Pam Reynolds Near-Death Experience

[lekatt]

Steve

Just a word about Pam Reynolds

There was a A&E Documentary on her a long ways back.

The main surgeon was there and explained how Pam could not have known the things she talked about after she awoke.

Especially the surgical saw, which was a new device used for the first time, and Pam described it perfectly.

If you could get a tape of the show it would solve a lot of these speculations by skeptics.

We need to exchange links.

[SteveGrenard]

L: Especially the surgical saw, which was a new device used for the first time, and Pam described it perfectly.

If you scroll up you will note that her description of the saw is the only part of the clinical procedure which has validity as I maintain its use was after she was cooled and drained of her blood supply.

[lekatt]

I remember from the TV documentary there was conversation by the doctors she remembered during the surgery and other things besides the saw.

Doesn't matter much. There is enough evidence and proof available through the major sites to please anyone, except maybe a skeptic.

Love

[Dragon]

Originally posted by lekatt
I remember from the TV documentary there was conversation by the doctors she remembered during the surgery and other things besides the saw.

Doesn't matter much. There is enough evidence and proof available through the major sites to please anyone, except maybe a skeptic.

Love

lekatt, I saw nothing in the link you provided which amounted to proof of anything.

Van Lommel and Parnia do not offer their studies as proof.

If you type "NDE" in the Lancet search engine then you'll find other points of view which illustrate that the question of the mind transcending the body is still moot.

As Dr Susan Blackmore has pointed out there are several non-paranormal explanations for people seeming to descibe events which happened during their NDE - ".. information available at the time, prior knowledge, fantasy or dreams, lucky guesses, and information from the remaining senses. Then there is selective memory for correct details, incorporation of details learned between the NDE and giving an account of it, and the tendency to tell a good story"

[Titus Rivas]

I guess I will have to relent and buy Pam's story for the full account unless you can tell us how long after she woke up was it that she recounted her near death experience? And if you can tell us what else she said other than the snippets in the website account that would be helpful also. NDE accounts are scrutinized very carefully as we have seen here.

I also thought I made it clear that there are still smoking guns in her story, there is no one saying she did not envision or have the experience she said or thought she had but the few examples given unfortunately do make up a part of the whole and are refutable. Seeing tunnels, lights, and dead relatives are not verifiable. Presumably there is a lot more but we don't have that information. Does anyone?
Steve, I never claimed that tunnels or lights would be 'verifiable'. Again, if anyone is not satisfied with the declarations by Pam, Dr. Spetzler and Dr. Sabom, it may be a good idea for him or her to personally ask them more specific questions. By now I've already done what I could, as far as I know. I haven't seen any real arguments yet that would invalidate the interpretation of the case as at least strongly suggestive of life after death.

Titus

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
If you have trouble with these links the full text of both studies, the British and the Dutch NDE studies are also linkable from the following page on my website and registration or fees are not necessary as they are hosted locally with both author's permission.

http://www.survivalscience.org/ndeobe.shtml

The links to the Dutch study which was published in the British medical journal THE LANCET are up top. If you scroll to the end of the page you will find the links to Dr Sam Parnia's study in the UK
which was published in the medical journal RESUSCITATION.




I went there and read the summary since I couldn't open the whole text. The study doesn't really indicate that NDE is paranormal it just proves that we don’t know exactly what causes it. To use that as proof that it’s paranormal is a classical “god of the gaps” fallacy.

[Titus Rivas]

Had this been mentioned here already?
As it happens, Dr. Sabom did undertake a study twenty years ago to ascertain whether such details might be guessed at but found major inaccuracies in the control group who did not claim to have had an OBE during an operation. , according to a report by David Lorimer on the Wales Seminar of Science, Consciousness and Ultimate Reality (http://www.datadiwan.de/SciMedNet/templeton/reports/report_wales.htm) held on September 20th-22nd, 2002.

So much for Sue Blackmore's bold 'explanation' of NDEs.

Titus

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Kerberos
Originally posted by Titus Rivas


Skeptics always assert, imply, or insinuate that unless there is incontrovertible proof of an afterlife so that any other more "mundane" explanations simply cannot conceivably explain the facts, then the most rational approach is to suppose that such a mundane explanation applies, no matter how wildly implausible and convoluted this mundane explanation might be!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Yep, we nasty cynical skeptics won’t accept a paranormal explanation unless all the non-paranormal have been ruled out. What I find interesting is that the believer scientists never seem to bother using a protocol that does exclude every non-paranormal explanation and if they do the experiment is either a failure or it can’t be replicated.

Speaking as a nasty suspicious skeptic I’d say that this is because the phenomena they examine don’t really exist, but then I’m “completely bewitched by the common western metaphysic” more commonly known as science.



I wrote the above, not Titus. Could you provide references for your allegation that scientists sympathetic to the existence of anomalous phenomena do not use proper protocols?

BTW science has nothing to do with materialism. Science in no shape or form supports the materialist metaphysic. If anything it is more supportive of idealism.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


Indeed, they might be due to telepathy or even a perceived OBE of the living person in question. In fact, there is a lot of evidence for veridical apparitions of the living. Apart from this, the fact that there are paranormal deathbed-visions that seem to relate to the afterlife, does not imply there aren't a lot of non-paranormal deathbed-hallucinations too. Likewise, some extraordinary experiences that are interpreted as 'real' (survival-related) NDEs might actually be dreams.

Titus [/B]

Yes, some very good points Titus.

[Jeff Corey]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
BTW science has nothing to do with materialism. Science in no shape or form supports the materialist metaphysic. If anything it is more supportive of idealism.
All nonsense.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Jeff Corey

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
BTW science has nothing to do with materialism. Science in no shape or form supports the materialist metaphysic. If anything it is more supportive of idealism.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


All nonsense.

OIC Now I know :rolleyes:

[lekatt]

Originally posted by Dragon


lekatt, I saw nothing in the link you provided which amounted to proof of anything.

Van Lommel and Parnia do not offer their studies as proof.

If you type "NDE" in the Lancet search engine then you'll find other points of view which illustrate that the question of the mind transcending the body is still moot.

As Dr Susan Blackmore has pointed out there are several non-paranormal explanations for people seeming to descibe events which happened during their NDE - ".. information available at the time, prior knowledge, fantasy or dreams, lucky guesses, and information from the remaining senses. Then there is selective memory for correct details, incorporation of details learned between the NDE and giving an account of it, and the tendency to tell a good story"


P. van Lommel went on to say: "Several theories have been proposed to explain NDE. We did not show that psychological, neurophysiological, or physiological factors caused these experiences after cardiac arrest."


That's all you needed to read. That is what every serious NDE researcher has been saying for over 30 years. They are all qualified, Dr, Raymond Moody, Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Dr. Barbara R. Rommer, Dr. Melvin Morse, Dr. Kenneth Ring, to name a few. Some of these researchers spent their whole lives on the subject.

The experience is not caused by the dying/dead physical body.
Every experiencer knows this, and actually reading the experiences will show how and why they know this.

Now, of course, each person may believe as they wish. Truth will surface no matter how strongly it is suppressed.

We can't prove there is a spiritual world to those not experiencing it. But several researchers have developed means to do this.

The Robert Monroe Institute offers courses on discovery and claims an 80 percent success rate. Those who want to find out might investigate this.

Love
Leroy

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


I wrote the above, not Titus. Could you provide references for your allegation that scientists sympathetic to the existence of anomalous phenomena do not use proper protocols?

BTW science has nothing to do with materialism. Science in no shape or form supports the materialist metaphysic. If anything it is more supportive of idealism.

Sorry I copy-pasted the ehh.. Quotation commands and forgot to correct the attribution. As for my statement that believer scientists don't use proper protocol, I said that they never did and if they did the results were negative or couldn't be replicated, which I'll admit is bad English so I corrected it.

However to take the two examples in the Pam case the scientist doing the research didn't even record exactly what Pam said upon waking up and in the Shoe-case there's no real evidence that the incident even happened.

I suppose I'm generalizing somewhat, but I really don't think that you'd be complaining that skeptics don't accept anecdotical evidence that even if taken on face value could easily be explained by cheating, if you had bulletproof scientific evidence.

I agree that science is not by nature materialistic, but science is inherently skeptical of claims that fall outside what is known to be possible. It requires much more evidence to prove a new natural or supernatural law or phenomenon than to prove another case of an already proven one.

[Dragon]

"...We did not show that psychological, neurophysiological, or physiological factors caused these experiences after cardiac arrest."

lekatt, do you understand what the above sentence means? I think not. Van Lommel is saying that this study does not show that these "mundane" explanations caused the NDEs - that is not the same as saying "These explanations are false". Neither is it the same as saying "This proves that the mind/soul is a separate entity from the brain"

[Loki]

Titus Rivas,

So much for Sue Blackmore's bold 'explanation' of NDEs.

You'd be aware of the problem in moving from the Sabom research to this conclusion regarding the PR case, right? Something about probability, unlikely things do happen, etc, etc?

Again, if anyone is not satisfied with the declarations by Pam, Dr. Spetzler and Dr. Sabom, it may be a good idea for him or her to personally ask them more specific questions.
But again, you seem to appealing to authority here - "these people were there, they can't be wrong or mistaken - they are too clever" seems to be your point. If I was to question these 3, and find that they stand by their statements, how do you propose that I eliminate the 2 alternatives I previously mentioned - luck, and fraud. One or more may be lying. Her testimony may be simply a combination of facts she already knew, facts she "deduced" (as Steve points out, pain in the groin as she awoke would certainly give her "opportunity" to focus on this area) and "imaginitive guesses".

You've returned to this point several times - you seem to be saying that if anyone has any doubt, they can directly approach the people involved, two of which are highly credentialed, and at least one (the neurosurgeon) appears to have no prior commitment to the NDE cause, and get clarification. But this isn't addressing the issue - to be "good evidence", it must (at least)eliminate mundane explanations. It doesn't. This case doesn't even attempt to do so. It may be a fascinating anecdote, but it's evidential value seems limited.

[lekatt]

Originally posted by Dragon


lekatt, do you understand what the above sentence means? I think not. Van Lommel is saying that this study does not show that these "mundane" explanations caused the NDEs - that is not the same as saying "These explanations are false". Neither is it the same as saying "This proves that the mind/soul is a separate entity from the brain"

I really can read and comprehend what I read.

It says that the study did not show NDEs being caused by physical means.

Skeptics are saying NDEs are caused by physical means, so the skeptics are wrong according to this study.

It is only natural to assume other causes.


Please don't assume that "intellectual snearing stance" with me, I will put my comprehension of words up against yours any day.

My profession was publishing, typesetting, advertising and other printed material before I retired.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas

I haven't seen any real arguments yet that would invalidate the interpretation of the case as at least strongly suggestive of life after death.

Titus

I don't suppose because " she's still alive ", would count? :rolleyes:

[Loki]

lekatt,

I really can read and comprehend what I read.

It says that the study did not show NDEs being caused by physical means.

Skeptics are saying NDEs are caused by physical means, so the skeptics are wrong according to this study.
Well, you did it again!! The two bolded statemetns above are not saying the same thing!

There are three, not two, outcomes for a study like this :

1. The study showed the effect "X' was caused by "Y".
2. The study showed the effect "X" could not be caused by "Y"
3. The study showed the effect "X" could not be concluded to be caused by "Y".

This study returned result 3, didn't it? But you are claiming it returned result 2?

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
L: Especially the surgical saw, which was a new device used for the first time, and Pam described it perfectly.

If you scroll up you will note that her description of the saw is the only part of the clinical procedure which has validity as I maintain its use was after she was cooled and drained of her blood supply.

Where has this been verified? Did you ask Dr. Spetzler? ( That it wasn't used before she was cooled and drained of her blood supply. )

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
I simply find these possibilities less plausible than the interpretation that she really perceived things that happened during her (practically) flat EEG and that were unknown to her beforehand.

Titus

And when are you going to tell us what those ' things ' are?

[lekatt]

Originally posted by Loki
lekatt,


Well, you did it again!! The two bolded statemetns above are not saying the same thing!

There are three, not two, outcomes for a study like this :

1. The study showed the effect "X' was caused by "Y".
2. The study showed the effect "X" could not be caused by "Y"
3. The study showed the effect "X" could not be concluded to be caused by "Y".

This study returned result 3, didn't it? But you are claiming it returned result 2?

I see two results, why the riddles?

[reprise]

Ah, it looks like lekatt tired of the Great Debates forum at the SDMB. You might find a bit more support for your theories over at the Reader's Digest forums, lekatt.

There are many reasons why the Netherlands study is an interesting one, and it's certainly one of the more scientifically conducted studies into NDEs, but it falls far short of establishing proof of the post-mortem survival of consciousness.

I'm curious about how those who believe that NDEs offer evidence of an "afterlife" explain the fact that NDEs are experienced by a minority of people who recover from cardiac arrest. How do believers explain why some people experience NDEs and others don't?

[lekatt]

I guess I could explain that to you, as soon as you explain to me why each individual is so unique in their experiences, why a hundred people seeing a sunset, each see it differently and some not at all because they are looking the opposite direction.

The study is sound.

There will be more.

[reprise]

Originally posted by lekatt
I guess I could explain that to you, as soon as you explain to me why each individual is so unique in their experiences, why a hundred people seeing a sunset, each see it differently and some not at all because they are looking the opposite direction.

The study is sound.

There will be more.

You can't have it both ways lekatt; if you're going to use this particular study to support the hypothesis that consciousness persists beyond bodily death (a conclusion NOT reached by those conducting the study) then you do need to explain why NDEs are not universally experienced by those who undergo cardiac arrest. Perhaps if NDEs are only experienced by a minority of those whose cardiac function is temporarily arrested, post-mortem consciousness only occurs in a minority of those who die.

[Titus Rivas]

Michael B. Sabom replied yesterday telling me that he's following the thread and will jump in as soon as possible. It may take several days to weeks.

Titus

[Dragon]

Originally posted by lekatt


I really can read and comprehend what I read.

It says that the study did not show NDEs being caused by physical means.

Skeptics are saying NDEs are caused by physical means, so the skeptics are wrong according to this study.

It is only natural to assume other causes.


Please don't assume that "intellectual snearing stance" with me, I will put my comprehension of words up against yours any day.

My profession was publishing, typesetting, advertising and other printed material before I retired.

Well, you haven't comprehended this at all - read Loki's post as he's put it better than I did.

It am not sneering, but you are just wrong.

[lekatt]

Originally posted by reprise


You can't have it both ways lekatt; if you're going to use this particular study to support the hypothesis that consciousness persists beyond bodily death (a conclusion NOT reached by those conducting the study) then you do need to explain why NDEs are not universally experienced by those who undergo cardiac arrest. Perhaps if NDEs are only experienced by a minority of those whose cardiac function is temporarily arrested, post-mortem consciousness only occurs in a minority of those who die.

The study does support the fact that consciousness persists beyond bodily death. Just as hundreds of experiencers have related in their experiences.

I do not have to explain anything else. Why is each rose different, each tree different, maybe this and maybe that.
Some remember dreams and some don't, some have remembered their NDEs months or years after the experience.
Why, why, who knows, it doesn't change the study any at all.

Love

[Titus Rivas]

Well put, Lekatt.

Why some people who have been clinically dead report NDEs whereas others don't, is primarily a question of memory: why do some people remember that they have had an NDE, whereas other's do not? It may well be the case that all have had an NDE, but that only a percentage remembers this. We can only ascribe lack of memories of an NDE to an absence of NDEs in some, after we have excluded the possibility of amnesia.

Titus

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Well put, Lekatt.

Why some people who have been clinically dead report NDEs whereas others don't, is primarily a question of memory: why do some people remember that they have had an NDE, whereas other's do not? It may well be the case that all have had an NDE, but that only a percentage remembers this. We can only ascribe lack of memories of an NDE to an absence of NDEs in some, after we have excluded the possibility of amnesia.

Titus

The study excluded that NDE could be caused by anoxia (oxygen deprivation?) because then everybody should have experienced it. If you can invoke amnesia then surely we naturalist can too.

[Titus Rivas]

Kerberos,

The study excluded that NDE could be caused by anoxia (oxygen deprivation?) because then everybody should have experienced it. If you can invoke amnesia then surely we naturalist can too. In fact, I personally have never held that this was the most important conclusion reached by Van Lommel et al. And I very much doubt they consider this their main finding themselves. Though it is still important to realize that anoxia alone cannot account for the fact that some patients report NDEs and some do not. (By the way, there are other, much more important arguments against the anoxia-hypothesis.)

Titus

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by lekatt


Why, why, who knows, it doesn't change the study any at all.

Love

Exactly...

As opposed to:

The study does support the fact that consciousness persists beyond bodily death.

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Kerberos,

In fact, I personally have never held that this was the most important conclusion reached by Van Lommel et al. And I very much doubt they consider this their main finding themselves. Though it is still important to realize that anoxia alone cannot account for the fact that some patients report NDEs and some do not. (By the way, there are other, much more important arguments against the anoxia-hypothesis.)

Titus

I don't see why it's unreasonable to invoke amnesia to defend anoxia, but not to defend a supernatural explanation. As for other arguments against anoxia I've been unable to get the full text and have thus only read the summery that somebody (Steve I think) posted a link to.

In any case the argument still seems to be the “NDE of the gaps” argument which is a classical logical fallacy.

[Titus Rivas]

In any case the argument still seems to be the “NDE of the gaps” argument which is a classical logical fallacy.
Could you be more specific about this, Kerberos? What do you mean by the "NDE of the gaps"?
Again, I don't hold that the auxiliary hypothesis of amnesia should be denied to the anoxia-hypothesis, but simply that the latter is insufficient for other reasons.

Titus

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by lekatt


If you go to the link provided and read the post, it contains the instructions to find the study.

It is on http://www.thelancet.com
then register and search for "near death"
the post contain information on the study also.

Another link at
http://ndeweb.com/wildcard

it contains a lot of info and links.

Yes, the site is mine.

Love

My search for ' near death ', turned up this article, which I found much more interesting..

" Dissociation in people who have near-death experiences: out of their bodies or out of their minds? " Bruce Greyson
Lancet Volume 355 Issue 9202 Page 460

Findings: People who reported NDEs also reported significantly more dissociative symptoms than did the comparison group. Among those who reported NDEs, the depth of the experience was positively correlated with dissociative symptoms, although the level of symptoms was substantially lower than that of patients with pathological dissociative disorders.

There is a fee for viewing the entire article...

[lekatt]

Originally posted by Kerberos


The study excluded that NDE could be caused by anoxia (oxygen deprivation?) because then everybody should have experienced it. If you can invoke amnesia then surely we naturalist can too.


How would this not be physical. The study showed that NDEs are not caused by the dying/dead physical body. That covers everything physical does it not?

[lekatt]

Originally posted by Diogenes


My search for ' near death ', turned up this article, which I found much more interesting..

" Dissociation in people who have near-death experiences: out of their bodies or out of their minds? " Bruce Greyson
Lancet Volume 355 Issue 9202 Page 460



There is a fee for viewing the entire article...

I wouldn't pay the fee to find out about a theory.

http://ndeweb.com/FAQz17.htm

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas

Could you be more specific about this, Kerberos? What do you mean by the "NDE of the gaps"?
Again, I don't hold that the auxiliary hypothesis of amnesia should be denied to the anoxia-hypothesis, but simply that the latter is insufficient for other reasons.

Titus

I'm paraphrasing the expression "god of the gaps". It's essentially an argument that says that since science can't explain something yet that proves the existence of god or in this case the paranormal. From the summery it seemed that the study just provided evidence against some non-paranormal explanations, but no real evidence in favor of a paranormal explanation.

As for the anoxia hypothesis being insufficient for "other reasons" I'd appreciate if you'd be more specific.

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by lekatt


How would this not be physical. The study showed that NDEs are not caused by the dying/dead physical body. That covers everything physical does it not?

To draw the conclusion that NDE's had no physical cause would require a total knowledge of how the brain worked and what happened when you almost die. Such knowledge doesn't exist

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Loki
lekatt,


Well, you did it again!! The two bolded statemetns above are not saying the same thing!

There are three, not two, outcomes for a study like this :

1. The study showed the effect "X' was caused by "Y".
2. The study showed the effect "X" could not be caused by "Y"
3. The study showed the effect "X" could not be concluded to be caused by "Y".

This study returned result 3, didn't it? But you are claiming it returned result 2?

I think Loki that outcome 3 should be reworded slightly like so:

3. The study showed that although "Y" could not be conclusively shown to be not wholly responsible for the effect "X", every conceivable attempt to show that it was wholly caused by "Y" was a failure. Therefore the most reasonable conclusion was that it was not wholly caused by "Y" but that the effect "X" was at least partially explained by a spiritual element.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by reprise
Ah, it looks like lekatt tired of the Great Debates forum at the SDMB. You might find a bit more support for your theories over at the Reader's Digest forums, lekatt.

There are many reasons why the Netherlands study is an interesting one, and it's certainly one of the more scientifically conducted studies into NDEs, but it falls far short of establishing proof of the post-mortem survival of consciousness.



{shrugs}

Nothing in life outside maths and formal logic can be proved. If the evidence is highly suggestive, that is the most we can reasonably expect.



I'm curious about how those who believe that NDEs offer evidence of an "afterlife" explain the fact that NDEs are experienced by a minority of people who recover from cardiac arrest. How do believers explain why some people experience NDEs and others don't?

[/quote]

We don't know that do we. We know that some people forget for example. How do you know everyone doesn't forget who do not recollect an NDE? Anyeay, this is an equal difficulty for those who deny the survival hypothesis.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by reprise


You can't have it both ways lekatt; if you're going to use this particular study to support the hypothesis that consciousness persists beyond bodily death (a conclusion NOT reached by those conducting the study) then you do need to explain why NDEs are not universally experienced by those who undergo cardiac arrest.

Ok reprise. Let's say that I don't know. Could you be so good enough to enlighten me as to why?

I mean I presume you must have an answer as you are implying that this is a difficulty for the survival hypothesis but not so for the non-survivalist hypothesis.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Well put, Lekatt.

Why some people who have been clinically dead report NDEs whereas others don't, is primarily a question of memory: why do some people remember that they have had an NDE, whereas other's do not? It may well be the case that all have had an NDE, but that only a percentage remembers this. We can only ascribe lack of memories of an NDE to an absence of NDEs in some, after we have excluded the possibility of amnesia.

Titus

Ooops sorry, maybe I should read all the posts first before responding :) (I said this after you said it).

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Kerberos
[B]

I'm paraphrasing the expression "god of the gaps". It's essentially an argument that says that since science can't explain something yet that proves the existence of god or in this case the paranormal.



You seem to be conflating science with materialism. At the very least you should replace the word science with the word naturalism. But since materialism cannot explain conscious states whatsoever, then how could it explain special conscious states like NDE's? When you say "explained" are you simply referring to correlations between conscious states and brain states? Within the context of any materialist based metaphysic I'm not sure how an explanation could amount to more than that.

[lekatt]

Originally posted by Kerberos


To draw the conclusion that NDE's had no physical cause would require a total knowledge of how the brain worked and what happened when you almost die. Such knowledge doesn't exist

Why would you need to know everything about the brain, to know it was dead and consciousness continued. We know consciousness continues after death by the information NDEers bring back with them when they return to life.

I don't think this is a point at all.

Read in the neighborhood of 200 near death experiences and most of the questions asked by skeptics will be answered. You will know why and how NDEers know they were dead and came back to life, usually because some "light being" said they must.


As for learning how the brain works, I would say forget it.

http://ndeweb.com/info02.htm

[Loki]

lekatt/Titus/Ian,

You seem to be missing Kerberos' point entirely - the question of 'remembering NDES' cuts both ways.

Lekatt says "the study eliminated 'physical' causes for NDEs." But how did the study do this? By comparing patients with the same physical conditions, and seeing if they had similar NDE experiences. For example (invented figures follow!) if 100 patients had anoxia, but only 20 reported NDEs, then the report concludes that anoxia is not the cause of NDEs. Taking this step by step :

Premise : If a patient suffers anoxia, they will have an NDE.
Fact : 100 patients had anoxia
Fact : 20 patients reported NDE's.
Conclusion : Anoxia does not *guarantee* an NDE.

That's what this report shows - they were unable to prove that physical conditions cause NDEs. That's not the same as proving that physical conditions don't cause NDEs!!!

How can that be? Simple - add in Titus' suggestion, for example :

Premise : If a patient suffers anoxia, they will have an NDE.
Fact : 100 patients had anoxia
Fact : 20 patients reported NDE's.
Premise : Not all people who have NDE's will remember them.
Conclusion 1 : Anoxia does not *guarantee* an NDE.
Conclusion 2 : Anoxia does guarantee an NDE, but most patients will not remember it.

Now, Lekatt, do you see the problem? How do you determine which of the two conclusions is correct? Can you see now why the study says :

"We have not proven that physcial conditons cause NDEs."

Can you see why the study does not say :

"We have proven that physcial conditions do not cause NDEs."

Failing to establish the "positive" does not mean that the "negative" has been established.

[Dragon]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


I think Loki that outcome 3 should be reworded slightly like so:

3. The study showed that although "Y" could not be conclusively shown to be not wholly responsible for the effect "X", every conceivable attempt to show that it was wholly caused by "Y" was a failure. Therefore the most reasonable conclusion was that it was not wholly caused by "Y" but that the effect "X" was at least partially explained by a spiritual element.

Woah there Ian! Don't you think you're stretching this a bit?
Why not settle for "This looks interesting, but more study is required" ?

lekatt,

You haven't reponded to my last.
Do you now agree that -

"We did not show that psychological, neurophysiological, or physiological factors caused these experiences after cardiac arrest"
does NOT mean the same as
"We showed that psychological, neurophysiological, or physiological factors did not cause these experiences after cardiac arrest" ???

[!Xx+-Rational-+xX!]

Originally posted by reprise
I'm curious about how those who believe that NDEs offer evidence of an "afterlife" explain the fact that NDEs are experienced by a minority of people who recover from cardiac arrest. How do believers explain why some people experience NDEs and others don't?

I thought the same thing was used in the lancet study against the materialistic explanation. That does not go against survival because it probably varies with the amount of time it takes to get out of body for each individual after the heart stops, getting out may be easier for some then others. Who says you are suppose to pop out of body right away?

[Jagger]

We need to differentiate between a physical trigger for the NDE experience and a physical process explaining the entire NDE experience. A physical trigger would simply initiate the NDE experience without necessarily invalidating a mystical experience. However if a physical process were discovered which completely explains the entire NDE expience, then the NDE could be invalidated as a mystical experience.

I think a physical trigger should not be surprising. Obviously altering the brain has an impact on the consciousness. Drink enough beer and watch the reaction of the consciousness. So we should not be astounded if a physical trigger were found for the NDE.

But on the otherhand, I would not be surprised if the trigger was based on non-physical causes either. Altering the consciousness has an impact on the body. For example, if tomorrow I know I must walk into a den of hungry lions, tonight my body and I would not sleep well due to anxiety and my probable impending doom. IMO this anxiety is a consciousness driven or non-physical reaction. Then we have examples of NDE's triggered in extreme fear conditions in perfectly normal and undamaged bodies. So the trigger could be non-physical.

Obviously there are links between the brain and cosciousness.

Lommels report and others eliminate known psychological, neurophysiological, or physiological factors for a physical origin explaining the entire NDE experience-such as the anoxia idea or any of Blackmores hypotheses. However I don't believe these studies eliminate known factors for a physical trigger. I don't beleive triggers were specifically examined. So we are back to square one when it comes to a materialist explanation for the entire NDE experience.

Regardless there still must be a trigger either physical or non-physical. Regardless of the type of trigger found, the trigger would not invalidate the NDE experience. A physical trigger could initiate a mystical experience. If the trigger is physical, I think ultimately we will find it. And if the trigger is non-physical, I doubt we will find it.

And there must be an explanation for the entire NDE experience. It could be either an authentic mystical experience or a purely physical process. Even if we find a trigger, I am not sure that we would be able to fully understand and explain the NDE experience. But artificially triggered NDE's would offer that potential.

The biggest hurdle to completely explaining the entire NDE experience as a purely materialist/physical process are accurate observed observations such as Pam Reynolds. A purely materialistic explanation for Pam Reynolds observations can't exist. It just can't be done without violating physical cause and effect. If Pam Reynolds and others are actually making accurate observations with a non-functioning brain and from a position outside their body, then the brain and consciousness must be two separate entities. Which then lends credence to the NDE as a truly mystical experience.

[Jagger]

The first problem is that the story could have been exaggerated. Considering that Pam was apparently already involved in a study of NDE when she was operated it should have been simple to record exactly what she said when she woke up thus conclusively proving exactly what happened but for some reason or another this wasn't done and as a result the incident is useless as scientific evidence.


Kerberos, do you have a reference stating that Reynolds was involved in an NDE study with Dr Sabon prior to her NDE? I am reasonably certain that he didn't contact Reynolds until after her NDE. If so, this would explain why immediate recording were not made of her experience.

Although we have to keep in mine that most people with NDE's are in danger of losing their life. The first priority is typically their survival rather than a study.

The second is that all of the things Pam saw in he NDE was things she could have known in advance. Even if she wasn't briefed on the procedure she could have researched it by herself. This problem could also be solved relatively easily fx by taking 3 pictures from a hundred picture sample and placing them at a spot where the patient couldn't see them unless he or she had and OBE.

I don't believe her chances of survival within this surgical procedure was very high. I think your hypothesis that she spent what was very possibly her last days on earth preparing a hoax stretches credibility. And if we assume she did research the operation to exacting detail, how was she able to recount observations independent of the procedure such as conversations, actions of specific doctors, etc without a functioning brain? To complete a hoax with the detail of Reynolds, the doctors and nurses would have to assist in the hoax by confirming observations independent of the actual procedure. You are suggesting a very elaborate hoax assisted by highly respected doctors and nurses with nothing to gain. I just don't find this hypothesis credible with human nature considering the individuals involved.

Although I am curious whether you have any evidence which supports your idea that the Pam Reynolds study may be a fraud?

[reprise]

Originally posted by Jagger :

Kerberos, do you have a reference stating that Reynolds was involved in an NDE study with Dr Sabon prior to her NDE? I am reasonably certain that he didn't contact Reynolds until after her NDE. If so, this would explain why immediate recording were not made of her experience.

From the link given in the OP :
Pam was participating in an Atlanta near-death study by Dr. Sabom at the time of her standstill operation. As her operation was being performed, she experienced an NDE.

Originally posted by Jagger :

And there must be an explanation for the entire NDE experience. It could be either an authentic mystical experience or a purely physical process. Even if we find a trigger, I am not sure that we would be able to fully understand and explain the NDE experience. But artificially triggered NDE's would offer that potential.

This is somewhat akin to saying that there must be an explanation for the content of dreams, or the content of schizophrenic hallucinations, or why the thought "I want ice-cream" pops into your head".

NDEs have been artificially triggered in some people by direct stimulation of the brain. They have also been reported by people who have taken certain street drugs. And one very interesting question which needs further research is "what are the common factors between those who experience NDEs"? To my knowledge, the suggestibility of those reporting NDEs hasn't been considered in any of the credible studies into the phenomenon (and we do know that not all of the population is equally able to be hypnotised). I'm not aware of any controlled study which has taken into account the participant's history of seizures or the absence thereof. There are so many physical means of inducing altered states of consciousness which have not been adequately researched in respect of NDEs, that explaining how they occur may be decades off - especially given the lack of research funds available for studying something which has no practical application and which is not "marketable". It may be many years before another study using the Netherlands protocol is undertaken, and it would require multiple studies of that size and nature to validate the initial findings.

[Loki]

jagger,

Lommels report and others eliminate known psychological, neurophysiological, or physiological factors for a physical origin explaining the entire NDE experience-such as the anoxia idea or any of Blackmores hypotheses.
Doesn't the report only *at best* eliminate any single "psychological, neurophysiological, or physiological factor" as the case of NDEs? This is the inverse of the earlier methodology :

Premise : If a patient has and NDE, they will suffer anoxia.
Fact : 100 patients reported NDEs
Fact : 20 patients had anoxia.
Conclusion : NDEs cannot be caused by anoxia *alone*.

How could we extend this conclusion to become "NDEs cannot be caused by anoxia *at all*"?

[Jagger]

From the link given in the OP

Reprise, where is this link and what is the OP?

This is somewhat akin to saying that there must be an explanation for the content of dreams, or the content of schizophrenic hallucinations, or why the thought "I want ice-cream" pops into your head".

I do believe there is an explantion. From our limited understanding of the universe, everything follows a underlying logic of some sort. We just may not understand the logic.

NDEs have been artificially triggered in some people by direct stimulation of the brain. They have also been reported by people who have taken certain street drugs.

Is this true? I am unaware of any artificially triggered NDE's. I have heard of artifically triggered OBE's. Is this what you are referencing? If NDE's, could you direct me to the sources?

The ketamine experiences are very interesting. I think further study may give hints of the trigger for NDE's. Also I would be curious as to whether ketamine experiences produce accurate out of body observations similiar to the NDE. Interestingly, Dr Karl Jenson, the guru of ketamine studies has shifted to a more mystical explanation for his findings:

http://mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/jansen1.html

'I am no longer as opposed to spritual explanations of these phenomena as this article would appear to suggest. Over the past two years (it is quite some time since I wrote it) I have moved more towards the views put forward by John Lilly and Stan Grof. Namely, that drugs and psychological disciplines such as meditation and yoga may render certain 'states' more accessible. The complication then becomes in defining just what we mean by 'states' and where they are located, if indeed location is an appropriate term at all. But the apparent emphasis on matter over mind contained within this particular article no longer accurately represents my attitudes. My forthcoming book 'Ketamine' will consider mystical issues from quite a different perspective, and will give a much stronger voice to those who see drugs as just another door to a space, and not as actually producing that space'.

And one very interesting question which needs further research is "what are the common factors between those who experience NDEs"? To my knowledge, the suggestibility of those reporting NDEs hasn't been considered in any of the credible studies into the phenomenon (and we do know that not all of the population is equally able to be hypnotised).

Common factors have been extensively studied. There are a series of accepted criteria for determining NDE's.

I am not following your point concerning suggestibility or hynotisism. What are you suggesting?

I'm not aware of any controlled study which has taken into account the participant's history of seizures or the absence thereof. There are so many physical means of inducing altered states of consciousness which have not been adequately researched in respect of NDEs, that explaining how they occur may be decades off - especially given the lack of research funds available for studying something which has no practical application and which is not "marketable". It may be many years before another study using the Netherlands protocol is undertaken, and it would require multiple studies of that size and nature to validate the initial findings.

I agree. We have thousands of NDE's to study. Money and time is need to do the studying.

[Jagger]

Doesn't the report only *at best* eliminate any single "psychological, neurophysiological, or physiological factor" as the case of NDEs?

I can't speak for Dr Lommel. I can only interpret the conclusion as I understand them in the report. Here is the exact wording:

"We did not show that psychological, neurophysiological, or physiological factors caused these experiences after cardiac arrest."

I am assuming this means he could not find factors which could consistently explain all aspects of an NDE.

Is there a specific theory you are considering which covers all factors of an NDE?

How could we extend this conclusion to become "NDEs cannot be caused by anoxia *at all*"?

We can say that we have NDE's without anoxia. The inconsistency suggests that anoxia is not the origin of NDE's. Of course, there may be many triggers that can cause NDE's on an irratic basis. But then we can't be certain they are triggers. What we want to find is some factor or combination of factors which consistently trigger NDE's. Then we know we have a definite trigger.

Looking for the trigger is important. But we can't lose track of accurate observations impossible from the position of the body with a non-functioning brain such as Pam Reynolds case. To me, this is the key piece of evidence which needs to be explained and understood.

[reprise]

To me, this is the key piece of evidence which needs to be explained and understood.

And to many of us, this is the key piece of evidence which needs to be proven. There are a great many anecdotes about "exterior observation", but many of them turn out to have extremely mundane explanations when examined in depth.

My personal pet theory? NDEs will ultimately be proven to be just another disassociative state caused by either chemical or electrical disorder in the body or a combination of both. When we understand the chemical/electrical mechanism which is at work during NDEs, we will be better able to explain why they are experienced by some people but not by others.

[Jagger]

And to many of us, this is the key piece of evidence which needs to be proven. There are a great many anecdotes about "exterior observation", but many of them turn out to have extremely mundane explanations when examined in depth.

Do you consider the Reynolds case to be anecdotal? Documentation consists of Renold's testimony in conjunction with the testimony of the surgery team. Where is the weak link in all of this highly documented testimony?

I am curious what sort of mundane explanation exists in the Reynolds case considering the documentation.

NDEs will ultimately be proven to be just another disassociative state caused by either chemical or electrical disorder in the body or a combination of both.

Is there any sort of disassociative state that allows for accurate observations impossible from the position of a body with a non-functional brain?

I am curious what you would expect the consciousness to experience as the brain ceases functioning assuming the consciousness is emergent from the brain? Would you describe an expected physical cause and effect result on the consciousness as portions of the brain shuts down to a non-functioning state.

[Jagger]

From Lummels study, here is another example of a confirmed observation by a nurse working with an individual which experienced an NDE. When you read it, note the striking similiarity to Reynolds experience. From above his body, he is observing the actions of those attempting to revive him while cyanotic and comatose. And like Reynolds, his observations are independently confirmed as accurate.

The accurate observations from a position impossible to observe from the body and with a non-functioning brain is what makes the NDE such a challenge to the purely materialist universe of science.

"During a night shift an ambulance brings in a 44-year-old cyanotic, comatose man into the coronary care unit. He had been found about an hour before in a meadow by passers-by. After admission, he receives artificial respiration without intubation, while heart massage and defibrillation are also applied. When we want to intubate the patient, he turns out to have dentures in his mouth. I remove these upper dentures and put them onto the 'crash car'. Meanwhile, we continue extensive CPR. After about an hour and a half the patient has sufficient heart rhythm and blood pressure, but he is still ventilated and intubated, and he is still comatose. He is transferred to the intensive care unit to continue the necessary artificial respiration. Only after more than a week do I meet again with the patient, who is by now back on the cardiac ward. I distribute his medication. The moment he sees me he says: 'Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are'. I am very surprised. Then he elucidates: 'Yes, you were there when I was brought into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them onto that car, it had all these bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer underneath and there you put my teeth.' I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of CPR. When I asked further, it appeared the man had seen himself lying in bed, that he had perceived from above how nurses and doctors had been busy with CPR. He was also able to describe correctly and in detail the small room in which he had been resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present like myself. At the time that he observed the situation he had been very much afraid that we would stop CPR and that he would die. And it is true that we had been very negative about the patient's prognosis due to his very poor medical condition when admitted. The patient tells me that he desperately and unsuccessfully tried to make it clear to us that he was still alive and that we should continue CPR. He is deeply impressed by his experience and says he is no longer afraid of death. 4 weeks later he left hospital as a healthy man."

[reprise]

Visions and memories occur while brain dead (http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html)

OP = original post

There are indeed standard criteria for "assessing" an NDE, based on the subjective experiences of the subject. There does not seem to be a standard assessment of medical and psychological history, though, and it's possible that there are physical or psychological (or both) common denominators between those who experience NDEs.

It might be a psychological state similar to post-traumatic stress syndrome, or it might be an organic condition which produces a predisposition towards hallucination. Or these people might already have a predisposition towards dissociative states. If these people are more highly hypnotisable than those who do not experience NDEs, then we need to explore the issue of confabulation (which is not deliberate deception, but rather the rational mind trying to fill in missing data). If these people are more suggestible than those who don't experience NDEs, then we need to look at what parts of their experience can be explained by suggestion alone.

I agree that NDEs need further study, Jagger - it's a pity that those who believe that NDEs offer evidence of "life after death" aren't willing to put up substantial funds to prove their hypothesis.

[reprise]

The Near-Death Experience (http://www.jochenbarth.de/nde.htm)

What makes the amygdala a central candidate for explaining the NDE is its powerful role in the memory process, as it can make the re-experiences extremely vivid, including visual images and auditory fragments. This is what makes dreams so ‘real’. An enormous variety of (re)experiences can be ‘brought to life’ from the pool of memories by the amygdala in conjunction with the hippocampus. These experiences include, amongst others, feelings of depersonalization, hallucinative and dreamlike recollections involving religion and the experience of god, as well as demons and ghosts. This has been demonstrated in numerous studies (see Joseph, 1994, 1996 for summaries). Mac Lean (1990) reports individuals, that claim to communicate with spirits, or receive information about the hereafter following stimulation of the amygdala and the hippocampal-temporal lobe.

In the situations I described above, which create a hyperactivation of the amygdala, the hippocampus, being part of the same system, may be hyperactivated as well. This can create an image of the surroundings and the person himself. This hallucination can be so vivid that the person is convinced of having a ‘real’ experience. It has, in point of fact, been repeatedly demonstrated (e.g. Penfield and Perot, 1963) that the amygdala-hippocampus-temporal lobe complex can provoke some people to say that they have left their bodies when the complex is hyperactivated or directly stimulated. As noted above, people often report seeing a bright light often at the end of a tunnel. This could be due to hyperstimulation of the same complex, as it receives direct and indirect visual input and contains neurons that are sensitive to the fovea and the upper visual fields (Joseph, 1996). The hallucination of seeing a deceased relative or friend can be due to hyperactivation of the same complex as these images are accessible via the same memory process I described above. Again, it has been reported that the hallucinations just described can be induced via electrical stimulation of the amygdala-hippocampal complex and the temporal lobe (Joseph, 1996).

[Jagger]

Visions and memories occur while brain dead

OP = original post

Wow. I am surprised. I am going to have to dig a little further. It is highly unusual for someone to be involved in an NDE study prior to their NDE since the experience of NDE's are so unpredictable. I will send an email to the website author who wrote the piece and see if he is absolutely certain on this point.

It might be a psychological state similar to post-traumatic stress syndrome, or it might be an organic condition which produces a predisposition towards hallucination. Or these people might already have a predisposition towards dissociative states. If these people are more highly hypnotisable than those who do not experience NDEs, then we need to explore the issue of confabulation (which is not deliberate deception, but rather the rational mind trying to fill in missing data). If these people are more suggestible than those who don't experience NDEs, then we need to look at what parts of their experience can be explained by suggestion alone.


Physical triggers or explantions are interesting but not crucial. To me, the key point is confirmed observations. If they are accurate, then the consciousness and mind are two separate entities. No matter how difficult to obtain, unquestionable confirmation would be revolutionary in our view of existence.

I agree that NDEs need further study, Jagger - it's a pity that those who believe that NDEs offer evidence of "life after death" aren't willing to put up substantial funds to prove their hypothesis.

It is amazing how expensive it is to conduct a study. And naturally, it is more logical to spend the funds on research that may extend life than what happens when someone dies. Although who knows, Bill Gates may step forward.

[reprise]

Jagger, Titus has posted that Sabom is following this thread and will post when he has time, so perhaps we'll all be able to find out more when that happens.

It's frustrating that the "Atlanta near death study" link on the website leads only to a sales pitch for Sabom's book.

[Jagger]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What makes the amygdala a central candidate for explaining the NDE is its powerful role in the memory process, as it can make the re-experiences extremely vivid, including visual images and auditory fragments. This is what makes dreams so ‘real’. An enormous variety of (re)experiences can be ‘brought to life’ from the pool of memories by the amygdala in conjunction with the hippocampus. These experiences include, amongst others, feelings of depersonalization, hallucinative and dreamlike recollections involving religion and the experience of god, as well as demons and ghosts. This has been demonstrated in numerous studies (see Joseph, 1994, 1996 for summaries). Mac Lean (1990) reports individuals, that claim to communicate with spirits, or receive information about the hereafter following stimulation of the amygdala and the hippocampal-temporal lobe.

Reprise, not to rule out the amygdala as a trigger, but will it produce experiences that are not dream like. Few NDE's are expressed as dreamlike. Most describe the experience as more real than life itself.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the situations I described above, which create a hyperactivation of the amygdala, the hippocampus, being part of the same system, may be hyperactivated as well. This can create an image of the surroundings and the person himself. This hallucination can be so vivid that the person is convinced of having a ‘real’ experience. It has, in point of fact, been repeatedly demonstrated (e.g. Penfield and Perot, 1963) that the amygdala-hippocampus-temporal lobe complex can provoke some people to say that they have left their bodies when the complex is hyperactivated or directly stimulated. As noted above, people often report seeing a bright light often at the end of a tunnel. This could be due to hyperstimulation of the same complex, as it receives direct and indirect visual input and contains neurons that are sensitive to the fovea and the upper visual fields (Joseph, 1996). The hallucination of seeing a deceased relative or friend can be due to hyperactivation of the same complex as these images are accessible via the same memory process I described above. Again, it has been reported that the hallucinations just described can be induced via electrical stimulation of the amygdala-hippocampal complex and the temporal lobe (Joseph, 1996).

I am curious whether the author has any studies supporting his hypotheses. I noticed a lot of "may happen" and "can be" and "can creates" which sounds more like hypotheses than supported theories.

I am also interested in how accurate are the recreations. Does the amygdala produce accurate recreations of the individuals surroundings as in NDE's?

Ideally we would have studies showing structured lucid thought with a non-functioning brain producing accurate, confirmed observations which are impossible from the position of the body. Kind of hard to do unfortunately.

[Jagger]

It's frustrating that the "Atlanta near death study" link on the website leads only to a sales pitch for Sabom's book.


Reprise, actually I read the book. I assume that is his first book. It is very good. He has a number of statistically studies that are interesting and IIRC, it includes the Pam Reynolds case. Unfortunately, I loaned it out and don't have it available to source.

If he is following, maybe he can clarify when he first contacted Pam Reynolds.

[reprise]

Originally posted by Jagger


Reprise, not to rule out the amygdala as a trigger, but will it produce experiences that are not dream like. Few NDE's are expressed as dreamlike. Most describe the experience as more real than life itself.



I am curious whether the author has any studies supporting his hypotheses. I noticed a lot of "may happen" and "can be" and "can creates" which sounds more like hypotheses than supported theories.

I am also interested in how accurate are the recreations. Does the amygdala produce accurate recreations of the individuals surroundings as in NDE's?

Ideally we would have studies showing structured lucid thought with a non-functioning brain producing accurate, confirmed observations which are impossible from the position of the body. However it would be a bit unethical.

The references are quoted on the website I linked to. The more recent studies, at least, should still be available.

Joseph's conclusions are interesting because his theory is that "spirituality" is self-protective evolutionary trait.

When most scientists use the term "hallucination" they use it correctly, ie to describe something which the subject experiences as real. Pseudohallucinations are generally recognised by the subject as having no objective reality. Hyper-reality - "more real than life itself" - is a documented feature of hypnagogic hallucinations.

I'm curious Jagger. Assuming that I was prepared to accept that consciousness persists beyond death - ie, that consciousness is not created and destroyed physically - where do you believe that consciousness exists prior to physical existence. Where was my or your consciousness prior to you or I having a physical existence and by what mechanism did it connect with my body?

[Loki]

jagger,

Do you consider the Reynolds case to be anecdotal? Documentation consists of Renold's testimony in conjunction with the testimony of the surgery team. Where is the weak link in all of this highly documented testimony?
The "weak link" is that the documented testimony is the memories and opinons of Reynolds and the surgery team. This is not (necessarily) what actually happened.

No matter how difficult to obtain, unquestionable confirmation would be revolutionary in our view of existence.
I agree completely.

From Lummels study, here is another example of a confirmed observation by a nurse working with an individual which experienced an NDE. ... And like Reynolds, his observations are independently confirmed as accurate.
There are two issues here :

(a) "accurate observations" doesn't automatically mean "NDE is the mechanism by which the observations were made".

Using the example you have quoted, the patient identified where the false teeth were located, and said he "saw" them put there. Perhaps what really happened is that after he was resusitated, but still only semi-conscious, the nurses/orderlies wheeling him to a ward were talking and discussing how they couldn't believe how ugly his false teeth were, and how they were glad the teeth were safely stored in the trolley. He hears this information, and later (mistakenly) repeats it as part of his NDE. Do I think this happened? Probably not! But if we haven't eliminated this kind of "information leakage", then the patients opinion of where the observations were made (ie, during CPR) is anecdotal!

(b) just how "accurate" are the observations?

Again from the example you have quoted, how accurate really was the patient in describing the events? The nurse is recalling and retelling the story to the people conducting the study - perhaps she (inadventantly) adds a few details that were never there in the original conversation? The occasional "maybe" becomes "is"; "he asked" becomes "he said". Perhaps the patient also said some wildly inaccurate things, but these are forgotten or passed over becuase they don't match?

[Jagger]

Hi Reprise, you are asking some interesting questions. However I have been tired for the last hour, it is late here and I have to get up early tomorrow morning.

Soooooo....I will get back tomorrow.

[reprise]

One thing I think I've mentioned before is that I come out of general anaesthesia extremely quickly - I usually manage to startle the nurses in the recovery ward by being fully conscious in their area. Many people have no recollection of even being in recovery - they don't remember anything between anaesthesia induction and waking up in their hospital room - but there's an awful lot of conversation in the recovery room about how a procedure went and any special attention that should be paid to the patient in the recovery room.

I would not be surprised to learn that there are people who fall part way between myself and those who have no recollection at all of being in recovery - people who have fragmented memories of things which have occured between the time anaesthesia ceases and being returned to the general ward.

[Titus Rivas]

Some members of this forum asked me why I don't consider the anoxia hypothesis a good, exhaustive interpretation of NDEs.

I've already said that Pim van Lommel et al are right that if all the patients in their study underwent anoxia, the latter cannot account for the fact that some patients recalled an NDE and others did not.

Another, even more important reason is also given by Pim van Lommel (http://www.skepticalinvestigations.org/whoswho/vanLommel.htm) in a response to a skeptical interpretation by Michael Shermer: Michael Shermer states that, in reality, all experience is mediated and produced by the brain, and that so-called paranormal phenomena like out-of body experiences are nothing more than neuronal events. The study of patients with NDE, however, clearly shows us that consciousness with memories, cognition, with emotion, self-identity, and perception out and above a life-less body is experienced during a period of a non-functioning brain (transient pancerebral anoxia). And focal functional loss by inhibition of local cortical regions happens by “stimulation” of those regions with electricity (photons) or with magnetic fields (photons), resulting sometimes in out-of-body states.

Bruce Greyson (http://www.lightparty.com/Spirituality/NearDeath.html) even thinks that anoxia would itself cause amnesia of NDEs:
My medical colleagues are quick to point out the biological effect of cerebral anoxia, or the effect of general anesthetics and narcotics used in a hospital. In order for this strictly neurophysiological explanation to carry weight, it would have to account for the entire core experience, but it most certainly does not. In addition, amnesia is a result of cerebral anoxia. NDE reports would not exist if cerebral anoxia were in effect.

On another site, Lack of Oxygen Theory, (I seem to have lost the url and can't find it anymore :( ) we read:

PRO: Neurologist Ernst Rodin offers cerebral anoxia as a possible cause of NDEs of the dying brain. Such anoxia produces a confusing dream-like state of delusions and hallucinations.
CON: Cardiologist Michael Sabom responded that the NDE involves a clear awareness and a more mystical content, and NDEs have also occurred in people without anoxia. Pim van Lommel led a study concerning NDEs during cardiac arrest. In our study all patients had a cardiac arrest, they were clinically dead, unconsciousness that was caused by insufficient blood supply to the brain, and the EEG has become flat. In patients cardiac arrest (ventricular fibrillation) is sometimes induced for testing internal defibrillators. In these patients the EEG becomes usually flat within 10-15 seconds from the onset of syncope due to the (reversible) total loss of function of the brain. According to the physiologic theory, all patients in our study should have had NDE, but only 18% reported NDE.

Even one of the main skeptical authors about NDEs, Susan Blackmore (http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Chapters/ShermerNDE.htm), has acknowledged by now that anoxia cannot account for all aspects of NDEs:

The argument over the role of anoxia has been complex. Some blame anoxia for all the features of the NDE, though this reasoning is implausible, since so many NDEs clearly occur in the absence of anoxia (e.g., when the person only thinks he or she is going to die).

Greg Stone (http://www.cfpf.org.uk/articles/background/gs_dying_to_live/gs_dying_to_live1.html) has written a more general critique of Blackmore's theories.

Michael Sabom would have found patients in which there was no anoxia during the NDE.

My own major reason to discard the anoxia-hypothesis is that it cannot account for paranormal, veridical perceptions during a practically flat EEG. Skeptics can only ignore such experiences or try to explain them away in normal terms. If one accepts there really are such experiences, no physical explanation could ever account for them.

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

Kerberos said:
To draw the conclusion that NDE's had no physical cause would require a total knowledge of how the brain worked and what happened when you almost die. Such knowledge doesn't exist

You're wrong about this, at least to the extent that we would know what the brain's limitations are if we consider it (as we should) as as strictly physical system. As soon as we may be confident that no explanation of the NDE (and especially veridical perceptions during practically flat EEG) can be given in terms of brain physiology, we may be confident that something else, which involves human consciousness, is the cause of this type of experience. And that this entity continues to function after the brain has largely shut down and to an extent that cannot be caused by the body.

Titus

[Loki]

Titus Rivas,

Even one of the main skeptical authors about NDEs, Susan Blackmore, has acknowledged by now that anoxia cannot account for all aspects of NDEs.
But again, this doesn't mean that it cannot account for some does it?

(quoted from the Lommel study) : According to the physiologic theory, all patients in our study should have had NDE, but only 18% reported NDE.
Alternatively, 82% experienced an NDE, but failed to recall it? How was this possibility eliminated?

Michael Sabom would have found patients in which there was no anoxia during the NDE.
Which means that anoxia *alone* cannot be the full explanation.

My own major reason to discard the anoxia-hypothesis is that it cannot account for paranormal, veridical perceptions during a practically flat EEG. Skeptics can only ignore such experiences or try to explain them away in normal terms. If one accepts there really are such experiences, no physical explanation could ever account for them.
I'd agree with this - if scientifically verified "veridical perceptions" can be reproduced then NDEs are beyond physical explanation. But surely it's necessary to eliminate any possible explanation using "normal terms" *before* concluding that these preceptions have been verified?

[reprise]

Titus, it is NDE believers themselves who earlier in this thread offered amnesia as an explanation for why only some people experience NDEs (in effect postulating that ALL people experience them but only some recall the experience).

There are plenty of skeptics - myself included - who do not believe that anoxia alone causes NDEs, or even that anoxia is an essential factor at all.

I repeat my earlier question. If consciousness exists independently of the body, then where was my consciousness prior to my body being created and by what mechanism did it become connected with my body?

While declaring that no current physical theory wholly explains NDEs, I don't see those who believe that NDEs prove that consciousness survives post-mortem offering any theories which adequately address all the issues raised by that hypothesis.

[Titus Rivas]

I'm paraphrasing the expression "god of the gaps". It's essentially an argument that says that since science can't explain something yet that proves the existence of god or in this case the paranormal. From the summery it seemed that the study just provided evidence against some non-paranormal explanations, but no real evidence in favor of a paranormal explanation.

Well, we do have (at least claimed) evidence for specifically paranormal factors, namely for veridical paranormal experiences during practically flat EEG.
It's not correct that we're guilty of a Deus ex machina, rather Deus (the paranormal experiences) has shown itself before we started theorizing about the NDE.

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

I repeat my earlier question. If consciousness exists independently of the body, then where was my consciousness prior to my body being created and by what mechanism did it become connected with my body?
There are several possible models for this. One would be reincarnation. Another one would at least be preexistence. Of course I have my own views about this, but they would better be reserved for another thread.

However, for now it suffices to know that dualists (and other pluralists, as well as idealists) certainly seem to be the winners in the ontological debate. Regardless of how the theory will finally take shape.

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

As Interesting Ian repeatedly put it, science does not equal materialism. It will take some time to change a lot of people's frame of mind, but many of us may live to see an era when materialism (and maybe even the debunking efforts of skeptics) will be considered as no more than a historically necessary phase in the development of science. Dualism (and other views which allow for the existence of a non-physical mind or self) and what is now known as "para"-psychology will then be integrated into science. It won't mean we will lose our minds or rationality. We will only gain by all this, as scholars and as human beings. Unless anyone would really prefer Monty Python's nihilist message (http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/filmtv/brian.html) :roll: , i.e. for non-humorous reasons.

Titus

[lekatt]

I read all the posts and mostly they indicate a serious lack of knowledge of near death experiences.

Thirty years ago Dr. Raymond Moody showed that NDEs are not caused by a lack of oxygen.

Nearly all the questions asked can be answered by reading near death experiences. I recommend reading about 200 of them for a good introduction as to what they consist of. In the major NDE sites are about 500+ experiences. On my site, I spell check them and post them. There are almost 200 experiences on my site.

The skeptical media does not print all the information on NDEs, only the info that suits their opinions. If you have not read "raw" near death experiences you will not know what they are.

It seems you get lost in semantics and word usage more than you need to.

The report stated that a physical cause for NDEs was not found, or something like that and it is true that NDEs are not caused by the dying/dead physical body.

If you read the material you will understand.


Love

[lekatt]

Here is a link to one.

http://ndeweb.com/FAQz05.htm

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Unless anyone would really prefer Monty Python's nihilist message (http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/filmtv/brian.html) :roll: , i.e. for non-humorous reasons.

Titus [/B]

God I love that film! :D

[Jeff Corey]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


God I love that film! :D
At least we agree on something, except for the "God" part.
"Welease Bwian."

[Jagger]

One quick post before I am out of here till tonight.

I'd agree with this - if scientifically verified "veridical perceptions" can be reproduced then NDEs are beyond physical explanation. But surely it's necessary to eliminate any possible explanation using "normal terms" *before* concluding that these preceptions have been verified?

Loki, the unpredictability of NDE's, the priority of the patients survival and lack of enough studies/funding make it very difficult to consistently have the level of documentation which we have in Pam Reynolds case even though we have thousands of NDE cases available.

Typically NDE experiences start with either an out of body or a void experience. Those with an OBE experience have the same qualities of Pam Reynolds experience. They are out of body and they can observe. As Lekatt suggests, after reading a couple of hundred NDE experiences, we see this same OBE experience with "what should be impossible" observations consistently in large numbers of cases.

Even though we don't have a large number of cases with verified observations, those cases support that the thousands of other unverified observations may also be accurate.

IMO, the sheer quantity of OBE observational experiences supported by the minority of cases with confirmed, documented OBE observations serves the role of "reproduceable" phenomenum beyond physical explanation. Each additional case that we find with confirmed observations further strengthens the thousands of other non-documented cases. For the moment, this is the best we have to consider. I think what we currently have is enough to be considered compelling.

And I agree we should example common normal explanations closely. But we also shouldn't rely on mundane explanations which strech credibiliy. Then we end up with complicated, extraordinary and unbelievable rather than mundane and we may ignore the simpler, obvious explanation. In the Reynolds case for example, I cannot come up with a believable mudane explanation considering the condition of her mind at the time of the observations.

[Skeptical Greg]

In the Reynolds case for example, I cannot come up with a believable mudane explanation considering the condition of her mind at the time of the observations. We seem to have to bring this up after every two or three pages of this discussion, but here it is again.

If the Pam Reynolds case is so remarkable, where is the coherent correlation of the events she supposedly witnessed while her EEG was essentially flat, and the testimony of anyone who was present, who can say unequivocally that those events did transpire at the same time?

We have heard respnses like, " Well, you will have to ask Dr. Spetzler.. ".

Why? Why are you here with this case Titus, if you have not already done your homework.. Why are we waiting for Dr. Sabom join in?
There is serious evidence for veridical perceptions during the stage of flat electroencephalogram (EEG) in so-called near-death experiences (NDEs). Where is this serious evidence?

See you in three pages...

[Titus Rivas]

Well Diogenes,

It's people like yourself who want more details than are publicly available. I welcome them too, but as you know very well I'm already impressed by what I know of the case. That's precisely why I started the thread. I've never pretended antyhing else by the way.

By now, I believe I've done what I could, so maybe you could be a little more patient?

Titus

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Well Diogenes,

It's people like yourself who want more details than are publicly available. I welcome them too, but as you know very well I'm already impressed by what I know of the case. That's precisely why I started the thread. I've never pretended antyhing else by the way.

By now, I believe I've done what I could, so maybe you could be a little more patient?

Titus

Darn! If only people like me, would stop asking for proof.:D

[Titus Rivas]

As if she had read Diogenes's latest messages, Pam Reynolds just replied to me again a few minutes ago.

About specific details:

The color of the saw was gold. I'm on record-with this fact since 1991.


About normal sources of information:


the surgery was new and was certainly not publisised enough to warrent media coverage.


About the procedure on her arteries:

Yes, they did access my arteries post mortum. At the time. my eyes were taped shut and my ears were plugged.


About details in general:

These details,witnessed by scientists, still have me baffled.

Diogenes or anyone else, if you want to check any of this with Dr. Spetzler, please go ahead.

By the way, Pam once more turns out to be a reasonable person by closing her message with these words:


There is so much information and mis-information,to wade thru. Besides, we need those clinical minds to overturn every stone in search of the truth.

( by those clinical minds she is referring to skeptics). Just thought I shouldn't leave that out ;)

Titus

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
As if she had read Diogenes's latest messages, Pam Reynolds just replied to me again a few minutes ago.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The color of the saw was gold. I'm on record-with this fact since 1991.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No reason not to believe her.. Just no way to know when or how she gathered this information..

About normal sources of information:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

the surgery was new and was certainly not publisised enough to warrent media coverage.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not necessarily true ( new procedure ). We discussed this with Steve G. earlier.. And what does it not being publicized, have to do with what was observed, at what time, in the operating room?


About the procedure on her arteries:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes, they did access my arteries post mortum. At the time. my eyes were taped shut and my ears were plugged.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again, irrelevant to the point being made, since it was established that the vascular access had to be made in order to start the cooling process..


About details in general:


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These details,witnessed by scientists, still have me baffled.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We can certainly agree she is baffled, as are the rest of us, with regard to the significance of this....


Diogenes or anyone else, if you want to check any of this with Dr. Spetzler, please go ahead.

By the way, Pam once more turns out to be a reasonable person by closing her message with these words:

( by those clinical minds she is referring to skeptics). Just thought I shouldn't leave that out ;)

I have no reason to believe she is not a reasonable person, which has no bearing on the discussion at hand..

Titus

You know, we have to keep posting the same responses to the same assertions...

Still, no corroboration that any of these things happened only while she was flat-lined, or were not events that she could not have learned of earlier, later, consciously, or otherwise. ( And, I'm not suggesting that Pam or anyone is deliberately being deceptive either. .. )

And again, regarding Dr. Spetzler. Why should anyone else, care to annoy him, in order to do your homework.


We are just rehashing earlier discussion.. Makes it rather easy, actually..

[Titus Rivas]

And again, regarding Dr. Spetzler. Why should anyone else, care to annoy him, in order to do your homework.

Quite simple, Diogenes, because you're among the persons who aren't satisfied by his general declaration, which I have published on this forum. I can do only so much. I personally don't want to annoy him (an outstanding, very occupied brainsurgeon) by specific questions he's already generally answered. Unless Pam would be very confused about her NDE, we simply have no good reason to doubt that she did witness the details mentioned by her during her flat EEG. It's wonderful if we get to know in even more detail what events these were exactly. But, unless you discount Dr. Spetzler's testimony as worthless, more details aren't necessary to be certain already that there is more to this case than can be explained normally. And if you discount his testimony anyway, why bother asking him for more details :D ?


Titus

[Titus Rivas]

And what does it not being publicized, have to do with what was observed, at what time, in the operating room

This seems quite obvious, doesn't it?
If it had been a normal procedure, information about it would have been available anywhere. As it was a new procedure, the cryptomnesia-hypothesis a priori becomes a lot weaker.

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

Again, irrelevant to the point being made, since it was established that the vascular access had to be made in order to start the cooling process..

I must have missed that. I understood this was only one interpretation of the medical procedure. The kind of point we would want a medical specialist to give his informed opinion about.

Titus

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


...... we simply have no good reason to doubt ....


Titus

Says you..:)

You do understand, that I probably would have never been aware of Pam reynolds, unless you had brought her to my attention.

My saying that you have done nothing to convince me, or even make me suspicious that there is anything special ( paranormal, if you will ...), about her experience might make you question what you hope to accomplish here...

You certainly do not have to justify your purpose for my sake, but I have enjoyed the conversation and the exercise..

I have been extremely fascinated by the details I have gathered, regarding the surgical procedure she went through, and the incredible skill and medical daring of the medical personel involved in this, and have no doubts about the possibilities of human achievements in the future if we manage not to extinguish ourselves.
And in this regard I say: " Wow ! " Not " Woo Woo ! "

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


I must have missed that. I understood this was only one interpretation of the medical procedure. The kind of point we would want a medical specialist to give his informed opinion about.

Titus

You missed it? You might want to re-read page six..

Again, it would seem that the technical details you demand from others, are not relevant when they conflict with the conclusions you have arrived at.

If Pam indeed, underwent hypothermic cardiac arrest, then her blood would have been diverted from her heart before it was stopped.. ie.. Before she was flat-lined..

If she underwent some other procedure, such as open-heart surgery, perhaps you could enlighten us..?? Did Pam miss this part of her surgery while disembodied?

[Titus Rivas]

Again, it would seem that the technical details you demand from others, are not relevant when they conflict with the conclusions you have arrived at.

I never asked you about technical details neither you nor myself are experts on. I just assumed and continue to assume that we shouldn't jump to skeptical conclusions about those details, unless we are very knowledgeable about the topic in question. If we aren't, we have no particular reason to doubt either Pam or Dr. Spetzler.

Titus

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


I never asked you about technical details neither you nor myself are experts on. I just assumed and continue to assume that we shouldn't jump to skeptical conclusions about those details, unless we are very knowledgeable about the topic in question. If we aren't, we have no particular reason to doubt either Pam or Dr. Spetzler.

Titus


You keep insisting the procedure involving her groin was limited to the time she was flat-lined.. You, apparently, are assuming this..

But we can't assume otherwise, based on informed research?

[Titus Rivas]

You keep insisting the procedure involving her groin was limited to the time she was flat-lined.. You, apparently, are assuming this..

Of course you can. You can assume anything you like. What I'm really insisting on is that we shouldn't jump to that assumption. I don't claim to know what the procedure was like, but just assume that Pam is right about it. Perhaps I'm wrong on this point (maybe because I did not understand what Pam really meant by this point), but I would need to have a good or rather conclusive reason to think that I am. Just jumping to skeptical conclusions won't do for me you see.

Titus

[Dragon]

Stories, that's all we really have here isn't it?
However impeccable the source, however vivid the experience, however honest the experiencer they are still just stories.
Interesting? Certainly. Challenging? Sometimes.
Still stories though.

As someone once said on this forum, "The plural of anecdote is not data"

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


I don't claim to know what the procedure was like, but just assume that Pam is right about it.

Titus

Aside from the point that you haven't provided us with Pam's description of any procedure.. Only :

" I saw them operating on my groin while the body was dead .."

This doesn't seem to jive with:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've been in touch through e-mail with the brain surgeon in question who referred me to the account given of the case in Michael B. Sabom's book Light and Death, adding that Pam's account was 'remarkably accurate'.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What part of Pam's account ( as told to you by the surgeon) is a 'remarkably accurate' description of something that transpired while she was brain-dead, that she could not have possibly aquired pre or post op?

If this question sounds familiar, it's because I asked it on page five.

So what is it: 'remarkably accurate' , or just vague recollections such as:

quote:...( by Pam )
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I saw them operating on my groin while the body was dead and was concerned. I couldn't understand why.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------"The saw-thing that I hated the sound of looked like an electric toothbrush and it had a dent in it, a groove at the top where the saw appeared to go into the handle, but it didn't ... And the saw had interchangeable blades, too, but these blades were in what looked like a socket wrench case ... I heard the saw crank up. I didn't see them use it on my head, but I think I heard it being used on something. It was humming at a relatively high pitch and then all of a sudden it went Brrrrrrrrr! like that.

I find it interesting that she saw and heard the saw, but that : " I didn't see them use it on my head "..
And all this, while she was ".... the most aware that I think that I have ever been in my entire life .."
And....
" It was not like normal vision. It was brighter and more focused and clearer than normal vision ...

It just doesn't click Titus..

Either she gave a clear and accurate description of what happened while she was flat-lined, or she is relating her perception of any number of vague and ill defined events that occured throughout her ordeal.. of course she could have done both, but so far, we have no evidence of the former..

[Jagger]

Diogenes, use your imagination and pretend you are Pam about to undergo this operation.

You are fully conscious and thinking. Then you are put under anesthia and go unconscious. Everything goes black as you go to sleep.

You have tape over your eyes and plugs in your ears.

Then your body temperature is lowered to 60 degrees. Then your heart and breathing are stopped. Your brain ceases to function with a flat EEG. With a flat EEG, even dreaming would be detected. No EEG, no dreams, no memories. Just blackness.

Then the blood is drained from your head.

They start sawing into your head. {Reynolds observations}

The operation occurs over many hours and your aneurysm is repaired.

Finally they pump the blood back into your head, they raise your temperature back up, your heart restarts, your breathing returns and your EEG unflattens.

Hours later, you wake up.

Now tell me what you would be able to describe about the operation when you wake up. Would you remember anything at all? Anything at all??? Anything????????

Then consider what Pam Reynolds was able to remember and accurately describe about the operation.

See the disconnect between what you could describe and what Pam Reynolds was able to describe.

Hopefully this may help you understand why people are so baffled by the case. It should be impossible but investigation shows she was able to accurately describe events and activities from her operation. And this same type of out of body observation is typical of many, many NDE experiences.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Jagger
Diogenes, use your imagination and pretend you are Pam about to undergo this operation.


What you said.... And

Then consider what Pam Reynolds was able to remember and accurately describe about the operation.

See the disconnect between what you could describe and what Pam Reynolds was able to describe.







Thanks for taking the time..

Just how long do you suppose Pam had a flat EEG ? ( I suspect a pretty precise number is on record somewhere, for anyone who is really interested. I'm really surprised that someone ( Pam, perhaps ), who underwent such a procedure, would not posess this information,,

Have you read through this entire thread ? My last post ?

I have no information that Pam described anything that was detailed ( about activity in the operating room ) or remarkable, and certainly not tied uniquely to the time frame during which brain activity was not detected..

Do you possess such information? Can you share it with us ?

[Titus Rivas]

Diogenes,

Let's both stop repeating the same arguments. It will be clear by now where each of us stands.

Jagger,

I completely agree with your latest contribution.

Titus

[Jagger]

The EEG goes flat within 6-10 seconds after the heart stops.

The EEG will remain flat until blood flow returns.

I am assuming the heart stopped due to the lowering of her body temperature.

Reynolds observations began with the use of the saw. I am unaware of any use of a saw except to open the head. The head would not be opened until after the heart stopped. So she had a flat EEG. And her observations coincide with the use of the saw. Use of the saw occured after her heart stopped and before it was restarted.

"The saw-thing that I hated the sound of looked like an electric toothbrush and it had a dent in it, a groove at the top where the saw appeared to go into the handle, but it didn't ... And the saw had interchangeable blades, too, but these blades were in what looked like a socket wrench case ... I heard the saw crank up. I didn't see them use it on my head, but I think I heard it being used on something. It was humming at a relatively high pitch and then all of a sudden it went Brrrrrrrrr! like that.

This information described by Reynolds seems fairly detailed to me.

It seems remarkable as well considering her flat EEG and her out of body perspective. Not to mention the accuracy.

[Titus Rivas]

It seems there is one (in itself minor) error on one of the main online sources about the case of Pam Reynolds; Pam Reynolds- Visions and memories occur while brain dead (http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html) , where it states:

Pam was participating in an Atlanta near-death study by Dr. Sabom at the time of her standstill operation.

Some readers may have thought because of this passage that Pam was instructed about the study before her operation and that this may have influenced her NDE.

However, strangely enough, the very same site has a link to a page about Michael Sabom's Research (http://www.near-death.com/experiences/experts07.html) which mentions the Atlanta study as something which was founded three years after Pam's experience (in 1991):

In 1994, he founded the Atlanta Study which is the first comprehensive investigation of its kind into NDEs.

By the way, this year is confirmed by all other sources on the internet. For example, Victor Zammit (http://www.victorzammit.com/hall/) writes about Dr. Sabom:

In 1994, he founded the Atlanta Study which is the first comprehensive investigation of its kind into NDEs.

All this accords well with Pam's own declarations and goes against the skeptical conclusion that the study would have influenced her NDE.


Titus

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


.............................

All this accords well with Pam's own declarations and goes against the skeptical conclusion that the study would have influenced her NDE.


Titus

I'm relieved.. This was a conclusion I hadn't come to.

You may be surprised to hear that the only conclusion I have reached, is that there is not enough information to arrive at one.

[Titus Rivas]

Diogenes,

You may be surprised to hear that the only conclusion I have reached, is that there is not enough information to arrive at one.

Though I've really enjoyed (most of) your contributions, you may be surprised to read that you're not the only skeptic who's following this thread. ;)

Titus

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Jagger
The EEG goes flat within 6-10 seconds after the heart stops.

The EEG will remain flat until blood flow returns.

I am assuming the heart stopped due to the lowering of her body temperature.

Reynolds observations began with the use of the saw. I am unaware of any use of a saw except to open the head. The head would not be opened until after the heart stopped. So she had a flat EEG. And her observations coincide with the use of the saw. Use of the saw occured after her heart stopped and before it was restarted.



This information described by Reynolds seems fairly detailed to me.

It seems remarkable as well considering her flat EEG and her out of body perspective. Not to mention the accuracy.


Your post does not seem to indicate you are familiar with Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest (http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nsg/NSGCPMC/articles/1998hyp.html) ..

It is also news to me that an EEG is an indication of heart activity. Of course, in the absence of a beating heart, and no back-up circulatory process in place, the brain will cease to function. I would want to verify the ten second figure though. It seems a bit short.
However, one of the facts we do have, is that Pam was on a heart-lung machine, so stopping her heart did not result in the stopping of blood flow to her brain.

[lekatt]

Titus

You are indeed a patient person.

At some point the skeptics will get around to reading the NDE material from the many researchers and the accounts. From this they will understand that life continues after death. That there is a spiritual world waiting for them when they die. That logic does not produce knowledge, and there are many things to be learned about this world.

Love

[SteveGrenard]

For the last time THE procedure on her groin was to insert a line into the femoral artery, snake it into the lower part of the aorta
and use that as the departure conduit (arterial outflow tract) to hook her up to the heart/lung machine which we now know she was on the whole time. Ergo, and there cannot be any dispute about this nor can anyone make any assumptions either way, she was not yet on the heart/lung machine when this procedure was performed. This is routine, S.O.P. and there can be no disputing this. Thank you.

Secondly when she woke up she had a nasty stitched up hole in the groin over the femoral artery and she would've been aware of this as well.

[Jagger]

It is also news to me that an EEG is an indication of heart activity.

Sorry Diogenes, I should have connected all the dots. When cardiac arrest is experienced, the lack of blood flow causes the brain to flatline within 6-10 seconds. The EEG has nothing to do with heart activity.

And I think I will go the Titus route. It is not a wise use of time for you and I to discuss the Reynolds case.

[Titus Rivas]

For the last time THE procedure on her groin was to insert a line into the femoral artery, snake it into the lower part of the aorta and use that as the departure conduit (arterial outflow tract) to hook her up to the heart/lung machine which we now know she was on the whole time. Ergo, and there cannot be any dispute about this nor can anyone make any assumptions either way, she was not yet on the heart/lung machine when this procedure was performed. This is routine, S.O.P. and there can be no disputing this. Thank you.

Secondly when she woke up she had a nasty stitched up hole in the groin over the femoral artery and she would've been aware of this as well.

Well, I certainly hope you haven't taken my doubts too personally :cool:

Anyway, even if you're (indisputably) right about this, the point remains whether her EEG would have been (nearly) flat during the procedure or not. Pam Reynolds, at least as I have understood her thus far, claims that it was. Could there be a reconciliation between your account and this Near-Death state she claims she was in at the time?

Please let's forget about the distorted memory (stitches) theory, by the way. Some things are too hard to swallow even for a non-debunker like myself ;)

Titus

[Loki]

Titus Rivas,

However, strangely enough, the very same site has a link to a page about Michael Sabom's Research which mentions the Atlanta study as something which was founded three years after Pam's experience (in 1991):
So how long after the procedure did Sabom interview Reymolds and Spetzler? It wouldn't have been 3 years, would it?

Unless Pam would be very confused about her NDE, we simply have no good reason to doubt that she did witness the details mentioned by her during her flat EEG.
But this is just assuming your conclusion, isn't it? The very question that needs to be asked when examining "evidence" is "is there any reason to doubt it". I would have thought the first step is "does it fit with existing excepted data?". If the answer is yes, it's passed the first hurdle. If the answer is "no" (in this case, NDEs have no know mechanism), then the warning bells sound, and we proceed more carefully. Since this data falls at the first hurdle, it needs to be reviewed to determine that it really is what it seems. The bar for verification *must* be higher.

(jagger wrote) : Now tell me what you would be able to describe about the operation when you wake up. Would you remember anything at all? Anything at all??? Anything????????
Again, you are simply assuming that she is remembering, rather than "inventing" (even innocently).

(jagger wrote) : As Lekatt suggests, after reading a couple of hundred NDE experiences, we see this same OBE experience with "what should be impossible" observations consistently in large numbers of cases.

Even though we don't have a large number of cases with verified observations, those cases support that the thousands of other unverified observations may also be accurate
I have no doubt we could find several thousand accounts of astrology readings that "were accurate". Plenty of cases of "the astrology chart said 'x', and three week later 'x' happened!!!" Should I assume the truth of Astrology based upon "weight of anecdotes", some of which are "verified"?

There is an endless stream of anecdotes supporting homeopathy - many 'verified' in the sense that the illness was present, the treatment applied, and the illness declined. Does this establish the truth of homeopathy?

Thousands of Hindus will testify, and video evidence is available for verification, that statues of Ganesh "drank milk" around the world back in 1995. Should we conclude that the Hindu faith is correct, and Ganesh is real?

What I see here is a pattern of people who already know what they want to be true finding data that fits. The conclusion is leading people to the data, rather than the data leading people to a conclusion.

[Titus Rivas]

Loki,

But this is just assuming your conclusion, isn't it? The very question that needs to be asked when examining "evidence" is "is there any reason to doubt it". I would have thought the first step is "does it fit with existing excepted data?". If the answer is yes, it's passed the first hurdle. If the answer is "no" (in this case, NDEs have no know mechanism), then the warning bells sound, and we proceed more carefully. Since this data falls at the first hurdle, it needs to be reviewed to determine that it really is what it seems. The bar for verification *must* be higher.

You would be right if there were any bulk of empirical data within science that would go against the possibility of survival after death. I've read quite a lot of literature on neurological disorders which affect the conscious mind, but none of these suggest that this mind could never survive physical death. There is no contradiction in the data, just in its interpretation. Time to change the interpretation so that everything fits in nicely.

Titus

[Loki]

lekatt,

At some point the skeptics will get around to reading the NDE material from the many researchers and the accounts.
I've read many NDE accounts, I've read the Lommel study well before this thread started (late last year I think), and Pam Reynolds has been discussed several times previously on this Forum. Do you find it easier to dismiss an opposing opinion by assuming it is based on a lack of information?

From this they will understand that life continues after death.
From my reading I have understood that "life continues" is one possibility. Not an all together unpleasant one in one sense, although saying even that presupposes some sort of concept of what this "aferlife" might be and entail. But reading anecdotes, a minority of which appear to include "real world" evidence, only takes me into "interested", not into "convinced".

[Titus Rivas]

So how long after the procedure did Sabom interview Reymolds and Spetzler? It wouldn't have been 3 years, would it?

It must have between 1994 and 1998 (the publication of his book) so that amounts to a maximum of 7 years. I certainly wouldn't call that too long, if that's what you're aiming at.

Titus

[Loki]

Titua Rivas,

There is no contradiction in the data, just in its interpretation.
The mere fact that Reynolds "remembers" her out-of-body observations when she "returns" to this world means that she has carried her "mental" experiences back into the "physical" realm. That's a process requiring explanation within the physical world - how exactly does memory work, and how could this "transference" occur. Current memory models says "no". NDE says"yes". But I'm hardly an expert on the neurological basis for memory, so you may be correct that there is no 'clear' conflict here.

[Titus Rivas]

Current memory models says "no". NDE says"yes". But I'm hardly an expert on the neurological basis for memory, so you may be correct that there is no 'clear' conflict here.

You say it, Loki, the memory models which is not the same as data on memory. One thing is the data, another one is its interpretation.

Titus

[SteveGrenard]

TR: Well, I certainly hope you haven't taken my doubts too personally

SG: Certainly not personally.

TR: Anyway, even if you're (indisputably) right about this, the point remains whether her EEG would have been (nearly) flat during the procedure or not. Pam Reynolds, at least as I have understood her thus far, claims that it was. Could there be a reconciliation between your account and this Near-Death state she claims she was in at the time?

SG: If the drainage of blood from her head was the cause of the flat-lined EEG, then that would NOT yet have happened when the groin procedure was taking place. Sabom knows this, the neurosurgeon knows this and any lst year surgical resident who has ever seen a pump case or an assisted circulation case knows this.

The hook up to the heart/lung machine was a precondition and a necessary component of the procedure to drain the blood from her head. The blood was allowed to drain out while she was on the pump but she couldnt have been on the pump without first establishing the outfow (femoral artery) and inflow (femoral vein)
tracts. (e.g. groin procedure).

It is, however, also evident that she was "brain-dead" for all intents and purposes when the saw was used so this is not in dispute. The account of the groin procedure as given by her
based on its actual ocurrence before she was brain dead and/or
the presence of the stiched up hole in her groin after she woke up. I also dispute the fact that she was clinically dead when mention was made of her small veins. This would have been mentioned when IVs were being placed and these would be placed in advance.

Anoxia is an imprecise term as used here. Anoxia literally means Zero or No Oxygen. A more correct term would be hypoxia which means decreased oxygen. Anybody whose oxygen saturation falls to zero or whose arterial PO2 falls to zero ("anoxia") will have tissue death in the regions affected or death if widespread (e.g. brain death if occuring in the brain --- cooling the patient down protects against this) There are also many types of hypoxia
depending on cause and locus. I agree with vanLommel and anyone else who says "anoxia" (eg hypoxia) cannot be the cause of hallucinations resembling NDEs. Hypoxemic patients demonstrate confusion, memory loss and and an absence of lucid or rational thought. It is a debiltating condition the syptoms of which are in contravention to the accounts of ND Experiencers.
In addition many NDE accounts occur in persons who were clinically well oxygenated as documented by arterial blood gas
analysis. The oxygen status of the patient is a red herring.



TR: Please let's forget about the distorted memory (stitches) theory, by the way. Some things are too hard to swallow even for a non-debunker like myself

SG: I would like to but if I woke up from brain surgery with a pain in my groin, a dressing in place and stitches needing inspection daily, it would be kinda hard to overlook the fact that the surgical team did something to me down there in addition to sawing open my head which I knew they were going to do.

[Titus Rivas]

f the draimage of blood from her head was the cause of the flat-lined EEG, then that would NOT yet have happened when the groin procedure was taking place. Sabom knows this, the neurosurgeon knows this and any lst year surgical resident who has ever seen a pump case or an assisted circulation case knows this.
Wouldn't the question then be whether there might have been another cause for her flat EEG which occurred before the drainage? For example of the kind I had found somewhere on the internet?

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

a dressing in place and stitches needing inspection daily, it would be kinda hard to overlook the fact that the surgical team did something to me down there in addition to sawing open my head which I knew they were going to do.

I've never disputed this. What I find too hard to swallow is the theory that Pam's description of her NDE is basically authentic except for this particular part, which would be based on a rather severe distortion of her memory. It simply sounds much too arbitrary and ad hoc to me.

Titus

[Loki]

Titus Rivas,

It must have between 1994 and 1998 (the publication of his book) so that amounts to a maximum of 7 years. I certainly wouldn't call that too long, if that's what you're aiming at.
I'm not particularly "aiming at" anything. But if there is up to 7 years between the surgery and her discussing it with Sabom, then what chance is there to eliminate alternative explanations for her observations? Sure, she recalls the details as part of a single NDE experience. But stories and details change in the retelling (or 'rethinking', I guess!)

Perhaps Reynolds became aware of the "saw" a year after her own surgery, and when finally interviewed years later, that piece of information had "merged" into her NDE memories? I've worked with a colleague for over 17 years now, and we have one particular memory that we disagree on completely. We were both present at an event 10 years ago, but our recall differs dramatically. One or both of us are wrong, but both of us believe we remember correctly. Memory *is* fallible, and memories *do* merge to create "composites". The greater the delay in the retelling, the greater the chance of "incorrect" memories.

[SteveGrenard]

TR: Wouldn't the question then be whether there might have been another cause for her flat EEG which occurred before the drainage? For example of the kind I had found somewhere on the internet?

There are many causes for flat-line EEGS indicating brain death:
ruptured aneurysm, massive cerebral infarction involving the brain stem, stroke caused by a thromboembolism, fat or even a large air embolus, a head bleed, massive head trauma, drug overdose causing the respiratory center to stop ones breathing, other drugs such as paralyzing agents, the list goes on. But were any of these involved in Pam's case? I dont think so.

We are given to believe repeatedly that she was electively placed on a heart/lung machine, cooled down to 60 F,(*) the blood drained from her head, the EEG flat-lined and then the surgery performed. I dont care what order was mentioned in the rhetorical accounts, this is the logical procedural order. What
other causes of flat EEG are you referencing?


(*)Actually the core temperature is most rapidly and precislely decreased by using the pump to cool the blood in addition to special pads through which cold water/alcohol solution is being circulated or being packed in ice (which is how the Russians started doing this procedure but this was primitive and use in emergency treatment now of hyperthermia such as cause by cocaine overdose or acute infection)

[SteveGrenard]

TR: I've never disputed this. What I find too hard to swallow is the theory that Pam's description of her NDE is basically authentic except for this particular part, which would be based on a rather severe distortion of her memory.


I dont think this is a distortion of her memory. Based on the facts she has an excellent memory. The only difference is that when she retold this she did not separate it from the NDE and did not know this would've been done before she was clinically flat-lined but as a precusor to the procedure that would enable the blood to be drained from her head. I would not expect her to know the finer details of the procedure she underwent so it is perfectly reasonable to think she recalled the groin procedure and vein thing correctly because they happened but misattributed the time frame under which she may've been exposed to this knowledge.

[Titus Rivas]

Forgive me my medical ignorance, Steve, but I was referring to this other, but still related operation:

As his body temperature fell, the colors on monitors slowly ebbed and the room grew silent. At 86 degrees the rippling brain waves on the EEG monitor calmed and his heart rate slowed to a mere 50 beats a minute. With each degree the temperature dropped, his heart dragged more: at 80 degrees, 40 beats; at 75, 30. At 72 degrees it seemed to shiver, then abruptly stopped, a normal physiologic response to cold. The image on the television screen went limp. After which they started draining.

Though it is another operation, it seems clear that the cooling process can in principle take place before the draining process. I supposed that cooling had quite an effect on one's EEG, so that it would be correct for Pam to state (in a laymen's code) that she observed the groin procedure "while the body was dead".

Titus

[Jagger]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As his body temperature fell, the colors on monitors slowly ebbed and the room grew silent. At 86 degrees the rippling brain waves on the EEG monitor calmed and his heart rate slowed to a mere 50 beats a minute. With each degree the temperature dropped, his heart dragged more: at 80 degrees, 40 beats; at 75, 30. At 72 degrees it seemed to shiver, then abruptly stopped, a normal physiologic response to cold. The image on the television screen went limp.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


That is interesting. It looks like the EEG went flat before the heart stopped. The cooling alone " calrmed" the EEG. I assume calmed is the same as flat

However I would expect once the heart stopped also due to cooling that would ensure the EEG was indeed completely flat.

[Titus Rivas]

Steve, incorporating knowledge of the groin procedure in her memory of the NDE is called distortion. She would have thought that she observed the groin procedure during the NDE, which is altogether differen from merely misattributing the time frame under which she may have been exposed to this knowledge.

I'm a bit more informed about psychology than about medical science. That's how I know that the first phenomenon concerns episodical memory, and the second merely factual memory.

It's one thing to claim that one learnt about Napoleon in a class room whereas one really did so in the library. But it's surely a different thing to claim that one saw Napoleon during his life time when one really only read his biography.

Titus

[SteveGrenard]

First of all this was not Pam's operation. Secondly the cannulation of the femoral vessels IS always done well in advance of any procedure that would stop the heart beat, and hence kill the EEG.
Ditto for the IVs. Show me where it says otherwise. Check in a book on surgery or better yet ask Sabom or any cadiothoracic surgeon or cardiologist.

In the example you give how did they precisely cool down this patient by the way?

Unofrtunately no body who can verify this wants to
confirm the groin procedure time frame or the small veins remark timeframe. In fact they dont want to confirm the saw time frame either but this is arguably the only procedure of these three mentions which ocurred after her head was drained of blood and she was EEG flat-line. A slow heart beat by the way does not kill the EEG. Patients in heart bock survive with heart beats, especially while asleep, down into the 20s and 40s.
Athletes routinely have heartbeats in the 40s to 50s.
Yes cooling slows down the heart rate and this makes it easier to get the patient onto extracorporeal circulation and it protects the tissues against hypoxemia by decreasing their oxygen requirements through decreased metabolism. I hope this article you quote not suggesting they cooled the patient to a point where cardiac standstill ocurred before they were ready to put him on the pump? And in order to put him on the pump ewfficiently and quickly guess what? They would have had to complete and test the so-called groin procedure beforehand.

[Titus Rivas]

Okay, Steve, let's leave the final word about this to Michael B. Sabom for now.
Again, there might be some misunderstanding on my part as I said before. For example, perhaps Pam understood something different by "while the body was dead". Would her body have looked dead to a layman, even before the blood had been drained and even without a flattened EEG?

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

"Let's start cooling," Dr. Robert A. Solomon, the neurosurgeon in charge, said as he finished clearing out a two-inch deep crater over the bulging vessel. The patient, Donald Rogers Jr. of Kansas City, Kansas, was then attached to a cardiac bypass machine which cooled his blood.

That's what's said about the cooling process, on this patient (http://www.cryonics.org/surgery.html) , Steve.

Titus

[SteveGrenard]

"..........was then attached to a cardiac bypass machine which cooled his blood."


Well this does say it all then. In order for the precision cooling of the patient to take place he was FIRST placed on the heart/lung machine. Okay, back to square 1. In order to placed on scuh a device the groin procedure had to be performed first.

Using the heart/lung pump is the most precise way of lowering the body's core temperature (as I said above somewhere in this discussion).

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Diogenes,



Though I've really enjoyed (most of) your contributions, you may be surprised to read that you're not the only skeptic who's following this thread. ;)

Titus

Now I'm worried..:(

Which post/s did you not enjoy? I hope the one about ' headcheese ', was not one of them.. I was sort of proud of that one..:biggrin:

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
"..........was then attached to a cardiac bypass machine which cooled his blood."


Well this does say it all then. In order for the precision cooling of the patient to take place he was FIRST placed on the heart/lung machine. Okay, back to square 1. In order to placed on scuh a device the groin procedure had to be performed first.

Using the heart/lung pump is the most precise way of lowering the body's core temperature (as I said above somewhere in this discussion).

So, is this the model we have agreed upon? After all, it specifies the craniotomy took place before the ' cool - down '..

This might be a good time to ask again:

By whom and how was it established, what events took place while the EEG was flat, and which of these events were accurately reported by Pam.


If one of them was supposedly the craniotomy, Pam's observation seems to be lacking in a crucial aspect..
... I heard the saw crank up. I didn't see them use it on my head, but I think I heard it being used on something.
Which I mentioned before, is in contrast to her statement:
It was not like normal vision. It was brighter and more focused and clearer than normal vision ..
Since it was at least four years later, that her experience was documented by Dr. Sabom, did he verify the events that took place during flat-line, and include this information in his book.

Why do we even have to speculate about, at what point the cannulation or craniotomy took place?

[Skeptical Greg]

I had been looking at this 1998 paper by Dr. Soloman earlier, :
Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest Procedures for Giant Intracranial Aneurysms (http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nsg/NSGCPMC/articles/1998hyp.html)
but had overlooked this aspect of the procedure..

Craniotomy and initial dissection of the aneurysm are performed. When further dissection seems unduly hazardous without aneurysm softening or decompression, the anesthesiologist places the patient in burst suppression with a thiopental or propofol drip and the cardiac surgeon institutes deep hypothermia.

Of course we can't know if Dr. Spetzler and team handled Pam's case in this manner.

Again, it would seem that Dr. Sabom's research, would include such important details, in order to draw any worthwhile conclusions.

[lekatt]

Originally posted by Loki
lekatt,


I've read many NDE accounts, I've read the Lommel study well before this thread started (late last year I think), and Pam Reynolds has been discussed several times previously on this Forum. Do you find it easier to dismiss an opposing opinion by assuming it is based on a lack of information?


From my reading I have understood that "life continues" is one possibility. Not an all together unpleasant one in one sense, although saying even that presupposes some sort of concept of what this "aferlife" might be and entail. But reading anecdotes, a minority of which appear to include "real world" evidence, only takes me into "interested", not into "convinced".

Just seems to me if one is interested in a subject, one will research that subject. If you want to know about NDEs you will read about them. Experiencers are the ones to go to in order to learn about their experiences. No amount of discussion will reveal what or how NDEs come about.

[reprise]

I wonder if there's any chance that Sabom could put us in touch with the anaesthetists who were present during the operations about which he writes.

[Jagger]

I'm curious Jagger. Assuming that I was prepared to accept that consciousness persists beyond death - ie, that consciousness is not created and destroyed physically - where do you believe that consciousness exists prior to physical existence. Where was my or your consciousness prior to you or I having a physical existence and by what mechanism did it connect with my body?

Reprise, I don't know. Some NDE's experiences imply or state reincarnation occurs but there isn't a way to confirm their accounts. Nor is a mechanism described to enter the body during birth.

Where the consciousness exists is another interesting question. Within the NDE, the experience of existence seems to change at some point. Dr Kenneth Ring asked 37 NDE individuals to describe time within their experience. 32 of 37 described time as non-existent. He asked 22 to describe their experience of space. 17 of the 22 described space as non-existent or infinite. In many NDE's, I have read comments describing a timeless experience or being in a spaceless "void" lacking everything.

The time question is very interesting because time is so important in cause and effect. So how does change occur if time is non-existent? One individual I talked with stated that everything happens simultaneously. He also stated that change was related to comprehension and intention. A very difficult concept to grasp if correct.

Here is one individuals description of timelessness from an interview within Rings study. Note, the individual has great difficulty in explaning his experience without time. It is also a word for word description which makes it hard to follow. I had to read it a couple times to really get the gist of what he is having so much difficulty describing:

"This is the interesting part...it has to be out of space and time. It must be, because the context of it is that it is just...it can't be put into a time thing.......Okay, ......I can't explain the actual words, ""You really blew it this time, Frank""--I couldn't tell you if this was said before that whole movie thing or after it. Because, somehow, even though I feel it was at the end, it could have just as well been at the beginning. In other words, that statement related to the whole thing, before and after. I can't explain it.....You couldn't relate it to time."

Within our present understanding of the physical universe, I am only aware of one zone of timelessness. According to general relativity, time halts or disappears at the speed of light. And some would argue, including me, that space or dimensions also disappear at the speed of light due to the loss of distance. But it is argueable. I personally believe that general relativity places existence at the speed of light outside spacetime.

[Titus Rivas]

Let's assume you're right about the order of events, Steve. However, could you please answer these questions:

- Could the body have looked dead during the groin procedure, i.e. to a layman? (same question I asked you above)

- In what brain state would the patient normally be during a groin procedure?

Titus

[SteveGrenard]

TR: - Could the body have looked dead during the groin procedure, i.e. to a layman? (same question I asked you above)


Reply: Certainly a person could "look" dead. Anybody can "look" dead including people who are asleep. Are certain important points of life present?

Normal skin color and breathing? Yes. But these may not be noticed by oneself dreaming they were dead or having an NDE for that matter.


So if you look at someone carefully who is lying still, asleep or mildly sedated or lightly anesthesitized can you tell whether they are alive or dead without an ECG or EEG? Or w/o feeling their pulse or listening to their heart? I would hope so. But could Pam, perceiving herself, think she was dead. Sure. The only reason a lot of us know we are alive is because of our consciousness, conscious thoughts and perception of stimuli.
Can we have dreams in which we are dead? Why not?

Pam was sedated, pre-medicated or lightly anesthestized for this aspect of the procedure but it did not occur during the flat EEG, profound hypothermic phase. The "groin procedure" had to happen before they could accomplish that since it was a prequisite to going onto the "cardiac bypass" (heart/lung machine/pump.).






TR: In what brain state would the patient normally be during a groin procedure?

Reply: Good question. In any one of several stages of sleep of which there are 4 plus REM. Without seeing the EEG, we can't answer the question as to what stage. Stage 1 and 2 are lighter stages, 3&4 are the deepest stages and hardest to arouse from.
You won't hear or experience anything in stage 3 or 4 sleep which is also known as delta sleep or slow wave sleep (SWS).

Stage 1 is the lightest stage, transitional between wake and sleep. You are apt to awaken easily and perceive outside stimuli such as noises/voices during this stage.


Stage REM is a lighter stage during which dreaming occurs and from which we often awake (and hence remember our dreams) or which may terminate into another stage of sleep which makes us least likely to remember them. We have sleep paralysis (SP) during REM. People who wake up from REM with the SP still persisting often think they are dead. (RISP, recurrent isolated sleep paralysis.) Nothing short of a detailed medical case history in these cases will help us to reconcile the possibilities of an NDE. I trust Dr. Sabom, for example, had Pam's complete medical records, a copy of her entire chart and EEG and looked into such factors himself including all drugs given, agents used to pre-medicate, sedate and anesthestize her, etc etc. and when.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note:

Although the saw procedure (craniotomy) may have occurred prior to cooling and circulatory arrest, it doesn't make sense that it did so as inferred above. It would have made more sense to delay this until after the EEG was flat (e.g. blood drained from the head).

[SteveGrenard]

My one problem with someone thinking or perceving they were dead and looking down at themselves on an operating room table having a procedure done to them is this. If one thought they were dead, they would be saying ... if I am dead, why are they down there working so diligently on me? Performing surgery on my head or my groin? What for? This is the reason there is debate whether NDEs are simply induced OOBEs under stressful and even traumatic circumstances including being near death.
Pam's case is so important because of her EEG status and the plan that this would be temporary and she'd be restored. And this is why it is so imprtant to have a blow by blow timeline to work from. Which we don't.

[Titus Rivas]

When I started this thread I thought that Pam's whole NDE took place while she underwent a state of flat EEG. This is strongly suggested by all the websites I had read on the case and nobody I had been in touch with about the case thus far, had given me reason to think otherwise. Diogenes has been talking about homework and I still hold that I certainly had done enough to be entitled to start the threat. However, I had not done one thing yet (buying and reading Dr. Sabom's book) that might have shed a lot of light on more details. I assumed it wasn't necessary (though I had obviously decided to buy the book one day) since I believed the information on the websites was correct as all the websites seemed to confirm each other. That was what made me think that what is suggested by the links in my first posting on this thread is basically correct. That is also why I thought that when Dr. Spetzler referred to Light and Death, he was referring to information completely in accordance with what is suggested by the websites.
I first started doubting this yesterday when I discovered an error (which I posted immediately on this thread) about Pam's supposedly being involved in the so called Atlanta Study in 1991, when it hadn't even begun yet (as it was founded in 1994).

This morning I received a message from a Mr. Julio Siqueira from Brazil, whom I had alerted to the thread. I will reveal the contents of his message in my next postings. Mr. Siqueira included two digitalized chapters from the book Light and Death in his answer to my e-mail. On the one hand, these chapters confirm important parts of the Pam Reynolds case, but on the other hand they also show that some claims which have become widespread by now are unwarranted.

By the way I still have reason to believe that this case is very important.

I wish to thank Mr. Julio Siqueira for his kind contribution. I'm also thankful for Steve's medical knowledge which turns out to be more relevant than I thought. Finally I'm even grateful to some skeptics, especially Diogenes, who were right in insisting we needed more details (though perhaps not entirely for the same reasons why I now acknowledge we did).
I should not forget that I'm also indebted to Pam Reynolds herself, whose recent testimony turns out to be in accordance with the book. Steve will probably be right that the body simply must have looked dead to her.

Again, this does not at all amount to admitting the case has been debunked. It certainly has not.

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

For any skeptic who is a bit too euphoric about my confession that my view of the case has been altered by Mr. Julio Siqueira, let me start by quoting from his e-mail:


Pam Reynolds' case is remarkable in many many respects. And I believe that a full description of it (in all of its weaknesses and strengths) will lead any real skeptic to a "higher state of confusion", as science phylosopher Alan Chalmers once put (in his book "What is This Thing Called Science").

Having said so, Julio Siqueira's correction of the usual way the case of Pam Reynolds is presented reads:

The most important part has to do with the timings of the events and the relative strengths and weaknesses of Pam's testimony. It seems clear to me that most of her subjetive experience (and all of her verifiable perceptions) took place not when she was flatlined, brain-drained, brain-stem dumped, and near body-frozen. The only subjetive experience that did take place under these extreme conditions were her meetings with deceased ones, and other out-of-Operating Room reports.

So the NDE would only partially have occurred while her EEG was flattened. In my next posting I will quote from the relevant passages in Light and Death to show why Mr. Siqueira is probably right about this.

In yet another posting I will show why the case is still very important.

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

Unless both Mr. Siqueira and myself misunderstand the following passages from Light and Deat , he is probably right that Pam was not in a state of flat EEG during the veridical observations of the surgery:

Page 37

The Midas Rex whirlwind bone saw, rotating at a constant 73,000 rpm, was deftly held by the surgeon like a brush in the hand of an artist. A loud whirring noise, similar to that of a dentist's drill, filled the sterile air of the operating room.(2)

Brain surgery was about to begin.


Page 38

The whole episode frequently rests on self-report alone. In The Atlanta Study, however, medical documentation of the events surrounding the near-death experience was obtained whenever possible. In Pam's case, this documentation far exceeds any recorded before and provides us with our most complete scientific glimpse yet into the near-death experience.

Pam had been awake when brought into the operating room at 7:15 that August morning in 1991. She remembers the IVs, "so many of them," followed by "a loss of time" as the intravenous penthathol worked its calming magic on her.

According to Spetzler's surgical report, her body was lifted onto the operating table and her arms and legs securely tied down. Her eyes were lubricated to prevent drying and then taped shut. An endotracheal tube was skillfully guided through her mouth into her windpipe, and general anesthesia was begun.

For the next hour and twenty-five minutes, Pam's unconscious body was instrumented with the most advanced technologv some of which had been specifically designed for hvpothermic arrest.

A two-inch-long plastic tube was slipped into the artery in her wrist to continuously monitor her blood prcssure. A threefoot long Swan Ganz catheter, resembling an elongated piece of spaghetti, was threaded through the jugular vein of her neck into the artery in her lung to measure pulmonary pressures and blood flow from her heart. Cardiac monitoring leads were attached to follow heart rate and rhythm, and an oximeter was taped to her index finger to measure oxygen levels in her blood.

Precise documentation of body temperature would be crucial. Urinary temperature would be measured by a special thermister on the tip of a Foley catheter placed in Pam's bladder.

Page 39

Core body temperature from the innermost part of her body would be monitored with another thermister placed deeply into her esophagus. The temperature of her brain would be registered through a thin wire embedded in its surface.

Standard EEG electrodes taped to her head would record cerebral cortical brain activity. The auditory nerve center located in the brain stem would be tested repeatedly using 100-decibel clicks emitted from small, molded speakers inserted into her ears. In response to these clicks, sharp spikes on the electrogram (i.e. evoked potentials) would assure the surgical team that the brain stem was intact.

Four separate sites were prepped for surgery: the right side of Pam's head for the craniotomy the chest for possible open-heart surgery, and both groins for femoral artery and vein access for cardiopulmonary bypass. Adhesive defibrillator pads were stuck to her chest in case her heart needed to be shocked back to life.

Finally, Pam's head was turned to a full left lateral position and secured in a three-point-pin head holder.

By 8:40 A.M., Pam's entire body except for her head and groin had been blanketed with sterile drapes. Over 20 doctors, nurses, and technicians had scrubbed in (see Figure 1).

Surrounding Pam's head was the neurosurgical team, including Spetzler, who sat in a specialized chair controlled by foot pedals, leaving both hands free to operate. To the right of her legs stood the cardiac surgical team. At her feet sat the heart-pump technicians with their giant chrome-headed pump oxygenator and cardiopulrnonary bypass equipment. And to her left were the neuroanesthesiologists, who were monitoring her vital signs and brain function. Perfect coordination among these four medical teams would be critical if the aneurysm were to be successfully removed and Pam retrieved from her journey to the edge of death.

Spetzler began the surgery by carefully marking the incision lines on Pam's shaved head and quickly opening the scalp with a


Page 41

curved surgical blade. The scalp flap was folded back, exposing a glistening gray skull. A surgical nurse handed Spetzler the pneumatically-powered Midas Rex, attached by a long green hose to compressed air tanks in the corner of the room. A loud buzzing noise then filled the OR as the powerful, thumb-sized motor hidden in the brass head of the bone saw revved up. The cutting tool began to carve out a large section of Pam's skull.

Pam's near-death experience began to unfold. She relates the story with remarkable detail:

Spetzler removed the hone flap from Pam's skull, exposing the outermost membrane of her brain-the dura mater. This

Page 42

tough, fibrous covering was opened with special dural scissors. The operating microscope was then draped and swung into position. The remainder of the intracranial portion of the procedure took place under this microscope controlled by a lever held in Spetzler's mouth.

While Spetzler was opening Pam's head, a female cardiac surgeon located the femoral artery and vein in Pam's right groin. These vessels turned out to be too small to handle the large flow of blood needed to feed the cardiopulmonary bypass machine. Thus, the left femoral artery and vein were prepared for use. Pam later recalled this point in the surgery:

Someone said something about my veins and arteries being very small. I believe it was a female voice and that it was Dr. Murray, but I'm not sure. She was the cardiologist [sic]. I remember thinking that I should have told her about that . . . . I remember the heart-lung machine. I didn't like the respirator. . . . I remember a lot of tools and instruments that I did not readily recognize.

Attention then shifted to large color television monitors mounted on the OR walls, which began to televise Patn's brain as seen through the operating microscope. The OR team followed Spetzler on the TV screen as he journeyed underneath the base of the temporal lobe, around the vein of Labbe, between the third and fourth cranial nerves, and to the neck of a giant basilar artery aneurysm. As feared, the aneurysm turned out to be, as Spetzler noted in his medical records, "extremely large and extended up into the brain." Hypothermic cardiac arrest would definitely be needed.

Into the Valley of the Shadow of Death

At 10:50 A.M. the cardiac surgeon and heart-pump technicians leapt into action. Tubes were inserted into the exposed femoral

Page 43

arteries and veins and connected to clear plastic hoses leading to and from the cardiopulmonary bypass machinc. Warm blood from Parn's body began coursing through the hoses into the large reservoir cylinders of the bypass machine. Here it would be chilled before being returned to her body. The risky cooling process had begun.

At 11:00 A.M. Pam's core body temperature had fallen 25 degrees. The methodical beep-beep-beep of the cardiac monitor was interrupted by a steady warning tone indicating cardiac malfunction. The irregular, disorganized pattern of ventricular fibrillation now marched across the monitor screen. Five minutes later, the remaining electrical spams of Pam's dying heart were extinguished with massive intravenous doses of potassium chloride. Cardiac arrest was complete.

As Pam's heart arrested, her brain waves flattened into complete electrocerebral silence. Brain-stem function weakened as the clicks from the ear speakers produced lower and lower spikes on the monitoring electrogram.

Twenty minutes later, her core body temperature had fallen another 13 degrees to a tomblike 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius). The clicks from her ear speakers no longer elicited a response. Total brain shutdown.

Then, at precisely 11:25 A.M., Pam was subjected to one of the most daring and remarkable surgical maneuvers ever performed in an operating room. The head of the operating table was tilted up, the cardiopulmonary bypass machine was turned off, and the blood was drained from Pam's body like oil from a car. Sometime during this period, Pam's near-death experience progressed:

There was a sensation like being pulled, but not against your will. I was going on my own accord because I wanted to go. I have different metaphors to try to explain this. It was like the Wizard of Oz-being taken up in a tornado vortex...

[reprise]

Originally posted by Jagger
Within our present understanding of the physical universe, I am only aware of one zone of timelessness. According to general relativity, time halts or disappears at the speed of light. And some would argue, including me, that space or dimensions also disappear at the speed of light due to the loss of distance. But it is argueable. I personally believe that general relativity places existence at the speed of light outside spacetime.

Don't the gravitational forces involved in a singularity also result in the laws of space/time breaking down at the event horizon?

[Titus Rivas]

Now that we have read (or at least deducted from reading the passages in question) that Pam Reynolds was not in a state of flat EEG when she observed details of the operation, we reach the question what aspects of the case should still be considered 'remarkable'.

- First of all, although the veridical observations of the surgery took place when her EEG had not flattened yet, they did occur while she was unconscious.
Julio Siqueira adds the following to this point:

Her eyes were tape shut, her ears were plugged, and she only mentions "memories" after a long time the anesthetic was given to her, and not all the while. So something different happened with her then. She seems to have emerged from anesthetic unconsciousness.


- She did report further stages of a classical NDE which occurred during the stage of flat EEG, even if these stages did not concern the surgical procedures. This is in itself inexplicable by any materialist neurological theory!!!

Or as Dr. Sabom formulates this, page 49:

But during "standstill," Pam's brain was found "dead" by all three clinical tests-her electroencephalogram was silent, her brain-stem response was absent, and no blood flowed through her brain. Interestingly; while in this state, she encountered the "deepest" near-death experience of all Atlanta Study participants. The average score for an NDE on Dr. Greyson's NDE Scale was 15, similar to the 13.3 average I found in The Atlanta Study. Pam's NDE stood out, however, with an amazing depth of 27!
and

on page 50:

On CBS' 48 hours, Dr. Spetzler was interviewed along with Pam and myself. As Pam's attending surgeon, he emphasized that during hypothermic cardiac arrest, "If you would examine that patient from a clinical perspective during that hour, that patient by all detinition would be dead. At this point there is no brain activity, no blood going through the brain. Nothing, nothing, nothing:"

- Her perception of some surgical procedures was largely correct and confirmed by the surgical records of the operation:

Pam's Near-Death Experience

Pam Reynolds, whom we first met in Chapter 3, reported the deepest near-death experience of The Atlanta Study at a time when her brain and body were extensively instrumented and monitored.

Could Pam's NDE have resulted from a temporal lobe seizure? Clinically, such seizures are detected by abnormal brainwave patterns on an EEG. Her brain-wave activity was continuously monitored, and no seizure phenomena were reported. Furthermore, her surgeon, Dr. Robert Spetzler, told me that he "has never known of someone having a temporal lobe seizure during this procedure:" He felt it would be "extremely unlikely" that such a seizure would occur since Pam's brain had been silenced with massive arnounts of "barbiturate protection."

Could Pam have heard the intraoperative conversation and then used this to reconstruct an out-of-body experience? At the beginning of the procedure, molded ear speakers were placed in each ear as a test for auditory and brain-stem reflexes. These speakers occlude the ear canals and altogether eliminate the possibility of physical hearing. Despite this, she reports having heard, during her out-of-body experience, "something about my veins and arteries being very small. I believe it was a female voice and that it was Dr. Murray; but I'm not sure. She was the cardiologist [sic]. I remember thinking that I should have told her about that."

Dr. Murray was the female cardiovascular surgeon in the case. In her operative report, she had dictated in her section on "Findings at the time of surgery" that

Page 185

the right femoral artery and vein were exposed, and the right common femoral artery was quite small, approximating the size ot a normal saphenous vein bypass. Due to its 4-mm size, it would not accept a #18 arterial cannula. It was decided that, in order to achieve appropriate flows for bypass, bilateral groin cannulation would be necessary: This was discussed with Neurosurgery, as it would affect angio access postoperatively for arteriography.

From this evidence, we can conclude that the conversation actually occurred and that its content was accurately recalled. Also, the timing of this conversation with the reported occurrence of the out-of-body experience was found to be precise.

Pam stated that she did not hear or perceive anything prior to her out-of-body experience, and that this experience began with hearing the bone saw. At this point in the operation, she had been under anesthesia for about 90 minutes. If the conversation she claims to have heard had occurred prior to or after this point in the surgery then this recollection would not correspond to her out-of-body experience and would rule against the accuracy of Pam's story.

Dr. Spetzler dictated into his operative report that "simultaneous with the opening of the craniotomy, Dr. Murray performed bilateral femoral cut-downs for cannulation for cardiac bypass." "Craniotomy" means cutting open the skull with the bone saw. Dr. Murray would have conversed about the size of Pam's vessels at the time she was performing the cut-downs. Thus, the "opening [or beginning] of the craniotomy" using the bone saw was simultaneous with the conversation about Pam's small blood vessels-and, as it turns out, with her out-of-body experience. This correspondence oF Pam's recollections from an out-of-body experience with the correct bit of intraoperative conversation during a six-hour operative procedure is certainly intriguing evidence in support of Pam's story.

Page 186

But was Pam's visual recollection from her out-of-body experience accurate?

When I first interviewed Pam on November 11, 1994, I was unfamiliar with the neurosurgical instruments used in this procedure. As a matter of routine, however, I ask for details recalled from an out-of-body experience. This point in my interview with Pam is transcribed below:

Sabom: Did you see any specifics in the operating room during your experience?

Pam: I remember seeing several things in the operating room when I was looking down.... I remember the heart-lung machine. I didn't like the respirator. But there were so many of them in different places and different points in the body I remember a lot of tools and instruments that I did not readily recognize.

Sabom: Were there any details that you had not seen before?

Pam: The saw thing that I hated the sound of looked like an electric toothbrush and it had a dent in it, a groove at the top where the saw appeared to go into the handle, but it didn't.... And the saw had interchangeable blades, too, but these blades were in what looked like a socket wrench case. . . . I heard the saw crank up. I didn't see them use it on my head, but I think I heard it being used on something. It was humming at a relatively high pitch and then all of a sudden it went Brrrrrrrrrr! like that.

When I heard Pam's description of the bone saw that Dr. Spetzler used to open her skull, I cringed. An "electric toothbrush" with "interchangeable blades"? No way!

I filed the interview tape and did not listen to it for over a year while my research continued.

In March 1996, I transcribed Pam's tape and began to research the documentation of her story. I phoned the Midas

Page 187

Rex Company in Fort Worth,Texas, and they sent me a student's user manual with pictures of the bone saw used by Dr. Spetzler. I was shocked with the accuracy of Pam's description of the saw as an "electric toothbrush" with "interchangeable blades" (See Figure 3) and with a "socket wrench case" in which this equipment is kept (See Figure 4).

But Pam's description of the bone saw having a "groove at the top where the saw appeared to go into the handle" was a bit puzzling. If viewed from the side (see Figure 5), the end of the bone saw has an overhanging edge that looks somewhat like a groove. However, it was not located "where the saw appeared to go into the handle" but at the other end.

Why had this apparent discrepancy arisen in Pams description? Of course, the first explanation is that she did not "see" the saw at all, but was describing it from her own best guess of what it would look and sound like. The details that apparently correlated accurately with the saw would then have been merely coincidental. Another possible explanation is that she actually did "see" the saw from a distance, giving a fairly accurate description of the saw, "interchangeable blades," and case they were stored in, but was not able to precisely "see" the tip of the saw. This saw is quite small and, when being moved around in use, may be very difficult to see accurately.

Dr. Michael B. Sabom acknowledges that it depends on your general background whether you accept all this as good evidence (as Julio Siqueira and myself obviously do), p. 189:

Further exploration of Pam's case continues to raise the same questions: If we accept what she "saw" or "heard" as being accurate, then could she have been told about it either before or after the surgery to allow for the correct description, could she have somehow known about it from her own knowledge, or could it have been just coincidence? These are all legitimate questions that continue to becloud the claim of the near-death experiencer that "I saw it from the ceiling." For some, evidence arising from cases such as Pam's will continue to suggest some type of out-of-body experience occurring when death is imminent. For others, the inexactness which arises in the evaluation of these cases will be reason enough to dismiss them as dreams, hallucinations, or fantasies.

However, in my view we continue to have reasons to believe Pam did not have prior knowledge, namely her own testimony about the way she was informed about her operation, and the fact that the surgical procedure was recent and only known to a limited number of people. For instance, Dr. Sabom had not known about it when he first read about the case and thought Pam was simply wrong about the 'saw'.

Here's what Julio Siqueira has added about this point:

In this case, I think fraud and confabulation seems to be extremely unlikely. But maybe we might assume that it is not impossible. Mr. Gary Schwartz, in his reply to James Randi (as posted in the site "Debunking the Debunkers"), made (from my point of view) some very informative comments about what is to be "scientific" and what is not. He mentions something like "Scientists always speak in terms of probability". I agree with him to a certain extent

Summarizing, Pam did report an NDE for the stage of flat EEG and she really does seem to have had veridical impressions of the surgical procedures. She just didn't have the latter during the stage of flat EEG.

All this should give any open-minded person reason to think twice before dismissing the case.

Julio even formulates it a bit stronger:

Anyone who dismisses this case can be deemed dismissable


Titus

P.S.: I thought I would soon place the two chapters from Light and Death on two separate links. But considering copyright issues, it does not seem such a good idea after all.

[Titus Rivas]

A relevant passage by Charles Tart:

The findings of scientific parapsychology force us to pragmatically accept that mind can do things — information gathering processes like telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition and directly affecting the physical world with PK — that cannot be reduced to physical explanations with current scientific knowledge or reasonable extensions of it. So it is vitally important to investigate what mind can do in terms of mind, not wait for them to be explained (away) someday in terms of brain functioning — a form of faith that philosophers have aptly called promissory materialism, since it cannot be scientifically refuted.

Titus

[Jeff Corey]

Any passage by Charles Tart is irrelevant.

[CFLarsen]

Originally posted by Jeff Corey
Any passage by Charles Tart is irrelevant.
I agree. He gives me a headache.

[Titus Rivas]

I agree. He gives me a headache.

Perhaps you should both try an Altered State of Consciousness to get rid of any negativity about Tart. :D

Titus

[Loki]

Titus Rivas,

Summarizing, Pam did report an NDE for the stage of flat EEG and she did have veridical impressions of the surgical procedures. She just didn't have the latter during the stage of flat EEG.
Well, perhaps. Sabom is more cautious that you are, apparently. There are really only two "veridical impressions" of any detail that are confirmed :

1. The 'small veins and arteries'.

(Reynolds reported as saying) : "something about my veins and arteries being very small. I believe it was a female voice and that it was Dr. Murray; but I'm not sure. She was the cardiologist [sic]. I remember thinking that I should have told her about that."
So Reynolds was aware that she had "small veins and arteries" prior to going into the surgery.

2. The 'electric toothbrush' saw.

(Sabom writes) : Why had this apparent discrepancy arisen in Pams description? Of course, the first explanation is that she did not "see" the saw at all, but was describing it from her own best guess of what it would look and sound like. The details that apparently correlated accurately with the saw would then have been merely coincidental. Another possible explanation is that she actually did "see" the saw from a distance, giving a fairly accurate description of the saw, "interchangeable blades," and case they were stored in, but was not able to precisely "see" the tip of the saw.
When Pam describes the saw, she gets several details correct, and one apparently important detail - a detail she emphasizes - (possibly) incorrect.

All this should give any open-minded person reason to think twice before dismissing the case.
And the obvious grey areas in Pam's "evidence" should give any open-minded person reason to wish for something more conclusive!

[Skeptical Greg]

Titus,

The chronology of events in the operating room certainly satisfies my curiosity about what actually took place.

Thanks for taking the time and doing the research.

Diogenes

[Jeff Corey]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Perhaps you should both try an Altered State of Consciousness to get rid of it.
You misunderstand. Even though Claus and I are identical twins separated prior to birth, we don't get simultaneous headaches.
Tart makes me nauseous.

[lekatt]

If the mind can make you nauseous, and/or give headaches, then the mind can also make you well.

:rub:

[Titus Rivas]

Here's two points from Julio Siqueira he's kindly made in his latest message to me:

Allow for the possibility of memory edition. Consciousness is far more tricky than most researchers seem to have been aware of. Can anyone be really sure that there is unconsciouness at all? Can anyone be sure of all that is remembered, even within the last 20 minutes. Modern science seems to suggest that the answer to these is: NO He means, at least as I understand it, that it is very difficult to draw any definitive scientific conclusions about consciousness and about the reliability of memory. In this sense it would be difficult to assess if the parts of Pam's NDE unrelated to the surgical procedure really took place during her flattened EEG. However, in my view, many NDEs do actually seem to take place during a flattened EEG, e.g. according to the studies by Pim van Lommel et al. So I see no specific reason to doubt the possibility of this happening also in the case of Pam Reynolds.

Another point considers the question what kind of evidence the case of Pam Reynolds provides:

This case is certainly good evidence for a lot of things. Its relative strength depends on the claim we are trying to support. As a "scientific proof" of afterlife, this case is highly introductory and tricky. As an "indication of the weakness of the traditional materialistic hypothesis" this case is almost devastating! Even though it is not a tenth as devastating as the ESP Ganzfeld research...
Actually, I disagree with Mr. Siquiera here in that I believe, as I said before on this thread, that evidence for ESP -or more generally against materialism- equals evidence for a component in man that is independent of the brain and will therefore survive its destruction.

Titus

[Jagger]

Titus, good work.

It appears to me looking at the timeline that the saw was used around 8:40. The lowering of blood temperature didn't begin until 10:50.

We can tie in the beginning of her experience with the saw and the veins to around 8:40. However after these observations, she apparently entered the tunnel fairly quickly. At least, we don't have 2 hours worth of observations available. The timeline of the surgery compared to her description suggests she entered the tunnel prior to 10:50 when the lowering of her temperature and everything else began leading to her flat EEG.

Pam Reynolds also reported that she heard a specific song playing on the radio when she returned to her body. However I didn't see anything that allows us to determine a precise time of return by matching with the song.

What is interesting to me is that the OBE began without the body in danger of dying. The tunnel experience also appears to have begun before cooling or the flat EEG. Without knowing the specific time of the song, we don't know when she returned to her body. We can make an assumption she returned towards the end of the operation. However we all just learned what happens when we make assumptions. If she returned at the end of the surgery, then we would still have what appears to be a functioning consciousness with a flat EEG brain.

We still have the accurate observations from an unconscious body which should be physically impossible. So the case is still important.

But I think it is interesting that the OBE occurred and tunnel experience began with a stable unconscious body that wasn't dying or dead yet. I am curious what triggered the experience.

[Jagger]

Perhaps we should go back for a moment to the Lommel study. Case from here:

http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm

"During a night shift an ambulance brings in a 44-year-old cyanotic, comatose man into the coronary care unit. He had been found about an hour before in a meadow by passers-by. After admission, he receives artificial respiration without intubation, while heart massage and defibrillation are also applied. When we want to intubate the patient, he turns out to have dentures in his mouth. I remove these upper dentures and put them onto the 'crash car'. Meanwhile, we continue extensive CPR. After about an hour and a half the patient has sufficient heart rhythm and blood pressure, but he is still ventilated and intubated, and he is still comatose. He is transferred to the intensive care unit to continue the necessary artificial respiration. Only after more than a week do I meet again with the patient, who is by now back on the cardiac ward. I distribute his medication. The moment he sees me he says: 'Oh, that nurse knows where my dentures are'. I am very surprised. Then he elucidates: 'Yes, you were there when I was brought into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them onto that car, it had all these bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer underneath and there you put my teeth.' I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of CPR. When I asked further, it appeared the man had seen himself lying in bed, that he had perceived from above how nurses and doctors had been busy with CPR. He was also able to describe correctly and in detail the small room in which he had been resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present like myself. At the time that he observed the situation he had been very much afraid that we would stop CPR and that he would die. And it is true that we had been very negative about the patient's prognosis due to his very poor medical condition when admitted. The patient tells me that he desperately and unsuccessfully tried to make it clear to us that he was still alive and that we should continue CPR. He is deeply impressed by his experience and says he is no longer afraid of death. 4 weeks later he left hospital as a healthy man."

From an interview, Lommel gives greater detail on the condition of the patient upon arrival at the hospital here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/timeless_eye/message/1416?source=1

It was a 43-year-old man who had an out-of-hospital
(cardiac) arrest and so when he was admitted to the hospital, they had been doing CPR for more than half an hour. So he was deeply unconscious and cyanotic when he was admitted to the hospital. He was in very bad shape. He had no blood pressure, no heartbeat, and so they were performing CPR. And after 1.5 hours in the hospital at last he had blood pressure and heart beat, but there was brain damage. So, there was no spontaneous respiration.


Here we have a cardiac arrest case. Upon arrival at the hospital, he had no blood pressure or heartbeat. According to Lommel, a flat EEG occurs within 6-10 seconds of cardiac arrest. Yet the individual appears to have observed his arrival at the hospital and resuscitation attempts. Without heartbeat shouldn't this individual have had a flat EEG during the time of arrival and resuscitation attempts corresponding with his observations.

Added.....CPR may have prevented a flat EEG.

[Jagger]

Don't the gravitational forces involved in a singularity also result in the laws of space/time breaking down at the event horizon?

REprise, my understanding is the laws of physics breaks down not at the event horizon but upon reaching the singularity itself. At the event horizon, light cannot escape the gravitational pull of the black hole but it is still part of our spacetime. The singularity itself at the center of the blackhole should result in a tear of spacetime putting it outside of our spacetime. And it very well may be outside of all spacetime entirely. If the singularity is outside of all spacetime, then it would be a region of timelessness similiar to existence at the speed of light.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Jagger
Perhaps we should go back for a moment to the Lommel study. Case from here:


.....He had been found about an hour, before in a meadow by passers-by. ....




The skeptic in me wonders what kept him alive for an hour before he arrived at the emergency room...:confused:

[Titus Rivas]

I received a third reply from Pam Reynolds. This time about the veridical impressions of the surgery:

After I was put to sleep, Cold blankets were wrapped around me in order to stop my heart. My brain function then flatlined. Then they began the cut downs and opening of my skull. There were no gaping holes and my head hurt so badly that I was unaware of the minute pain in the groin for 2 days. According to Dr. Robert Spetzler "there was nothing, nothing, nothing at the time of the opening of the skull." All of this is a matter of record.


Apart from revealing the fact that her head hurt a lot after the operation so that she was unaware of the pain in her groin for two days, the message certainly shows Pam's willingness to respond to skeptical views of her NDE. What she says about her brain having been flatlined could well refer to her having been anesthetized at the time. The difference between a flat EEG and general anesthesia is not at all obvious for a person without medical training (it wasn't for me before I studied this case). Unless Julio Siqueira and myself are wrong in our interpretation of the relevant passages by Dr. Sabom. Which would only strenghten the case even more.

Titus

[SteveGrenard]

Thanks for the account of Pam's surgery with the details which confirmed my own observations. The timelines are good but we are still left with the fact that Pam's NDE observations ocurred before she was clinically dead, which IS as it shoud be if it is an NDE experience.


I think what happened in this case was, because death was induced in this patient, there was a rush to attribute her experiences to this period and use it to bolster the case that she could not have heard this or felt that if she was flat-lined EEG as well as heart (which is BTW done all the time in open heart surgery).


Insofar as the sodium pentathol is concerned, it is an ultra-short-acting barbiturate that depresses the central nervous system, slows heart rate, and lowers blood pressure. In the relaxed state produced by the drug, subjects are more susceptible to suggestion and are therefore easier to interrogate. The drug does not actually guarantee that people to whom it is given will tell the truth, however. Often, it makes subjects "gabby" without revealing any important information.

A bolus of sodium pentothal or other short-acting barbiturate is used for induction of anesthesia; this is what was undoubtedly done in Pam's case. Anesthesia at any level is defnitely NOT the same as being dead although your 5 senses are "deadened."

We dont know exactly when the Au-EVP clickers were placed in both Pam's ears as described which would block her ability to hear external sounds normally. Unless I didnt catch that. Was it before or after they started the groin procedure and hence made the veins comment she said she heard?

[Titus Rivas]

Hi Steve,


The click(er)s are mentioned on pages 39 and 43 of Light and Death (see the quotes material). On page 39 it says:

Standard EEG electrodes taped to her head would record cerebral cortical brain activity. The auditory nerve center located in the brain stem would be tested repeatedly using 100-decibel clicks emitted from small, molded speakers inserted into her ears. In response to these clicks, sharp spikes on the electrogram (i.e. evoked potentials) would assure the surgical team that the brain stem was intact.

This is confirmed at the beginning of Chapter 10, p. 184:

Could Pam have heard the intraoperative conversation and then used this to reconstruct an out-of-body experience? At the beginning of the procedure, molded ear speakers were placed in each ear as a test for auditory and brain-stem reflexes. These speakers occlude the ear canals and altogether eliminate the possibility of physical hearing. Despite this, she reports having heard, during her out-of-body experience, "something about my veins and arteries being very small. I believe it was a female voice and that it was Dr. Murray; but I'm not sure. She was the cardiologist [sic]. I remember thinking that I should have told her about that."


Titus

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Thanks for the account of Pam's surgery with the details which confirmed my own observations. ......



Except, for when the craniotomy took place..

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
...................................

Summarizing, Pam did report an NDE for the stage of flat EEG and she really does seem to have had veridical impressions of the surgical procedures. She just didn't have the latter during the stage of flat EEG.

All this should give any open-minded person reason to think twice before dismissing the case.


No Titus.... Once is enough.
There is no way for anyone to know, if anything Pam experienced, took place while she was brain dead, and the rational explanation is that she didn't..

This is the obvious conclusion from all the evidence you have presented.

Let us know when you have more..

And I'm certainly not dismissing the case, only the conclusions that you would seem to have us come to.

[Titus Rivas]

There is no way for anyone to know, if anything Pam experienced, took place while she was brain dead, and the rational explanation is that she didn't..

Well, Diogenes, just tell me why it should be the rational explanation! It's just is the 'most parsimonious' or even only possible explanation within a materialist-scientific theoretical framework. It's not the exactly the 'most parsimonious' explanation within any other (scientific) theoretical framework. As stated repeatedly by Interesting Ian, scientific theorizing does not equal materialist theorizing.

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

Without knowing the specific time of the song, we don't know when she returned to her body. We can make an assumption she returned towards the end of the operation. However we all just learned what happens when we make assumptions. If she returned at the end of the surgery, then we would still have what appears to be a functioning consciousness with a flat EEG brain. Good point, Jagger!

This is what is said by Michael B. Sabom about the circumstances of her return:

The cardiac surgeon quickly placed the two defibrillator paddles on Pam's chest and shocked her heart with 50 joules of electricity. No response. The defibrillator was then charged with 100 joules and reapplied. After this second jolt of electricity, the familiar beep-beep-beep of normal sinus rhythm brought forth sighs of relief from the cardiac surgical team, who were preparing to cut open her chest to revive her heart. And Pam began her "return" from her near-death experience:

My grandmother didn't take me back through the tunnel, or even send me back or ask me to go. She just looked up at me. I expected to go with her, but it was communicated to me that she just didn't thìnk she would do that. My uncle said he would do it. He's the one who took me back through the end of the tunnel. Everything was fine. I did want to go.

But then I got to the end of it and saw the thing, my body. I didn't want to get into it. . . . It looked terrible, like a train wreck. It looked like what it was: dead. I believe it was covered. It scared me and I didn't want to look at it.

It was communicated to me that it was like jumping into a swimming pool. No problem,just jump right into the swimming pool. I didn't want to, but I guess I was late or something because he (the uncle) pushed me. I felt a definite repelling and at the same time a pulling from the body. The body was pulling and the tunnel was pushing. . . . It was like diving into a pool of ice water. . . . It hurt!

With additional warming and reinfusion of blood, the cardiopulrnonary bypass machine was turned off at 12:32 P.M., when
Pam's temperature had reached a life-sustaining but still subnormal 89.6 degrees. Her body was then deinstrumented and her

Page 47

surgical wounds closed. The music in the background began playing rock as Spetzler's younger assistants took over the closing surgical duties. The songs did not escape Pam's notice:

When I carne back, they were playing "Hotel California" and the line was "You can check out anytime you like, but vou can never leave." I mentioned [later] to Dr. Brown that that was incredibly insensitive and he told me that I needed to sleep more. [laughter] When I regained consciousness, I was still on the respirator.

Spetzler's surgical report indicates that at 2:10 P.M. the "patient was taken to the recovery room still intubated, but in stable condition."

Titus

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


You seem to be conflating science with materialism. At the very least you should replace the word science with the word naturalism. But since materialism cannot explain conscious states whatsoever, then how could it explain special conscious states like NDE's?

Sure naturalism can’t explain consciousness, but neither can supernaturalism. Most if not all supernatural explanations aren't explanations at all, but rather a statement that science will never be able to explain something.

I really don't understand why you pretend that "it's supernatural" is an explanation. If you asked how Bumblebees could fly with the wingspan they have (which science couldn't explain some years ago) and you was answered "it's not supernatural" would you consider that a satisfactory answer? If no why would the oppose answer, namely "it IS supernatural" be satisfactory?

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


When you say "explained" are you simply referring to correlations between conscious states and brain states? Within the context of any materialist based metaphysic I'm not sure how an explanation could amount to more than that.

Yes, are you saying that even if a 100% correlation between a brain state and NDEs was found you would still not believe it was a natural phenomenon :eek:

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by lekatt


Why would you need to know everything about the brain, to know it was dead and consciousness continued. We know consciousness continues after death by the information NDEers bring back with them when they return to life.

Their brains are not dead. If somebody is dead using the brain-death criteria they're going to stay dead, at least according to out current experience. Besides we don't really know if NDEs are experienced before, under or after the EEG goes flat. If it could be proven that NDEs happened while the EEG was flat that might suggest that NDEs were paranormal, but how would you prove that?

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Jagger


I don't believe her chances of survival within this surgical procedure was very high. I think your hypothesis that she spent what was very possibly her last days on earth preparing a hoax stretches credibility. And if we assume she did research the operation to exacting detail, how was she able to recount observations independent of the procedure such as conversations, actions of specific doctors, etc without a functioning brain? To complete a hoax with the detail of Reynolds, the doctors and nurses would have to assist in the hoax by confirming observations independent of the actual procedure. You are suggesting a very elaborate hoax assisted by highly respected doctors and nurses with nothing to gain. I just don't find this hypothesis credible with human nature considering the individuals involved.

I have no idea how good her chances of survival was, but in any case you're probably right that a patient under those circumstances is unlikely to start planning a scam, but it only takes one out of the people who undergo this or similar surgery so we can't rule out the possibility. In any case prior knowledge doesn't have to be obtained through conscious cheating. Pam could fx have seen the bone saw she described and then subconsciously worked it into her NDE. This probably couldn’t account for all of the hits, but as I said we have no solid evidence that the case is reported correctly.

In any case the doctors wouldn't need to be involved. Having looked through the webpage the actions and conversations she reported was "Someone said something about my veins and arteries being very small. I believe it was a female voice and that it was Dr. Murray, but I'm not sure.". Pam could have known in advance that her veins were small, and it could very well be commonplace to comment on the size of the veins if this was relevant to the operation.

Edited to add: It turn out that Pam did know that her veins were small

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Reynolds reported as saying) : "something about my veins and arteries being very small. I believe it was a female voice and that it was Dr. Murray; but I'm not sure. She was the cardiologist [sic]. I remember thinking that I should have told her about that."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by Jagger


Although I am curious whether you have any evidence which supports your idea that the Pam Reynolds study may be a fraud?

It may be fraud because Pam said nothing that she couldn't have known in advance. The story may have been misreported due to the notorious unreliability of human memory, and because Dr. Saborn failed to take the elementary precaution of recording what happened. This to me seems so stupid it almost defies description, but even if there is a good reason for it, it still wouldn't make the testimony more reliable. The case may also have been caused by a combination of not necessarily conscious prior knowledge and misreporting. I obviously can't prove that any of this is the explanation, but I don't have burden of proof.

[Titus Rivas]

Kerberos said:

If it could be proven that NDEs happened while the EEG was flat that might suggest that NDEs were paranormal, but how would you prove that?

Well, quite simple. If there were paranormal veridical impressions of unusual events which specifically took place during the flat EEG, that would be very close to a hard evidence that the patient would have had at least part of the NDE during that stage. However, in the case of Pam Reynolds we also have evidence for a paranormal process, as she supposedly largely observed correctly specific details of the surgery (previously unknown to her) while she was anesthetised and couldn't receive external auditory signals.

Titus

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
As Interesting Ian repeatedly put it, science does not equal materialism. It will take some time to change a lot of people's frame of mind, but many of us may live to see an era when materialism (and maybe even the debunking efforts of skeptics) will be considered as no more than a historically necessary phase in the development of science. Dualism (and other views which allow for the existence of a non-physical mind or self) and what is now known as "para"-psychology will then be integrated into science.
Titus

Perhaps, but I won't hold my breath :D

[Titus Rivas]

It may be fraud because Pam said nothing that she couldn't have known in advance. The story may have been misreported due to the notorious unreliability of human memory, and because Dr. Saborn failed to take the elementary precaution of recording what happened.

In my opinion, this is not what we would normally understand by the concept of fraud.

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

Julio Siqueira has kindly sent me the digital version of the preface of Light and Death, and on page 9 we can read:

Dr. Robert Spetzler generously assisted by ensuring that my reconstruction of his surgical procedure on "Pam Reynolds" was accurate.

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

Julio Siqueira has responded to this comment of mine:

Actually, I disagree with Mr. Siquiera here in that I believe, as I said before on this thread, that evidence for ESP -or more generally against materialism- equals evidence for a component in man that is independent of the brain and will therefore survive its destruction.

by these words:

I don't know if I expressed myself well in this passage above, but actually I meant something very close to what you did in the lines that followed. What I really meant was that I think the ESP-Ganzfeld research is ten times (at least) more devastating to the traditional materialistic hypothesis than Pam's case is. And I fully agree that it (ESP-Ganzfeld) is evidence for a component in man that is (or at least that "may be") independent of the brain. I might only use "may survive" instead of "will survive"

Titus

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Kerberos
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Interesting Ian


You seem to be conflating science with materialism. At the very least you should replace the word science with the word naturalism. But since materialism cannot explain conscious states whatsoever, then how could it explain special conscious states like NDE's?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Kerberos
Sure naturalism can’t explain consciousness, but neither can supernaturalism. Most if not all supernatural explanations aren't explanations at all, but rather a statement that science will never be able to explain something.



But why do you suppose consciousness requires an explanation? Why cannot it be considered to be a basic ontological reality much as scientists consider electrons are now? If consciousness is not reducible or analysable, then no (scientific) explanation is possible or necessary.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Interesting Ian


When you say "explained" are you simply referring to correlations between conscious states and brain states? Within the context of any materialist based metaphysic I'm not sure how an explanation could amount to more than that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Yes, are you saying that even if a 100% correlation between a brain state and NDEs was found you would still not believe it was a natural phenomenon



Yes that's right.

[Titus Rivas]

Yes, are you saying that even if a 100% correlation between a brain state and NDEs was found you would still not believe it was a natural phenomenon

If I may also make a comment on this:
it wholly depends on what you understand by natural. If you mean by natural that it belongs to physical (non-subjective, non-conscious) reality, consciousness automatically becomes something (un- or) supernatural. If however, you understand by natural anything which does not as such belong to a the (supposed) ontological domain of a supernatural divinity, then consciousness is just as natural as the physical world. Another perspective, entertained by Spinoza or a large part of Indian philosophy, is that the natural and supernatural cannot be fundamentally distinguished from each other, as everything would form part of God (pan[en]theism).

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

Kerberos said:

Sure naturalism can’t explain consciousness, but neither can supernaturalism. Most if not all supernatural explanations aren't explanations at all, but rather a statement that science will never be able to explain something.

Have you ever wondered WHY what you call supernaturalism states that science will never be able to explain something, e.g. consciousness? Do you really believe it is just a naive, or as some call it 'pessimistic' statement? Or might it be held because of certain ontological characteristics (in this case: subjective qualia) which simply don't fit in with the ontological definition of physical reality used by science? If so, it is obvious that no scientific evidence can ever reduce the phenomenon of consciousness to the material world. Unless we redefine matter as something which can become qualitative and subjective, it is simply out of the question that there could ever be a materialist or physicalist explanation of consciousness. This isn't a question of arrogance or naivete on the part of supernaturalism, but exclusively of logical analysis. As some might know by now, I entirely agree with Interesting Ian in this respect.

Titus

[juninho]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


But why do you suppose consciousness requires an explanation? Why cannot it be considered to be a basic ontological reality much as scientists consider electrons are now? If consciousness is not reducible or analysable, then no (scientific) explanation is possible or necessary.


It can't be considered a basic ontological reality because there is no evidence that this is the case. Don't try and tie your beliefs to fundamental quantum mechanics, you should know by now that such a ploy is the last chance saloon of the woo-woo.

Ian, you must realise that this is your take on the subject. Many of us see "consciousness" as being an inevitable function of the brain and its neurological pathways. It is you who reads more into the whole shebang. I would disagree vehemently that "consciousness" is not reducible or analysable, the whole concept of "consciousness" is a philisophical argument in anycase and furthermore why are you so adamant that the apparent processes that make up "consciousness" are exempt from scientific evaluation anyway? Oh, don't tell me its all to do with qualia and its mystic ways.

Yes that's right.

Well I find that very sad. You're basically saying that if presented with evidence (no matter how strong) you would reject it in preference to your belief in NDEs. How open-minded you are (not).

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


.........

while she was anesthetised and couldn't receive external auditory signals.

Titus


Surely, you are not proposing that ' hearing ' does not take place, merely as a result of one's ear openings being plugged?

[Titus Rivas]

Surely, you are not proposing that ' hearing ' does not take place, merely as a result of one's ear openings being plugged? I was referring to her hearing (and understanding) what was being said during the operation.

Titus

[lekatt]

Originally posted by Kerberos


Their brains are not dead. If somebody is dead using the brain-death criteria they're going to stay dead, at least according to out current experience. Besides we don't really know if NDEs are experienced before, under or after the EEG goes flat. If it could be proven that NDEs happened while the EEG was flat that might suggest that NDEs were paranormal, but how would you prove that?

Pam was brain dead for approx. two hours. With no blood in her brain. I consider that as brain dead as anyone will ever be.

I have had the experience, so I know that the experience is real as it appears to be. But it will take a while for the skeptics to understand.

http://ndeweb.com/FAQz05.htm

There are hundreds of these experiences.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
........

However, in the case of Pam Reynolds we also have evidence for a paranormal process, as she supposedly largely observed correctly specific details of the surgery (previously unknown to her) while she was anesthetised and couldn't receive external auditory signals.

Titus

I cannot believe you are still spouting your claims about ' details ' and ' specificity ' in the same sentence
with ' supposedly '..

What ' details ' are you referring to, besides :
....I didn't see them use it on my head, but I think I heard it being used on something...
I believe it was a female voice and that it was Dr. Murray, but I'm not sure.
I believe it ( the body, hers ? ) was covered Was it? Of course it was.. This seems to have been a detail that would have been easily discerned ??? Also ... It looked terrible, like a train wreck. It is my understanding that the body was fully draped except for the surgery access points of the head and groin.. The ' train wreck ' image is obviously metaphorical, and nothing that she observed...

All I can conclude, is that we simply disagree on the meaning of words like ' detail ' and ' accurate '.. But of course, us skeptics take a lot of flack for that...

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Kerberos said:

Well, quite simple. If there were paranormal veridical impressions of unusual events which specifically took place during the flat EEG, that would be very close to a hard evidence that the patient would have had at least part of the NDE during that stage.

Sorry you lost me, what does veridical mean?

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Kerberos said:
However, in the case of Pam Reynolds we also have evidence for a paranormal process, as she supposedly largely observed correctly specific details of the surgery (previously unknown to her) while she was anesthetised and couldn't receive external auditory signals.



The problem is that we can't know that she didn't know in advance and we can't know if the story is accurate.

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It may be fraud because Pam said nothing that she couldn't have known in advance. The story may have been misreported due to the notorious unreliability of human memory, and because Dr. Saborn failed to take the elementary precaution of recording what happened.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In my opinion, this is not what we would normally understand by the concept of fraud.

Titus

My quote is probably ambiguous, what I meant was that it could be fraud because she said nothing she couldn't have known in advance Period

Another possibility would be that the case was misreported, which wouldn't be fraud.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by lekatt


Pam was brain dead for approx. two hours. With no blood in her brain. I consider that as brain dead as anyone will ever be.



This is absurd.. One hour is about the outside limit of circulatory arrest to the brain.

[Titus Rivas]

All I can conclude, is that we simply disagree on the meaning of words like ' detail ' and ' accurate '.. But of course, us skeptics take a lot of flack for that...

Perhaps we also disagree on what we've read about the case. Do you really need to be reminded of the groin procedure and the surgical saw? As it seems, you still remember the groin as you mention it yourself. But then, whom should we call just a bit too unspecific here? Pam Reynolds or someone whose name also refers to a follower of Antisthenes :D?

Titus

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


Perhaps we also disagree on what we've read about the case. Do you really need to be reminded of the groin procedure and the surgical saw? As it seems, you still remember the groin as you mention it yourself. But then, whom should we call just a bit too unspecific here? Pam Reynolds or someone whose name also refers to a follower of Antisthenes :D?

Titus

Of course I don't need to be reminded, but you keep bringing them up as ' detailed and accurate '..

And I am pointing out that we disagree on the meaning of those words.

[Titus Rivas]

Kerberos said: Sorry you lost me, what does veridical mean? A veridical impression is an impression which corresponds well with what is being perceived (meaning the event, person, animal, object, etc.).

The problem is that we can't know that she didn't know in advance and we can't know if the story is accurate. You're right that we can't know it to the extent that we can know that 1 + 1= 2 or to the extent one can know what causes a certain phenomenon in a controlled experiment. However, as I've said before, science also involves forms of knowledge of what is plausible or probable. In this case, it is plausible that Pam Reynolds did not know in advance.

Diogenes said: Of course I don't need to be reminded, but you keep bringing them up as ' detailed and accurate '..

And I am pointing out that we disagree on the meaning of those words.

Well, apparently...


Also see this excellent paper by Mary Rose Barrington (http://www.c-far.org/docs/articles/mrb_what_is_proof.htm)

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

Lekatt, you referred to:


http://ndeweb.com/FAQz05.htm

This seems like a very strong case. Would it be possible to ask the respondent to provide more details of the case?

We need to document as many cases of this type as possible, i.e. cases which, like that of Pam Reynolds, point at veridical impressions during an NDE.

Titus

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas

Also see this excellent paper by Mary Rose Barrington (http://www.c-far.org/docs/articles/mrb_what_is_proof.htm)

Titus


I certainly understand why you feel that paper is excellent.. I will add another word to my list of words, upon whose meaning, we seem to disagree.


I can refer you to many studies that explain why eyewitness testimony is often unreliable.

Of course, it sometimes is ( reliable). The problem remains of separating the two. I can be reasonably sure, it is not a matter going with my personal need, for a particular story to be true.

Then again.. Eyewitness testimony, while one is unconscious., is a whole nother' matter.

Lest you forget Titus, your original premise, that the Pam Reynolds case was remarkable, because of her knowledge of events that took place while she was flat-lined, has been debunked..

Maybe we need a new thread about what your present point is..??

[Titus Rivas]

Diogenes:

Lest you forget Titus, your original premise, that the Pam Reynolds case was remarkable, because of her knowledge of events that took place while she was flat-lined, has been debunked.. Maybe we need a new thread about what your present point is..??

I thought that I made that clear already,
(1) Pam Reynolds claims to have had veridical and paranormal impressions of parts of the surgery, and these claims certainly appear to be quite plausible.
(2) Pam Reynolds claims to have entered other more 'spiritual' phases of her NDE during her flat EEG. Again these claims seem plausible and we don't have any particular reason to doubt them.

None of these claims have been debunked and we don't need to start a new thread, as my point is basically the same as when I started this one. Namely that the case cannot be plausibly explained away by a materialist hypothesis.

Titus

[lekatt]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Lekatt, you referred to:



This seems like a very strong case. Would it be possible to ask the respondent to provide more details of the case?

We need to document as many cases of this type as possible, i.e. cases which, like that of Pam Reynolds, point at veridical impressions during an NDE.

Titus

I don't know any more than this, it appeared in a newsgroup. I don't know if one could search for it and find more info or not.

There are literally hundreds of these cases in the NDE literature, that's why I keep harping on reading the material. Those who do serious research always become belivers.

[Titus Rivas]

I don't know if one could search for it and find more info or not

I know there is an amazing number of case reports, and that they constitute good evidence for survival, as stated before by yourself and Interesting Ian.

However, that doesn't mean we can't try to find documented cases as these make the survival hypothesis for the undocumented cases stronger, another point mentioned by Interesting Ian by the way. By documented cases I here mean cases in which the veridical impressions are corroborated by the medical staff (or others).

Could you send me (through a personal message) the e-mail address of the respondent at the list? I will try to reach this person and find out how he'd feel about more 'exposure'.

Keep up the good work, Lekatt!

Titus

[reprise]

Originally posted by Diogenes


This is absurd.. One hour is about the outside limit of circulatory arrest to the brain.

There's a thread over at IIDB in which a doctor familiar with such procedures explains in significant detail the time constraints within which such operations are performed and why those time constraints are relevant. I'll see if I can hunt it up.

It's worth remembering that we are using terms which have quite specific meanings here in a rather crude manner, and that what is generally true of human physiology in respect to spontaneous catastrophic events may be modified when those events are medically induced under highly controlled conditions.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by reprise


There's a thread over at IIDB in which a doctor familiar with such procedures explains in significant detail the time constraints within which such operations are performed and why those tiem constraints are relevant. I'll see if I can hunt it up.

It's worth remembering that we are using terms which have quite specific meanings here in a rather crude manner, and that what is generally true of human physiology in respect to spontaneous catastrophic events may be modified when those events are medically induced under highly controlled conditions. Hypothermic Circulatory Arrest Procedures for Giant Intracranial Aneurysms (http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nsg/NSGCPMC/articles/1998hyp.html)
With essentially no blood pressure and the brain at 18¡C, aneurysm repair can proceed in an unencumbered environment. There is no mechanical intrusion of temporary clips, bleeding from opened arterial structures can be titrated to zero if required, and the ischemic tolerance of the brain shut off from blood flow is not an issue until 60 minutes after the initiation of complete circulatory arrest. Tension in the operating room is reduced and a more perfect clipping can generally be achieved than with other techniques.

[reprise]

Thanks Diogenes. I interpret that data slightly differently to yourself. I read it as indicating that the first 60 minutes is pretty much "guaranteed" operating time, but that after that period the risks of irreversible damage increase with elapsed time.

While I don't know that it's particular relevant to medically induced "brain death", can someone clarify the procedure followed in the US for withdrawing life support on the basis of "brain death". Persistence is certainly an essential part of the protocol here. No doctor is going to withdraw life support from a patient who has showed no indications of brain activity for only a period of only a couple of hours. I'm not personally familiar with any instances here in which life support has been withdrawn on the basis of "brain death" less than 24 hours after brain activity ceased being detected, and as far as I know even once the decision to withdraw life support has been made testing for brain activity must be conducted once again before life support measures are actually withdrawn. In other words, brain death is not declared on the basis of observations made over a period of a couple of hours.

[SteveGrenard]

Life support is withdrawn on the basis of at least three flat EEGS over three days plus additional tests for brain stem activity, especially including the Apnea Test. The patient is removed from the ventilator, placed on 100% O2 administrered passively, not under positive pressure; after up to 4 minutes a blood gas is drawn. The PCO2, which is a powerful respiratory stimulant, must be 60 mmHg or higher. If it is this high as it would be ater this procedure and the patient does not breathe spontaneously then the brain stem is considered dead as well as the cortex (on the basis of the EEGS).

This argument in Pam's case does not apply since she was not taken off the ventilator, she was medicated (whereas most coma/flat line victims are not on drugs that can cause hallucinations or have any psychotropic effects such as sodium pentathol and other anesthetic agents.

Does it indicate anywhere that they did the APNEA TEST on Pam Reynolds?

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by reprise
Thanks Diogenes. I interpret that data slightly differently to yourself. I read it as indicating that the first 60 minutes is pretty much "guaranteed" operating time, but that after that period the risks of irreversible damage increase with elapsed time.

While I don't know that it's particular relevant to medically induced "brain death", can someone clarify the procedure followed in the US for withdrawing life support on the basis of "brain death". Persistence is certainly an essential part of the protocol here. No doctor is going to withdraw life support from a patient who has showed no indications of brain activity for only a period of only a couple of hours. I'm not personally familiar with any instances here in which life support has been withdrawn on the basis of "brain death" less than 24 hours after brain activity ceased being detected, and as far as I know even once the decision to withdraw life support has been made testing for brain activity must be conducted once again before life support measures are actually withdrawn. In other words, brain death is not declared on the basis of observations made over a period of a couple of hours.

My comments were in response to lekatt's suggestion that Pam Reynolds was brain-dead for two hours during her surgery. There is nothing to indicate that was the case.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Diogenes:

I thought that I made that clear already,
(1) Pam Reynolds claims to have had veridical and paranormal impressions of parts of the surgery, and these claims certainly appear to be quite plausible.
(2) Pam Reynolds claims to have entered other more 'spiritual' phases of her NDE during her flat EEG. Again these claims seem plausible and we don't have any particular reason to doubt them.

None of these claims have been debunked and we don't need to start a new thread, as my point is basically the same as when I started this one. Namely that the case cannot be plausibly explained away by a materialist hypothesis.

Titus

You are correct. None of those claims have been debunked. Nor can they be. No one can know what, if anything, took place in Pam Reynolds brain while she was flat-lined.
But to state that this was your original claim is ludicrous, as revealed below.

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
In this case, the subject would have observed the procedure while her brain processes had been artificially stopped.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by juninho
Originally posted by Interesting Ian
But why do you suppose consciousness requires an explanation? Why cannot it be considered to be a basic ontological reality much as scientists consider electrons are now? If consciousness is not reducible or analysable, then no (scientific) explanation is possible or necessary.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jun
It can't be considered a basic ontological reality because there is no evidence that this is the case.



It is basic reasoning which leads a rational person to conclude this. If in fact consciousness can be reduced to something else then clearly it is incumbent upon you to demonstrate this.


Don't try and tie your beliefs to fundamental quantum mechanics, you should know by now that such a ploy is the last chance saloon of the woo-woo.


a) Where have I tried to do this?

b) Even if I tried to do this what is your reasoning suggesting or demonstating that this is somehow an illegitimate enterprise?



Ian, you must realise that this is your take on the subject. Many of us see "consciousness" as being an inevitable function of the brain and its neurological pathways. It is you who reads more into the whole shebang. I would disagree vehemently that "consciousness" is not reducible or analysable,



Well if so then I would presume you are able to demonstrate that consciousness is a function or reducible to the brain? Or are you just spouting forth received "wisdom" without any clue whatsoever about how you would be able to do this? (ie spouting forth a load of cr*p?). Do you have any clue whatsoever about such issues?? If you don't then why should I believe you? In order to demonstrate that A is a function of B it is required that you give some reasoning rather than simply declare it. :rolleyes:



the whole concept of "consciousness" is a philisophical argument in anycase



Which you don't appear to be very good at.



and furthermore why are you so adamant that the apparent processes that make up "consciousness" are exempt from scientific evaluation anyway? Oh, don't tell me its all to do with qualia and its mystic ways.



I repeat what I have said before on this subject:

Let me address the reason why I think materialism is unintelligible. What we need to do is take a look at materialism to see if it is internally consistant. Now the particular question I would like to address is why should we suppose that other peoples bodies are "inhabited" by conscious minds (or why phenomenal consciousness is associated with brains). Your argument no doubt will be that materialism stipulates this to be so; it is an axiomatic premise of materialism. But this makes your definition of materialism an arbitrary one. A metaphysic which glosses over awkward facts. Allow me to explain.

It seems to me that materialism should stipulate that the physical exhausts reality. That once we have completely described the Universe in physical terms then we have said all that can be said about the Universe or reality.

But what is the physical? It seems to me that it should be everything, that, at least in principle, can be observed by anyone with appropriate faculties and suitable instruments. In other words all that is objective exists, or to put it another way, all that is discernable from the third person perspective exists. This will also include things which can only be indirectly seen (although strictly speaking I reject the direct/indirect dichotomy). This then includes such entities as electrons, because although they can only be "indirectly" seen they nevertheless play fruitful roles in our theories describing the world ie we need to hypothesise electrons in order to explain certain aspects of reality.

Now there is something peculiar about conscious experience which marks it off from all other existents. It is simply this. It cannot be observed or detected by anyone with appropriate faculties and/or suitable instruments! Thus according to my prior definition of the physical it is not a physical existent. Thus I may have toothache to take an arbitrary example. But you cannot observe that toothache, all you can obseve is the effects of the toothache, the grimace of pain for example. Conscious experiences in other words are irreducibly private.

Now you will no doubt say that by observing the grimace, or at least by observing the neurons fire, then you are observing the toothache since materialism holds that the toothache and its neural correlates are one and the same thing, or at least aspects of the same thing. But an objective examination of this toothache will necessarily leave out the subjective irreducibly sensation of pain. The actually sensation of pain does not figure into the physical facts about the pain according to our prior definition of the physical. Nor can we infer the sensation of pain since, unlike an electron, the (phenomenological) pain does not play a part in any description of our behaviour. The pain per se cannot play a part because pain per se is not part of the objective publically accessible realm. Only the neural correlates of the pain can play any fruitful role in our theories.

In short then either a materialist has to concede his metaphysic is internally inconsistent, or he must arbitrarily include phenomenological consciousness within his world picture. But if he opts for the latter then the whole prima facie plausibility of his world view crumbles away. No longer can he say that for something to exist it must be in principle be directly observable or play a fruitful role in some theory about the world, because this then necessarily precludes phenomenological consciousness. He
has to expand the notion of the physical to even include things that cannot be directly or even indirectly detected, even in principle! :eek:

This is what materialism entails and is just one of many reasons why we should reject this metaphysic.




II
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes that's right.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Juniho
Well I find that very sad.



You find it sad that I do not subscribe to something which is innately unintelligible?? Well well, sorry about that. But thankfully there are people still around who are not so hopelessly conditioned by the "wisdom" of the modern common western metaphysic. The fact that you find this "sad" is extremely depressing in itself. I would just say you're going to have to try a damn sight harder before I subscribe to your crazy irrational belief system.

I can only hope you'll become somewhat sadder in the years ahead as it becomes increasingly evident that your stupid irrational crazy ideas about the nature of reality become increasingly implausible.


You're basically saying that if presented with evidence (no matter how strong) you would reject it in preference to your belief in NDEs. How open-minded you are (not).



If you have any evidence whatsoever which is suggestive of the correctness of the materialist metaphysic then I would be delighted to hear it. Until such a time however, I will provisionally take the sensible option that you are a complete idiot who haplessly absorbs with an uncritical mind any ***** defending prevailing "wisdom".

[Titus Rivas]

But to state that this was your original claim is ludicrous, as revealed below.

You're right, Diogenes, that it would be incorrect, as my original claim was even stronger than the claim I uphold today. However, it would be really ludicrous to think that my original claim was totally different from my present ones. I've never said that my present claims are totally identical to my original ones. I've publicly corrected my original views while pointing out why this case is still so important.

Any other representation of what I did would be an embarassing (i.e. easily discovered) case of putting up a straw man. Not advisable I'd say.

A real debunking of the case of Pam Reynolds would have involved proving that she does not exist, that Michael B. Sabom is misrepresenting the case, that Dr. Spetzler is an imposter, that we have every reason to believe Pam's account of the operation is completely wrong or trivial, that we have every reason to believe that she did know what was going to happen in advance, etc. None of this has happened. Instead, the claim that the case is easily dismissed, has been effectively debunked. It has cost myself a few feathers, but the case still stands as evidence for an impressive paranormal process. I can't say I'm shocked by this result.

In the Netherlands many a skeptic would want to seriously misrepresent our thread. I truly hope most skeptics on this forum have other standards.


Titus

[Titus Rivas]

Pam Reynolds has sent me a fourth reply.

First, she states that she had never read any article or book about NDEs before her operation. She even remained skeptical about her own NDE until Dr. Sabom's investigation:

I seperated science and thought nde's were caused by brain malfunction. I still believed this until the research was done and I was informed years later.


About her spiritual views:

I believed in God but didn't go to church or stare into crystal balls. I still don't. You'll find my mind quite clinical to this day. (No, she doesn't say cynical, Diogenes:D)

About how paranormal her experiences were:

It would be better to ask those who've wittnessed these events. For me, there's nothing paranormal about it. She clearly understands something else by paranormal than most of us here do :roll:.

About pre-op briefing:

Dr. Karl Greene was in charge of that part. He's no longer at barrow. I suppose you could ask virtualy anyone about pre-op procedure. I have, and they all find it laughable to suggest that any patient would be led to the o.r or shown the instruments. I would have chickened out.

About other witnesses of the operation and/or her (original) account of her NDE:

I don't know how receptive these people are to this kind of questioning. They don't study nde and are busy saving lives but a few have appeared on documentary specials. You might have to come up with some scientific credintials to get into that door but hey, it wouldn't hurt to ask I suppose.

Ironically, Pam just had some surgery:

I just had some surgery on my jaw and must shut down for a time(DRS ORDERS). y'all have fun jabbin and duckin out in cyber-space. Just remember to play nice...it's an awful small sandbox. Take care of each other,
Pam reynolds

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

I have found a Karl Greene (http://virtualtrials.com/Gliadel/ContactDetails.cfm?drid=165) that might have been the one who gave Pam Reynolds the pre-op briefing. Unfortunately the website does not mention his e-mail address. I might send him something by snail mail.

Titus

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Pam Reynolds has sent me a fourth reply.

First, she states that she had never read any article or book about NDEs before her operation. She even remained skeptical about her own NDE until Dr. Sabom's investigation:



quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I seperated science and thought nde's were caused by brain malfunction. I still believed this until the research was done and I was informed years later.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



So she actually thought that her own NDE was some sort of elaborate hallucination? Does this include the time immediately after her experience and maybe even during the experience itself?? :eek: If so this would be in stark contrast to what most people feel after undergoing one of these experiences. Well at least from what I've read! I read the figures somewhere and I believe it was very close to 100% of NDE'ers who were convinced that the experience was real. But if Pam believed that what she experienced was an hallucination does this not imply that her experience might not have seemed as "real" as we might suppose? And what about other peoples NDE experiences? Can we really trust the figures? Maybe those accounts by people who were convinced of the genuineness of the experience get disproportionate attention in the media? I really wish that I knew some people who have undergone NDE's so I could question them about this. In my opinion the reality of the NDE is the key question in deciding whether this experience is for real or not.

You get so many conflicting reports about NDE's! It's impossible to determine what's true and what isn't :( Ideally I would need to undergo the experience myself in order to determine its "realness". I can imagine though undergoing an NDE, establishing to my satisfaction that it definitely seems real, and then being informed by the being of light or my dead relatives that I can't go back! No! NO!! No!!! {sweats} LMAO!

[Titus Rivas]

Ian,

I don't think the way Pam initially construed her NDE as a somatogenic hallucination has anything to do with how real it seemed to her. It rather seems to relate to her 'clinical mind' as she terms it. She simply did not have a concept of an NDE as anything more than hallucinatory. As she has written me, this only changed after the investigation.

I've seen a similar process here in the Netherlands with some unsolved Dutch Cases of the Reincarnation Type in young children. These cases typically show the same universal pattern found by Ian Stevenson and his associates, but many parents are simply unaware of such a pattern and tend to dismiss their child's statements as 'obviously' based on fantasy.

Also compare this with a lot of spontaneous cases which seem caused by ESP (or for that matter, PK). It depends very much on one's world view how the person tends to conceptualize such experiences.

All this is a matter of interpretation, rather than degrees of 'realness'.

Titus

[reprise]

Interesting and somewhat related research which follows on from Joseph's hypothesis that the human brain is Hard-wired for spirituality (http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/story1a122302.html) as the result of evolutionary adaptation.

God on the brain - transcript (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbraintrans.shtml)

God on the brain Q & A (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbrainqa.shtml)

[Loki]

Titus Rivas,

As part of investigating PR, Sabom taped the the interview. Has the *full* transcript of this taped interview ever been released publicly? What would it mean *to you* if there was a piece of information in that interview that was shown to be incorrect?

A real debunking of the case of Pam Reynolds would have involved proving that she does not exist, that Michael B. Sabom is misrepresenting the case, that Dr. Spetzler is an imposter, that we have every reason to believe Pam's account of the operation is completely wrong or trivial, that we have every reason to believe that she did know what was going to happen in advance, etc. None of this has happened.

Instead, the claim that the case is easily dismissed, has been effectively debunked.
I've seen nothing to convice me that the PR case has been debunked.

I've seen nothing to suggest that the PR case *must* be taken as "true until shown otherwise" . All the information that PR has given is information she could have obtained either before the operation, or in the two years between the operation and her interview with Sabom. And this "obtaining" might have been either deliberate, or coincidental.

The whole case starts with the assumption that the details the PR gave are "far beyond chance" - in other words, they aren't just lucky guesses. Would it be correct to say that your justification for this is "it seems unlikey to me that she would get that many guesses right?". Any idea how you might establish this probability, give a sample of 1?

Lets grant the first assumption - that the details are "far beyond chance". You wish to conclude that the "details were gathered during the NDE".

So the issue is how do we eliminate fraud? Spetzler isn't lying, because he has "too much too lose, and nothing to gain". Sabom isn't lying because the other two could easily expose him. Pam isn't lying because she's a "nice person". She had two years in which to gather the details of she wished. We don't thing this is what happened because ... we trust her.

Okay, let's accept that she's not willfully lying to us. So how do we know she isn't simpy "confused" about where the details came from? Because she says she isn't.

So your case, in a nutshell, appears to be :

If the details are too accurate to be coincidence, and If we trust PR not to be lying and if we accept her word that she could not have gathered these details accidentally, then we've proven that "something paranormal" has happened.

After 13 pages, when are you going to show why "luck" and "information leakage" are not possible? If you can't, then in what sense has "the claim that the case is easily dismissed has been effectively debunked"?

[lekatt]

Originally posted by reprise
Interesting and somewhat related research which follows on from Joseph's hypothesis that the human brain is Hard-wired for spirituality (http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/story1a122302.html) as the result of evolutionary adaptation.

God on the brain - transcript (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbraintrans.shtml)

God on the brain Q & A (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbrainqa.shtml)

Don't believe what you hear about brain mapping, check it out.

http://ndeweb.com/info02.htm

[Titus Rivas]

After 13 pages, when are you going to show why "luck" and "information leakage" are not possible? If you can't, then in what sense has "the claim that the case is easily dismissed has been effectively debunked"?

Loki, what has been claimed by myself and others is that is not plausible that Pam had enough information in advance to explain her NDE. I think that you could know after 13 pages, why we continue to claim that it really is not plausible. I will still try to contact Dr. Karl Greene as he's the main person who should know approximately how probable it would generally be that Pam got the information beforehand from the pre-op briefing or even afterwards.

But we already know that the information was not widely known even at the time Dr. Sabom first read about it and that the surgical procedure had just been developed. We also know that neither Dr. Sabom nor Dr. Spetzler find it plausible that Pam collected all the information normally. They are wise enough not to exclude the possibility completely, but they point out directly and indirectly that it shouldn't be considered plausible. We also know that Michael Sabom conducted a study in the eighties (mentioned on this thread) which included control subjects. It turned out their report on the surgery was significantly less accurate.

Knowing all this, it's really incomprehensible for me why anyone still wishes to claim that the case has been debunked.

We could say it's in principle possible that the case is not based on any paranormal process. But we cannot say, so far, that this possibility would be plausible. It's only within a materialist world view that the paranormal hypothesis can a priori never be more plausible than a normal one. But as I said before somewhere on the forum, that would mean it does not make sense to study any individual paranormal claim, as all paranormal claims should be dismissed out of hand within such a world view. Paranormal claims would equal delusions.

If we dismiss the absurd materialist ontology for philosophical reasons, as Interesting Ian, myself and others do, we're forced to look at the evidence in any particular individual case. If we do so in the PR case, it still seems very plausible that the process was not normal, but paranormal. At this point nothing has changed.

Titus

[reprise]

Titus, I don't think that any skeptic would refute the notion that some individual cases of NDEs offer more plausible evidence in support of the "after-life" hypothesis than others. When I posted a link a while back to the Lancet article on the Lommel study I specifically outlined why the data collected in that particular study would be considered by skeptics to be of a higher quality than some other research which is offered in support of the "after-life" hypothesis.

Even before the Lommel study, it was apparent that the original "dying brain" hypothesis about NDEs was flawed - hypoxia/anoxia was a central part of that hypothesis, and while the fact that NDEs occur in the absence of hypoxia doesn't mean that oxygen deprivation is never a factor in the NDE experience, it is demonstrably not an essential factor.

When I worked in the field of HIV/AIDS we used to repeatedly be challenged about the methods of transmission of HIV on the basis of those people who contracted HIV in the absence of any known risk factors. As the question of whether there was an undiscovered method of HIV transmission wasn't a purely academic one, those cases where there were no apparent risk factors were investigated pretty thoroughly in Western cultures, even in cases where the investigators were fairly certain the person was either deliberately lying about their risk-taking behaviour or had simply forgotten about occasions when they might have been at risk. While the science said that there had to be a risk factor present, and it would have been simple to simply assume the nature of that risk factor, those apparently anomalous individual cases were investigated - and when they were thoroughly investigated the working hypothesis in respect of HIV transmission was strengthened.

My personal bias is towards prospective, longitudinal, and cohort studies. There's too much evidence about the fallibility of human memory for me to assume that statements collected from people long after the event they are recollecting has passed are reliable evidence. Even statements collected immediately after an event has occured are often at odds with the empirical facts, but at least they are likely to have been misremembered according to genuine misperception rather than contaminated by information received after the events occured. I find it absolutely fascinating just how "wrong" the observations made by eyewitnesses to an event can be when compared to objective data.

[Titus Rivas]

I obviously see your point, reprise, but I still hold that despite all the distortions that might occur over time, we have no specific reason to believe that this is what happened in Pam's case. We actually have reason to believe that this wasn't it, due to the statements by Dr. Spetzler and more generally the research by Dr. Sabom.

As I immediately recognized, my own original view on the case as involving veridical impressions of the surgery during flat EEG was shown to be wrong, but Spetzler's and Sabom's statements on the case haven't lost any of their force since I started this thread.

Titus

[Loki]

Titus Rivas,

Knowing all this, it's really incomprehensible for me why anyone still wishes to claim that the case has been debunked.
Hopefully, you realise that no one has attempted to "debunk" the PR case? The question you've posed since the begining is "is the PR case solid evidence for NDE?". You seem to confusing that question with a second one - "is the PR case true".

...but I still hold that despite all the distortions that might occur over time, we have no specific reason to believe that this is what happened in Pam's case.
Since both astrology and homeopathy have a similar large database of anecdotal evidence to support their various claims, should I assume that you have "no specific reason" to doubt any particular individual claim from these areas?

Finally, I note you still haven't commented on the "probability issue". You clearly don't believe that the details she gave could be "coincidence" - what is the basis for that belief? Is it just your "gut instinct"?

Assume I was to give you *just* the following description :

"You have small veins. You will be put under anesthetic, the blood will be drained from your body, we'll open up your skull, and operate on the brain."

Now, I ask you to write a short story of what the surgery would be like. Do you think you might mention a saw? Mention the veins? Mention the heart/lung machine?

Give this as an assignment to a class of 50 students who have never heard of the PR case. Get them to write a brief summary of "the operation". Compare their descriptions with what actually happened. What are the odds that one of the stories might match the details of the PR case? If one of the descriptions did match well, would this then prove that the student was pyschic?

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


But why do you suppose consciousness requires an explanation? Why cannot it be considered to be a basic ontological reality much as scientists consider electrons are now? If consciousness is not reducible or analysable, then no (scientific) explanation is possible or necessary.

I didn't say that consciousness would have an explanation (I think it has but that wasn't the point I was making) simply that a supernatural "explanation" would explain nothing, which you seem to confirm. As for electrons I could point out that they consist of quarks and thus aren't "basic", but that would be nitpicking so I won't :D .

In any case the comparison is false since the "theory of electrons" make a number of testable predictions that if shown to be false would have to result in either giving up the notion of electrons or changing their characteristics. On the other hand your consciousness hypothesis makes no testable predictions and therefore can't be falsified (rather convenient I'd say) which makes it about as scientific as fairies in the garden.

The lack of testable predictions is exactly what characterizes the notions believers want to stuff into scientific gaps since a theory that was easily testable might be disproven. Therefore such theories "should" either be impossible or very difficult to test.

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


If you mean by natural that it belongs to physical (non-subjective, non-conscious) reality, consciousness automatically becomes something (un- or) supernatural. If however, you understand by natural anything which does not as such belong to a the (supposed) ontological domain of a supernatural divinity, then consciousness is just as natural as the physical world.

I’m not a scientific philosopher but I’d define “physical” as those things that are results of the interactions of electrons, protons etc. according to the natural laws. You can't prove of course that consciousness is a result of this even though chemicals can affect people's consciousness, but technically you can't prove that the motion a billiard ball is caused by it being hit by another billiard ball. You can only see that there is a remarkable correlation between the two events.

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Kerberos said:

Have you ever wondered WHY what you call supernaturalism states that science will never be able to explain something, e.g. consciousness? Do you really believe it is just a naive, or as some call it 'pessimistic' statement? Or might it be held because of certain ontological characteristics (in this case: subjective qualia) which simply don't fit in with the ontological definition of physical reality used by science? If so, it is obvious that no scientific evidence can ever reduce the phenomenon of consciousness to the material world. Unless we redefine matter as something which can become qualitative and subjective, it is simply out of the question that there could ever be a materialist or physicalist explanation of consciousness. This isn't a question of arrogance or naivete on the part of supernaturalism, but exclusively of logical analysis. As some might know by now, I entirely agree with Interesting Ian in this respect.

Titus

I suppose it depends on what we understand by an explanation. To me an explanations would be showing a correlation between brain-states and states of consciousness, introducing states of consciousness by changing brain states artificially and finding a theory that would allow us to predict the state of consciousness associated with a given brain state. This is certainly a formidable task, but it's not logically impossible.

[Titus Rivas]

Hopefully, you realise that no one has attempted to "debunk" the PR case? The question you've posed since the begining is "is the PR case solid evidence for NDE?". You seem to confusing that question with a second one - "is the PR case true". You've lost me here, Loki. Wouldn't the truth of the PR case be a precondition for its being solid evidence for (a paranormal hypothesis of the) NDE? We've no good, convincing reason that the PR case is not real.

Hopefully, you realise that no one has attempted to "debunk" the PR case? Go ahead, I'd say.

Since both astrology and homeopathy have a similar large database of anecdotal evidence to support their various claims, should I assume that you have "no specific reason" to doubt any particular individual claim from these areas? I don't see the parallel to tell you the truth. I haven't said we shouldn't doubt the PR case because it conforms to the general pattern. I've said we that we don't have any good reason to doubt this particular case as such.

Finally, I note you still haven't commented on the "probability issue". You clearly don't believe that the details she gave could be "coincidence" - what is the basis for that belief? Is it just your "gut instinct"? Of course not, I don't claim I'm a psychic. My main reason for this is of course that both Michael B. Sabom and Dr. Spetzler find the correspondence so remarkable and that I don't have any reason to doubt their judgment on this.

Assume I was to give you *just* the following description :

"You have small veins. You will be put under anesthetic, the blood will be drained from your body, we'll open up your skull, and operate on the brain."

Now, I ask you to write a short story of what the surgery would be like. Do you think you might mention a saw? Mention the veins? Mention the heart/lung machine? I actually have no idea. But this obviously wasn't how Pam Reynolds was interviewed, with such leading questions!

Give this as an assignment to a class of 50 students who have never heard of the PR case. Get them to write a brief summary of "the operation". Compare their descriptions with what actually happened. What are the odds that one of the stories might match the details of the PR case? If one of the descriptions did match well, would this then prove that the student was pyschic? Who's claiming that? We'd simply have reason to believe that a small percentage could guess correctly what the operation would be like.
Which would mean in turn that the odds don't seem very big that PR's story is based on guessing.

Titus

[SteveGrenard]

Of probable interest and relevance is the following journal:

http://www.imprint.co.uk/

er, click on the blue brain................

[Titus Rivas]

I’m not a scientific philosopher but I’d define “physical” as those things that are results of the interactions of electrons, protons etc. according to the natural laws. You can't prove of course that consciousness is a result of this even though chemicals can affect people's consciousness, but technically you can't prove that the motion a billiard ball is caused by it being hit by another billiard ball. You can only see that there is a remarkable correlation between the two events.

That's correct, Kerberos, but in the first case we have an additional problem absent in the second one. Namely that consciousness (understood as subjective, qualitative awareness) cannot be defined in terms of electrons, protons, etc. Physical objects can in principle be conceived of as configurations of physical particles. Consciousness cannot, as it has qualities which can't be described as physical particles or the configurations thereof.
Merely pointing out that a specific subjective experience seems to be (partially) caused by a brain process, exclusively has relevance for a causal relationship in that specific case. A lot of naturalists acknowledge this as they adhere to a position called epiphenomenalism, according to which consciousness is the causal product of brain processes, but is not identical with them. Other similar positions are emergentism and of course interactionist dualism (my own position).

It's a complex world, this realm of the philosophy of mind.

Also see my postings on the thread about epiphenomenalism, especially my linked articles on this topic.

Titus

[Titus Rivas]

Of probable interest and relevance is the following journal:

Indeed, Steve. One of my own papers is linked on David Chalmers' Links to Online Papers on Consciousness (http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/online1.html#materialism), accessible through this website, namely that on epiphenomenalism and physicalism (written with Hein van Dongen). Again, see my postings on the Epiphenomenalism thread.

Titus

[Kerberos]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by me
The problem is that we can't know that she didn't know in advance and we can't know if the story is accurate,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


You're right that we can't know it to the extent that we can know that 1 + 1= 2 or to the extent one can know what causes a certain phenomenon in a controlled experiment. However, as I've said before, science also involves forms of knowledge of what is plausible or probable. In this case, it is plausible that Pam Reynolds did not know in advance.

And it's also plausible that she did know in advance or that the story is exaggerated. These explanations have the very strong advantage that they correspond well with what we know about how the universe works. If the phenomenon is genuine then it should be possible to replicate it under controlled circumstances and it will eventually be recognized scientifically, but frankly I think that in 50, 100 or 150 years this still won't have happened, and almost the exact same discussion will be going on.

[Titus Rivas]

And it's also plausible that she did know in advance or that the story is exaggerated. These explanations have the very strong advantage that they correspond well with what we know about how the universe works. If the phenomenon is genuine then it should be possible to replicate it under controlled circumstances and it will eventually be recognized scientifically, but frankly I think that in 50, 100 or 150 years this still won't have happened, and almost the exact same discussion will be going on.

Well, Kerberos, as I said before, it all depends on what you think we know scientifically about how the relations between brain and mind work. Only within a physicalist interpretation of the relevant scientific data, is it apriori plausible that PR's case is ultimately perfectly explicable by non-paranormal processes.

I'm a lot more optimistic about scientific progress in this field.

Titus

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by lekatt


Pam was brain dead for approx. two hours. With no blood in her brain. I consider that as brain dead as anyone will ever be.

I have had the experience, so I know that the experience is real as it appears to be. But it will take a while for the skeptics to understand.

http://ndeweb.com/FAQz05.htm

There are hundreds of these experiences.

And they're all anecdotical. As for brain-death it is used as official death-criteria, and if you're brain-dead the doctors can take shut down the respirator, take your heart/lungs/liver and give them to other people. I really don't think they'd do this if brain-death wasn't permanent, and frankly I trust them more than you and some non-medical web-site.

[SteveGrenard]

K: And they're all anecdotical. As for brain-death it is used as official death-criteria, and if you're brain-dead the doctors can take shut down the respirator, take your heart/lungs/liver and give them to other people. I really don't think they'd do this if brain-death wasn't permanent, and frankly I trust them more than you and some non-medical web-site.

The criteria for permanent brain death is strict in the U.S. at least
and I have briefly outlined it somewhere above. It requires not only a series of flat EEGs but the apnea test as well. Its always a tough call, especially with a transplant team waiting to harvest organs for people who could put them to better use than the donor. However, people have awoken from comas after weeks and months; I have personally had a few such cases. Some people are taken off ventilators, even after years (Kathleen Quinlan comes to mind) and after a few seconds or even a minute or two resume spontaneous respirations on their own although coma and vegetative state may persist ...but because there is activity in their brainstem they are still not considered dead and still not considered brain dead although EEG over the frontal, temporal, cortical and occipital regions remains flat.
There are also the cases of anencephalic children, children born without higher brain centers, who live on reflexively for years with perfectly good hearts, lungs and livers. Some societies, even advanced ones (notably Hitler's Germany), would put these children to death.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Kerberos
But why do you suppose consciousness requires an explanation? Why cannot it be considered to be a basic ontological reality much as scientists consider electrons are now? If consciousness is not reducible or analysable, then no (scientific) explanation is possible or necessary.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I didn't say that consciousness would have an explanation (I think it has but that wasn't the point I was making) simply that a supernatural "explanation" would explain nothing, which you seem to confirm. As for electrons I could point out that they consist of quarks and thus aren't "basic", but that would be nitpicking so I won't .



They don't "consist" of quarks. So far as I gather electrons together with quarks are considered to be the basic ontological existents.



In any case the comparison is false since the "theory of electrons" make a number of testable predictions that if shown to be false would have to result in either giving up the notion of electrons or changing their characteristics.



Well yes precisely. If consciousness did play a fruitful role in some scientific theory, and moreover this role was a purely physical one (ie a unbroken chain of physical cause and effect), then consciousness would be physical! But I deny this, and as I explain below, it is not possible that consciousness could play such a role under the materialist metaphysic in any case . The pertinent point is that I deny the world is physically closed and I regard that voluntary movements of the body can be considered to be instances of anomalous perturbation, or in other words psychokinesis.

Anyway, I merely ask why cannot consciousnesses be like electrons in being basic ontological existents?



On the other hand your consciousness hypothesis



I don't have a consciousness hypothesis.



makes no testable predictions and therefore can't be falsified (rather convenient I'd say) which makes it about as scientific as fairies in the garden.



How can consciousness be scientific? Even under materialism it must be simply tacked onto the world since the physical world is causally closed and all change in the Universe can be explained with reference to the third person perspective.

I maintain that consciousness is not physical. This is the obvious sensible position to take. How can the experiencer (ie consciousness) be one and the very same thing as the experienced (ie the "physical" world)?? :eek: If you disagree with me then obviously the onus is upon you to demonstrate that it is "physical". I don't envy you your task.



The lack of testable predictions is exactly what characterizes the notions believers want to stuff into scientific gaps since a theory that was easily testable might be disproven. Therefore such theories "should" either be impossible or very difficult to test.



If A and B are apparently utterly different and unlike each other, but changes in states of A are correlated with changes of states of B, it surely not upon me to state some testable predictions to show that in fact that A and B are not numerically identical!! :eek: The point is that if A and B are completely utterly different from each other then our default presumption should be that they are not in fact one and the very same thing!

Surely you and the other materialists must be able to understand this?? :eek:

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Kerberos
[B]

I’m not a scientific philosopher but I’d define “physical” as those things that are results of the interactions of electrons, protons etc. according to the natural laws. You can't prove of course that consciousness is a result of this even though chemicals can affect people's consciousness, but technically you can't prove that the motion a billiard ball is caused by it being hit by another billiard ball. You can only see that there is a remarkable correlation between the two events.



Well this is a blatently false analogy! How can you conclude simply from the fact that states of B follow from states of A that B is generated by A?? :eek:

To repeat what I've said on this topic before:

The fact that states of "A" may be correlated with "particular states of "B", means neither that "A" and "B" are one and the same thing, nor does it entail that "B" originates from "A", or indeed "A" from "B". It could be that both "A" and "B" both independently are generated by "C". Or it could be the case that although states of "B" are modified by states of "A", "B" ultimately originates from "C".

Now even if we were to describe the mind as being caused by the brain (although I believe the use of "cause" here is technically inappropriate), this needn't have any implications that the mind has its origin in the brain. The picture on a television set is caused by its internal components. This of course doesn't mean to say that the origin of the storylines of the tv programmes being shown have their origin in the tv sets internal components! Indeed it would be preposterous to suppose they do! I believe a partial analogy can be drawn here in that it is equally ludicrous, if not more so, that the richness of our mental lives is somehow mysterious created ex nihilo by physical processes.

[Jeff Corey]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


I maintain that consciousness is not physical. This is the obvious sensible position to take. How can the experiencer (ie consciousness) be one and the very same thing as the experienced (ie the "physical" world)?? :eek: If you disagree with me then obviously the onus is upon you to demonstrate that it is "physical". I don't envy you your task.

J.C.: No, not obvious, not sensible. And, no, the onus is on you to demonstrate that it is not physical. I don't envy your task.


If A and B are apparently utterly different and unlike each other, but changes in states of A are correlated with changes of states of B, it surely not upon me to state some testable predictions to show that in fact that A and B are not numerically identical!! :eek: The point is that if A and B are completely utterly different from each other then our default presumption should be that they are not in fact one and the very same thing!

Surely you and the other materialists must be able to understand this?? :eek:

J.C.: That one is easy. They could be weakly correllated or negatively correlated.
But a whole paragraph to say that if two things are different, then they are not the same? You really need to tighten up your writing skills.
Either that, or submit your screeds to the Department of Redundancy Department.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


Indeed, Steve. One of my own papers is linked on David Chalmers' Links to Online Papers on Consciousness (http://www.u.arizona.edu/~chalmers/online1.html#materialism), accessible through this website, namely that on epiphenomenalism and physicalism (written with Hein van Dongen). Again, see my postings on the Epiphenomenalism thread.

Titus

Hmmmm . . . God, there's a lot to read there! :eek:

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Jeff Corey

If A and B are apparently utterly different and unlike each other, but changes in states of A are correlated with changes of states of B, it surely not upon me to state some testable predictions to show that in fact that A and B are not numerically identical!! The point is that if A and B are completely utterly different from each other then our default presumption should be that they are not in fact one and the very same thing!

Surely you and the other materialists must be able to understand this??

J.C.: That one is easy. They could be weakly correllated or negatively correlated.
But a whole paragraph to say that if two things are different, then they are not the same? You really need to tighten up your writing skills.


Certainly it seems ludicrous. Yet materialists continually seem not to understand this elementary fact!

I'm just wondering if a lot of so called materialists are not really materialists, but are epiphenomenalists :confused:

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Well this is a blatently false analogy! How can you conclude simply from the fact that states of B follow from states of A that B is generated by A?? :eek:

To repeat what I've said on this topic before:

The fact that states of "A" may be correlated with "particular states of "B", means neither that "A" and "B" are one and the same thing, nor does it entail that "B" originates from "A", or indeed "A" from "B". It could be that both "A" and "B" both independently are generated by "C". Or it could be the case that although states of "B" are modified by states of "A", "B" ultimately originates from "C".

Now even if we were to describe the mind as being caused by the brain (although I believe the use of "cause" here is technically inappropriate), this needn't have any implications that the mind has its origin in the brain. The picture on a television set is caused by its internal components. This of course doesn't mean to say that the origin of the storylines of the tv programmes being shown have their origin in the tv sets internal components! Indeed it would be preposterous to suppose they do! I believe a partial analogy can be drawn here in that it is equally ludicrous, if not more so, that the richness of our mental lives is somehow mysterious created ex nihilo by physical processes.

Ahhh! an absolutely delightful analogy - let's examine it a little closer. Since the TV isn't truly the origin of storyline we can’t change it by manipulating the TV. You can only cause the picture to become clearer or more obscure but you can't truly change the storyline. Using drugs however we can not only cause unconsciousness or drugs we can also change people's state of consciousness (make them happy, depressed or relaxed).

So it's up to you to prove that consciousness isn't dependent on the brain, that vision isn't dependent on the eyes and so forth.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Kerberos


Ahhh! an absolutely delightful analogy - let's examine it a little closer. Since the TV isn't truly the origin of storyline we can’t change it by manipulating the TV. You can only cause the picture to become clearer or more obscure but you can't truly change the storyline. Using drugs however we can not only cause unconsciousness or drugs we can also change people's state of consciousness (make them happy, depressed or relaxed).



Peoples state of consciousness or mind states would correspond to the picture quality. It is the essential self which corresponds to the storyline.

[Jagger]

Ian is absolutely right about the origin of consciousness. Science does not know the origin. Whoever determines and proves the origin will get a nobel prize.

What we do know is there are links between the consciousness and brain. Alterations to the brain impacts the consciousness. And the reverse is true as well. Alterations of the consciousness impacts the brain. The impact of the consciousness on the brain/body is not so obvious but exists. Back to the lion analogy. If you know tonight that you have to walk into a den of hungry lions tomorrow, your body will feel anxiety tonight. The changes to the body are caused by the consciousness due to an anticipated future event.

Experimenting on the brain would produce similiar results on the consciousness whether the consciousness emerges from the brain or is a separate entity from the brain. So we have links between the brain and consciousness but we can't conclude an origin of consciousness from the available evidence.

So we know links exist. That is not the same as knowing the origin of the consciousness. Knowing the origin would allow hypotheses to shift to fact but not until then.

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Peoples state of consciousness or mind states would correspond to the picture quality. It is the essential self which corresponds to the storyline.

No the picture quality would correspond to consciousness, unconsciousness and the borderland between. In any case could you explain what you mean by the "essential self"? Do you mean personality?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Kerberos


No the picture quality would correspond to consciousness, unconsciousness and the borderland between.


It is my analogy. I'm telling you what it means. The idea I'm trying to convey does not have the picture quality corrosponding to consciousness but rather conscious states or states of the mind.




In any case could you explain what you mean by the "essential self"? Do you mean personality? [/B]

I mean the *I*. That which remains unchanged from your 5 year old self, to your sober adult self, to when you're drunk etc. It is that which makes you you even though your apparent personality, and intelligence, and interests may change radically.

[Loki]

Ian,

Peoples state of consciousness or mind states would correspond to the picture quality. It is the essential self which corresponds to the storyline.
Kerberos' point is that your analogy is fatally flawed - if your analogy was valid, then whenever the picture quality changed, the storyline would change as well. Since this does happen with consciousness, but doesn't happen with TV, the analogy is inappropriate.

(edited to add) : [we've been here before...]
The picture on a television set is caused by its internal components. This of course doesn't mean to say that the origin of the storylines of the tv programmes being shown have their origin in the tv sets internal components! Indeed it would be preposterous to suppose they do!
Can I offer you a slightly different wording?

"The picture on the screen of a GameBoy Advance is caused by its internal components. This of course doesn't mean to say that the origin of the gameplay actions being shown have their origin in the GameBoy's internal components! Indeed it would be preposterous to suppose they do!"

Actually, I think it would be entirely correct to assume that the actions originate in the internals, don't you?

[SteveGrenard]

The picture on the hand held game player or on a computer for that matter is due to the fact that the device is running a program. That program and the picture it generates does not originate in the internals of the device although it can stored
there.

Gameboys and PCs are not "born" with pictures on them ... they are added later. The human brain is not born, insofar as we can imagine and thats all we can do, with images either but imprints them afterwards.

[Loki]

Titus Rivas,

You've lost me here, Loki. Wouldn't the truth of the PR case be a precondition for its being solid evidence for (a paranormal hypothesis of the) NDE?
Yes, but failing to prove the case "false" does not instantly make it "solid evidence". You haven't established the case is "true" until you show why mundane explanations are impossible (or at least so extremely unlikely as to not be worth serious consideration). I can't see that you've done this.

(Edited to add) : I wasn't as clear as I wanted to be here - yes, Titus, this is precisely the point being discussed. Read again what you wrote : "Wouldn't the truth of the PR case be a precondition...". Yes, it's a "precondition". Until you've met this precondition, you don't have "solid evidence". Have we established the "truth"? Only once you've eliminated alternatives.

We've no good, convincing reason that the PR case is not real.
Perhaps there's nothing left to say. Your position seems to be :

"Given my prior beliefs, I'm prepared to accept that the PR case is true until someone shows me evidence it is not. I'm not interested in 'potential flaws' in the evidence, I will only consider 'proven flaws'."

My position is :

"Given my prior beliefs, I'm not prepared to accept that the PR case is true until someone shows me that the 'potential flaws' have been eliminated."

I don't see the parallel to tell you the truth. I haven't said we shouldn't doubt the PR case because it conforms to the general pattern. I've said we that we don't have any good reason to doubt this particular case as such.
THe point is, that the same reasoning appears to apply to *any* particular dociumented astrology or homeopathy anecdoate. So you'd provisionally accept these anecdoates as true as well until such time as "good reason" arises to dismiss the anecdote?


My main reason for this is of course that both Michael B. Sabom and Dr. Spetzler find the correspondence so remarkable and that I don't have any reason to doubt their judgment on this.
So you admit then that your entire position is based upon the opinions of two men? You'd be aware that the opinions of highly intelligent men have been incorrect before? Isn't it one of the main reason that we seek to establish "solid evidence" so that we can counter and/or eliminate opinion? But you wish to define "solid evidence" as "their opinion"? What is it in the training of these two men that gives them such a strong "insight" into the probability of "coincidence" being an impossible explanation?

But this obviously wasn't how Pam Reynolds was interviewed, with such leading questions!
Of course not! You seem to have missed the point of the exercise. How can we try to answer the question : "Could a person, given some basic information, randomly construct a fairly accurate description of actual events?". I was simply offering one possible way of determining this.

I live in Australia. My wife and I went on holidays 10 years ago. I took 6 weeks leave, and we traveled to the USA and Europe. I didn't tell anyone from my work the details of our travel plans - partly because we didn't have a set itinerary, we just decided where to go next as we went. Three weeks into the trip we arrived at Newark airport in New York. We walked off the plane into the terminal, and ran into my boss! He was on his way to Europe for a conference, and was simply catching a connecting flight in New York. I didn't know he was going to be travelling while I was on leave, and he didn't know where in the world I would be for 6 weeks. What are the odds we would meet? The event happened, even thought the chances are vanishingly remote.

We'd simply have reason to believe that a small percentage could guess correctly what the operation would be like. Which would mean in turn that the odds don't seem very big that PR's story is based on guessing.
Two points flow from this : "what size are the odds really?", and "unlikely things do happen".

[Loki]

Steve,

The picture on the hand held game player or on a computer for that matter is due to the fact that the device is running a program.
Yes, completely agreed, but not relevant the discussion of Ian's analogy. You're now talking about "who designed the program", whereas Ian's point is "the program can't be completely contained within the device". The GameBoy shows that the "contents" can be completely contained in the device.

"Who wrote the program" is a separate, but interesting, question. Materialism presupposes a self modifying program. More than this, it is a program that can increase it's own complexity over time. I'm not aware of any such software currently available (there's self modifying programs, or course). But imagine I was to write a computer virus and simultaneously ran it on 100 million machines world wide. As part of it's execution, this virus randomly generated object code into its code segment and then executed this new code. I'd expect an enormous number of the 100 million copies to crash. But some might not, and this new code may increase the virus' complexity. Spawn a new 100 million copies, and repeat for a few billion years. Do you think we might eventually end up with a complex yet stable program? So why would we assume the need for an "initial programmer"?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Loki
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peoples state of consciousness or mind states would correspond to the picture quality. It is the essential self which corresponds to the storyline.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Kerberos' point is that your analogy is fatally flawed - if your analogy was valid, then whenever the picture quality changed, the storyline would change as well. Since this does happen with consciousness, but doesn't happen with TV, the analogy is inappropriate.



Picture quality = state of mind
storyline = self.

So you're saying that whenever ones state of mind changes the self changes.

But this is precisely what I'm disputing. I'm saying that in this sense the:


[list=1]
state of brain
state of mind
essential self
[/list=1]

is roughly analogical to
[list=1]

state of internal components of TV set
picture quality
storyline of programme
[/list=1]

You are simply presupposing the materialist metaphysic! Thus you are begging the question.

Thus the analogy is not at all inappropriate. It is only inappropriate if you presuppose materialism, which is precisely what I'm disputing! :eek:



(edited to add) : [we've been here before...]



Yeah, and you continue to fail to listen and understand :rolleyes:




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The picture on a television set is caused by its internal components. This of course doesn't mean to say that the origin of the storylines of the tv programmes being shown have their origin in the tv sets internal components! Indeed it would be preposterous to suppose they do!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Can I offer you a slightly different wording?

"The picture on the screen of a GameBoy Advance is caused by its internal components. This of course doesn't mean to say that the origin of the gameplay actions being shown have their origin in the GameBoy's internal components! Indeed it would be preposterous to suppose they do!"



Not at all. That which is displayed on the game boy is a logical consequence of the processes occuring inside it.

The storyline of the film say "The Matrix", is not a logical consequence of the TV sets internal components. I mean somone had to invent the story surely?? So the storyline itself is not implicit within the internal components of the TV set. This is in contrast with that which is displayed on the gameboy which is a necessary consequence of the internal components alone.

If you like it's the difference beween a non-materialist and materialist conceptions of the self.




Actually, I think it would be entirely correct to assume that the actions originate in the internals, don't you?



On the gameboy certainly. But not for the TV. It's the analogical difference between an android and a real live human being :)

[Loki]

Ian,

You are simply presupposing the materialist metaphysic! Thus you are begging the question.

Thus the analogy is not at all inappropriate. It is only inappropriate if you presuppose materialism, which is precisely what I'm disputing!
No, Ian, it has nothing to with "presupposing" any metaphysical position. It's about "observation". Your analogy is incorrect because it does not match observed behaviour.

If I pour alcohol into a TV it *can* interfer the picture quality, but it *can't* affect the storyline (possible actions and behaviours that appear on screen).

If I pour alcohol into a GameBoy it *can* affect the picture quality, and it *can* affect the behaviour (possible actions, and consequences that appear on the screen)

If I pour alcohol into Ian it *can* affect the "picture quality" (The language deteriorates) and it *can* affect the "storyline" (the actions and behaviours).

I understand your point - that there's an additional "something" that the alcohol doesn't affect. What I'm saying is not "this is true" or "this is false" - just that your analogy (the TV) is poor because I can make an (important) observation about you that is not true for a TV (see above). The GameBoy analogy is better, because it more accurately mirrors observations. It's you that is "begging the question" in regard to the GameBoy analogy, because you reject it purely on philosophical grounds.

Is that any clearer?

[Titus Rivas]

Loki,

Yes, but failing to prove the case "false" does not instantly make it "solid evidence". I haven't said it does. I was just referring to the logical structure of your remark.

You haven't established the case is "true" until you show why mundane explanations are impossible (or at least so extremely unlikely as to not be worth serious consideration). I can't see that you've done this. I don't claim I have established 100% that the case is "true". My claim is simply that it certainly seems a lot more plausible that the case as described by Michael B. Sabom basically happened that way. Of course, that is a matter of assessment. But I wouldn't know why the alternative would be more likely. Unless one starts from a materialist framework, which I don't.

Given my prior beliefs, I'm prepared to accept that the PR case is true until someone shows me evidence it is not. I'm not interested in 'potential flaws' in the evidence, I will only consider 'proven flaws'." Wrong, my position is rather: Given my general positions on the mind-body problem, I've no particular reason not to accept the evidence in this case as it is presented in Light and Death. Unless there is good evidence to the contrary I don't have any particular reason to doubt Dr. Sabom's account. It is not because I would believe the case is true no matter what. It's only related to the fact that survival does fit in my (dualist) views on life. For me, this type of evidence is enough, as within a dualist framework survival is a lot less 'extraordinary' than in a reductionist one.

My position is :

"Given my prior beliefs, I'm not prepared to accept that the PR case is true until someone shows me that the 'potential flaws' have been eliminated." That's understandable, as you probably have a world view which could not easily include survival after death. But then again, maybe you should reconsider that world view anyway.

THe point is, that the same reasoning appears to apply to *any* particular dociumented astrology or homeopathy anecdoate. So you'd provisionally accept these anecdoates as true as well until such time as "good reason" arises to dismiss the anecdote? That depends. If there weren't strong evidence against astrology or homeopathy and my general theories on how the world works might include astrological or homeopathic phenomena, I certainly might. But that is beside the point, as the evidence for survival certainly seems to be the strongest of the three.

quote:My main reason for this is of course that both Michael B. Sabom and Dr. Spetzler find the correspondence so remarkable and that I don't have any reason to doubt their judgment on this.

So you admit then that your entire position is based upon the opinions of two men? You'd be aware that the opinions of highly intelligent men have been incorrect before? Of course, but again, we don't have any reason or even hint that these two highly intelligent men have been incorrect in this particular case. That's my point. We do have some evidence that the case became somewhat distorted on several websites (regarding the flat EEG), but so far there is no evidence that would discredit Spetzler's or Sabom's statements.

Isn't it one of the main reason that we seek to establish "solid evidence" so that we can counter and/or eliminate opinion? But you wish to define "solid evidence" as "their opinion"? I prefer the term good evidence. There is no other way when we evaluate case histories through reconstruction. The quality of evidence is comparable to that in sciences like archeology, paleontology, forensic science, etc. It isn't the kind of hard evidence found in physics experiments, but it is a whole lot more than a mere anecdote.

What is it in the training of these two men that gives them such a strong "insight" into the probability of "coincidence" being an impossible explanation? In Dr. Spetzler's case: specific expertise in his field which makes it possible for him to judge how 'remarkable' Pam's statements about the surgery, etc. were. In Dr. Sabom's case: a specific expertise in the evaluation of NDEs!

What are the odds we would meet? The event happened, even thought the chances are vanishingly remote. Right, this concerned a single coincidence, whereas in Pam's case there would be several. Besides, Pam's case isn't the only one of veridical impressions during an NDE.


Two points flow from this : "what size are the odds really?", and "unlikely things do happen". You'd have to ask Dr. Sabom for more exact calculations, I guess. But unless you give me reason to think otherwise, I'll stick to my assessment that it is not exactly very plausible that the PR case can be explained away as based on nothing but normal factors, such as coincidence, etc.

Titus

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Loki

No, Ian, it has nothing to with "presupposing" any metaphysical position.



Yes, Loki, I'm afraid you did pre-suppose the materialist metaphysic.


It's about "observation". Your analogy is incorrect because it does not match observed behaviour.



I've explained how it is correct. If you still are unable to understand, then regrettably it might be the case that I am unable to explain my position in such a manner to facilitate your understanding.



If I pour alcohol into a TV it *can* interfer the picture quality, but it *can't* affect the storyline (possible actions and behaviours that appear on screen).

If I pour alcohol into a GameBoy it *can* affect the picture quality, and it *can* affect the behaviour (possible actions, and consequences that appear on the screen)

If I pour alcohol into Ian it *can* affect the "picture quality" (The language deteriorates) and it *can* affect the "storyline" (the actions and behaviours).



Oh God! {Sighs heavily} Don't talk about pouring alcohol into a TV set because it is confusing you. Just talk about tinkering with its internal components. Yes, if you do that it affects the picture quality, but not the storyline of the programme being screened.

Likewise, affect the processes in the brain (drinking alcohol or whatever) and it affects states of mind (picture quality). But it doesn't affect the essentail self (storyline).

Thus when I get drunk, and despite that my mind might change and I become more gregarious or whatever, I nevertheless have the same self. It's just that this self feels differently. I mean we act as if it's the same self, otherwise why plan a night out drinking? :eek: If the self on the other hand is literally equated with your states of mind, then obviously, once you have consumed alcohol you are literally a different person. But this is certainly contrary to how we feel! :eek: Can you not understand that whether I am in a good mood or a bad mood, my self hasn't changed, it's just the way that self feels. Why is this so difficult to understand?



I understand your point - that there's an additional "something" that the alcohol doesn't affect. What I'm saying is not "this is true" or "this is false" - just that your analogy (the TV) is poor because I can make an (important) observation about you that is not true for a TV (see above).



But you haven't. I've refuted this. You just got confused by using alcohol in both cases. You should have used the analogical equivalent of alcohol for the TV set.




The GameBoy analogy is better, because it more accurately mirrors observations. It's you that is "begging the question" in regard to the GameBoy analogy, because you reject it purely on philosophical grounds.



What better grounds to dismiss it on?? The point is that I have demonstrated that correlations between mind events and brain events cannot distinguish between our 2 hypotheses, although you might be able to argue your hypothesis is more simple. But likewise the hypothesis that the storyline of a TV programme actually originates from a TV sets internal components is also more simple. But in both cases, whether the storyline of the TV programme, or conscious experiences, it is implausible that they are created ex nihilo from physical activity alone. Therefore my hypothesis is vastly more plausible.

But in addition there is a stupendious amount of evidence which is suggestive of my hypothesis eg scientific evidence for anomalous cognition (ESP) and anomalous perturbation (micro-psychokinesis), anecdotes suggestive of paranormal phenomena throughout humam history and across all cultures, anecdotes of NDE's and death bed apparitions etc etc.

Moreover there is no evidence for your hypothesis which my hypothesis couldn't equally well accommodate!



Is that any clearer?


No, I just think you fail to understand.

[Loki]

Ian,

No, I just think you fail to understand.
Well, I think I understand your point quite well, yet I think the TV analogy you are using doesn't work for you. You disagree.

What better grounds to dismiss it on?? The point is that I have demonstrated that correlations between mind events and brain events cannot distinguish between our 2 hypotheses.
So you admit that you reject the GameBoy analogy on philosophical grounds only. We understand each other on this!!

Oh God! {Sighs heavily} Don't talk about pouring alcohol into a TV set because it is confusing you
I stayed with the alcohol as a common thread to try and simplify the comparison. The fact that you have chosen to emphasise this points to ... oh, never mind. Substitute any kind of damage/tinkering to the TV in my original example if it helps you understand. It doesn't change the meaning.

Thus when I get drunk, and despite that my mind might change and I become more gregarious or whatever, I nevertheless have the same self.
Look, really, this is the only place where we are (perhaps) talking past each other. I'm saying that the "one-way TV" analogy is poor because *everything* about your "self" that has a real world effect can be affected by changes in your brain. This is clearly not so for a TV - if I damage the sound control, or the color control, or ther vertical hold, it doesn't affect the content at all - the content just continues on as it was prior to the damage.

If I damage the color control on a TV (forcing the set to show only black and white) while that TV is showing the Matrix, I don't expect Neo (the character, not your sockpuppet) to suddenly announce "the rest of the movie will take place only in daylight, to compensate for the fact that black and white sets don't show the contrast as well. We've also decided to drop a few spectacular special effects sequences because they won't look as good in B&W".

On the other hand, if you are a professional (and passionate) music lover and critic and I damage your brain so that you cannot hear anything, then for the rest of your life it will fundamentally affect you. Your hopes for the future instantly change. Your experience of the world instantly changes. Your emotions change. Perhaps you become bitter and resentful, and learn to 'drown' your sorrow. Perhaps you become depressed and morose at the loss of your life's passion and drift towards suicide. Perhaps you become introspective and thoughtful, and eventually find a new happiness and pleasure in life. What ever course you take, the brain damage (can have) fundamentally altered all the visible aspects of "you". I understand that you claim that there is a separate "self" that would remain unchanged by this scenario - but if it's not your hopes and dreams, not your emotions, not your experiences, not your self belief or confidence, and not the sum of these things, then what the hell is it?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Loki

Look, really, this is the only place where we are (perhaps) talking past each other. I'm saying that the "one-way TV" analogy is poor because *everything* about your "self" that has a real world effect can be affected by changes in your brain.



I disagree. Indeed I would maintain the precise converse. Namely *nothing* about my essential self (or soul) can be affected by changes in my brain. Only my states of mind changes ie my moods, intelligence etc. You think there is nothing in abstraction from ones moods, intelligence and so on. I already have made it clear I completely disagree. Otherwise I wouldn't literally be the same person now as when I was 7 years old, since ostensibly there is little, if anything, in common with my 7 year old self. Do you really find it plausible that you literally are not the same person as your 7 year old self? If so then so much for your 7 year old self's speculations of what your grown up self will be like. After all your 7 year old self has ceased to be as effectively as if you had died in the intervening period between your 7 year old self and your present self.




On the other hand, if you are a professional (and passionate) music lover and critic and I damage your brain so that you cannot hear anything, then for the rest of your life it will fundamentally affect you.



Indeed, just as much as decisions made earlier effect my states of mind now. But I do not suppose my prior decisions bring into being a new person. I am the same self, but with differing emotional states. My emotional states do not consitute my essential self. Otherwise if I feel depressed, and somebody cracks a joke and I cheer up, I would literally cease to be, and another person would literally spring into being.


Your hopes for the future instantly change. Your experience of the world instantly changes. Your emotions change. Perhaps you become bitter and resentful, and learn to 'drown' your sorrow. Perhaps you become depressed and morose at the loss of your life's passion and drift towards suicide. Perhaps you become introspective and thoughtful, and eventually find a new happiness and pleasure in life. What ever course you take, the brain damage (can have) fundamentally altered all the visible aspects of "you". I understand that you claim that there is a separate "self" that would remain unchanged by this scenario - but if it's not your hopes and dreams, not your emotions, not your experiences, not your self belief or confidence, and not the sum of these things, then what the hell is it? [/B]

That which cannot be put into words but which people generally do not doubt exists. People do not doubt there is a self in abstraction from their emotions, hopes, dreams etc. There is an essentially self which has differing emotions, dreams, hpoes etc.

[Loki]

Ian,

Do you really find it plausible that you literally are not the same person as your 7 year old self?
You say this often, but I'm not sure what you mean when you emphasise "literally" like this. I *am* the same person as the 7 year old, but I'm not identical. We both attach a "self" to the temporal existence that is our body - you define this self as ... well, "that which cannot be put into words". I define "self" as a combination of temporal continuity and individuality (unique experiences and memories). You think the "self" owns the experiences and memories and works "through" the body, I think the "self" *is* the combination of the body, experiences and memories. As my physical attributes, experiences and memories change, my "self" changes. Some parts change quickly, some change slowly. Some aspects may change not at all (I'll never "give birth", for instance). Through body and temporal continuity I *am* the same self. Through experience I'm not an identical self. Continuity is the key here Ian - and continutity doesn't equal "never changing".

Win's old "teleporter/duplicator" though experiment covered this quite well. I don't see why you continue to assume that materialism *must* imply that "self" doesn't exist. It simply defines "self" differently. The concept still exists, even if you find it not to your liking.
That which cannot be put into words ...
That's going to make it difficult to discuss!

...but which people generally do not doubt exists.
Would this be the same people who believe that flying planes into buildings will get them an eternal life full of virgins? Or that the virgin Mary is trying to communicate by shaping branches of a tree into her image? Would it include the people who think that drinking from a water spring in Lourdes will cure cancer?

There is an essentially self which has differing emotions, dreams, hpoes etc.
Can you list *just one* attribute, property, or "essence" that this "self" has/is (apart from "exists") that isn't also an emotion, dream, hope, etc? Just one?

[Jeff Corey]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Otherwise I wouldn't literally be the same person now as when I was 7 years old, since ostensibly there is little, if anything, in common with my 7 year old self. Do you really find it plausible that you literally are not the same person as your 7 year old self? If so then so much for your 7 year old self's speculations of what your grown up self will be like. After all your 7 year old self has ceased to be as effectively as if you had died in the intervening period between your 7 year old self and your present self....
People do not doubt there is a self in abstraction from their emotions, hopes, dreams etc. There is an essentially self which has differing emotions, dreams, hpoes etc. I'm not the same as I was at seven. At seven I was a confused kid with an attitude and learning how to poke pointed stick into schoolyard bullies. I no longer employ pointed sticks.
I also doubt that the "self" is an utile concept.

[Interesting Ian]

Loki,

You started by saying that my TV set analogy was a very poor one. I have argued that for my beliefs this is not so. It seems clear that you were saying the analogy was a poor one because you are presuming materialism is correct. But obviously the TV set analogy is a poor one if materialism is correct! :eek: As you pointed out, if materialism is correct the gameboy effort is a more appropriate analogy. But do you now concede that for my beliefs the TV set analogy is more appropriate?

Having conceded this then what is actually wrong with my idea of the nature of the self? Saying that the idea of the self cannot be conveyed in words is implied by the fact that what consciousness is also cannot be defined or conveyed in words. It seems to me that obviously this does not constitute any evidence against the self anymore than it constitutes evidence against consciousness!

[Loki]

Ian,

It seems clear that you were saying the analogy was a poor one because you are presuming materialism is correct.
Well, that's not been my intention - somehow, what I intend to say, and what you read, don't seem to match up.

The purpose of an analogy is to explain a (complex) situation by comparing to a similar, simpler one. The validity of the analogy depends uppon how closely it matches the original. If it's exactly identical to the original then it's not an analogy. If it varies too far, then it isn't really helpful.

You are postulating an undefinable (undescribable) "self" that remains "unchanged" even when the physical brain is altered/affected. The purpose of the TV analogy is to show that this self is similar to the content of a movie - if we modify the TV, it in no way modifies the content of a movie screening on that TV.

I'm trying to say that this is a poor analogy, because it does not match "reality" as we can observe it. I'm not starting, or assuming, any metaphysical position - just working from observations to see if the analogy truly fits. So why doesn't it work? Because the TV set has two clearly objective elements in it - the set, and the content. Both are observable, and describle, and objective. But your "theory of consciousness" doesn't match this - it has an objective, observable element (the brain) and an undefined, unobservable element (the "self").

I suppose you could try to rescue the TV analogy by pushing the "self" a step backwards - the Set is "the brain", the movie content is "emotions/hopes/etc", and your concept of "self" is the unseen director who shapes the movie content but is never actually seen. Would that work for you? (I don't think so, but...)

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


I mean the *I*. That which remains unchanged from your 5 year old self, to your sober adult self, to when you're drunk etc. It is that which makes you you even though your apparent personality, and intelligence, and interests may change radically.

The *I*? What exactly is this *I*? What properties does it have? Do you have any evidence that such an unchanging *I* even exists? If my “apparent” personality, my interests and my intelligence changed radically what would be left?

[Loki]

Ian,

A couple of quick points :

A. We're dragging this thread way off topic, so I'm going to start a new thread to follow through on this "self"/"TV" thingy.

B. Probably no one else is interested in dissecting this analogy. Hell, perhaps even you and I aren't all that interested. So I'm starting a new thread that you can reply in if you wish.

THe new thread will be in "R&P". See you there (if you wish, of course!)

[Titus Rivas]

Here's another link to the Pam Reynolds case: Michael B. Sabom (http://www.observations.net/popup/sabom.html)

Titus

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Here's another link to the Pam Reynolds case: Michael B. Sabom (http://www.observations.net/popup/sabom.html)

Titus
Why do you think we need another link to the same vague account that you gave us on day one?

Visions and memories occur while brain dead (http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html)

This thread is dead..

[Titus Rivas]

Why do you think we need another link to the same vague account that you gave us on day one?

Just thought it would be nice to mention another website which includes this case.

This thread is dead.. Not at all, we're still awaiting an important message by Michael B. Sabom and perhaps other scholars. While the life signs of this thread may be hardly noticeable anymore, it will probably start breathing again before long.

A squirming

Titus

[Phil]

Perhaps this thread will come back and report a sense of floating above its own body, watching as Titus tries desperately to revive it. And tell of the small mole on the back of his hand and how he drinks coffee while he types.

Perhaps it will come back with reports of being urged into a warm, safe bright light by other dead threads. And then being told it's not time. :)

It's an NDTE (Near Dead Thread Experience).

"He's only mostly dead."

[Jagger]

Good point, Phil. Many snicker at the concept of NDTE's while arbitrarily dismissing massive amounts of evidence. For years, we have been waiting for a thread like this one. Just make sure you document everything-make it foolproof. And Gods knows we are going to have to convince a lot of fools. Sooner or later, the world will know we are right about NDTE's. It is up to you. Just don't let us down.

[Starrman]

"He's only mostly dead."

I think the character goes on to say "ahh, but mostly dead is also somewhat alive." Which is a rather apt quote to the discussion, dont you think?

[Jagger]

This is for Reprise and his question concerning location.

I was looking through Moodys first book and found this quote from an NDE interview. Although studies have shown this multi-dimensional experience to be very common within NDE's.

Now there is a real problem for me as I'm trying to tell you this, because all the words I know are three-dimensional. As I was going through this (NDE), I kept thinking, "Well, when I was taking geometry, they always told me there were only three dimensions, and I always just accepted that. But they were wrong. There are more." And, of course, our world-the one we're living in now-is three dimensional, but the next one definitely isn't. And that's why it's so hard to tell you this. I have to describe it to you in words that are three-dimensional. that's as close as I can get to it, but it's not really adequate. I can't really give a complete picture."

I have wondered whether there are any non-NDE natural or drug induced experiences which produce this perception of multiple dimensions. Of course, if the experience is reality, then it would give hints as to type of location.

Also a 4 dimensional or higher location would allow for the unusual viewing perspectives of a 3 dimensional world reported within NDE's. A 4d or higher location would also allow for existence without perception from a 3 d world.

One last point, physics is seriously considering multiple dimensions in many of their theories. For example, string theory proposes 11 or 26 dimensions dependent on whether matter is really matter-at least the last time I checked. If there are higher, multiple dimensions, "anything" could exist there. And we would not be able to perceive "anything" in these higher dimensions while "anything" could perceive us in our lower dimensions.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Titus Rivas


Just thought it would be nice to mention another website which includes this case.

Not at all, we're still awaiting an important message by Michael B. Sabom and perhaps other scholars. While the life signs of this thread may be hardly noticeable anymore, it will probably start breathing again before long.

A squirming

Titus

I wasn't going to mention how the site stinks in general, but since you brought it up..

It stinks..

[Titus Rivas]

I wasn't going to mention how the site stinks in general, but since you brought it up..

Well, I personally hadn't seen the rest of the website yet. I can imagine you don't particularly like it, but that's something for another thread. I've seen some programs on the Discovery Channel about the Turin Shroud mentioned on it, which claimed to show it probably is a forgery by Leornado da Vinci. Anyway quite off topic.

Titus

[Kerberos]

Originally posted by Jagger


One last point, physics is seriously considering multiple dimensions in many of their theories. For example, string theory proposes 11 or 26 dimensions dependent on whether matter is really matter-at least the last time I checked. If there are higher, multiple dimensions, "anything" could exist there. And we would not be able to perceive "anything" in these higher dimensions while "anything" could perceive us in our lower dimensions.

Higher dimensions? I'm know that some theories predict additional dimensions, but I've never heard any suggestion that these dimensions should be "higher" in any way, or that beings in these dimensions should be able to observe us without us observing them :eek: . As far as I remember from “A Brief History of Time" these additional dimensions are curled up very small, which is the reason we don't see them, but are otherwise identical to "normal" dimensions.