Brain Game show and paranormal

[Haruhi]

I'm open minded about the reason for NDE's which during the later imagery include people not known by the experient to have died.

But you are open minded about the subject continues to experience after irreversible death? Because some features of NDEs (hiper-lucidity experiences, extrasensory and veridical experiences ...) indicate that on how I see it.

 

[Bart V]

Again, the number one thing that makes me come back to the NDE being one of the most convincing pieces of evidence for an afterlife is that I just cannot understand why a dying brain would do this.

What advantage to the organism would this provide? It's not likely a mechanism to reduce/avoid pain, or even prevent shock. It seems more likely that losing consciousness altogether would be more advantageous, and require less resources from the organisms body, which you would think would be paramount in a situation of fighting death.

And why the life review? What advantage could there be in that? Why the transformative aspect? Others who have come back from the precipice of death with no NDE do not experience the same level of transformation, so just having a brush with death isn't explanation enough.

So many aspects of the NDE make absolutely no logical sense. it just shouldn't be. But it is.

Why should a NDE have a function? It is probably more a side effect of the impairment of the brain. It is also very rare, so I do not see why we should trust our intuition to judge what should or should not be.

 

[Arouet]

Right, I'm skeptical of that claim.

Ok.

 

[TWF in the 3rd Millennium]

Well, we can speculate all we want as to whether it provides a survival advantage or not - but without the mechanism we're probably not going to get that far.

The other question is whether the NDE experience itself applied selective advantages or whether the processes that contribute to the NDE had selected advantages and the NDE is just one particular practical application of these processes.

The other thing is from a ToE standpoint, we shouldn't be looking at it as a deliberative process. The fact that a trait survived does not imply that it is optimal.



Are you sure about that? Take a look at the Van Lommel study for instance, while more people reported being transformed in the NDE group, there were still plenty in the non-NDE group.

Also: under an NDE is brain related would you not also expect those results? The experience of the NDE - whatever its source- is pretty impactful, especially if it convinces people about the reality of the afterlife, etc. Would we not expect this to have an emotional/psychological impact on the person? Given its intensity?

The question is: does the evidence you are talking about support multiple hypotheses?



I hear all the time that the NDE contradicts our understanding of X, so X can't be involved. That may be true. But I also have to ask myself whether the reverse is also applicable: what does the NDE experience potentially tell us about our understanding of X? Why are we assuming that our understanding of X is complete enough to determine it can cause NDEs? Shouldn't we be exploring in both directions?

Answering this from the bottom up, we SHOULD be exploring whether the ?DE is brain-based or not, except those pursuing the brain-based option appear to have already settled their territory and believe that because they planted their flag on Cuba, Nantucket Island, and South Padre Island, they can accurately map the whole of North America. "We artificially produced the tunnel of light experience in a patient, therefore the entire ?DE is brain-based." "We provoked a large DMT dump in the patient, who believed he was talking to Abraham Lincoln, therefore the entire ?DE is brain-based." "We asked Koko the gorilla if the ?DE was brain-based and she said yes, therefore the entire ?DE is brain-based." On the non-brain-based side though, people are losing their reputations wondering why multiple aspects and aftereffects of the ?DE dont jive with current understanding of neuroscience and medicine, and creating hypotheses and pursuing experiments.

I would not expect the same results from a ?DE that is brain-based than not-brain. In order to chew food, our brain has to control the lips, the tongue, the jaw, respond to all the nerves present, interpret the taste from the saliva, as well as determine how much food to stuff in there. That routine activity requires a fully-functioning brain, with multiple parts of the brain and millions of cells working together. Now, if I get trapped in a raging river, and I'm swallowing water, and no oxygen is coming to my brain, and I'm spending further energy on flailing my arms and thrashing my body, hallelujah! Thanks to evolution, one or more portions of my brain, previously overshadowed by those other more popular lobes because of all that pesky blood and oxygen, having waited years for the right circumstances, finally stands up to the plate, and throws the best personal experience since Cats, only for some joker to rescue me, and that secret combination of neurons and cells and fat loses its self-esteem and becomes Humdrum Brain again.

People have been transformed from a brush with death, whether they had a ?DE or not. But to the same extent? Sure, these folks know what it's like to die, but if all they experienced was a silent void, do they come back with the same long lasting levelof compassion and love like ?DErs?

The other question I have is: how the hell did this trait pass on? We know we run fast because the bears ate the slower cavemen, we make videos of us getting hurt because the bravest cavemen got all the babes, but how did the ?DE emerge in evolution? 100 years ago the common cold could kill you, an ingrown toenail could disable you, and we're supposed to nod in agreement that 10,000 years ago, a number of our ancestors not only were put in situations where they died for a few minutes, but that they came back, they were fully functioning, with memories of this vivid experience, AND all the cavewomen wanted to hit that?

 

[TWF in the 3rd Millennium]

If you look at organism/cell evolution the prevailing view appears to be that simple centriole containing organisms such as Trichoplax adhaerens, which has no nervous system/neurons evolved earlier than neuron containing organisms. Yet these non-neuronal organisms still navigate, feed, organise, have sex, solve problems, demonstrate memory and EM sensory capabilities. If neurons are a requirement for this sort of behavior, how do we explain these simple organisms behaviour, as they have no neurons?

So when you say, "...I just cannot understand why a dying brain would do this?...", it makes much more sense to me, that we consider that an energy compromised brain, whose EM field has collapsed, might on some occasions, simply return to the default state, as if it had no neurons, just like these simpler organisms.

So the NDE is not a special evolutionary advantage as such, its simply an experience that arises, because of a fallback to an earlier state. Well that's what I think anyway.

Im a little confused. Are we saying these one-celled creatures are having non-stop ?DEs?

 

[Haruhi]

Why should a NDE have a function? It is probably more a side effect of the impairment of the brain.

Then NDEs should be chaotic, when they are not.

 

[Vault313]

Im a little confused. Are we saying these one-celled creatures are having non-stop ?DEs?

I don't understand this reasoning either. How is what could possibly be considered the LOWEST form of "consciousness" an explanation for, AGAIN, hyper-lucid experience, GREATER cognitive understanding, vivid imagery (more real than real) memory formation, etc.

Moreover, this explanation only STRENGTHENS the argument for non-brain based consciousness. If an organism can experience consciousness, however rudimentary, without a brain, without neurons, then how does that fit into a brain based explanation for consciousness?

How can we be sure these organisms are even experiencing consciousness? And if you argue they aren't, then you can't argue for these organisms being an explanation for why NDEs don't matter/exist.

Unless you really go the materialistic route and argue that NONE of us are experiencing consciousness, the "it's an illusion" rally cry of the eliminative materialist, which is beyond absurd.

 

[Vault313]

Why should a NDE have a function? It is probably more a side effect of the impairment of the brain. It is also very rare, so I do not see why we should trust our intuition to judge what should or should not be.

First, we are taught that nature doesn't waste energy or resources on anything which does not serve a purpose. The energy/brain power required to produce an NDE is beyond counter-productive for a system that would literally be in "code red" mode. We already know that in order to save the organism, non-vital functions entirely shut down, even going so far as to putting the brain into a stasis mode to preserve what energy/resources it can to just survive. Handwaving the NDE away with "it doesn't mean anything" is just as absurd as saying consciousness doesn't mean anything.

Second, who is talking about intuition? The evidence proves beyond a doubt that NDEs are a real conscious event. Just like dreams, hallucinations,etc.

Just because we don't understand the how or why doesn't mean they don't matter.

On that note, EVEN IF you wanted to "explain" away NDEs as being mere (haha!) hallucinations or dreams (which is a hilarious concept btw that people actually believe that dismissing something is explaining it), tell me, what exactly ARE hallucinations? What are dreams? Why do some people hallucinate and report that there is zero difference between reality and the hallucinations? How is it that dreams can feel so incredibly real? Why do we dream at all? None, and I repeat, none of these phenomena have been explained. Mostly it's scientific handwaving, or if your lucky, you might get a "we don't know". Which is at the very least honest.

Fact: We dont know what consciousness is. We don't know why we are conscious or how.

Taking ANY explanation off the table is absurd. Ignoring experience or data that doesn't fit your favorite paradigm is absurd. Pretending that consciousness doesn't exist is absurd. Pretending that we've explained anything more than a small fraction of what our reality even is, is absurd. All that is far more absurd than contemplating the possibility that there is an "afterlife".

 

[Max_B]

Im a little confused. Are we saying these one-celled creatures are having non-stop ?DEs?

Nope, I'm saying that studies show that some mechanism within these organisms allows them to have memory, sense em fields, navigate space-time, organise, and process problems, and it can't be down to neurons, as the organisms I'm talking about don't have them. Whatever that mechanism is, may be at work in the brain.

 

[Vault313]

Nope, I'm saying that studies show that some mechanism within these organisms allows them to have memory, sense em fields, navigate space-time, organise, and process problems, and it can't be down to neurons, as the organisms I'm talking about don't have them. Whatever that mechanism is, may be at work in the brain.

Ahh, ok. I understand what you were getting at now.

I know this was a response to TWF3 but I was confused by your previous post also.

 

[Max_B]

I don't understand this reasoning either. How is what could possibly be considered the LOWEST form of "consciousness" an explanation for, AGAIN, hyper-lucid experience, GREATER cognitive understanding, vivid imagery (more real than real) memory formation, etc.

Moreover, this explanation only STRENGTHENS the argument for non-brain based consciousness. If an organism can experience consciousness, however rudimentary, without a brain, without neurons, then how does that fit into a brain based explanation for consciousness?

How can we be sure these organisms are even experiencing consciousness? And if you argue they aren't, then you can't argue for these organisms being an explanation for why NDEs don't matter/exist.

Unless you really go the materialistic route and argue that NONE of us are experiencing consciousness, the "it's an illusion" rally cry of the eliminative materialist, which is beyond absurd.

You have not understood a thing I have said. :-(

 

[Vault313]

You have not understood a thing I have said. :-(

Agreed, but I get ya now.

I was also confusing your post with another one I think. I need to stick with one thread at a time!

 

[tim]

You know, I think it's time we stopped calling these people skeptics. They're not skeptics. A skeptic is someone who questions the authenticity of something reported as fact because they have doubts that it is true. Folks like Hawking, Cox, Coyne; they're not questioning the authenticity of the paranormal, they believe they've already answered the question, and now they're out to expose and eliminate what they see as lies. This makes them debunkers, not skeptics. They are militant, conservative, antispiritual debunkers, who speak in the language of science, but make it very clear that we are their infidels.

Oh my word, do I like that. ..... YES !

 

[tim]

Why should a NDE have a function? It is probably more a side effect of the impairment of the brain. It is also very rare, so I do not see why we should trust our intuition to judge what should or should not be.

Very rare...13 million americans polled in 1992 had had one.

 

[Arouet]

Answering this from the bottom up, we SHOULD be exploring whether the ?DE is brain-based or not, except those pursuing the brain-based option appear to have already settled their territory and believe that because they planted their flag on Cuba, Nantucket Island, and South Padre Island, they can accurately map the whole of North America. "We artificially produced the tunnel of light experience in a patient, therefore the entire ?DE is brain-based." "We provoked a large DMT dump in the patient, who believed he was talking to Abraham Lincoln, therefore the entire ?DE is brain-based." "We asked Koko the gorilla if the ?DE was brain-based and she said yes, therefore the entire ?DE is brain-based." On the non-brain-based side though, people are losing their reputations wondering why multiple aspects and aftereffects of the ?DE dont jive with current understanding of neuroscience and medicine, and creating hypotheses and pursuing experiments.

So you agree with me that we should encourage both aspects and be polite and respectful about it! Good!

I would not expect the same results from a ?DE that is brain-based than not-brain. In order to chew food, our brain has to control the lips, the tongue, the jaw, respond to all the nerves present, interpret the taste from the saliva, as well as determine how much food to stuff in there. That routine activity requires a fully-functioning brain, with multiple parts of the brain and millions of cells working together. Now, if I get trapped in a raging river, and I'm swallowing water, and no oxygen is coming to my brain, and I'm spending further energy on flailing my arms and thrashing my body, hallelujah! Thanks to evolution, one or more portions of my brain, previously overshadowed by those other more popular lobes because of all that pesky blood and oxygen, having waited years for the right circumstances, finally stands up to the plate, and throws the best personal experience since Cats, only for some joker to rescue me, and that secret combination of neurons and cells and fat loses its self-esteem and becomes Humdrum Brain again.

I dunno, seems to me there are various things that can happen that produce non-humdrum brain experiences.

People have been transformed from a brush with death, whether they had a ?DE or not. But to the same extent? Sure, these folks know what it's like to die, but if all they experienced was a silent void, do they come back with the same long lasting levelof compassion and love like ?DErs?

But that was the point I was making: even if the NDE is brain based one would expect it to have a bigger impact on a person than if they didn't have one.

Also: don't jump to assumptions about how people react to NDEs. There may be more diversity than you expect. The Van Lommel paper did not have 100% affected in that way. This paper from a German study provides some interesting findings both in terms of the content of the NDEs themselves (which were more diverse than expected) and the reactions.

The other question I have is: how the hell did this trait pass on? We know we run fast because the bears ate the slower cavemen, we make videos of us getting hurt because the bravest cavemen got all the babes, but how did the ?DE emerge in evolution? 100 years ago the common cold could kill you, an ingrown toenail could disable you, and we're supposed to nod in agreement that 10,000 years ago, a number of our ancestors not only were put in situations where they died for a few minutes, but that they came back, they were fully functioning, with memories of this vivid experience, AND all the cavewomen wanted to hit that?

As I said above: don't assume the selective pressure was the NDE. The NDE may be as a particular function of processes that provided selective advantages in other contexts. In any event - trying to figure out what particular selective pressures could have been can be fun - but I don't think we should read too much into them.

 

[TWF in the 3rd Millennium]

Why should a NDE have a function? It is probably more a side effect of the impairment of the brain. It is also very rare, so I do not see why we should trust our intuition to judge what should or should not be.

You don't seem new here, so I'm sure you're saying what you're saying for the lulz. If so, I hope one day, should you ever have an experience your worldview can't explain, you have a support system who treats you with respect and understanding.

In the event your question is legitimate, my answer is 1) echoing Tim, a 1992 Gallup poll showed at least 5% of the American public (or thirteen million people) willingly reported having had an NDE-- this is equivalent to today's cities of Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York evaporating overnight. In 2001, a German study showed 4% of Germans reporting an NDE, or over three million people, or the city of Houston disappearing overnight. It's not rare.

2) I conclude when you say side effect, you mean the brain's reaction to its dying, because a side effect is an undesirable secondary effect produced when the primary treatment goes beyond its intended effect, and death makes a poor primary treatment for dying, whereas an NDE is quite a desirable secondary effect. So you must mean to say, "it's probably a hallucination, dream, illusion, or delusion of the dying brain."

I'm not a neuroscientist-- neither are you of course-- but I would think these events would require a brain that wasn't covered in calcium and other damaging, toxic substances while the crumbling cell's nutrients are extinguished and oxygen levels are depleted, as happens within the first several minutes of cardiac arrest cases. In fact, until the heart beat is restarted, CPR and other resuscitation techniques can only produce up to 25% of the needed blood flow to the brain, which is insufficient for the patient's recovery, as studies during this period of the procedure showed brain electrical activity remaining flat until the heart beat was restarted. Even in the first 24 hours after a successful resuscitation, wherein the heart is beating again, the brain is in a fragile state where blood flow is in disorder and even oxygen can kill the patient if care is not taken. This does not explain many elements of the ?DE, including the parts where the patients just wake up from their trauma as if nothing happened, where they hear and see what's going on outside their room, and Peak-in-Darien moments.

3) NDEs should have a function because, paraphrasing Dr. David Eagleman, evolution produced the most complex machine in the Universe, the brain. That within this brain is a conspiracy of cells, neurons, electricity, and fat waiting for the brain to reach the Goldilocks zone of dying so it can commit the most unevolutionary act possible and distract the subject from finding a way out of danger by disassociating the subject from its body and throwing a parade... I'm skeptical of that idea.

 

[TWF in the 3rd Millennium]

So you agree with me that we should encourage both aspects and be polite and respectful about it! Good!

Yes, I'm sure you've seen me state in other posts that the way someone approaches their argument is more important to me than the argument they make. I've also said I'm biased towards believing in survival after death because it's near impossible to pick yourself up by the bootstraps when you don't have kids, a wife, friends, or a career, and modern science says, "sorry bud, looks like you just pulled the short straw in life, we're gonna go on and have a great time over here." So I'd like to see scientists today pursue both avenues, because either way we're going to learn things we didn't know before, and fascinating technological and sociological developments have been made from both pursuits, but the mainstream side needs to treat scientists like Sheldrake, Radin, and van Lommel with an open ear, and educate its supporters to not treat the rest of us like we've fallen asleep on a nuclear reactor. Have you seen the comments on articles regarding ?DEs, reincarnation, and the like on LiveScience, SciAm, and other mainstream lines?

I dunno, seems to me there are various things that can happen that produce non-humdrum brain experiences.

Yes, your first kiss, your first road trip, the day you saved someone's life, the day you got married, had kids... I totally agree those can produce non-humdrum brain experiences. However, many of the reports coming out from people who had ?DEs is that none of those experiences were remotely close in comparison. It's not like these folks were raised in a vacuum, they had all sorts of lives and all sorts of adventures, but when they had a ?DE, it was a totally different league for them. What does that say about ?DEs, and what does that say about our non-?DE experiences?

But that was the point I was making: even if the NDE is brain based one would expect it to have a bigger impact on a person than if they didn't have one.

Also: don't jump to assumptions about how people react to NDEs. There may be more diversity than you expect. The Van Lommel paper did not have 100% affected in that way. This paper (http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/23/art%3A10.1023%2FA%3A1011112727078.pdf?auth66=1423674452_0d2517ef087acb3578f5ebbcc485f62b&ext=.pdf) from a German study provides some interesting findings both in terms of the content of the NDEs themselves (which were more diverse than expected) and the reactions.

Your link gave me an error, can you find another link?

I can concede anyway that you have a point here; people who died and didn't experience heaven or hell (essentially) but a void didn't all come back as nihilists. I'm reminded of a TED talk featuring this guy who was in a plane about to crash, and it was such an inspirational speech, but he didn't have a ?DE, he just said he felt peaceful once he accepted his imminent death. I guess what we should be saying is: people's reactions to having ?DEs and not having ?DEs are neither here nor there. People act as they act, our focus shouldn't be on that.

As I said above: don't assume the selective pressure was the NDE. The NDE may be as a particular function of processes that provided selective advantages in other contexts. In any event - trying to figure out what particular selective pressures could have been can be fun - but I don't think we should read too much into them.

You may want to talk with Bart V then, he appears to not believe that NDEs have a function.

 

[TWF in the 3rd Millennium]

Nope, I'm saying that studies show that some mechanism within these organisms allows them to have memory, sense em fields, navigate space-time, organise, and process problems, and it can't be down to neurons, as the organisms I'm talking about don't have them. Whatever that mechanism is, may be at work in the brain.

Yes, I see now... very interesting implications from that, I hope someone's doing an experiment on it.

Did you also happen to read the article about the experiment at Tufts University where biologists cut off the head of a worm, and when it regenerated the head and brain, it still had its old memories? So far they have no clue how that worked.

Oh, I've scared Boo boo off now.

 

[TWF in the 3rd Millennium]

You have not understood a thing I have said. :-(

Welcome to Skeptiko. Sorry about the mess.

 

[Vault313]

3) NDEs should have a function because, paraphrasing Dr. David Eagleman, evolution produced the most complex machine in the Universe, the brain. That within this brain is a conspiracy of cells, neurons, electricity, and fat waiting for the brain to reach the Goldilocks zone of dying so it can commit the most unevolutionary act possible and distract the subject from finding a way out of danger by disassociating the subject from its body and throwing a parade... I'm skeptical of that idea.

Lol. Awesome!