Latest Near-Death Experience Research Hit Job |326|

Just as well they're not researchers.

They are no scientists, that's true. But they supposedly researched the pre-exiting studies in order to reach their "paramount" conclusions.

In reality, Fischer had written about the topic before from the same POV that the book is written... So I doubt that they did much anyways.
 
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Using the Google books online preview, I've viewed a somewhat random sampling of pages from the book. What becomes very clear from that sampling is the use of the term "supernatural" throughout, and an attempt to classify explanations as being either supernatural, or not supernatural.

To me that seems a strange way of looking at things. However it seems to be the key tool used in the analysis. Place explanations into two boxes and discard everything contained in the box labelled 'supernatural'.

The problem with this approach is that it involves trying to discredit and devalue the first-hand statements of those who had an NDE and replace it with a Woerlee-style debunking. (The authors attempt to distance themselves from Woerlee, but that is a mere intellectual ploy).

The real question is this: what purpose is served by discarding the evidence and replacing it with this type of fabrication? Who benefits?
Researchers such as Dr Penny Sartori have emphasised the importance of simply listening with compassion to those who have had an NDE. Similarly Dr. Peter Fenwick emphasises the ways in which we can value and give dignity to those transitioning towards actual death.

The idea that while listening to such accounts we should have this debunking uppermost in our minds would seem deeply counter-productive to being able to honour and respect people at their most vulnerable. How can carers be expected to listen with compassion while all the time thinking in terms of how to explain away and discard anything which is said? It seems more likely to set the clocks back by decades in terms of caring for others.
 
Alex, I've only had time to listen to the introduction and the first few minutes of the interview so far so maybe you clarify this later in the podcast, but you said something on the lines of all they did was a literature review and never did any original research nor had any intention to do any.

While it's true that Dr. Fisher and Dr. Mitchell-Yellin didn't do any original research themselves the way you put it seemed to suggest that the $5,000,000 went solely to funding the book. I'm not sure why you didn't mention the 34 research projects that the $5,000,000 funded. including one by Sam Parnia.

Here is a link to the August 2016 update on the results of the Immortality Project research to date: Results of Funded Research Projects.

Here's the description from the preface:
The Immortality Project was a 3-year, $5M interdisciplinary grant sponsored by the John Templeton
Foundation (2012-2015). It was led by John Fischer, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the
University of California, Riverside. To date, it is the largest humanities grant ever awarded.

The Immortality Project focused on significant and traditional topics that have long been important to
human inquiry—e.g., the significance of death, the desirability of immortality, what makes for a
meaningful human life. Though important, these topics have been relatively under-theorized in
academic circles, especially in analytic philosophy and the sciences. One goal of the grant was to put
major resources into these areas. Another goal was to generate interdisciplinary dialogue on these
topics. A third goal was to reach out to the general public and present ideas on these topics in a way
that makes public conversation on these topics more fruitful. The grant seems to have been a
resounding success with respect of each of these goals.

The Immortality Project was able to fund 34 research projects (9 more than anticipated) by extremely
talented and well-regarded researchers from around the globe. The competition for funding was very
keen, and we were unable to fund many worthwhile projects. We held two conferences, one during
the Midpoint of the grant in May 2014 and one to conclude the grant in May 2015. Grantees
presented the developments of their funded research results at both conferences. The conferences
were extremely fruitful, generating much interdisciplinary dialogue on the issues.

Due to the grant’s size and scope, covering many different topics in the sciences, philosophy and
theology, there is no helpful way of summarizing even the results we know of that does justice to the
many different strands of research. In what follows is a collection of summaries – many of which
were provided by the researchers themselves – and current listing of publications and summary
outputs of the grant. However, we want to emphasize that the research is incomplete at this time,
and we anticipate many additional papers and some books to be published in the next few years.

The significant public outreach of the grant is evidenced by the extensive media coverage received
during the grant period and after​
thx Arouet... this is an important distinction. I will clarify this by adding a note to the post.
 
Thanks for the interview, Alex, but this one made my head hurt... People in academia are so afraid of saying the wrong thing that they go out of their way to clarify, specify, enumerate, etc. They are experts at splitting a topic into a thousand different parts, and then pointing out how you missed that one little part when you try to counter anything they say. I lived with an academic for 30 years, and spent most of my working life in academia. At one point, I worked in the philosophy dept. and got to know some of them personally. One in particular became a good friend...but the friendship was based on our love of music and playing the guitar. However, I found most of them to be very neurotic and very fond of living in their head. One (tragically for his family) even committed suicide. (His main claim to fame was that he wrote the definitive book on Wittgenstein.)
yes, it's funny how academic philosophy has become this parlor game of logical deconstruction. for example, Ben's deconstruction of Pim van Lommel's medical finding was just plain silly.
 
What becomes very clear from that sampling is the use of the term "supernatural" throughout, and an attempt to classify explanations as being either supernatural, or not supernatural.
Indeed. It was code for true/untrue, clearly. We may be entering a new stage in sceptical polemics. In the past it has been scorn and dismissal of such claims as lies, hoaxes and delusions, mostly caused by insidious religious memes. Now it's why do normal people have life transforming experiences based on things that are clearly untrue. One can only make such a claim by ignoring the research. He misrepresented leading researchers like Sam Parnia, and refused to engage with the data as anything more than a sociological curio. This was a structuralist-relativist take on the NDE, and irrelevant to whether NDEs are objectively real or not.

As for Max's point about Dr Mitchell-Yellin being a nice guy, the UK media is full of camera friendly, eminently reasonable, seemingly well informed people pushing this stuff for the supposed edification of the general public (especially kids), but in the end it's the same shtick as the most rabid political atheist, in fancier sneakers. A stone wall does the same job whether its Dr Woerlee or Dr Mitchell-Yellin.
 
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The question that is clinging to my mind is this: was there (ever) any coordination within the 'Immortality Project'?

As noted before, this book was rushed to market before the second phase of AWARE was even complete (it still isn't) and as gabriel says, Parnia was misrepresented despite being part of the same initiative.

We also know that UVA cut its ties to it citing economic and organizational issues. But that didn't stop UVA before, did it? Perhaps there were other issues related to the a priori bias apparent in other institutions like Riverside...

After that, Parnia appeared like the only "neutral" player (although his discourse did get almost proponent friendly with time) with any real authority left.
 
I thought Ben was a nice guest. It appeared that he wasn't aware of the research you referred to... apparently showing significant differences between NDE/OBE vs nonNDE patients when asked to reenact their resusitation.

Not sure why you assume this, especially if it was described in the Handbook of Near-death Experiences, which we can say with some certainty that they were at least somewhat familiar with.

You seem to be assuming that those studies are not consistent with the view they present in the book - while I don't think they mentioned it, I'm pretty sure they are perfectly consistent with the possibilities they laid out. That was the point of his answer, that he kept trying to come back to, that there are different ways to interpret the evidence.

I've never quite understood why so much emphasis here has been put on those studies or why they should be thought to favour one metaphysic over the other. They seem consistent with both brain and non-brain based hypotheses.
 
After that, Parnia appeared like the only "neutral" player (although his discourse did get almost proponent friendly with time) with any real authority left.

Neutrality, in discussions involving the so-called supernatural, seems to be difficult to find among the spokespeople in the field. Parnia seems to be guarded when he talks about consciousness surviving death in that he will usually only go so far as to say it survives for at least a short time. Yet, in debates he appears, as you say, to be more open to a more comprehensive account of the afterlife.

The subject seems to be one of those which polarise opinions. It reminds me of the many times I have tried to find, on the internet, a neutral voice on the subject of Intelligent Design. Any search criteria you choose will inevitably bring up pages with a Christian cross somewhere in the logo or blogs, forums and articles from hard-line atheists decrying creationism and "IDiots".

The media are party to this polarisation so that the NDE is often cast as a phenomenon experienced by the religious and held as proof of heaven. Publishers - especially in the USA - don't help when they insist on having God or Heaven in any NDE book title. Thankfully, many of the people who do the research are not committed Christians and do have impressive scientific credentials. Yet the critics - who the media usually present as the "experts" - can still get away with portraying people who take the NDE seriously as people looking for comfort (cue condescending smile of pity).

This is from the BBC website written to assist school children study for their GCSE exams:

Faith and death
It is not surprising that people have always asked questions about what, if anything, happens after they die.

Although some people claim to have had ‘near-death experiences’ (NDEs), and others claim to be able to talk to the dead, or to have seen ghosts, there is no scientific proof that such experiences actually provide a glimpse into a possible afterlife. It is possible, therefore, that when people die, they simply stop living and that there is nothing beyond this life.

Ideas about what happens after death, and its connection with how life is lived on earth, is a fundamental part of all religions. The details may differ between religions, but belief in an afterlife almost always:

  • helps people to make sense of life, particularly when life seems unfair or at times of suffering (their own, and other people’s)
  • gives support and comfort at times of loss and bereavement
  • provides a purpose to life


Tunnels of light. Meeting with dead loved ones... the truth about near-death experiences (Daily Mail)
Kevin Nelson, Professor of Neurology at the University of Kentucky, has been studying near-death experiences for more than 30 years.

In his new book, The God Impulse — Is Religion Hardwired Into The Brain?, he puts forward explanations for all elements of the near-death experience, but central to his argument is the involvement of REM — rapid eye movement.


The Death of "Near Death": Even If Heaven Is Real, You Aren t Seeing It (Scientific American)
The near death experience as a foreshadowing of Heaven is a beautiful theory perhaps, but wrong.

Barring a capricious conception of “God’s plan,” one can experience a beautiful white light at the end of a tunnel while still having a firm grasp of their mortal coil. This is the death of near death. Combine explainable symptoms with a plausible, physical theory as to why we have them and you get a description of what it is like to die, not what it is like to glimpse God.

Sitting atop clouds fluffy and white, Heaven may be waiting. We can’t prove that it is not. But rather than helping to clarify, the near death experience, not dependent on death, only points to an ever interesting and complex human brain, nothing more.



Near-death experiences: Visions of dead loved ones at end of life 'are comforting part of dying process
Visions and dreams of deceased friends and relatives in the final weeks of life are a "comforting" part of the dying process, a study has found.
 
Indeed. It was code for true/untrue, clearly. We may be entering a new stage in sceptical polemics. In the past it has been scorn and dismissal of such claims as lies, hoaxes and delusions, mostly caused by insidious religious memes. Now it's why do normal people have life transforming experiences based on things that are clearly untrue.

I think if you read the book you would find that your statement is not justified. They explicitly state that the evidence in favour of a supernatural approach should be taken seriously and that it would be a mistake to dismiss it out of hand.
 
thx Arouet... this is an important distinction. I will clarify this by adding a note to the post.

Great!

I also wanted to draw your attention to the passage that your guest mentioned regarding blind NDErs.

You accurately quote from the introduction to chapter 6 where the authors talk about various reasons to be skeptical of what people say, and that some may be bilking us. However, what I think you missed is where they write:

There is, however, one particular population of people who have had near-death experiences with respect to whom the usual skepticsm seems beyond the pale. Some blind people, even some who have been blind from birth, report having had near-death experiences that include visual representations. And this suggests a powerful line of thought in support of the conclusion that an adequate explanation of near-death experiences must appeal to the nonphysical. The following anecdote from Long illustrates this line of reasoning well...
I think you took their setup to be their conclusion about the blind, but really they were setting it up to state pretty clearly that they don't think that those concerns apply in the cases of blind experiencers.



 
Alex's question at the end of the interview:

What do you make of the slow-drip attacks on near death experience science? Is it just free-thinking academics speaking their mind, or is there some larger agenda behind it?


To paraphrase it with number agreement:

What do you make of the slow-drip attacks on the science of near death experience? Do they merely represent the arguments of free-thinking academics, or is there a larger agenda behind them?

I wondered what "slow-drip" meant. One gets the sense of incessant and erosive, and perhaps niggling. In any event, I haven't personally read the book, but listening to the podcast, it seems that Mitchell-Yellin wants it both ways: on the one hand, he wants to cast doubt on non-physicalist interpretations of the data, and on the other, he wants to grant that NDEs are valuable and transformative.

Thing is, if NDEs have a purely physicalist interpretation, then any value they might have as true transformative experiences is challenged. I don't see how you can say that NDEs can be profitably interpreted as the result of purely physico-chemical processes and at the same time grant them any unusual degree of true transformative power. They'd have no more such power than any other experience.

It seems an incoherent position to me: the guy wants to grant the value of psychological experience even though in the end all psychological experience boils down to the blind interaction of particles of matter. This is where people like him and Sam Harris drive me crackers. They think that morality is valuable even though it seemingly comes from nowhere and can't be explained in terms of the properties of particles. If I were really to believe that, I'd be saying to myself that morality is pointless: I might as well be amoral and do whatever I like.

It seems far more coherent to grant the existence of morality in some non-physical sense, and if you do that, then you can either be dualist or idealist, but not in any event a physical monist. It's almost as if Mitchell-Yellin feels constrained by political correctness: he can't bring himself to denigrate NDEs as what he presumably thinks they are: events with purely physical explanation. If he doesn't think that, then why has he bothered to co-write this tome? Is he merely defending the physicalist position as an academic exercise, all the while sitting on the metaphysical fence?

Alex asks if there's more to it than that; if there's a larger agenda behind the book. As I've often said, I don't go with conspiracy theories as often as I do with the capacity for the human mind to maintain conflicting stances. Frankly, I wonder if Mitchell-Yellin himself understands his own position, which if I were to paraphrase it might go like this:

There's no need to invoke the "supernatural" to explain the subjective experiences of NDEs. All of the data, even that from experiments specifically designed to eliminate the possibility of physical causes, can be interpreted in a physicalist way.​

Well, of course, anything and everything can be interpreted in a physicalist way, but the question is, at some point, does a physicalist interpretation become so strained, bizarre even, that it becomes downright perverse? And if it does, why can't its proponents let go of it? Why do they keep on gnawing at it like a dog a bone (or, indeed, like the slow drip of water a stone)? My tentative answer is that they must have a strong metaphysical belief in physicalism; a belief that they feel they must hang on to lest their world view collapse.

For whatever reason, they find the possibility of the transcendent extremely disturbing. Yet for all that, not a few of them still want to hang on to ideas of morality; don't want to accept the possibility that there's no point in being good or bad, or that anything whatsoever matters.

They might, for instance, construct evolutionary stories about how morality confers survival advantages and hence is naturally selected for. But what has survival got to do with anything? The universe presumably wouldn't give a toss whether or not particular aggregations of molecules on some totally insignificant planet managed to survive and propagate: it'd be all the same to it if they didn't.

In a way, the physicalist-cum-moralist is averring the existence of the transcendent, but merely as an illusion we can't escape on account of our constitution: put another way, consciousness is an illusion. We can't help, given our constitution, experiencing emotions, colours, various sensations: qualia in general, but beyond that, they have no significance.

What about logical thought then? Is that in the same stable as qualia? Would it be possible for us to think purely logically, regardless of experiences, pleasant or otherwise? It's an interesting question. Ask a mathematician whether or not he experiences an intense sense of pleasure in proving a theorem. Ask him if he would ever bother trying to solve it in the first place if he didn't eagerly anticipate that pleasure.

There can likewise be intense pleasure in many scientific pursuits, which comes purely from the satisfaction of coming to understand something a little better, and if that pleasure weren't a fact, how much incentive would there be to become a scientist? Come to think, we all experience intense pleasure in coming to understand something a little better, even an infant who discovers it can, with a little effort, move from A to B by crawling in order to get something it wants.

In other words, the motivation for logical thinking could be an axiomatic and ineffable desire for truth, and the reward be implicit in the discovering of it. Moreover, out of logical thought, we are often able to improve our environment in some way, and so experience some quale of pleasure or other in that way.

Materialists often tend to think in terms of logical thought somehow standing outside experience; of its being able to be used independently of experience, but one wonders to what extent that can be true. Might it not be truer to say that logical thought arises out of experience, and that language is a way of helping memorialise experience for future reference and application?

Again, why do we enjoy teaching someone else? Why do most of us get pleasure from being sincerely able to impart facts or skills (regardless of whether or not those are wholly accurate or effective)? Why do some of us cynically manipulate others through imparting facts or skills we know to be wrong? Why do some of us obfuscate (maybe not intentionally), even with ourselves? What's in it for us? Maybe obfuscation enables us to maintain a pleasurable or rewarding idea (such as physicalism) at the expense of repressing or ignoring something we'd rather not entertain.

The picture I'm painting is of qualia -- which inevitably accompany experience -- taking the lead in shaping who we are; of their being indispensable in developing so-called "higher" mental faculties such as logical thinking. We can't explain how qualia arise under a physicalist interpretation, and so what we proponents do is accept that qualia, as aspects of consciousness, are in some sense axiomatic and primitive or primal. I personally believe (as an idealist) that insofar as they give us physical sensations, those are the way our undeniably real interactions with other dissociated consciousnesses and with cosmic consciousness (MAL) itself are represented to us. We can't help but experience them that way, and, indeed, there is some utility in doing so.

Physicalists don't accept that. To them, our physical sensations represent something that lies outside consciousness, something that is real and existent in its own right as exactly what we perceive. But then, they can't explain qualia and throw them in the box labelled to be understood at some future time when we've refined our understanding of physicalism. Or, maybe, hubristically, claim we already know enough under physicalism to explain them.

I suppose to some extent the former position is to be preferred to the latter, but Mitchell-Yellin wants it all ways; wants to privilege physicalism and at the same time honour the worth of pyschological phenomena like NDEs, which to my mind are mutual incompatibilities.
 
Neutrality, in discussions involving the so-called supernatural, seems to be difficult to find among the spokespeople in the field. Parnia seems to be guarded when he talks about consciousness surviving death in that he will usually only go so far as to say it survives for at least a short time. Yet, in debates he appears, as you say, to be more open to a more comprehensive account of the afterlife.
Parnia does seem quite consistent, not in what he says - his views have shifted with time, but he is consistent in stating what the evidence is telling us, and he mostly doesn't go into speculation, every statement he makes is backed with facts.


Yet the critics - who the media usually present as the "experts" - can still get away with portraying people who take the NDE seriously as people looking for comfort (cue condescending smile of pity).
The list of linked articles is really quite shocking. What is also interesting is that the supposedly neutral BBC has nothing but bias in this area. On the other hand, the Daily Mail, condemned as a trashy publication more concerned with the shape of Kardashian's bottom is actually much more open and regularly publishes articles covering a wide range of opinion on topics such as NDEs, the afterlife, ghosts and various other phenomena. Some of those articles are indeed of no value, but as an outlet it does a better service at keeping its readers informed than does the BBC which really has thrown away any attempt at neutrality or informing the public.
 
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I think if you read the book you would find that your statement is not justified. They explicitly state that the evidence in favour of a supernatural approach should be taken seriously and that it would be a mistake to dismiss it out of hand.
If that is indeed the position taken by the authors, Dr Mitchell-Yellin did nothing to confirm it. On the contrary, he stated they saw no reason to think all such experiences were anything other than a brain issue. Alex offered him the opportunity to state the implications of that conclusion, and why he believed it to be so, but he was unable to offer anything more decisive than he'd "thought hard" about the problem. I don't know when thinking hard became a research marker, but I never came across it as an assessment criterion in my post graduate work.
 
Not sure why you assume this, especially if it was described in the Handbook of Near-death Experiences, which we can say with some certainty that they were at least somewhat familiar with.

You seem to be assuming that those studies are not consistent with the view they present in the book - while I don't think they mentioned it, I'm pretty sure they are perfectly consistent with the possibilities they laid out. That was the point of his answer, that he kept trying to come back to, that there are different ways to interpret the evidence.

I've never quite understood why so much emphasis here has been put on those studies or why they should be thought to favour one metaphysic over the other. They seem consistent with both brain and non-brain based hypotheses.

I'm assuming it because Ben was knocked off course in the interview, when Alex referred to it with regards to Ben's 'timing' objections.

And it's a strong piece of evidence, suggesting that information about the resusitation is being recalled from the same period of resuscitation
 
I wondered what "slow-drip" meant. One gets the sense of incessant and erosive, and perhaps niggling.

"slow drip" brings several thoughts to mind:
  • a form of subtle torture
  • a process which can build or destroy over geological time
  • a minor irritation like a wheel which needs oiling
  • a sort of weak ineffectual guy you wouldn't want your daughter to marry
For the second of those, I'm reminded of a scenic cave near Buxton I think, where tiny stalagmites are beginning to form on a handrail installed perhaps a few decades ago. Progress is so slow that I think in the context of this discussion it will be overtaken by events, various ongoing research or future scientific discoveries are likely to have a much greater impact and render superfluous such non-contributions.
 
I'm assuming it because Ben was knocked off course in the interview, when Alex referred to it with regards to Ben's 'timing' objections.

And it's a strong piece of evidence, suggesting that information about the resusitation is being recalled from the same period of resuscitation

The issue isn't whether sometimes information is being recalled, I don't think there is much objection to that. The question by what means. The authors discuss that issue in detail. Dr. Mitchell-Yellin had started to go into a bit of that but Alex cut him off. I wish Alex had probed more about that section of the book but he chose not to I guess.
 
If that is indeed the position taken by the authors, Dr Mitchell-Yellin did nothing to confirm it. On the contrary, he stated they saw no reason to think all such experiences were anything other than a brain issue. Alex offered him the opportunity to state the implications of that conclusion, and why he believed it to be so, but he was unable to offer anything more decisive than he'd "thought hard" about the problem. I don't know when thinking hard became a research marker, but I never came across it as an assessment criterion in my post graduate work.

Are you talking about this statement? (from the transcript) "There seems no reason not to consider the possibility of multi-factor physical explanations of this stuff." He's not saying not to consider supernaturalism seriously.

The thrust of the book is against the "bold argument" (as they call it) that NDEs must be interpreted as nonphysical.

They do not state definitively that the physicalist view should prevail, but rather that the evidence out there is consistent with it (and it seems pretty clear from reading the book that they are quite familiar with the relevant literature). Here's how they open chapter 11 "A Strategy for Explaining Near-Death Experiences".

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There are plenty of other quotes to make the point that I could dig up.
 

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I'd like to see a few quotes from their book that show how exactly they think NDEs can still have the same meaning even if they're just hallucinations. I can't think of anything that might work for that other than saying "If believing something improves your life, then go ahead and believe it even if it's not true." Of course, that's not the logic you'd hear from atheists, who often claim to value truth above all else no matter how unpleasant it is (and they also tend to congratulate themselves for facing up to the unpleasant reality).
 
Are you talking about this statement? (from the transcript) "There seems no reason not to consider the possibility of multi-factor physical explanations of this stuff." He's not saying not to consider supernaturalism seriously.

The thrust of the book is against the "bold argument" (as they call it) that NDEs must be interpreted as nonphysical.
The bold argument is simply the extraordinary claims argument under a different heading. In other words, we know when the brain dies the person dies, so other conclusions must be supernatural. As we know there's no evidence for the supernatural, why do people persist with these claims? It's a circular can't-so-isn't discussion, in other words a metaphysical position.
"What we are interested in is whether or not the implications about the nature of consciousness, or about the mind-body problem that people are drawing on the basis of this data, are the correct implications to draw...We’re not trying to criticize [the research] in any of those three ways instead we’re trying to look at a fourth [component], which are what the, for lack of a better term, metaphysical implications people are drawing from this data and are they the correct implications?"
This appears to be based on a problem he has with Van Lommel's conclusions. I haven't read the book, but I expect it's the usual debunking tactic of framing an exemplary case, undermining it or the researcher, and allowing it to stand for all other cases. Was it based on resuscitation timings? I don't know but that would be my guess. These have been dealt with elsewhere.

"what we’re trying to say is suppose you have a really great data set, whatever that happens to be, there’s still a further question as to how you should treat these physical factors when you’re considering how to explain the phenomena"
What does this mean and what are those questions? The only conclusion serious scientists like Parnia are drawing, is that it seems likely consciousness is not localised to the body for a period after death. People can extrapolate from that whatever they wish, but if that conclusion is correct - and you'd have to question the credentials of some big hitters in their own medical disciplines - there is no obvious reason why consciousness cannot continue to be non-local. To undercut that you have to resort to a physicalist explanation, that some glimmer of brain activity is creating these incredible scenarios, however contrary to medical belief, or put up a metaphysical white flag which the authors are clearly not prepared to do.
 
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