not hearing the clicking makes no sense, unless the records state the earplugs were activated.

The argument that Pam Reynolds could not hear an intraoperative conversation because the clicking in her ears was too loud was one that Michael Sabom never made--not in Light and Death in 1998, and not in his subsequent commentary on my Part 1 in 2007. That struck me as a bit odd, given that Sabom did originally argue that she couldn't have heard normally--because of the "molding" of the speakers blocking out external sounds. And Sabom knew that the AEP clicking in her ears was around 100 dB, because he mentions that fact (albeit only once) in Light and Death. So why didn't he argue, more persuasively, not merely that the molding made her hearing impossible, but that the clicking did? I don't know why; but perhaps because he was himself unsure about the timing of the clicking when he wrote the relevant two chapters of Light and Death. And if the medical records made it clear that she couldn't hear because of louder clicking in 1998, did Sabom simply miss the connection? Or was he unable to verify any connection, because Pam's records themselves didn't contain any information about when the AEPs were on?

Charles Tart, in his commentary on my Part 1, is the first person to suggest that the volume of clicks made her hearing impossible. In my reply, I asked whether the clicking was present at the time of Pam's veridical auditory observations, and whether it was sufficiently continuous as to provide no gaps when normal hearing might be possible. These are questions that I had no reason to believe Tart had the answers to; he did not, to my knowledge, then have access to Pam's medical records, as Sabom did. (Though Sabom shared them with Tart, I only know this because Tart mentioned it in The End of Materialism in 2009, saying that he can vouch for her being heavily anesthetized at the time of her auditory observations. Tart does not go on to say that the same records indicate that hearing was impossible, though he repeats the same argument he made in his original commentary, almost verbatim, and without answering or even acknowledging the questions I asked in my reply to his commentary.)

Kris: It seems if the earplugs had yet to be turned on Dr Spetzler just would have said that.

I wouldn't think so at the time of Spetzler's comments because the issue of when the earplugs were on was apparently never raised before my reply to Tart in 2007. We have no reason to think Spetzler would have been worried about what was on when until the issues was raised. Unlike Sabom, Spetzler was not investigating NDEs; he merely attended a patient who had one. So he probably did not look into this question as deeply as Sabom did, and Sabom himself apparently never thought of the "clicking was too loud" argument because he did not make it himself, or thought of it but couldn't establish the timing because the records that he had didn't indicate it. (This is only speculation on my part, of course.)

Kris: You concede that regular hearing was impossible and that only leaves the possibility, in your own words " implausible" that somehow she gained it from the hospital staff.

Yes, I concede that if the clicking was too loud, uninterrupted, and present at 8:45, Pam Reynolds couldn't then hear normally. You don't even need my concession about this, since if that's the case, it would still be the case whether I conceded it or not.

I also concede that if that is the case, then other normal explanations are possible, but not plausible. And yet you still choose to characterize me as "accept[ing] any explanation that removed the [discordant finding], no matter how far fetched." Seriously, what more do I need to concede to show that I don't accept any explanation, no matter how far fetched?

When I originally reconstructed the case, I didn't think that my account of Pam Reynolds' NDE was far fetched at all. Aside from this issue of uninterrupted, high-volume, and appropriately timed clicking, all the pieces of data seemed to fit together to suggest a normal explanation. And the issue of clicking at the right time, uninterrupted, was not one that I was aware of, since Sabom himself never argued that the loudness of the clicking would make Pam's hearing impossible. Tart's argument to come was simply not on my radar; it never arose before Tart made it in 2007, so far as I know.

Kris: Siqueira's infrasonic argument was based upon a flawed reading of the medical report.

Perhaps you didn't notice, but I didn't suggest otherwise. I quite clearly said: For example, Julio Siqueira recently entertained the possibility that Pam's AEP clicking was uninterrupted and present but infrasonic--below the range of human hearing--which if true would've (almost) totally demolished the argument that Pam could not have heard an intraoperative conversation at the relevant time."

I was not suggesting that Julio's suspicion was correct, but that had it been, it would have been an alternative normal explanation that had never even occurred to me, one that I would've missed. Had it been true, my inability to explain how Pam could've heard normally would have been no indication that she could not have heard normally. That was the point I was driving at: ignorance of an explanation isn't itself an explanation.

Kris: I am curious if the AWARE study does produce vertical evidence why won't you just dismiss it by comparisons to UFO events and saying just because we cannot explain something does not mean we should use paranormal explanations?

I'm really hoping that AWARE is properly controlled; this is a real concern since 4 out of 5 of the previous target identification experiments had targets that were too irresistible for the staff and patients not to inspect, thereby gaining normal knowledge of the targets. And as we all know with Charles Tart's "Miss Z," an uncontrolled test makes the test worthless as evidence that would settle the issue.

Presuming that AWARE is properly controlled, the evidence will speak for itself. Comparisons to UFO testimony won't work, because the evidence would be better than standard anecdotal evidence--it would be direct, straightforward experimental verification. Any positive result would need to be replicated, but since AWARE is multicenter to begin with, with different NDErs at different hospitals at different times, replication might be build into the study already so long as there is more than one positive result.

So replicable positive results from AWARE might be comparable to an imaginable UFO case, but only the sort of case where an extraterrestrial spacecraft was retrieved--which would end all debate about whether extraterrestrial spacecraft were visiting Earth.

Erich: You have no scientific proof at all that either fear or anesthesia can create the type of experience reported by Pam Reynolds. This is mere speculation on your part.

If that's true, Erich, then feel free to tell me what else could've caused her NDE. Heart failure? Nope, that didn't come until hours later. Induction of hypothermia? No, same thing. What is your alternative candidate for a cause?

If you can't come up with an alternative cause, than that confirms my point: either being anesthetized or a fear reaction caused Pam to have an OBE. If I am wrong, then what else could've caused it? There is no potential alternative cause.

And there is plenty of evidence that NDEs occur due to fear or due to
anesthesia, so that's just blatantly false. (Long has a section on NDEs under mere general anesthesia, and Irreducible Mind makes much of such NDEs since consciousness during anesthesia is supposedly impossible.)

Erich: I guess you are implying that NDEs are fear generated. Prove it.

I don't have to. Five other studies have already shown that fear sometimes caused NDEs. I mentioned a case from one of them already, the case with the dummy grenade. The literature is there whether you are aware of it or not, and if you actually read the relevant part of "Hallucinatory Near-Death Experiences," you'd see these studies discussed there.

As for your combat analogy, fear doesn't always initiate an NDE, just as combat doesn't always cause PTSD. But sometimes it does, demonstrably.

Erich: I don't think that we have a large enough representative sample or peer reviewed survey techniques and interview techniques to draw any conclusions about similarities or differences re; non-western experiences.

I concede that the cross-cultural data might be incomplete, which is why I don't completely rule out neurophysiological explanations for specific NDE elements. My point was simply that the data that we do have suggest a sociological source. You would know this if you actually read what I wrote, where I conclude that more research is needed to decide between these two competing hypotheses, but that the extant data favors a sociological source.

Erich: Sampling and analysis are of concern to me. For someone who claims to be an adherant of the scientific materialist method you don't seem very interested.

Not investigating for yourself whether NDEs can be caused by a fear response, or reviewing the near-death literature directly on cross-cultural studies, suggests to me that you aren't very interested in getting to the bottom of such questions--especially when I've already summarized and cited sources for the relevant issues all conveniently in just a single essay that you check, if only you would bother to check it. Hell, I even link the sources when they are available online so that you can check them directly!

Erich: Pardon me if I am not willing to change my outlook based on your assurence.

Well then do your homework! I've already done it for you, and you won't even check that! All you have to do is check my sources. In addition to linking when available, I quote them a lot so that you don't have to take my word for it.

Erich: "Check my chart in the original paper." I did. It is vague and general and limited in scope and based on your subjective and, agruably, biased assessment.

Saying so doesn't make it so. It's vague? I list every one of the 8 standard elements of the prototypical NDE, even giving room for ambiguity as to whether one should call a tunnel a "tunnel" or just a "darkness," so that either one would count as a instance of that motif, and still the motifs are generally absent in reliable non-Western case studies. Limited in scope? It is only limited by the studies done, and the exclusion of unreliable sources (i.e., single case studies or second-hand reports, which pretty much conform to the chart in any case, as I noted in the text itself). Biased assessment? There is no room for it. Either an NDEr reported a certain element or not. If it is ambiguous, I said what was ambiguous about it. Just because you don't like the data doesn't change it.

Erich: There are plenty of other NDEs occurring in hospitals where the patient who had the NDE was flatlined.

None are mentioned in The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences because those cases exist only in your imagination. If you had a case, you could just name a single NDEr who had a flatline NDE. There are NDErs who flatlined, like Reynolds, but also like Reynolds, they may have had their NDEs before or after flatline (in her case, it began well before flatline).

Erich: It is you that is having reading comprehesion challenges. Note the use of the word "like" in my statement.

Nice try, but this doesn't wash. Your statement has one interpretation: How does someone flatlined and unconscious, like Pam Reynolds and others, have a psychological reaction? That's what you asked. And it is clearly stating that Pam had a flatlined experience, and asking how someone flatlined like her could react to anything.

And the answer is that Pam could react because she was not flatlined when she had her OBE. This is not arguable. Those are simply the facts of the case, and it's not my job to continually educate you as to what they are, whether it concerns when Pam's NDE began, whether fear can induce NDEs, or whether minimally contaminated non-Western NDEs are more dissimilar than similar to prototypical Western NDEs. If you're going to argue about the interpretation of facts, at least learn what the facts are first. Sheesh!

[Erich]

Keith, you are misunderstanding and being a bit obtuse, IMO.

When I said flatlined I was referring as much to cardiac arrest as I was to brain activity There are a large number of documented NDEs occurring to people who were in cardiac arrest (flatlined heart) and, therefore, at the point of death. If you read these cases the NDEr often did not necessarily know - hence did not fear - that cardiac arrest was immanent. They just knew they didn't feel well. Not feeling well is hardly a trigger for a full-blown NDE born of fear of death.

You cannot definitively say that anesthesia causes NDEs just because some people under anesthesia have NDEs. The practice - really an art - of anesthesiology sometimes involves deliberately bringing a patient very close to the point of death and I happen to know, as a fact, having spent years working in healthcare as a hospital administrator and later in the insurance business that anesthesiologists do occasionally administer to the point where they accidentally cross over that point. Patients of routine surgery sometimes die (never to return) because of a dosage of anesthesia. It is entirely possible that people having an NDE while under anesthesia for non-life threatening procedures actually did die. And believe me, the odds of a physician documenting that occurrence are not good. If the patient is revived then the overdose is very likely to go uninvestigated. It is when the patient dies that we have an investigation and subsequently learn that there was an overdose. This is a fact of medical practice and is why I recommend that no one have surgery unless it is absolutely unavoidable.

My putting forth the intense stress and terror and death salient environment of combat was not an "analogy". It was a genuine challenge to your very novel and unproven concept that fear causes NDEs. Fear clearly does not cause NDEs because if it did we'd have hundreds of thousands of accounts of NDEs from combat troops. We don't. If the results predicted by your theory cannot be replicated under those circumstances then I'd say it fails the most basic of hypothesis tests.

Just because NDE type experiences sometimes happen when there is no actual bodily injury and the person is in a dangerous situation does not mean that "fear" was the cause. You are leaping to a conclusion.

Furthermore, NDEs happen when fear is absent; http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm

You seem to be suggesting that just because you cannot conceive of an alternative explanation, that there isn’t one. That, my friend, is the sloppy pseudo-science I was speaking to ealier.

[william]

“Mr. Augustine seems to be counseling me to abandon all hope.”

Hope is good, faith is good, and trust is good. But attain hope faith and trust in the perfection of the universe not in others beliefs. Hope faith and trust in beliefs can often be blind faith, blind hope, and blind trust. This is what concerns the atheists, this blind trust that has caused many to feel hoodwinked by religious beliefs that are often religious dogma so they have become nonbelievers in spite of the evidence.

The perfection of the universe is all around us but we see it not. Why is that? We judge by appearances and appearances are temporal and transient phenomena. The enlightened Hindus and Buddhists and even Jesus warned us against judging by appearances.

Keith has doubts or he would not spend the time and effort to debate these NDE’S on a continual basis. Doubt is good for believers, nonbelievers, and seekers. In this life or another it will reveal to us these perfections that exist in universal consciousness.

A religious belief in a God made in the image of man or a belief in materialism both have their home in the same place: our ignorance, but then without our ignorance, which has an underlying reality of our innocence; we do not exist as a perceived separate entities to debate such things as NDE’s.

[Cyrus]

William wrote:

"Now as far as religious in nature some are religious as some report back they have seen a religious figure such as Jesus. Now if one inquires they will find that most often they met a Being of light that gave to this person such love they felt it was Jesus."

I'd go on a limb and say that I believe every figure met during an NDE and perceived as God or a holy figure are merely entities that are very advanced, and "seem" this way to an inexperienced mind. Yet, are in reality, "normal folk". Imagine if somebody from the 7th century met an astronaut from the 21st century? They'd think the spaceman was a god.

And that's what's so fascinatingly inaccurate about the NDE in the wider context of things. It's somebody's first moments of experiencing the afterlife and their radical interpretations of their surroundings. If you want to learn about the conditions of the next world, study mediumship--not the NDE stories.

Keith wrote (a lot of stuff):

If the NDE were the only source of evidence of "the other side" then the entire topic would be subject to much greater scrutiny. Combine the NDE with countless other areas of evidence... simply countless... and the "big picture" starts to form... and it's a very powerful view.

Although the NDE is still one of the stronger areas of evidence. It's so hard to debunk the NDE--it's like wrestling a 500 lb gorilla. For every attempt to dismiss one aspect of the NDE, another one pops up in its place. For instance: why do people generally see deceased loved ones, and not living people, during their hallucinations?

How about when people see deceased loves one whom they did not know had died, until they see them during the NDE?

[Zerdini]

MP wrote: I know I'm opening a can of worms here, but ...

One reason why some people may not always be willing to take Zerdini's eyewitness accounts at face value has to do with his involvement in a test of the physical medium Colin Fry, many years ago.

There is no 'can of worms' as far as I am concerned.

It is important to get the facts right, Michael.

There was never "a test of the physical medium Colin Fry, many years ago."

A seance was held for members of the Noah's Ark Society simply to allow members to experience a demonstration of physical mediumship.

There had been considerable pressure from members for a demonstration as up to that point there had only been reports from his home circle which was limited to six sitters and the occasinal invited guest.

With hindsight (a wonderful gift!) Colin should have never given a seance as he was still in the early days of his development.

I should also add that the lights were boxed in so that no-one could switch them on accidentally or otherwise. I sat by the lights and was as surprised as everyone else when they came on first dimly then gradually brighter as they were controlled by a dimmer switch.

I was not present as an 'investigator' but in my capacity, at that time, as Publicity Officer for the NAS.

As for Tony Youens he is well known as a sceptic and his article revealed nothing that hadn't already been published in "Psychic News" long before.

In fact I remember him advertising on his website for copies of the "Psychic News" when all he had to do was ring them and ask for a copy!

What I have stated, over and over again, is because of my experience of the anomalies in physical mediumship and other experiences with Colin, that have never been mentioned, there was no conscious cheating by Colin Fry. I stand by that.

Further it has nothing to do with eye witness testimony as there was nothing to see. My interest was in encouraging Colin Fry to provide evidence of survival rather than physical phenomena which, sadly, was what NAS members seemed to want.

He subsequently developed to the point where he stopped the phenomenal aspect and developed the independent Direct Voice which was able to produce a good level of survival evidence.

My research also discovered that a similar incident had happened during the mediumship development of the Rev. Stainton Moses when it was claimed that an evil or mischievous entity had intruded on a seance. It was not unknown which is why I refer to the anomalies and difficulties in physical mediumship.

Further, as far as 'eye witness' testimony is concerned the only testimony I have SEEN and mentioned on here is with the Welsh materialization medium, Alec Harris in Johannesburg.

Harris had an extremely rare gift and I count myself very fortunate to have experienced it.

[Cyrus]

Erich wrote,

"And believe me, the odds of a physician documenting that occurrence are not good. If the patient is revived then the overdose is very likely to go uninvestigated. It is when the patient dies that we have an investigation and subsequently learn that there was an overdose. This is a fact of medical practice and is why I recommend that no one have surgery unless it is absolutely unavoidable."

Thanks for the reminder about this. I couldn't agree more. General anesthesia is very dangerous. It stuns me how some doctors and dentists push it for routine stuff. I've known many people who have undergone extreme anesthesia for simple dental procedures, billed $800+ for the privilege of nearly kicking the bucket.

I've yet to require surgery in my life, but I figure it's one of those unavoidable things. Unfortunately, perhaps I'm grim, but when the time comes I'll be sure to have my things in check: last will and testament for instance.

Although, on the subject of personal mortality, I've noticed an interesting side-effect of extensively studying the afterlife for the last 8 or 9 years: my "fear" of death is completely overshadowed by excitement-of-death. I have high respect for life, but as far as the natural crossing-over goes, I cannot think of anything nearly as intriguing, adventurous, or exciting. It's quite strange being the only person I know who feels this way.

I think most everyone is plagued by fear-of-death. Like this boogeyman hiding in our thoughts, painting everything with blackness. And when that boogeyman is gone, the difference is night and day. I figured I'd share this, because I wonder if anyone else feels this way (MPs comments here are literally the only place I find other afterlife-researchers I can relate to, such as William, Keith, Zetetic, etc.)

[Zerdini]

Apologies - my comment was intened for "The desert and the sea" thread. I have now posted it in the right place.

[Sandy]

Cyrus, I don't have a fear of death. It isn't because I've read about survival research. It's because I'm an NDEr. So maybe it isn't quite the same as what you feel. I feel like someday I get to go home again.

You are right about NDEs being those initial experiences in a strange place that the experiencer might not really have a handle on yet. I went through something similar when I came back from my NDE and woke up in the hospital.

Looking back on my experiences in the hospital, I can understand and explain them now that I've developed a context for them. But at the time they seemed very unreal. I couldn't function the way I was used to functioning before the accident. And I wasn't in the realer than real NDE place anymore. If that had been my only experience of "living", I wouldn't have been able to explain it very well to someone else. Now that I've been back here a while, this place makes a lot more sense.

[Art]

I have a friend at Church named Todd that had a near death experience when he was 8 years old. He was hit by a car. He told me he spent the first half of his life trying to get back to where he was. He wondered why he had been sent back. He said what he remembers most vividly is the Light and the Love he felt. He is in his 40's now, married to a full blooded American Indian, and has two beautiful sons. I told Todd perhaps they are the reason he was sent back? So they could be born? They really are two handsome boys.

[Zerdini]

Cyrus: I think most everyone is plagued by fear-of-death. Like this boogeyman hiding in our thoughts, painting everything with blackness. And when that boogeyman is gone, the difference is night and day. I figured I'd share this, because I wonder if anyone else feels this way (MPs comments here are literally the only place I find other afterlife-researchers I can relate to, such as William, Keith, Zetetic, etc.)

As Peter Pan said : "To die will be an awfully big adventure"

Over the years I've met lots of people who are literally terrified of dying yet as
Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.”

There is no death as such only the continuity of life.

Personally I look forward to my transition probably because it's on the horizon and getting closer every year!

[Paul]

We are all in the same queue Zerdini, we just don't know where.

[Keith Augustine]

Erich: Keith, you are misunderstanding and being a bit obtuse, IMO.

Right back at ya slick ;)

Erich: When I said flatlined I was referring as much to cardiac arrest as I was to brain activity

Whenever anyone talks about Pam Reynolds being "flatlined," they have in mind the fact that her brain activity stopped, since it did; and given that it did, the fact that her heart was stopped seems rather insignificant by comparison.

I'll nevertheless play along, since this distinction doesn't make any difference to my point. If you had in mind Pam's cardiac flatline, that still does not account for why she had her NDE, because her OBE began over two hours before her cardiac activity wavered in any way.

Erich: There are a large number of documented NDEs occurring to people who were in cardiac arrest (flatlined heart) and, therefore, at the point of death.

And we know that these people had their NDEs when their brains were failing, rather than before or after, how? It amazes me how many people just assume that NDEs occur when the brain is at the point of near total failure, while at the same time making a big deal of the fact that Pam Reynolds' NDE is the NDE that is the most closely monitored one on record.

Why does this amaze me? Because the most closely monitored NDE on record supports the point that there is no reason to believe that NDEs occur when the brain is at the point of near total failure! How does it support this? Because Pam's brain was nowhere even close to failing when her NDE began. So Pam's NDE started during "uneventful general anesthesia." Her blood pressure did not become dangerously low, or anything like that, prior to hypothermia. She was as far from death, by any definition of death, as an anesthetized patient can be.

Erich: If you read these cases the NDEr often did not necessarily know - hence did not fear - that cardiac arrest was immanent.

This is a rather shaky conclusion, IMO. It strikes me as analogous to saying that if a doctor gave a pregnant woman an epidural, so that she could not feel abdominal pain, she would therefore have no bodily indications that something was wrong if that doctor yanked out her kidneys. That would obviously affect her body in ways she could detect--so too for someone whose heart is about to fail, or is otherwise in the process of dying (even if that process is ultimately arrested and reversed).

Erich: They just knew they didn't feel well.

Again, I find it hard to believe that being in the process of dying doesn't feel different than merely being sick. Dying people might well notice that they are about to lose consciousness, for example, because their blood pressure is dropping dangerously.

Erich: You cannot definitively say that anesthesia causes NDEs just because some people under anesthesia have NDEs.

In arguing against this possibility, you are not arguing against me. You are arguing against near-death researchers. This is such a basic point that I have no interest in arguing it with you. Take it up with the authors of Irreducible Mind that you just cannot believe that NDEs occur during general anesthesia, despite their evidence that they do. Your insistence on this point strikes me as analogous to someone who just cannot bring himself to believe that hellish NDEs are reported--the reports are there whether you can accept them or not.

Erich: It is entirely possible that people having an NDE while under anesthesia for non-life threatening procedures actually did die.

Something that medical monitoring would have indicated at the time were it true. Not the sort of thing a doctor would publish about as "uneventful elective surgery" since he wouldn't have to publish about it at all in your scenario.

In any case, near-death researchers themselves do not deny that NDEs have occurred in situations where there never was any medical threat of dying. Your refusal to look at their data is your problem, not mine. So take it up with them; there's no point in arguing about what's already been settled.

Erich: My putting forth the intense stress and terror and death salient environment of combat was not an "analogy". It was a genuine challenge to your very novel and unproven concept that fear causes NDEs.

Again, take it up (through a medium!) with Ian Stevenson, the researcher who coined the term "fear-death experience." I didn't like that term myself, since fear-only NDEs are no different from other NDEs in terms of their features; they only differ in their apparent causes. The fact that you won't even look at such cases is your issue, not mine. I told you that there were five studies, and even linked to a record of one of them. I told you that they were discussed in my essay. Your "rebuttal" should not be to me, but to those five studies. If you have a problem with what has been reported in the literature itself, that's your problem, not mine. Just because the reports don't fit your preconceived ideas about what an NDE must be doesn't mean that the reports don't exist.

Erich: Fear clearly does not cause NDEs because if it did we'd have hundreds of thousands of accounts of NDEs from combat troops.

Fear sometimes, not always, causes NDEs, as I noted in my earlier reply. You may not like that fact, but a fact it is. If you dispute it, again, take it up with the authors of the relevant studies.

Erich: NDE type experiences sometimes happen when there is no actual bodily injury and the person is in a dangerous situation does not mean that "fear" was the cause. You are leaping to a conclusion.

It never ends with you, does it? Are you aware of Albert Heim's mountain climbing fall survivors, who walked away with minimal injury but had NDEs at the time of their falls because they thought that death was imminent as they were falling?

Again, you should really take this up with near-death researchers. It's not my job to dissuade you of your pre-data preconceptions. Do your own homework.

Erich: Furthermore, NDEs happen when fear is absent

NDEs happen when experients believe that death is imminent (whether it really is or is only thought to be), which is rarely not accompanied by fear.

Erich: You seem to be suggesting that just because you cannot conceive of an alternative explanation, that there isn’t one. That, my friend, is the sloppy pseudo-science I was speaking to ealier.

Wrong. When it comes to Pam Reynolds' hearing of an intraoperative conservation, one could easily conjecture any number of implausible causes for her knowledge, for example that hospital staff or records revealed this to her before Michael Sabom interviewed her. That's just one example. One might alternatively posit that a friend or family member serendipitously asked questions about the case, and picked up information that way. I don't think any of the alternatives that I've entertained here are plausible; my point is simply that they are conceivable. (Another, the one that I found plausible in my initial reconstruction, is that Pam heard the information herself firsthand, through her ears, during her surgery.)

On the other hand, since Pam's NDE began during uneventful general anesthesia, there is no even potential medical cause for why it began when it began. Conclusion: It was not medically caused. The other possible known causes of NDEs are anesthesia itself, or fear. There are no other potential candidate causes. Otherwise you would have mentioned one by now.

The only pseudoscience here comes from those who refuse to even look at, let alone refute, multiple studies of "fear-death experiences." Learn the evidence that the literature offers before you reject it.

william: “Mr. Augustine seems to be counseling me to abandon all hope.”

I didn't address this earlier because I was too bogged down in factual issues to have any time to spare for this one, but now that there's a break in the comments, I'll address it while I still have the time.

I'm not the kind of person who goes door-to-door trying to get people to abandon their belief in the afterlife. My attitude towards those who can't handle the prospect of one's own annihilation at death is like my attitude toward people who can't handle the fact that human beings repeatedly inflict genocide on other groups of people for the most trivial of reasons (like accidents of ethnicity). If you can't handle considering such things, turn your mind to something else. I offer my thoughts on life after death passively to those who seek determining whether it is true or not; if you don't want to think about them, no one is putting a gun to your head. You don't have to read my arguments; you can watch a movie instead, or do any number of other things.

But the fact that some people can't handle thinking about the atrocities of the Holocaust or the Congo is no reason for filmmakers not to make films like Schindler's List, or for the penultimate episode of Band of Brothers not to show the bare truth of Allied forces' encounters with abandoned concentration camps. The fact that life is gritty is not a reason to look away. Some of us want to know what life entails, the good parts and the bad, without rose-colored glasses, in order to mentally prepare ourselves for the reality of life. If there is no afterlife, I for one would want to know that fact, rather than bury my head in the sand because that prospect is just too much to bear.

william: Hope faith and trust in beliefs can often be blind faith, blind hope, and blind trust. This is what concerns the atheists, this blind trust that has caused many to feel hoodwinked by religious beliefs that are often religious dogma so they have become nonbelievers in spite of the evidence.

I've often heard the argument that afterlife-disbelievers only become such because they were disillusioned by a cynical university education (a la Neal Grossman), or because they were raised in such suffocatingly religious households that they had to throw out the baby of "spirituality" with the bathwater of institutional, authoritarian religion.

In my case neither is true. I never believed in an afterlife or a spiritual realm, even as a child, for one simple reason: I've never encountered anything remotely like such things. So when I heard of such things as souls, and knew that biology or psychology textbooks didn't so much as use that word, they seemed like mere abstractions to me, ideas that could be true but for which we had no clear evidence. They were abstract possibilities, not facts. Their reality was not convincing to me in the way that the reality of trees was. So I didn't put much stock in them. That is the genesis of my skepticism; I never believed in the first place. And my skepticism could be quelled by either unambiguous personal encounter, or by moving souls into the same category as genes through clear scientific evidence. Until then, we're all still just debating a mere possibility, not talking about the traits of an actuality.

One final comment about MP's statement on Zerdini's witness to a potentially fraudulent medium. Why would "being caught with your hand in the cookie jar" cast doubt on all physical mediumship for you, or on the physical mediumship of Flint, when mental mediums who have been caught cheating you were happy to suppose had to resort to trickery to satisfy their audience when their real powers were waning? If cheating can be brushed aside for mental mediums, why not also for physical ones?

[Michael Prescott]

"If cheating can be brushed aside for mental mediums, why not also for physical ones?"

I don't think I've said that mental mediums who were caught cheating should be given a pass.

The mental mediums I cite most often are Leonora Piper, Gladys Osborne Leonard, Eileen Garrett, and Geraldine Cummins. As far as I know, none was ever caught cheating or credibly accused of cheating.

Mental mediums who *were* caught cheating have much less credibility to me. Arthur Ford, whose private papers posthumously revealed that he had researched his clients, is an example. I think it's possible Ford had some legitimate abilities in his earlier days and lost them as he grew older and became an alcoholic. It's also possible that he was a fake from the start. Either way, I wouldn't point to him as an example of honest mediumship.

Perhaps you're thinking of Eusapia Palladino, who was a physical (not mental) medium. In her case, I do think she had genuine powers even though she cheated often. The reason I would make an exception for her is that she freely admitted to cheating, sometimes even warning the investigators when she was about to cheat; and when stringent precautions against fraud were taken, she produced phenomena much better than anything she produced by cheating. I consider the precautions taken in the 1905 Naples sittings to be unimpeachable, and excellent results were obtained night after night in front of highly trained investigators who had a track record of exposing more than 100 fake physical mediums. Howard Thurston, the most prominent stage magician of his day, also sat with Palladino and said afterward that her phenomena could not be duplicated by any trickery known to him; he offered a $1000 prize to anyone who could debunk her. No one took him up on it.

I don't intend to cast doubt on all physical mediums. Even Colin Fry may have some legitimate abilities. I read a news article some time ago in which a skeptical reporter was blown away by Fry's accuracy in an impromptu reading. Of course this was an example of mental mediumship on his part.

My point in bringing up the Noah's Ark Society incident is only that eyewitness testimony, like all other evidence, has to be assessed critically.

[dmduncan]

MP, I sent a .WAV file attachment you might be curious to hear to the yahoo mail published at your other website. FYI. I've never emailed you before; it might be filtered out as junk mail.

It's not junk.

"In my case neither is true. I never believed in an afterlife or a spiritual realm, even as a child, for one simple reason: I've never encountered anything remotely like such things."

WOW!!! So you made your mind up about how the world works based on your very limited experience as a child, and you haven't had any reason to change your mind since?

That might explain a number of things about you, including what seems to be a tendency toward evangelism.

[Zerdini]

MP wrote: My point in bringing up the Noah's Ark Society incident is only that eyewitness testimony, like all other evidence, has to be assessed critically.

I agree that eye witness evidence has to be assessed critically. I also said it is important to get the facts right.

Further, as far as 'eye witness' testimony is concerned the only testimony I have SEEN and mentioned on here is with the Welsh materialization medium, Alec Harris in Johannesburg.

There have been numerous reports of Harris's mediumship including magicians who testified to the remarkable evidence which was always SEEN.

That is true eye witness testimony.

With Flint, Fry etc there was nothing to be SEEN because most physical phenomena and Direct Voice seances are held in the dark.

It is evidence of survival which is important not trumpets whizzing around in the dark.

[Leo MacDonald]

Keith,

Yes I do know that Pam Reyold's experience happen 2 hours before she was flatlined. Lokking at the timeline it looks like her experience did continue through even though she was flatlined. Pam Reyolds also was able to decribe the surgical tool which she never seen before.

Let's say for the sake of your argument that her experience didn't continue when she was flatlined?. That would still be rather remarkable especially knowing she reported the saw etc after she was flatlined. The aware project if positive results i highly doubt it would sway you Keith or any other naturalist.

I honestly can't see positive results or negative results coming out. Inconclusive results where the patient may have gotten a glimmer of the sign but isn't sure what it said. I know one thing if i had an out of body experience i wouldn't be worried about a hidden sign but on my physical body and seeing what the doctors are doing to try to bring me back. With that said I think the aware is a waste of time and doomed for failure.

[anti-pseudo-skeptic]

Keith Augustine,
No one believes your convoluted nonsense.

[Vitor]

There have been numerous reports of Harris's mediumship including magicians who testified to the remarkable evidence which was always SEEN

Where are these reports published? Which are the names of the magicians?

[Erich]

Keith, I don't care that Ian Stevenson coined the term "fear-NDE". You, nor he (if he was still alive), can prove that fear causes NDEs. Nor can you prove your bob and weave position that maybe it's not fear, but just the expectation of death. Overwhelmingly, neither intense death salient fear, nor the expectation of death results in an NDE. Your claim that sometimes they do is pure speculation.

Getting back to the original topic concerning cross-cultural differences in NDEs, you have only offered more unsubstantiated and unprovable theory. Could've been this...could've been that. If you want to show superior thinking to the survivalists then you will have to present a comprehensive hypothesis that is testable and repeatable. You are all over the place at this point.

The NDE experience remains a mystery. I say it points to survival. My theory is comprehensive, at least.

I also say that there needs to be larger samples, collected scientifically, from non-western sources. What we have is not sufficient to draw conclusions.

I suspect that an objective assessment of a large sample with appropriate considerations for linguistic and cultural interpretations will yield important points in common between wester and non-western NDEs.

[Sam]

what does everyone think of this story?

http://medicalfutility.blogspot.com/2008/05/hospital-took-velma-thomas-off-life.html

This woman was dead for 17 hours before coming back to life and there's no mention of an NDE occuring

[W Vogt]

“Mr. Augustine seems to be counseling me to abandon all hope.”

I, rather than William, am the original source of the statement quoted by Mr. Augustine. The statement seems to have been taken out of context.
I am quite sure that my present position on the type of topics discussed on this blog is so far removed from that of Mr. Augustine that there would be no point in an interchange of ideas. No common language, no translator. But I am prompted to say that I do not believe that this distance between perspectives is due to psychological machismo. He apparently believes that it is a matter of a kind of fortitude, of being able to bear the “grittiness” of this world that makes the difference. That, and secondly, a sincere desire to discover the truth about the world.
Let me state that I lived believing in the “prospect of one’s annihilation at death” for a longer period, I would suppose, than Mr. Augustine has been on the planet. I need no lectures on this score. Nor has the prospect ever really left me, so I think it would be inaccurate to say that I look at the world through “rose-colored glasses.” And although I have no way to prove it, I believe I have an interest equally as keen as that of Mr. Augustine to know the truth about this world. As far as we know, we have one shot at it, so we must do the best we can. It was in pursuing this goal, or at least thinking that I was pursuing it, that I have been able to change some of my fundamental beliefs over the course of time.
The point of my original post was that I do not think that it is acceptable to callously disregard the effects of the expressions of one’s ideas on others. I realize that this is a difficult problem. But the solution is not “let them watch a movie.”
I simply cannot grasp the apparent equation of belief in an afterlife with Holocaust denial.

[Keith Augustine]

dmduncan: If you didn't believe in little grey aliens as a child, and never encountered any since, you'd probably not believe in those later in life either, provided that you didn't see a retrieved alien body on display at the Smithsonian, or on CNN, or what have you. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

So yes, my views about what exists are informed by my experience of things that exist. I also believe in things that I haven't experienced first-hand (like Tahitian beaches), but which would be easy to verify first-hand if I didn't mind bankrupting myself to do so, and could be videotaped or displayed live.

I'm not sure how you square my "tendency toward evangelism" with presenting information passively only for those who are looking for it. I'm not putting fliers on people's cars.

Leo: Pam's description of the bone saw, whether accurate or not, and whether imagined or astrally perceived, is irrelevant to whether her NDE ran its course before brain shutdown, or even after induced cardiac arrest. Since we know it began well before either of those things, there is no reason why anyone need think that it continued on through brain shut down, or even past induced cardiac arrest. Pam's NDE would've happened even if hypothermic cardiac arrest had been postponed mid-anesthesia.

anti-pseudo-skeptic: Are the detailed, carefully explained and cited rationales for the conclusions of individual chapters in The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences convoluted nonsense, too? What about Jeffrey Long's book--is that convoluted nonsense?

Which do you object more to: the position that I take, or the fact that I read? Is making you think about different issues, instead of allowing you to just spout off the first idea that pops in your head as if that is holy writ, what is convoluted? Shame on me for complicating the matter by asking you to check your ideas against any data or literature.

Erich: There's nothing "bob and weave" about positing fear and the expectation of death, since the posit is that one is accompanied by the other. They aren't two different causes, but parts of the same cause. Expectation of death -> fear -> dissociation -> NDE.

Fear-death experiences are "pure speculation"? Not quite. They have been documented by multiple independent near-death researchers. Your refusal to look at their documentation doesn't change that fact.

Since you seem to look down upon it so thoroughly, I'm curious as to what part of a transcendental model of NDEs is not "unsubstantiated and unprovable theory"?

Incidentally, since when has it been out of bounds to posit a hypothesis that can be put to the test? That NDE motifs derive from social conditioning is such a hypothesis, which is why Irwin a. posited it and b. tested it. If no hypotheses are ever posited, there will be nothing to test.

But then this is not your real objection, is it? Your real objection seems to be that the social conditioning hypothesis contradicts your presumption that NDE motifs derive from visions of an afterlife. In other words, it's not the hypothesis itself that bothers you, nor whether it is testable or not; what bothers you is that it posits something contrary to your presumptions about what an NDE is. You can dismiss it right from the start, without ever considering its own merits (pro or con), for that reason alone.

Of course the NDE remains a mystery. So does dark matter and dark energy. Mystery alone is no indicator that one must posit something other than standard naturalistic explanations for a given phenomenon.

My theory of NDEs is comprehensive, too. Every NDE, whether the result of a perceived (but not actual) threat of life-threatening harm, or the result of an impending medical crisis, can be explained by:

Expectation of death -> fear -> dissociation -> NDE.

You don't have to agree with that, but it is well supported by the literature. Even those who are reluctant to support the role of expectation in NDEs don't resist it entirely. Their objection is not that fearful expectation cannot bring NDEs about, but that once brought about, expectation alone cannot account for content of some NDEs, for that content is not consciously expected. (That latter point is also true of internally generated visions in dreams, though, so it hardly requires one to posit an external reality for NDE visions.)

I agree that larger, and more diverse, non-Western samples are needed to draw definitive conclusions. We can nevertheless draw tentative conclusions from the extant samples. I'm quite explicit about both points, repeatedly, in both my online essay and the print version of it. Why draw tentative conclusions? To give researchers something for future studies to test and confirm, or else test and find unrepresentative of larger samples.

It remains to be seen whether larger samples "will yield important points in common between Western and non-Western NDEs." But I'm sure that if you give enough latitude to "linguistic and cultural interpretation" to prevent the cross-cultural data from ever changing your commitment to substantial cross-cultural consistency, you could use the same kind of "linguistic and cultural interpretation" to conclude that one NDEr's vision of his deceased brother, and another NDEr's vision of her deceased great aunt, are really just different descriptions/interpretations of the same deceased person, expressed through different personal/cultural filters!

W Vogt: "[T]he effects of the expressions of one's ideas on others" is a separate issue from whether those ideas correspond to reality, as you note. I'm not clear on exactly what it is that you're asking of me, but perhaps a different scenario might illustrate my perspective. Suppose two brothers go off to fight in Vietnam, and only one of them returns. Should no one ever point out how much was lost and how little was gained by that engagement (say, on a widely viewed History Channel program), given that in doing so a Vietnam vet might come across our strategic analysis and gain the unpleasant thought that his deceased brother "died in vain"?

[stop arguing an unwinnable debate]

^ words

[Cyrus]

Keith,

I'm quite pleased to say that I believe NDEs are related to the afterlife based on the trust of countless thousands of anecdotal experiences.

I don't care about science in this regard. Science serves a purpose. When science tries to study alternate dimensions, it's going to come up with huge problems. I'd prefer to evaluate my evidence on a court-of-law approach.

The afterlife belief system feels completely natural. It connects with everything I've researched on this topic. It also clears up confusion about all level of existential problems.

Gone are the nightmares that come with humanism: that existence cannot exist--that in itself is a paradox. How long would non-existence exist before existence exists again? There would be no awareness of the interim, therefore death (or non existence) would be instantaneous existential rebirth. This simple philosophical pondering already proves life after death without a shred of evidence of NDEs, or what have you.

But that's a poor man's way of thinking. You have to take the evidence you see, what you personally experience and research, and draw satisfied conclusions, and hold some faith to them as you enjoy life.

For me, to dismiss every psychic experience, every NDE, every encounter a friend or loved one has had with a deceased individual, every encounter with the beyond, as mass delusion is a cynics way of viewing life. It's not something I would ever do because I still have blood flowing in my veins. I still trust my fellow human beings, and I am not drenched in negativity or self-pity, or angst, all of which I believe are pre-requisites to a dark and pessimistic worldview.

Your comments relating to the afterlife and Holocaust denial was very interesting to me. This is a topic that stirrs up deep emotions in you. Hate is not the opposite of love, apathy is the opposite of love. You certainly have no apathy in this subject. You are very passionate about it. Perhaps you are deeply afraid that the afterlife can be real, because you've been hurt in the past and you don't want to live up to expectations of something you truly desire, only to be dissapointed in the end.

Nonetheless, you have the rhetoric of a politician. You lack the respectful way of dialogue that comes with civility. I don't know if your writing on the internet reflects how you really debate things, but I hope not. It's not that you don't present good arguments, it's that you get all worked up over it. You defend your position like a wizard casting lightning bolts from a mountain-top. And maybe the same can be said for survivalists that debate you, too. But really, it's not a way of debating that is condusive to learning.

You are accomplishing nothing in this manner. You are just inciting people, and perhaps getting some cheap thrills by convincing yourself that you have the power to crush people's spiritual worldviews through your "skeptic" rationale.

I really hope you wisen up a bit.

[Art]

"Every NDE, whether the result of a perceived (but not actual) threat of life-threatening harm, or the result of an impending medical crisis, can be explained by: Expectation of death -> fear -> dissociation -> NDE." - Keith Augustine
--------------------------------------------

Except for the part about the connection between NDEs, quantum physics, and the holographic universe theory. There is a connection between NDE's and quantum physics and the holographic universe that has never been adequately explained away to me. Near death experiencers routinely describe their experiences in terms that can only be called "holographic" and they also say things that seem to parallel things I've read about quantum physics. I find that very evidential.

There is no way that a housewife from Kansas or an uneducated truck driver from South Georgia would know or understand anything about quantum physics or the holographic nature of the universe.

People who have NDE's routinely talk about overwhelming feelings of oneness and connectedness, feeling like they are everywhere in the universe at once, time and space not existing, buildings that are "made out of knowledge", 360 degree vision, seeing colors they've never seen before, hearing sounds that they haven't heard in this physical universe, and during the life review seeing their whole lives flash by in an instant (bolus of information), and how the other side will feel even more real to us than this side does, and feeling the feelings and hearing the thoughts of the people they interacted with. I find these things to be very evidential because it parallels things I've read about in popular physics books.

There is a ton of scientific evidence from physics and near death experiences that our so called physical universe is some kind of strange holographic projection. The implications of this are enormous.

This explains why it is that so many near death experiencers say that the other side will feel even more real to us than this side does, and how it could be "realer than real" or "more consciousness than normal." Near death experiencers also say that it will feel even more real to us than this side does. The quote below explains why or how this is possible.

"Or, to put it another way, a holographic universe is blurry," says Hogan. This is good news for anyone trying to probe the smallest unit of space-time. ...
www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html

Our Universe may be a giant hologram (1 page)

http://www.inquisitr.com/15460/scientists-claim-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram/

The Universe as a hologram (about 5 or 6 pages):

http://www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html

Emmanuel Swedenborg (1 page):
http://www.soultravel.se/2004/040907-swedenborg/index.shtml

And lastly here is an interesting story written by a medical doctor called Riding the Dragon that is fascinating and has a very holographic flavor to it.

http://www.issc-taste.org/arc/dbo.cgi?set=expom&id=00070&ss=1

After you have read the online essay about the holographic universe read Mark Horton's NDE the parallels are obvious:

http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/markh.html

Near Death Experiences: A Holographic Explanation, Dr. Oswald Harding.

http://www.amazon.com/Near-Death-Experience-Holographic-Explanation/dp/9768202092/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255530488&sr=1-1

[Roger Knights]

Leo MacDonald:

"I know one thing if i had an out of body experience i wouldn't be worried about a hidden sign but on my physical body and seeing what the doctors are doing to try to bring me back. With that said I think the aware is a waste of time and doomed for failure."

I suggest that a sign more visible to the hovering patient's view be employed, one that is not hidden from the operating room personnel. For instance, a colored towel of a certain shape (square, triangle, or circle, say) with a large two-digit number on it that is draped over the feet of the patient. The patient would hopefully remember all three items. (Another identifying item might be the presence or absence of large tassels around the edges, and/or of a jagged edge.)

This would not be airtight against skeptical objection, but it would have the virtue of providing a test that would prevent us believers dismissing a negative result by claiming that the NDE-ers’ spirits would not care to notice the tops of lighting fixtures, but would be focused on their bodies.

OTOH, if there were dozens of cases of towel-identification, it would stretch credulity that they were all instances of coincidences and collusion, as skeptics would like to claim. It would damage their credibility if they were to stubbornly cling to such an unlikelihood as totally invalidating the result.

It would be a shame to let the opportunity of the AWARE experiment be partly wasted by not capturing all the data it can and thereby narrow down the number of debatable points.

[Roger Knights]

PS: This towel would be in addition to the current out-of-sight sign.

[Roger Knights]

PPS: If it would be possible to project a holograph or some other image from above in such a way that it would be visible only from the ceiling, that would be an ideal solution – but I bet it would have been thought of if it were feasible.

[anti-pseudo-skeptic]

Kieth,
The convoluted nonsense is your incessant propoganda. Your liking for 'spltting the hairs on a flees back' approach to Reynolds surgery.
She couldn't possibly have heard the conversation with her physical ears because she was in the deepest anaesthetic state possible. Spetzler has said this more than once and he was there, believe it or not.
Forget about the nodules in her ears, this depth of anaesthesia is catastrophic as regards consciousness and it's a good job it is, too, as she was about to have her head sawn open.
Arguing about the details of what Reynolds saw on the electric toothbrush-midas rex saw(the groove on the end) is like arguing that a report of an escaped elephant can't be taken seriously because the witness didn't mention the animal's unusual scrotum.

Why don't you do a little experiment of your own. Drink a six pack and half a bottle of vodka and when you've fallen asleep, get one of your internet infidel pals to dangle something (a selection of root vegetables would be good) over your head. See if you can correctly describe anything when you wake up....and if you do, don't get pissed off when your observations are ruled incorrect(null and void-nil-pois-diddly squat) because you didn't spot the bit of bullshit on the potato.

[Erich]

Keith, we are never going to agree on even the basic facts,let alone the interpretation of them and further discussion is fruitless. In parting this thread I'll give you my explanation, though I recognize that you will find it completely lacking.

"Fear-death experiences are "pure speculation"? Not quite. They have been documented by multiple independent near-death researchers. Your refusal to look at their documentation doesn't change that fact......Since you seem to look down upon it so thoroughly, I'm curious as to what part of a transcendental model of NDEs is not "unsubstantiated and unprovable theory"?

I would say that in those cases of NDE that you call fear or expectation induced what is happening is that there is a surrender and an acceptance of death that releases the higher self to the transcendental experience. Spiritual teachers across the globe throughout all of the ages have taught that this sort of "surrender" is necessary if higher consciousness is to be experienced.

This is proven sprititual theory as far as adepts are concerned.

A final word from me on cross cultural comaprison of NDE would be to read the Tibetan Book of the Dead. This ancient and definitely non-Western text not only contains descriptions with many elements in common with modern western NDEs, but it also contributes major answers to the larger questions of what NDEs are and how - or why - there are variations.

[Zerdini]

For Vitor:

A conjurer, who went as a sceptic to an Alec Harris séance in Cardiff, saw his father, brother and son materialise.

A.G. Fletcher-Desborough described his “unique” experience in Liverpool Evening Express.

“I examined the cabinet which he used. Having been on the stage as an illusionist and magician, I knew exactly where to look for such things as panel and floor escapes, and ceiling and wall slides.

“I was satisfied nothing could make an exit or an entrance in any way. There was no chance for deception.”

A short stout man materialised from the cabinet, walked straight to him and mumbled the sitter’s name, Bertie. “It was my father and, in his mumbling way of speaking, gave my family pet name used by my parents. No one but the family knew it.”

He was followed by a young man who hobbled, grasped the sitter’s hand and said: “Bertie! I am your brother Walter.” This brother, the conjurer explained, had his left ankle shot away in the Boer War.

“No one there knew I had a brother. So who learnt his name and that he hobbled when walking in life? There certainly could have been no deception in this case.”

Then from the cabinet walked a stiff upright young fellow. Like the others he came towards the conjurer. Then he swerved and throwing out his arms, “embraced my wife saying in a very pathetic voice, ‘Mother, Mother, I’m your son, Ronnie’”

This was their third son, born under fire during the Sinn Fein rising in 1916, and captured in Singapore Harbour by the Japs and beheaded.

“He turned to me after embracing his mother and put his head against mine. I recognised his voice.” No one among the sitters or the medium knew the intimate characteristics of those who materialised.

“Why all these manifestations on my behalf?

“Because I was an unbeliever.”

[Trev.]

Rather (Monty)Pythonesque, I think. :-)

[Keith Augustine]

Cyrus: I'm quite pleased to say that I believe NDEs are related to the afterlife based on the trust of countless thousands of anecdotal experiences.

In that case, I've got thousands of testimonials about how my product changed people's lives for the better to share with you. Care to buy my product? :)

Cyrus: I don't care about science in this regard.

I never claimed that you have to take a scientifically minded approach to what you're willing to believe. That's your call to make. But in order for something to count as empirical knowledge, as opposed to an educated guess, it needs to have conclusive scientific evidence backing it up.

I don't know what the hell you're talking about with your "existence-cannot-exist" koan. How long would trilobites have to be extinct before they exist again? (Presuming that they haven't been embraced by the light for the last 250 million years.)

Cyrus: I still trust my fellow human beings, and I am not drenched in negativity or self-pity, or angst, all of which I believe are pre-requisites to a dark and pessimistic worldview.

Negative life experiences are the only prerequisites to pessimism. Ask a Holocaust survivor. Parents that carefully shelter their children from the negative realities of life are the only prerequisites for a naive optimism. But at some point that sheltering has to end, and the shock of finally discovering the reality of life (as in The Truman Show) might lead to a profound sense of disillusionment at the time.

You may "still trust [your] fellow human beings," but I'll bet you also get that used car independently inspected before shelling out thousands of dollars for it. Or you should, at least.

Cyrus: Your comments relating to the afterlife and Holocaust denial...

Please stop referring to "Holocaust denial," since I never compared belief in the afterlife to antisemitic disbelief in the Holocaust, which is what is usually meant by "Holocaust denial." I was talking about facing up to unpleasant realities, instead of avoiding thinking about them, nothing more.

Cyrus: You are just inciting people, and perhaps getting some cheap thrills by convincing yourself that you have the power to crush people's spiritual worldviews through your "skeptic" rationale.

Wow! If explaining the reasons for my point of view is "inciting," or "crush" others' spiritual beliefs, pardon me for not keeping those reasons to myself, so as not to upset anyone else's insecurities. Shall we cease doing science altogether because it might "unweave the rainbow" for the overly sensitive?

[Cyrus]

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about with your "existence-cannot-exist" koan. How long would trilobites have to be extinct before they exist again? (Presuming that they haven't been embraced by the light for the last 250 million years.)"

Oops, it went over your head. I should have known better.

It's a simple abstract philosophical problem that contradicts materialists who insist on the non-existence theory of death.

If non existence cannot be observed, felt, experienced--as it is impossible to live in or dwell within this void of time and space, then non-existence, as a state of being, cannot exist.

Now, ask your hard-headed materialist skull the question: how did you come into existence in the first place?

What's the latest rationale? I think the best I've heard is "random quirk in the universe". A completely random set of circumstances made "you" exist as "you" out of nothing.

If it took 100 billion years for this random occurrence to happen again after you die, then you would have no awareness of it, because the space in between would be a non-existent gap.

Therefore, the experience of death would be an instantaneous rebirth as some other form of conscious existence.

However, if you can't wrap your mind around this, I understand. I've seen some very unpleasant side-effects of materialist disease that could argue this notion, such as the belief that consciousness and existence itself is not even real. There was a branch of materialism that actually promoted this idea, wish I could remember the name of it.

"I never claimed that you have to take a scientifically minded approach to what you're willing to believe. That's your call to make. But in order for something to count as empirical knowledge, as opposed to an educated guess, it needs to have conclusive scientific evidence backing it up."

Even science requires belief. There is scientific data supporting the supernatural. Incredible volumes of data. You choose not to believe in it.

"Wow! If explaining the reasons for my point of view is "inciting," or "crush" others' spiritual beliefs, pardon me for not keeping those reasons to myself, so as not to upset anyone else's insecurities. Shall we cease doing science altogether because it might "unweave the rainbow" for the overly sensitive?"

Nope. It's your basis or motivation for continually arguing in the domain of a subject that cannot be won. People have drawn conclusions very different from yours. Counter viewpoints are fine, debate is fine, disagreements are fine, but in this thread in particular (as i've seen in the past) your style of argument turns from debate and discussion into pure rancor.

Forget "unweaving the rainbow". Again, that's just you misconstruing my point (intellectual slight-of-hand comes second nature for you). The point is that i don't know what motivates you to argue a point into the ground when there is no consensus happening on either side of the aisle. When it's time to back out, agree to disagree, and move on, I still don't see it happening, you just keep fighting and fighting.

That's what makes me think your motivation is more in the ideological, a desire to shape or crush philosophies or points of view, and it has nothing to do with "scientific" debate.

[Michael Prescott]

Keith wrote, "But in order for something to count as empirical knowledge, as opposed to an educated guess, it needs to have conclusive scientific evidence backing it up."

I think that's true, which is why I would call my view on the afterlife a "belief system" rather than a hard, cold fact.

To me, a belief system is a point of view that we are justified in adopting but not compelled (by the data) to adopt. It's a point of view buttressed by evidence that is (at least) suggestive, but not coercive. It's an inference to the best explanation, bearing in mind that my notion of the best explanation may not be shared by someone else, and that the rules of inference are not nearly as clear-cut as the rules of deduction.

Reasonable people cannot disagree with the proposition that the Earth is round, so belief in a round Earth is not a belief system. (In other words, Flat-Earthers are unreasonable.) On the other hand, reasonable people can and do disagree about life after death; the evidence is not conclusive. I think the evidence is quite good - it's good enough *for me* - but I can see how it might not be good enough for someone else.

Cyrus wrote, "You are just inciting people, and perhaps getting some cheap thrills by convincing yourself that you have the power to crush people's spiritual worldviews through your 'skeptic' rationale."

Keith replied, "If explaining the reasons for my point of view is 'inciting,' or 'crush[ing]' others' spiritual beliefs ..."

Cyrus didn't say that you actually can crush others' beliefs. He said that you have "perhaps" convinced yourself that you can do so.

Frankly, it seems to me that there is some truth in what Cyrus says. Though you're good at debating the evidence, Keith, you frequently adopt a sneering, belittling tone. You sometimes convey the impression that only those who hold your point of view are intelligent, rational, or willing to face reality, while all who disagree with you must be either stupid, crazy, or motivated by fear and denial.

Since the greater part of humanity holds views contrary to your own, you seem to be led, by the logic of your position, to the conclusion that people in general are stupid, irrational, dishonest, and cowardly. I think this is what Cyrus means when he says he finds you cynical. He's not saying (I think) that we should trust everybody implicitly and believe everything we're told, but merely that we ought to give people the benefit of the doubt wherever possible. If otherwise sober and sensible people describe paranormal or spiritual experiences, there is nothing naive or inane about taking their claims seriously (while reserving the right to investigate further).

The whole argument about having the courage to face reality is a red herring anyway, since the point at issue is what exactly *is* reality. If reality includes a supernatural dimension, then arguably it is materialists who lack the courage to face reality.

The bottom line is that arguments about motive are a double-edged sword. They can always be turned back against oneself. They are also rather vacuous, since as a point of fact we can never know another person's motives with certainty.

Personally, I think it's generally best to assume that most people have honest and respectable motives. We may get conned occasionally, but in my opinion this is a small price to pay for retaining a basic faith in human goodness. The alternative is to assume that only we ourselves and a few like-minded friends are "good," while everyone else is "bad," or at least profoundly defective. I tried that approach to life in my Ayn Rand days; I don't recommend it.

[Sandy]

Well said, MP!

[Cyrus]

Michael wrote,

"Since the greater part of humanity holds views contrary to your own, you seem to be led, by the logic of your position, to the conclusion that people in general are stupid, irrational, dishonest, and cowardly. I think this is what Cyrus means when he says he finds you cynical. He's not saying (I think) that we should trust everybody implicitly and believe everything we're told, but merely that we ought to give people the benefit of the doubt wherever possible. If otherwise sober and sensible people describe paranormal or spiritual experiences, there is nothing naive or inane about taking their claims seriously (while reserving the right to investigate further). "

Yes that's what I meant. I personally could not submit myself to a way of viewing life where I automatically discount the experiences of others.

The justice system agrees with me on this. A person can be convicted of murder without DNA evidence based on eyewitness testimonies of many reliable people.

There is no presupposition that "all people are inherently delusional and confused, regardless of circumstance".

What bothers me, Keith, is that it's possible to be on the other side of the aisle and still interact and discuss the common theme we are all interested in: the nature of existence, the supernatural, etc. It's possible to be involved, have healthy discussion, mutual respect, without resorting to political fervor. You come in fighting, ready to belittle people around you.

This isn't politics. We're not fighting over abortion rights, and we're not trying to sway the votes of a third party.

If your ultimate goal is to "win" the intellectual argument, consider that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Be open-minded, listen, talk, discuss, and present contrary opinions from a vantage of intellectual curiosity, not intellectual superiority.

If you practice this behavior, you and your infidels.org colleagues and others who consider themselves "skeptics" (a term I find laughable, to me you are not a skeptic in the slightest bit, maybe philosopher or hard-lining secular humanist, but not a skeptic) will find themselves:

- more accepted
- have an easier time getting points across
- more popular, not seen as internet jerks.

Try it,

[Keith Augustine]

MP: Though you're good at debating the evidence, Keith, you frequently adopt a sneering, belittling tone. You sometimes convey the impression that only those who hold your point of view are intelligent, rational, or willing to face reality, while all who disagree with you must be either stupid, crazy, or motivated by fear and denial.

It get frustrated when people who have done no homework on the topic under discussion (like "fear-death experiences") nevertheless challenge the basic facts of that discussion, facts that have already been established independently of the discussion at hand, simply because they never bothered to investigate it. Would you not get frustrated by someone who repeatedly insisted that there are no hellish NDEs? Why would I want to waste my time arguing back and forth that hellish NDEs happen, when no one but a single person who never read about them and refuses to do so now argues that they do not happen?

Your impression probably does not concern my reaction to those who merely reject my point of view, but my reaction to those who refuse to acknowledge facts that are agreed upon by all investigators, whatever their point of view. Like the fact that fear-death experiences happen, or that hellish NDEs happen.

I do get frustrated when individuals ask me to educate them when they are unwilling to educate themselves, or challenge me on erroneous facts ('Pam saw a bone saw well before flatline, therefore her experience occurred during flatline!?'), simply because they didn't even bother to check those facts before making their challenge.

MP: Since the greater part of humanity holds views contrary to your own, you seem to be led, by the logic of your position, to the conclusion that people in general are stupid, irrational, dishonest, and cowardly.

So it's not anything that I said, but the position that I hold, that forever brands me in a negative way. What you're saying, in effect, is that anyone who holds my position must be bad, and therefore in order to be good, persons like me would have to switch positions to a position more like yours. Is that it?

The greater part of humanity held views about the shape of the Earth contrary to those of Eratosthenes during the time he lived, because they thought the Earth flat, but he knew better, since the greater part of humanity didn't even know the facts he knew or what they meant had they known them. Did correctly disagreeing with the greater part of humanity automatically mean that Eratosthenes must've seen his contemporaries as "stupid, irrational, dishonest, and cowardly"--or simply uninformed about the facts, or lacking the requisite knowledge to make sense of them (like a layman trying to do a forensic analysis of a crime scene)?

MP: If otherwise sober and sensible people describe paranormal or spiritual experiences, there is nothing naive or inane about taking their claims seriously (while reserving the right to investigate further).

Otherwise sober and sensible people report technological craft of apparently no terrestrial origin, cryptoids, and a host of other things that you don't believe in. Shall we conclude that, because you don't accept all such widespread human testimony, you view those who do as "stupid, irrational, dishonest, and cowardly"?

Basically you are saying that if people report it, we should believe it, until proven erroneous. But you only say this for paranormal claims, and reserve the right to be skeptical of other kinds of "fringe" claims. If that point was valid, though, it would be valid across the board, not selectively.

MP: The whole argument about having the courage to face reality is a red herring anyway, since the point at issue is what exactly *is* reality.

It's not a red herring, because I was following up on a digression to another topic raised by W Vogt. If W Vogt had never posted here, there would've been no mention of having the courage to face reality. That was his issue, not mine. He said that he feared annihilation and wondered why anyone would want him to dissuade him of any glimmer of hope that there might be an afterlife, implicitly even if it was a fact that there was no afterlife, given that the belief was comforting. He changed the issue from what reality is to why anyone would want to reveal a depressing reality, not me.

MP: If reality includes a supernatural dimension, then arguably it is materialists who lack the courage to face reality.

If supernatural things were demonstrably real, and some people refused to acknowledge their reality, that would indeed be the case.

The issue is whether they are demonstrably real. So far they are not. The change of subject to motivation was not mine, but Vogt's.

[Keith Augustine]

Cyrus: ...your style of argument turns from debate and discussion into pure rancor.

For example?

Cyrus: I personally could not submit myself to a way of viewing life where I automatically discount the experiences of others.

I'll leave this one to Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason:

But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication — after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

Cyrus: The justice system agrees with me on this. A person can be convicted of murder without DNA evidence based on eyewitness testimonies of many reliable people.

And the Innocence Project was created the reverse the ill effects of convicting people based solely upon testimonial evidence.

Cyrus: It's possible to be involved, have healthy discussion, mutual respect, without resorting to political fervor.

This "healthy discussion, mutual respect, without resorting" to fervor that you speak of--might it look something like this:

* "Oops, it went over your head. I should have known better."

* "...ask your hard-headed materialist skull the question..."

* "I've seen some very unpleasant side-effects of materialist disease..."

* "...(a term I find laughable...)"

(Nevermind that "materialist" is your term, not mine. "Naturalist" is a more accurate term for my position, since qualia or abstract numbers are not supernatural under any conception, even though they are considered nonphysical by some philosophers.)

Cyrus: There is no presupposition that "all people are inherently delusional and confused, regardless of circumstance".

But when DNA evidence is available, it trumps eyewitness testimony, because it is more reliable than testimony. And that's because testimony alone is subject to error. And so-called "spectral evidence," which is testimony to in-principle unverifiable claims, is no longer accepted in courtrooms, since relying upon it led to the Salem witch trials.

Cyrus: If non existence cannot be observed, felt, experienced--as it is impossible to live in or dwell within this void of time and space, then non-existence, as a state of being, cannot exist.

Unconsciousness cannot be observed, felt, or experienced, and yet it exists. If a non-fatal blow to the head can cause it temporarily, a fatal blow to the head can cause it permanently. The "we cannot conceive of our own nonexistence" arguments are overrated. We can indeed know what a dreamless sleep is, and the only difference between it and death would be that the latter is permanent--a dreamless sleep from which one never awakes.

Cyrus: If it took 100 billion years for this random occurrence to happen again after you die, then you would have no awareness of it, because the space in between would be a non-existent gap. Therefore, the experience of death would be an instantaneous rebirth as some other form of conscious existence.

I don't accept Nietzsche's 19th-century theory of eternal recurrence, or that of the Hindus from whom he borrowed. I accept 21st century cosmology, which tells me that there will be no matter in the universe by the time of the Deep Freeze or the Big Rift. And well before then, all stars will stop shining for good, making the conditions for organic life anywhere impossible. We'll have gone extinct well before the last star stopped shining anyway. In fact, we'll almost certainly go extinct well before our Sun kills all life on Earth when it expands into a red giant star, which is "only" about 5 billion years from now--not long in cosmological time. Human beings have only been around for maybe 150,000 years so far; I doubt we'll be around even a million years from now.)

See Fred Adams and Gregory Laughlin's The Five Ages of the Universe on the likely cosmological future of the universe.

In short, I don't believe that the physical pattern that makes up my brain and body now will ever be repeated in the history of the universe. Eventually all that's left will be background heat and evaporating singularities.

[Ryan]

Brace yourself for the eschatological onslaught... :-)

[Sam]

I just wanted to say although I disagree with some of Keith's viewpoints, he has been, for the most part, one of the most reasonable people to participate in this discussion.

[Pat]

Can't we all get along? Disagreement is fine, but let's see each other as *people*, rather than looking at each other as *positions*.

[Pat]

as a follow-up and general reflection:

I love talking about these issues at bonfires with beer, smores, and friends :)

[Trev.]

Sam,come on man.
Calling Keith Augustine's debating technique reasonable is like calling crop sprayers subtle.

[Erich]

Keith, "I.... get frustrated when people who have done no homework on the topic under discussion (like "fear-death experiences") nevertheless challenge the basic facts of that discussion, facts that have already been established independently of the discussion at hand, simply because they never bothered to investigate it."

No one challenged in this way; not in this comments thread.

This is the type of dishonesty that undermines your ability to engage in reasonable discussion.

That a falling mountain climber can have an something like an NDE, while falling, even though he is relatively unharmed after impacting the ground, was never questioned. The fact of this type of NDE was known, to me at least, prior to you mentioning it.

What was questioned, and dismissed, was your conclusion that this type of NDE is caused by fear or expectation of death.

You are only frustrated because somone doesn't agree with your theory; a theory which is unproven speculation and for which there is ample evidence running contrary (like comabt troops not having NDEs in combat).

You never even did offer any reasonable proof other than to say something about doing homework and then your usual "what else could it be?". Neither of these are anything remotely resembling conclusive proof. Not in any science class in which I was ever enrolled nor in a court of law.

And that's another disturbing aspect of your debate style. You demand rock solid proof from anyone putting forth a paranormal interpretation, but you, yourself, are quite comfortable - nay satisfied - with a myriad of unproven speculation.

This approach works with your infidel buddies because they are already convinced. You are just like a preacher man, fanning the flames of the loyal flock's faith.

If you want to be taken seriously outside of your congregation you might want to consider some of the suggests that have been here.

[Erich]

But yes, Keith, it is frustrating to try to have a discussion with someone who hasn't done his home work.

Have you gotten caught up yet on the fact that anesthesia does kill patients of even routine procedures? Or that it is not too rare for a patient under anesthesia to die - due to the ane.s and/or other drugs - and be rescusitated? Such that it may not be anesthesia that causes NDEs (as in drug induced hallucinations), but that anesthesia is assocaited with NDEs because the patient is actually dying or dead?

Maybe these will pique your interest (just the first few google hits):

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,216578,00.html

http://expertpages.com/news/mortality_anesthesia.htm

http://www.prlog.org/10527116-wrongful-death-due-to-anesthesia.html

http://www.physiciansnews.com/spotlight/200wp.html

[Keith Augustine]

Erich: That a falling mountain climber can have an something like an NDE, while falling, even though he is relatively unharmed after impacting the ground, was never questioned. The fact of this type of NDE was known, to me at least, prior to you mentioning it.

Erich: What was questioned, and dismissed, was your conclusion that this type of NDE is caused by fear or expectation of death.

Alright Erich, let's put it another way. I've noted that there are numerous studies that conclude that fear alone sometimes causes NDEs. You know "of them"--but do you know of their discussions or examples of "fear-death experiences"? Why do I have the dig them up for you, when you are unwilling to do so yourself?

Nevertheless I will, because if I don't you'll never be forced to acknowledge their existence:

"A marine sergeant was instructing a class of young recruits at boot camp. He stood in front of a classroom holding a hand grenade as he explained the mechanism of pulling the pin to detonate the weapon. After commenting on the considerable weight of the grenade, he thought it would be useful for each of the recruits to get a "hands-on" feeling for its actual mass. As the grenade was passed from private to private, one 18-year-old recruit nervously dropped the grenade as it was handed him. Much to his horror, he watched the pin become dislodged as the grenade hit the ground. He knew he only had seconds to act, but he stood frozen, paralyzed with fear. The next thing he knew, he found himself traveling up through the top of his head toward the ceiling as the ground beneath him grew farther and farther away. He effortlessly passed through the ceiling and found himself entering a tunnel with the sound of wind whistling through it. As he approached the end of this lengthy tunnel, he encountered a light that shone with a special brilliance, the likes of which he had never seen before. A figure beckoned to him from the light, and he felt a profound sense of love emanating from the figure. His life flashed before his eyes in what seemed like a split-second. In midst of this transcendent experience, he suddenly realized that grenade had not exploded. He felt immediately "sucked" back into his body" (Gabbard and Twemlow 1991, p. 42).

Now that's one example from one study. How much more homework do I need to do for you? Will quoting one example/discussion from each study suffice (for 5 instances)? What about 3 each (for 15 instances). Just what would it take to demonstrate that fear alone can cause NDEs?

Erich: You are only frustrated because somone doesn't agree with your theory

That's incorrect. That people who are dying, or who otherwise think that they are dying, expect to die is not controversial. Nevertheless, I conceded that it is possible that NDEs occur when there is neither a medical threat nor an expectation of dying, but that if that happens, it must be pretty rare, given, for example, that Greyson, Kelly, and Kelly's definition of an NDE states that they occur "to people who have been physiologically close to death, as in cardiac arrest or other life-threatening conditions, or psychologically close to death, as in accidents or illnesses in which they feared they would die." If experts like Bruce Greyson, who have been studying NDEs since Moody put them in the spotlight, define NDEs in this way, there must be good grounds for such a definition.

That fear sometimes causes NDEs is a fact; I've mentioned that there are five studies documenting it, and you've mentioned none disputing it. Indeed, the five studies I had in mind, cited in my original article, had nothing to do with mountain climbing fall survivors, so if you wanted to add Albert Heim's late 19th century work, or Russell Noyes and Roy Kletti's follow-up on that work in the 1970s, that would add even further supporting evidence. On top of that, there are people who had NDEs when jumping from a bridge, but who didn't die when they impacted the water. But if you want to pretend that fear has nothing to do with such experiences, feel free; it's not my job to convince you of what research has already found.

Finally, dissociation is theorized as a cause of NDEs, but the rationale for theorizing it is not ideological, but data-driven, which is why near-death researchers who disagree with me posit it as well. Paraphrasing or quoting from my original essay:

1. As Carlos Avarado points out, citing the studies, dissociation has been consistently positively correlated with OBEs across studies.

2. Kenneth Ring and Christopher Rosing found that NDErs have significantly greater dissociative tendencies than non-NDErs, and suggested that childhood trauma makes victims more prone to dissociation and thus NDEs. Ring and Rosing view dissociative tendencies as a psychological defense mechanism to "tune out" physical threats to one's well-being while simultaneously opening a door to "alternate realities."

3. Harvey J. Irwin found that NDErs were more likely to have suffered childhood trauma than non-NDErs, and consequently theorized that NDErs are predisposed to dissociate during unexpected highly stressful situations in order to "escape" from the pain or anxiety of their environments.

4. Susan Blackmore considers "cases of severe pain, shock or fear [where] there is a strong incentive to dissociate oneself from the source of the pain" (Blackmore 1987, p. 57).

5. William Serdahely wrote: "For example, the woman who was sexually assaulted was able to dissociate from the trauma by having an out-of-body experience" (Serdahely 1995, p. 194)

6. Willoughby Britton and Richard Bootzin found that NDErs show a greater (but nonpathological) tendency to dissociate than non-NDErs.

7. In his commentary on my part 2, Peter Fenwick wrote that most spontaneous OBEs "are probably dissociative states in which the experiencer will gain no veridical perception away from the body" (Fenwick 1997, p. 46).

So the causal chain is quite reasonable on the basis of the data:

Expectation of death -> fear -> dissociation -> NDE

Of that chain, that fear causes NDEs is the only thing that I claimed was fact, and that is something which I can back up with the literature.

The rest of that chain is somewhat hypothetical, but well supported by the data, and thought to be the case my multiple near-death researchers.

Indeed, no part of that chain even requires you to deny that something leaves the body, as Kenneth Ring certainly thinks that something leaves the body in NDEs.

So let's be real here; it's not my theory that expectation of death can cause fear, which in turn can cause dissociation, which in turn can cause OBEs/NDEs. It's a data-driven theory which I find most likely, but which Carlos Alvarado, Harvey J. Irwin, Kenneth Ring, William Serdahely, and Susan Blackmore, at least, also seem to find most likely.

Erich: This approach works with your infidel buddies because they are already convinced.

My "infidel buddies" aren't necessarily interested in NDEs enough to have any opinion on whether the hypotheses which I lay out about them are true. Of all the previous or current members of the board of directors of Internet Infidels, only Jim Lippard comes to mind as someone interested in this topic.

Erich: You are just like a preacher man, fanning the flames of the loyal flock's faith.

What loyal flock is that? If there are people out there who appreciate my work, they are largely anonymous and unrevealed to me, so I have little idea of whether they are numerous or sparse, even among skeptics. I suspect that most skeptics are simply unaware of my work since I rarely hear anything from them.

Erich: Have you gotten caught up yet on the fact that anesthesia does kill patients of even routine procedures?

Are you aware that drivers can be killed while routinely driving to work?

Your presumption is that if an NDE occurs under general anesthesia, that NDEr must have come medically close to death while anesthetized. But you provide no evidence that this has happened, and the research itself describes such anesthesia as "uneventful," contrary to your presumptions. But I have no expectation that you'll let the facts get in the way of your presumptions, since you haven't up until this point and show no signs of budging.

Erich: Or that it is not too rare for a patient under anesthesia to die - due to the ane.s and/or other drugs - and be rescusitated?

And cardiac arrest while anesthetized has nothing to do with
uneventful general anesthesia. These people are being monitored, so if something medically happened the attending physicians would know about it. You're basically accusing every physician whose patient reports an OBE/NDE while anesthetized of a cover-up. And you think I'm being unreasonable? You're not one to judge, friend.

[Art]

"In midst of this transcendent experience, he suddenly realized that grenade had not exploded. He felt immediately "sucked" back into his body" (Gabbard and Twemlow 1991, p. 42). - Keith Augustine
-------------------------------------------

I find it rather comforting that the Creator the Universe (whomever or whatever that was) saw fit to design "it" so that we don't have to actually be inside or inhabiting our physical bodies at the exact moment of death?

NDE's also make it clear that the soul is only loosely attached to the body and so we also don't have to stay "inside" our bodies until it actually starts to decompose. I find that comforting. Who wants to be forced to stay attached to the body while it rots? All this constant bickering about how "dead" someone actually was when their soul exited the body is irrelevant. That's not how the system works. I reiterate, it's irrelevant.

For most at the exact moment of death, before the cells are even completely dead, I am confident "the real me" will pop out of this body and within seconds will be "in the light," where I'm hoping that my beloved mother, whom I haven't seen since I was fifteen years old, will be waiting there to greet me.

We are spiritual beings having a physical experience. The soul uses the body to learn about the physical universe, what time and space look and feel like, what it means and how it feels to be separate, and make memories of what it was like to live in a 3 dimensional + 1 time universe. The soul will use these memories to re-create whatever kind of reality it wants to because Heaven seems to be a place where thoughts are things and consciousness creates reality.

The soul's lessons are embedded in our everyday lives and it is holistically imprinted with what it needs to learn regardless of who we are, or where we live, or what we believe. Everyone experiences duality and separation, time and space, and what it was like to live in a 3 dimensional + 1 time Universe. Belief is irrelevant, aggreement is irrelevant, acceptance is irrelevant. You will become unassimilated and resistance is futile.

[alanborky]

Michael, there's a possibly apocryphal claim that Western military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan have been stopping local traffic by holding up the palm of their hands.

Now in both the Middle East and the Far East, the open palm is taken as a peaceful gesture: in Buddhism, for instance, it connotes: look, my open palm is empty of a weapon - and as a result locals, taking the gesture as an invitation to drive on by, have been shot to death by military personnel in fear they were suicide bombers on the attack.

Conversely, the Western military gesture to continue driving is to present the back of the hand and to beckon, but supposedly some locals've interpreted this 'concealment' of the palm as an aggressive gesture indicating they were being set-up, as a result of which they've turned around to head back where they've come from, only to be shot as terrorists fleeing.

Now whether or not any of this's true or not, it's a good illustration that some apparently common features in Western and Eastern NDEs mightn't be anything of the sort; and conversely, some which appear the exact opposite may in fact signify exactly the same thing.

It's what I call the interpretation problem, because people don't grasp just how much of what we perceive is merely a contemporary interpretation.

Two hundred years ago, beating an uppity black man might've been seen as an act of disciplinary kindness, in the same way some people beat their dogs to teach them good behaviour - some still recommend this as a tried and tested way to bring up kids.

Similarly, most people these days tend to think a man striking a woman's an appalling thing, yet I have female cousins and nieces who swear blind when their men gives them "a slap" it's a reassuring indication of love because it shows he's still interested; and the BBC soap Eastenders seems to go one better and say, while it's utterly wrong for men to harm women, it's perfectly acceptable for women to assault and even murder men.

And that sociological observation, what's socially acceptable varies - like fashion - from age to age, culture to culture, location to location, context to context, brings me to another point.

In all the spiritual traditions - from Sumerian, Ancient Egyptian, Hindu, Greek, Nordo-Germanic, South American onwards - there's this constant awareness that not only is one age inevitably superseded by another, but so are the gods themselves.

Even Jesus claimed he was only the latest upgrade of the Mosaic tradition, Muhammed was styled the final definitive instalment of a long sequence of prophets extending back into time out of mind, and Gautama very explicitly stated he was merely the latest incarnation of an endless chain of primordial Buddhas.

My point being, not only is it inherent in the scientific method what we take for reality is merely the latest interpretation predicated on whatever means're available to us to test and generate those interpretations, but all the spiritual traditions - including the supposedly incomprehensibly wacky ones like Gnosticism - take exactly the same tack.

In which case, shouldn't we expect NDE reports to vary from age to age, culture to culture, individual to individual, etc?

[Trev.]

Don't think 'the bit' about Jesus is quite right, Alan. Jesus didn't say there was anybody else coming... he'd fulfilled the old testament prophesies and that was meant to be that.

[Kris]

I am in the military

A fist means stop in Iraq. They would not stop for an open hand. It has no meaning to them at least with traffic.

Been to Iraq. When you want to move traffic forward you just wave them on like you do in the US.

[Art]

The fact that the soul can exit the body before the body is completely and utterly dead is a great kindness and shows a little bit of God's love for us. I doubt anyone would prefer to stay in the body till it starts to decompose and rot. That would be pretty disgusting and gross.

[Michael Prescott]

Keith wrote, "What you're saying, in effect, is that anyone who holds my position must be bad, and therefore in order to be good, persons like me would have to switch positions to a position more like yours. Is that it?"

No, I don't think you're a bad person. I just think you've adopted a view of humanity that is somewhat disrespectful and uncharitable. I used to hold the same kind of view in my Ayn Rand days. I wouldn't say I was a bad person then, but I was less tolerant and less kind than I might have been.

A book you might enjoy reading is "Nasty People," by Jay Sherman. Sherman makes the point that *all* of us are "nasty people" in some circumstances, and *all* of us are victims of "nasty people" in other circumstances. It's part of the human condition. But there are ways to become aware of these traits in ourselves and others, and to counter them, so that we no longer are either victims or victimizers. Then when people are nasty to us, we don't have to be nasty back. And this in turn makes it less likely that they will be nasty to us in the future. It's a short but surprisingly deep little book.

As for fear-death experiences, I don't think anyone familiar with the literature disputes that they occur. The question is whether they are purely a psychological defense reaction, or whether they are an actual out-of-body experience prompted by the expectation of imminent death. Is the person fantasizing about a heavenly experience in order to avoid facing the (apparent) fact of his own impending death, or has his soul actually, albeit momentarily, separated from his body? If the soul can separate from the body on other occasions, as in sleep or deep meditation, then why not when faced with death? Perhaps the connection between body and soul is more tenuous than we assume. The physical body is pretty fragile, and the soul is thought to be indestructible, so it may make sense for the soul to be easily jettisoned from the body in a crisis.

I see it kind of like a pilot hitting the eject button as his plane is going down. In some cases, maybe the plane wasn't actually in a death spiral and the pilot hit the button too quickly. It's his *belief* that the plane is going to crash that makes him eject. Whether he is motivated by fear or simply by his training is debatable; the expectation of imminent death produces paralyzing fear in some people, while other people seem to react by becoming energized and focused, even exhilarated.

[Sam]

An interesting question to me is whether NDEs are caused solely by expectation of death, or if they can be shown to also be caused by the actual beginning of the death process, regardless of expectations.

If NDEs really are a sort of psychological defense mechanism brought by on by fear of imminent death, it seems to me to be one of the least likely traits that could ever possibly evolve through natural selection. Especially considering how complex the NDE process must be to produce so particular and vivid an experience.

[Erich]

Keith, I don't know how else to state what I already have such that you will comprehend. Once more - and yes, I am aware of all of the instances that you cite - you cannot prove that "fear" caused the NDE like experience.

To say it did is completely sloppy thinking. Fear may have been present in some instances, but that doesn't make it the cause of the NDE.

Science 101, correlation does not equal causation, OK?

[Michael Prescott]

Oops. I got the author's name wrong. Jay Carter (not Jay Sherman) is the author of "Nasty People."

Amazon page:

tiny.cc/oz9jf

The title of the book is somewhat misleading, since the point is not to accuse other people of being nasty or mean, but rather to see how certain blind spots and insecurities in all of us can lead to counterproductive behavior. It's a dynamic that crops up in many social interactions. Becoming more aware of it can help us to discourage this kind of stereotypical behavior in ourselves and others.

I think anyone can benefit from reading this book. I certainly did.

[Zetetic_chick]

I ask the readers to see if these Keith's statements are logically consistent:

First inconsistency

I never believed in an afterlife or a spiritual realm, even as a child, for one simple reason: I've never encountered anything remotely like such things.

Look that the explicit reason for Keith's skepticism is his personal experience.

He still admits that personal experience would quelle his skepticism: "And my skepticism could be quelled by... (an) unambiguous personal encounter"

In other words, Keith's personal experience counts both in favor of his skepticism of the spiritual and as a possible evidence for it (if he experience it).

But when it comes to other people personal experiences, he appeals to Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason:

But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only

If it's true, why should we rely in Keith's skepticism based on his personal experience?

His personal experience, being personal, only counts for him, not for us. So we have no basis to be skeptical based on Keith's personal reasons to be skeptic.

Keith problably will reply (in addition to using some clever tu quoque) that he is not claiming that his personal experiences should count as evidence for others. But then what's the point of bringing his personal experience in this discussion?

If his personal experiences justifiy his skepticism, then Zerdini's personal experiences justify his belief in survival. So appealling to personal experiences is trivial and useless since that it produces incompatible results.

On the other hand, Keith's anti-spiritual belief is based on lack of experience of the spiritual; not a positive evidence for its non-existence (at most, the latter is an inference from the former to the latter; and an inference refuted by other people's experiences, like Zerdini's, who appealing to personal experience can relate positive evidence for the spiritual).

So Keith's lack of experience is not comparable to people with POSITVE spiritual experiences.

Second inconsistency

Keith's epistemology seems to be based on sensory perception when he argues against the immaterial (implying that immaterial spirits, God, etc. cannot exist because they're not observable):

Their reality was not convincing to me in the way that the reality of trees was. So I didn't put much stock in them. That is the genesis of my skepticism; I never believed in the first place

The implication of that quote is that in order to believe in something, that something has be convincing in the same or similar way than a tree (i.e. through sensory perception); otherwise skepticism is warranted.

But look how Keith argues when he needs to defend the reality of the non-observable things in order to contradict Cyrus:

Unconsciousness cannot be observed, felt, or experienced, and yet it exists.

In other words, non-observable things can exist. If it's correct, then why something need to be convincing in the same (observable) way than we observe a tree in order to believe in it? Is our knowledge of abstract entities like numbers convincing in the same way than a tree is?

This is why I've reapeated several times that Keith is more interested in winning short-term arguments than in being logically consistent in defense of his position. There is not point in arguing with someone like that.

Third inconsistency

Keith compares souls with abstract entities in order to justify skepticism regarding them:

So when I heard of such things as souls, and knew that biology or psychology textbooks didn't so much as use that word, they seemed like mere abstractions to me, ideas that could be true but for which we had no clear evidence. They were abstract possibilities, not facts.

So if a soul is like a "mere abstraction" to him, and for this reason he's skeptical of them, then Keith should be skeptical of abstract objects like propositions, numbers and values.

On the other hand, Keith considers an spirit like something supernatural; but abstract numbers (what Keith should reject) is included by him as an unproblematic part of nature even if they're not physical:

"Naturalist" is a more accurate term for my position, since qualia or abstract numbers are not supernatural under any conception, even though they are considered nonphysical by some philosophers

But how does Keith explain that a physical beings like humans can have epistemic access to nonphysical things like numbers?

And if qualia is nonphysical, how does Keith explain that a physical brain produces a nonphysical property? How does he explain that a nonphysical property like qualia can have efficacy on the physical world (i.e. in case of reasoning as a logically previous condition to write coherent arguments in this blog)?

Keith cannot defend these beliefs, except with fallacies like tu quoques

Fourth Inconsistency

In his writing works and comments here, Keith ask for "incontrovertible" evidence for the paranormal in order to accept it.

In the thread "No so blind", Keith wrote: "Your incontrovertible evidence of veridical paranormal perception simply doesn't exist. No misdirection will change that fact. Only providing such evidence, as AWARE aims to do, or as Ian Stevenson's combination lock test aims to do, will change it"

He's asking for incontrovertible evidence for the paranormal ir order to accept its existence.

But Keith has said too that he would accept the paranormal based on his personal experience: "And my skepticism could be quelled by... (an) unambiguous personal encounter"

And here we have the obvious inconsistency: How would Keith conciliate his personal experience of afterlife with the (controvertible) evidence for it from parapsychology? Would Keith accept his personal experience OVER the controvertial scientific evidence?

He faces a dilemma: If he accepts his personal experience over the scientific evidence, he cannot dismiss anymore the personal experiences of afterlife of people like Sandy or Zerdini.

And in this case his "uncontrovertible" objection is purely rhetorical and intented to win arguments, since that controvertible evidence (like Keith seeing a ghost or talking with a deceased relative in his house, evidence that wouldn't convince any scientist) can convince him of the existence of the afterlife.

In other words, Keith would accept personal evidence for the afterlife, even if it's scientitically controvertible.. Hence, uncontrovertible scientific evidence is not a necessary condition to have a rational belief in the afterlife.

Given that Keith (predictably and smartly) "forgot" to answer to my "10 questions for Keith" in the "no so blind" thread, I'll write them here again.

I hope Keith won't chicken away again from these questions. But I predict that if he dares to reply to them, he'll do with TU QUOQUES, MISREPRESENTATIONS OF THE QUESTIONS and FALSE ANALOGIES. Let's see if my prediction is confirmed...:

1-Keith is the executive director of an naturalist organization whose explicit mission and purpose is the promoting and defense of a naturalistic worldview

http://www.infidels.org/

My straightforward question is: What does "promotion" and "defense" of a naturalistic worldview mean, imply or entail when examining the evidence for survival?

2-Is accepting the evidence for survival (and hence for the supernatural) compatible with that explicit purpose of your organization? Does not it causes a conflict of interests?

3-If afterlife evidence were discussed in a cour of law, and based on the explicit purposes and mission of the secular web and infidels, does Keith think that such court of law would accept the testimony of a person who belong to an anti-survivalist organization as an unbiased expert testimony about NDEs?

4-How does Keith Augustine avoid, psychologically, that the purpose of your organization conflicts with the (possible, for the argument's sake) evidence for survival?

What method do you use for attaining such impartiality and objectivity, in spite of your professional and personal commitments with an organization with an explicit anti-survivalist mission?

5-How do you explain that most leading NDE researchers don't accept your hallucinatory hypothesis?

6-If your answer for the question 5 is that most NDE researchers are biased against the hallucinatory hypothesis, what prevent a member (like you) of the secular web, whose explicit mission is explicitly anti-survival, of having a similar bias (in favor of the hallucinatory hypothesis)?

7-You have said that a positive AWARE result will convince you of the survival hypothesis for some NDEs. What would you consider, exactly, a "positive" evidence in the AWARE study?

8-In reply to Gerald's question, Vitor mentioned a paper entitled "A CASE OP APPARENT COMMUNICATION THROUGH A MEDIUM BY A PERSON LIVING, BUT SUFFERING FROM SENILE DEMENTIA." Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, nº 21, May 1923, pp. 87-92" which can be downloaded here:

Download link:
http://www.4shared.com/file/235208907/3f6d871a/piper1923.html

Gerald apparently didn't dare or want to comment or answer to it, in spite of being a relevant paper and straightforward reply to his explicit question.

My question for you is: Don't you consider such paper as evidence against the production hypothesis and in favor of survival?

I'm not asking if it's "uncontrovertible" evidence, only if, in your view, it is evidence at all.

9-What would happen if, after examining the evidence for survival, you're reasonably well satisfied that the evidence is good but it's even controversial for other people?

Would you accept the evidence based on your own personal critical evaluation, or you'd dismiss it because it's even controversial for other people?

Perhaps I could formulate this question in a better way like this: What kind of claim would Keith Augustine accept to be true based on scientific evidence, even if it's still controversial for mainstream science?

Or would you surrender to the "controvertial" status of the evidence for mainstream science, even if you conclude after personal examination and in depth research that the evidence is good?

This question is intented to see the degree of Keith's intellectual independency as a free thinker.

10-Would you abandon or leave the infidel organization if positive evidence for survival is found in the AWARE study?

[Keith Augustine]

Erich: Fear may have been present in some instances, but that doesn't make it the cause of the NDE.

In that case, cardiac arrest may have been present in some instances, but that doesn't make it the cause of the NDE. Correlation is not causation, after all.

Did the recruit who dropped the dummy grenade have his NDE at that exact moment (a moment of fear) purely by coincidence? Is it just a coincidence that the NDE ended at precisely the moment the recruit realized that there was no threat?

Since you doubt that fear had anything to do with why the recruit had his NDE, why not go for total epistemic skepticism about NDEs while you are at it? That is: what reason do you have to believe that an actual experience caused the report of an experience? Could reports of NDEs exist even if there were no NDEs?

How far do you want to take it?

By your reasoning, there is no reason to think that any precipitating factor is ever a cause of an NDE. If one can doubt an immediately precipitating psychological factor consistent across NDErs as a cause, then one can doubt an immediately precipitating medical factor consistent across NDErs as a cause, too. Does it ever end?

Maybe smoking has nothing to do with lung cancer, if consistent correlation is not indicative of causation. Sometimes correlation is indicative of causation, as you yourself believe.

Perhaps you can enlighten the rest of us why fear is not a candidate cause of NDEs, but cardiac arrest is a candidate cause.

What makes cardiac arrest relevant to the NDE's occurrence, but fear irrelevant to its occurrence?

I'll bet you can't answer the question, but I'll take a stab at one: both are causally relevant to the occurrence of NDEs, such that if they were not present in the cases under consideration, an NDE would not have occurred (i.e., a counterfactual approach).

Your untenable position entails that if the recruit had not been afraid, he would have had his NDE nonetheless. That's so incredibly implausible that it speaks for itself.

[Trev.]

Keith,
I'm not convinced by your arguments, but you would make a very good crapet salesman.

[Trev.]

OOPS,
I meant carpet, sorry.

[Erich]

Keith, I hope I'm not conforming to the charasteristics of one of those "nasty" people, but you are really flying off the handle now. You appear to have abandoned all attempts at scientific reasoning.

I am saying that we don't know what triggers an NDE. Many flatlined people - brain or cardiac - don't have NDEs. Most people in extremely fearful situations don't have NDEs.

Some minority of people in these situations do.

We don't know what makes the difference. I don't. You don't.

You are the one who wants to be all scientific about the topic. Fine. Let's do it.

First, you presume/assume fear is the dominant mind set in those accounts that involve situations like the grenade or a fall off a mountain. Why? Is this based on some "everybody knows" type argument. That is not science. I have already proposed one alternative; surrender of ones ego to oblivion. I am not saying that my alternative is correct. I will say that it is coherent with spiritual doctrine. Doesn't matter. There are alternatives to your supposition of fear, but you stubbornly refuse to consider the possibility. That is not science.

Second, and worse from a scientific standpoint, the correlation between fear and NDE is miniscule to point of statistical insignificance. I must reject that explanation.

I am one who works with statistics every day and I will happily go farther into that arena with you if you wish.

Aside from personal experiences, I accept the survival hypothesis based on the meta statistical probabilities associated with details in NDE reports (actually I have accepted my own experiences only on the same basis).

You, on the other hand, with your scattershot "could have been this", "could have been that" case by case "debunking" offend my sense of analysis and that is my main probalem with you. There is no science. There is no meaningful analysis. There is only dogma.

In your hyperactive cleverness you become incoherent.

[Zetetic_chick]

You, on the other hand, with your scattershot "could have been this", "could have been that" case by case "debunking" offend my sense of analysis and that is my main probalem with you. There is no science. There is no meaningful analysis. There is only dogma

Erich, this "it could have been" kind of fallacy is used in order to appeal to logical possibilities compatible with naturalism as a way to disbelieve in survival.

Neal Grossman explained how this "could have been" fallacy is used by afterlife debunkers like Keith:

http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/GrossmanLetter.pdf

(As expected, Keith replied to Grossman's charge with a tu quoque fallacy)

To be honest, I'd suggest not to engage in a debate with Keith about the afterlife. Whoever has debated with Keith these matters will tell you that it's impossible to have a constructive dialogue with him.

You'll feel intellectually offended each time you see your arguments intentionally misrepresented, or replied to with double standards, tu quoques and false analogies about Big foots, the bermude triangle or ufos used as "arguments" against your points.

If all of this fails, Keith will try to make you feel guilty adopting a smart victimization strategy, for example, in his reply to Michael: "What you're saying, in effect, is that anyone who holds my position must be bad, and therefore in order to be good, persons like me would have to switch positions to a position more like yours."

Look in Keith's simplistic "Good vs. Bad" reply, implying that if Michael is right, Keith must be "bad" (hence, he tried to make Michael felt guilty by his comment)

I've mentioned this kind of victimization strategy before.

Personally, I get very annoyed by Keith's continuous use of tu quoques and false analogies about Yeties and ufos, because it's an insult to logic; but his victimizations really get me angry (because in addition to being pathetic, they're clearly manipulative).

But I think it provides evidence that the case for survival is not so bad after all. If to argue against it you need to use a bunch of logical fallacies, tu quoques and false analogies about Yetis and victimizations, then perhaps it's due to the case not being so easily refutable using the cold instruments of reason, logic and evidence alone.

Perhaps Keith would be a good conversational partner regarding sports or other naturalism-irrelevant matters. But not about the afterlife.

In any case, I confess to being very curious about Keith's replies to my above "10 questions for Keith"

[Cyrus]

Keith,

You wanted me to point out how I feel your debating style matches the rancor of a politician. Alright, I’ll show you some techniques that you use.

Everyone is guilty of some of this to an extent, including myself. So, I hope this post will at least be educational.

If you are wondering why things turn so sour, so fast, perhaps this will shed some light.

- Tactic 1: Using condescending tactics

Being condescending serves two purposes in politics: the first is that it presents the opponent in a lower (“beta” if you will) status compared to the other person in the debate. The second is that it gets the emotional juices flowing. When you upset your opponent, his or her argument will slowly fall to pieces. Humans are very sensitive, and will pick up on a tone that’s “snippy” or hostile.

Case in point: me. As I read your posts, I got ticked off by your writing style which came across as very aggressive to the collected integrity of people who post here. So, I started to belittle you (calling you “laughable” as a skeptic). It’s true that this further erodes civility. I agree 100% that this and other statements I made towards you were me falling into the same line of discourse that I can’t stand. I apologize.

Ex. 1: Erich writes: “Well, how does an unconscious, flat lined person, like Pam Reynolds and numerous other operating room cases have a psychological reaction?”

Keith writes, “Do you even bother to read what I've already written on this case before asking me about it?”

This has the tone of a boss scolding an intern. This is not a good way to keep things civil.

Ex. 2: Erich refers to an argument of Keiths as “pseudo-intellectual”. This is incredibly condescending and clearly set things to a sour note. The fact that something is being thoughtfully discussed makes it intellectual. To call it non-intellectual turns things personal. I would be highly, highly offended.

- Tactic 2: Intellectual superiority in a prefix (or “I guess I’ll deal with these ignorant opinions now…” )

Or in your case

“Leo, do you even bother to read what I've said about this case before commenting?”

(Whether he read it or not, this is not necessary)

“Although I regret the change of subject, I'll play along with the predictable derail from the opening post.”

The opening post is predictably derailed? Perhaps because the people who post here are, naturally, flakes who digress into other points due to their lack of brains? That might not be your intended interpretation, but it’s very easy for people to translate it that way. People may not come out and admit it, but they will read things like that, feel offended, and become more hostile towards you.

And, to say you “play along” has a connotation that this is something you don’t take very seriously, that this is just a circus of idiots. Again, feels like political rancor. A debate with mutual respect would never require setting up a post with a sense of condescension to the opponent.

A non-hostile response: “I feel this topic has swerved from my original intended subject. But, I’ll go ahead and address these points as well.” To word anything less politely than this amounts to fire-and-brimstone arguing.

- Finally, tactic 3 – Intellectual sleight-of-hand.

It is very easy to take a point somebody else tries to make, and VERY slightly change the meaning to create a new context. The new context becomes easier to address. Ex:

I wrote,
Cyrus: “I'm quite pleased to say that I believe NDEs are related to the afterlife based on the trust of countless thousands of anecdotal experiences.”

Issue presented: Is anecdotal evidence of the same caliber as scientifically tested evidence?

Keith writes, “In that case, I've got thousands of testimonials about how my product changed people's lives for the better to share with you. Care to buy my product? :)”

New Issue: Can fake testimonials of anecdotal evidence sway the public?

The question is no longer whether anecdotal evidence has value in the NDE, the issue becomes fake testimonials written for business purposes. Attempting to link these two pieces almost fits, but it doesn’t. People don’t sell most NDEs. Very, very few become books. Business testimonials are far different from accounts of personal experiences related to consciousness which are researched by professionals.

It would not be intellectual sleight-of-hand to argue that anecdotal experiences, as they relate to consciousness, are unreliable due to the subjective nature of the experience. But, this argument would not be as strong as the conveniently constructed business analogy. Why? Because the NDE has many defined elements and anomalous circumstances which are too compelling to be dismissed by the notion that an NDEr could be simply making stuff up like a book-salesman.

Instead of choosing the less-favorable but more accurate argument, sleight-of-hand is used to reframe the context of what I wrote.

In summary, to Keith: You are coming into a lions den of people with different viewpoints from yours. To create posts to challenge our well-researched opinions in a way that is anything but CIVIL and POLITE will ALWAYS be a disaster.

You blame hostile reactions as our insecurity by you "unweaving our rainbows". No. It's hostility against somebody who bounces in with arrogance and rancor.

I guarantee you, that if your first posts in a new topic by Michael Prescott had a simple sentence like...

"Hi, I know everybody here shares very different opinions from my own. I respect your research and ideas, but I have very different conclusions about survival after death. For an example, allow me to share some information about my work on the NDE."

Is this so hard to write? To express some respect would go a very long way. I've been reading MP's posts for a long time and people around here generally don't argue with flames and pitch-forks--and not everyone who posts here agrees, some people around here are skeptics. The fact that only YOU turn things this sour makes me think it's largely attributed to your lack of respect, "coming in with guns blazing" style of posting.

[dmduncan]

Yep. When you go into a saloon with guns drawn, you'll be running out with bullets flying.

[Keith Augustine]

ZC: Look that the explicit reason for Keith's skepticism is his personal experience.

My God, an empiricist relying on experience to decide what's real. Has the world turned upside down?!

ZC: In other words, Keith's personal experience counts both in favor of his skepticism of the spiritual and as a possible evidence for it (if he experience it).

My God, an empiricist bases his conclusions on actual experiences, rather than merely imagined ones! Shall we shun scientists for testing theories based on actual observations, too?

Tell me, ZC, does your personal experience, or lack thereof, with little grey aliens, have anything to do with your inclination to believe or disbelieve in them?

ZC: But when it comes to other people personal experiences, he appeals to Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason

As you undoubtedly do when it comes to the things that you don't believe in.

I can feel it coming already: tu quoque, tu quoque! But it would only be tu quoque if you conceded that you should believe in greys, reptilians, Nordic aliens, chupacabra, etc, simply because other people report personal experiences of such. Do you concede that you should believe in all those things? Multiple people have reported them.

If you can be justifiably skeptical of their "Forteana," I can be justifiably skeptical of yours. At least I'm consistent with my skepticism, rather than being a cafeteria believer, favoring only the testimony I like and throwing out all the rest.

ZC: If it's true, why should we rely in Keith's skepticism based on his personal experience?

ZC: Keith problably will reply (in addition to using some clever tu quoque) that he is not claiming that his personal experiences should count as evidence for others.

Would that reply be unreasonable, ZC? Am I bound by some straw man of yours to hold that my personal experiences should count as evidence for others? I would think that each person's own personal experiences ought to count for evidence for oneself.

When William James held that mystical experiences might be evidence for the mystic, but are not necessarily evidence for anyone else, was he wrong?

Why do you even make an argument whose refutation you anticipate?

ZC: But then what's the point of bringing his personal experience in this discussion?

To allow you to pursue this red herring, of course.

I mentioned it only because william had conjectured that many atheists "feel hoodwinked by religious beliefs that are often religious dogma so they have become nonbelievers in spite of the evidence." I wanted to resist his conjecture by noting that it did not apply in my case, as I never had religious beliefs to become disillusioned about later. I never bought the fairy tales in the first place.

What's the point in william bringing his conjecture to this discussion? And once brought, is if off limits for me to reply to it? Do I need your permission about what to respond to here, Ms. Hall Monitor?

And what's your point in digressing from the opening entry, about sociological NDE motifs? To reply to other comments that deviate from that? If you're allowed to do it, so am I.

ZC: If his personal experiences justifiy his skepticism, then Zerdini's personal experiences justify his belief in survival.

As I've said myself before on this blog--so what's your point?

ZC: So appealling to personal experiences is trivial and useless since that it produces incompatible results.

I never said that my personal experiences were a reason for anyone else to believe whatever he or she believes. To each his own. I'm sure Zerdini feels the same way.

Nevertheless, my personal experiences, like Zerdini's, surely have something to do with why each of us believes what we do. As is the case for ZC herself. Can I go back to judging reality by my experiences of it now, just like everyone else does, Ms. Hall Monitor? I promise I'll ask for your permission first next time!

ZC: On the other hand, Keith's anti-spiritual belief is based on lack of experience of the spiritual; not a positive evidence for its non-existence.

And your positive evidence for the nonexistence of the Loch Ness monster is what, remind me?

ZC: So Keith's lack of experience is not comparable to people with POSITVE spiritual experiences.

My God, you've solved the puzzle! ZC's lack of experience with chupacabras is not comparable to people with POSITVE experiences of it!

ZC: Keith's epistemology seems to be based on sensory perception when he argues against the immaterial (implying that immaterial spirits, God, etc. cannot exist because they're not observable):

Wrong, though this is a common canard by unreflective religious people ("Just because you can't see and touch it doesn't mean it's not real!).

Since you know that I believe in electrons, ZC, you know that this is false--so why do you say this? Guess what makes electrons different from gods? I can detect electrons by their effects even if I can't see them with my eyes. The effects of gods, by contrast, are nowhere to be found.

ZC: The implication of that quote is that in order to believe in something, that something has be convincing in the same or similar way than a tree (i.e. through sensory perception); otherwise skepticism is warranted.

You know that that's not true, since you knew that I believed in things that I can't see or taste, like electrons, before making your post. Why do you start from straw man, then?

There is no implication from that quote. My point was simply that trees obviously existed, and spirits did not obviously exist. The same point could be made about physical things, like chupacabras.

ZC: In other words, non-observable things can exist.

I can't observe what's inside of a black hole, and yet the inside of a black hole exists, yes. Care to offer any different straw men?

ZC: If it's correct, then why something need to be convincing in the same (observable) way than we observe a tree in order to believe in it?

No one ever said that it did, other than you while generating your straw men.

The point about trees was that they had been observed (and so obviously existed), not that they could be. Chupacabras could be observed, but wasn't, and so did not obviously exist. I put spirits in the same category as chupacabras. Potentially detectable, but not detected.

ZC: Is our knowledge of abstract entities like numbers convincing in the same way than a tree is?

Nope. Did anyone say that it was? And, as a matter of fact, I don't commit to the existence of abstract entities; I simply don't rule them out. I'm agnostic about whether or not they exist, since the pro and con arguments are a wash.

ZC: This is why I've reapeated several times that Keith is more interested in winning short-term arguments than in being logically consistent in defense of his position.

Sure--it's easy to make someone else's position inconsistent when you get to assign what his position is, instead of letting him decide that himself. I could use straw men on you, too, but I see no need to argue fallaciously. When you have reason on your side there is no need to make fallacious, easily exposed arguments like those I'm responding to now.

ZC: Keith compares souls with abstract entities in order to justify skepticism regarding them

It's funny that you say that, because I regard abstract entities as "ideas that could be true but for which we [have] no clear" reason to affirm. They are abstract possibilities with pros and cons that are hard to weigh, not facts. Did I ever say that they must exist, rather than that they might?

ZC: On the other hand, Keith considers an spirit like something supernatural; but abstract numbers (what Keith should reject) is included by him as an unproblematic part of nature even if they're not physical

Actually, I don't regard abstract numbers, Platonisticly conceived, as a part of nature, though on an Aristotelian conception, they would be a part of nature. I don't deny that there could be more than nature. What I reject is that anything outside of nature causes changes within nature, for if that were the case, we should see those events that could not be naturally produced, and yet, while there are claims of such, there is never any unambiguous evidence of such.

ZC: But how does Keith explain that a physical beings like humans can have epistemic access to nonphysical things like numbers?

I don't! That's one of the cons of Platonic realism. One possible solution to that problem is to posit Aristotelian realism instead. Or nominalism for that matter.

You seem to sense some problem with naturalism here, but there isn't one. Your problem is a problem for Platonic realism. To see that, humor me, ZC. Suppose you are a Platonic realist, and a supernaturalist. How would you explain how humans can have epistemic access to nonphysical things like numbers? Can you do it? Does the human mind go through a wormhole to Platonia, and then make a return trip, or something like that?

The fact that you can't answer shows that this is a problem for Platonic realism, and that denying naturalism doesn't make the problem go away. The problem remains even if you suppose that the supernatural exists.

ZC: And if qualia is nonphysical, how does Keith explain that a physical brain produces a nonphysical property?

I didn't claim that there necessarily are nonphysical qualia, only that there might be. If you really want to know the answer, though, read David Chalmer's The Conscious Mind (1996). I'm agnostic as to what the correct solution to the mind-body problem. I just don't think it's substance dualism. But there are any number of alternatives to that; neutral monism, perhaps.

ZC: How does he explain that a nonphysical property like qualia can have efficacy on the physical world (i.e. in case of reasoning as a logically previous condition to write coherent arguments in this blog)?

Epiphenomenalism is self-stultifying, IMO, for exactly that reason. It's basically the parallel problem for Platonic realism. The solution, it would seem, would be any other mind-body theory than epiphenomenalism. But that doesn't mean substance dualism is true. Maybe Aristotle's hylomorphism is closer to the truth of the mind-body relation. Most of these theories are empirically indistinguishable, as far as I can see, so choose between them is a nonstarter as far as I'm concerned. But this is not the case for substance dualism versus it's monistic alternatives (whether property dualism and the substance monism that it assumes, neutral monism, nonreductive physicalism, reductive physicalism, or something else). Saying there are two substances that can exist independently of each other seems to have different testable implications than any theory that claims that there is only one substance.

ZC: He's asking for incontrovertible evidence for the paranormal ir order to accept its existence.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, yes. I know you guys tend to attack that heuristic, but you accept it, rightly, in other circumstances, such as when the extraterrestrial visitation hypothesis is the issue instead.

ZC: And here we have the obvious inconsistency: How would Keith conciliate his personal experience of afterlife with the (controvertible) evidence for it from parapsychology? Would Keith accept his personal experience OVER the controvertial scientific evidence?

Yes, I would!

I know you like playing stump the skeptic, ZC, which is probably why you are not worth talking to. But that's fine--I'll answer you for the sake of the lurkers.

If an extraterrestrial spacecraft hovered 10 feet over me, I could not deny that this had happened. My experience, being subjective, would not be scientific evidence, and I would not expect other people to believe that extraterrestrials are visiting us just on my testimony. They would understandably want something more concrete than that--a piece of the craft, say. Just as I would if I were in their place, and they were in mine.

The difference is that, in real life, no extraterrestrial spacecraft has hovered 10 feet over me, so when other people claim such things, I want more than their testimony. I want a piece of the craft. Given that this is a pretty extraordinary claim, I don't think that's too much to ask for. And probably you feel the same way about extraterrestrial visitation.

Now just apply the same rationale to beliefs involving spirits, and you'll see that we reason in the same way, only I do so consistently across the board, while you arbitrarily make an exception for the sorts of ideas that you favor. Some people believe in extraterrestrials and not spirits, and some believe in spirits but not extraterrestrials; but provided that a person has not personally experienced either, one should be equally skeptical of both, or equally credulous about both, to be consistent.

ZC: He faces a dilemma: If he accepts his personal experience over the scientific evidence, he cannot dismiss anymore the personal experiences of afterlife of people like Sandy or Zerdini.

If I personally saw a technological craft of no conceivable terrestrial origin 10 feet above me, then I would have knowledge that someone who has never seen such a thing lacks.

That would not be scientific knowledge, but personal revelation. I would know it, but others would not. Thomas Paine's point is unimpeachable. But given that I know that extraterrestrial visitation sometimes does happen (in this scenario), I would have much less reason to doubt that someone else saw such a craft. That doesn't mean other people should become less skeptical. Those who have experienced no such revelation would understandably want better evidence than my or others' say-so.

A personal revelation that there are some extraterrestrial spacecraft is a different situation from when the very existence of any such craft is what's in doubt.

ZC: And in this case his "uncontrovertible" objection is purely rhetorical and intented to win arguments, since that controvertible evidence (like Keith seeing a ghost or talking with a deceased relative in his house, evidence that wouldn't convince any scientist) can convince him of the existence of the afterlife.

Just as your personal experience of a craft 10 feet above you would convince you that such craft exist. Are you convinced that such craft exist just based on the testimony of, say, the former governor of Arizona? Why or why not? If you are not convinced, is that because of "purely rhetorical" tactics, or because you really don't think there are any extraterrestrial craft?

ZC: In other words, Keith would accept personal evidence for the afterlife, even if it's scientitically controvertible.. Hence, uncontrovertible scientific evidence is not a necessary condition to have a rational belief in the afterlife.

I never said that it was a necessary condition--for someone who has had a personal revelation. Those who have no experience with spirits, or greys, or reptilians, or chupacabras should remain skeptical, however, that there are such things, in the absence of clear scientific evidence for them. But if a chupcabras jumped on top of your windshield and stared you down, that's a different story, obviously.

Given that Keith (predictably and smartly) "forgot" to answer to my "10 questions for Keith" in the "no so blind" thread, I'll write them here again.

ZC: I hope Keith won't chicken away again from these questions.

I didn't chicken out before, ZC; I had to choose between replying to Julio's critique of my JNDS exchange and answering you, not having had the time to do both; and I poorly chose to reply to Julio's critique (and I only say poorly because Julio decided not to publish my reply with his critique, making it wasted work).

ZC: But I predict that if he dares to reply to them, he'll do with TU QUOQUES, MISREPRESENTATIONS OF THE QUESTIONS and FALSE ANALOGIES. Let's see if my prediction is confirmed

Well if you already know what I'm going to say before I even say it, why bother actually replying? If you've already fixed it in your mind that I can't reply nonfallaciously, it kind of kills my motivation to even bother, since you wouldn't concede a nonfallacious reply even if I made one.

As for chickening out, I noticed that you conveniently said nothing about my refutation of your tu quoque allegation in that "None So Blind" thread. Why is that, I wonder?

ZC: My straightforward question is: What does "promotion" and "defense" of a naturalistic worldview mean, imply or entail when examining the evidence for survival?

Any naturalism with empirical content to it entails that survival after death doesn't happen, IMO. But didn't I say this to you before? I wonder why you bring it up now... :)~

ZC: 2-Is accepting the evidence for survival (and hence for the supernatural) compatible with that explicit purpose of your organization? Does not it causes a conflict of interests?

Is accepting the evidence for black holes (against the hypothesis that neutron stars are the farthest phase of stellar collapse) compatible with the explicit purpose of an astrophysicist who has argued for the last 20 years that neutron stars are the farthest phase of stellar collapse? Does that astrophysicist have a conflict of interest?

I know that you'll view that as tu quoque, but I'd really like to know your answer. Because there have been people who insisted--most astrophysicists at the time, as a matter of fact--that neutron stars are the farthest phase of stellar collapse. They don't say that anymore, now that compelling evidence of black holes has been presented to them.

Your presumption would seem to be that it would not be possible for people to change their minds in the face of undeniable evidence. But do you assume that trusting wives would continue to be trusting once shown undeniable video evidence of infidelity? Do you really think that they would believe that the person on tape must be their husband's evil twin? Why, then, do you assume the worst of me? Is it that the principle of charity cannot be granted to "the enemy"?

ZC: 3-If afterlife evidence were discussed in a cour of law, and based on the explicit purposes and mission of the secular web and infidels, does Keith think that such court of law would accept the testimony of a person who belong to an anti-survivalist organization as an unbiased expert testimony about NDEs?

Does the fact that an astrophysicist has 20 years of research arguing that neutron stars are the farthest phase of stellar collapse disqualify him as an expert in astrophysics? Would his astrophysical expertise make it impossible for him to acknowledge the existence of black holes, or would it force him to concede their existence since he would know better than anyone that there is no room for doubt (being an expert in astrophysics and all)?

ZC: 4-How does Keith Augustine avoid, psychologically, that the purpose of your organization conflicts with the (possible, for the argument's sake) evidence for survival?

I am part of a naturalistic organization because I think naturalism true. I think naturalism true because the evidence for the supernatural is no better than ambiguous. So, to be clearer, your question should be: given that promoting naturalism conflicts with granting the existence of the supernatural, how could you ever grant the existence of the supernatural (or something like that--your question is vague). And I suppose that my answer would be: the same way that an astrophysicist can grant that black holes exist.

ZC: What method do you use for attaining such impartiality and objectivity, in spite of your professional and personal commitments with an organization with an explicit anti-survivalist mission?

My being part of an organization, of whatever sort, does not require me to sign an oath attesting that my views will always line up 100% with those of that organization. Obviously, I got involved with a naturalistic organization because I was already a naturalist. That doesn't entail that I must forever be a naturalist.

Does eating at a particular restaurant regularly of late require you to eat there for the rest of your life?

ZC: 5-How do you explain that most leading NDE researchers don't accept your hallucinatory hypothesis?

I suspect that those who are attracted to becoming near-death researchers are those who already think that they are more than hallucinations, just as those who are attracted to becoming UFOlogists are those who already think that UFOs are more than what conventional explanations alone would suggest. Just out of curiosity: Do you really think that this is false?)

ZC: 6-If your answer for the question 5 is that most NDE researchers are biased against the hallucinatory hypothesis, what prevent a member (like you) of the secular web, whose explicit mission is explicitly anti-survival, of having a similar bias (in favor of the hallucinatory hypothesis)?

Those who are attracted to promoting naturalism are likely already naturalists, yes.

The question is why they are naturalists. And the reason could very well be that the evidence for supernatural explanations has been historically weak, unlike the evidence for natural ones.

So is a naturalist likely to find the prospects of finding good evidence for the supernatural to be pretty dim? Obviously. The question is why that naturalist finds the prospects for supernaturalism to be dim. And here one could appeal to empirical considerations of the sorts that naturalists have appealed to. (I could go into them, but I'll pass since this comment is long enough.) In addition, future empirical considerations could change that naturalist's mind, since at the end of the day the basis for the person's view is the empirical considerations at hand.

I think the question of bias is a red herring, since biases, whether over here or over there, are made irrelevant by scientific evidence. Bias did not prevent astrophysicists from conceding that black holes exist, once the evidence for them was clear. Did it?

In any case, you've changed the question from 5 to 6. Question 5 was not about bias, but about why near-death researchers tend toward a certain view. And I gave a reasonable answer.

Why do you think most who've published studies in Lancet about NDEs think of NDEs as hallucinations? I imagine your answer would be similar to mine. If that means that there's an anti-survival bias by Lancet authors, then you'd have to suppose that everyone's biased, and we can't trust anyone. But bias is a red herring, since opening Ian Stevenson's combination lock--compelling evidence--would settle the issue whether there are biases or not.

ZC: 7-You have said that a positive AWARE result will convince you of the survival hypothesis for some NDEs. What would you consider, exactly, a "positive" evidence in the AWARE study?

I don't know enough about AWARE to answer that question (methodological details haven't been published). But in general, an NDEr's report of a very specific target, like a lottery number out of sight of any living people, and then its replication just to make sure that the design of the experiment wasn't flawed in such a way as to allow the target to be seen normally by living people after all.

ZC: 8-In reply to Gerald's question, Vitor mentioned a paper entitled "A CASE OP APPARENT COMMUNICATION THROUGH A MEDIUM BY A PERSON LIVING, BUT SUFFERING FROM SENILE DEMENTIA."

I've written enough, so I'm not going to dig up what you might think is relevant from that paper. Ask a straightforward question based on it if you want an answer. I've put in enough of the work in writing up until this point.

ZC: My question for you is: Don't you consider such paper as evidence against the production hypothesis and in favor of survival?

Be specific. Ask: "Don't you think that fact X provides unambiguous evidence against brain production" or something like that.

ZC: 9-What would happen if, after examining the evidence for survival, you're reasonably well satisfied that the evidence is good but it's even controversial for other people?

Good, but not decisive? Hmmm... I suppose that I would conclude that it is reasonable to believe in survival (not that I've ever denied that!) but not compelling. That's pretty much what Ian Stevenson said, actually.

ZC: Would you accept the evidence based on your own personal critical evaluation, or you'd dismiss it because it's even controversial for other people?

It depends upon what you mean by "controversial." If it was scientifically uncontroversial, I would accept it. That is, if the scientific community granted it, but some flat-earthers were still around denying it, I'd go with the scientific community. But I'm not sure if that's really what your asking. If it isn't, I don't know what you're asking, so rephrase the question.

ZC: Perhaps I could formulate this question in a better way like this: What kind of claim would Keith Augustine accept to be true based on scientific evidence, even if it's still controversial for mainstream science?

That's better, but still kind of ambiguous. There are different levels of confidence in one's conclusions. I could tentatively entertain something that's still a matter of scientific debate. But accept it as a fact? I don't think there's anything I'd accept as a fact that was still a matter of scientific debate (barring a personal revelation, that is).

ZC: 10-Would you abandon or leave the infidel organization if positive evidence for survival is found in the AWARE study?

If undeniable evidence for survival were found, I'd lobby for changing our mission to the defense and promotion of rationalism, rather than naturalism. Rationalism understood as the view that one should form one's religious positions solely on the basis of reason, and never on the basis of faith, (second-hand) revelation, tradition, or authority.

Rationalism is rather generic and epistemological, but in line with our current mission. I would not lobby for defending supernaturalism, because there are too many false supernaturalistic views as it is. If I had to pick some alternative metaphsical view, it would be something other than naturalism, but I don't know what (positively) it would be. It would be minimal supernaturalism, one that does not affirm one iota more than whatever supernatural things had thus far been scientifically demonstrated (in line with me being personally metaphysically conservative--not positing more than you need to to explain the world).

ZC: In any case, I confess to being very curious about Keith's replies to my above "10 questions for Keith"

You wrote this before I finished replying to your previous comment. In light of what you said before this sentence, I'm not sure I want to further participate in discussions with you. Discussions take time and effort, time and effort that you do not appreciate, and thus time and effort that would best be spent on something more enjoyable.

If you've already decided that everything I've said or even will say is always going to be a fallacy, or a claim of victimization, you destroy any motivation I might have to answer your questions. But maybe discouraging my participation here is all that you ever wanted anyway, so that you could have your own little skeptic-free ghetto.

You cite what I asked MP while ignoring that I was replying to his explicit statement that my position implies that I view everyone else as "stupid, irrational, dishonest, and cowardly." Clearly that's me playing the victim, rather than MP saying anything negative about me. Because, after all, it is our role models that think others are "stupid, irrational, dishonest, and cowardly," right?

Cyrus: This has the tone of a boss scolding an intern. This is not a good way to keep things civil.

And do you know why it has that tone? Because people ask me questions, as if I'm obligated to answer them in detail, when they won't even take the time to get the issues right in the first place.

You know what else I find profoundly frustrating? People who ask you a question that you already answered the last time he or she asked it. It's as if they're purposely trying to waste your time by rehashing what's already been addressed instead of moving on to some other question.

Cyrus: “Leo, do you even bother to read what I've said about this case before commenting?”

Leo's comment indicated an ignorance of understanding what he was talking about, since the fact that Pam Reynolds visualized a bone saw does not change the fact that she visualized it under anesthesia about 2 hours before flatline. He had claimed that the fact that she visualized it indicated that her NDE occurred during flatline. There is no way you could get that implication if you knew what you were talking about, so it was a frustrating waste of time having to dispense with it.

Cyrus: The opening post is predictably derailed? Perhaps because the people who post here are, naturally, flakes who digress into other points due to their lack of brains?

Wherever you're getting this from, it's you reading that into this. Yes, a predictable derail, because comments on this blog are often derails. Nothing about that fact implies being flaky or stupid.

And I'll play along because I have the option of not answering at all, given that the comment had nothing to do with the subject of the blog entry itself. I'll play along because an answer would be demanded of me even if I didn't answer. If I don't answer, it'll be construed as my inability to answer, my being afraid to answer--as ZC just stated explicitly in her first comment here!

Cyrus: The question is no longer whether anecdotal evidence has value in the NDE, the issue becomes fake testimonials written for business purposes.

Actually, I thought the issue rather had something to do with not taking testimonials, whatever the source, at face value on "trust" without being able to vouch for yourself what you're told. Hence, the mention of getting that used car independently inspected before shelling out thousands of dollars for it.

Cyrus: People don’t sell most NDEs. Very, very few become books. Business testimonials are far different from accounts of personal experiences related to consciousness which are researched by professionals.

Money isn't the only commodity. So is having people pay attention to you, or thinking that you're special because you've "touched God." Now I'm not saying that NDErs are necessarily seeking this. I'm simply pointing out that there are other things to sell than books.

Cyrus: To express some respect would go a very long way.

Respect is earned, not given away. You get what you give. There are many people here that I don't (often) address because I have no desire to criticize them, like Zerdini. And now that Kris has addressed me respectfully, I've returned the favor, acting as if it has always been this way without so much as a mention of his former behavior (sorry to mention it now, since I don't want to salt any wounds).

In all due respect, President Obama bent over backwards trying to accomodate Republican senators, and where did it get him? It allowed them to stall long enough to turn public opinion against health care. Even incredibly watered down healthcare with most of the substantial reform ripped out. People who are determined to fight you will fight you no matter what you do. When dealing with such people, is it really better to turn the other cheek, or does that just encourage them to step all over you, over and over again?

I tried the "careful not to offend" approach back in the Rovin' thread, and it just encouraged destructive criticism. So there will be no more politeness just for the sake of appearances. Being tactful to someone who calls you a liar is about as wise as inviting over for dinner the guy who punched you in the face.

[Michael Prescott]

ZC wrote, "This is why I've repeated several times that Keith is more interested in winning short-term arguments than in being logically consistent in defense of his position. There is no point in arguing with someone like that."

I'm sorry to say I've reluctantly come to the same conclusion. I do think that a serious discussion with someone who holds a skeptical view of NDEs would be useful, but I'm afraid it's not going to happen here.

ZC's analysis of Keith's inconsistencies, coupled with Cyrus's analysis of his tone and style, leads me to conclude that Keith is mostly interested in scoring points via sophistry and arguments from intimidation.

I wish it were otherwise, since I was hoping a good discussion would come out of this thread.

ZC wrote, "If all of this fails, Keith will try to make you feel guilty adopting a smart victimization strategy ... Look in Keith's simplistic 'Good vs. Bad' reply, implying that if Michael is right, Keith must be 'bad' (hence, he tried to make Michael felt guilty by his comment)"

Playing the victim does seem to be a consistent tactic. Characteristically, Keith elicits hostile responses by making snide, belittling, or subtly insulting comments. Then he reacts as an innocent victim, complaining about how unfair and harsh his reception has been. It's like mooning a crowd and then bursting into tears when they boo. I'm not saying he does this intentionally, but the pattern of behavior is consistent across many threads.

By making everything personal, he makes it impossible to have a serious exchange of ideas - which is a shame, because he is knowledgeable and intelligent.

Since I kind of lured Keith into this discussion by quoting him at length, I think I should apologize for getting things started. It did not work out the way I'd hoped.

[Cyrus]

Keith writes,
"In all due respect, President Obama bent over backwards trying to accomodate Republican senators, and where did it get him? It allowed them to stall long enough to turn public opinion against health care"

But this isn't the senate. The difference is that nobody wins with nothing at stake. If you're trying to pass a bill, if you know it's right, then I do think it should get passed hell-or-high water, and Democrats' biggest weakness is trying to appease Republicans. I'm with you on this one--

But like I said again and again, this isn't politics, it's a discussion. There's no bills here. Just your political party (Naturalism?) versus the party of..er.. everything else?

"Today on C-SPAN, a naturalist debates random people with varying viewpoints on spirituality and science on the internet. The naturalist employs the use of 10,000 word responses and daring analogies. Will this change reality as we know it? Stay tuned to C-SPAN for complete coverage...

Anyway, this is my last contribution to this thread, I did want to mention one last interesting bit you wrote.

Keith writes
I don't think there's anything I'd accept as a fact that was still a matter of scientific debate (barring a personal revelation, that is).

Presto, now it all makes sense. You see, other people have personal revelations that they can't prove, so that's why people believe things you don't believe.

If you came face to face with an apparition of a deceased person, you could never prove to others what you saw, but that would be your personal revelation. Your peers would think you were crazy.

This stuff happens to a fair amount of people and it turns their worlds upside down.

Science versus personal revelation, that's the question, and I believe the answer is the revelation is more relevant, at least to the individual.

Debate solved.

[Keith Augustine]

ZC offers alleged evidence of my inconsistency, and I painstakingly show that every one of her claims is false. Nevertheless, MP agrees with ZC without so much an an attempt to show that even one of my responses to ZC was inadequate.

A logical inconsistency is something easy to show, and difficult to refute, if it really exists. If my alleged inconsistencies were real, you could erase all of the ZC's inferences, and all of her attributions, and just lay direct quotes from me side by side, one contradicting the other, without comment. You could use my own words, and only my words, to do a reductio ad absurdum.

But you can't do that because others' commentary is the only thing to suggest that any inconsistency exists at all. It is attributed to me, rather than found in my words. If I'm wrong, prove me wrong; lay those inconsistent statements side by side.

Do I think it will happen? Of course not. I've made this challenge before, and it has yet to be met. And now MP just agreed with ZC as if I had never commented in between them. I might as well have written in invisible ink.

The lesson is clear. The more opposed people you engage, the bigger the hole you dig for yourself, no matter what you say. Best not to engage at all.

I answer a question by Vogt, and suddenly I've invoked a red herring, even though I never would've answered had the question not been asked. I make an incidental explanatory comment to william, and it becomes an inconsistency in my position. You say that I'm just out to score points, but here I could never win an argument, because my actual arguments aren't even addressed. Instead, attributions are made, and from thin air grand conclusions are decreed.

I'd been reluctant to post here for a few months until recently. The reason is simple: there are other venues. Less hostile venues. The Skeptiko forum is a good example; there are believers there, to be sure, but at least there are apparently an equal number of skeptics, so that everyone keeps everyone else in check. And I can get a civil discussion with believers even on our old discussion board (which you'd be surprised has some pretty mixed viewpoints).

Heterogeneity of perspectives might not matter to you, but to me is means that one person doesn't have correct every misconstrual of his position, answer every question demanded of skeptics, address every insinuation about his motives. In the absence of that balance, I'm outnumbered, so it is enough to simply multiply criticisms of me whether they are valid or not. If a lot of people are saying it, it must be true, nevermind that a lot of people here are primed to see all skeptics as scientistic pseudoskeptics no matter what a skeptic says.

It's odd that I elicit hostile responses when the first seven comments preceded mine. Let's take a look at the first one, where I--by abhorrently allowing MP to reprint something civil enough to be suitable for publication--"elicited" comments about how I evolved my arguments in a "pseudo-intellectual way," "as always per sloppy skeptic speculation," using "this tactic" for "ignoring/distorting the evidence" and "throwing everything he can against the wall and hoping something sticks."

Now, admittedly, there's nothing prejudicial in those claims, because I'm sure that MP would happily admit to doing any of those things himself (read that with a little sarcasm, if sarcasm is still allowed here).

I make two reasonable complaints--that Leo understands what he's talking about before raising a challenge, and that others not try to bog me down over an issue that near-death researchers themselves universally concede (that fear sometimes produces NDEs). As I said at the time, there is no point in even arguing the point, since that could be true even if something leaves the body--fear could cause one to leave the body. So there's really no reason to argue about it.

Those two complaints, though, "elicit hostile responses." When I respond to hostile things, it is evidently not a problem that others say hostile things. Turn the other cheek, skeptic, just don't expect us to do so. Take the "snide, belittling, or subtly insulting comments," but don't make any. What more can I expect on "your turf"?

If MP himself feels the way that he does about me, expressed in his comment above, then there really is no place for me here. Who will advocate on my behalf other than myself in this environment? No one, but that's fine. Gerald was wise to leave early. There are less hostile territories for discussions.

[Zetetic_chick]

I won't reply to Keith's lastest comment because I think he has confirmed all my points. He couldn't refute even one of my arguments, but it's something people in this blog should to decide.

Sadly, Keith seems intellectually incapable of seeing their own inconsistencies, even when they're pretty obvious.

Just consider this example: "If my alleged inconsistencies were real, you could erase all of the ZC's inferences, and all of her attributions, and just lay direct quotes from me side by side, one contradicting the other, without comment."

Let's to use only one example of a direct quotes from Keith side by side, one contradicting the other:

My God, an empiricist relying on experience to decide what's real...My God, an empiricist bases his conclusions on actual experiences, rather than merely imagined ones!

But according to Keith, unconsciousness is not based on experiences, however he has concluded that unconsciousness is a real fact:

Unconsciousness cannot be observed, felt, or experienced, and yet it exists.

Keith's acceptation of unconsciousness as a fact is not based on experience (because unconsciousness cannot be experienced), and it is a straighforward contradiction of his contention that an empiricist like him bases his conclusions on actual experiences to decide what's real.

I could refute each of Keith's arguments in this straighforward way, but I think it's a waste of time since that Keith is not open to rational refutation of his beliefs and his contradictions are very obvious, not worthy of detailed additional explanations.

Finally, I want to say that I don't have any negative feelings against Keith or any other person.

My decision of not arguing with him (that I've partially bronken in these lastest exchanges due to Keith's constant victimization and fallacies) is due exclusively to intellectual reasons and a basic sense of self-respect and dignity.

I think not serious discussion can be made with a person like Keith, and engaging in a sincere dialogue with him is intellectually self-destructing.

However, as a spiritual person, I wish all the best and positive things for Keith.

ZC

[Trev.]

The real, 'behind the mask Keith Augustine' is probably a nice guy. The super-hero that comes on here and attempts to zap everyone is bound to get zapped back.

Your Pam Reynolds propoganda is what personally riles me. I don't believe that you 'really' believe what you write about the case. Don't you see how ridiculous it is to nit-pick at tiny details like the groove at the end of the midas-rex saw ?
You do it, of course because that's all you've got to preserve your depressing view of the world.
Pam shared her experience like many others have, partly, I imagine, because she naively thought that it would bring some hope, some meaning to our existence. Most people welcome it...it is rather good evidence. But you want to stamp it out like some misguided kill-joy.
The problem is Keith, hardly anybody believes you.

[Breanainn]

Hmmm. I'm with Kieth. I think he's being demonized for basically being able to argue his position well, which is an entirely reasonable one for someone IN his position, that being a guy who hasn't had any kind of personally convincing revelation of the sort he mentioned as an example of what might personally convince him of the existence of X. It really is not unreasonable to be sceptical given those circumstances.

And I really am starting to think that it's a case of some people convinced of their position thinking that because Kieth, the sceptic, manages to put up a cogent defence of HIS position in his writings, then he MUST be employing some kind of devious sophistry by default, on account of us all 'knowing' his position is untenable.

It really doesn't help things along...

[Erich]

I feel like I kicked off the comments with a negative tone. I don't think it would have made a difference in the end, but that is no excuse. I am sorry.

Keith really gets under my skin. Partly because he consistently misrepresents and misconstrues what I (and others) have said, but mostly because he presents himself as a thorough authoritative scientific intellect when there really is very little science involved in what he is putting out there.

This type of personality is a personal hot button for me. I have stormed out of the offices of senior VPs who share the same traits. It will get me in trouble some day.

Again, I am sorry and will endeavor to be more civil.

[Trev.]

The problem is, Breanainn, Keith's arguments are not cogent(powerfully persuasive). They are(IMO)not convincing at all. Are you convinced by them ? Is anyone else? Certainly no one who has had an NDE is persuaded to disregard their experience as a hallucination or whatever he thinks they ought to be called.. So why does he bother ? What's the motive ?

[Breanainn]

Kieth's arguments made me think. I remember him saying that was one of his intentions on one of his posts, to provide a counter argument to the prevailing pro-survival trend in the popular literature.

Because I've never had an NDE I can't be sure they're NOT halucinations, the only people I know who've had them didn't have experiences that would be considered particularly supportive of the afterlife hypothesis, which mades me wonder how many similar cases remain unheard of.

I'd like to think NDEs are glimpses of a whole new dimension of existence, I have no particular anti-afterlife agenda, but there are some good arguments that they occur entirely within the bounds of known brain functioning, even if the exact mechanisms involved are yet to be identified or understood.

I'm not a debunker, but I'm not going to go around telling people that NDEs are 100% proof of an afterlife either. I try to remain agnostic and open minded as best I can. It's hard to stay uncommitted when I get called a sceptic by believers and a believer by sceptics. :/

[Sandy]

I think everyone has to find the truth in their own way. I'm an NDEr, so that has led me in a certain direction. I became interested in science after the NDE and went back to school to learn about the world from that perspective. So now I really want to see if the scientific method can help me make sense of things. That's my direction right now.

Philosophical arguments can be interesting. It hasn't been something I've pursued in my own educational background, but I do enjoy seeing arguments put forward. The thing is, philosophical arguments are not as convincing as either personal experience or evidence from scientific experimentation. That's why I don't engage in such arguments very often. I would much rather read about the evidence in peer-reviewed journals or correspond with others who have had anomalous experiences.

That being said, it is interesting to see these arguments presented so long as everyone plays nice.

[Trev.]

I think we can be pretty sure they are not hallucinations.
Science cannot exclude the possibility that the soul exists. And if these experiences are not connected to the age old belief of the soul, then what are they ? How else would the immaterial 'soul' manifest itself ? What more do we want.

[Zerdini]

I never said that my personal experiences were a reason for anyone else to believe whatever he or she believes. To each his own. I'm sure Zerdini feels the same way.

Indeed I do.

Nevertheless, my personal experiences, like Zerdini's, surely have something to do with why each of us believes what we do.

I have no argument with that.

If I personally saw a technological craft of no conceivable terrestrial origin 10 feet above me, then I would have knowledge that someone who has never seen such a thing lacks.
That would not be scientific knowledge, but personal revelation.

I personally saw a fully materialised spirit being in front of me which is why I "have knowledge that someone who has never seen such a thing lacks".

That is not scientific knowledge but personal revelation.

In addition I have met many people who have experienced something similar.

I never believed in an afterlife or a spiritual realm, even as a child, for one simple reason: I've never encountered anything remotely like such things

Neither did I nor was I subjected to religious indoctrination.

I would think that each person's own personal experiences ought to count for evidence for oneself.

I completely agree. I have no desire to convince anyone or disturb their belief system. I simply share my experiences.

There are many people here that I don't (often) address because I have no desire to criticize them, like Zerdini.

Thanks Keith.

[Zerdini]

I never said that my personal experiences were a reason for anyone else to believe whatever he or she believes. To each his own. I'm sure Zerdini feels the same way.

Indeed I do.

Nevertheless, my personal experiences, like Zerdini's, surely have something to do with why each of us believes what we do.

I have no argument with that.

If I personally saw a technological craft of no conceivable terrestrial origin 10 feet above me, then I would have knowledge that someone who has never seen such a thing lacks.
That would not be scientific knowledge, but personal revelation.

I personally saw a fully materialised spirit being in front of me which is why I "have knowledge that someone who has never seen such a thing lacks".

That is not scientific knowledge but personal revelation.

In addition I have met many people who have experienced something similar.

I never believed in an afterlife or a spiritual realm, even as a child, for one simple reason: I've never encountered anything remotely like such things

Neither did I nor was I subjected to religious indoctrination.

I would think that each person's own personal experiences ought to count for evidence for oneself.

I completely agree. I have no desire to convince anyone or disturb their belief system. I simply share my experiences.

There are many people here that I don't (often) address because I have no desire to criticize them, like Zerdini.

Thanks Keith.

[Zerdini]

Aplogies for posting this twice - typing error!