William Peters, Shared Death Experience Science |544|

[Alex]

William Peters, Shared Death Experience Science |544|
by Alex Tsakiris | Mar 15 | Consciousness Science, Near-Death Experience
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William Peters, one of the leading authorities on the remarkable shared death experience phenomena.

 

[J Randall Murphy]

Same problem with this topic as other afterlife discussions, which is that the premise assumes that there is an afterlife, and that any related experiences during life represents reliable evidence of that assumption — when they don't. At some point, instead of clinging to popular assumptions about what happens to personhood post death, researchers on the subject would do better to explore other avenues for an explanation.

That being said, if these stories represent some sort of belief that helps people deal with grief, and from that perspective can be considered psychologically beneficial, regardless of whether or not the truth of the experiences correspond to the reality of the situation, then who am I to make their lives more miserable by telling them that what they think is happening cannot be what they assume it to be?

And therein lies a barricade to the objective analysis of these experiences. These situations are so emotionally charged, that it makes it difficult to frame them in any other way than how those attached to them interpret them, because if you don't agree, then you find yourself shut out of the discussion, and often attacked in some way as some sort of anti-spiritual, anti-religious, insensitive, purveyor of negativity from the dark side etc etc etc.

Now, taking that into consideration, how might we frame the experiences in a way that is plausible, without jumping to the conclusion, without adequate evidence, that they have been fabricated intentionally by the alleged experiencer? Here are the possible options:

1. The experiences are subjectively genuine only — there is no correlation with any external objective reality.
2. The experiences are subjectively genuine, caused by some external objective reality that isn't actually what it's assumed to be.
3. The experiences are subjectively genuine, and externally caused, but all of reality isn't what we assume it to be, therefore what we assume to be continuity of personhood is illusory, regardless of whether or not there is some sort of afterlife phenomenon.

I'll let the conversation begin there, and anyone who is interested can either participate or unravel those threads for themselves.

 

[Silence]

That being said, if people want to believe these stories represent some sort of truth that helps them deal with grief, and from that perspective can be considered psychologically beneficial, regardless of whether or not the truth of the experiences correspond to the reality of the situation, then who am I to make their lives more miserable by telling them that what they think is happening cannot be what they assume it to be?

I was tracking with you until you appear to have done the same thing you were criticizing: you've asserted a definitive stance on something you can not prove. If you'd said "may not" instead of "cannot", we'd still be tracking.

And this leads more broadly to the prevailing approach to debunking/skepticism which effectively offers a binary: It is or it is not. It closes down the discussion, the exploration. "You say there is an afterlife, that's woo, there is not." End of story. Yet, the conversation persists and has persisted since the dawn of time. We simply don't know; it may be, it may not be, further discovery/exploration is needed.

So, debunk bad ideas. Debunk just-so assertions about afterlife that can not be proven. Help people see beyond their biases; people truly interested in exploration. But we should stop short of hypocrisy.

 

[J Randall Murphy]

I was tracking with you until you appear to have done the same thing you were criticizing: you've asserted a definitive stance on something you can not prove. If you'd said "may not" instead of "cannot", we'd still be tracking.

And this leads more broadly to the prevailing approach to debunking/skepticism which effectively offers a binary: It is or it is not. It closes down the discussion, the exploration. "You say there is an afterlife, that's woo, there is not." End of story. Yet, the conversation persists and has persisted since the dawn of time. We simply don't know; it may be, it may not be, further discovery/exploration is needed.

So, debunk bad ideas. Debunk just-so assertions about afterlife that can not be proven. Help people see beyond their biases; people truly interested in exploration. But we should stop short of hypocrisy.

I gave your comment a like because at least you're comments are in the spirit of open mindedly exploring the content, even if at the present time we're not sharing the same perspective.

To address the issue of me using the term "cannot": In the context of the sentence in which it is used, the word "cannot" means that there are logical proofs based on evidence and reason that certain theories or beliefs cannot be true. In other cases, they may or may not be able to be proven either true or untrue, but they can be shown to be more or less likely to be true or untrue, and in other cases they may be able to be proven true.

So I wasn't using the term in an all-cases context. It was in reference to cases where it is accurate, not those that aren't. These are complex discussions, and are best taken in small steps. That's why I went on to offer the possible variables that affect those outcomes. So you may be correct about the faulty use of "cannot" in some cases, and not in others — depending on the theory or belief, and who is making the assertion.

The thing about this approach, is that it can be used to distill down a lot of variables, thereby eliminating a wide range of theories and beliefs that are impossible, leaving us with only a few leftovers. This doesn't get us all the way to the bottom of the mystery. But it does help weed-out a lot of nonsense, while placing the useful bits and pieces into coherent frameworks.

It's sort of like being handed a box of puzzle pieces that contain more than one picture, each of which fits together the same way. In some cases the pieces fit, but the picture is incoherent because the pieces are from different pictures, and in others, they fit and are coherent, but not enough pieces are in place to see the whole picture. But the more you get right, the clearer the situation becomes.

In this analogy, an assembly of pieces that fit together, but are made of pieces from different puzzles, are incoherent, and therefore cannot be the true picture, even if we don't yet know what the whole picture looks like — do you follow? For the sake of keeping things simple, my approach to solving the puzzle is to first get some general idea what the finished puzzle(s) are supposed to look like.

Without getting into every possible experience or belief about afterlives, I've distilled the essential problem down to continuity of personhood following the death of the body. Obviously there are all sorts of beliefs that don't fit into that frame, but for the sake of trying to get a grip on the what seems to be typical assumptions about afterlives — that covers it sufficiently. From there we then need to ask ourselves: What do we mean by personhood?

In answering the question of what constitutes personhood, believers in afterlives arbitrarily designate the body as irrelevant — when it's far from it. To continue to do so is nothing short of wilful ignorance in order to substantiate their preferred beliefs. From there we can move on to less tangible characteristics of personhood, virtually all of which distill down to a dependency on some aspect directly associated with the living body and brain.

 

[David Bailey]

Same problem with this topic as other afterlife discussions, which is that the premise assumes that there is an afterlife, and that any related experiences during life represents reliable evidence of that assumption — when they don't. At some point, instead of clinging to popular assumptions about what happens to personhood post death, researchers on the subject would do better to explore other avenues for an explanation.

That being said, if these stories represent some sort of belief that helps people deal with grief, and from that perspective can be considered psychologically beneficial, regardless of whether or not the truth of the experiences correspond to the reality of the situation, then who am I to make their lives more miserable by telling them that what they think is happening cannot be what they assume it to be?

And therein lies a barricade to the objective analysis of these experiences. These situations are so emotionally charged, that it makes it difficult to frame them in any other way than how those attached to them interpret them, because if you don't agree, then you find yourself shut out of the discussion, and often attacked in some way as some sort of anti-spiritual, anti-religious, insensitive, purveyor of negativity from the dark side etc etc etc.

Now, taking that into consideration, how might we frame the experiences in a way that is plausible, without jumping to the conclusion, without adequate evidence, that they have been fabricated intentionally by the alleged experiencer? Here are the possible options:

1. The experiences are subjectively genuine only — there is no correlation with any external objective reality.
2. The experiences are subjectively genuine, caused by some external objective reality that isn't actually what it's assumed to be.
3. The experiences are subjectively genuine, and externally caused, but all of reality isn't what we assume it to be, therefore what we assume to be continuity of personhood is illusory, regardless of whether or not there is some sort of afterlife phenomenon.

I'll let the conversation begin there, and anyone who is interested can either participate or unravel those threads for themselves.

The trouble with that super rigorous approach, is that science itself could never have developed with such a level of rigour.

Let's take any of the classical experiments e.g. Ohm's law. In reality, any experiment to establish Ohm's law would consist of a collection of observations consisting of a potential difference across a resistor and the current flowing through the device. That would not get you much further without the metaphysical assumption that the universe obeys a set of orderly rules that are independent of position in time and space.

Usually, scientists expressed that belief in terms of God's design decisions! Some still do.

Without that assumption, you could join the observations with any curve you liked, and you would have no reason to expect the result to be the same on the following day. You could even try to repeat the experiment - maybe with another experimenter, but what would that prove? You you'd simply end up with a larger set of observations but there would be no way to generalise from such data without the above metaphysical assumption, embarrassingly usually expressed in terms of God's plan.

With the metaohysical assumption you can join the points and postulate an equation current is proportional to the potential difference across the device.

Science also requires some form of Occam's Razor to weed out contrived conclusions.

Your first option is ruled out I think by the fact that a LOT of data about NDE's has been collected, and the stories you read are not just random.

Option 2 is ruled out by Occam's Razor, leaving option 3 the most likely conclusion. However, just as in all science, conclusions are always tentative. For example, as we all know, not all conductors follow Ohm's law, and without requiring the measurements to be performed in a constant temperature bath, the curve you obtain will deviate from a straight line because heat will be dissipated and will change the resistivity of the sample.

Indeed it is generally recognised that a scientific 'proof' is nothing like a mathematical proof.

David

 

[Robbedigital]

And therein lies a barricade to the objective analysis of these experiences. These situations are so emotionally charged, that it makes it difficult to frame them in any other way than how those attached to them interpret them, because if you don't agree, then you find yourself shut out of the discussion, and often attacked in some way as some sort of anti-spiritual, anti-religious, insensitive, purveyor of negativity from the dark side etc etc etc.

As a personal challenge for some years now I regularly pause whenever I feel too sure about any particular perspective and force myself to accept the possibility that the opposing view is correct. And I force the thought experiment until I'm sure that I'll be ready to accept it if it becomes revealed to be so. It only takes a few seconds in most surface level ideas (Left/Right, Rich/Poor, Free/Compulsory, Infinite/Local).
I'm suspicious that - regardless of IQ - reductivism doesn't bolster value in this exercise. Meanwhile, reductivism totally bolsters the ability to disregard that "I was wrong last time and the time before" when formulating probability of current accuracy.
And yes, I ended this post by applying the exercise, and it only took about 1/4 second to be ok and ready to accept if fully I'm wrong in this stance.

 

[J Randall Murphy]

Option 2 is ruled out by Occam's Razor, leaving option 3 the most likely conclusion.

I tend to lean in that direction as well — that is, after distilling down and eliminating what can be eliminated. The net result is that we still end-up in a place where afterlives aren't what they are assumed to be ( a continuity of personhood following the death of the body ). It always ends-up being that the resulting entity that is assumed to be the deceased person, is at best, a copy — and usually a rather poor one.

Indeed it is generally recognised that a scientific 'proof' is nothing like a mathematical proof.

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. Scientists tend to think that if the math doesn't work, the theory is proven wrong. I suppose that they could waste a lot of time trying experiments based on bad math, but I wouldn't say that is a "generally recognized" approach.

 

[J Randall Murphy]

As a personal challenge for some years now I regularly pause whenever I feel too sure about any particular perspective and force myself to accept the possibility that the opposing view is correct. And I force the thought experiment until I'm sure that I'll be ready to accept it if it becomes revealed to be so. It only takes a few seconds in most surface level ideas (Left/Right, Rich/Poor, Free/Compulsory, Infinite/Local).
I'm suspicious that - regardless of IQ - reductivism doesn't bolster value in this exercise. Meanwhile, reductivism totally bolsters the ability to disregard that "I was wrong last time and the time before" when formulating probability of current accuracy.
And yes, I ended this post by applying the exercise, and it only took about 1/4 second to be ok and ready to accept if fully I'm wrong in this stance.

I'm not so sure about your claim with respect to reductionism. We'd have to get into more specifics. Also, I'm not advocating as much for a solely reductionist approach, as a critical thinking approach. So sure, if we can create the same picture with fewer pieces, that's fine, but not to the extent that essential information is lost.

Continuing with the puzzle analogy, it's more a case of organizing the pieces so that their relationships are better defined. By grouping all the pieces that look like part of the water and all of the pieces that look like part of the land, certain combinations are eliminated.

It sounds to me like you're one of the rare people who adapts readily to new evidence and/or reason. I'm the same way. I used to believe in reincarnation, God, afterlives, NDEs, OOBEs, etc. Over time, all my views on those concepts evolved away from the traditional interpretations, but I still believe that the phenomena and the experiences are in many cases perfectly genuine. I just don't know for sure how to explain them.

I'm not in the camp that says they're all fabrications, hoaxes, hallucinations, etc. And I'm not in the camp that says Jesus is real and so is God and he'll decide after judgement whether or not you'll come back, or if you'll get promoted to angeldom. I'm in the camp that gets attacked from both sides — the one that says "I don't know for sure what the explanation is — I just know that for sure, it's neither of those options."

 

[Robbedigital]

I'm not in the camp that says they're all fabrications, hoaxes, hallucinations, etc. And I'm not in the camp that says Jesus is real and so is God and he'll decide after judgement whether or not you'll come back, or if you'll get promoted to angeldom. I'm in the camp that gets attacked from both sides — the one that says "I don't know for sure what the explanation is — I just know that for sure, it's neither of those options."

I believe what matters here is the honesty when making the distinction between faith and knowledge. Especially here.
Hebrews 11:1 (King James ver.) “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
I think my point is that:
1. It’s okay to believe.
2. If we’re realistic about the possibility of being wrong I think it’s easier to admit whether any given stance is a belief or a knowledge.

I mean How offensive is the word FACT these days? It’s become a four letter word for sure.
Fact: all vaccines are__________
Fact: consciousness is _________
Fact: “I saw it”

Which is truer:
1. Man recollected earthly events transpiring while he was clinically dead.
2. “Scientists agree ________”

The only true qualifier of a fact is the # of human who agree on it.
Fact: there are 2 genders
Fact: vaccines prevent illness
Fact: Hitler killed ________. Mao killed _______. Stalin killed _______.
Fact: The Titanic accidentally crashed with aboard it all three significant opponents of the Federal Reserve.

I believe humanity is on the verge (if fortunate) of discovering many things we thought were fact instead to just have been widely accepted beliefs.

 

[David Bailey]

I tend to lean in that direction as well — that is, after distilling down and eliminating what can be eliminated. The net result is that we still end-up in a place where afterlives aren't what they are assumed to be ( a continuity of personhood following the death of the body ). It always ends-up being that the resulting entity that is assumed to be the deceased person, is at best, a copy — and usually a rather poor one.

That rather depends on what you read. My impression is that the afterlife is supposed to be very rich, but that being physical from time to time is a useful exercise (I think the evidence for reincarnation is extremely strong). It would seem that communication between here and there is rather muddy. However, there is some amazing evidence that mediums actually do produce valid information. Listen to the podcasts with Julie Beischel - a statistician who developed a way to test mediums using multiple blinding techniques to get round all the usual objection about cold reading, looking a client up on facebook before the seance, etc etc.

Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. Scientists tend to think that if the math doesn't work, the theory is proven wrong. I suppose that they could waste a lot of time trying experiments based on bad math, but I wouldn't say that is a "generally recognized" approach.

The problem is that real science has to deal with imprecise laws (not to mention imprecise measurements) that are far messier than the way they appear when first presented. I remember as a kid, reading about the gas laws (PV=nRT). I was amazed - here was a formula that allowed me to predict things about any gas, at any temperature and any pressure. Then a bit later on I learned that actually PV=nRT is only an approximation to the truth, and that there is no precise relationship - only some better approximations. Those approximations are much less appealing - for example they involve coefficients that vary from one gas to another. All real science is like that to varying degrees.

It makes me laugh that cosmologists are happy to take an equation that contains a singularity - the Big Bang - and assume it represents some sort of truth. In reality it is probable that one or other of the laws that contribute to it are being extrapolated away too far!

I see the study of consciousness, NDE, OBEs, SDE's, evidence for reincarnation etc as the real cutting edge of consciousness science (I don't expect neuroscience to contribute much). It is still at a relatively primitive stage - think of when alchemy gradually morphed into chemistry. People tend to laugh at alchemy, but actually alchemy evolved into chemistry - because people couldn't know what were elements, or what combustion was. They had to get their hands dirty with chemicals (that weren't particularly pure) and gradually claw themselves into the position we are now. What some of Alex's guests are doing is precisely that.

David

 

[Alex]

The problem is that real science has to deal with imprecise laws (not to mention imprecise measurements) that are far messier than the way they appear when first presented. I remember as a kid, reading about the gas laws (PV=nRT). I was amazed - here was a formula that allowed me to predict things about any gas, at any temperature and any pressure. Then a bit later on I learned that actually PV=nRT is only an approximation to the truth, and that there is no precise relationship - only some better approximations. Those approximations are much less appealing - for example they involve coefficients that vary from one gas to another. All real science is like that to varying degrees.

nice! and this is exactly what people like dean radin found when they really pushed for resolution of the double slit/observer effect experiments. max Planck had it right -- consciousness is fundamental... matter is derivative of consciousness. this seems to fit your experience... i.e. the laws can be a useful approximation, but the ultimate reality is beyond.

 

[David Bailey]

Wow - I finally got round to actually listening to this podcast!

It is one of the best podcasts for some time. You gave the man plenty of time to speak and he had something really interesting to say.

I'll just comment on one item, William's experience with Ron - meeting his spirit while his body was still alive was particularly poignant. I wonder how many people start to live in the afterlife before they are actually dead. Maybe this could be what happened to severely demented people. Do they experience making visits to the afterlife for a bit before they die?

One thing his accounts make very clear is that the classical NDE is just one of a whole collection of related experiences.

I wasn't going to buy his book because the Amazon snippet doesn't contain a contents page - which generally means there isn't one, and that the material isn't well organised, but I'll make an exception for this book.

David

 

[Starmonkey]

Wow - I finally got round to actually listening to this podcast!

It is one of the best podcasts for some time. You gave the man plenty of time to speak and he had something really interesting to say.

I'll just comment on one item, William's experience with Ron - meeting his spirit while his body was still alive was particularly poignant. I wonder how many people start to live in the afterlife before they are actually dead. Maybe this could be what happened to severely demented people. Do they experience making visits to the afterlife for a bit before they die?

One thing his accounts make very clear is that the classical NDE is just one of a whole collection of related experiences.

I wasn't going to buy his book because the Amazon snippet doesn't contain a contents page - which generally means there isn't one, and that the material isn't well organised, but I'll make an exception for this book.

David

And through SLEEP we do. Dream.
The whole game changes when the existence of the SOUL is proven.
Bye-bye mechanistic science!

 

[Robbedigital]

nice! and this is exactly what people like dean radin found when they really pushed for resolution of the double slit/observer effect experiments. max Planck had it right -- consciousness is fundamental... matter is derivative of consciousness. this seems to fit your experience... i.e. the laws can be a useful approximation, but the ultimate reality is beyond.

What is the difference between what you're referring to as consciousness, and the butterfly effect aka simple displacement of energy and/or mass?
If I drop a pebble in the ocean off the coast of Australia, the ocean level off the coast of California is also raised by that one pebble.
If I add a pebble to Pluto, the gravity of Earth is affected, and galaxy, and cluster, and so on.
Mustn't the same displacement apply for the quantum or morphogenic field, and aren't they physical?
Do you believe there's a distinction between local/physical consciousness, and non-local consciousness?
I've always assumed the higher-self higher-consciousness, and NDE's exist outside of our physical realm and time.

 

[David Bailey]

And through SLEEP we do. Dream.
The whole game changes when the existence of the SOUL is proven.
Bye-bye mechanistic science!

Yes, but mechanistic science must clearly play some part in the whole. I tend to imagine that the influence is made at the QM level. Standard QM theory tells us that a wavefunction consisting of several possible outcomes can collapse into one possibility in a completely random way. My hunch is that that is the place where spirits (SOUL) can take control. In a way they don't break modern science so much as just force it down an otherwise very low probability route!

David

 

[David Bailey]

I've always assumed the higher-self higher-consciousness, and NDE's exist outside of our physical realm and time.

I am sure it does, but there has to be some sort of coupling - otherwise how do we control our bodies, or receive experiences from them?

David

 

[Starmonkey]

Yes, but mechanistic science must clearly play some part in the whole. I tend to imagine that the influence is made at the QM level. Standard QM theory tells us that a wavefunction consisting of several possible outcomes can collapse into one possibility in a completely random way. My hunch is that that is the place where spirits (SOUL) can take control. In a way they don't break modern science so much as just force it down an otherwise very low probability route!

David

Many of us will be aware of that as the choice narrows. And experience completely different things.
I know which road I'm on! I've been putting one foot in front of the other on that path my entire life. Now the reasons are becoming apparent.

 

[Robbedigital]

I am sure it does, but there has to be some sort of coupling - otherwise how do we control our bodies, or receive experiences from them?

David

How about some sort of non-local ethereal Gravity Source?
I imagine the "blue ball of light/love" existing in another realm not physical to us, with such an unimaginably infinite ethereal mass that it's ethereal gravitational pull crosses over dimensions and realms, while literally not existing in them in a scientifically verifiable form.

I don't mean to say that any non-local connection would have to be a pull, or push of sorts.. But gravity is probably the easiest force to imagine interacting without physicality.

 

[Kim]

And through SLEEP we do. Dream.
The whole game changes when the existence of the SOUL is proven.
Bye-bye mechanistic science!

The earth-shaking part of Wm's interview was his emphasis on how After Death 101 is not accepted by religion or the medical community. So, we need to profoundly make it an accepted practice to say the end of human bodily life, not the end of life. The afterlife is a poor description as well, since life is much more than a temporary existence in a fleshy shell.

 

[Kim]

Wow - I finally got round to actually listening to this podcast!

It is one of the best podcasts for some time. You gave the man plenty of time to speak and he had something really interesting to say.

I'll just comment on one item, William's experience with Ron - meeting his spirit while his body was still alive was particularly poignant. I wonder how many people start to live in the afterlife before they are actually dead. Maybe this could be what happened to severely demented people. Do they experience making visits to the afterlife for a bit before they die?

One thing his accounts make very clear is that the classical NDE is just one of a whole collection of related experiences.

I wasn't going to buy his book because the Amazon snippet doesn't contain a contents page - which generally means there isn't one, and that the material isn't well organised, but I'll make an exception for this book.

David

I fully agree w/ your assessment of this podcast. I watched a similar thing w/ Dr. Moody but it just didn't keep my attention like this one did. I was quite involved w/ Quora for a while, but I was quite disgusted by an attitude of "we've got the inside track on a lot of spiritual matters," so I bailed. At any rate, I emailed a man who sounds like a man who's spent a lot of time in the 'hereafter' for lack of a better word. He told me he had many experiences of taking ppl into his 'body' temporarily who had died but wandered about w/o a secure home. I was at a lost to describe how selfless or giving someone would have to be to do that, but he described it as a matter pf course. So, yes, the 'other side' is open to many long before death.