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

[Pat]

Honestly, it seems like Keith has been treated unfairly. I'm not sure why people have been so personal towards him.

The man is outnumbered like 50 to 1 on this forum/blog, and yet he still takes on the arguments. Yes, sometimes he can be a bit on the disrespectful side, but so can people here. You guys have consistently been rude to Keith.

And I don't want to here about how Keith was rude to you. Do two wrongs make a right? You guys have overreacted.

- Pat

[Trev.]

Don't worry about Keith too much, Pat. I suspect he enjoys his jousts and so do most of the people that post on here.

[Leo MacDonald]

Keith, the reason why i said that was because it appears her experiece did continue even though with a Flat EEG. That is of course if you think the chart is accurate. Also the ear plugs that were used give off a constant beeping sound which does weaken the argument that she could hear what was going on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pam_Reynolds_%28singer%29

[Michael Prescott]

In the light of day, I've somewhat reconsidered my earlier comment, specifically my statement that Keith elicited hostile responses by being unduly snide. I went back and reread the early part of the thread, and it's true that the opening comments by Erich were harsh and sarcastic. I'd forgotten how combative they were. I don't think the early comments by Sam, William, and DMDuncan were out of line, but Erich's were unfortunate, as he himself has now said.

So it was unfair of me to lay so much blame on Keith, when the conversation got off on the wrong foot.

That said, I do think (sorry, Keith) that Keith has a tendency to ratchet up the emotion. Here are some excerpts from his last comment to Zetetic Chick:

"Do I need your permission about what to respond to here, Ms. Hall Monitor?"

"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!"

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

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

"Wrong, though this is a common canard by unreflective religious people ..."

"You know that that's not true ..."

"Care to offer any different straw men?"

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

"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."

"I know you like playing stump the skeptic, ZC, which is probably why you are not worth talking to."

"Why, then, do you assume the worst of me? Is it that the principle of charity cannot be granted to 'the enemy'?"

"But maybe discouraging my participation here is all that you ever wanted anyway, so that you could have your own little skeptic-free ghetto."

It's clear that instead of trying to get the discussion back on friendly terms, Keith is more interested in playing the attack dog. Frankly, I expect better from an academically trained philosopher who is a professional advocate for a philosophical position (naturalism).

Saying, "But she was mean to me, too!" misses the point. It's possible to maintain good manners even in the face of personal slights.

Remember Kipling:

"If you can keep your head when all about you

"Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

"If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

"But make allowance for their doubting too ..."

Anyway, I'm sorry for all the bickering and hurt feelings. This post was an experiment that did not worked out as intended. I apologize to Keith for getting him drawn into another Internet melee.

[The Major]

I think there can be too much sensitivity on both sides. People often rush to take offence for others, so that they can appear as the most caring, reasonable people.

Keith clearly enjoys a lively debate. If he didn't, why else would he post here? Zetetic Chick also doesn't like to pull punches. Yes, sometimes it gets a little too heated, but we don't need to scramble over ourselves to show who is the most 'fair minded'. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's the impression I get.

What I would like to see is Keith sometimes acknowledging that others make interesting points. It sometimes feel like every point is something he has to 'defeat'.

For example, I am a big film fan. Some might even go so far as to call me a film snob, although this is something I wouldn't want to be recognised as. I was discussing the new 'Clash of the Titans' with a friend earlier.

He was convincing me to watch it, when I just felt it was not something I was interested in. However, through the course of the conversation, he made very interesting points that made me reconsider my own view. Now at the end of the conversation, my position was still the same, but at least I had recognised that he had made certain points that made me think.

Maybe that is a bad example, but is Keith honestly saying he's not seen one comment on threads such as these which has given him pause for thought?

[Paul]

Keith's position on the NDE discussion seems to me to be useful as a means of challenging assumptions about the facts of some NDEs.

It appears to me, from my limited perspective, that the verifiable elements of NDEs are the only parts worth considering as factual evidence and that commonalities of experience do not help us to identify the underlying cause for NDEs with any certainty. Keith raises potential issues with this verifiable evidence and it seems to me to be a personal matter as to how reasonable or likely we think his objections are. This does however have the unfortunate result of reducing much of the NDE discussion to a somewhat inconclusive debate (as has been mentioned previously), perhaps that is the nature of the evidence available for phenomena at present, i.e. inconclusive.

What I do think is interesting is Keith's position on survival and his statements regarding personal revelation and the testimony of others. It was most interesting and, IMHO, perfectly reasonable.

Whether I agree with the line he takes or not, Keith certainly takes time to make his responses precise and addresses the points made to him as far as I can see.

As for getting hot under the collar - I think that is something many of us feel from time to time and there are definitely occasions when I think his irritation has been justified.

[dmduncan]

I agree with Cyrus. Well said.

[dmduncan]

"It's clear that instead of trying to get the discussion back on friendly terms, Keith is more interested in playing the attack dog. Frankly, I expect better from an academically trained philosopher who is a professional advocate for a philosophical position (naturalism)."

"Ye shall know them by their fruits."

Wiser words than anything Keith has said in 100,000 words on this site.

[Michael Prescott]

It occurs to me that some might wonder what Keith (or any debater) is supposed to do if he comes under personal attack. Are his only options to fight back or to give in? I don't think so. I think there are other, more effective ways of handling it. For instance ...

- Make a self-deprecatory joke to defuse the criticism.

- Ignore the personal criticism and focus only on the substantive part.

- Ignore the comment entirely. If the commenter complains that you are not answering him, either continue ignoring him (which will drive him crazy) or say, "I found your comment rude, so I ignored it."

- Realize that you are not under any obligation to respond to every point, and that the attempt to do so will result in excessively long and diffuse comments which few people will read or remember.

- Realize that tone counts for at least as much as substance in any argument. People see anger and sarcasm as signs of defensiveness and insecurity. They see humor and politeness as signs of maturity. If your opponents are behaving like immature jerks, all the more reason for you to be as polite and reasonable as possible; it makes them look that much worse!

I do my best to employ these techniques. Believe it or not, sometimes people actually post derogatory comments about me - yes, me! - on my own blog! When this unthinkable assault on my dignity takes place, I use one of the above methods. As an example, some time ago Keith called me "pompous" because I had the temerity to question the "scientific consensus" about global warming. (This was a few weeks before said consensus began to unravel.) I just ignored the comment, and thereby saved us all a lot of woe. Besides, anything I said in reply would probably have sounded pompous and thus confirmed his opinion!

Once, a reader posted an online review of one of my books, saying that except for the first ten pages, it was garbage. My comment was, "But those first ten pages were pretty good, huh?" This is much more effective than engaging in a pointless debate about the merits of the book.

As a general rule, if you let someone see that he has gotten under your skin, he's won. So don't get flustered, rattled, and ruffled. Any short-term points you score will be outweighed by the impression you give of desperate defensiveness. Responding with humor and courtesy, or simply not responding at all, is a much better strategy than trying to slam your opponent into the ground. Observers are more likely to sympathize with the slammee than with the slammer.

[Julio Siqueira]

Hi People,

This is a very rare occasion where I am not posting here due to information coming from my friend Vitor Moura :-).

First of all, I found Michael Prescott's initial insight very interesting. That there seems to be some sort of "narrow range" (or to put it more barely, constraints) to the extent of the purported NDE-hallucinatory-theme-pool is very intriguing. And are we really going bananas just because we, naturally, ask where the Hell did the bananas…went? I guess not. The question (Prescott's question) is very relevant. Granted, we do not have a straightforward answer to it, like "Hey, no bananas, so the afterlife exists!" But this is the type of question that can lead researchers to better formulations of their own hypotheses and inquiries. And that is the prime stuff of scientific activity. I myself have placed some emphasis recently on the seeming fact that there seems to be a relaxing in the barrier between the consciousness during NDE and the consciousness during normal wakeful consciousness.

As a lucid dreamer, I am used to "sending messages" from the me in the dream world to the me in the awake world. One typical message that I send is "This dream is being experienced by me with the very same 'realness' as the awake world is!" Now, the bizarre twist is that, when I do wake up, I retain no memory whatsoever of this vividness! So this relaxing of this barrier seems to be, IMO, one more key to the understanding of the NDE puzzle.

This leads immediately to the riddle of consciousness itself, and to the need for all of us who are interested in NDE-like issues to try to be as proficient and as up-to-date as possible with the debate about the consciousness issues. In light of this, Zetetic Chick's comment regarding Keith is enlightening:

ZC said: 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 straightforward contradiction of his contention that an empiricist like him bases his conclusions on actual experiences to decide what's real.

Going back to Keith's original comment on that, it reads:

Keith: 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.

I think this above highlights an instance, like some other ones (many, possibly), where Keith surprises me with some degree of "lack of proper evaluation of the issue involved." Put bluntly: lack of philosophical insight… ZC is right. We must be very careful with the notion that unconsciousness exists. Especially while we are discussing these frontier topics like NDE, or even general discussions about the existence and nature of consciousness, to state purely and simply that unconsciousness amounts to question-begging of the most unsophisticated sort. Many researchers involved in this area are careful enough even with the far easier to support notion that consciousness exists (see Susan Blackmore's article where she claims that consciousness only exists when we are asking this very question!).

As to the many fights on this thread, I think they are natural, and those involved should, IMHO, try to go their way through these fights as best as possible. As "Seraph" (from The Matrix Reloaded) told "Neo," You do not really get to know someone until you fight him/her. Learning to improve the way that we go (i.e. that we behave, think, etc) through fights is very important. And it is one of the things that may help us see the value of the fights we have engaged in, instead of our holding the misleading notion that the fights and the talks were pointless to begin with.

Best Wishes for all,
Julio Siqueira
P.S.: already working on my part2 of the critique to Keith's JNDS's articles and replies to it.
__________________

[Julio Siqueira]

Just a correction. I said: "Especially while we are discussing these frontier topics like NDE, or even general discussions about the existence and nature of consciousness, to state purely and simply that unconsciousness amounts to question-begging of the most unsophisticated sort."

What I meant was: Especially while we are discussing these frontier topics like NDE (or even general discussions about the existence and nature of consciousness), to state purely and simply that unconsciousness exists amounts to question-begging of the most unsophisticated sort.

[Erich]

I am not making excuses for my poor demeanor in the opening comments on this thread. Again, I was wrong and I am embarrassed.

That being said, Keith is a really poor counter point to the survival hypothesis. I am sorry, but sometimes you have to call a spade a spade.

He is apparently unable to even fairly note the facts, let alone make even minor concessions when there is reasonable doubt. He seems to lack any appreciation or knowledge of statistics and statistical analysis, laws of probability, etc. He is transparent in his selectivity of available data and then has the audacity to accuse others not having done their "homework". He is crude and myopic in his assumptions. Often his thinking is utterly unoriginal. He merely loosely references the opinion of someone else who happens to support his argument at a given point, though perhaps not in the larger context.

He presents as incapable of comprehending the position of another person if that position is not in agreement with his own. He seems to willfully and wantonly misrepresent what others are saying.

I have no respect for Keith at all; not because he disagrees with me, but because he does not strike me as intellectually honest in any way, shape or form.

I'll just say it. He isn't intellectually honest. Period. If it walks like a duck......

I would really like to have a discussion - not debate - on this same topic with somone who is skeptical, yet open to following reason where ever it may lead based on sound analysis and consideration of all available evidence.

Keith is the wrong choice.

[Ryan]

Hmmm.. I don't know if I have anything insightful to say on these communication issues. But it seems interesting, the way we communicate on the internet in this new disembodied world (pun intended). On the one hand, semi-anonymous written communication enables a great freedom of self-expression, on the other hand it lacks the warmth and "grounding" of the real social world with all the intimacy and conventions that entails. I see somewhat of a paradox (or at least a tension) here. Written communication is in some ways the most personal and expressive, but in other ways it is the most distant and cold; leading to a heady mix of sound and fury. I love it. It's great, largely safe fun. But I wonder if we meet someone in the street, after an online tiff, how much we would care or carry it on. Or whether we would be embarrassed or sheepish or wish for a real conversation. My hope is that negative online emotions are less continuous with real life than positive ones. And probably if we bumped into any of our fellow commenters in real life we would feel quite jolly towards them. And it's quite a luxury too, to sit back and make this our drama - to carry on the great conversation of mankind in such a pleasant new terrain.

Which makes me think of another point, how does this online world affect our form of life and our concept of an afterlife... as our lives become more and more "digital", what conception of a future life can we form that is continuous with this? Shamefully, I sure would miss staring at a screen so much.. and enjoying all my online activities and interactions...

Yup, sat in my chair with tea and a laptop... may comfy last forever!

[Julio Siqueira]

Just an afterthought...

It would not surprise me if there is no afterlife at all. It won't surprise me either if there is an afterlife. After all, we see all kind of weird things in this universe of ours...

But what really stuns me is the fact that, imagining that there is truly no afterlife, we have, yet, so much evidence for it...

Another thing that stuns me is that, even though our best science (including physics and biology) predicts that there should not be this thing that we call "consciousness" (subjective experience, David Chalmers' Hard Question, etc), it actually does exist...

Julio
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[Kris]

Erich

Just accept Keith is a true believer. He is not the first nor will he be the last. I had the same feelings toward him that you have expressed, but I realized they were misplaced. Just accept in this area he is a true believer and accept he is probably a better person outside of this subject.

[Julio Siqueira]

Just a link for the honest inquirers... :-)

http://www.criticandokardec.com.br/criticizingskepticism.htm#pam

Julio
_____

[Cyrus]

Sorry I promised not to post here again, but frankly MP your other thread about society going downhill doesn't interest me so much (as I'm far less pessimistic) so here I am. :-P

Julio writes

We must be very careful with the notion that unconsciousness exists

This is really interesting and I wanted to talk about it a little.

During the debate in the previous page, Keith argued that death is dreamless sleep.

I was thinking about this almost the entire day after I read this. Later, I fell asleep for a mid-day nap (actually in a coffee shop between work and school).

I didn't dream during this period. As I woke up, I had to ask myself: is unconsciousness really non-existence?

I don't think dreamless sleep is the nullification of the "I" or "self" or the eyes-of-reality. The reason is because I can actually remember dreamless sleep, therefore I am able to comprehend it. Although, as a dreamer it's a bit rare to reach this point, as generally during "sleep" I get no rest, as I spend the entire night on spectacular adventures or being taught lessons through visual portrayals of things as they relate back to my real life (lessons from the subconscious).

Dreamless sleep is where my mind goes on a sort of autopilot, and stops thinking. So, there are no thoughts, just blackness, and it's extremely peaceful. In fact, it's so enjoyable that when I wake in the morning, the first thing that's on my mind is I want to experience sleep again, and I hit the snooze button! I can close my eyes and recall the feeling of dreamless sleep. While during unconsciousnes the "I" dissolves, the great thoughtless presence remains.

From a purely naturalistic standpoint, would the eternal "thoughtless presence" be the natural order of things, until life "awakens" as interpreted through the mechanism of the brain? We are beginning to go full-circle here back into spirituality.

Keith is the exception as most materialists do not describe death as something relatable as dreamless sleep. Instead they opt for the word "oblivion".

This is where my prior conundrum takes effect. Whatever random happenstance that made the universe aware of itself through consciousness will occur again, and the "I" would have no awareness of the interim, therefore non-existence cannot be interpreted or rationalized, as it cannot be experienced, death would merely be a rebirth in some other form.

Keith attempted to rebut this by claiming the universe will eventually end, and leave no time for such a concept to take effect (if it took 100 billion years for my consciousness to reboot itself). This is a philosophical black-hole. What made the universe exist? Why was there all that matter "clumped" together before it exploded into the big bang, and then gets destroyed again in the big crunch? How long before whatever random happenstance created this universe simply happens again? Why are materialists not asking these hard questions?

Stay tuned for part 2 of my post, and my theory why...

[Cyrus]

Part 2: The Church of Oblivion

I propose that many materialists really belong to what I call... the Church of Oblivion.

This is because they have an inherent belief that the natural order of the universe is non-existence, or that the reality is that there is no reality. There is nothingness. Nothing exists. Not empty dead-space, but nothing either tangible or intangible.

They believe our current experience is a "fluke", a random accident that should not have happened. They believe the universe is moving back towards nothingness, as the universe will die as we die, and the accident of existence will correct itself.

They believe that things can exist without observation. If a tree falls in the woods, it always makes a sound. Far across space, galaxies are moving around and asteroids are hitting lifeless planets whether consciousness exists to interpret the light-waves or not. After our eventual non-existence, this process will continue, just not for our realities, which have returned to oblivion.

There is no shred of evidence for any of this outside of philosophy. The question that arises is: why do people choose this philosophy? I have some theories.

- Damaged as a child.

A lot of people are ignorant and assume things about life and death without taking time to research it. When you were a child, did you ever ask a friend or relative:

"where did Pogo my dog go when he died?"

"Well, kiddo, Pogo is dead, so he's now in the cemetary."

"So he can't move?"

"Well 'he' is not 'he' anymore. He has no consciousness. He doesn't exist."

"Oh" (begin childhood trauma)

Nobody ever said it like this to me growing up, but other sources did (Thanks, Discovery channel!!). During angsty teen-years, I found myself believing it, coupled with general depression and morbidity of this period of my life. At a certain point, I started to reject these ideas, found oblivion-theory to be an incredibly weak and innacurate portrayal of my own psyche, which brings me to where I am today.

So in a nutshell, I think a lot of people who belong to the Church of Oblivion do so because they were taught something by uninformed peers, and they've spent their whole life wrestling with it. They experience loved ones dying, and it traumatizes them further. They begin to defend their position in an attempt to make sense of it, and try to comprehend what is ultimately incomprehensible to the truth in our own hearts: that existence is not an accident that is going to dry up.

- Negative outlook reflected in philosophy.

The second theory of mine is fairly straightforward: He who hates the world desires everything to end.

The Church of Oblivion gives credence to this worldview: You can hate and get away with it. Everything shall dissappear. Laugh at your enemies, they will be gone. It gives you the power to be the morbid messenger of death and the absolutism of oblivion, whether it's a philosophically sound argument or not.

I think the latter form of Oblivion disciples feed the former. And together, they create depression, pain, and suffering amongst people. It also breeds the second definition of materialism, which is the obsession with material goods: IE the pudgy business owner in the red BMW who thinks his life is complete because he drives a BMW, but he's still unhappy because he's trying to fill the spiritual hole in his heart by clogging it with plastic. Oblivion theory leads little room for greater meaning, as it requires so much philosophical mental closure that most are forced to simply disregard and not think about death, and live in careless ways.

On a final note, it was Carl Sagan who said "We are the universe trying to understand itself" (maybe my favorite quote of all time). This statement contradicts Oblivion theory, and is proof that many atheists do NOT live by such philosophy. As soon as one expands ones mind to the notion that your existence is directly linked to the universe itself, then you are back on the right-track again, whether you are naturalist or survivalist.

[Erich]

Cyrus, sometimes I think people not only get into that mindset for the reasons you mention, but in addition, they feel foresaken and they get get angry about that.

The materialist/athiest has, like all of us, experienced loss, has observed the cruelty and injustice of the world, has seen the innocent suffer, has himself been hurt and, being a thinking person, feels like a sucker when asked to take a spiritual explanation on faith alone.

It is indeed a hard thing to ask - to believe in the soul - when you think haven't been afforded a glimpse of it and all around you is the shit and death of material existance.

And it's a self reinforcing cycle.

The heart gets harder and the intellect more vengeful.

Then we try to discuss with someone in this trap.

What if you tried to describe ice cream to somone who never had it and never even heard of it? They'd probably get it all confused with descriptions of popcicles. They'd probably question the possibility of icecream even existing; how can it be frozen hard like ice and yet be nice and creamy at the same time?

More difficult would be the same conversation with someone who had heard rumors about icecream, but whose parents had denied him the opportunity to taste it. There would be an emotional content to the very real intellectual struggle to comprehend this thing called icecream without having ever tasted it.

[Julio Siqueira]

Cyrus makes interesting points. He also (and first) says: "During the debate in the previous page, Keith argued that death is dreamless sleep." And I think that, again, it has to be reminded that when we say phrases similar to this one from Keith we are resorting to question-begging of the most unsophisticated sort (again, bluntly: bad philosophy).

The existence of truly dreamless sleep is still an open question. What we do have is absence of memory regarding this dreaming.

But just as faulty philosophy instances now and then do not render any specific person to be a non-philosopher (;-)), absence of memory now and then does not render a night sleep to be necessarily and truly dreamless.

Julio
_____

[Erich]

Julio, "It would not surprise me if there is no afterlife at all. It won't surprise me either if there is an afterlife. After all, we see all kind of weird things in this universe of ours..."

Having visited your website, Julio, I see that you are the type of person I was positing as a superior substitute for Keith; skeptical yet scientificly objective and fair in his arguments.

[Kris]

Erich

Just ignore Keith. More and more that is my solution to the issue.

Keith believes in naturalism.

Keith believes naturalism negates the possibility of life after death.

Even if the first one is true I am not sure how it can remotely as of now prove the 2nd one. I would just say if their is life after death, then it is natural.

Life after death violating naturalism is a belief of Keith's, that is all.

It is really no different then Christians who refuse to see the evidence for evolution, cause they feel for whatever reason that evolution and Christianity are incompatable.

[Trev.]

Personally, I would just like Keith Augustine to state what he thinks is the cause of NDE. Skeptics(not Keith, he's not old enough,but he can speak on their behalf) have had thirty years to come up with the answer.

[Michael Prescott]

I went through the whole thread and tried to sort the various comments into different categories: critical, critical bordering on hostile, hostile, and favorable. Basically, hostile comments are rude or sarcastic, or cast aspersions on Keith personally. Critical comments disagree with his position without becoming personal.

Here is what I came up with.

There were 123 comments in all (prior to this one.)

I counted twelve comments as hostile to Keith.

Twenty-seven comments were critical of his position.

Eleven comments were critical bordering in hostile. (That is, they were mostly substantive, but included some unkind personal jabs.)

Eight comments were favorable to Keith - not necessarily agreeing with him, but seeing him as mistreated.

Keith himself left twelve comments (not counted in the above).

The remaining comments were unrelated to Keith.

Of course, determining whether a comment is hostile, critical, or in between is a subjective matter. For the record, I counted two of my own comments as critical bordering on hostile.

Some of Keith's comments could also be classified as hostile, I think. And some of them were extremely long, so in terms of sheer verbiage he probably equaled his critics, even though they outnumbered him.

The hostile comments tend to stand out, but when you look at the thread in its entirety, it wasn't quite so bad. Of course it would be preferable to have no hostile comments at all. But it's hard to debate these things in a cool, unemotional way. And the Internet lends itself to harsh exchanges.

I have to say I've seen far worse behavior online. And I doubt that a pro-paranormal person venturing onto the JREF message boards or PJ Myers' blog would be treated even this well.

Still, at the end of the day, it wasn't this blog's finest hour. Sorry about that.

[Zetetic_chick]

I feel bad when a blog like this is driven to heated debates by personal attacks or sarcastic or critical comments. And I don't say this as a mere "external observator", since that some of my own comments could be classified as polemical or critical too, even when my intention is not to cause this kind of controversies.

But let's to face some facts:

-Each time Keith comments here, heated debates are begun. (Something similar tend to occur when a political topic is discussed or even mentioned. Just see my off-topic comment in another thread where I commented on the relation of atheism and leftism, and it almost caused a heated debate about the flaws or virtues of capitalism and communism)

-Keith knows that, so we can think that Keith actually enjoy this kind of rude, personal, anything goes kind of exchanges.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain why Keith comments here, and write loooong replies to comments.

-Personally, I don't enjoy that kind of exchanges, and this is why I decided some months ago not engage myself in any paranormal discussions with Keith. Currently, I've extended this decision to whatever discussions in general with him.

-It seems that Keith has had "feuds" or personal impasses with many paranormal researchers or writers, so Keith is used to that kind of controveries.

The last one has been Julio Siquiera.

Even though I don't know Julio personally nor have enchanged any correspondence with him, reading his website it's clear he tries to find the truth and hear all the sides.

He's been mistreated and abused by skeptics (Randi's forum, Stenger's forum, etc.) and even his website has been hacked by skeptical dogmatists.

But Julio still make an effort to keep the discussion in a high level and keep in touch with "skeptics" to hear their version of the story.

So, that a person like Julio, after several years of communication with Keith, has decided not to talk to Keith anymore is evidence that something extremely wrong or dishonest was made by Keith to cause that a (perhaps in excess) tolerant person like Julio did make such extreme and radical decision (including the extreme decision of not posting Keith's replies to Julio's critique).

Only Julio and Keith know what happened there, and it's not of our concern.

The point is that Keith seems to have serious difficulties dealing with differences of opinion, or critical comments of his beliefs, and it leads to personal impasses.

Unless all the pro-paranormal people like Julio, other researchers and commenters here are extremely irrational or emotional, it's clear that there is something wrong in Keith that prevents constructive dialogue with him, in particular dialogues critical of Keith's arguments (In fact, look how Julio's decision of not communicating with Keith anymore was produced in the course of the exchanges related to the writing of Julio's critique to Keith's articles!).

In my case, I confess I get very annoyed, and even almost angry, by Keith's idiosincratic style of debate.

I can accept whatever opinion or arguments against mine, but when the only consistent replies that you get to your arguments are extremely bad analogies about Chupacabras, Yeties, Loch Ness Monster, aliens, crop circles, Micky Mouse, Santa Claus, or to quoque fallacies, or straw men, I consider it an abuse and offense against my intelligence (even when these abuses and insults are directed against other people).

That a professional philosopher cannot see that skepticism about the afterlife is not equivalent to skepticism about chupacabras (unless you think both of them are non-existent, and hence equivalent in that respect), or that being skeptical or agnostic about chupacabras/Yeties/Aliens doesn't imply being skeptical about spiritual matters or telepathy, felt like a slap to the face, an insult to logic and rationality.

The most intellectually challenged person would understand that you can be skeptical or agnostic about chupacabras, ufos or Yeties, simply because you have not studied the evidence and hence has not opinion about it. But it doens't imply that you have to be skeptical of the afterlife or spiritual matters, specially if you HAVE studied the evidence.

Pretending that you have to accept the existence of Yeties, chupacabras and ufos to accept the afterlife (or otherwise be skeptical of all of these topics altogether), is an insult to rationality.

And it drives me angry, because I consider it intentionally manipulative and misleading.

And I confess this is a mistake on my part. I shouldn't have high expectatives of any person, including of a trained philosopher who should know better how to understand arguments and develop a technically correct refutations.

The only correct decision with a person like that is simply ignore him.

In conclusion, I think Keith has a large part of responsability in creating heated debates in this blog. And I suspect that he enjoys them.

But I also confess that some of us share part of that responsaibility, and I explicitly and freely accept my responsability in it, without any excuses.

[Keith Augustine]

As you know, MP, I was reluctant to get involved in commenting even though I granted you permission to reprint a select section of my paper, because I knew that that section was relevant to a number of comments in a recent comments thread. Indeed, the very reason why I didn't so much as mention that section of my paper in that recent comments thread is because I did not want to invite further punishment on myself for posting. It is easier to avoid the slings and arrows when you stay off of the radar entirely.

The main reason that I decided to respond was to address an apparent misunderstanding, which was written as: "This basically sounds like rewording of the dying brain hypothesis to me." An immediately following comment was: "Agreed, Sam. Not ground breaking at all. Really, quite ho hum."

Now one might mean something different by "dying brain hypothesis" than Susan Blackmore's theory of NDEs; for example, what Jason Braithewaite means by "dying brain hypothesis" seems to be something more generic than Susan Blackmore's specific theory. But I took these comments to (falsely) insinuate that the reprinted section really said nothing more than what Susan Blackmore had already outlined as "the dying brain hypothesis" (since she coined that term). Since I never postulated specific physiological mechanisms for specific elements of the NDE (as that would make a sociological explanation unnecessary), as Blackmore did, I thought that these statements needed to be corrected right away before they led to more misunderstandings. My own view is that it is premature and unnecessary to postulate specific neurophysiological mechanisms for specific NDE elements given the extant data. That's why I postulated an alternative sociological account, one which may not be "ground breaking," but which is certainly not a "standard" skeptical account of the consistency of Western NDEs. So I did not comment here in order to start a fight, but to correct a mistake--i.e., to inform. So while it is true that "Each time Keith comments here, heated debates are begun," the "rude, personal, anything goes kind of exchanges" are not begun by me. It sucks quite a bit of energy out of me, actually, to have to defend myself from all directions, rather than talk about the issue at hand. That's why I had no interest in defending that "fear-death experiences" happen.

MP earlier asked what any debater "is supposed to do if he comes under personal attack," but it's not as simple as that. What is a debater supposed to do when opponents continually misconstrue his position? Is he supposed to pretend that his position was not misconstrued by being silent about the misconstruals, in the eyes of many effectively conceding that the characterization was accurate by not responding to it? Or is he supposed to correct the misconstruals? And when the misconstruals continue even after earlier ones have been addressed, it is inappropriate to get a little terse when responding to someone intent on continuing to misconstrue? I responded to ZC, as I stated, only for the sake of the lurkers. And I think "Do I need your permission about what to respond to here, Ms. Hall Monitor?" was rather mild for someone who had just written "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." An attribution of fallacious reasoning before any reply was even given, even!

Perhaps MP has some advice about how to handle such situations. I'm certainly open to considering any such advise. And when the prospects for getting a discussion "back" on friendly terms (were they friendly to begin with?) are dim, for many of the participants show no interest in cooperating, it seems an open question how one should handle that situation, too. One could simply walk away, of course, but then misrepresentations would go unanswered, and the perception might well be that they were not answered because one couldn't answer them ("I hope Keith won't chicken away again from these questions.")

Related to this point, I'd like to suggest, quite reasonably in my opinion, that some recent questions here are not really questions at all. When Kris writes, "Life after death violating naturalism is a belief of Keith's, that is all" that's in the correct form. It could be phrased as a question, such as: "What grounds does Keith have for thinking that that life after death is inconsistent with naturalism?" But Kris is not interested in my grounds, so it's appropriately phrased as an assertion; if he were interested, he could ask me, or consult my online master's thesis, which is actually quite groundbreaking in addressing what kind of events should be taken as natural or supernatural events. In this vein I think that Trev's question should be phrased as an assertion, too, namely: "I would just like Keith Augustine to state what he thinks is the cause of NDE" should be phrased as "Keith Augustine cannot provide a plausible cause of NDEs." For that is what he really means, given his immediate addition: "Skeptics ... have had thirty years to come up with the answer." I point this out to offer some evidence that many people here aren't really interested in my reasons; they are simply interested in shooting down my views. If they were interested in shooting down the reasons for my views they could address those reasons directly, but often they do not.

(Incidentally, I only suggest that my masters thesis is groundbreaking in the sense that, even if you reject my analysis, no one prior to me had even attempted to provide a general outline delineating what it means for something to be natural or supernatural, and without such a delineation, saying that "X is (or is not) a natural event" is a pretty vacuous statement. The point of bringing this up here is simply to note that, contrary to Kris' statement, I have considered, in some depth, what would count as something contrary to what naturalism predicts. You cannot adequately defend either naturalism or supernaturalism without doing so, and you cannot adequately say what would or would not be consistent with naturalism without doing so. It's easy to label X, Y, and Z as "natural." It's requires some focused reflection to justify such labels, however. And naturalism is not the reason that I doubt an afterlife, by the way; I doubt that there is a sea monster in Loch Ness, too. I could call that doubt anti-Nessism, but holding anti-Nessism to be true would not be the reason for my doubt about the lovable sea creature.)

As far as the length of my comments go, if it "hurts" for you to read them, imagine how much it "hurts" for me to write them! Unfortunately, I know from past experience that I don't have the luxury of being succinct. I have to be absolutely clear about my meaning when addressing a trigger-happy audience ready to pounce on the first misspoken word. A good example is my use of the word "infamous"--by which I only meant "celebrated"--to describe the Pam Reynolds case, a word choice highlighted by both Charles Tart in print and later Julio Siqueira despite my in-print explanation of my meaning in my reply to Tart. Dictionary definitions include both "well-known, renowned" and "notorious," but the latter meaning has become more commonplace. I quite honestly was simply thinking of the former meaning and not something like "This day will live in infamy!" "Renowned" would've been a better choice had it occurred to me at the time.

Another reason for the length of my response is because some ask me to play "20 questions." In that context it is quite reasonable for me to complain that a poster is trying to play "stump the skeptic." When someone asks me a series of questions explicitly for the purpose of trying to catch me in some sort of contradiction, I thinking "playing stump the skeptic" is a rather apt characterization of the tactic being employed. And when I don't play along with such games, in this case because I had focused my resources elsewhere for so long that the moment had passed, what did I get for it? I got: "I hope Keith won't chicken away again from these questions."

Finally, when you are being attacked from every quarter, it should not be surprising that you have to use so many bullets to defend yourself. Ten people who make ten points each is 100 points aimed in my direction.

The Major: I have acknowledged that, if molded speakers in fact did make Pam Reynolds hearing impossible when she overheard an operating room conversation, I can't think of any plausible explanation for how she overheard that conversation. I think that's a rather major concession, and am surprised more has not been made of it. I also concede that Michael Sabom's six star cases of veridical perception, which I was unaware of at the time I wrote my essay because near-death researchers hadn't themselves highlighted it, is on the face of it fairly impressive.

BTW, ZC, I indeed admitted to "relying on experience to decide what's real," which incidentally is something that everyone does, but is only an "inconsistency" when I do it. In order to get an actual inconsistency, I would've had to have said that I rely only on experience to decide what's real--which I've made clear before is not the case, since I rely on both valid deductions and inductive inferences (and possibly other things I don't mention now) in addition to experience to decide what's real.

I would like to thank ZC for getting this discussion "back" on friendly terms with comments like: "So, that a person like Julio, after several years of communication with Keith, has decided not to talk to Keith anymore is evidence that something extremely wrong or dishonest was made by Keith to cause that a (perhaps in excess) tolerant person like Julio did make such extreme and radical decision (including the extreme decision of not posting Keith's replies to Julio's critique)." Again, I appreciate the lack of charity to me.

Finally, I don't have serious difficulties with people who disagree with me, or with "critical comments," since I have acknowledged and even conceded critical comments that were fair, multiple times. What I have a problem with is bald accusations and blatant misrepresentations. And the analogies you refer to are not bad ones. If someone says that he believes X because there is testimony for it, and I point out that there is testimony for things he does not trust, there's something more than mere trust involved there. Why else trust some testimony but not other testimony? Why else argue that Keith doesn't listen to NDErs, when you yourself don't listen to UFO spotters? The analogy is apt in such cases.

[Sam]

But I took these comments to (falsely) insinuate that the reprinted section really said nothing more than what Susan Blackmore had already outlined as "the dying brain hypothesis" (since she coined that term).

I didn't mean to imply that you were subscribing specifically to Susan Blackmore's outdated hypothesis, although I did interpret "specific physiological events" in a more focused sense than I suppose you intended. I concede that I misunderstood your meaning, but I wasn't trying to insinuate anything.

[Trev.]

Well, if that was truly KEITH speaking then God bless him. If it was somebody taking the mickey then, oh well you got me.

[Michael Prescott]

Keith wrote, "What is a debater supposed to do when opponents continually misconstrue his position? Is he supposed to pretend that his position was not misconstrued by being silent about the misconstruals, in the eyes of many effectively conceding that the characterization was accurate by not responding to it? Or is he supposed to correct the misconstruals? And when the misconstruals continue even after earlier ones have been addressed, it is inappropriate to get a little terse when responding to someone intent on continuing to misconstrue? ... Perhaps MP has some advice about how to handle such situations."

I do. In fact, I've been in that position myself. Years ago I used to occasionally venture into Ayn Rand forums to criticize Rand. I always faced a storm of abuse, far worse (believe it or not) than anything you've encountered here. But I expected it. It didn't bother me. The Randists were always attributing positions to me that I hadn't actually taken. They might say, "Since you're in favor of some government regulations, you're a statist and therefore you think the government is all-powerful and human beings have no rights at all." That kind of thing.

What to do? First, assume that you will not change your opponents' minds. Your only interest is in appealing to some more neutral party who might be following the exchange.

Second, assume that this neutral party is smart enough to see that your position is being misconstrued. Or at least smart enough to see it if you simply point it out in a few words. ("I never said that.")

Third, assume that this neutral party is not unreasonable enough to expect you to reply to every argument, especially arguments that derail the discussion.

In other words, write for the kind of person you are trying to reach - someone wise enough to not be misled by obviously unfair attacks, or diverted by irrelevant digressions.

If you make these assumptions, you can safely ignore most criticisms, either because they are clearly uncalled for, or because they are clearly taking the conversation off track.

No matter what you say, your position will be misunderstood by some. The more you say, the more opportunities there are to be misunderstood. But if the people who are misunderstanding you are too dense or too prejudiced to follow what you're saying, then you have no interest in winning their allegiance anyway.

Write for your ideal reader. And since your ideal reader is smart and fair, you don't need to explain everything two or three times. Your ideal reader got it the first time. And your opponents are probably never going to get it. So forget about them. Don't write to them ... write past them.

That's my advice.

[Kris]

Keith

Until we know more a lot more about consciousness you cannot remotely begin to say naturalism and life after death are incompatible.

Everything you have offered is equally explainable with a transmission view of consciousness and some things such as Ian Stevenson's research or Near Death Experiences are just the tip of the iceberg. Until you can eliminate transmission you don't have a case of naturalism does not allow life after death. After all why think transmission and naturalism are incompatible?

I accept the best explanation for the evidence is life after death. I also think it will eventually have a natural explanation. I am every bit the naturalist you are, I am just betting on a different horse.

Keith you offer how it could have been scenarios on NDEs that are going to convince no one who is remotely informed on this subject unless they are already skeptical and more then likely ignorant about NDES. You're explanations about Pam Reynolds are laughable and that has been exposed on this blog more times then I can count. You truly think saying Aliens is a good counter explanation for why we shouldn't accept the separation hypothesis in the Reynold's case.

Keith your a broken record. It will never change. Why waste my time? Can you name one NDE expert you convinced with your unlikely how it could have been scenarios or more importantly one NDEr. I would truly be impressed if one NDEr said after reading your article said " well I thought it was real but Keith showed me I was wrong" or something similar.

You seriously remind me of a resident fundamentalist at my old college. He screamed everyone was hostile to him and no one would represent his arguments correctly. He just couldn't see he was truly comically absurd. He went onto seminary of course.

I imagine you were no different as an undergrad and you have just completed the Atheist equivalent of seminary. You got a masters in philosophy.

Oh well I used to be annoyed by you but I accept now days the world is richer and far more entertaining for the presence of people like you, the fundie I mentioned, creationists and others who postulate laughable how it could have been scenarios that are obviously ideology driven. And it always becomes richer cause they can't the see obvious, which everyone else easily sees.

[Trev.]

Kris,
You've had a beer.

[Zetetic_chick]

A trained analytic philosopher should be careful and rigurous in the use of language and concepts.

My own language is not English, but Spanish, but even as an "outsider", I can recognize that infamous has negative connotations in English.

Let's to see the evidence:

According to the online Merriat-Webster Dictionary infamous is defined as

1.Having a reputation of the worst kind.

2.Causing or bringing infamy: Disgraceful.

3.convicted of an offense bringing infamy

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infamous

According to the Dictionary.com, infamous is defined:

1.having an extremely bad reputation: an infamous city.

2.deserving of or causing an evil reputation; shamefully malign; detestable: an infamous deed.

Look that all the definitions negative connotations.

Even the synonyms of infamous in the above dictionary are: disreputable, ill-famed, notorious. 2. disgraceful, scandalous; nefarious, odious, wicked, shocking, vile, base, heinous, villainous.

Look the term "celebrated" (or "well known") doesn't appear as synonymos of "infamous".

Does the word "infamous", with its straighfoward negative connotations, is accurate to describe or refer to the Reynold's case? Did Keith actually used "infamous" as a neutral synonymous of "celebrated" or "well-known" or "renowned"?

Does "infamous" is an actual synonymous of "celebrated"?

Keith's assertion "Dictionary definitions include both "well-known, renowned" and "notorious," but the latter meaning has become more commonplace" is simply false or at least misleading.

And his assertion "A good example is my use of the word "infamous"--by which I only meant "celebrated" is a verbal sleigh of hand.

And by the way, "celebrated", "well known" or "notorious" are not definitions per se, but at most synonyms, i.e words with the same or nearly the same meaning as another (and only "notorious" appear as synonyms of infamous).

Confounding a synonyms with a definition is another example of sloppy thinking and lack of philosophical rigour.

Keith asks for charity, when I commented: "So, that a person like Julio, after several years of communication with Keith, has decided not to talk to Keith anymore is evidence that something extremely wrong or dishonest was made by Keith to cause that a (perhaps in excess) tolerant person like Julio did make such extreme and radical decision (including the extreme decision of not posting Keith's replies to Julio's critique)."

But my assertion is a factual one. In Julio's website you can read:

I have corresponded (through email) sporadically with Keith Augustine since 2004 (June 21, 2004, to be more precise)

This fact account for my assertion that Julio has communicated with Keith for several years.

Julio continues "I won't be corresponding with Keith from now on. Not anymore. Basically the reason is that I think that to deal with these issues (like afterlife evidence or absence of) one needs to be open to human beings' feelings and hearts and needs. When I look at Keith, what I see is a barren land in this regard"

This accounts for my claim that Julio decided not to talk to Keith anymore. My statement is a factual one, based on the evidence.

Julio's reference to Keith lacking "human beings' feelings and hearts and needs" accounts for my statement that something wrong or dishonest did Keith to cause in Julio such impresion and radical decision of disconnecting himself from Keith.

I'm not saying that Keith was actually dishonest, only that he did something wrong OR dishonest.

This is more supported with Julio's next statement: "the very motivator of my writing all this material was a crack in the trust that I felt for Keith, a crack that happened at the end of last year. Unfortunately, this crack rose considerably in the recent days, to the point of becoming impeditive of my trusting him any more. So from now on, I wish him good luck in his studies and in his endeavours, and above all good luck in his life. And that will be... away from me.

If Julio saw a "crack" in trusting Keith, a crack becoming impeditive of trusting him, then the inference that Keith did something wrong or dishonest is a reasonable one.

If you add Julio's typical tolerance and open mind with "skeptics" as a factor, and you read Julio's comments about Keith, you have to think that Keith did something VERY wrong or dishonest.

My inference could be wrong, but it's reasonable given the evidence. And this implies that the charity asked by Keith is unwarranted.

Recognizing critical comments in isolated cases is not evidence that Keith hasn't difficulty accepting criticism. You could accept criticism even if it's very difficult to you (so there is not contradiction).

As evidence of Keith's unability for recognizing mistakes, look in the example mentioned above:

Instead of recognizing that in English "infamous" has essentially negative connotations (in contrast with "celebrated", with mostly positive ones) and hence the use of such word was improper, he tried to defend the use of it forcing an arbitrary and idysincratic identification of it with "celebrated" (identification not found in any standard English dictionary, as far I know)

Another example is being incapable of recognizing his victimization comments, for example:

Why, then, do you assume the worst of me?

I didn't assume the "worst" of him, I only predict his replies would be based on logical fallacies.

Is it that the principle of charity cannot be granted to 'the enemy'

Keith proclame himself as "the enemy", something that nobody here has ever asserted. But it's a product of Keith's constant feelings of being a "victim"

"Do I need your permission about what to respond to here, Ms. Hall Monitor?

Again, he misrepresented my argument, and tried to appear as a victim of my censorship or surveillance (after all, I'm Ms. Hall Monitor...).

It only exists in Keith's imagination.

Additionally, calling names is a very childish way to refer to a person you're replying to, just imagine that I refer to him as Keith "tu quoque" Augustine, or Mr.Anti-Survival Freak, or Mr. Infidel Sophist...

Keith's lack of philosophical rigour has been realized by other people, like Julio: "I think this above highlights an instance, like some other ones (many, possibly), where Keith surprises me with some degree of "lack of proper evaluation of the issue involved." Put bluntly: lack of philosophical insight

Keith's inability of recognizing mistakes also have been recognized, for example by The Major: "It sometimes feel like every point is something he has to 'defeat'.

Pretending that I'm a kind of "hall monitor", or censorship or surveillance authority, or as someone who pretends to make this blog a "skeptic-free ghetto" (that by the way is an insult to this blog), is another clear example of straw man, fallacious thinking and victimization

PS
I'm sorry, but I couldn't let pass Keith's lastest falsehoods and verbal sleighs of hand.

I won't reply to him anymore.

[Julio Siqueira]

.Hi Zetetic chick,

You said:

"So, that a person like Julio, after several years of communication with Keith, has decided not to talk to Keith anymore is evidence that something extremely wrong or dishonest was made by Keith to cause that a (perhaps in excess) tolerant person like Julio did make such extreme and radical decision (including the extreme decision of not posting Keith's replies to Julio's critique)."

Well, I would like to comment a bit on that, and first of all I must state why I want to comment on that at all. Many people do not like to talk about emotions (of others and of their own). I do. I think emotions are the stuff of life. Becoming mature, in emotions, is like (IMO) building sand castles: you do get better at it as time goes by; but there are always waves aplenty to bring you back to less mature states. Lots of things in life (people, mostly) act preventing us from having sound and balanced emotions. In the end of the day, the net result of any immaturity in emotions is that we end up fighting against our own cause and against our own interests. This is not something I am here to teach. Instead, this is something that I am here to say that I, too, am desperately trying to learn! And it has been this way for many years now.

Now, what Keith did, the way I see it, was extremely wrong. At least the way I see it. I have a feeling that, if I told people what happened, many people would not consider it really that wrong. But at that time, and in that situation (and it holds true for me even now), it was very wrong to me. And it was (is) something of some possible public effect (it was not something private, like Keith not inviting me for his Sunday barbecue). So one question (and many people have already asked it to me…) is: why don't I tell what it is? Well, here I must confess that I am in shaky land (quicksand-like). I am being guided mostly by my intuition. First, my feeling is that, actually, the one that is likely to suffer from this "wrong" (if there is really wrong in that) is Keith himself and him alone (and I am not referring to any possible animosity that he might receive here or elsewhere; I am referring to effects that I think he has on himself). Second, I think these are rocky/troubled waters that he will have to go through, and I still have in me some trust for him that tells me that it is best to leave him go as peacefully as possible down this river. But most of all, I do not stigmatize Keith, just as I do not stigmatize almost anyone. We all do have virtues, that we'd better (IMHO) try to benefit from…

True, one thing that I decided was not to post Keith's replies and comments (the ones he had already sent to me through email) on my webpage. Yet, Keith still sent some further comments that he thought relevant… Well, I must say that I take that as a sign of courage and honesty. This is my view that we all have lots of honesty spots in us and, perhaps, lots of dishonesty spots too. So I think this last example that I mentioned ended up showing to me further honesty spots in Keith, and I simply cannot shut my eyes to that. So I have no choice but to make replies to his comments in the next pages commenting on the exchange between him and the JNDS researchers. (though most likely I still will not send emails to him). This is fair to him; this is fair to the JNDS people; and above all this is fair to…me. (As a matter of fact, as a side effect of it, I ended up buying – and I already have it in my hands now – the recent Handbook of Near-Death Experiences…).

As to the fights here, mostly centered on Keith, well, I have engaged in many bitter fights on the internet during the last years. And, surprisingly enough, sometimes I ended up admiring a lot some materialists who I fiercely fought against, and also vice versa. I have met many very honest materialists, mostly not on the internet; and most of the materialists that seem to me to be dishonest (regarding these issues of the afterlife and the like) are so because, IMO, of some immaturity spots in their "souls." (Similarly, when I do catch myself in dishonest conduct in these affairs, I think that what causes this dishonesty is some immaturity in me). I have not read carefully (and sometimes I have not read at all) all the posts on this thread, so I cannot really evaluate the situation in this present "war." But I still believe that what people like Keith have to say is important to be heard and thought over by people like me (i.e. die hard believers in the afterlife). Obviously if we have heard it all that Keith or Julio or anyone else has to say on the matter, then it is time to stop for a while. Those of you who have been more active reading and writing to Keith here can safely say if this applies to Keith now here.

I, for my part, have two comments to make:

1- Keith said (I will quote a long passage…): "I have to be absolutely clear about my meaning when addressing a trigger-happy audience ready to pounce on the first misspoken word. A good example is my use of the word 'infamous'--by which I only meant 'celebrated'--to describe the Pam Reynolds case, a word choice highlighted by both Charles Tart in print and later Julio Siqueira despite my in-print explanation of my meaning in my reply to Tart. Dictionary definitions include both 'well-known, renowned' and 'notorious,' but the latter meaning has become more commonplace. I quite honestly was simply thinking of the former meaning and not something like 'This day will live in infamy!' 'Renowned' would've been a better choice had it occurred to me at the time."

Well, what I say in my analysis is: "I cannot understand what Keith had in mind for calling this case 'infamous.' " That is all I said. The alleged "explanation" that Keith offered in his "in-print" is: "Charles Tart finds fault with my characterization of the Reynolds case as 'infamous.' What I should have said is that the case was immediately hailed by near-death researchers eager to highlight purportedly veridical paranormal perceptions during out-of-body NDEs."

So, what Keith said in-print was "What I should have said," and by that one cannot know if he was explaining the intended meaning or, instead, if he was correcting himself and applying a more proper term. As a matter of fact this rather cryptic meaning that Keith summons is nowhere to be found; by me at least. I tried www.dictionary.com, Webster online, Oxford advanced learners dictionary of current English, and Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary. They only list the…infamous meaning of the infamous word. So, yes, I agree with Keith: we must careful when choosing our words (not to be caught in meanings-crossfire), and also afterwards when explaining them (not to be confused as correcting ourselves instead).

2- Keith said: "If someone says that he believes X because there is testimony for it, and I point out that there is testimony for things he does not trust, there's something more than mere trust involved there. Why else trust some testimony but not other testimony?"

That is correct. I think that in issues regarding the evidence for the afterlife there is much much more than merely testimony. As to Chupacabras, E.T.s and etc, I cannot tell, for I know absolutely nothing about it. I neither trust, nor distrust.

Best Wishes to all,
Julio
____

[Julio Siqueira]

Z.C., I think our mutual messages were pretty much quantum entangled... :-)

Hope you like mine.

Best Wishes,
Julio
_____

[Trev.]

First, no offence intended to Kris, by my ...you've had a beer comment. You deserve a beer in your job.

Secondly,
Keith mentioned the 'six star cases.'

[Kris]

I deal with High School kids accept when my unit gets activated, then I deal with insurgents and terrorists! I need a new job lol

[Keith Augustine]

I appreciate Julio's clarification, particularly since it confirms that he had actually received my follow-up e-mails, and clarified for me what bothered him.

ZC: Thank you for confirming my last so clearly. Triple check every last word, for even the slightest misspoken one will convict you on trumped-up charges.

Fortunately, context is everything, and if you read my use of this word in context, it's clear that I meant "renowned" or "celebrated" or a related synonym.

Searching for the term infamous, I just discovered that I also used it to describe Maria's shoe as "the infamous shoe." Now, it might be "the notorious shoe" if it had been used by a serial killer to kick people to death, but otherwise there would be no reason to describe Maria's shoe (the shoe itself, not the case surrounding the shoe), as "having a reputation of the worst kind" or "being disgraceful." (Indeed, not even the case itself had such a reputation.) Clearly I was equating infamous with famous. For whatever reason, I wasn't associating it with "infamy."

Indeed, before I described Maria's shoe as infamous, I had said "Ring and Madelaine Lawrence hailed this report as one of most convincing cases of veridical paranormal perception during NDEs on record"

Now look at the context of the Pam Reynolds comment: "The case soon became infamous because of the lack of synaptic activity within the procedure and Reynolds's report of an apparently veridical OBE at some point during the operation."

Note the neutrality of this description: the lack of synaptic activity (a fact) at some time "within the procedure," the report of an apparently veridical OBE (a fact), "at some point" (so as to leave aside others' conflation that they occurred at the same time for the moment).

So, did the case soon become disgraceful because at some point Pam had electrocerebral silence? Did it have "a reputation of the worst kind" because it included a report of an apparently veridical OBE? There is no reason to describe either as disgraceful, and it should be clear that the combination of those two features is what made the case famous. Indeed, that's why the case was "hailed"--as I said in the sentence after next--as such good evidence (why would anyone hail a "notorious" case?)

No, it became famous because these two features, when taken together, would become, as Neal Grossman called it, "the smoking gun" if one erroneously assumed that both occurred at the same time.

Now, if for some reason some readers still don't accept this explanation, so be it.

[Michael Prescott]

In his "Big Book of the Soul," Ian Lawton repeatedly uses the word "infamous" when referring to famous paranormal cases. (At least I think it was Lawton's book. My apologies to him if I'm thinking of a different book.) At first I found it odd that the author would describe his own evidence as infamous. Eventually I realized that he was using "infamous" as a synonym for "famous."

This is incorrect usage (IMO), but there is no need to draw psychological or moral inferences from it. English is a strange language with irregular rules. The words "flammable" and "inflammable" are synonyms, so someone might reasonably take "famous" and "infamous" to be synonyms too.

Maybe it would be best to just let this discussion come to a merciful end, as we seem to be draining the lees now.

[Ryan]

My favourite English language usage guide is Mind The Gaffe, by the late linguist R. L. Trask. He was an outspoken atheist type. He is blunt, but usually amusing. And I would recommend all his stuff.

Anyhow, note the following entry:

Infamous
This word means "disgraceful", "worthy of hatred". It is not directly related to "famous", and something which is infamous is not necessarily well known. The Serbian atrocities in Kosovo were infamous even before anyone outside had heard of them. The word does not mean "famous" or "celebrated", and it certainly does not mean "quaint".

====

But sure, the word often gets used incorrectly, and language evolves, so incorrect usage eventually becomes correct usage. I'm not implying anything about anyone's motives. Simply, I generally trust Trask's guidance, though he admits he gives an intentionally conservative guide to written Standard English (British and American).

[Zerdini]

Maybe it would be best to just let this discussion come to a merciful end, as we seem to be draining the lees now.

Hear Hear!!

[Ryan]

In terms of killing this thread... ha we
all know how this blog works. MP is something like an (un/)lucky conductor; he is looked to with respect, but generally the orchestra have their own mind as to what they will play. :-)

I'd like to see something on the meaning of naturalism. If I lean towards any position it is probably this; maybe as a weaker claim, "non-reductive naturalism".. and for a slightly stronger (survival sympathetic) view, I would lean towards a non-materialistic naturalism. I would push against dualism as much as possible, maybe there would be some residue in any final account, but we should keep it to a minimum, IMHO.

[Julio Siqueira]

Hi Guys,

True, MC is the kind of man that seems to quickly, and deservedly, earn respect from others. But when it comes to "killing" threads, I think you have to realize, Michael, that it simply won't work with...believers in the afterlife (If human personalities can survive death, why wouldn't threads do it too? :-) )

Anyway, I am already kicking the bucket on this one.

I just want to make clear my position regarding the "infamous use" of the word infamous. When I read that (on Keith's paper regarding Pam Reynolds' case), it did not bother me at all. And it still doesn't. I just found it strange and misplaced. And I wondered, "Why is Keith using the term 'infamous' here?"

Now Keith claims: "Fortunately, context is everything, and if you read my use of this word in context, it's clear that I meant "renowned" or "celebrated" or a related synonym."

Well, as it seems, the one simple thing that people do not learn in philosophy courses and studies is the expression "I Stand Corrected!" :-). At least I can hire Keith as a lawyer from now on. You see, with this "context-talk" I would readily get my brother out of trouble (the context will surely show that he meant no offense when calling the woman driver a fat bitchy whale and well-cork right after, politely, having asked her to take her car from the entrance of his garage...).

He then adds: "Note the neutrality of this description: the lack of synaptic activity (a fact) at some time 'within the procedure'".

If he is implying that some amount of "lack of synaptic activity" was involved in the coining of this brand new usage to the word infamous, then I say it is good that he himself said that, and not someone else...

He concludes: "Now, if for some reason some readers still don't accept this explanation, so be it."

I just hope he does not get addicted to resorting to this. If Keith can go this far in defending his use of the term "infamous," just figure what he may be able to do to support the non-afterlife persuasion ;-)

Best Wishes,
Julio
_____

[The Major]

Clearly this is all a hot issue. Maybe we ought to discuss something else.

So, global warming, eh?

[Kris]

can we now say Keith's response to his use of the word infamous is now infamous :)

[Erich]

That's a good one, Kris:-)

It is no doubt way....waaaaaay.....too late for much of what follows by way of discussion surrounding the original topic, but I've been thinking more about why I have such a reaction to Keith that I would behave badly in comments and I have decided that much of it isn't about Keith (though some is).

1. My original reaction to the topic of our host's post was, "well of course there are different experiences across cultures. If I was in charge of welcoming the newly departed to the other side I would try my best - as a benign spirit being - to be gracious and make them feel comfortable. Hence I would have my emmisaries (and myself) appear in a more or less expected appearance. Later, after the new arrival had settled in and had begun to learn how things work in the spirit realm, I would begin to appear in more universal form.

However, if you tried to take this tact with a materialist you would only be talking past each other. There would be virtually no discussion.

So the spiritualist must approach the spiritual subject matter at the level of the materialist. And doing, so, to me, is extremely frustrating because it is largely an impossible task. I am already frustrated before I even begin to write a comment.

2. A comments section is not a good forum for fully fleshing out an argument that could, literally, take volumes. This too adds to the level of ambient frustration (forme at least). For example, concerning the elements involved in cross cultural NDEs, I think I have an extremely valid point concerning eye witness testimony, survey techniques and language barriers when it comes to accurately capturing all of the emotions and perceptions experienced prior to, during and after an NDE. I am sometimes asked to have my team participate in the analysis of member and provider survey results (healthcare insurance industry). Difficulties in getting respondents to answer the questions appropriately are highly salient to me. They often answer partially. They often tell you what they think you want to hear. Sometimes they hold back information if they think that it reflects negatively on themselves. Sometimes the respondent has clearly sorted out what is they truly think or feel and, as you dig deeper, their answers change or adjust. Then, there is bad survey technique as well that forces inaccurate answers and/or misses important nuances that could have picked up.

To fully develop an argument like this and illustrate how it likely impacts the topic at hand could take a fully reasearched doctoral disseration. I believe that there is something there, but it is too hard to get the point across in comments and as a result, too easy to dismiss.

3. Data is the core of material analysis. I feel frustrated, again, because I don't have the raw data in front of me and I have to trust, in this case, Keith's analysis of it (his table).

Becuase of all of the above, it seems to me that a comments section is a good place to bat ideas around in a friendly manner with no expectation of trying to actually arrive at a conclusion or to "solve" the mystery.

Keith seems to me to approach the venue as if he is debating to come to a final answer. Unfortunately, I at least, feel a need to respond at the same level of intensity. This is a mistake given all of the frustrating circumstances and it can only lead to a less than pleasant or productive outcome.

I am going to remind myself of all of this before participating here.

Finally, I want to thank MP for being a fine and fair host and for maintaining an air of civility that, even at its worst, is still far better than what is found in most other sites on the net.

[Art]

Keith, would you prefer for the soul to stay in the body until it is completely and utterly dead? Perhaps till the body starts to rot to make sure it's good and dead?

I see it as a great kindness that the soul is so quickly able to vacate the body thus allowing it to avoid those last horrific seconds or minutes that might precede the body being completely and utterly dead?

I've read about primitive cultures that have different words to describe how dead someone is, with the last word meaning "completely and utterly dead." In their culture you could be "dead" but still able to communicate verbally, meaning you were surely going to die, but just hadn't quite gotten there yet. Perhaps these cultures know something about the soul that we don't?

[The Major]

I can't help but think of The Princess Bride:

Inigo Montoya: He's dead. He can't talk.

Miracle Max: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.

Inigo Montoya: What's that?

Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.

[Michael Prescott]

I slightly misremembered what I'd read in Ian Lawton's "Big Book of the Soul." He did not misuse the word "infamous." However, he did use the word "notorious" to mean simply famous. Amazon's "Search Inside" feature brings up two examples.

"... had taken part in the notorious battle for the Japanese island of Iwo Jima ..." [p. 31]

"... her other notorious regressions may not be as easily explained ..." [p. 73]

The first usage is arguably correct, though I doubt Lawton really wanted to call the battle of Iwo Jimo "well-known for some bad or unfavorable quality, deed, etc.; infamous," which is one dictionary's definition of "notorious."

The second usage is clearly incorrect, since he is not saying there is anything unfavorable or infamous about the hypnotic regressions that constitute his own evidence for past lives.

So I was wrong in saying he misused the word "infamous," but he did misuse "notorious," which is a synonym of "infamous." The basic point stands: English is tricky, and writers make mistakes.

I should note that the same dictionary lists an alternate meaning of "notorious": "generally known or widely acknowledged." However, this meaning is described as "rare," and other dictionaries don't list it at all.

Okay, enough about that.

[Erich]

I was reading my old copy of the Tibetan Book of the Dead today (hadn't even picked it up in years).

This ancient wisdom from a non-Western source describes the first phase of dying and death in details that very much match accounts from modern Western NDErs that I have read; as well as some non-western accounts (though these later, admittedly are from people who have some English speaking skills and therefore may be tainted in some way per Keith's proposition).

There is a description of an awesome bright light, there is intensified (realer than normal) consciousness, there is disembodied awarness not understanding that it has died, there is the disembodied consciousness observing its own physical body and other events taking place in the physical world, there is meeting with relatives and other entities and, most important,
the book unambiguously states that much of what is experienced in terms of images is a reflection of one's own consciousness. Since culture molds our thinking, it is not surprising that there would be some cultural differences in some of the images seen while having an NDE.

To me, the core features I mention above in common between the TBoD and modern reports are more important than tunnels versus not tunnels. Refering to a tunnel as a core feature is somewhat arbitrary, again, in my opinion. In fact, if it is not common across cultures, then it is, by definition, not a core feature. There should be a reassessment of which features are core.

I find the similarities between the book's depictions and modern NDE stories to be remarkable and compelling evidence that what NDErs are reporting is - and always has been - universal to humanity.

I suppose a counter argument would be that the TBoD has permeated our culture and people undergoing NDEs have been influenced by it to the extent that they have their experiences - perhaps subconsciously - conform to that influence.

I find this very unlikely, however. Many NDErs were not particualrly religious or spiritual people in the traditions of our own culture (largley Judeo-christian; let alone people who would focus any attention on esoteric eastern spiritual concepts.

[Michael Prescott]

I recall reading somewhere that even in Western NDEs, the tunnel crops up only in a minority of reports.

Unfortunately I can't cite a reference. But many of the NDEs I've read (almost all of which have been Western) have made no mention of a tunnel or even a dark void.

[Louise]

Sometimes it seems to me that the determined skeptic's position is "My experiences are real, yours are imaginary."

[Erich]

http://www.nderf.org/
and
http://www.oberf.org/

Both are Long's sites.

Agreed, MP. I have been reading the cases on Long's site and the tunnel appears to not be as common as some other features. In fact it would seem like it is in a fairly small minority of cases.

This, for me, imparts some level of honesty to the reports because I would imagine that fraudulent reports would contain the tunnel as it seems to be prominent in popular stereotypes.

The lack of tunnels also sort of lends some evidence againts Keith's theory.

You know, now that I've gained perspective and calmed down, I wish Keith would come back. I'd like to converse with him about this.

I haven't read Long's book, yet. I understand that he performs an analysis of all the elements in the numerous reports he has gathered. True?

Regardless of what Keith's initial reaction is to Long and Long's methodology, I still think it would be edifying to do an independent analysis in the manner of multi variant regression. I don't have the time to do this right, but Keith seems like he might. I would, though, take some time to partner with him on developing the methodolgy and rules for assessing features of NDEs, etc.

One aspect of Keith's supporting cites that left me less than convinced was that these were small sample studies done by a variety of different researchers in a variety of different settings and, hence, prone to all sorts of methodological inconsistencies and biases. I also suspect that there was some selection bias of the cites on Keith's part as I have been able to find some counters just by Googling around. Though this may not be true and I may be unfair to Keith in this assertion. Unfortunately, many of Keith's cites require a subscription in order to read the full text article wherein one could examine the methodology, caveats,etc.

Also in fairness to Keith, he did recognize the need for larger samples to study. The large number of reports in Long's study is invaluable. I see that Long did do some background checks and interviews with many of the people submitting reports and the website says that he is increasing that type of personal contact with NDE reports.

Further fairness to Keith would be to note that Long also uses the term "Fear NDE". I still dispute that it can be proven that NDEs occur due to fear. Maybe they do, but at this point the best that be said is that NDEs sometimes - though exceedingly rarely - occur in situations where fear is present. That fear is the cause is not proven and is, to my mind, very unlikely given the complete lack of correlation (i.e. overwhelmingly, perhaps almost to the point of being infinitely so, fear does not produce NDEs). Other emotions and/or mental/psychological states may be present and may be triggering the NDE. This is a condition that most definitely requires refined interview techniques. But I can see where Keith would at least use the term given it appears to be currency in the field of NDE studies.

Keith? Is it too late?

[dmduncan]

I was wondering when someone was going to mention the Bardo Thodol. First translated into English in 1927, I believe.

The bright light, feelings of love and peace, meeting deceased relatives. I'm not sure of the facts, but it is reputed to have been written about a thousand years ago. It's been a long time since I read it as well. I no longer have my copy.

An obscure, for most Americans, ancient text from Tibet, about as "non-western" as it is possible to get, I'd say.

[dmduncan]

And please, don't let disagreements about the use of the word "infamous" make anyone inflamous.

[dmduncan]

"Sometimes it seems to me that the determined skeptic's position is "My experiences are real, yours are imaginary."

And I think you are right, Louise. Of course, a skeptic can't come right out and say it, unless it be some form of slip, because he would skewer himself on an argumentum ad ignorantiam, and both the skewer, and his impalement on it, would be much discussed.

But in practice it works out that way. Unless they have seen it or it's been published in some journal, they think it's all imaginary nonsense, so they do, really, believe paranormal things do not exist because they have not experienced them.

Michael Shermer once slipped on a banana peal of his own words when he admitted as much on a Larry King UFO episode once:

"SHERMER: May I say something about the way science works, Larry, is that the default assumption is that whatever the claim is, it's not true until it's proved."

Yes, you read that right. A claim, he says, is not TRUE, unless it's first PROVED true.

So in other words, if I say that somewhere out there in this great big universe there is intelligent life on another planet, that claim is FALSE simply because the folks in Shermer's clubhouse do not know it's TRUE.

It has not been proven true, so it must be UNtrue, according to Shermer's logic here.

[Art]

"There is a description of an awesome bright light, there is intensified (realer than normal) consciousness," - Erich
--------------------------------------------

There was a really neat online article in the January 2010 New Scientist magazine that talked about there being a certain inherent blurriness in a holographic projection. In the original film of course the blurriness wouldn't exist. When I used to read NDEs I never understood how something could be "realer than real" or "more consciousness than normal," till I read that article and it suddenly made sense to me. We are living in the holographic projection so of course there is a certain level of inherent blurriness; but when the soul merges back into the original holographic film from which this side derives its reality, that blurriness wouldn't exist. Just another piece of the puzzle that helps make the picture more clear to me.

"It would be ironic if an instrument built to detect something as vast as astrophysical sources of gravitational waves inadvertently detected the minuscule graininess of space-time. "Speaking as a fundamental physicist, I see discovering holographic noise as far more interesting," says Hogan." http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true

[Ian Wardell]

Keith said:

"(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.)"

I would consider qualia to be supernatural. What exactly is your definition of natural? What characteristics would some alleged existent need to have to be considered not natural?

[Roger Knights]

"SHERMER: May I say something about the way science works, Larry, is that the default assumption is that whatever the claim is, it's not true until it's proved."

Yes, you read that right. A claim, he says, is not TRUE, unless it's first PROVED true.

So in other words, if I say that somewhere out there in this great big universe there is intelligent life on another planet, that claim is FALSE simply because the folks in Shermer's clubhouse do not know it's TRUE.

It has not been proven true, so it must be UNtrue, according to Shermer's logic here.

Posted by: dmduncan | March 27, 2010 at 08:10 PM

Not quite -- it's just "not proven," per Shermer. He hasn't incriminated himself with his words (alas). However, you're correct that this is how he and they feel and act, in practice.

The way to tease this close-mindedness out of them is to ask if they'd favor increased funding for anomalistics research. (E.g., the establishment of a federal Department Of Weird Things (DOWT) or Department of the "Damned" (Forteana), along the lines of the Office of Alternative Medicine, or the shifting of some small part of private funding from its current beneficiaries.) They'll all claim it would be a tragic diversion of resources from the war on cancer, etc., and that it would lend unacceptable credibility to superstition and fantasy. IOW, they KNOW there’s no hope of proving it, so in effect they KNOW it's false.

[Roger Knights]

MP: "I should note that the same dictionary lists an alternate meaning of 'notorious'"

Make that "alternative" -- the words have different meanings. "You can look it up" :-)

[Roger Knights]

PS:
Alternate = By turns, back-and-forth (verb and adjective);

Alternative = A choice among two or more things;

===========

"The way to tease this close-mindedness out of them is to ask if they'd favor increased funding for anomalistics research."

Since some people object to federal funding of almost anything, perhaps a better test would be to ask skeptics if they would applaud or bemoan the establishment of academic departments to study the paranormal, psi, etc.

[Paul]

How can one study something that doesn't exist? :)

[Hope Rivers]

had a NDE like experience when I was 20 (42 in nearly 3 months) and I have mentioned this briefly in part before on this site almost a couple years back.

My situation was not based on any close to death scenario that I was aware of, as it occurred in my bed at home when living with my family after falling asleep. I thought it was a dream, albiet a very life like one, unlike nothing I had ever experienced or ever have since.

I was and still am a person who has dreams virtually most nights and sometimes prophetic ones. I had no knowledge then of NDEs nor had I read anything about them. It would be a good 13 or so yrs after that before I began to read on this subject.

I experienced the floating out of the body, the tunnel, white light, met spirit persons, telepathy, visited a futuristic looking city and even met a living person, which is why it made me think at the time after analysis, it definitely was a dream. I was even made to read 100s of pages of typed words, similar to a manuscript, in the sense it was sheets of loose white paper. The spirit man would hold one up, I would read then as I finished he would replace with another, reading my thoughts the whole time.

When I woke I couldnt remember what I had read, so not sure whether it was a life review of some sort or something else, but a sense of importance was conveyed telepathically from him to me, that I must read it.

I was given the opportunity to express my feelings about my life and ask questions in a circle of "spirit people" and was given a prophetic answer, that came with a time line as to when it will occur, which is only a few years away now. Interesting to see what will happen.

Also after leaving the NDE location I re entered the tunnel soon to wake feeling my heart pound, drawing a deep breath as though I was holding my breath till then.

There was no mind fogginess or thought collection as one usually can have after experiencing a regular dream. I knew instantly what happened, it was real and I wanted to go back immediately. I knew I had been to heaven and I prayed that God take me back. I was so overcome with emotion, after experiencing a love so pure in state that being back in this world was like being sent back to prison. I begged in my prayers and prayed till the edge of sleep, then suddenly I found myself reentering the tunnel and returning to the coloured grid (some kind of gateway)only then too fall away again back down the tunnel and being awaken a second time.

So in a sense I had two NDE's one after another. Which again leaves me with many questions as too how this occured. I am now aware some people apparently can meditate too this state, I have tried this but have had no success to date. I really dont know what happened to me back then, its a mystery for now. I can say I knew without a doubt what occured to me when it happened and immediately after, it was only after analysing the content that I got confused and doubted the experience and when I told my mother she dismissed it as a dream, which made me not bring it up again back then.

In analysing my experience many years later I wondered whether I was suffering with sleep apnea at the time, although this would be a guess and I have not been diagnosed with this condition or am aware that I stop breathing momentarily, although I do suffer with terrible insomnia when stressed and this can go on for months at a time. What I can definitely attest too, is that I was experiencing incredible fear responses due to other paranormal activity at the time. I was in a state of constant fear virtually every day.

Approximately a year later(after NDE) the spirit being I met in the NDE like dream manifested to a lady I met for the first time at an event I did not want to attend with my mother. I was experiencing terrifying poltergiest activity and ghosts every day and all I wanted was it too stop. My family had already tried blessing the house with a priest, nothing worked. People praying over me, again nada. My sanity was questioned and I began doubting myself.

This woman at this meeting we attended prayed over me and said that a man had just entered her home, she went to describe him, physically and how we met and passed on a message only I knew. It was the spirit person from the NDE. It was a relief for both myself and my mother although it didnt explain the living person I met in the NDE. So I remained very confused about it. Ten years later the living person in NDE commits suicide.

But what I can say is that prior to my NDE like experience, I was experiencing major traumatic experiences, in the form of regular sleep paralysis & OBE's (from age 9 yrs),poltergiest activity after I attended a spiritualist circle at 15 and saw a physical materialisation of what appeared to be a hand that touched me. It seemed after that everything intensified and as a kid I didnt know how to deal with it and with my catholic roots it made things horribly worse, as I had some relatives basically believing I was possessed by demons or others believing someone like me should be in a mental instituation.

As a coping mechanism I decided to keep my experiences as much to myself as possible as a response to these "outside reactions".

I was very isolated in choosing that path and with all the fire and brimstone beliefs built into me, I lived in constant terror of *these* entities I was seeing and hearing and watching the things they would do physically around me.

I was made to feel like a leper on numerous occasions due to people's ignorance and fears, I was banned from my best friends house after I slept over there once as after I left her family began experiencing poltergiests and spirits immediately. Fortunately for them they exorcised their house successfuly with a priest.

I was seeing every night in my room, a holographic like projection of a place that was dark with a red hue and was filled with 100s of human silhouettes. I couldnt make their feautures out as they were too dark too see, but a procession of these "shadow people" would walk past my bed out the wall behind me. Every so often one would wave there hand in front of my eyes, as though they were aware of my presence and would touch me and I would feel a cold feathery feeling on my skin along with cool breezes.

As you can imagine sleeping became a terrifying experience for me this was happening nightly. If I closed my eyes during the day I would see the same thing in my minds eye. I was transported to the dark dungeon like place with all these people herded together.

My saving grace was a man recommeded to me from the Perth psychic society. He was a healer who came to visit me after I called him and explained my experiences. It was in his presence a spirit guide manifested in daylight behind his right side as we were sitting opposite each other.

It was in full colour, I saw the apparition become more lifelike before my eyes and I froze. The man could see by my expression I was seeing something and asked me if I was, I nodded then he said, "it could be my guide, who has been seen before around me by a few clairvoyants". he went on to describe the being, his clothes, era and even his name. It was exactly what I was staring at, I was yet to utter a word and I'm glad I didn't for this was the day I realised I wasn't crazy and I thanked God for the experience. The biggest weight lifted of my shoulders that day in more ways than one.

This wonderful man later went into my room and prayed and then came back to me and placed his hands over my palms and began to pray. I felt an electric hot charge enter through my palms up my arms and whizz through my body. I have never experienced anything like it ever. He asked me after the experience whether I felt the electricity and I said yes, as he felt the charge leave him too.

That night when I went to bed I saw 100s of white crosses in the darkness of my room and I felt peace for the first time. When I spoke to him later he mentioned he did indeed seal all openings in my room with flicking crosses everywhere.

Several days later my friend entered my room and also was able to see the crosses, I had not mentioned this fact to her and it was then I proceeded to tell her about the day the healer came over. I can say all activity ceased for a few months as the man mentioned it would, whether this is power of suggestion, I can't say. But he said I had to overcome my fears as it was a magnet to the lower spirit realm and gave me some pointers.

I apologise for the long post, I have just given you a taste of some of my experiences, by no means is this the full extent, there's just too much and frankly some people would find it hard to believe and one gets fed up with the mockers tearing one down, or those others whose behaviour and or words basically spell out "your dishonest"(as in me or any person who has had a NDE or paranormal experience) hence why many people like myself keep our experiences tucked away.

For die hard skeptic's maybe lie detectors could assist in the validity of statements made by NDErs as truth may set us all free, of course it would have to be set up in a fair and just way.

[dmduncan]

"Not quite -- it's just 'not proven,' per Shermer. He hasn't incriminated himself with his words (alas). However, you're correct that this is how he and they feel and act, in practice."

That's a distinction without a difference though, Roger, since "proof" in science is the epistemic means of saying such and such exists or is true. "Proof," regardless of the number of steps in the methodology that allows you to say it's been proven, is just another word for "knowing," or saying that we "know" such and such is true. So it's an ad ignorantiam regardless of the complexity or simplicity of the particular methodology of knowing.

It does not matter, in other words if you say, I do not know X is true, therefore X is false, or it has not been proven that X is true, therefore X is false, or even, it has not been proven X is true, therefore we assume X is false.

"SHERMER: ...the default assumption is that whatever the claim is, it's not true until it's proved."

Assume anything you want to. But that "default assumption" is the policy to act and speak as if "X is false because we haven't proven (we don't KNOW) X is true" is a true statement.

But it is not a true statement, so how could one justify the assumption that it is true when it is not true?

That would be like saying the default assumption is that 2 plus 2 is 5 unless it's proven to be some other sum. Well no, we already know it is false that 2 plus 2 is 5, so what grounds do you have to stand on to assume anything else?

Fallacies of textbook purity rarely appear in natural language the way we ordinarily speak. If they did they would be spotted easily even by the person making them, but the surrounding obfuscations in the way people actually speak make missing them more likely. But Shermer here came very close to a textbook case.

[dmduncan]

"How can one study something that doesn't exist? :)"

Exactly. This is what I was pointing out in the "Rovin" thread.

It gets started out with an argument from ignorance, i.e., Shermer's logically unwarranted "default assumption."

One you've made that "default assumption," then you might as well be a black man trying to play golf at a country club in the 1950's, because that's about as much luck as a paranormal claim has to being seriously considered.

That's how the circular argument is started, that's how they reify the circle. Once they've made that fallacious "default assumption" they use it to populate their arguments against the paranormal, which are then circular arguments.

[Julio Siqueira]

Michael said: I should note that the same dictionary lists an alternate meaning of "notorious": "generally known or widely acknowledged." However, this meaning is described as "rare," and other dictionaries don't list it at all.

In Portuguese, this rare use is the very meaning of the word "notorious." In Portuguese this word has a good connotation (or denotation), and not the bad one that it has in English. But this is not so regarding infamous (it has a bad meaning in Portuguese, just as in English). It seems that across the different languages, and also in its etimological description, infamous only has the negative meaning. So we are left with two intriguing questions:

First, where on Earth did Keith get this meaning of his?

Second, why, as it seems, we are not going to hear the well deserved "I Stand Corrected!"?

Keith can be pretty picky regarding those who do not apply the proper corrections after having been correted by him. Is he, now, applying double standards? Is he allowed to disregard what others say, but others must never disregard what he says? So far, it seems that this is his law...

Julio

[Kris]

More the reason to ignore the good fellow, at least on this subject, ehh Julio..

[dmduncan]

"I was given the opportunity to express my feelings about my life and ask questions in a circle of "spirit people" and was given a prophetic answer, that came with a time line as to when it will occur, which is only a few years away now. Interesting to see what will happen."

Actually Hope, I'm very much interested in hearing what you have to say. I've been hearing some things from Rosebud about what some people are experiencing regarding the future, and I'd be interested to know if there is some correlation. I understand perfectly if you don't want to post it publicly. You can also email me if you want.

I fact, it might be better if you didn't post it publicly.

[Keith Augustine]

Art: I see it as a great kindness that the soul is so quickly able to vacate the body thus allowing it to avoid those last horrific seconds or minutes that might precede the body being completely and utterly dead?

I passed on sharing the thought that occurred to me the first time you said this, Art, because I saw no reason to destroy your optimism if it made you happy. But since you seem to be directly addressing this to me as some sort of argument for the goodness of God (or whomever), I'll share my thought. My thought was that the inability of Ebola victims (the sort of disease that motivated the movie Outbreak) to leave the body while suffering terribly for several days before finally succumbing to death, or the slow, painful descent into death during the throngs of cancer, or the killer whales' need to drown a grey whale calf by exhausting it to death in order to survive, and innumerable other things, indicate to me that no one out there is looking to do us (or other sentient beings) any favors.

MP: I should note that the same dictionary lists an alternate meaning of "notorious": "generally known or widely acknowledged." However, this meaning is described as "rare," and other dictionaries don't list it at all.

If you look up "well-known" at thesaurus.com, "infamous" is one of the synonyms listed in the first entry. However, if you look up "infamous" at the same place, "well-known" does not come up as a possible meaning until the third of four pages. So although "infamous" might not be incorrectly used as a synonym for "well-known," infamous is obviously used far more often as "notorious," and for that reason alone should not be used. At the time I simply was not associating "infamous" with the clear meaning of "infamy." Since MP mentions notorious, I might add that while "notorious" usually has negative implications, the common root word "notoriety" may not usually have such implications, since it is sometimes taken as a synonym for "celebrity."

Julio Siqueira: Second, why, as it seems, we are not going to hear the well deserved "I Stand Corrected!"?

Oy vey... I've conceded that my use of "infamous" was a poor word choice. Whether it was legitimate usage or not is irrelevant, since either way it was still a poor word choice. Either it is not correct usage, or it is rare usage; I leave the question of whether it is incorrect usage or merely rare usage to etymologists.

If infamous is never correctly used as I used it, then I stand guilty of misapplying a word. Guilty, guilty, guilty! I hope it's not a vocabulary error punishable by death :)

Since the usual meaning of the word doesn't make sense in the context that I used it, nothing hinges on my possible misuse of it, so let's discuss it some more, shall we? :)~

Julio Siqueira: Keith can be pretty picky regarding those who do not apply the proper corrections after having been correted by him. Is he, now, applying double standards? Is he allowed to disregard what others say, but others must never disregard what he says?

Yes, let's derive grand conclusions from a single poor word choice like this.

You know what the truth is, Julio? I never said "I stand corrected" because this is such a trivial thing to fight about in the first place. I should give Kris a whipping for his repeated use of "vertical" in place of "veridical" by this reasoning, but I never even mentioned it before, because his meaning was obvious. Just as my meaning is obvious when I said that a case is particularly "infamous" because it had two features that made it look so impressive as to hold it up above so many other possible NDE cases.

Had an editor pointed out that this word was a poor choice to me, I would've changed it right then and there to something clearer. I simply was not aware that I was misusing the term at the time, if in fact my usage was not proper usage. And even if it was a possible meaning, that it was not the usual meaning would've been enough to have changed it, had I been aware I was not using it correctly or standardly. Again, I was not associating "infamous" with "infamy." So much prose over this minor infraction compels me never to use the word again, in any context, for the rest of my life! :)

Erich: Regarding the Tibetan Book of the Dead motifs, we only have your summary, and not actual translations of it. If you want to know whether prototypical Western NDE elements feature in it, ask yourself whether the 8 elements I identified are explicitly reported or not. Carl Becker's summary of related historical Tibetan "deologs" (afterlife journey accounts) did not look anything like modern NDEs, as far as I could tell. Note that it is important to read the accounts themselves (when available), not merely the elements researchers might claim to have found in the accounts. The question you might ask yourself is: What direct quote from the account would I hold up as an experience of light? If you can't provide a clear-cut example from a direct quote, it's probably not something that would withstand scrutiny as a prototypical Western NDE motif.

Erich: I suppose a counter argument would be that the TBoD has permeated our culture and people undergoing NDEs have been influenced by it to the extent that they have their experiences - perhaps subconsciously - conform to that influence. // I find this very unlikely, however.

I concur. In fact, one could more plausibly appeal to the Western esoteric literature to explain NDE motifs, since some earlier OBE accounts included them, or to spiritualist beliefs about the nature of the afterlife (perhaps). The problem is that these are equally unknown to most people as the Tibetan Book of the Dead. In order for these explanations to hold water, NDErs would need to be largely familiar with these works--and most people are not, so probably most NDErs are not, since NDEs don't just happen to spiritualists or Eastern religious practitioners.

MP: I recall reading somewhere that even in Western NDEs, the tunnel crops up only in a minority of reports. // Unfortunately I can't cite a reference. But many of the NDEs I've read (almost all of which have been Western) have made no mention of a tunnel or even a dark void.

Allan Kellehear is the one who made a big deal out of the fact that tunnels and life reviews appear absent in non-Western NDE accounts. The reason that he focused on these elements was to support his sociological theory that Westerners might be more inclined to describe a darkness with a light off in the distance as a tunnel (given our experience with train tunnels, car tunnels, and so on), whereas less technological cultures might simply regard such as a darkness. (I don't recall off hand his explanation for the lack of life reviews.) The problem, of course, is that less technological cultures don't report a darkness leading to a light at all, whether you describe it as a tunnel or not. What inspired my chart was that Kellehear made a chart, but illustrative of my point is that Kellehear's chart only even looked for a few elements of prototypical Western NDEs. Instead of the 8 elements near-death researchers have identified as NDE commonalities in the West, Kellehear looked for: Tunnel / OBE / Life Review / Other Beings / Other World. Contrast that to the elements I looked for: Peace / OBE / Tunnel or Darkness/ Light / Meeting others / Life Review / Landscape / Barrier or Threshold.

Clearly, my elements are based on the sort that van Lommel et al. 2001 lists as typical Western elements, whereas Kellehear omits even searching for euphoric feelings, an experience of light, or a barrier or threshold. (The last one is present in some interesting non-Western reports, too, so it's a pity that Kellehear never looked for it.) Also, one needs to be specific about what a life review is; watching others be judged, rather than seeing the events of one's own life, is not a life review.

Erich: This, for me, imparts some level of honesty to the reports because I would imagine that fraudulent reports would contain the tunnel as it seems to be prominent in popular stereotypes.

In a comparison of pre-Moody and post-Moody NDE accounts, only the tunnel element was reported more frequently post-Moody. That suggests some cultural influence from Moody's model, but a very minimal one.

Perhaps "tunnel" is being used to describe a darkness in some cases, but it is certainly not in all cases--the tunnel report including rivets, for example, could not have been a darkness. The question here is whether this "misdescription" really happens (or happens very often), or whether some people actually see tunnels while others merely see a darkness, or see neither. In order to support the "misdescribed darkness hypothesis," I think it would be necessary to include some detailed tunnel experience accounts and demonstrate how the word tunnel might be ambiguous in such cases. Without doing that, you're just throwing a posit out there. What reason do we have to believe that tunnel experiences are misdescribed darkness experiences? They clearly aren't in all cases (e.g., the tunnel with rivets); so why think that they are in some cases, or most cases? Again, I think Kellehear threw this out there mainly as a posit, and not because the case reports themselves suggested it (else he could have cited such case reports, and he didn't).

Erich: I still think it would be edifying to do an independent analysis in the manner of multi variant regression.

Sorry, Erich, I don't know the first thing about how to do a "multi variant regression," but feel free to follow up, singly or in partnership, with someone who does. Quite honestly, someone like Kellehear should've done this already if he is going to make bold claims that tunnels don't feature in minimally contaminated cross-cultural accounts; they don't, but neither do experiences of an unconditionally loving light--so why does Kellehear focus on tunnels and life reviews?

Erich: One aspect of Keith's supporting cites that left me less than convinced was that these were small sample studies done by a variety of different researchers in a variety of different settings and, hence, prone to all sorts of methodological inconsistencies and biases.

Some of the sample sizes are small, others are not. The NDE sample sizes from India and China are relatively good compared to the other studies' sample sizes. And there is little doubt that NDEs from India are quite dissimilar to those in the West. (The Chinese study, unfortunately, is based on what the authors' report, so one cannot check for the elements in the NDE accounts themselves.)

As for methodological inconsistencies: they are invariably present and probably always will be, as different investigators have and will be doing different investigations. My criteria were simple: Do NDErs report the sorts of elements we'd find in van Lommel et al.'s NDErs, or not. If the accounts include that element, the answer is yes. If not, the answer is no. If ambiguous (i.e., "description X might be a tunnel experience, but might not", the answer is maybe.

Erich: I also suspect that there was some selection bias of the cites on Keith's part as I have been able to find some counters just by Googling around.

All of the relevant studies are listed in my paper. I note which accounts I excluded from the chart in the paragraph under it starting "For the sake of fidelity...," and then note that the results would have been the same had I included them anyway. The chart would've been "unwieldily" large if I had added the less reliable sources, too.

I'm not sure what accounts you've Googled, but if they are like your previous link, I'm not sure they count as reliable data. Again, we need minimally contaminated accounts--the sort an anthropologist would get. Someone going to the NDERF website and posting an account in English, even when that person is not from the West, would not be such an account. One could get such minimally uncontaminated accounts by interviewing natives in their own language, or by searching for ancient non-Western accounts, but probably the latter are going to be too hard to find. (It's hard enough to find ancient Western NDE reports.)

Kris: Until you can eliminate transmission you don't have a case of naturalism does not allow life after death.

Your point, properly stated, should be: "Until you can eliminate transmission you don't have a case that neuropsychology does not allow life after death." The issue about transmission is what the empirical evidence makes probable. I've said more than anyone wants to hear about that before in the Rovin' entry, so I won't say any more about it now.

Whether naturalism "allows" life after death is not an empirical question, but a conceptual one. If naturalism entails that there are no unembodied minds (be they gods, angels, demons, sprites, or deceased human beings), then the persistence of human minds after death would be conceptually incompatible with naturalism, for example. But this is not a reason (empirical or otherwise) to doubt life after death.

I need to be clear about this because I think Kris continually misunderstands my own view (not intentionally). I would regard compelling evidence for the existence of unembodied minds as a falsification of naturalism. In other words, if unembodied minds exist, then the supernatural exists. Once demonstrated to exist, I would not try to redefine "natural" to encompass such things. Instead, I would still continue to understand naturalism as a certain position, a position that entails that there are no unembodied minds, only I would then understand it as a position that has turned out to be false.

The empirical and conceptual issues, then, need to be kept separate. Now Kris evidently aims to understand "natural" in some other way. That's fine, but I have reasons for resisting that. Namely, that if "natural" can be used so broadly as to encompass even unembodied minds existing in a transcendental realm, then it seems to me that "natural" becomes a trivial word, as anything can then be construed as "natural." In order for "natural" to have any meaning, it should be possible to say what would count as not natural. And it seems to me that a paradigmatic case of something not natural is something that exists in a transcendent realm, outside of or "beyond" nature (the very meaning of "transcendent"). If even that counts as "natural," then there seems to be nothing left that could be categorized as "not natural."

I should make another point clear, the technical reasons for which I'll pass. If either solipsism or idealism were true, it would not make sense to call any particular event either "natural" or "supernatural." There would only be minds, and the contents of minds (and perhaps abstract objects, if the idealist rejects conceptualism or nominalism). The concept of the "natural" is intertwined with, though it is not identical to, the concept of the "physical." So the concept of "natural" presupposes realism, that there is a physical world that exists independently of whether any mind perceives it, that would exist even if no minds existed. If you reject realism, then everything is mental (or else everything is either mental or abstract, for the idealist Platonic realist). In that case, "natural" has no meaning, and so it's antitheses of "nonnatural" or "supernatural" have no meaning either. (Another technicality: for me the "supernatural" is a very specific subset of the nonnatural, namely when events in nature have nonnatural causes.)

Ian Wardell: I would consider qualia to be supernatural. What exactly is your definition of natural? What characteristics would some alleged existent need to have to be considered not natural?

In order for something to be natural, it would have to (1) be physical or supervenient upon the physical and (2) governed by laws of nature.

So something nonnatural would be neither physical nor supervenient upon anything physical, nor governed by natural laws.

So, for example, the number 4 as a Platonic realist understands it would be nonnatural, as it is not physical, it does not supervene on the physical (as an Aristotelian realist would maintain), and it is not governed by laws of nature (though it might be governed by mathematical laws).

Qualia are supervenient upon the physical (specific brain states), though a substance dualist might deny that they always are. (Another technicality is that something can be logically supervenient or nomologically supervenient.) A property dualist like David Chalmers would hold qualia to be nomologically supervenient, and a substance dualist would probably agree that this is the case at least when souls are conjoined to a body, but not when they can become disembodied.

[Art]

"I passed on sharing the thought that occurred to me the first time you said this, Art, because I saw no reason to destroy your optimism if it made you happy. But since you seem to be directly addressing this to me as some sort of argument for the goodness of God (or whomever), I'll share my thought. My thought was that the inability of Ebola victims (the sort of disease that motivated the movie Outbreak) to leave the body while suffering terribly for several days before finally succumbing to death, or the slow, painful descent into death during the throngs of cancer, or the killer whales' need to drown a grey whale calf by exhausting it to death in order to survive, and innumerable other things, indicate to me that no one out there is looking to do us (or other sentient beings) any favors." - Keith Augustine
--------------------------------------------

We still don't know what Ebola victims or that Grey Whale calf experienced seconds or minutes before they died do we? I have read a plethora of near death experiences of people who were in the process of drowning and almost invariably they said when they "let go" and breathed in the water it was a peaceful feeling and all pain and suffering ended at that moment. So, your argument still doesn't address what happens seconds or minutes before ebola victims or grey whale calves drowned. The terror they feel 20 or 30 minutes before the act is not the point.... It's that exact moment of death that I am talking about, not a half hour beforehand, the actual moment when they shut their eyes and take their last breath. At the exact moment of death, when the soul exits the body, for most people, they let go and feel wonderful.

[Michael Prescott]

Keith wrote, "...if 'natural' can be used so broadly as to encompass even unembodied minds existing in a transcendental realm, then it seems to me that 'natural' becomes a trivial word, as anything can then be construed as 'natural.' ... And it seems to me that a paradigmatic case of something not natural is something that exists in a transcendent realm, outside of or 'beyond' nature...."

I agree. "Nature" is generally taken to mean the physical world. If there is a spirit world, it would not be part of nature. It would still be part of reality, but not the reality we call "nature."

[Erich]

Keith, your response is appreciated.

I am thinking about what you have said. I have some initial reactions, but I want to give a well thought out reply.

If this thread is dead by then (hopefully not), I am sure we will meet again and pick up where we left off.

I will say that we are in agreement on some points. For example, we need minimally contaminated accounts--the sort an anthropologist would get."

I will also say anyone who has read the Tibetan Book of the Dead would probably note that my summary of the first "bardo" is accurate. The TBoD is available in all major booksellers. Next time you are in Barnes and Noble or Borders you may wish to take a copy off the shelf and take a half hour or so to read that section. It couldn't hurt, right? :-)

[Kris]

It is very simple Keith

If NDEs are eventually proven to be separation of the mind from the body thus demonstrating life after death this would be a natural thing. It would be as much part of the universe as would be the sun.

A person can redefine naturalism to update this discovery and surely naturalists would. They would simply say the following.

a.) we know this happens, we just don't know how as of yet this happens

or

b.) we know this happens and here is how it happens.

I am very comfortable with naturalism. I accept that all things will have a natural explanation. I don't believe in the truly incomprehensible. I think if dualism be true then it happened naturally. In many ways the Mars Rover is dualistic and that certainly it is not supernatural.

Augustianism does not allow for life after death, but that is just Augustianism. Some naturalists feel that life after death is incompatible with naturalism, but why is it IMPOSSIBLE for life after death to be a natural thing. However it is clear that other naturalists disagree with the position that life after death is a refute of the naturalist position.

Consider this http://www.amazon.com/Atheist-Afterlife-afterlife-Reasonable-meeting/dp/1897435290/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269808099&sr=1-1

Certainly this naturalist has no problem with accepting both naturalism and life after death.

Here are various definitions of naturalism. I am looking for one that says life after death is impossible.

a theory denying that an event or object has a supernatural significance; specifically : the doctrine that scientific laws are adequate to account for all phenomena

The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws.

a.
the view of the world that takes account only of natural elements and forces, excluding the supernatural or spiritual.
b.
the belief that all phenomena are covered by laws of science and that all teleological explanations are therefore without value.

As long as I hold to the view that life after death is natural and understandable through scientific law ( even if at this moment we don't know them) then I am firmly in the naturalists circle. In my personal view the only thing that could truly refute naturalism would be a theistic deity. Even then you can have practical naturalism by arguing that deity created using natural comprehensible means. You are trying to make us pick naturalism or the paranormal and that is a false dilemma.

I do not think NDEs as face value will refute naturalism anymore then ball lightening once possibly did. Ball lightening existed before we could explain it naturally. Did naturalists panic with cause of this. No they accepted it's existence and then eventually explained it. The same thing will happen when theories of the mind expand and improve to properly incorporate NDEs.

You forget others are not beholden to your naturalism or others do not view naturalism in the same way you do Keith. I do not consider life after death to be an extraordinary deal nor do I consider the idea of the brain as a transmitter to be extraordinary. Heck neither do some on your side.

"The idea that brains produce consciuosness is little more than an article of faith among scientists at the moment...(yet) nothing about a brain..declares it to be a bearer of the peculiar, interior dimension that each of us experiences as consciousness in his own case." Sam Harris

I consider both options to be viable ( as with their opposite views) and for me I simply based my view on what is evidence. I am feel their is plenty of evidence for transmission ( for example the cases of literally brainless people having normal IQs) and NDEs ( I feel so far the hallucination view is a laugher that can only be held if one believes life after death is impossible) and a huge etc.

You are so like that fundamentalist at my old school. He could never see accept any evidence against the Bible, because it was obvious the Bible was true so therefore such evidence had to be flawed. He of course was a Young Earth Creationist and he could accept any Christian could believe in Old Earth Creationism, Intelligent Design or Theistic Evolution.

You are just like that. You insist there can be no life after death, so clearly there can be no evidence for it. When evidence for life after death is produced you will accept any how it could have been scenario, no matter how crackpot because that must be correct, cause it is obvious there is life after death. Failing that you will tell your opponents to study Alien abductions. And like that fundie you simply do not allow for the possibility of other naturalists to disagree with your views on life after death.

You are a zealot and you cannot see it. You have been called a zealot by pretty much everyone on this board. You have managed to annoy truly open minded people such as Zetetic and Julio to the point they won't talk with you anymore. If it walks like duck, quacks like a duck, it is in fact a duck.

[Michael Prescott]

In his comment Keith mentioned all the pain and suffering in the world. I agree that this is a serious issue. And I don't share Art's view that God has worked it all out in perfect detail.

Rather, my view is that God is more like a creative writer. (Having worked as a creative writer myself, I've predictably chosen the analogy most flattering to me! However, God as painter, sculptor, architect, etc., would work equally well.)

A writer works out the general overview of his novel, but not all the details. The details emerge spontaneously as he works on it. In fact, to a certain extent the novel writes itself. The characters say and do things that surprise the writer. Only if the story is going seriously off-track does the writer force the narrative back onto the rails.

I think God planned out the universe in a general way, but for the most part he lets the details emerge spontaneously. He wants to be surprised. That's what makes it fun. But if the plot starts going seriously wrong, he intervenes to get it back on course.

So if evolution, operating with minimal interference, produces the Ebola virus or other horrors, God is not directly responsible. The system itself, running on autopilot, has done it.

But wouldn't a benevolent God want to intervene to eliminate any suffering? Not necessarily. Perhaps there are lessons to be learned by suffering. Perhaps, in the grand view, any temporary suffering on Earth is so trivial as to be insignificant. Perhaps correcting one form of suffering would only lead to worse forms - as when well-meaning but shortsighted people outlaw hunting, and then the population of deer or wolves grows out of control, leading the animals to painful deaths by starvation.

Or perhaps God is not benevolent in the way that we like to think. An author actually enjoys making his characters suffer; that's where drama (or even comedy) comes from. The plays of Shakespeare would be so many blank pages if no one ever suffered. Maybe the cosmic drama demands suffering, cruel as it seems to those of us who have been drafted into playing the parts!

As far as the days-long suffering of Ebola victims is concerned, it's at least possible that the ejection of the soul from the body happens only when the person is completely convinced of his own impending death. I would guess that even the agonized Ebola victims hold out some visceral hope of somehow surviving the disease, at least until they approach the very end. As long as they are still committed to physical survival, they will remain anchored to the body.

[Zerdini]

MP wrote:

I think God planned out the universe in a general way, but for the most part he lets the details emerge spontaneously. He wants to be surprised. That's what makes it fun. But if the plot starts going seriously wrong, he intervenes to get it back on course.

Sounds like you are suggesting God is a person sitting in some ivory tower planning all sorts of suffering for mankind.

Spirit communicators have always emphasised that no-one has ever seen God no matter how long they have been in the spirit realms.

The influence of a spiritual force may be felt or experienced but but no benevolent, or otherwise, deity has been seen.

There are constant references to Natural Law and how everything works according to Law. There is order in the spiritual worlds not chaos.

[Kris]

where did you get that account about God from Zerdini?

[Erich]

Actually, the inability of Ebola victims to eject their souls tends to discredit some of Kieth's expectation of death/fear of death theory. Certainly ebola victims should be fearing and expecting death; especially those in the later stages of an outbreak who have seen fellow villagers perish due to the disease. But they don't follow the course that Keith's theory predicts; that we know of. I will concede that ebola victims may experience NDEs or some other form of body/sould separation prior to the point where the disease forces the conclusion. It would be interesting to investigate.

That being said, Keith's point is taken that the ability to eject the soul to avoid the pain of death is not a consistent feature granted by god if ebola victims are left to suffer for days.

This does not discredit my theory that ejection of the soul can occur , perhaps, when the ego surrenders to/completely accepts death.

"I would guess that even the agonized Ebola victims hold out some visceral hope of somehow surviving the disease". Probably so and this would indicate a non-acceptance of death; to the contrary a fighting against it by the ego.

At any rate, what I started out to say was that I can see the god as author analogy and I can relate to it.

Another analogy that I sometimes use is god as a general. Generals must send troops into harms way, knowing that some will be killed; others maimed. They have a theatre of operations to run and missions that must be accomplished.

The general doesn't hate the troops nor does he wish harm to come to them. Rather, it is those who who make the ultimate sacrifice that are greatly honored.

[Erich]

Zerdini, quite a few NDEs report the all loving light and the experiencer interprets this a god, jesus, etc,

I am suspicious of these accounts because my view is similar to what you just stated. The TBoD seems to suggest that these early stage loving god experiences are partially illusions produced by one's own mind.

How do you reconcile the discrepancy between NDE and what you have stated?

[dmduncan]

There appear to be several new translations of the TBOD (Bardo Thodol) since the 1927 version.

It would be interesting to compare the versions.

But your characterization is accurate from what I also remember, Erich. The Primary Clear Light and the meeting of deceased loved ones was what made me think directly of the "Western" NDE when I first read it.

[dmduncan]

And refresh my memory if I am wrong, Erich, but the Bardo Thodol is written as a guide for the dead and as a sort of training manual for the living describing what we will see when we die and how to behave towards what we see to avoid rebirth.

[Erich]

dmduncan, your memory is correct.

It is also to be read by the living to the newly deceased to guide them.

[Roger Knights]

"SHERMER: May I say something about the way science works, Larry, is that the default assumption is that whatever the claim is, it's not true until it's proved." ..........

dmduncan:

So in other words, if I say that somewhere out there in this great big universe there is intelligent life on another planet, that claim is FALSE simply because the folks in Shermer's clubhouse do not know it's TRUE.

dmduncan:

It has not been proven true, so it must be UNtrue, according to Shermer's logic here.
...........

Roger Knights:

Not quite -- it's just "not proven," per Shermer.
............

dmduncan:

That's a distinction without a difference though, Roger, ....

It does not matter, in other words if you say, I do not know X is true, therefore X is false, or it has not been proven that X is true, therefore X is false, or even, it has not been proven X is true, therefore we assume X is false.
.............

But Shermer wasn't saying any of the above. I.e., "Not true" does not necessarily imply "false," it can equally imply "unknown" or "undetermined" (or "unproven" -- as in the well-known Scots verdict).

[dmduncan]

"But Shermer wasn't saying any of the above. I.e., "Not true" does not necessarily imply "false," it can equally imply "unknown" or "undetermined" (or "unproven" -- as in the well-known Scots verdict)."

Oh I'm not saying "not true" necessarily implies the meaning of "false," I'm saying that it means false directly. So I'm afraid I don't understand you, Roger. The negative of true is indeed false, and "not" expresses the negative meaning of the word it modifies.

"SHERMER: ...the default assumption is that whatever the claim is, it's not true until it's proved."

A CLAIM is "not true" (not "unknown" to be true or "undetermined" to be true, but quite simply, NOT true) until it's proved.

"Not true" is straightforwardly synonymous with "false." It surprises me that anyone thinks that's controversial. It is NOT synonymous with "undetermined" or "unknown," and switching out "not true" with either of those other words would completely change the meaning of what Shermer said.

If indeed Shermer had said that a claim was not known to be true until it's proved, I would agree with him. What he actually said was quite different. Maybe that's what he had meant to say, but then that's why I referred to it as him slipping on a banana peal of his own words. The slippage probably indicates what he really thinks.

So yes, he did say what I said he said. I think you are charitably interpreting his meaning, but the issue for me isn't what he means to say, but what he really thinks, which is what those words probably indicate.

I certainly can't agree with you that "not true" has the alternative meanings of "undetermined" or "unknown" which mean "not known" or "undecided."

"Not true" and "not known to be true" mean different things. Very. He said the former, not the latter.

[John C.]

Here is an interesting account describing Sir A.J. Ayer's NDE as retold by his son-in-law.

http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/roundtable/an-atheist-meets-the-masters-of-the-universe.php

Alos, please read the comments posted as they are very interesting.

[John C.]

Sorry for the typo in last post. First word in lst sentence should be "also"

[John C.]

And again - last sentence should read, "Also, please read the comments posted as they are very interesting."

[Zetetic_chick]

This is a purely philosophical point, thus I'll give my opinion about naturalism.

My opinion is that there are many definitions and conceptions of naturalism, some of them mutually contradictory.

As used by the Infidels organization, naturalism seems to be simply another name for an atheistic worldview, being "atheism" and "worldview" its two basic or main elemtents according to its website:

The Secular Web is owned and operated by Internet Infidels Inc... a nonprofit educational organization nonprofit educational organization dedicated to defending and promoting a naturalistic worldview on the Internet. Naturalism is the "hypothesis that the natural world is a closed system" in the sense that "nothing that is not a part of the natural world affects it." As such, "naturalism implies that there are no supernatural entities," such as gods, angels, demons, ghosts, or other spirits, "or at least none that actually exercises its power to affect the natural world

http://www.infidels.org/infidels/

It's a worldview based on the metaphysical hypothesis that there are not entities like God, spirits, etc.

It means:

1)Naturalism implies atheism, since it denies the existence of God.

2)It denies substance dualism, since it denies the existence of spirits non-attached to a body.

Basically, for the above two reasons, naturalism is an alternative worldview to theism.

I don't understand know "nonnatural" entities are unproblematic for naturalism.

As for the claim that a paradigmatic case of something not natural is something that exists in a transcendent realm, outside of or "beyond" nature, I think the existence of objective abstract entities (in the sense of a Platonic realist) like numbers or propositions, seem to fit that description and refute the naturalist' conception of nature.

In fact, they're openly named "nonnatural", because they're not physical nor governed by laws of nature (independently of whether they're governed by their own laws, like mathematical laws)

A infidel naturalist could basically reply in this way:

1)There are naturalists who accept Platonic realism about abstract objects.

This reply is unconvincing since the mere existence of naturalists accepting asbtract objects is not a logical proof that naturalism is compatible with it.

(The mere existence self-proclaimed naturalists, like David Ray Griffin, who accepts that theism is compatible with naturalism won't make them compatible)

One could mention naturalists who deny that naturalism is compatible with such objects, and given that both kind of naturalists are asserting contradictory claims, both cannot be right.

The debate is about if N (naturalism) is logically compatible with A (abstract objects), not if some naturalist believe they're compatible (since that other naturalists deny such compatibility, and both kind of naturalists cannot be right)

2)Argue that abstract objects have not causal efficacy on nature, and hence it doesn't imply an actual instance of nonphysical causation.

The problem with this reply is that if abstract objects are a-causal, it doesn't explain

-How we have epistemic access to such trascendent nonphysical realm. How do we know them, if abstract objects have not influenced on us at all?

Naturalists claim to be empiricists, but we don't have epistemic access to numbers and propositions through empiricism.

-How asbtract objects, being nonphysical and "nonnatural", can be in touch with a physical brain, which is physical and natural.

It seems to me that we can in touch with abstract (nonphysical) objects because our minds are not physical.

For this reason, we can know these entities intellectually, but not through our senses (which are physical)

I think naturalists should be committed to the idea that abstract objects are not objective, but a creation of our own minds. It implies subjectivism regardng abstract entities.

But even if for the sake of the argument we accept that naturalism is compatible with a Platonic realm of objective abstract entities (and accept that such realm exists), it's greatly improbable that we have evolved (at random, through unguided evolution) precisely to grasp that nonphysical and trascendental realm.

And I think most naturalists will agree.

We're evolved to grasp on the sensory level physical things, because physical things have causal influence on us (and all the living things). In fact, natural selection implies that the physical influence of the enviroment is important to evolution.

But if abstract entities have not physical influence on us, it's greatly improbable that we have evolved, thorugh an unguided evolutionary process, to grasp a nonphysical a-causal realm.

Surveying the infidels website, I found this article by Keith where he defends subjectivism about moral values and realize the improbability of grasping such objective abstract realm given a naturalistic evolutionary origin:

Moral laws are maxims which tell sentient beings that certain actions are to be deemed moral or immoral. But how could such laws exist in the absence of any mind or sentience in the universe at all? Are moral laws objective in the way that laws of nature are? They do not seem to be, for few would argue that "murder is wrong" existed in some Platonic realm of ideas when galaxies were forming over ten billion years ago and there was no sign life or consciousness anywhere in the universe. The use of the word "law" implies an objective existence of unchanging moral maxims independently of sentience. Yet it appears that there can be nothing objective about so-called "moral laws", because it seems absurd on its face to say that maxims which tell sentient beings that certain actions of sentient beings are moral or immoral could exist in the absence of sentience.

It seems to me that all ethical codes must ultimately be man-made, and thus there could be no objective criteria for determining if human actions are right or wrong. Admitting that moral laws are man-made is equivalent to acknowledging that ethical rules are arbitrary and therefore human beings are not obligated to follow them.

The particular ontological nature of moral laws and their "place" in naturalism, and the improbability and unplausibility of evolving at random (and unguidedly) to grasp that hypothetical nonphysical Platonic realm of abtstract objects is defended freely here:

Since moral laws refer to the actions of sentient beings, it is difficult to conceive how they could originate by unconscious natural mechanisms. That laws of nature originated after the Big Bang is plausible because natural laws govern the physical components (forces, particles, etc) that arose from it. But ethics does not come into play in the history of the universe until very recently--when Homo sapiens appeared. It is possible that moral laws have existed since the Big Bang, but that they could not manifest themselves until sentient beings arose. However, such a view implies that there is some element of purposefulness in the universe--that the universe was created with the evolution of sentient beings "in mind" (in the mind of a Creator?). To accept the existence of objective moral laws that have existed since the beginning of time is to believe that the evolution of sentient beings capable of moral reasoning (such as human beings) has somehow been predetermined or is inevitable, a belief that is contrary to naturalistic explanations of origins (such as evolution by natural selection) which maintain that sentient beings came into existence due to contingent, accidental circumstances. If objective moral laws are part of the natural universe (not part of some supernatural realm), then the universe cannot be unconscious--it must be, in some unknown sense, sentient. Few naturalists would want to accept such a nonscientific pantheistic conclusion

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/moral.html

Even though I think this view is plausible if naturalism turns out to be true and that given a naturalistic explanation of our origins (e.g. random evolution through natural selection) makes greatly improbable that we have evolved precisely to have epistemic access and awareness to a nonphysical trascendental Platonic realm of abstract objects, I ultimately reject that view for moral and practical reasons.

I cannot conceive myself living consistently under such moral subjectivistic premisses.

But I agree that that objection is secondary to the core philosophical problem: If naturalism is true or not.

In any case, exactly the same probabilistic argument against naturalism could be plausibly done for abtract entities like the number 4 or logical laws existing in some trascendental realm.

It's improbable that an unguided evolution equiped us with the epistemic resources to grasp a nonphysical and trascendental realm of numbers and logical laws, specially when these entities are considered a-causal and hence couldn't be selected by natural selection for their causal efficacy on biological survival.

For this reason, some naturalists and nonnaturalists alike agree that a case against naturalism could be based on the existence of objective abstract entities.

In this friendly and nice debate with atheist John Loftus, Christian philosopher David Wood defends an argument against naturalism and for theism based on the trascendental and objective character of propositions and logical laws:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NZd8NS43UI

[Louise]

I'm tangenting* again ...

If we're talking at all about definitions, I'd throw in mine: that "supernatural" doesn't apply. To me Spirit and its manifestations are part of nature just as much as the material world we presently inhabit. Just because it doesn't operate the same way doesn't mean it's "outside nature" to me. It's more like, I dunno, quantum and all the physics fields that make my head spin - something we can't measure now, with our level of science. But to me it's all nature: spirit body, earthly body, it's all from the Source and one's just as real as the other.

Cyrus, I liked your post on the Church of Oblivion. It does seem that way to me, with some materialists. It's almost like, "I believe life's a ***** and then you die, and so should everyone else! Joy is not real!"

Okay, there's my totally non-scientific thought for the day. :)

*I'm also making up words.

[John C.]

In reference to "The Tibetan Book of the
DeaD", an American Buddhist scholar, W.T.Evans Wentz, assisted in translating a copy of "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" as well as several other works on buddhism. At the start of his career he wrote his thesis on the Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries. It was published in the early 1900s. The interesting thing about this book is that it was reasearched in the late 1890s well before the advent of mass communication and ease of obtaining information.

He also attended lectures on psychology given by Professor William James.

[Ryan]

ZC, thanks for mentioning David Ray Griffin... I think process philosophy has a lot to say here, on the whole naturalism vs supernaturalism issue... I'll put together a few thoughts when I have more time... and if this thread is still open.

[Zetetic_chick]

SHERMER: ...the default assumption is that whatever the claim is, it's not true until it's proved

Shermer's claim seems to be self-refuting, since he has not proved it, and hence it is not true. Ha has simply asserted a epistemological rule, but he hasn't offered any proof of it.

On the other hand, Shermer beliefs in many claims that have not been proved, for example the claim that consciousness is a product of the brain.

This claim could be plausible, or reasonable, but it hasn't been proved.

A CLAIM is "not true" (not "unknown" to be true or "undetermined" to be true, but quite simply, NOT true) until it's proved.

I agree with DMDuncan, even though a charitable interpretation of "not true" would allow to consider it as simply "unknown to be true"

If Shermer were arguing that a claim is FALSE until proved to be true, then there is not room for interpretations.

But Shermer could argue that "not true" is simply a claim whose truth-value hasn't been established.

In other words, the claim "naturalism is true" is not proved to be true. It is not true, but it doesn't make it false (afterlife evidence and other considerations, if true, makes it false)

The fallacy of Shermer's rule is that it's self-refuting, since that he accepts it as true even when such claim has not been proved to be true.

Hence, his own claim is "not true" until proven to be true, and we (and Shermer) have no reason to accept it according Shermer's own standars.

[Michael Prescott]

The text of the Tibetan Book of the Dead is online here:

tiny.cc/nlp9b

I haven't read it, and I don't know how good this translation is.

[Michael Prescott]

Zerdini wrote, "The influence of a spiritual force may be felt or experienced but but no benevolent, or otherwise, deity has been seen."

A lot of NDErs claim to have seen God.

My reasons for believing in God are given in this post:

tiny.cc/6smpt

I could be wrong, of course.

Any discussion of God gives me an excuse to tell my all-time favorite joke. It's stupid, but it's still my favorite. It goes like this:

Did you hear about the agnostic dyslexic insomniac?

He lies awake at night wondering if there's a dog.

Ba-da-bing!

[Louise]

That's one of my favourite jokes too, Michael! It's right up there with the dyslexic Satanist who sold his soul to Santa.

[Ryan]

Nice jokes there by MP and Louise. :-D Ha Ha.

[dmduncan]

"I agree with DMDuncan, even though a charitable interpretation of 'not true' would allow to consider it as simply "unknown to be true"

And if you are being charitable, then you have to read into his words something he did not actually say, looking beyond the words to what you think he must have meant. Roger seems to be arguing that he actually did not say what I said he did, but he did say it. He didn't say what Roger seems to think he said.

Remember, Shermer is talking about CLAIMS, i.e., true or false statements about the world. That is the context of the quote. So the meaning of "true" and "false" (or "not true") in his statement is unambiguously fixed by the context of use, i.e., in regard to claims about the world which are either true or false.

"Not-true" and "false" actually mean the same thing. They are synonymous. "True" and "false" are opposites, and when you modify "true" negatively by adding "not" to it, you turn it into the opposite of "true," which is, again, "false." But "not true" and "unknown" or "undetermined" do not mean the same thing. And the difference between "not true" (what he actually said) and "not known to be true" (what he did NOT actually say) is huge.

Shermer is a big boy. I know better than to say such things. So should he. It's not up to me to supply the missing words to turn what he actually said into something he did not say, totally changing the meaning.

[dmduncan]

MP, the link you posted to the Bardo Thodol, that appears to be the original 1927 translation, which is the one I think I read.

[Cyrus]

On naturalism:

As I do believe, accept as fact, whatever you will, life after death (AKA extra-dimensional consciousness) (making me a 'survivalist') I'm still also privy to naturalism. To me the conundrum is whether the 'material' universe is a naturalistic world, or a place heavily influenced and shaped by the immaterial processes, governed by universal sentience.

In other words, are we the result of random circumstance, creating the form and identity of the human being, in a completely naturalistic world, or does the other dimension influence this dimension?

Which came first? Is it possible that life appeared originally in the material world, through random circumstance, and the power of consciousness actually constructed the extra-physical world?

This is food for thought. My current assumption is that the extra-physical world is really this world in disguise. We are in the 'afterlife' at this very moment. It's just our senses are dimmed and we are in very crude forms.

Maybe in the vast expanse of space is the actual geography of the immaterial universe. While space seems 'empty' to us, perhaps in other unseen dimensions there are endless creative realms teeming with life that we cannot see or directly communicate with as humans.

Or maybe both realms are completely, utterly separate locales in space.

Who knows? I wish I had these answers, but I don't think anyone will for quite some time.

[Julio Siqueira]

The I Stand Corrected series

Keith said: If you look up "well-known" at thesaurus.com, "infamous" is one of the synonyms listed in the first entry. However, if you look up "infamous" at the same place, "well-known" does not come up as a possible meaning until the third of four pages. So although "infamous" might not be incorrectly used as a synonym for "well-known," infamous is obviously used far more often as "notorious,"

About ten years ago I studied linguistics in a one-semester course with a guy with immense knowledge of and about the English language. If my memory serves me well (I repeat: if my memory serves me well), one of the "insights" that he passed on to us was that a thesaurus is not exactly a dictionary of synonyms the way many people might believe it at face value. A good thesaurus will list words that lie somewhat in the same semantic domain, so to speak, and then dwell on the particular shade of meaning of each and every single "synonym." The fact that a thesaurus will list one given word after another given word does not imply in any sense (a priori) that they can be used as close synonyms and even as distant synonyms. Like any advanced tool, thesauruses must be used wisely.

Julio

[Julio Siqueira]

"Guilty, guilty, guilty! I hope it's not a vocabulary error punishable by death :)"

I guess not. Anyway, I will spare some wood from my fireplace. Just in case... ;-)

[Zetetic_chick]

I'd suggest we let the "infamous" topic to rest. It's clear that a rigurous and accurate use of language and concepts would prevent us to use "infamous" instead of "well known" (if the latter is what we want to transmit), specially when the topic being addressed is one controversial and one is defending one point of view.

I've presented clear evidence of what "infamous" means in Standard English Dictionaries; and if the use of such term was intented to mean "well known", then it's simply a lack of conceptual rigour or command of the actual meanings of the word by the person employing it.

Just imagine that I refer to James Radin as the "infamous old debunker", and when pressed to explain the use of such word, I reply "I'm innocent, don't attacking me please; don't send me to the guillotine; by infamous I meant simply "well known", not anything negative or hostile :)"

Perhaps it's true, and I wasn't attempting anything negative against Randi. But my unaccurate and incorrect use of such word cast doubts on my precise understanding of the meaning of the words being used (at least of the word "infamous" in particular).

If the English language has a lot of resources (i.e. words, expressions) to refer to "well known" in neutral terms, why use precisely "infamous", when demostrably the main meanings (and synonymous) of that word are explicitly (and in common usage interpreted as) negative? Why use a word that predictably the overwhelming majority of people will interpret in its negative (proper) meaning?

It's of not help to mutual understanding and clear communication.

I see no valid reason or justification to use that specific word instead of other more neutral or less negatively charged.

But there is not point in pressing this point. Every person here has factual elements to think about the possible reasons to use that word in the context of Reynolds' case.

In this blog, I've been corrected by some of you when I've committed linguistic mistakes (mostly grammatical ones). Instead of trying to defend or rationalize my mistake (or justifying it with ad hoc excuses) I've freely accepted and corrected it.

Intellectual modesty and will of learning implies a disposition to accept our mistakes.

PS.
Julio, I look foward to read your section "Why the New Atheism Sucks, or: Dawkins lumbricoides", hope it will available soon!

PS 2:

Julio wrote: "I guess not. Anyway, I will spare some wood from my fireplace. Just in case... ;-)"

But in such case, I'd suggest you to use other person's fireplace (specially an enemy's fireplace)... otherwise you're at risk of having him as a "ghost" in your own home.

Do you imagine having him as a talking ghost in your own house? My God... HELP!!!!!!!!!!

Lol

:)

PS 3:

Zerdini wrote: The influence of a spiritual force may be felt or experienced but but no benevolent, or otherwise, deity has been seen

If God is inmaterial, one would expect that even in a spiritual or astral realm a deity won't be "seen".

PS 4:

Instead of debating what "infamous" mean (something unnecesary, since standard English dictionaries suffice to clarify the problem), I'd suggest to debate Shermer's expression "Not-True". Does it mean the same than "false"? Or does it mean simply "not known to be true"?

Just kidding DMDuncan, from a logical point of view, you're right: any claim is true or false, and if it's not true, then it's false (and viceversa)

This is a sterile debate too.

PS 5:

I look forward to Michael's next post; I suspect that after the heated debate had here, this specific thread will become considered "infamous" by certain people...

Perhaps it's time to let this thread to rest in peace.

:)