AWARE Update - Peer Review Complete

Who cares if the brain stem is fully functional at the time of NDE? I'm no neuroscientist, but the last I heard that part of the brain controls autonomic functions and shit.

What I read while searching is that brain stem is actually a really important part for consciousness and awareness. It doesn't only control autonomic functions and shit.

I think consciousness is supposed to reside somewhere in the neocortex/frontal area. When we're having an experience, corresponding associations are registered on EEGs, so obviously as far as neuroscience is concerned a flat EEG equals loss of consciousness and no experience. Is this in dispute?

I recall some neurologists have dispute the effectiveness of EEGs in registering brain activity, even superficial brain activity.
 
Haha, I see. I thought you were a neurologist or a doctor of some kind, but I guess it's because you are well informed in this subjects.

Hey you know, you can refer to me as doc if you like. Others have done it, Dr Hook, Dr Feelgood Dr Shit for brains........actually I'm just a sad old git with an NDE fetish.

I can call you Dr. Tim if you wish :). Anyway, ¿what do you think about the book part I posted?
 
No, this is why I posted the talk from Peter Fenwick. This guy is an expert on these matters.

Consultant Neuropsychiatrist and Neurophysiologist
BA, MB,BChir, DPM, FRCPsych

Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery
Diploma in Psychological Medicine
Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists

But not an expert on *these* matters, where he is simply stating his opinion, like the other experts in his field, who (in the absence of human experimentation here) also merely state their opinion, though in most cases the opposite opinion to Fenwick.
 
AWAreness during REsuscitation, not, disembodied consciousness...

AWARE II is being set up... Similar thing again, but it looks like they may finally have realized that fixed, hidden and secret visual targets are - at least initially - a step too far...

http://public.ukcrn.org.uk/Search/StudyDetail.aspx?StudyID=17129

That looks to me to be a hazardous protocol that would find difficulty in being standardized around every patient in practice. I can understand their reasons for doing it, however. Personally I don't think it will make any difference, as I don't hold with literal floating, but I do think it's worth a shot...
 
AWAreness during REsuscitation, not, disembodied consciousness...

AWARE II is being set up... Similar thing again, but it looks like they may finally have realized that fixed, hidden and secret visual targets are - at least initially - a step too far...

http://public.ukcrn.org.uk/Search/StudyDetail.aspx?StudyID=17129

Thanks for the link!

Interesting:

We think that these patients may have had better blood flow to the brain during cardiac arrest, leading to consciousness and activity of the mind.

Did I miss reading that in the initial report? Or is this linked to a hopefully soon to be published report?
 
But not an expert on *these* matters, where he is simply stating his opinion, like the other experts in his field, who (in the absence of human experimentation here) also merely state their opinion, though in most cases the opposite opinion to Fenwick.

No, the purely basic functioning of the brain (not what leads to conscious experience, that's the hard problem which is off the scale) is well understood by neurologists or at least they think they understand it. A doctor in America is not given radically different text books than doctors in the UK as far as I know.
 
Thanks for the link!

Interesting:



Did I miss reading that in the initial report? Or is this linked to a hopefully soon to be published report?

No, it's a way to persuade the ethics committee to allow them to do another study by suggesting that there might be a purely physiological explanation for why patients can "see" their own resuscitations even though they don't believe there is, hence the lap tops
 
Thanks for the link!

Interesting:



Did I miss reading that in the initial report? Or is this linked to a hopefully soon to be published report?

I don't remember that from the published report. So I'm guessing this is new commentary based on some sober rumination of what happened in the study.
 
No, the purely basic functioning of the brain (not what leads to conscious experience, that's the hard problem which is off the scale) is well understood by neurologists or at least they think they understand it. A doctor in America is not given radically different text books than doctors in the UK as far as I know.

We are not talking about reflex induction (as stated multiple times).
 
F
No, it's a way to persuade the ethics committee to allow them to do another study by suggesting that there might be a purely physiological explanation for why patients can "see" their own resuscitations even though they don't believe there is, hence the lap tops

its good that the study will continue but how can you be sure that they have not become skeptical?
 
F


its good that the study will continue but how can you be sure that they have not become skeptical?

Well they have to be sceptical in the true sense, of course but something is occurring that is extraordinary. They can't state "we are looking for evidence of the soul"...they wouldn't get permission so they have to postulate that there is some as yet unknown physical mechanism that is allowing this phenomena to occur.


I personally believe what's going on is exactly what the patients themselves report, their consciousness or psyche is separating from their brains. We've all got a mind a psyche or a soul we just didn't conceive that it might be able to act independently of the brain.....or did we....maybe critical rationalism forced us to deny something that humans have always known.
 
Parnia did make it fairly clear back in 2010 that he thought these experiences were probably "an illusion" but that he was open minded enough to find out what the experimental results were. And I think that was an honorable position to take, and that he didn't deserve the lambasting he got for it from various sources.

I don't really think it's an accident, however, that we've barely heard a peep out of the man since those results finally came in. When you combine these findings with the Olaf Blanke data, it's really a pretty strong case, in data, that would now need to be overturned for this *not* to be a form of perceptual illusion.
 
Parnia did make it fairly clear back in 2010 that he thought these experiences were probably "an illusion" but that he was open minded enough to find out what the experimental results were. And I think that was an honorable position to take, and that he didn't deserve the lambasting he got for it from various sources.

I don't really think it's an accident, however, that we've barely heard a peep out of the man since those results finally came in. When you combine these findings with the Olaf Blanke data, it's really a pretty strong case, in data, that would now need to be overturned for this *not* to be a form of perceptual illusion.

Yeah, right :-)
 
It's not impossible that it could be otherwise, Tim. I just don't think it's terribly likely. And personally, I'm not going to hold a candle in the wind for this thing for another five years, just to get a rerun of what we recently went through. If positive amazing data should ever surface...GREAT...but I stopped holding my breath some time ago. It's a personal decision, as I think there's a psychological price to be paid for this perpetual sense of expectation and "imminence"...but others must of course make their own choices.
 
It's not impossible that it could be otherwise, Tim. I just don't think it's terribly likely. And personally, I'm not going to hold a candle in the wind for this thing for another five years, just to get a rerun of what we recently went through. If positive amazing data should ever surface...GREAT...but I stopped holding my breath some time ago. It's a personal decision, as I think there's a psychological price to be paid for this perpetual sense of expectation and "imminence"...but others must of course make their own choices.

It amazes me how you can look at forty years of NDE data, 100's of veridical OBE's during cardiac arrest reported by reliable medical professionals... and come to that conclusion. You just seem to skate over all the data as if it's nothing. If only one of these episodes occurred like the patients said it did, that's it for materialism and yet we have thousands of reports.

Don't you get it that if YOU had one of these experiences YOU would accept it as being real. Don't answer that BTW, I sense alien abduction analogy on the way.
 
It amazes me how you can look at forty years of NDE data, 100's of veridical OBE's during cardiac arrest reported by reliable medical professionals... and come to that conclusion. You just seem to skate over all the data as if it's nothing. If only one of these episodes occurred like the patients said it did, that's it for materialism...
Materialism doesn't vanish.
What thoughts do you have about sciborg's post. The one just before yours?
 
Back
Top