Pam Reynolds Near-Death Experience [Archive]

Titus Rivas

8th August 2003, 02:04 AM

So if I understand most of you guys correctly, you claim that Pam's memories would not relate to an episode during which the standstill procedure had already become effective. However, that is simply not in accordance with the acount she has given, which is why the case is judged so important by some in the first place. Her heart was supposed to have stopped beating already and there were no brain waves.

Here's some details:

"There was so much in the operating room that I didn't recognize, and so many people."

"I thought the way they had my head shaved was very peculiar. I expected them to take all of the hair, but they did not ...

"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,"

"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. 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."

Like a few other NDEers, she provided information about what happened to her in the operating room that was corroborated by technical witnesses. Although she previously did not have specific information about the procedures that were performed on her, she provided detailed descriptions that were later substantiated.

I gather that a renowned neurosurgeon as Dr. Robert F. Spetzler of the Division of Neurosurgery Barrow Neurological Institute (Phoenix, Arizona) wouldn't officially state her account was remarkably accurate when it actually wasn't. In his own words: "Her recollections occurred shortly after surgery and were remarkably accurate. There was no cortical activity whatsoever nor were there any brainstem evoked potentials. I remain skeptical but have seen too many unexplained phenomena to be so arrogant as to know that they didn’t happen."

So much for the justification of the non-debunker's fascination and even enthusiasm. (Comment on somebody's enthusiasm about this formulation : I just meant that this is what I wanted to say about it here, sorry if I didn't use the right expression ;) )

What's your reason to just dismiss the case out of hand anyway if you take all this in consideration?

What type of similar case would be acceptable for you? I mean when would you believe that at least some persons continue to experience something after their brain stopped functioning altogether. Any suggestions?

By the way, MRC_Hans, you asked what I meant by terming myself a non-debunker? Well, the answer is quite simple: I don't make it a habit to dismiss something out of hand just because it wouldn't fit in the orthodox scientific world view, and I don't have a materialist framework anyway.
As I understand it, those are two defining characteristics of most debunkers (dismissal of anything that seems to contradict the orthodox scientific world view and adherence to that world view), wouldn't you agree?
Which does not mean I would believe everything I'm being told. For one thing, I don't easily buy a skeptical explanation of a possible anomaly :wink:.

Best wishes,

Titus

reprise

8th August 2003, 02:55 AM

Nobody is "dismissing out of hand" Pam Reynold's experience - please don't try to set up a strawman - we just reject the notion that there is anything "mystical" about it.

The so-called "stand-still" procedure is exactly that - it's specifically designed to stop the suffering damage or dying during procedures which normal circulation cannot be maintained - the brain doesn't "stop" functioning altogether, it just functions at such a low level that its activity is undetectable. No-one pretends that the brain actually "stops" (we'd be in trouble if it did, because we know how to restart cardiac and respiratory function, but we don't yet know how to "restart" a brain), only that it is put in a state something similar to hibernation.

Reynold's was already a participant in an NDE study at the time of the surgery - this is extremely bad scientific control of a study.

Personally, I believe that NDEs will be found to be a similar phenomenon to sleep paralysis and ICU-itis.

I'd be extremely interested in finding out the anaesthesia protocol for this particular operation, as the brain itself doesn't feel pain and it's highly possible that something less than total anaesthesia was required during much of the operation.

This particular piece of horsecrap is particularly worth noting :
... an unconscious state is when the brain ceases to function. For example, if you faint, you fall to the floor, you don’t know what’s happening and the brain isn’t working.

The brain does not "cease to function" during unconsciousness - if it did, we'd die each time we lost consciousness; quite obviously, we do not die every time we lose consciousness. It's also quite common for people to drift in and out of consciousness during and immediately after traumatic events - sometimes having a recollection of what occured prior to fully regaining consciousness and sometimes not.

We have to eliminate an awful lot of mundane explanations for NDEs before we seriously start considering paranormal ones.

Titus Rivas

8th August 2003, 03:26 AM

Nobody is "dismissing out of hand" Pam Reynold's experience - please don't try to set up a strawman - we just reject the notion that there is anything "mystical" about it. Sorry for the provocative shorthand on my part. I thought you could appreciate that. I had understood such provocative wording would be part of the social conventions among debunkers.

The so-called "stand-still" procedure is exactly that - it's specifically designed to stop the suffering damage or dying during procedures which normal circulation cannot be maintained - the brain doesn't "stop" functioning altogether, it just functions at such a low level that its activity is undetectable. No-one pretends that the brain actually "stops" (we'd be in trouble if it did, because we know how to restart cardiac and respiratory function, but we don't yet know how to "restart" a brain), only that it is put in a state something similar to hibernation

The point is not whether it literally stopped in all respects, the point is that it stopped to the extent that any experience would be in contradiction with most if not all contemporary materialist models of mental functioning. I've often read about skeptics who criticize the notion that people with an NDE had really been 'dead'. As if the cases would only be anomalous if the person in question had really been physically dead! Quite a flaw I'd say, as the problem would still be that a flat EEG cannot (within contemporary neurology anyway) be reconciled with any type of lucid subjective functioning.

Reynold's was already a participant in an NDE study at the time of the surgery - this is extremely bad scientific control of a study. Do you really think so? I would rather think it's an additional positive feature of the case as more variables should have been known beforehand.

But again, what type of case would be a real problem for your views? Can you give a hypothetical description of such a case?

Best wishes,

Titus

Pyrrho

8th August 2003, 05:01 AM

Why are people assuming that Pam Reynolds' visions took place when she had a flat EEG? Nobody knows when or if she experienced those "visions". The whole thing is a leap of faith, all scientific festooning aside.

I do dismiss her experience out-of-hand.

MRC_Hans

8th August 2003, 05:27 AM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Sorry for the provocative shorthand on my part. I thought you could appreciate that. I had understood such provocative wording would be part of the social conventions among debunkers.

It is. So are snap rebuttals :D .

The point is not whether it literally stopped in all respects, the point is that it stopped to the extent that any experience would be in contradiction with most if not all contemporary materialist models of mental functioning. I've often read about skeptics who criticize the notion that people with an NDE had really been 'dead'. As if the cases would only be anomalous if the person in question had really been physically dead! Quite a flaw I'd say, as the problem would still be that a flat EEG cannot (within contemporary neurology anyway) be reconciled with any type of lucid subjective functioning.

The point is that nobody, not even Pam Reynolds, can know WHEN those perceptions occurred. The only thing we know is that she reported it at some time after the procedure.

(On PR already being involved in NDE studies)
Do you really think so? I would rather think it's an additional positive feature of the case as more variables should have been known beforehand.

Ever heard of a thing like observer bias?

But again, what type of case would be a real problem for your views? Can you give a hypothetical description of such a case?

Beside the point, but to convince a skeptic, you need solid evidence, simple as that.

Best wishes,

Titus [/B]

Basically, this account is an NDE. Unless PR made up the whole thing, she had an NDE. I don't see anybody refuting that. What is refuted is that an NDE is a paranormal event.

Hans

Hans

Titus Rivas

8th August 2003, 05:35 AM

Beside the point, but to convince a skeptic, you need solid evidence, simple as that.

Fair enough, Hans, but what would constitute such evidence in this context? Meaning for yourself and other debunkers?

Best wishes,

Titus

dissonance

8th August 2003, 05:46 AM

Evidence of what, exactly? She certainly did have a NDE. I wouldn't argue with with that. What I would argue is that there was anything paranormal about it, as all of her experiences can be explained by mundane means, as people have done in this thread.

So what evidence would be acceptable would depend on the specific claim being made. So let's say someone claims that during an operation, they found themselves floating outside their body observing the operation. What would be conclusive evidence that it actually happened? Let's say the person, after waking up, is able to report the details accurately of another room in the building that there is no way they have seen, ever. That would be pretty good, although there are a LOT of ways someone could cheat that would have to be eliminated. And the room would have to contain some unique, unexpected objects for a hospital room, of course. I mean, I could pretty accurately describe a random hospital room right now, but that doesn't mean I have special powers. It just means I've seen hospital rooms before.

Really, though, the evidence depends on the specific claims being made. I see nothing in this particular case that can't be explained mundanely.

anduin

8th August 2003, 05:53 AM

I am extremely suspicious of the fact that this person was already participating in an NDE study, there is a very large possibility that there was communication given to Reynolds after her operation about what took place, and I have not found anything in the pages that you have given that tell me otherwise.

I need to know more details about this case: When did Pam Reynolds write her report? Did she have contact with any of the people involved in the operation before she put it down on paper? How was the information verified?

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

8th August 2003, 06:02 AM

Titus said:I don't make it a habit to dismiss something out of hand just because it wouldn't fit in the orthodox scientific world view, and I don't have a materialist framework anyway.
As I understand it, those are two defining characteristics of most debunkers (dismissal of anything that seems to contradict the orthodox scientific world view and adherence to that world view),
You know, this straw man is so big and so strong that he'll soon morph into a steel man. I spend some time on another forum called Debunker Debunkers, and they have this same twisted definition of debunk. That allows them to dismiss anything that someone says once they've labeled him a debunker, precisely the thing they are complaining about concerning debunkers.

Just put a note on top of a cabinet in the operating room---after the patient is flatlined---and ask her to read it during her NDE.

~~ Paul

MRC_Hans

8th August 2003, 06:10 AM

What dissonance said!

Lets have a look at her testimonial:
Originally posted by Titus Rivas
So if I understand most of you guys correctly, you claim that Pam's memories would not relate to an episode during which the standstill procedure had already become effective. However, that is simply not in accordance with the acount she has given, which is why the case is judged so important by some in the first place. Her heart was supposed to have stopped beating already and there were no brain waves.

Here's some details:

"There was so much in the operating room that I didn't recognize, and so many people."

So she did not see the operating room very clearly. The "many people" is typical of post-operative perception; in your unclear condition, you notice people coming and going, but you have no sense of time, so you think it all happens at the same time. Tried it myself.

"I thought the way they had my head shaved was very peculiar. I expected them to take all of the hair, but they did not ...

Yeh, interesting, but she would notice this after waking.

"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,"

If she did not encounter this during the prebriefing, she probably saw it on TV earlier, I certainly have, and since she must have known for some time that she was to undergo brain surgery, she might have looked for TV features about that, they might even have shown her some.

"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. I remember thinking that I should have told her about that

This is nonsense. Leading up to of the operation, they would already have stuck about a hundred needles in her, and if her veins were small, she would have heard that remark repeatedly.

... 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."

Anybody here who hasn't seen a heart-lung machine or a respirator, on TV at least? I would also guess at there being lotsa strange instruments.

Like a few other NDEers, she provided information about what happened to her in the operating room that was corroborated by technical witnesses. Although she previously did not have specific information about the procedures that were performed on her, she provided detailed descriptions that were later substantiated.

Again, was she not briefed about the operation? That would be unusual. What descriptions that she could not make based on previous experience?

I gather that a renowned neurosurgeon as Dr. Robert F. Spetzler of the Division of Neurosurgery Barrow Neurological Institute (Phoenix, Arizona) wouldn't officially state her account was remarkably accurate when it actually wasn't. In his own words: "Her recollections occurred shortly after surgery and were remarkably accurate. There was no cortical activity whatsoever nor were there any brainstem evoked potentials. I remain skeptical but have seen too many unexplained phenomena to be so arrogant as to know that they didn’t happen."

Appeal to false authority. No doubt the gentleman is an exellent neurosurgeon, but is he qualified in investigation of NDE evidence?

So much for the justification of the non-debunker's fascination and even enthusiasm.

You said it!

What's your reason to just dismiss the case out of hand anyway if you take all this in consideration?

That the report can be explained in mundane terms.

*snip*

Sorry, outta time right now.
Best wishes,

Titus

Hans

Psiload

8th August 2003, 06:30 AM

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Titus said:
You know, this straw man is so big and so strong that he'll soon morph into a steel man. I spend some time on another forum called Debunker Debunkers, and they have this same twisted definition of debunk. That allows them to dismiss anything that someone says once they've labeled him a debunker, precisely the thing they are complaining about concerning debunkers.

Just put a note on top of a cabinet in the operating room---after the patient is flatlined---and ask her to read it during her NDE.

~~ Paul
I work as an equipment fixer guy in a hospital. I feel a little silly about this, but after seeing a show on TEEVEE describing a similar, or possibly the same, claim offered by the non-debunker, I placed a learn-to-read flashcards on the top arm of all the OR lights after I did maintenance on them. I swiped the cards from my daughter... you know those ones that say CAT, and there's a picture of a cat, or DOG with the picture of the dog? We get the occassional patient that recounts the "floating over my body watching the operation" tale, after their surgery while they are in the post anesthesia recovery unit. I told all the PACU nurses about my little experiment, and they're playing along. They told me they've had a few "floaters", but no hits yet.

Interesting Ian

8th August 2003, 06:51 AM

Originally posted by MRC_Hans
A few points (some already made):

This woman was not at any time dead. Death is per definition an irreversible condition. Hans

That's a very useful definition of death for skeptics to adopt isn't it?

Interesting Ian

8th August 2003, 06:53 AM

Originally posted by Pyrrho
Anecdotal. Dismissed. Next?

What would constitute a non-anecdotal NDE?

Interesting Ian

8th August 2003, 07:01 AM

Originally posted by Quasi
Most everyone will rationalize and believe to the very end.
[/B]

One finds himself or herself in some sort of "otherworldly" reality were they feel more conscious and alive than they have ever been in their lives. The question then is why should that person believe that they will very shortly instantaneously cease to be? Surely one would not need to rationalize in order to suppose they will continue having experiences? Rather it seems to me that they would need to rationalise in order to construe the experience as being some sort of hallucination, and that very shortly they will just switch off like a light. What conceivable justification could warrant this belief?

Interesting Ian

8th August 2003, 07:14 AM

Originally posted by reprise
Nobody is "dismissing out of hand" Pam Reynold's experience - please don't try to set up a strawman - we just reject the notion that there is anything "mystical" about it.

We just reject the notion of any explanation inconsistent with materialist principles.

ie you already know the truth about the world, therefore any evidence which challenges this "knowledge", simply must be flawed in some way or other.

crocodile deathroll

8th August 2003, 07:20 AM

I don't know, I just think that anedote sounds too vague. If she witnessed it first hand and she can't explain it, then how are we to know?

The light was incredibly bright, like sitting in the middle of a light bulb. It was so bright that I put my hands in front of my face fully expecting to see them and I could not. But I knew they were there. Not from a sense of touch. Again, it's terribly hard to explain, but I knew they were there ...

Interesting Ian

8th August 2003, 07:20 AM

Originally posted by dissonance
[B]Evidence of what, exactly? She certainly did have a NDE. I wouldn't argue with with that. What I would argue is that there was anything paranormal about it, as all of her experiences can be explained by mundane means, as people have done in this thread.

I'm reading through this thread at the moment. I must have missed that. Where did people do this??

Darat

8th August 2003, 07:22 AM

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

I'm reading through this thread at the moment. I must have missed that. Where did people do this??

II - I think dissonance may be refereing to the fact that we don't know if she had zero brain activity and we don't know when she expereinced the "events" she described?

Interesting Ian

8th August 2003, 07:28 AM

Originally posted by dissonance

So what evidence would be acceptable would depend on the specific claim being made.

Let's say no specific claim, just that NDE's and especially PR's are strongly suggestive of the survival hypothesis.

So let's say someone claims that during an operation, they found themselves floating outside their body observing the operation. What would be conclusive evidence that it actually happened?

And if one does not have conclusive evidence, but merely strongly suggestive evidence, one should favour the hypothesis that it was all made up, or is an hallucination should we?? :rolleyes:

I'm continually bemused at how effectively people are conditioned by the prevailing western metaphysic to the extent that they refuse to consider any evidence at odds with its tenets.

Darat

8th August 2003, 07:31 AM

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

...snip...

I'm continually bemused at how effectively people are conditioned by the prevailing western metaphysic to the extent that they refuse to consider any evidence at odds with its tenets.

What do you mean by "western metaphysics"?

Dragonrock

8th August 2003, 07:49 AM

My wife is an ICU nurse and often they will perform procedures on patients without removing the patient from their room. They put them under general anesthesia while they are being worked on. Quite often when the patients wake up they have the same vision. They believe that they were taken to the basement of the hospital and experimented on. They never left their rooms, but they are certain that they were taken to the basement. What's strange is not that they hallucinated, it's that so many people hallucinate similar things. Why is it so hard to believe that NDEs are just the brain making up things in response to incomplete stimuli similarly to what happens under anesthesia?

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

8th August 2003, 09:33 AM

Ian said:That's a very useful definition of death for skeptics to adopt isn't it?
Aw Ian, come on. Try to stick with the standard definition of one or two words.

"1 : a permanent cessation of all vital functions : the end of life"

Dragonrock noted:They believe that they were taken to the basement of the hospital and experimented on. They never left their rooms, but they are certain that they were taken to the basement.
Mwahahaha ... the old medical experiments in the dank, musty basement trick. Never saw that in a movie, oh no.

~~ Paul

Jeff Corey

8th August 2003, 09:38 AM

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Let's say no specific claim, just that NDE's and especially PR's are strongly suggestive of the survival hypothesis.
Let's not.
It's all immaterial, after all.

c0rbin

8th August 2003, 10:01 AM

That's a very useful definition of death for skeptics to adopt isn't it?

Adopt?!?

Get a dictionary.

You, sir get the big :rolleyes:

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

8th August 2003, 02:10 PM

Ian said:One finds himself or herself in some sort of "otherworldly" reality were they feel more conscious and alive than they have ever been in their lives. The question then is why should that person believe that they will very shortly instantaneously cease to be? Surely one would not need to rationalize in order to suppose they will continue having experiences? Rather it seems to me that they would need to rationalise in order to construe the experience as being some sort of hallucination, and that very shortly they will just switch off like a light. What conceivable justification could warrant this belief?
Are we talking about someone who is going to continue living after this experience, or die?

~~ Paul

Pyrrho

8th August 2003, 03:58 PM

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
What would constitute a non-anecdotal NDE?
I suppose one could gather volunteers who would be subjected to the procedures Pam Reynolds underwent -- except for the actual surgery, of course. The volunteers would be kept isolated prior to the procedure. Certain details not typical for such procedures would be arranged and performed while and only while the volunteer was "flatlined". Let's say, someone draws a simple picture on a card. The five known senses for each volunteer would have to be controlled -- ear plugs, eye shields, nose plugs, etc.

The volunteer could then try to report these details, which would then be compared with the actual events performed during the "flatline" period. The set of details could be the same for each volunteer, or could be randomly different for each volunteer. Speaking during the procedure would be prohibited for the team peforming the procedure. Reports from volunteers of events or details that were not performed during the "flatline" period would be discarded because of possible sensory leakage.

There are, of course, severe ethical problems with taking people to near death.

Pyrrho

8th August 2003, 04:04 PM

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
I'm continually bemused at how effectively people are conditioned by the prevailing western metaphysic to the extent that they refuse to consider any evidence at odds with its tenets. Even non-western metaphysics precludes making unwarranted assumptions in scientific investigations, which is what is happening in this case. Now, if we're talking about believing something on the basis of faith, that's perfectly admissible in any metaphysic, even if it is illogical. Believing in NDE is an act of faith. Let's just call it religion, which is what it boils down to.

tracer

8th August 2003, 04:17 PM

Originally posted by reprise
Nitrous is very often the gas used to maintain anaesthesia after initial induction, and it is not surprising that people sometimes recall sounds from their period of anaesthesia - the anaestheist is generally trying to use the lowest dose of anaesthetic compatible with the surgeon's requirements.
That might explain how, when they put me under to set my broken finger when I was 8 years old, I could see and hear one of the women in the operating theater talking to me once in a while. (The rest of the time I had a weird dream wherein the surgeon performing the procedure was dancing and talking in rhythm (what today is called "rap") against a black void in the background. When I came to, they were putting the cast on my hand.)

crocodile deathroll

8th August 2003, 04:37 PM

How about in independant data recorder in a ceiled box in the OR that records everything in the room, and if someone makes a claim either paranormal or legal, then they could break the box the read that data to verify their claim?

SteveGrenard

8th August 2003, 05:13 PM

All this talk about anesthetics and hallucinations while interesting has no relevance in the Pam Reynolds case since the profound hypothermia to which she was subjected caused complete cessation of cellular metabolism in the brain and there would be no pathways by which such agents could function.

The idea of a black box in the O.R. is interesting. To my knowledge all events in major surgeries are frequently video and audiotaped in any case although I am not sure if this ocurred in the PR case but it is likely, given the nature of this procedure.
The question as to when during the procedure Pam had heard what she heard is also important. I suggest that the staff who made the comments she overheard could best attest to that.
A time coded recording would also and better serve that purpose. If some nurse said she was going out forsome hot coffee; okay, okay just kidding, going out then to fetch an instrument the doctor needed.... while Pam was in total standstill, then it could be determined that way.

The NDE as an out of body experience is also being overlooked.
The persons involved in these cases who never got off the table allege to have traveled out of body and out of the room they were physically locked down within. There are several cases where they correctly described things such as old sneakers on window ledges or on top of lockers in staff areas which they had no way of seeing through normal means. I recall the window ledge sneaker was well described down to a hole worn in the toe.
(Ref: Greyson and Flynn (eds) The Near Death Experience:
Problems, Prospects, Perspectives. 1984. Charles C. Thomas Publishers, Springfield, Illinois)

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

8th August 2003, 06:19 PM

Yes, but what really happened with that shoe?

http://www.sfu.ca/psychology/groups/faculty/beyerstein/research/articles/13MariasNDE.doc

~~ Paul

Jethro

8th August 2003, 06:23 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
All this talk about anesthetics and hallucinations while interesting has no relevance in the Pam Reynolds case since the profound hypothermia to which she was subjected caused complete cessation of cellular metabolism in the brain and there would be no pathways by which such agents could function. While it is true said agents could not function while her brain was "off," we have little reason to believe that her experience absolutely had to happen during that period.

SteveGrenard

8th August 2003, 06:45 PM

Given the source of this investigation into the Harborview case, I am not surprised it glosses over some details making the tennis shoe example more valid. Its much more speculative than the case itself if one had to weigh both sides. They gloss over, for example, the fact that the patient had detected a hole in the toe and a shoelace tucked under the heel. They could not prove the patient was ever in the room whose ledge it was perched on and make a a leap of faith about seeing it from ground level, with this kind of detail, when it was on a ledge three stories up. If you were on ground level looking up at a 3-story high ledge and saw a shoe from that vantage point would you also, from that distance and at that angle be able to see a hole in the toe and how the lace was under its heel? I am not sure I could do it.
This author would have us believe it could be done. When I read speculation like this in an effort to debunk, it impeaches the entire account for me. The author stretches the limits of Occam's razor by developing a convoluted set of multiple possibilities to account for the observation as well, necessarily complicating explanations, making them non-parsimonious, in order to confirm his bias against this type of phenomena.

Since we are on stinky old sneakers, Paul did you happen to run into the other sneaker account where it was later found, as seen by an NDEer, on top of a locker in an off limits staff locker room?

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

8th August 2003, 07:31 PM

Sneakers here, sneakers there. It's like finding a severed arm in a ghost story. We need controlled experiments.

~~ Paul

Hexxenhammer

8th August 2003, 07:59 PM

Pam Reynolds herself posted to the Readers Digest boards about the search for a soul. See the Philosophy and Religion board for the thread about that. Here's a post and her reply:

mcnulty Fri 08/08/03, 8:39:35
I am extremely annoyed by medical researchers/scientists who are too closed minded to consider the possibility that something supernatural outside the bounderies of human science does exist. No amount of science can explain the existence of human life. Even if we evolved from the smallest amount of matter where did that small bit of matter come from? This alone tells me that there are some things science will never be able to explain. Is it really so difficult for these scientists to believe that they simply haven't the power to explain everything? What makes them so smart that they can know without a doubt that souls don't exist. These scientists think they are too brilliant to consider such silliness, but they are extremely short-sighted. This is too bad for I would think the best medical researchers would be those people who can accept they don't know everything and are open minded to new possibilities.

pamreynold Fri 08/08/03, 8:57:04
When it hapened to me, Dr. Spetzler's mind was wide open. I agreed to speak only with the scientific community and was recieved by open minded truth seekers. At the time, I myself thought that the event was a "brain thing". Research convinced me otherwise. The research was conducted by yet another man of science, Dr. Michael Sabom pamreynoldsus@yahoo.com

Readers Digest "Is there a soul" board (http://communitytalk.rd.com/webx?50@217.L4vMatVZsJO.4@.efe9a79/1342)

bPer

8th August 2003, 08:22 PM

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
That's a very useful definition of death for skeptics to adopt isn't it?
Originally posted by c0rbin

Adopt?!?

Get a dictionary.

You, sir get the big :rolleyes:
Sorry, but I don't see any problem with the quote. Could you please explain why "adopt" is inappropriate here?

bPer

Ratman_tf

8th August 2003, 11:15 PM

Originally posted by Hexxenhammer
Pam Reynolds herself posted to the Readers Digest boards about the search for a soul. See the Philosophy and Religion board for the thread about that. Here's a post and her reply:

mcnulty Fri 08/08/03, 8:39:35
I am extremely annoyed by medical researchers/scientists who are too closed minded to consider the possibility that something supernatural outside the bounderies of human science does exist.

Again with the scientist being closed minded? This coming from a woman who has apparently closed her mind to mundane explanations? *SSSniif!* I love the smell of hypocracy.

anduin

9th August 2003, 01:50 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Given the source of this investigation into the Harborview case, I am not surprised it glosses over some details making the tennis shoe example more valid. Its much more speculative than the case itself if one had to weigh both sides. They gloss over, for example, the fact that the patient had detected a hole in the toe and a shoelace tucked under the heel. They could not prove the patient was ever in the room whose ledge it was perched on and make a a leap of faith about seeing it from ground level, with this kind of detail, when it was on a ledge three stories up. If you were on ground level looking up at a 3-story high ledge and saw a shoe from that vantage point would you also, from that distance and at that angle be able to see a hole in the toe and how the lace was under its heel? I am not sure I could do it.
This author would have us believe it could be done. When I read speculation like this in an effort to debunk, it impeaches the entire account for me. The author stretches the limits of Occam's razor by developing a convoluted set of multiple possibilities to account for the observation as well, necessarily complicating explanations, making them non-parsimonious, in order to confirm his bias against this type of phenomena.

Steve, you fail to see that the problem with Maria's NDE is not the details, but the fact that the original patient cannot be found for interview, hence there is no way of knowing what Maria saw as Clark is relying on seven year-old recollection of the events. We can't even know if this person existed at all!

This story is hearsay. Dr. Kenneth Ring made this report popular in one of his books. However, Ring did not witness any of these events; he is simply passing on a story that was recounted by Kimberly Clark Sharp, another NDE believer and author of the book “After the Light”. Sharp is the only witness of these events, it is impossible to interview “Maria”, and it is impossible to verify any sort of information about this case. Did Maria exist? Can we find medical records? Is there proof that she was in the hospital at the time? Can she be found and interviewed? Is there any verification other than Sharp’s own word?

Do you see how feeble the case is? In particular, with a little bit of research I could find a huge lie told by Ring in his interpretation of events. He says in his book that:

“Clark, who had heard about NDE's but was skeptical of them--and of Maria's story-- listened with feigned but seemingly empathic respect to the patient's account of what was, for Clark, her bizarre-sounding narrative?.”

However, Clark claims to have had a NDE at age 22 in her book! Click here for details.
http://www.seattleiands.org/HTM/br1.htm
How was she sceptical of NDEs when most of her book talks about her alleged NDE? Doesn't the fact that Clark was a strong believer taint her testimony, given the fact that we have no access whatsoever to the subject?

Can you see why am I less than impressed by this case? All you have is the word of a believer who has an agenda, that of writing books pushing her experience. What better way of making it more interesting and believable than by inventing the story of Maria?

Yahweh

9th August 2003, 04:30 AM

Originally posted by Ratman_tf

Again with the scientist being closed minded? This coming from a woman who has apparently closed her mind to mundane explanations? *SSSniif!* I love the smell of hypocracy.
For some bizarre reason, some people see "being closeminded" as a legitimate arguement. Claiming that someone is "closeminded" is neither an arguement of logic nor science.

Usually, when it results to calling one or the other closeminded, thats usually the cry someone very desperate to undermine the credibility of another's scientific claim, or the cry of someone ignorantly refuses to question all those optimistic afterlife fantasies and think in terms of rationalism.

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 06:55 AM

Anduin: Steve, you fail to see that the problem with Maria's NDE is not the details, but the fact that the original patient cannot be found for interview, hence there is no way of knowing what Maria saw as Clark is relying on seven year-old recollection of the events. We can't even know if this person existed at all!

Reply: Well this doesn't bother me since Clark's case involved a patient whose identity was shielded. By comparison, Michael O'Neill, the man who e-mailed Randi about his experience on Crossing Over cannot be found either and his contact point is being protected by Randi who did not allow anyone who has quoted him to talk directly with him. O'Neill is NOT a patient and has been widely quoted (same quotes as furnished by Randi) in TIME magazine and over and over again on skeptic websites and in skeptic literature with absolutely no way to confirm any of his assertions. O'Neill should be on the top of a skeptic lecture circuit relating his account and answering questions, but where is he?

I first read the Maria case in a Chapter by Clark in a book edited by Charles Greyson, M.D. of the University of Virginia Medical Center and Charles Flynn, pHD of Miami Univ, Oxford, Ohio. Clark wrote her case up as a clinical case history. While I am appealing to their credentials, I will do so: Clark at the time was an Assistant Clinical Professor at the School of Social Work and was an Instructor the University of Washington, School of Medicine.
The book, I referenced above, is a multiauthored volume
dealing with the pros and cons of NDEs. If some crackpot or some magician had written up Maria's story for the National Examiner I would not give it the attention it deserves; however all medical case histories shield patient identities and like it or not we often have to rely on the integrity and credentials of the investigators. What you are saying here, in effect, is that Clark is a liar (common phraseology around here ... she made up Maria, Harborview Medical Center backed Clark up and was part of the conspiracy, etc etc. and then Greyson and Flynn joined in and
accepted Clark's account at face value as well). Sorry, find it far fetched that the surgeon, the nurses, Clark's colleagues and an entire and well respected hospital in Seattle would sit idly by while Clark perpetrated a myth which is the counterclaim.
If Maria was non-existent and her account fabricated (even if she was real), the S.I. author would not have gone to the trouble of conjuring up numerous theories as to why she saw the sneaker by normal means and not during an OBE associated with her actual or literal brush with death experience. So I attack the Skeptical Inquirer author on those grounds and I ask again:

can one see a shoelace tucked under a heel and a hole worn in a toe of a sneaker from ground level when said sneaker is perched on a ledge three stories high? The most parsimonious explanation is, for this reason, the paranormal one.

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 07:54 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
can one see a shoelace tucked under a heel and a hole worn in a toe of a sneaker from ground level when said sneaker is perched on a ledge three stories high? The most parsimonious explanation is, for this reason, the paranormal one.
Wholly depends upon whether or not Clark is telling the truth. That's why it's pointless to discuss the tale as if it is real evidence.

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 08:20 AM

P: Wholly depends upon whether or not Clark is telling the truth. That's why it's pointless to discuss the tale as if it is real evidence.

Reply: Indeed. And this statement calls into question every case history ever published. If you cannot make a decision that you feel Clark is being truthful, that Harborview, the surgeons, the nurses and the entire staff of the medical center have no reason to refute Clark, then you call them all into disrepute. Is that your intention? Because if it wasn't, that is what you are saying by clear implication. With case histories and observers, not refuted by their institutions and backed up by other staff members (doctors and nurses), there has to be a line drawn which you should not cross unless you wish to implicate them all in some sort of conspiracy born of skeptic paranoia which is undeserved.

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 08:47 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
P: Wholly depends upon whether or not Clark is telling the truth. That's why it's pointless to discuss the tale as if it is real evidence.

Reply: Indeed. And this statement calls into question every case history ever published. If you cannot make a decision that you feel Clark is being truthful, that Harborview, the surgeons, the nurses and the entire staff of the medical center have no reason to refute Clark, then you call them all into disrepute. Is that your intention? Because if it wasn't, that is what you are saying by clear implication. With case histories and observers, not refuted by their institutions and backed up by other staff members (doctors and nurses), there has to be a line drawn which you should not cross unless you wish to implicate them all in some sort of conspiracy born of skeptic paranoia which is undeserved.
Nice straw man, Steve. My refusal to accept Clark's anecdote does not mean that I am implicating anyone in a conspiracy, nor does it mean that I am calling them into disrepute.

Clark's story is not a case history. It is an anecdote. There is no way anyone can refute her story, nor can anyone validate her story. You've invented a scenario of all these people implicitly supporting Clark by virtue of not having denounced her. Fallacious reasoning, sorry -- appeal to ignorance, I think. A story is not valid just because it has not been refuted.

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 08:56 AM

P: Clark's story is not a case history. It is an anecdote. There is no way anyone can refute her story, nor can anyone validate her story. You've invented a scenario of all these people implicitly supporting Clark by virtue of not having denounced her. Fallacious reasoning, sorry -- appeal to ignorance, I think. A story is not valid just because it has not been refuted.

I understand now that you have only read lay accounts of Clark's Maria case history, hence its denigration as a "story." It is presented in an peer edited volume as a case history: Greyson and Flynn: The Near Death Experience. 1984. C.C.Thomas Publishers, Springfield, Illinois.

I did not invent the surgeons and nurses that helped to conduct Maria's treatment; I did not invent the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington where this case history ocurred. Its still there. You can see it anytime you go to Seattle or visit its website. I did not invent Maria's medical record which contained the details of this and other parts of Maria's care and treatment and which was examined by the medical staff there and secured in the Medical Records Department of Harborview. I did not invent the absence of any physician, nurse or administrator stepping forward to deny that Maria's case history ocurred as reported in writing by Clark. Given the publciity this written case history generated, how long do you think it would take for some physician at Harborview to read Maria's case history and then, if it was a fabrication or worse, didnt exist, publicly refute Clark? About two seconds! Yet you sit here on this forum years later and have the temerity to do exactly that w/o qualifications or evidence. Just unsubstantiated speculation.

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 09:40 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
P: Clark's story is not a case history. It is an anecdote. There is no way anyone can refute her story, nor can anyone validate her story. You've invented a scenario of all these people implicitly supporting Clark by virtue of not having denounced her. Fallacious reasoning, sorry -- appeal to ignorance, I think. A story is not valid just because it has not been refuted.

I understand now that you have only read lay accounts of Clark's Maria case history, hence its denigration as a "story." It is presented in an peer edited volume as a case history: Greyson and Flynn: The Near Death Experience. 1984. C.C.Thomas Publishers, Springfield, Illinois.

I did not invent the surgeons and nurses that helped to conduct Maria's treatment; I did not invent the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington where this case history ocurred. Its still there. You can see it anytime you go to Seattle or visit its website. I did not invent Maria's medical record which contained the details of this and other parts of Maria's care and treatment and which was examined by the medical staff there and secured in the Medical Records Department of Harborview.

I'll stipulate to the existence of Harborview Medical Center. I'll even stipulate to the existence of Maria and her medical records.

I did not invent the absence of any physician, nurse or administrator stepping forward to deny that Maria's case history ocurred as reported in writing by Clark. Given the publciity this written case history generated, how long do you think it would take for some physician at Harborview to read Maria's case history and then, if it was a fabrication or worse, didnt exist, publicly refute Clark? About two seconds! Yet you sit here on this forum years later and have the temerity to do exactly that w/o qualifications or evidence. Just unsubstantiated speculation.
Argument from ignorance, Steve, and another straw man.

The fact is that Clark's story hinges on her own testimony, and on that basis her story is anecdotal and cannot be accepted as evidence of NDE. I don't need special qualifications to see that.

Temerity? Yes, someone needs to have the temerity to call such legends into question.

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 10:01 AM

You are still resorting to unsubstantiated speculation to avoid answering my question about the tennis shoes.

Fair enough. So long as we understand the basis for the non-response.

anduin

9th August 2003, 10:14 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Well this doesn't bother me since Clark's case involved a patient whose identity was shielded. By comparison, Michael O'Neill, the man who e-mailed Randi about his experience on Crossing Over cannot be found either and his contact point is being protected by Randi who did not allow anyone who has quoted him to talk directly with him. O'Neill is NOT a patient and has been widely quoted (same quotes as furnished by Randi) in TIME magazine and over and over again on skeptic websites and in skeptic literature with absolutely no way to confirm any of his assertions. O'Neill should be on the top of a skeptic lecture circuit relating his account and answering questions, but where is he?
This is simply a 'tu quoque' fallacy that fails to address the point I made. This person cannot be found, is not available for interview and there is no way to determine any of the details. I happen to agree that the O'Neill argument is also useless, but that does not deal in the slightest with what I have highlighted. "Maria's" testimony is completely useless as evidence for NDE's.
Originally posted by SteveGrenard
I first read the Maria case in a Chapter by Clark in a book edited by Charles Greyson, M.D. of the University of Virginia Medical Center and Charles Flynn, pHD of Miami Univ, Oxford, Ohio. Clark wrote her case up as a clinical case history. While I am appealing to their credentials, I will do so: Clark at the time was an Assistant Clinical Professor at the School of Social Work and was an Instructor the University of Washington, School of Medicine.
Their credentials are irrelevant to the strength of the evidence, just as Pons and Fleischmann had excellent credentials before the Cold Fusion debacle, but the evidence did not hold to scrutiny. Clark is an NDE believer who is profiting from this, we only have her testimony. I am afraid if I do not share your belief in people's good intentions, but this issue is too serious and important to rely on second-hand evidence.
Originally posted by SteveGrenard
The book, I referenced above, is a multiauthored volume
dealing with the pros and cons of NDEs. If some crackpot or some magician had written up Maria's story for the National Examiner I would not give it the attention it deserves; however all medical case histories shield patient identities and like it or not we often have to rely on the integrity and credentials of the investigators.
This is irrelevant for the reliability of the evidence. The evidence is not reliable because there is no possible way to verify it. Period.
Originally posted by SteveGrenard
What you are saying here, in effect, is that Clark is a liar (common phraseology around here ... she made up Maria, Harborview Medical Center backed Clark up and was part of the conspiracy, etc etc. and then Greyson and Flynn joined in and
accepted Clark's account at face value as well).
No, I have not said she is a liar, I am saying that fabrication cannot be ruled out. I have followed this case closely and I have not seen any evidence that Harborview has corroborated her story; perhaps you could direct me to where this has been documented? As for Greyson and Flynn, they do not need to be involved in a conspiracy, they only need to be shoddy researchers and believe Clark. Other NDE authors have done so, such as Kenneth Ring, and they have distorted the details of the story as told by Clark.
Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Sorry, find it far fetched that the surgeon, the nurses, Clark's colleagues and an entire and well respected hospital in Seattle would sit idly by while Clark perpetrated a myth which is the counterclaim.
The problem is that we don't have the surgeon's testimony, the nurse's testimony, the colleagues' testimony, nor the hospital's testimony, do we?
Originally posted by SteveGrenard
If Maria was non-existent and her account fabricated (even if she was real), the S.I. author would not have gone to the trouble of conjuring up numerous theories as to why she saw the sneaker by normal means and not during an OBE associated with her actual or literal brush with death experience.
Originally posted by SteveGrenard

So I attack the Skeptical Inquirer author on those grounds and I ask again:
What is this, the "Argument from bad debunking"? I don't know about the author of the article, but I know that this is the first thing that struck me from this report, we only have Clark's report to base any information on.

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 10:19 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
You are still resorting to unsubstantiated speculation to avoid answering my question about the tennis shoes.

Fair enough. So long as we understand the basis for the non-response.
I'm not speculating, Steve. This is an excercise in critical thinking and the use of intelligent logic. Clark's tale relies solely upon her own testimony regarding Maria's NDE. It is a fundamental logical fallacy to take it as valid evidence.

SB: Given the source of this investigation into the Harborview case, I am not surprised it glosses over some details making the tennis shoe example more valid. Its much more speculative than the case itself if one had to weigh both sides. They gloss over, for example, the fact that the patient had detected a hole in the toe and a shoelace tucked under the heel. They could not prove the patient was ever in the room whose ledge it was perched on and make a a leap of faith about seeing it from ground level, with this kind of detail, when it was on a ledge three stories up. If you were on ground level looking up at a 3-story high ledge and saw a shoe from that vantage point would you also, from that distance and at that angle be able to see a hole in the toe and how the lace was under its heel? I am not sure I could do it.

In this example, your argument -- and speculation -- rests upon the existence of the tennis shoe and Clark's testimony regarding it. We only have Clark's testimony that it ever existed, and she apparently did not keep it. Even if she did keep it and could produce the shoe, it still would not qualify as valid evidence.

Once again, accepting this story as valid evidence of NDE requires a fundamental logical fallacy.

Titus Rivas

9th August 2003, 10:22 AM

Thanks for the comments.

Some of you skeptics seem to claim that we would need hard experimental evidence before we should take any NDE seriously as possible evidence of postmortem survival of consciousness. However, as Paul already pointed out, such experiments would be unethical. In fact I resent very much the unpleasant animal experiments that have already been done in the name of progress in PSI research. I certainly wouldn't want to add a record of irresponsible experiments on human subjects.

Anyway, is your view of science really so limited and strict that you would only accept experimental evidence? What about the naturalistic type of evidence of observation and reconstruction of sponateous events, which is used for example in history, archeology, paleontology (so crucial for evolution biology), clinical psychology, etc. I have read that in the English language the word science is equivalent to physics and chemistry (unlike terms in other European languages which denote any type of serious, rational empirical study into any physical, psychological, biological, cultural, historical etc. realm). For example, in Dutch we say taalwetenschap (= science of language) for linguistics.

Now, if we applied the naturalistic method to the analysis of the Pam Reynolds case, what (reasonable) criteria would you apply?

I know extraordinary claims are supposed to require extraordinary evidence, but if we take the PR case seriously, it certainly looks like extraordinary evidence, doesn't it?

Wouldn't you agree that when strict experiments are unethical, we should give all the more attention to non-experimental evidence, as Ian and Steve also seem to imply? We'd need any kind of serious evidence to safeguard the falsifiability of orthodox scientific theories. Without serious falsifiability, science stops beings empirical science. That's why dismissing anything out of hand that might pose a threat to one's theory used to be called dogmatism.

Titus:wink8:

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 10:32 AM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Wouldn't you agree that when strict experiments are unethical, we should give all the more attention to non-experimental evidence, as Ian and Steve also seem to imply? We'd need any kind of serious evidence to safeguard the falsifiability of orthodox scientific theories. Without serious falsifiability, science stops beings empirical science. That's why dismissing anything out of hand that might pose a threat to one's theory used to be called dogmatism.

Titus:wink8:
No. Accepting anecdotal evidence without relying upon experimental validation requires that we base the acceptance upon several unreliable assumptions. The problems of honesty, intended or unintended bias, erroneous recall, subjective interpretations, unfalsifiability, irreproducible results, and the vagaries of human imagination all make such evidence unacceptable.

Darat

9th August 2003, 10:38 AM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Thanks for the comments.

...snip...

In fact I resent very much the unpleasant animal experiments that have already been done in the name of progress in PSI research. I certainly wouldn't want to add a record of irresponsible experiments on human subjects.

...snip...

Something just caught my eye - which "Psi" experiments have used animals and in what way were they mistreated?

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 10:39 AM

Relevant link:

http://www.sfu.ca/psychology/groups/faculty/beyerstein/research/articles/13MariasNDE.doc

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 10:55 AM

D: Something just caught my eye - which "Psi" experiments have used animals and in what way were they mistreated?

Check out Karl Lashley's experiments on lab rats and memory.
He removed most of their brains and they still retained memories.

Heres a funny and interesting account of a salamander with a partially transplanted frog's brain as well:

http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/shufflebrain.html

Titus Rivas

9th August 2003, 11:25 AM

The problems of honesty, intended or unintended bias, erroneous recall, subjective interpretations, unfalsifiability, irreproducible results, and the vagaries of human imagination all make such evidence unacceptable. But then, any type of reconstruction would be unacceptable within science as you define it. Would you really agree with that? Would you also agree (and I pose this question to all of you) that by this strict definition of what would constitute scientific (or scholarly) evidence, many questions such as a possible survival after death simply cannot be approached scientifically? And if so, would you also agree that anyone who accepts your definition of science should call himself an agnostic when it comes to such questions? But then if you do agree with that, 'scientific' skepticism should focus here on a supposed absolute unknowability of what may happen to consciousness during flat EEG. The confusing thing is that it doesn't. It takes pains to debunk concrete cases, whereas it might as well save all the energy by just declaring that spontaneous case studies can never provide any type of valuable scientific evidence.

What is it that I've missed? Or is it just a matter of strategy, debunking spontaneous cases individually, whereas skeptics really believe it is always worthless to document any case study whatsoever? I mean, a bit like the esoteric versus exoteric sides to religion. The initiates would know that skepticism is not really about debunking but about agnosticism, and the populace -too stupid to get point- is led to believe that skepticism is about dismissing just those things that don't fit in the materialist worldview.

Am I getting any warmer?

Best wishes,

Titus

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 11:40 AM

The dismissal of case histories as anecdotes to be abhorred and rejected is a familiar skeptic/rejectionist and rhetorical tactic. They claim it as a hallmark of "critical thinking." It is something cynics use to hide behind the fact that they have no other truths or countervailing arguments to offer and it helps them to confirm their own biases. It is as silly as unsubstantiated speculation or the "Isn't it possible?" question.

Widespread acceptance of this line of reasoning would overturn all science going back thousands of years, particularly medicine which relies heavily on case histories from which to learn and to predict such things as epidemics or drug reactions or unintended effects of medications or procedures. Thankfully there are enough real thinkers out there to reject this nonesense before it stifles all advances.

CFLarsen

9th August 2003, 11:47 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
The dismissal of case histories as anecdotes to be abhorred and rejected is a familiar skeptic/rejectionist and rhetorical tactic. They claim it as a hallmark of "critical thinking." It is something cynics use to hide behind the fact that they have no other truths or countervailing arguments to offer and it helps them to confirm their own biases. It is as silly as unsubstantiated speculation or the "Isn't it possible?" question.

Widespread acceptance of this line of reasoning would overturn all science going back thousands of years, particularly medicine which relies heavily on case histories from which to learn and to predict such things as epidemics or drug reactions or unintended effects of medications or procedures. Thankfully there are enough real thinkers out there to reject this nonesense before it stifles all advances.

Steve,

It is posts like these that really make me wonder what your agenda is. You are (supposedly!) knowledgable enough of science to know that what you are suggesting here is the exact opposite of how science progressed.

Science progresses from evidence. What is the falsifiable hypothesis? Where is the experimental data? Where is the evidence?

We have plenty of "truths and countervailing arguments". We don't hide anything. So what is your goal here? As far as I can see, only to sow doubt. You certainly don't bring any evidence to the table yourself.

Who are those "real thinkers" that prevents this "stifling" of all advances?

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 12:04 PM

Claus: It is posts like these that really make me wonder what your agenda is. You are (supposedly!) knowledgable enough of science to know that what you are suggesting here is the exact opposite of how science progressed.

Reply: Science has progressed first and foremost based on observation, not on unsubstantiated speculation.

Claus: Science progresses from evidence. What is the falsifiable hypothesis? Where is the experimental data? Where is the evidence?

Reply: Substantiated case histories ARE evidence. This is what you are missing. If fifty people in a particular area come down with the symptoms of West Nile Fever, these are 50 case histories that provide evidence that West Nile Fever is present.
If there are fifty case histories detailing NDEs and they are all the same, these are 50 cases that provide evidence for NDES. Actually there are thousands of such cases. (ref: go to the IANDS website). Now do the experiment Claus but first let's hear how you would do that. It can't be done ethically, we decided that above. Have you read the whole thread? So we are left with case histories.

You live under the shelter of a belief that everything must be an experiment. LOL. The data is 50 people have presented themselves with the symptoms of West Nile Fever. 50 case histories. Same symptoms. Symptoms match those of West Nile.
No experiment. No controls. No hypothesis. Objective evaluation of confirmed case histories that lead to a self-evidencing conclusion. SO to hear you tell it, you wouldn't mind wading into the swamp where these cases are clustered and allow yourself to be bitten by hundreds of mosquitos. You remind me of the idiot doctor who said AIDS wasn't transmitted through the blood supply and to defend the blood supply, he went on television and allowed himself to be pricked by a needle just used to draw blood from an AIDS victim. I think his argument at the time was that implicating needle sticks and blood in the transmission of AIDS was anecdotal since it was only based on case histories. What a maroon. And worse, what an irresponsible stunt to perform. I wonder how many people he inadvertently killed by his actions? I wonder also if he got his mindset from being a member of CSICOP or some similar organization that spouts this line of crap.
Anybody remember CSICOP defending the blood supply at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic?

Claus: We have plenty of "truths and countervailing arguments". We don't hide anything. So what is your goal here? As far as I can see, only to sow doubt. You certainly don't bring any evidence to the table yourself.

Reply: I am waiting for Pyrrho or anyone to answer my question above re the tennis shoe. Instead of an answer, I get an argument that the case history could be a fake, dreamed up by its author, a respected professional, and published in a peer reviewed volume. Okay. Because of this response I am told it is not worth considering the question. If this isnt obfuscatory, I don't know what it. Perhaps I should have said: "Okay, let's make believe Maria's case history was real. Hypothetically, do me a favor, let's just say it is for argument's sake. Now can you answer the question? I shoudn't have to do this, however. I made a simple observation regarding a reported ability by someone who got this ability while allegedly out of body during an NDE; so because of this, it kills the question. Confirmation bias.I am told it should never be answered or can't be answered. Its pointless I am told. Its meaningless. There was more rhetoric given as to why it was pointless than the answer could have used up. Why was that? Because the answer was that only a paranormal explanation could provide the answer. The most parsimonious answer would have to be paranormal even though the SI authors tried hard inventing all sorts of rationales for it.

C: Who are those "real thinkers" that prevents this "stifling" of all advances?

Reply: Look in the telephone book, any telephone book. You are apt to find at least half of them in there.

CFLarsen

9th August 2003, 12:15 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Reply: Science has progressed first and foremost based on observation, not on unsubstantiated speculation.

No, Steve. It has progressed first and foremost based on observation, combined with falsifiable hypotheses, replicable experiments and the realization that hypotheses need to be re-evaluated.

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Reply: Substantiated case histories ARE evidence. This is what you are missing. If fifty people in a particular area come down with the symptoms of West Nile Fever, these are 50 case histories that provide evidence that West Nile Fever is present.
If there are fifty case histories detailing NDEs and they are all the same, these are 50 cases that provide evidence for NDES. Actually there are tousands of such cases. Now do the experiment Claus but first let's here how you would do that.
It can't be done ethically, we decided that above. Have you read the whole thread. So we are left with case histories.

Yes, that's nice, Steve. What, in this case, is "substantiated"?

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
You live under the shelter of a belief that everything must be an experiment. LOL.

Not at all. I fully realize that science is not perfect. But it gets better all the time, and not because we trust stories.

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
The data is 50 people have presented themselves with the symptoms of West Nile Fever. 50 case histories. Same symptoms. Symptoms match those of West Nile. No experiment. No controls. No hypothesis. Objective evaluation of confirmed case histories that lead to a self-evidencing conclusion. SO to hear you tell it, you wouldn't mind wading into the swamp where these cases are clustered and allow yourself to be bitten by hundreds of mosquitos. You remind me of the idiot doctor who said AIDS wasn't trasnmitted thrugh the blood supply and then on teleivison he allowed himself to be pricked by a needle just used to draw blood from an AIDS victim. I think his argument at the time was that implicating needle sticks and blood in the transmission of AIDS was anecdotal since it was only based on case histories. What a maroon.

Jonas Salk. You are sometimes incredibly ignorant of science, Steve.

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Reply: I am waiting for Pyrrho or anyone to answer my question above re the tennis shoe. Instead of an answer, I get an argument that the case history could be a fake, dreamed up by its author, a respected professional, and published in a peer reviewed volume. Okay. Because of this response I am told it is not worth considering the question. If this isnt obfuscatory, I don't know what it. Perhaps I should have said: "Okay, let's make believe Maria's case history was real. Hypothetically, Do me a favor, let's just say it is for argument's sake. Now can you answer the question? I shoudn't have to do this, however. I made a simple observation regarding a reported ability by someone who got this ability while allegedly out of body during an NDE; so because of this, it kills the question. Confirmation bias.It should never be answered or can't be answered. Its poinless. Its meaningless. Wrong.

You must present your own evidence, Steve. That is what you cannot do, so you try to shift the burden onto others.

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Reply: Look in the telephone book, any telephone book. You are apt to find at least half of them in there.
Your usual non-answer. Pah.

Interesting Ian

9th August 2003, 12:41 PM

Originally posted by Pyrrho
Relevant link:

http://www.sfu.ca/psychology/groups/faculty/beyerstein/research/articles/13MariasNDE.doc

The article states:

Despite the subjective realness of the NDE, however, modern neuroscience offers not only a wealth of reasons to doubt the possibility of disembodied minds

I haven't heard of any which are independent from the presupposition that materialism is correct (which of course begs the question). OK you linked to the article Pyrrho, care to name any of these reasons?

but it also provides much evidence that the compelling subjective phenomena of the NDE can be generated by known brain mechanisms (Beyerstein 1988, Blackmore 1991, 1993).

Which subjective phenomena? Certain of the subjective phenomena might be able to be so generated, such as the light, but this hardly consitutes compelling evidence that what is seen is not real.

Believers counter that the NDE seems too real to have been a dream or hallucination, but they forget that what we mean by the term "hallucination" is an internally-generated experience so detailed, emotional, and believable that it is indistinguishable from ordinary perceptions of reality (Siegel 1992; Beyerstein, in press).

If the "realness" of an experience gives absolutely no evidence that a given experience is real then that kinda makes it rather difficult to judge whether any of our experiences are real!

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 12:42 PM

Substantiating a case history of WNV includes any person coming into a doctor's care or hospital casualty department with the following symptoms:

Fever

Extreme tiredness

Frontal headache

Muscle aches

Skin rash

Neck stiffness

Muscle weakness

Confusion

Encephalitis (swelling around the brain)

A history of having received one or more recent mosquito bites is unreliable and not necessary for substantiating WNV but
it would help. These are all observations and actually history given by the patient. Not a single experiment involved. Not a single hypothesis to falsify. Not a single piece of physical evidence (e.g. the dead mosquito with virus on board). If
we can't find the virus in these patients blood and tissue samples, are you willing to say it is not there? We have no
proof its WNV? Are you?

So Claus, I have 50 cases in the last week from an area around this local pond. They are all anecdotal. You would say these symptoms can be many things. Will you put your money where your mouth is and wade in this pond?

Interesting Ian

9th August 2003, 12:43 PM

Originally posted by Pyrrho
[B]Relevant link:

http://www.sfu.ca/psychology/groups/faculty/beyerstein/research/articles/13MariasNDE.doc

Much can be learned from studying the orderly fashion in which these internally-constructed models shut down when the brain is traumatized, but because those who have been revived did not reach the irreversible state of brain death, any experiences they recall cannot be said to have come from "the other side."

Why not?

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 12:44 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
The dismissal of case histories as anecdotes to be abhorred and rejected is a familiar skeptic/rejectionist and rhetorical tactic. They claim it as a hallmark of "critical thinking." It is something cynics use to hide behind the fact that they have no other truths or countervailing arguments to offer and it helps them to confirm their own biases. It is as silly as unsubstantiated speculation or the "Isn't it possible?" question.

Mixing a person's genuine medical case history with another person's anecdote doesn't make the anecdote into a case history. It's convenient for you to confuse the terms, because it lends credence to dismissible legends. Stories are not sufficent evidence to believe in supernatural NDE.

Widespread acceptance of this line of reasoning would overturn all science going back thousands of years, particularly medicine which relies heavily on case histories from which to learn and to predict such things as epidemics or drug reactions or unintended effects of medications or procedures. Thankfully there are enough real thinkers out there to reject this nonesense before it stifles all advances.
Slippery slope fallacy. Medical studies do not rely solely upon "case histories" -- and here I'm using the term in its legitimate medical usage -- they also rely upon careful collection and study of data, based on the scientific method, not upon anecdotal evidence.

CFLarsen

9th August 2003, 12:53 PM

Steve,

As usual, you avoid the questions.

What, in this case (Pam Reynolds), is "substantiated"?

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 12:56 PM

P: Mixing a person's genuine medical case history with another person's anecdote doesn't make the anecdote into a case history. It's convenient for you to confuse the terms, because it lends credence to dismissible legends. Stories are not sufficent evidence to believe in supernatural NDE.

Reply: I have no reason to assume this was not anything but a genuine medical case history. It was published by a member of the faculty of the Univ of Wa School of Medicine and a Critical
Care social worker at the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
It was published in a peer reviewed volume. Your characterizing this case as a "dismissable legend" is in serious breech of the known facts regarding this case. It was not just a bedtime story, it was a legitimate case history documented in the patient's medical record. Because you sir are not privy to that information does not make it any less so.

P:Slippery slope fallacy. Medical studies do not rely solely upon "case histories" -- and here I'm using the term in its legitimate medical usage -- they also rely upon careful collection and study of data, based on the scientific method, not upon anecdotal evidence.

Reply: I said medical science relies "heavily" on case histories.
You mistatributed and deliberately mischaracetrized my remarks into something other than what I said. Learning now from Claus are we? You said "solely." I said "heavily." I even gave examples. It really is shameful how you twist the facts and language to suit your own narrow minded agendas.

Interesting Ian

9th August 2003, 12:56 PM

Originally posted by Pyrrho
[B]Relevant link:

http://www.sfu.ca/psychology/groups/faculty/beyerstein/research/articles/13MariasNDE.doc

One attempt to gather objective evidence of this sort, rather than the usual anecdotal, after-the-fact accounts, has been initiated by the British psychiatrist, Peter Fenwick (personal communication). He has had messages placed on ledges, above eye level, in the operating theaters of the hospital where he works. If a surgical patient should have an NDE/OBE, then his or her free-floating mind should be able to read the otherwise inaccessible message and recall it upon re-awakening. As yet, no one has been able to provide this kind of objective evidence,

I don't find it particulary surprising that people have failed to see such messages. Just imagine the situation. You're lying there in incredible pain, aware that you're on the threshold of death, and suddenly you find yourself apparently outside of your body somewhere near the ceiling. Of course, whether you would realise immediately that you were out of your body is debatable. What you will likely experience is complete confusion about what is happening. You will notice a body below, but will not immediately recognise yourself (think about what you look like in a mirror compared to a photograph). After a few seconds or so when you realise that it is in fact YOU below being operated on, or whatever, just imagine the profound emotional feelings and shock that will overcome you. One things for sure; you will be completely fixated by the image of your body below and the procedures being carried out on it. And then, remember, that this out of body stage only has a limited duration before a person finds himself/herself entering a darkness, going towards a light, approaching an otherworldly realm etc.

And it is not entirely clear that perceptions during these OBE's are like normal perception in anycase. The "vision" might arguably be described as an implicit awareness of ones environment. In such an out of body state it might well be that our "visual" perceptions are governed by the emotions. In other words that which we can identify with, that which has emotional resonance.

Titus Rivas

9th August 2003, 12:58 PM

Pyrrho, am I right to think that a debunker who takes himself seriously should reject the possibility of acquiring any supposed rational inference about what happens to consciousness after death? I mean rather than claiming that it would be quite certain that consciousness dies with the body. According to your views, as I understand them, we can only learn something from strictly controlled experiments and all other stories should be dismissed out of hand as hearsay.
Would you agree that it is quite unwarranted to claim the scientific value of any hypothesis about what will happen after death, even if we're talking about skeptical claims of annihilation? Claims of annihilation cannot be tested through experimentation and fall therefore outside the scope of science as you define it. It's not a scientific hypothesis (in your definition) to state that death equals total personal destruction.

Titus

CFLarsen

9th August 2003, 01:08 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
I said medical science relies "heavily" on case histories.
You mistatributed and deliberately mischaracetrized my remarks into something other than what I said. Learning now from Claus are we? You said "solely." I said "heavily." I even gave examples. It really is shameful how you twist the facts and language to suit your own narrow minded agendas.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Answer the question, Steve. And send me that form to sign.

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 01:25 PM

I ask one more time: would you agree to wade in the pond around which a cluster of WNV cases have anecdotally ocurred?

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 01:28 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
P: Mixing a person's genuine medical case history with another person's anecdote doesn't make the anecdote into a case history. It's convenient for you to confuse the terms, because it lends credence to dismissible legends. Stories are not sufficent evidence to believe in supernatural NDE.

Reply: I have no reason to assume this was not anything but a genuine medical case history. It was published by a member of the faculty of the Univ of Wa School of Medicine and a Critical
Care social worker at the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
It was published in a peer reviewed volume. Your characterizing this case as a "dismissable legend" is in serious breech of the known facts regarding this case. It was not just a bedtime story, it was a legitimate case history documented in the patient's medical record. Because you sir are not privy to that information does not make it any less so.

The medical facts in this case, that is, the actual medical case history of the woman, is not in question. What is in question is Kimberly Clark Sharp's anecdotal account. It cannot be verified by perusing the patient's medical history. What you seem to regard as a key piece of evidence, the tattered shoe, cannot even be proven to ever have existed. All we have is Kimberly Clark Sharp's word, and that is just not sufficient. Publication in a peer-reviewed volume doesn't make it true.

P:Slippery slope fallacy. Medical studies do not rely solely upon "case histories" -- and here I'm using the term in its legitimate medical usage -- they also rely upon careful collection and study of data, based on the scientific method, not upon anecdotal evidence.

Reply: I said medical science relies "heavily" on case histories.
You mistatributed and deliberately mischaracetrized my remarks into something other than what I said. Learning now from Claus are we? You said "solely." I said "heavily." I even gave examples. It really is shameful how you twist the facts and language to suit your own narrow minded agendas.
I did not deliberately mischaracterize your remarks. I can see how you might think that, but such is not the case. Here's what you said:

SB: The dismissal of case histories as anecdotes to be abhorred and rejected is a familiar skeptic/rejectionist and rhetorical tactic. They claim it as a hallmark of "critical thinking." It is something cynics use to hide behind the fact that they have no other truths or countervailing arguments to offer and it helps them to confirm their own biases. It is as silly as unsubstantiated speculation or the "Isn't it possible?" question.

Widespread acceptance of this line of reasoning would overturn all science going back thousands of years, particularly medicine which relies heavily on case histories from which to learn and to predict such things as epidemics or drug reactions or unintended effects of medications or procedures. Thankfully there are enough real thinkers out there to reject this nonesense before it stifles all advances.
You attempted to argue a straw man by claiming the dismissal of case histories as anecdotes. The two are not synonymous. If we take your apparent definition of "case history", using the Kimberly Clark Sharp story as an example, we see that you seem to have confused the two terms. As I said, this is convenient for you, but I submit that your usage is incorrect. Maria's legitimate medical records are a case history. Kimberly Clark Sharp's retelling of her encouter with Maria is an anecdote, completely separate from the legitimate case history. You can make the anecdote part of the case history, but the anecdote does not thereby become a case history, nor does it become legitimate data or useful evidence.

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 01:37 PM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Pyrrho, am I right to think that a debunker who takes himself seriously should reject the possibility of acquiring any supposed rational inference about what happens to consciousness after death? I mean rather than claiming that it would be quite certain that consciousness dies with the body. According to your views, as I understand them, we can only learn something from strictly controlled experiments and all other stories should be dismissed out of hand as hearsay.

Yup. Correct.

Would you agree that it is quite unwarranted to claim the scientific value of any hypothesis about what will happen after death, even if we're talking about skeptical claims of annihilation? Claims of annihilation cannot be tested through experimentation and fall therefore outside the scope of science as you define it. It's not a scientific hypothesis (in your definition) to state that death equals total personal destruction.

Titus
Given the laws of physics, and our observations of death and decay, annihilation is the most likely result. This hypothesis can be falsified by evidence that consciousness survives death, so, yes, it is a scientific hypothesis.

So far, no convincing evidence of such survival has been found.

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 01:43 PM

P: Kimberly Clark Sharp's retelling of her encouter with Maria is an anecdote, completely separate from the legitimate case history. You can make the anecdote part of the case history, but the anecdote does not thereby become a case history, nor does it become legitimate data or useful evidence.

I read the case history in Greyson and Flynn but I have not read all and sundry popular retellings of this case history which you dismiss as stories. I base my remarks on the case history and case history alone. In order to validate your assertions one would have to carefully compare the case history with the popularized versions. I did not read Ring's account but you or someone implied it was modified as well. I have no proof of this and would need same to move further on this disucssion. In the meantime, I will reiterate my statement that this was a case history, one of many (not stories) published in the JIANDS and in other journals including recently in the journal RESUSCITATION and in the LANCET. I agree with you we shoud not work from popularized versions of case histories. I don't, but I can appreciate not everyone has access to all the original data and is only exposed to popular retellings.

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 01:46 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Substantiating a case history of WNV includes any person coming into a doctor's care or hospital casualty department with the following symptoms:

Fever

Extreme tiredness

Frontal headache

Muscle aches

Skin rash

Neck stiffness

Muscle weakness

Confusion

Encephalitis (swelling around the brain)

A history of having received one or more recent mosquito bites is unreliable and not necessary for substantiating WNV but
it would help. These are all observations and actually history given by the patient. Not a single experiment involved. Not a single hypothesis to falsify. Not a single piece of physical evidence (e.g. the dead mosquito with virus on board). If
we can't find the virus in these patients blood and tissue samples, are you willing to say it is not there? We have no
proof its WNV? Are you?

So Claus, I have 50 cases in the last week from an area around this local pond. They are all anecdotal. You would say these symptoms can be many things. Will you put your money where your mouth is and wade in this pond?
I would. The rate of infection by WNV is very low, and the rate of serious illness in infected patients is low. My odds of wading in the pond and not contracting WNV are very good. If I were to wade in the pond and not contract WNV, it would not prove that WNV did not exist in the mosquitoes. Likewise, if I were to develop symptoms of WNV, it would serve to substantiate evidence that the mosquitoes carried WNV, although mosquitoes do carry diseases with similar symptoms.

Even though the list of symptoms indicates a probable WNV infection, without the virus or antibodies to the virus present in the patients' blood, or other evidence such as dead birds with WNV in their tissues to substantiate WNV infestation in the mosquitoes, you haven't proven that the patients actually have WNV. It's prudent to treat their symptoms, of course, and would be unethical to do otherwise.

Problem is, this is completely irrelevant to the NDE "cases" we've been discussing.

CFLarsen

9th August 2003, 01:49 PM

Steve,

As usual, you avoid the questions.

What, in this case (Pam Reynolds), is "substantiated"?

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 01:50 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
P: Kimberly Clark Sharp's retelling of her encouter with Maria is an anecdote, completely separate from the legitimate case history. You can make the anecdote part of the case history, but the anecdote does not thereby become a case history, nor does it become legitimate data or useful evidence.

I read the case history in Greyson and Flynn but I have not read all and sundry popular retellings of this case history which you dismiss as stories. I base my remarks on the case history and case history alone. In order to validate your assertions one would have to carefully compare the case history with the popularized versions. I did not read Ring's account but you or someone implied it was modified as well. I have no proof of this and would need same to move further on this disucssion. In the meantime, I will reiterate my statement that this was a case history, one of many (not stories) published in the JIANDS and in other journals including recently in the journal RESUSCITATION and in the LANCET. I agree with you we shoud not work from popularized versions of case histories. I don't, but I can appreciate not everyone has access to all the original data and is only exposed to popular retellings.
Can you prove that Kimberly Clark Sharp's story is true? Can you even prove that the shoe ever existed? No, you can't, and no amount of rehashing the "case history" will prove either. That's the core problem that just won't go away. It all still relies upon her word, and her word alone.

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 01:51 PM

Even though the list of symptoms indicates a probable WNV infection, without the virus or antibodies to the virus present in the patients' blood, or other evidence such as dead birds with WNV in their tissues to substantiate WNV infestation in the mosquitoes, you haven't proven that the patients actually have WNV. It's prudent to treat their symptoms, of course, and would be unethical to do otherwise.

Reply: In medicine other conditions can be ruled out and they are. It would then be prudent to treat the victims of these symptoms as they have WNV. Would it also be prudent to stay
out of that pond Pyrrho? Keep your kids out also? eh? Me thinks so. All this prudence based on lowly case histories. Wow.

P: Problem is, this is completely irrelevant to the NDE "cases" we've been discussing.

C: Not exactly. We were talking about case histories being anecdotal and of no value. They prove nothing we're told. But I guess they can make us prudent or so you say..............hmm....

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 01:53 PM

Okay Claus. Get your bathing suit. You are Pyrrho are going into the pond.....

renata

9th August 2003, 01:59 PM

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/lab_faq.htm

Q. How are human cases of WNV diagnosed?
A. West Nile virus (WNV) infection can be suspected in a person based on clinical symptoms and patient history. Laboratory testing is required for a confirmed diagnosis.

The most commonly used WNV laboratory test measures antibodies that that are produced very early in the infected person. These antibodies, called IgM antibodies, can be measured in blood or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which is the fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord. This blood test may not be positive when symptoms first occur; however, the test is positive in most infected people within 8 days of onset of symptoms.

A test for WNV IgM-antibody is used by CDC, state and local public health labs and increasingly at private laboratories. When testing is conducted at private laboratories, the health department or CDC will often confirm results in their own laboratories before officially reporting WNV cases.

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 02:01 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Even though the list of symptoms indicates a probable WNV infection, without the virus or antibodies to the virus present in the patients' blood, or other evidence such as dead birds with WNV in their tissues to substantiate WNV infestation in the mosquitoes, you haven't proven that the patients actually have WNV. It's prudent to treat their symptoms, of course, and would be unethical to do otherwise.

Reply: In medicine other conditions can be ruled out and they are. It would then be prudent to treat the victims of these symptoms as they have WNV. Would it also be prudent to stay
out of that pond Pyrrho? Keep your kids out also? eh? Me thinks so. All this prudence based on lowly case histories. Wow.

I did say I'd be willing to wade in the pond, did I not? It's very unlikely that I'd contract any disease, unless I drank the pond water. In fact, I live in an area proven to have WNV-carrying mosquitoes, and I've been bitten numerous times. No WNV yet. If ever I'm in the area, I'd be happy to wade in that pond.

P: Problem is, this is completely irrelevant to the NDE "cases" we've been discussing.

C: Not exactly. We were talking about case histories being anecdotal and of no value. They prove nothing we're told. But I guess they can make us prudent or so you say..............hmm....
I never said case histories were anecdotal and of no value. I said that Kimberly Clark Sharp's recollections were anecdotal and of no value. You keep insisting upon mixing the two. Why is that?

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 02:08 PM

P: I never said case histories were anecdotal and of no value. I said that Kimberly Clark Sharp's recollections were anecdotal and of no value. You keep insisting upon mixing the two. Why is that?

Because I do not believe Clark would have to rely on her recollections in this matter. Based on the case history she published I cannot believe she did not take written notes of her patient's account as opposed to recounting a story from recollection as you imply.

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 02:12 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
P: I never said case histories were anecdotal and of no value. I said that Kimberly Clark Sharp's recollections were anecdotal and of no value. You keep insisting upon mixing the two. Why is that?

Because I do not believe Clark would have to rely on her recollections in this matter. Based on the case history she published I cannot believe she did not take written notes of her patient's account as opposed to recounting a story from recollection as you imply.
Well, did she or did she not take written notes? Any evidence that she did, or are we to rely on an assumption? We're talking about something of importance to all of humanity, here. We can't rely on assumptions. The Skeptical Inquirer authors already pointed out errors in her retelling -- specifically the nature of the windows in the rooms -- so why assume that her story is all correct? No, the evidence needs to be much more compelling.

CFLarsen

9th August 2003, 02:13 PM

Steve,

If you don't want to answer this:

What, in this case (Pam Reynolds), is "substantiated"?

Just say so.

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 05:05 PM

A mother of three, 35 year old Pam Reynolds lay on the operating table in the summer of 1991 with a life-threatening bulge in her brain. Doctor Robert Spetzler, the director of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix had arranged for Pam to be hooked up to a brainstem monitoring machine. And other machines tracked Pam's heatbeat, temperature, breathing and other vital signs. Additionally, Pam's eyes were taped shut. Pam was also under anesthesia. Doctor Spetzler had to stop Pam's heart which caused all bodily signs to cease.

Shortly after Doctor Spetzler turned on the surgical saw to begin cutting through Pam's skull, Pam felt herself "pop" outside her body and hover above the operating table to a position where she could hover over Doctor Spetzler's shoulders where she could observe the operation on her motionless body below.

From this position she saw Doctor Spetzler working on her with a saw which looked to her like an electric toothbrush. Pam heard and reported later what nurses in the operating room had said and exactly what was happening during the operation.

A little while into the operation, Doctor Spetzler ordered that Pam's blood begin to drain from her body. Still every monitor attached to Pam's body registered "no life".

Pam found herself going from monitoring the operation above the table to traveling down a "tunnel" which had a light at the end. At the end of this tunnel Pam could see her relatives and friends waiting, including her long-dead grandmother. Time and all worries seemed to stop for Pam.

It wasn't long, however, before a "dead" uncle led her back to her body.

Reentering her body felt to Pam like "plunging into a pool of ice".

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

The above is drawn from an account of the Pam Reynold case published in the current, August 2003 edition of Reader's Digest.
I have seen Pam's angios by the way so thats substantiation for me and so have a lot of other people.

What exactly do you want substantiated Claus? That she had the aneurysm, that she was clinically dead, that she had these visions of what are called near death experiences, that she lived to talk about it and did; that her case was investigated and written up by Michael Sabom, MD of Texas. The case was also investigated by psychiatrist Bruce Greyson, M.D. now Carlson Professor of Behavioral Sciences at the Univ of Virginia. Greyson considers this case the most evidential of all NDe accounts. And he has investigated many. He has developed the Greyson Scale for rating such experiences.

Pam's brain was found "dead" by all three clinical tests - her
electroencephalogram was flat, her brain-stem responses were
absent, and no blood flowed through her brain. Interestingly,
while in this state, she encountered the "deepest" near-death
experience based on an analysis of the events she recalled and when they actually ocurred.

Are you saying the Pam Reynolds case is a fabrication? Better tell Shermer that, he doesn't know and has commented on it, rather lamely and to no avail. Are you saying Reynolds is lying? Are you saying her doctors and others involved with the case were lying? Are you saying it never happened. I guess this kind of rebuttal of evidence occurs a lot around here.............and its not only beginning to get boring but to be a monumental waste of time discussing such cases as well. Why dont you all come back when you have something substantial to say.

Pyrrho

9th August 2003, 05:12 PM

Shortly after Doctor Spetzler turned on the surgical saw to begin cutting through Pam's skull, Pam felt herself "pop" outside her body and hover above the operating table to a position where she could hover over Doctor Spetzler's shoulders where she could observe the operation on her motionless body below.
Ok, here's where Pam Reynolds claims to have exited her body.

Prove that she did do so at that time, and you have a case.

You can't prove it, though. We only have Pam's word that she exited her body at that time, and the details of the operation could have been gleaned by her from other sources.

The burden of proof is not on us, Steve.

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 05:58 PM

The burden of proof happens to be on Pam as she is making the case for her own out of body experience and NDE. Pam was cooled to 60 degrees F. Her brain was drained of all blood supply.
And she was having her head sawed open. So I am not sure how reliable a witness to her own experience she can be.

Her EEG and ECG were flatline per current technology. Her oxygen consumption, at that temperature was nil or could be met by the less effective process of passive diffusion instead of by means of the circulation. But do we have any reason to doubt Pam's ability to hear and even claim she saw things which she could not have under these circumstances? No. And there are reasons why she may've been able to do this. Frankly I dont think Pam has any problem proving her NDE if thats what she wants to call it. There may be a perfectly good explanation for it and its not finding your spirit (e.g. consciousness) detached from your body or externalized.

Moody indicates our criteria for determining clinical death are crude and there may be no justification for declaring a person dead at all if the person can subsequently be resuscitated. This may require a re-definition of the term "death" as the irreversible loss of vital functions. We therefore could never have a veridical recall of an NDE. There would be no such thing as near death. There is either death or not death.

Cook wrote that out of body experiencers including NDE percipients are in fact alive at the time of their experience and technically have not existed apart from or independently of their bodies. Even those patients who may have been prounced dead by medical personnel end up physically intact enough to have been revivable iof, in fact, they are revived. So, says Cook, consciousness may SEEM to be detached from the physical body but still may be dependent on it for its continued existence. Even Michael Sabom, who investigated and wrote up the Reynolds case and numerous others agrees that loss of biologic life, including death of the brain, is a process and does not occur at a single, definitive moment (Sabom, 1998, p 50). Moody (1976) says that in order to sucessfully resuscitate a person they must have some degree of residual biological activity even though the overt signs of this activity were not clinically detectable by any technology we currently have ... well this was in 1976, and things are not much different on that score in 2003 so his statement stands.

These arguments do not make the existence of OBEs and NDEs any less real, however. Griffin, in 1997, lists various features of this experience. Here are four of them.

1. OBErs feel as if they leave the body and most have a strong conviction that the experience is real. Claus, Pyrrho and others would rather have us believe they are lying, they are deluded or their reporters are lying or mistaken.

2. Most OBers experience a greatly altered emotional state; usually an overhwleming sense of tranquility or joy as well as a
complete absence of pain.

3. Most OBErs report normal or unsually lucid visual experiences as well as normal hearing.

4. Some OBEs are veridical. Assuming for a moment Maria's shoe viewing was accurate and other similar things such as Pam Reynold's recall of events in the O.R., one might look instead to the faculty of ESP and clairvoyance or remote viewing rather than the externalization of an OBE. Braude calls this internalization of the phenomenon.

There are more but you are all pretty bored by now..........so I'll
stop.

Braude (2003) believes that NDE and OBE phenomena can be explained by various factors including ESP and clairvoyance and that it offers no support whatsoever for the survival hypothesis
but may instead be manifestatins of other paranormal factors.

anduin

9th August 2003, 06:04 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
The dismissal of case histories as anecdotes to be abhorred and rejected is a familiar skeptic/rejectionist and rhetorical tactic. They claim it as a hallmark of "critical thinking." It is something cynics use to hide behind the fact that they have no other truths or countervailing arguments to offer and it helps them to confirm their own biases. It is as silly as unsubstantiated speculation or the "Isn't it possible?" question.
The problem is that this is NOT a case history. It was presented as a case history, but it is not. There is no corroboration whatsoever to the so-called evidence presented by a believer who claims to have had an NDE herself at the age of 22. I am very willing to consider the case if any corroboration is presented, such as testimonies from other people involved, and even the simplest corroboration that Maria existed at all. Until such evidence is presented this is nothing but hearsay, even if it has presented in a book.
Originally posted by SteveGrenard

Widespread acceptance of this line of reasoning would overturn all science going back thousands of years, particularly medicine which relies heavily on case histories from which to learn and to predict such things as epidemics or drug reactions or unintended effects of medications or procedures. Thankfully there are enough real thinkers out there to reject this nonesense before it stifles all advances.
WOW! A straw man of monumental proportions coupled with the worst slippery slope fallacy I have ever heard. Are you seriously implying that me asking for corroboration of Clark's story equals the end of all medicine research as we know it? I feel flattered!
There is a huge difference between case histories used in the context of medicine and what has been presented by Clark. With case histories, we can at least corroborate that the patient existed. Al I am asking is the same here.

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 06:12 PM

Fine Anduin. I will give you the same hypothetical I gave Claus and Pyrrho. I announce that I have fifty cases of WNV all clustered around a pond where you also happen to live. I cannot reveal the names of the patients or parade them in front of the press. This would be illegal. We know that WNV is transmitted by mosquito bite and theres a good chance this particular pond has mosquitos carrying the virus. Everything I have said is case history and anecdotal. I can offer you no more and no less.

Take it leave it. Pyrrho is getting his trunks on. He's not concerned.

Would you allow your children to swim in that pond? Or would you lather them up with bug repellant and take them to the sea shore or the movies instead?

anduin

9th August 2003, 06:13 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard

Reply: I am waiting for Pyrrho or anyone to answer my question above re the tennis shoe. Instead of an answer, I get an argument that the case history could be a fake, dreamed up by its author, a respected professional, and published in a peer reviewed volume. Okay. Because of this response I am told it is not worth considering the question. If this isnt obfuscatory, I don't know what it. Perhaps I should have said: "Okay, let's make believe Maria's case history was real. Hypothetically, do me a favor, let's just say it is for argument's sake. Now can you answer the question? I shoudn't have to do this, however. I made a simple observation regarding a reported ability by someone who got this ability while allegedly out of body during an NDE; so because of this, it kills the question. Confirmation bias.I am told it should never be answered or can't be answered. Its pointless I am told. Its meaningless. There was more rhetoric given as to why it was pointless than the answer could have used up. Why was that? Because the answer was that only a paranormal explanation could provide the answer. The most parsimonious answer would have to be paranormal even though the SI authors tried hard inventing all sorts of rationales for it.

The question remains. I strongly contend that what Clark presented is not a case study; it is her report of an alleged incidence, which was published in an NDE book. BTW, you keep saying it was peer-reviewed book, who reviewed it? Books of this nature are seldom peer-reviewed, and as far as I know from my research, the authors are NDE proponents.
I am only asking for corroboration. This was witnessed by surgeons, nurses and a lot of other people. Where are their testimonies? Why is it other NDE researchers (such as Ring) are reporting that Clark was a sceptic when she was a believer? Why is there no single corroboration of this case?

anduin

9th August 2003, 06:34 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
I read the case history in Greyson and Flynn but I have not read all and sundry popular retellings of this case history which you dismiss as stories. I base my remarks on the case history and case history alone. In order to validate your assertions one would have to carefully compare the case history with the popularized versions. I did not read Ring's account but you or someone implied it was modified as well. I have no proof of this and would need same to move further on this disucssion. In the meantime, I will reiterate my statement that this was a case history, one of many (not stories) published in the JIANDS and in other journals including recently in the journal RESUSCITATION and in the LANCET. I agree with you we shoud not work from popularized versions of case histories. I don't, but I can appreciate not everyone has access to all the original data and is only exposed to popular retellings.
I also read the "case history", ages ago when I was interested in NDEs and OBEs. I also know that Clark is not a doctor, she is a social care worker. I also know that Greyson is an NDE believer, and that he has reviewed Clark's book and Clark's work. You will also find extremely interesting that Greyson does not agree with you that the original story published in his book back in 1984 is the full story, he doesn't even call it a "case history" as you do! He writes in his review of Clark's book that:

"Sharp first published this account in my 1984 NDE anthology (Clark, 1984), and it has been repeated several times, most recently by Susan Blackmore (1995); but the detailed account here is the definitive "Maria’s tennis shoe" story."

What is this? The "case history" you read is not even the detailed account! You are missing information Steve! But there is more! Greyson comments:

"Events turn from bizarre to ominous in Chapter 4, "Dance With the Demon," in which Sharp describes her new residence in a farmhouse apparently haunted by a malevolent force. Much of the apparent demonic content of this chapter is hard to integrate, as Sharp relates it as she experienced it, rather than from a clinical perspective. She rejects the notion that she was hallucinating (even though she had narcolepsy and was prone to sudden daytime nightmares), and she also rejects the notion that her house was possessed by Satan; yet she could not deny that the evil presence was real."

This is why I cannot possibly rely on Clark's testimony, she is quite obviously a fantasy prone individual. Read more from Greyson himself:

"The next few chapters return to Sharp’s personal story, from her "going public" about NDEs when a television talk-show host surprised her on the air by asking about Maria and the tennis shoe; to further encounters with ostensible demonic spirits; to her whirlwind romance with her fiancé, his tragic death, and his visitations afterwards; to her Dark Night of the Soul, the inner explosion of wrenching doubt."

If this review is not enough to make you sceptic about her report, then nothing will. BTW, the review by Grayson is here:
http://www.seattleiands.org/HTM/br1.htm

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 06:37 PM

This multi-authored volume contains both pro and con material on the veridicality of NDEs.

The Near-Death Experience: Problems, Prospects, Perspectives Greyson, Bruce, & Flynn, Charles P. (Eds).

There are five parts, each with a brief introduction by the editors.

The first consists of an overview of near-death studies by Kenneth Ring.

The second is on dimensions of the near-death experience and contains four selections:

"The Subjective Response to Life-Threatening Danger," by Russell Noyes, Jr. and Donald J. Slymen;

"Further Studies of the Near-Death Experience" and "Measuring the Near-Death Experience," both by Kenneth Ring;

"The Near-Death Experience Scale: Construction, Reliability, and Validity" by Bruce Greyson.

Part III, on theories of NDEs, contains nine selections:

"The Reality of Death Experiences: A Personal Perspective," by Ernst A. Rodin;

"Commentary on `The Reality of Death Experiences' by Ernst A. Rodin," by Michael B. Sabom;

"The Psychology of Life After Death," by Ronald K. Siegel;

"The Near-Death Experience: Balancing Siegel's View," by John C. Gibbs;

"Pathophysiology of Stress-Induced Limbic Lobe Dysfunction: A Hypothesis Relevant to Near-Death Experiences," by Daniel B. Carr

"The Amniotic Universe," by Carl Sagan

"Why Birth Models Cannot Explain Near-Death Phenomena," by Carl B. Becker

"The Psychodynamics of Near-Death Experiences," by Bruce Greyson

"Jung, Parapsychology, and the Near-Death Experience: Toward a Transpersonal Paradigm," by Michael Grosso.

Part IV is on clinical aspects of the NDE and contains four selections:

"Near-Death Experiences: Dilemma for the Clinician," by Raymond A. Moody, Jr.

"Near-Death Events and Critical Care Nursing," by Annalee R. Oakes

"The Lazarus Syndrome: A Care Plan for the Unique Needs of Those Who've `Died'," by Anthony Lee

"Clinical Interventions with Near-Death Experiencers," by Kimberly Clark

Consequences of the NDE is the subject of the final part, and it is represented by:

"Near-Death Experiences and Attempted Suicide," by Bruce Greyson

"The Human Experience of Death or, What Can We Learn from Near-Death Experiences?," by Russell Noyes, Jr.

"Meanings and Implications of Near-Death Experiencer Transformations," by Charles P. Flynn.

Publisher Information: Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas, 1984. 289p. Chapter references; 1 graph; 7 tables

SteveGrenard

9th August 2003, 06:48 PM

If this review is not enough to make you sceptic about her report, then nothing will. BTW, the review by Grayson is here:
http://www.seattleiands.org/HTM/br1.htm

Greyson faithfully reports on what Clark's book is about. Nowhere does he indicate he doubts the veracity of the Maria case history that Clark obtained. I uge everyone here to read the entire review rather than a few paragraphs selected to cast doubt on an otherwise reliable taker of patient histories which is what MSWs are trained to do.

Jeff Corey

9th August 2003, 07:13 PM

"Woo-woo is the sound the train makes right before it knocks us off the tracks." according to Sharp.
And after that, some massive brain damage, possibly to the anterior confabulatory gyrus of the prefrontal lobe.

CFLarsen

9th August 2003, 11:59 PM

Steve,

Pam has an anecdote, uncorroborated by anything else.

It is not substantiated in any way. It's not a case story.

anduin

10th August 2003, 02:38 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Fine Anduin. I will give you the same hypothetical I gave Claus and Pyrrho. I announce that I have fifty cases of WNV all clustered around a pond where you also happen to live. I cannot reveal the names of the patients or parade them in front of the press. This would be illegal. We know that WNV is transmitted by mosquito bite and theres a good chance this particular pond has mosquitos carrying the virus. Everything I have said is case history and anecdotal. I can offer you no more and no less.

I will give you the same hypothetical I gave Claus and Pyrrho. I announce that I have fifty cases of WNV all clustered around a pond where you also happen to live. I cannot reveal the names of the patients or parade them in front of the press. This would be illegal. We know that WNV is transmitted by mosquito bite and theres a good chance this particular pond has mosquitos carrying the virus. Everything I have said is case history and anecdotal. I can offer you no more and no less.

I have lurked in this board enough to know that this is just another of your red herring tactics, this has nothing to do with Clark’s report. I have not claimed that properly corroborated case history reports should be dismissed; I agree with you that they are an important part of medicine. The problem is that 50 case histories of WNV cannot even begin to be compared with the report by one single NDE believer social worker who believes that her dead fiancé visits her, and that an evil presence lived in her house, based on a patient that cannot be identified. Besides, I know the law in the UK about patient records, and the actual patient can still be identified in some instances and with the proper protocols followed, in particular if the identification does not produce any detrimental effect to them. Where is the detrimental effect of identifying Maria?

anduin

10th August 2003, 02:43 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
This multi-authored volume contains both pro and con material on the veridicality of NDEs.

The Near-Death Experience: Problems, Prospects, Perspectives Greyson, Bruce, & Flynn, Charles P. (Eds). Publisher Information: Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas, 1984. 289p. Chapter references; 1 graph; 7 tables

So, it is a multi-authored volume, not a peer-reviewed volume. Will you at least agree that Greyson is a believer? The inclusion of Clark's volume only means that he included it.

anduin

10th August 2003, 03:04 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Greyson faithfully reports on what Clark's book is about. Nowhere does he indicate he doubts the veracity of the Maria case history that Clark obtained. I uge everyone here to read the entire review rather than a few paragraphs selected to cast doubt on an otherwise reliable taker of patient histories which is what MSWs are trained to do.

He does not doubt the veracity of Maria's story, but he does not doubt her rants about Satan, he does not doubt her encounters with "evil presences" - in fact the only problem he has with this report is her use of humour - he doesn't doubt her own NDE report, he doesn't even doubt other "woo-woo" reports.

Is there anything at all that Greyson will not accept from Clark?

Are you willing to rely in the word of Clark as the best case that proves NDE?

This is your problem, and this is why you are so angry that I have exposed the feebleness of the evidence. I have been debating NDE’s for some years, and the problem by believers is that much of what the witnesses have reported can be explained by prosaic terms, such as anoxia, reaction to anaesthetics and the firings of the dying brain. Similar experiences to those of NDE hve been replicated by the use of ketamine and other drugs, and even evidence has transpired that patients in anaesthesia can be aware of what is happening around them.

The burden is for NDE believers to provide a straightforward case that proves that the person left their body and had access to information that otherwise they could not have. During these years of debate the only two cases that have been given are Maria’s shoe and Pam Reynold’s account. I have many problems with the latter, but I have been interested in Clark’s report because it is cited by almost every single NDE book that comes out. If this is one of the best documented cases that you have, then the NDE camp is in real trouble. This cannot possibly be considered as serious evidence anywhere, and I have provided enough evidence to warrant scepticism of the source. If we only have the source as corroboration, then the case cannot be weighed as important because of all of the problems with it.

Some links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/specials/sheffield_99/448489.stm

http://leda.lycaeum.org/Documents/Using_Ketamine_to_Induce_the_Near-Death_Experience.9260.shtml

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/si91nde.html

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/jnds98.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2266740.stm

http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/_ketamine.html

http://lide.punknet.cz/tripper/Ketamine_near-death.htm

SteveGrenard

10th August 2003, 05:58 AM

A: Are you willing to rely in the word of Clark as the best case that proves NDE?

Reply: You know perfectly well that the Maria case is not the best case and that there are 100s of other documented cases, unrelated, that have been taken down as case histories by physicians and nurses. Braude (2003) doubts that these are externalized OBEs or NDEs and believes they are the result of clairvoyance.

A: This is your problem, and this is why you are so angry that I have exposed the feebleness of the evidence. I have been debating NDE’s for some years, and the problem by believers is that much of what the witnesses have reported can be explained by prosaic terms, such as anoxia, reaction to anaesthetics and the firings of the dying brain. Similar experiences to those of NDE hve been replicated by the use of ketamine and other drugs, and even evidence has transpired that patients in anaesthesia can be aware of what is happening around them.

Reply: I am not the least bit angry. I wonder how you know I feel anger? If you have been debating this subject for years then you know that the so-called prosaic explanations have been ruled out in these cases. Karl Jansen's ketamine trips and the propensity of this drug to result in horrifying hallucinations has caused it to remain on the market as a veterinary or horse tranquilizer. It is stolen from vet's offices and winds up as a street drug known as "Special K." It is rarely if ever used on humans and clearly is not implicated in the cases reported recently in the Journal RESUSCITATION or in The Lancet. Other drugs that are in anyway hallucinogenic are also ruled out. You cannot have a good case if there are such meds involved. Cerebral hypoxia or anoxia causes a dulling of senses and mental confusion whereas a good NDE case reports lucid senses. I have never met a severely hypoxic patient who was completely lucid or was anything but confused
and suffering memory lapses. Insofar as the "firing" of a dying brain is concerned, there is no evidence that this produces NDE-type hallucinations and this is highly speculative. The only recent work in this area involved applying electrical stimulation to parts of the brain (right angular gyrus of rt temporal lobe) in order to stimulate these types of sensations or delusions if you will. The researchers claim they are causing OBES. I read the report in NATURE (Sept 19, 2002) but promptly forgot about it: they reported that neuroscientist Olaf Blanke, at the Geneva University Hospital, in Switzerland, was able to bring about an out-of-body experience through electrical stimulation of the right angular gyrus in the temporal lobe of a 43 year-old woman suffering from severe epileptic seizures.

With the first mild stimulation, she felt she was "sinking into the bed" or "falling from a height." With more intense stimulation, she said she could "see myself lying in bed, from above, but I only see my legs and lower trunk." Another trial induced "an instantaneous feeling of lightness and floating about six feet above the bed, close to the ceiling."

The fact is in actual cases nobody is applying shocks to the the rt angular gyrus so it is counter-intuitive for skeptics to latch onto this theory as evidence of anything. Nor was this patient near-death. The fact that a subset of persons have what they think are OBEs, clairvoyance or the ability to remote view (which is what Maria may have been doing) occurs in the absence of anoxia, hypoxia, dying brains and ketamine or other drugs indicates that the prosaic explanation IS none of these things. Hallucinogens and anesthetics are not given to cardiac arrest victims either. There is a panel of 4 or 5 drugs used in CPR and none are hallucinogenic. During CPR, oxygen at barometric pressure is administered and circulation maintained by manual compression. The ECG is monitored and cardiac arrhythmias are treated with drugs to slow down or stimulate heart rhythms or in the case of v-tach or v-fibrillation with electrical shock to the
chest if available.

A: The burden is for NDE believers to provide a straightforward case that proves that the person left their body and had access to information that otherwise they could not have. During these years of debate the only two cases that have been given are Maria’s shoe and Pam Reynold’s account. I have many problems with the latter, but I have been interested in Clark’s report because it is cited by almost every single NDE book that comes out. If this is one of the best documented cases that you have, then the NDE camp is in real trouble. This cannot possibly be considered as serious evidence anywhere, and I have provided enough evidence to warrant scepticism of the source. If we only have the source as corroboration, then the case cannot be weighed as important because of all of the problems with it.

Reply: Clearly the Maria and Reynolds cases have gotten much publicity but they are by no means the only cases. The Reynolds case is compelling because of the procedure she underwent. It is, you will agree, a rarity to be able to lower someone's body temperature to 60 and drain the blood from their brains and produce this kind of stasis and then revive the individual so they can talk about it afterwards.

Since one only has the evidence supplied by the patient account this can never be proven save for them indicating they have seen something they could not have possibly seen from their physical presence or before their current physical presence. Hiding signs on the top of shelves in advance of such events may not be sufficient. If Braude is correct and they are clairvoyantly remote viewing/hearing whatever comes into their purview then this wouldn't necessarily work.

I can supply links also:

The first two discusses the Dutch ND study; one is an article by Titus Rivas who began this thread:

http://members.lycos.nl/Kritisch/SurvivalNDE.html

http://users.pandora.be/limen/ndeurope/articles/artmerkres.html

The third link below contains onward links to the full text journal article of the British NDE report in RESUCITATION and the Dutch study published in The Lancet:

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

SteveGrenard

10th August 2003, 06:33 AM

Here are two recent (Feb and June, 2003) responses in the British Medical Journal on this issue:

Rapid responses to:

TV:
Michael O'Brien
TV: The Day I Died
BMJ 2003; 326: 288 [Full text] Rapid responses: Submit a response to this article

Rapid responses published:

The Near-death experience research: time to shake the foundations?
Nick Watson (7 February 2003)
Wait for the thawing
Boghos L. Artinian (30 June 2003)

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

The Near-death experience research: time to shake the foundations? 7 February 2003

Nick Watson,
Research Scholar and Lecturer
York St John College, Y031 7EX
Send response to journal:
Re: The Near-death experience research: time to shake the foundations?

Email Nick Watson:
n.watson@yorksj.ac.uk

EDITOR – In Michael O'Brien’s review of the BBC documentary on near- death experiences (NDE), ‘The Day I Died’, he concludes that the mind-body separation suggested by researchers in recent clinical studies[1,2] will most likely be discounted by a further understanding of the mechanisms of the brain. Although this is a possibility these preliminary investigations challenge such an assertion, especially the case of Pam Reynolds, which was not mentioned in O'Brien's review. O'Brien rightly highlighted the confusion and misunderstanding surrounding the definition of clinical death, in that recovery shows that the patient was 'never really dead'. However, Pam Reynolds underwent an extreme surgical procedure known as 'hypothermic cardiac arrest', to remove a very large basilar artery aneurysm. During the operation the blood was drained from her head, she had no blood pressure, breathing, heartbeat or brainwaves[3] and she was arguably as close to clinical death as possible. After surgery the patient recounted her NDE in which she described seeing and hearing the bone saw that Dr Spetzler used to open up her skull, and recalled a specific comment by the female cardiologist, who later verified its accuracy. In support of many other anecdotal testimonies that have been corroborated by third persons, generally emergency medical staff, can we accept this as 'empirical' evidence of mind-body separation?

Physiological, pharmacological, and/or psychological explanations have been suggested by sceptics such as psychologist Susan Blackmore, who subscribes to a physicalist-reductionist explanation of the NDE. However, the evidence suggests Blackmore is over-confident, some might say arrogant, as no neuro-scientific model can at present account for all features of the NDE[4]. Dr Parnia rightly identified at the end of the documentary that the history of science clearly demonstrates the fallibility of our knowledge in the form of paradigm shifts. Due to scientific discovery becoming increasingly multi- and inter-disciplinary in nature, it is surely inappropriate to adhere to such a dogmatic worldview. New insights from quantum physics, and a hundred plus years of parapsychological research, which has not received the attention it deserves, is questioning and expanding our current understanding of consciousness. Maverick researchers such as Drs Parnia, Fenwick and Lommel are making brave and, in the light of preliminary evidence, plausible suggestions about the possibilities of the mind being able to exist independently of the physical body.

As Parnia and Fenwick suggest, further large-scale reproducible scientific studies are needed to support preliminary results that indicate the possibility of mind-body separation. In line with the complexity of the NDE phenomena, continued philosophical and theological reflection is also important. Perhaps most practically relevant to readers is the profound after-effects of the NDE. A number of researchers in the field suggest that the life-changing quality of the NDE provides the most significant evidence for the 'reality' of the experience. Having personally interviewed 21 NDErs as part of preliminary investigations for a study of healthcare professionals' knowledge and attitudes towards the NDE, I agree with cardiologist and NDE researcher Dr Michael Sabom when he comments "you can read a book of stories about near-death experiences and walk away as sceptical as you were before you picked it up. But when you look into the eyes of an experiencer, and from 4 feet away watch the ebb and flow of authentic tears, your scepticism begins to wash away"[3]. In the process of interviewing I witnessed the long-standing and powerful effect of the NDE, demonstrated by tears of joy and distress, in those who had their experience as long as 40 years ago. A handful of studies conducted mainly in America have explored the knowledge of and attitudes toward the near-death experience of Nurses[5,6], Physicians[7], Clergy[8], and Hospice Nurses[9]. In light of this many NDErs report suffering feelings of isolation and psychological and spiritual turmoil, as they felt unable to share their experience with healthcare professionals and/or family and friends for fear of ridicule. This should encourage UK healthcare professionals and researchers to address the lack of research and educational literature in this area, which in turn would hopefully lead to reduced social and medical stigma of the NDE.

In a recent thorough analysis of the NDE literature, Dr Mark Fox suggests that “twenty five years after the coining of the actual phrase ‘near-death experience’, it remains to be established beyond doubt that during such an experience anything actually leaves the body”[4]. Hence there is still much scientific work to be done before we can confidently suggest mind-body separation during the NDE. Dr Spritzer, the neurosurgeon who operated on Pam Reynolds, stated that he could not explain her NDE in the physiological state she was in, commenting “I don’t want to be so arrogant to be able to say that there is no way it can happen”, that is mind-body separation. Let us hope that all those engaged in NDE research can adopt a similar attitude.

1. Parnia S, Waller DG, Yeates BA, Fenwick P. A qualitative and quantitative study of the incidents, features and aetiology of near death experiences in cardiac arrest survivors. Resuscitation 2001; 48: 149-156.

2. Lommel PV, Wees RV, Meyers V, Elfferich I. Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands. Lancet 2001; 358: 2039-2045.

3. Sabom M. Light and death: One doctor's fascinating account of near- death experiences, Zondervan (Michigan, US), 1998, 14.

4. Fox M. Religion, spirituality and the near-death experience, Routledge (London), 2003, 340.

5. Cunico L. Knowledge and attitudes of hospital nurses in Italy related to near-death experiences. Journal of Near-Death Studies 2001; 20(1): 37- 50.

6. Simpson SM. Near death experience: a concept analysis as applied to nursing. Journal of Advanced Nursing 2001; 36(4): 520-526.

7. Moore LH. An assessment of physicians' knowledge of and attitudes toward the near-death experience. Journal of Near-Death Studies 1994; 13:91-102.

8. Bechtel LJ, Chen A, Pierce RA, Walker BA. Assessment of Clergy knowledge and attitudes toward near-death experiences. Journal of Near- Death Studies 1992; 10(3): 161-170.

9. Barnett L. Hospice nurses' knowledge and attitudes toward the near- death experience. Journal of Near-Death Studies 1991; 9: 225-232.

Competing interests: None declared

Wait for the thawing 30 June 2003

Boghos L. Artinian,
Private practice
Salam Building , Salim Bustani Street, Watawt Beirut, Lebanon
Send response to journal:
Re: Wait for the thawing

Email Boghos L. Artinian:
artinian@inco.com.lb

I would like to bring to a halt the ongoing debate regarding the mind -body duality, 'near death' and 'out of body' experiences, pending the first successful thawing of a frozen person who had been enrolled in a cryonics program.

Should this first revived person, and the others that would follow, be able to provide us with detailed itineraries of their souls during the deep-freezing of their bodies, I would be convinced of the duality of the mind and body, and believe in the possibility of an afterlife.

If, on the other hand, a hundred years of frozen 'solitude' have passed like a few seconds (containing only the 'near death' and the 'out of body' experiences) for the revived persons, I could then be sure that the soul cannot exist independent of a living body.

Competing interests: None declared

Ceinwyn

10th August 2003, 06:35 AM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
But then, any type of reconstruction would be unacceptable within science as you define it.

Which raises the question: how do you define science, Mr. Rivas?

Would you really agree with that? Would you also agree (and I pose this question to all of you) that by this strict definition of what would constitute scientific (or scholarly) evidence, many questions such as a possible survival after death simply cannot be approached scientifically?

I most humbly disagree. The only thing we have to understand our world is science, and it works pretty damn well. As for life after death, it has been studied ad nauseum, and not one iota of SCIENTIFIC evidence has shown it to be factual.

And if so, would you also agree that anyone who accepts your definition of science should call himself an agnostic when it comes to such questions? But then if you do agree with that, 'scientific' skepticism should focus here on a supposed absolute unknowability of what may happen to consciousness during flat EEG. The confusing thing is that it doesn't. It takes pains to debunk concrete cases, whereas it might as well save all the energy by just declaring that spontaneous case studies can never provide any type of valuable scientific evidence.

Ok, gotcha at the beginning, then you went all weird on me and I have no idea what you are trying to say. Sorry.

What is it that I've missed? Or is it just a matter of strategy, debunking spontaneous cases individually, whereas skeptics really believe it is always worthless to document any case study whatsoever?

No. It's a matter of the scientific method, which has been used to great effect for the last, oh, 1000 years. You don't seem to have a clear grasp of it.

I mean, a bit like the esoteric versus exoteric sides to religion. The initiates would know that skepticism is not really about debunking but about agnosticism, and the populace -too stupid to get point- is led to believe that skepticism is about dismissing just those things that don't fit in the materialist worldview.

Am I getting any warmer?

No, you're pretty much still stirring the ashes of the last moron who had no proof or evidence or anything except a really balanced chakra.

Best wishes,

TitusYeah, take care Titus. Make sure you dress cool for the weather, and leave that tinfoil hat at home.

Darat

10th August 2003, 07:21 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Here are two recent (Feb and June, 2003) responses in the British Medical Journal on this issue:

...snip...

Have you read some of the comments in that posting? I presume you are posting because you think it somehow adds weight to your belief in a “life-after-death”?

For instance:

But when you look into the eyes of an experiencer, and from 4 feet away watch the ebb and flow of authentic tears, your scepticism begins to wash away

Well then you wouldn't be being very sceptical would you?

What about looking into the eyes of a mother of a suicide bomber who is in tears saying how proud she is and how her daughter has earned a place in heaven? Is this meant to convince me that heaven exists – because someone is in tears?

I have no doubt many people have strong convictions in what they experienced but a "scientific" approach is to be moved by the tears.. please!

SteveGrenard

10th August 2003, 07:33 AM

Darat -- the reference you deride was made based on the personal, very personal observation of Dr. Michael Sabom who
is a sympathetic and very caring and feeling physician. It is a hallmark of his humanity which uncaring and unfeeling persons such as you have just proved yourself to be, will never understand.

Insofar as you attributing motivation to my posting of these two letters, one of which was from a Lebanese physician who makes light of this subject (did you happen to catch that?), I wonder also how you know what my motivation is? Anduin thinks she or he knows I am angry and now you think you know my motivation.
All these psychic skeptics around here are making me dizzy.

You obviousy also failed to catch several times wherein I cited Professor Stephen Braude of the University of Maryland who has hypothesized that externalization theories for OBEs are fallacious and that they can more easily be explained by clairvoyance and remote viewing. OOps sorry. Paranormal but a different type of paranormal explanation. Actually one with a much larger experimental database to back it up.

Insofar as the link between the survival hypothesis and OBEs/NDEs, since it is so tenuous, like Braude, I harbor no beliefs that they are in any way suggestive of post mortem survival. For one thing OBEs occur in living persons, and even apparently can be induced by shocking a part of the right (yes right--get that Univ of Kansas students treated to lectures which don't contain the latest information) temporal lobe as well as by certain drugs.

The real kicker, however, is to explain them in the absence of RIGHT temporal lobe stimulation, certain drugs and oxygen deprivation (even though O2 deprivation is not likely to result in lucid memories but rather the opposite). I also advanced, above, the argument that even NDEs occur in living persons, by definition. Or did you miss that also? Pay attention please.

Darat

10th August 2003, 07:55 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
Darat -- the reference you deride was made based on the personal, very personal observation of Dr. Michael Sabom who
is a sympathetic and very caring and feeling physician. It is a hallmark of his humanity which uncaring and unfeeling persons such as you have just proved yourself to be, will never understand.

Insofar as you attributing motivation to my posting of these two letters, one of which was from a Lebanese physician who makes light of this subject (did you happen to catch that?), I wonder also how you know what my motivation is? Anduin thinks she or he knows I am angry and now you think you know my motivation.
All these psychic skeptics around here are making me dizzy.

You obviousy also failed to catch several times wherein I cited Professor Stephen Braude of the University of Maryland who has hypothesized that externalization theories for OBEs are fallacious and that they can more easily be explained by clairvoyance and remote viewing. OOps sorry. Paranormal but a different type of paranormal explanation. Actually one with a much larger experimental database to back it up.

Insofar as the link between the survival hypothesis and OBEs/NDEs, since it is so tenuous, like Braude, I harbor no beliefs that they are in any way suggestive of post mortem survival. For one thing OBEs occur in living persons, and even apparently can be induced by shocking a part of the right (yes right--get that Univ of Kansas students treated to lectures which don't contain the latest information) temporal lobe as well as by certain drugs.

The real kicker, however, is to explain them in the absence of RIGHT temporal lobe stimulation, certain drugs and oxygen deprivation (even though O2 deprivation is not likely to result in lucid memories but rather the opposite). I also advanced, above, the argument that even NDEs occur in living persons, by definition. Or did you miss that also? Pay attention please.

Hmm....

The questions I asked you were:

1) Have you read some of the comments in that posting?

2) I presume you are posting because you think it somehow adds weight to your belief in a “life-after-death”?

3) (To paraphrase myself) Do you agree that if you let your opinion about the truth be based on someone’s extreme emotional conviction that is not very "scientific"?

SteveGrenard

10th August 2003, 08:05 AM

1) Have you read some of the comments in that posting?

Yes I read both letters.

2) I presume you are posting because you think it somehow adds weight to your belief in a “life-after-death”?

You presume, or I should say assume incorrectly. Why do you
presume anything? Is this some valid form of skeptical logic?
You also presume I "believe" in "life" after death. This is another
erroneous presumption. I do not harbor any beliefs about that. I
feel the evidence for consciousness existing beyond physical death in some way which is accessible to certain people is a likely and parsimonious explanation for all phenomena related to this idea. This contradicts the notion that all memories, abilities, thoughts, ideas, personality traits exist only in the brain and when the brain is completely and indubitably dead and even creamated, they occur nowhere else ........ its a work in progress.
Right now I am looking at the cases of aencephaly for clues.

3) (To paraphrase myself) Do you agree that if you let your opinion about the truth be based on someone’s extreme emotional conviction that is not very "scientific"?

It is very hard not to become emotional when dealing with these cases. I know that because I deal with dying and deeply disturbed people on a regular basis. You do not know this.
I would like to tell you about some of the cases I deal with but I cannot because of patient confidentiality and the new HIPAA
regulations. I think they might even make you cry. The fact that a physician reports such experiences does not color his judgement as to their veracity. In Sabom's case it was to reinforce the intense emotional experience of the experiencer. You obviously have a problem understanding the psychosocial aspects of these cases and why an observer needs to report these. Would you prefer he suppress such details? Would it make you have more faith in the findings? Informed opinion is informed opinion. Sabom was there, interviewed these cases. You were not. If you do not wish to rely on his text it is your privilege. There are plenty of people on both sides of that divide.

Darat

10th August 2003, 08:29 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
1) Have you read some of the comments in that posting?

Yes I read both letters.

Thankyou.

Originally posted by SteveGrenard

2) I presume you are posting because you think it somehow adds weight to your belief in a “life-after-death”?

You presume, or I should say assume incorrectly. Why do you
presume anything? Is this some valid form of skeptical logic?
You also presume I "believe" in "life" after death. This is another
erroneous presumption. I do not harbor any beliefs about that. I
feel the evidence for consciousness existing beyond physical death in some way which is accessible to certain people is a likely and parsimonious explanation for all phenomena related to this idea. This contradicts the notion that all memories, abilities, thoughts, ideas, personality traits exist only in the brain and when the brain is completely and indubitably dead and even creamated, they occur nowhere else ........ its a work in progress.
Right now I am looking at the cases of aencephaly for clues.

I make that presumption because you did not preface the reason why you were posting this extract. However I am very careful to make sure that I acknowledge it is my presumption, which you have corrected.

I cannot however see why in this response that you have objected to my shorthand “life-after-death” phrase about your beliefs.

Originally posted by SteveGrenard

3) (To paraphrase myself) Do you agree that if you let your opinion about the truth be based on someone’s extreme emotional conviction that is not very "scientific"?

It is very hard not to become emotional when dealing with these cases. I know that because I deal with dying and deeply disturbed people on a regular basis. You do not know this.
I would like to tell you about some of the cases I deal with but I cannot because of patient confidentiality and the new HIPAA
regulations. I think they might even make you cry. The fact that a physician reports such experiences does not color his judgement as to their veracity. In Sabom's case it was to reinforce the intense emotional experience of the experiencer. You obviously have a problem understanding the psychosocial aspects of these cases and why an observer needs to report these. Would you prefer he suppress such details? Would it make you have more faith in the findings? Informed opinion is informed opinion. Sabom was there, interviewed these cases. You were not. If you do not wish to rely on his text it is your privilege. There are plenty of people on both sides of that divide.

This does not answer my question “Do you agree that if you let your opinion about the truth be based on someone’s extreme emotional conviction that is not very "scientific?”

SteveGrenard

10th August 2003, 08:46 AM

Dear Darat:

I do not harbor a "belief" (read carefully into word belief) that there is life after death. I think, but I am not sure, that consciousness exists outside of the brain and is, evidently, tappable by some people. I dont know how. I am looking only at hard physical evidence and, yes, as anecdotal as you may want to make them, case histories. If the brain is the seat of human consciousness then when it dies so does the mind. On the face of it, the causal link between brain function and consciousness seems pretty airtight; damage or alter the brain and you damage or alter the subject's consciousness.

The idea that the brain and mind are the same received support during the `Montreal Procedure’, a surgical treatment for epilepsy, a brain disorder that American neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield had spent years studying. The patient was given a local anaesthetic and thus remained conscious for the operation. Penfield then removed the skull cap to expose the brain tissue and probed sections of the brain, asking the patient to describe what he or she was feeling. In this way Penfield was able to identify, in most cases, the precise location of the source of the seizure activity. He could then remove or destroy that bit of tissue to end the patient's seizures. Furthermore, by using this method, Penfield was able to map areas of the brain and their related functions. This essentially materialist procedure cemented the concept that the mind and brain are one and the same.

However, children born with only brainstems, near death experiences, children who remember past lives and communication with supposedly deceased humans also provides evidence that the brain and mind are not the same and that the mind or some type of consciousness may even survive physical death. The question can be reduced to: Can people `born without a brain’ or with severe brain damage still have a sentient consciousness?

Anencephaly is a condition where babies are born without a cerebrum and only the brainstem, which controls the reflexes and automatic functions (heart rate, blood pressure), limb movements and visceral functions (digestion, urination). They have what is euphemistically referred to as the reptilian brain. Children such as these should have no chance of ever becoming aware or sentient. They have a beating heart, they breath and somehow can suck a little bit but they are blind and deaf. They don’t have the part of the brain which would allow them to feel any kind of pleasure. So they should really have a vegetative existence. Yet some children survive for several years with a responsiveness that gives a powerful impression of conscious awareness such as; following movement with their eyes, smiling and cooing when fondled and crying when roughly handled.

Drew Wilson (two years of age in 2001) was born with no brain tissue and a partial brain stem. Despite his condition, he `continued to thrive, to the surprise of doctors and the delight of his adoptive family'. Standard medical opinion says that although such children can react to sounds, odors and physical contact there is no evidence of actual consciousness and, of course, there is no `brain' to mediate it. Thus, in effect, it is argued, there is `no one there’. The children are alive but act like a person in a deep, deep coma, except that they never will and never can come out of it.

Yet there are remarkable cases which contradict this view. There is the true story of about a girl born with only a brain stem. She lived for eight years. Charity Afton Yorgason’s brain stem operated her autonomic nervous system and allowed her lungs and heart to work and her foster parents were told that she would never use any of her senses, never experience joy or love, never feel pain or any other physical sensation. Doctors also said that she would most likely die before she was two years old. But the child, who was not supposed to experience any more than a vegetative existence, quickly refuted all medical evidence and proved she was capable of a great many things. She could smile and laugh, hear and follow people with her eyes, and could recognise loved ones. She could also feel pain.

At St Vincent's Hospital in New York City in 1935 a baby was born with no brain. Yet for twenty-seven days, in defiance of all medical expectation, the baby lived and ate and cried just like any other. In fact, the child's reactions were so normal that it's true condition was not suspected until an autopsy disclosed the absence of a brain. Reported by Gould & Pyle

A baby born with anencephaly lived till she was 11 years old and amazed physicians not only because she lived so long, but also because for reasons no one seemed to understand she responded to some stimuli. The touch of balloons made her laugh, they said. She also `laughed and giggled at Bruce Springsteen tunes. The family tried classical and the Rolling Stones but if they put on anything besides Bruce Springsteen the child just `shut down’ (reported by Grow).

There are also the cases of severe brain damage which had little apparent effect on the victims. A woman who worked in a mill was injured when a huge bolt fell into the machinery and was thrown out with bullet like force. The heavy bolt drove bits of bone ahead of it as it bored four inches into her skull. A small amount of brain substance was lost at the time of the accident and a bit more when the doctors removed the bolt. Although there was no reason to hope that she might recover, the girl not only regained consciousness but suffered no discomfort from the brain damage, not even a headache! Two years later when the medics finally examined her and released her from treatment, her only moment of the incident was a small scar where the bolt had entered. She lived forty-two years after her accident. (Gould & Pyle)

A man suffered from a brain tumour but although the ailment had created a cavity in the brain almost five inches in length, the victim was possessed of all his faculties right up to the moment of his death. (Gould & Pyle)

An injury resulted in the loss of about one-fourth of the skull of a man; in all, the aperture was about seven inches from front to back and about six inches wide and there had been a substantial loss of brain matter and of blood. The victim opened his eyes soon after and inquired what had happened. He also sat up and, before the astonished doctors could prevent it, he got to his feet and began putting on his clothes, as though nothing had happened. Two months after the accident he was back at work on the canal boat and the case history shows that other than occasional dizzy spells he seemed to be in good health. Twenty-six years after the accident he had developed a pronounced unsteadiness in his walk and partial paralysis of the left leg and arm. (MPWN).

A young girl had her brain crushed to a pulp by a railway accident; yet after a minimum of surgery she recovered fully and quickly. (Geley)

The entire right half of a patient's brain was removed. The patient was a 39 year old man of more than average intelligence. To the doctor’s amazement the man made a routine recovery after the drastic surgery and, they added "The operation left his intellect virtually unimpaired." (Bruell & Albee).

A fourteen year old boy treated for an abscess of the brain was fully conscious and rational up to the moment of death, complaining only of violent headache. When the doctors conducted an autopsy on him, they discovered to their amazement that the boy was virtually decapitated. The brain mass was almost entirely detached from the bulb. There was a large abscess involving all of the cerebellum and part of the cerebrum. (Iturricha).

German brain specialist, Hufeland performed an autopsy on the body of a paralysed man who had been in full possession of his faculties to the last. Instead of brains he had only eleven ounces of water! (Gould & Pyle).

A post-mortem was held on a young man of twenty who suffered from a cerebral tumour with loss of brain-substance. It was stated that, although there was a cavity in the brain at least five inches in length, the patient, almost up to the time of death, was possessed of the senses of touch, taste, hearing, and smell, showed considerable control over his locomotor muscles, and could talk. In fact, he was practically discommoded in no other way than by loss of vision, caused by pressure on the optic centres. It was also stated that the retention of memory was remarkable, and, up to within two weeks of his death, the patient was able to memorize poems. (Gould & Pyle).

And then there is the work of neurosurgeon Karl Lashley who removed almost all of his lab rats' brains save for the brain stem for autonomic functioning. They survived this procedure with their memories intact and could still run the mazes they learned when they had their full complement of brain tissue. See also Pribam.
Lashley's work was hardly anecdotal as it was done in the lab under controlled conditions. Yes he had control rats.

So in short Darat, I am a seeker. I am looking at all angles of the mind/brain duality problem but will not close my mind on the subject until I am personally satisifed I found the answer. I may loose my mind before I find the answer but will do so trying!

(The case hxs given above are referenced and paraphrased from the source; the references are good and I have checked some of them; Lashley's work as is Penfield's is well known and available for ref anywhere).

SteveGrenard

10th August 2003, 08:55 AM

D: This does not answer my question “Do you agree that if you let your opinion about the truth be based on someone’s extreme emotional conviction that is not very "scientific?”

I consider Dr Sabom's reporting of the patient's emotional status and its effect on himself as incidental to the reporting, care and treatment of the case. So no, it does not color my opinion and shouldn't. I can say this because I have been there, done that.
The emotional status of the patient was properly reported as it should have been and then the reader can judge for themselves what they wish to make of it. There are certainly instances where the emotional status of the patient is germane to their problem. I see this every day in people whom testing ultimately confirms psychophysiologic insomnia. I have patients who say they never sleep and when we test them they sleep 95% of the night. We cannot convince them they sleep.

We cannot expect ND experients to be detached from their experiences and report on them in a cold, objective manner.
Is this part of a problem? Sure. But we have to work past it,
not just give up and go home.

I posted the two follow up letters from the BMJ because they are very recent additions to this controversy and wanted to make them a part of the record. The first one, at least, had an interesting viewpoint as well.

Jeff Corey

10th August 2003, 09:14 AM

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

One finds himself or herself in some sort of "otherworldly" reality were they feel more conscious and alive than they have ever been in their lives. The question then is why should that person believe that they will very shortly instantaneously cease to be? Surely one would not need to rationalize in order to suppose they will continue having experiences? Rather it seems to me that they would need to rationalise in order to construe the experience as being some sort of hallucination, and that very shortly they will just switch off like a light. What conceivable justification could warrant this belief?
So which is it, "rationalize" or "rationalise"? Is this some sort of mid-Atlantic, bicontinental pose?
By the way, your post makes no sense whatsoever.
But I guess that is immaterial to you.

Interesting Ian

10th August 2003, 10:25 AM

Originally posted by Jeff Corey

By the way, your post makes no sense whatsoever.
But I guess that is immaterial to you. [/B]

What do you mean it makes no sense? What don't you understand about it?

anduin

10th August 2003, 11:24 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard

Reply: You know perfectly well that the Maria case is not the best case and that there are 100s of other documented cases, unrelated, that have been taken down as case histories by physicians and nurses. Braude (2003) doubts that these are externalized OBEs or NDEs and believes they are the result of clairvoyance.

I am not willing to explain away one unproven phenomenon with another. However, I am glad that you are getting away from the shoe case, but why did you offer it in the first place? As for the hundred of reports, I am aware that there are hundreds of reports, enough to warrant further investigation. However, these reports tend to be about seeing a light, seeing tunnels, seeing loved ones, etc. These are taken seriously and indeed have prompted proper research into the subject, I don’t think there is many people who believe that NDE as reported does not exist. The materialistic explanations are enough to explain many of these cases.

Originally posted by SteveGrenard

If you have been debating this subject for years then you know that the so-called prosaic explanations have been ruled out in these cases. Karl Jansen's ketamine trips and the propensity of this drug to result in horrifying hallucinations has caused it to remain on the market as a veterinary or horse tranquilizer. It is stolen from vet's offices and winds up as a street drug known as "Special K." It is rarely if ever used on humans and clearly is not implicated in the cases reported recently in the Journal RESUSCITATION or in The Lancet.

I think that you miss the relevance of the studies with ketamine. It has not been said that ketamine is the cause of the phenomenon; it has been argued that if an experience similar to those reported by NDE patients can be reproduced by chemical means, then the cause of most of these reports may be the result of chemicals released by the brain in near-death situations. The same applies to OBEs, where similar effects have been reproduced by the use of electric currents.

The end result is that many of the circumstances of the dying brain may simply release enough chemicals similar to the effect caused by ketamine, creating similar experiences.

The problem for NDE is to provide evidence that the memories and experiences take place while the brain is 'dead', not when it is alive. Can you tell at what time exactly is it you sleep? All I remember when I wake up is that I dreamt, but I could not say when I dreamt.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by SteveGrenard
[B] Reply: Clearly the Maria and Reynolds cases have gotten much publicity but they are by no means the only cases. The Reynolds case is compelling because of the procedure she underwent. It is, you will agree, a rarity to be able to lower someone's body temperature to 60 and drain the blood from their brains and produce this kind of stasis and then revive the individual so they can talk about it afterwards.

The problem with the Reynolds case is that I am yet to read any report that specifies when exactly did she recount her experience. This is vital to establish the validity of the experience.

SteveGrenard

10th August 2003, 11:56 AM

I offered the Maria shoe case as an example of someone claiming an OBE/NDE seeing something they could not possibly have seen. There were other cases like this I cannot recall including one involving plaid shoelaces on a nurse, a yellow top on a respiratory therapist and a red sneaker up on a roof.......all
seen by the experiencer while they were near dead. There are others. You can explain away one but not all by the merits of your argument against Clark, and I still say that even if she has her own psychological trauma to deal with, this doesn't make her an incompetent reporter in this case. The question Braude (2003)
brings up is that he can see no reason why an out of body trip or externalization is responsible for these findings when a simpler explanation would be clairvoyance.

I understand your use of ketamine as a generalization, but for drugs to be involved, they must be given and there are too many cases where the drugs given were simply epi, lidocaine, procaineamide, and other drugs used during CPR, none of which have any listed hallucinatory side effects and where there are probably millions of adminstrations recorded where no hallucinations were noted as a consequence. If you are asking one to believe that such drugs cause hallucinations in experiencers but not non-experiencers, at these numbers, that is a stretch that would be hard to make. You need to study the responses of vanLommel, for example, to these kinds of skeptical assertions.

Titus Rivas

10th August 2003, 04:03 PM

Steve,

Does Braude accept that clairvoyance during flat EEG
would imply survival of consciousness just as much as a literal out-of-body experience (in the spatial sense)? I wonder if he does accept such cases as evidence for survival or would he take refuge in a retrocognitive theory (of the kind I criticize in the article you linked (http://members.lycos.nl/Kritisch/SurvivalNDE.html) in one of your messages?) And what about ESP as such? Doesn't he consider ESP in itself as a phenomenon which suggests that the mind cannot be reduced to the brain so that the survival after brain death of its irreducible aspects (such as ESP) seems guaranteed?
Can you tell me more about his views on these topics?

Best wishes,

Titus

SteveGrenard

10th August 2003, 04:27 PM

TR: Does Braude accept that clairvoyance during flat EEG
would imply survival of consciousness just as much as a literal out-of-body experience (in the spatial sense)?

Reply: If the EEG is flat but the person revived, then it was not completely flat. He maintains that something, perhaps undetectable by current technology, remained for resuscitation to occur. Thus the experiencer is NOT dead (until they are well, dead and then they don't have near death experiences), just nearly dead so one can't make a sweeping statement like this. Patients are not removed from life support on the basis of a flat EEG alone. Brain stem reflexes are tested as well, particularly the
response to increased carbon dioxide levels which, if they do not stimulate the comatose flat-lined patient to breathe, then they'd consider them as canddiates for removal of life support. This is known as the Apnea Test and it is widely used but not widely known to the public.

He divides OBE explanations into two camps: those that favor externalization and those that favor internalization. He leans on the side of the latter, indicating that clairvoyance (which he considers a feature of ESP along with the ability to remote view) is the most parsimonious explanation for the phenomena.

TR: I wonder if he does accept such cases as evidence for survival or would he take refuge in a retrocognitive theory (of the kind I criticize in the article you linked in one of your messages?)

Reply: His conclusion on this is very clear. He does not think NDES/OBES and their causation (as above) has anything to offer the survival hypothesis. He says that the evidence for survival lays elsewhere.

TR: And what about ESP as such? Doesn't he consider ESP in itself as a phenomenon which suggests that the mind cannot be reduced to the brain so that the survival after brain death of its irreducible aspects (such as ESP) seems guaranteed?
Can you tell me more about his views on these topics?

Reply: He has no doubt that there is mind/brain duality, that consciousness can exist independently of the brain. He simply does not feel that ESP and cairvoyance are necessarily evidence of that. In fact super psi is often offered as an hypothesis to
deny the possibility of survival. He does not believe this countering of survival by super psi is very parisomnious either. Survival is evidenced by trance mediumship, overshadowing, ostensible cases of reincarnation and posession but not plain old vanilla ESP, clairvoyance and what seem to experiencers as OBES, whether near death or not near death. This is new to me since I always looked at these phenomena as interlocking in some way as well.

If telepathy (ESP) and clairvoyance have been proven beyond any doubt in tens of thousands of trials including ganzfeld studies,
I don't believe Braude feels it is any less possible for mind/brain duality to occur after physical death either. He is very precise in his terms and simply says one does not prove the other. Not that they exist to each other's exclusion.

In his new book Immortal Remains he goes into this in much greater detail than I can possibly do here and hope I have done a half respectable job trying to make his position understandable.

The following is just two paragraphs from a much longer article Braude published in 1998 which seems to reflect the thinking he has advanced in his book:

Some might argue that out-of-body experiences (OBEs) would support a stronger, Cartesian dualism. For example, suppose that a subject reports on a state of affairs visible only from the spot allegedly visited while ostensibly out of the body (there is some experimental and anecdotal evidence for this). And suppose that at the time of the experience, physical perturbations are detected at the spot where one’s perceptual perspective seems to be, even though there is no object visibly occupying that position (there is preliminary experimental evidence for this as well). Would that show that the mind is a thing that can leave and function physically apart from the body? In principle, one could argue instead that OBEs are nothing but imagery-rich clairvoyance, and that the physical disturbances can be explained as a form of accompanying PK.

Probably the only sort of parapsychological evidence that could clearly help support Cartesian dualism would be the evidence for survival. If it could be shown conclusively that consciousness survives the death and decomposition of the body, we might decide that this state of incorporeal existence can only be explained in terms of a mental substance. On the other hand, evidence of survival might equally be used to argue for a form of idealism, or a pluralistic worldview with an inventory of substance-kinds of at least three.

Braude, Stephen. 1998. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig. 1998 Routledge, New York

Hexxenhammer

10th August 2003, 06:50 PM

Another Pam Reynolds quote from the Readers Digest boards.

pamreynold Sun 08/10/03, 6:53:46
My life was saved by the hands of many healers and the grace of God. When I think of Dr. Spetzler, I see him with an angel on his shoulder. Heaven must be looking down on this man. How else could his passion for life be fueled into a roaring fire. Just ask his patients if you want to know about the miracle that is Dr. Spetzler.They will tell you that he is no ordinary scientist. He is the best of the best. In the fullness of time, we will all know...the truth will stand the test of time. I don't understand why there is a conflict between science and religion. Oh and by the way. I died but there is not a supersticious bone in my body.I remain Pam Reynolds

Hexxenhammer

11th August 2003, 01:40 PM

Couple more Pam Reynolds posts (she seems like a reasonably nice person. And patient considering she bothers to reply to some lunatic that insists on talking like a cartoon caveman):

pamreynold Mon 08/11/03, 11:36:41
You need only to look into this man's eyes to know. Many doctors have education and dedication. This one however, has that extra something that makes him great. He is rare beyond discription and many a student has been mentored in his tradition. Could you at least agree that such a man is a blessing to the world? Even if you leave God out of the mix, is it not true that such a doctor is of great value? Have you seen a doctor lately? Did they make you feel like your well being was of the utmost importance to them? My wish for you is that you get a Dr. Spetzler in your time of need. I don't care what you believe...that's your business. You should be cared for by a physician who's track record for healing is well documented. You should also allow me to see that angel on his shoulder because that's my business.We only need to agree that good is good, right is right and wrong is wrong. The rest is only personal opinion. I respect yours, will you respect mine?

And in reference to her own case:

pamreynold Mon 08/11/03, 1:21:11
Oh but this case has been explained in physical terms and is well documented by scientists who have studied it from a rational perspective. Is it rational to be married to an idea that is atiquated by current scientific data? Should we be so biased as to ignore the proof of a thing just because it does not mesh with what we thought we knew? In doing so, we join the ranks of those who think the universe revolves around the earth which by the way, is flat.If this method of thought works for you,so be it. I no longer have the luxury of smuggly pretending to know it all. My death taught me that I know nothing. By the way, would you care to compare brain pans? You might be surprised to learn the extent of my intellect.You insult me to the core by any implication that what happened to me was paranormal. I'd like to be a "fly on the wall" when it happens to you. Pam Reynolds

Skeptical Greg

11th August 2003, 01:55 PM

Phil

11th August 2003, 03:25 PM

Originally posted by Hexxenhammer
Another Pam Reynolds quote from the Readers Digest boards.

pamreynold Sun 08/10/03, 6:53:46
My life was saved by the hands of many healers and the grace of God. When I think of Dr. Spetzler, I see him with an angel on his shoulder. Heaven must be looking down on this man. How else could his passion for life be fueled into a roaring fire . . .
I suppose Pam Reynolds is attempting some grand laudatory statement by saying this about her doctor, but in my view she's instead managed to devalue medical science, and has insulted the man she was trying to praise.

How else could his passion for life be fueled?

I don't really know. Without knowing the man, I would merely be speculating.

But if he's like me:

If he’s like me, maybe he recognizes the enormity of everything around us and the miniscule stake, the insignificant claim we have on any of it. Perhaps he's aware of the awe-inspiring 'accident' it took for us to be here at all, and the extraordinary luck entailed in our survival as the millennia slip by. And perhaps with that, he senses that though we are many, we are each rare and precious, and that though the extent of our lives is hardly measurable on the cosmic clock, we are nonetheless unique creatures who, when we are at our best, have the ability to indeed look into the eyes of mortality to discover ways to put it at bay, and when we are at our worst, deserve endeavors no less profound.

If he’s like me, this man sees the beauty of life and understands the finality of dying, and his passion is fueled not by a mythological host, but by a deep desire to prolong the beauty and to stave off the ultimate ending, by a very human need to understand and an even more human need to overcome.

If he’s like me, he sees not an angel guiding his hand in surgery, nor does he hear a voice from on high inspiring him with words of comfort for the infirmed. Instead he knows only the hard and simple truths of life. He’s witnessed the new flower reaching for sunlight, and the hatchling stretching its neck to eat, motivated by a primal urge, a strong and unavoidable instinct. He's run a finger over the polished rocks below the surface of a moving stream. He's smelled the salt of the ocean as it foams and churns the sand. He's rooted for a desperate leaf holding fast to its branch in the rain, and he's been quickened by the grunt of a beast on the plain, a prickle of danger sniffed in the grass. He's taken the journey of a snowflake as it lingers adrift on a dry mountain breeze. He's puzzled over the shimmering air rising up from the desert floor, gasped at the solitude of a microscopic particle rocketing through the vastness of space, quavered at the paradox and reason of an endless universe, and he’s wept at the terrible and amazing reality that he is a part of it all.

If he’s like me, these are his truths, his fuel for passion. They are a type of magic that defies the trite inventions of heaven and the antiquated notions of its king. For they are real. And if he's like me, he knows passion needs no other fuel than what is real.

tracer

11th August 2003, 06:48 PM

Originally posted by Phil
and the extraordinary luck entailed in our survival as the millennia slip by.
Luck, nothing. We're here because we're the best danged toolmakers on the planet! Woo! Go us!

Phil

11th August 2003, 06:57 PM

Originally posted by tracer

Luck, nothing. We're here because we're the best danged toolmakers on the planet! Woo! Go us!
We rule!!

Nice cheer, tracer!!

I'm sure you know that I was speaking on a broader scale. Consider that a planet with the mass and gravitational pull of Jupiter just happening to form nearby drawing a great deal of 'space debris' away from us as just one example of 'extraordinary luck'.

Skeptical Greg

12th August 2003, 09:11 AM

Originally posted by Phil

We rule!!

Nice cheer, tracer!!

I'm sure you know that I was speaking on a broader scale. Consider that a planet with the mass and gravitational pull of Jupiter just happening to form nearby drawing a great deal of 'space debris' away from us as just one example of 'extraordinary luck'.

I see it as an example of celestial mechanics. If it were a matter of luck, it is doubtful we would be discussing it.

I suggest that the principles of the internal combustion engine is an " example of 'extraordinary luck ", without which, we would be paying $10 a pound for rubber bands..:)

Phil

12th August 2003, 09:30 AM

Originally posted by tracer
Luck, nothing. We're here because we're the best danged toolmakers on the planet!

Originally posted by Diogenes
I see it as an example of celestial mechanics. If it were a matter of luck, it is doubtful we would be discussing it.

Okay! Okay! It's a damn good thing Bill Shakespeare didn't have a skeptic for an editor. Sheeeess!!:)

Skeptical Greg

12th August 2003, 10:15 AM

Originally posted by Phil

Okay! Okay! It's a damn good thing Bill Shakespeare didn't have a skeptic for an editor. Sheeeess!!:)

:D

I enjoyed the tone of your post, i.e. ".... If he’s like me, maybe he recognizes the enormity of everything around us and the miniscule stake, the insignificant claim we have on any of it...." etc.. but my skeptic side recoiled at the use of the word ' luck '.. and the fortunate placement of Jupiter...

It reminded me of the creationist-like ( .. certainly not attributing such sentiments to you ) discourse, regarding the precise placement of earth in the solar system, which allowed for ' life as we know it '..

Phil

12th August 2003, 10:23 AM

Originally posted by Diogenes

:D

I enjoyed the tone of your post, i.e. ".... If he’s like me, maybe he recognizes the enormity of everything around us and the miniscule stake, the insignificant claim we have on any of it...." etc.. but my skeptic side recoiled at the use of the word ' luck '.. and the fortunate placement of Jupiter...

It reminded me of the creationist-like ( .. certainly not attributing such sentiments to you ) discourse, regarding the precise placement of earth in the solar system, which allowed for ' life as we know it '..
Of course I'm with you all the way. In a straight up debate, I would never use the word 'luck'. But I love language, and occasionally use words just for effect.

Titus Rivas

12th August 2003, 11:43 AM

Thanks Steve, for the information on Braude's standpoints. In fact, as you will have read in my article I acknowledge the need to exclude Super-ESP hypothesis in certain types of survival research, but in my view it's simply displaced in NDE-research. For example we need to exclude Super-ESP in studies of mediumship, because those studies concern more than some type of bare survival of consciousness (implied by Super-ESP itself). My reason to believe this is that Super-ESP can only exist if the mind (or consciousness) possesses characteristics which are completely at odds with what we know about the brain as a physical system. So Super-ESP is in itself extremely strong evidence of survival after death of at least part of the mind or consciousness as it shows the mind does not ultimately, existentially depend on the brain for at least some of its characteristics (as these are inexplicable by brain physiology). Now, if we're studying just that, meaning the survival after death of the mind or consciousness, we cannot really postulate that Super-ESP would be implying anything else than survival. Meaning that is not really a counter-hypothesis in this case (of NDE-research), not even in its retrocognitive version which on top is less parsimonious than a straightforward real time-ESP hypothesis during flat EEG.

Furthermore, if Braude believes that flat EEG is not really flat, he still has to explain how anyone could have lucid, detailed experiences during a phase which would certainly be very close it. The point is not that the brain would be irreversibly dead, or that flat EEG would be flat 100%, but that the state the brain is in during the process cannot account for the claimed range of consciousness experienced.

Anyway, some parapsychological considerations on a mainly skeptical forum. Let's hope they won't ban us for it :roll:

Titus

Phil

12th August 2003, 12:20 PM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Anyway, some parapsychological considerations on a mainly skeptical forum. Let's hope they won't ban us for it :roll:

Titus
No chance.

I'm not going out on a limb by saying you guys have provided the spark for a lively exchange, which we all welcome and enjoy. Keep it coming.

Titus Rivas

12th August 2003, 12:29 PM

Buki asked me:

Which raises the question: how do you define science, Mr. Rivas?
Well, I don't claim to offer the ultimate definition, but for me it does include naturalistic cases histories, clinical observation and 'even' introspective reports, as long as the theories as a whole can in principle be falsified (an important Popperian criterion) and as long as they don't contain any major inconsistencies either at an theoretical level or with regard to the underlying metaphysics. My definition of science would concern method and rationale, not orthodox consensus, let alone physicalism. Please note that I'm talking about science in general (including the social sciences, etc.), not strictly about physical science, for which the English word science seems to have become a synonym.

By the way, thanks for suggestions about how to deal with the weather. It's over 35 degrees Celsius over here (the Netherlands). Very unlikely for this region, but true nonetheless...
:D

Titus

Titus Rivas

12th August 2003, 12:36 PM

About animal experiments for parapsychology or PSI research: some were unpleasant and involved electrical shocks, the killing of individual animals or the induction of tumors in them. This topic could be something for another threads about ethics. Whatever people may say about Rupert Sheldrake and Ian Stevenson, they both oppose unpleasant and invasive animal experimentation for parapsychology.

By the way, I didn't find the story about the lizard funny :eek:

Titus

Titus Rivas

12th August 2003, 12:41 PM

I'm not going out on a limb by saying you guys have provided the spark for a lively exchange, which we all welcome and enjoy. Keep it coming. We'll do our best I suppose.
I must say I find the exchange on this forum a lot more interesting and a lot less unpleasant than other exchanges with local skeptics (until now :D that is).

Titus

Darat

12th August 2003, 12:57 PM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
About animal experiments for parapsychology or PSI research: some were unpleasant and involved electrical shocks, the killing of individual animals or the induction of tumors in them. This topic could be something for another threads about ethics. Whatever people may say about Rupert Sheldrake and Ian Stevenson, they both oppose unpleasant and invasive animal experimentation for parapsychology.

By the way, I didn't find the story about the lizard funny :eek:

Titus

Can you provide any references etc. for your claim "About animal experiments for parapsychology or PSI research: some were unpleasant and involved electrical shocks, the killing of individual animals or the induction of tumors in them."?

Skeptical Greg

12th August 2003, 01:20 PM

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

Furthermore, if Braude believes that flat EEG is not really flat, he still has to explain how anyone could have lucid, detailed experiences during a phase which would certainly be very close it.

Titus

Why should anyone have to explain it..

How can we possibly verify, that what the subject experienced ( lucid, detailed experiences ...according to the subject ), was during the exact time frame in which the EEG was flat ? ( .. or very close to it.. ) :confused:

SteveGrenard

12th August 2003, 03:45 PM

My reason to believe this is that Super-ESP can only exist if the mind (or consciousness) possesses characteristics which are completely at odds with what we know about the brain as a physical system. So Super-ESP is in itself extremely strong evidence of survival after death of at least part of the mind or consciousness as it shows the mind does not ultimately, existentially depend on the brain for at least some of its characteristics (as these are inexplicable by brain physiology).

Reply: Super psi connotes that one or more parties of the equation are alive. example:

Medium gets info on deceased from other living person or physical source

Medium is alive

Sitter if there is, is alive

I don't know if Braude will agree with you re proof that the mnid is not completely dependent on the brain is evidence of survival;
he does not say this is not part of such proof but that there is other more compelling evidence as well. A mind which is not dependent on brain in telepathic experiments between senders and receivers or other living or physical extant factors does not prove that such abilities survive death. I will go completely physicalist on you for a moment and point to experiments, mentioned somewhere above, where the complete absence of brain issue or the near complete excision of brain issue in animal experiments leaves such animals with their memories intact. Does this mean memories are recordedstored elsewhere in addition to or instead of in the bain? Yes it could, but the big question on everyone's mind (if you will excuse the similitude) is where?
In figuring out where mediums fit into this and how they pick up ostensible telepathic information, I could also go physicalist on you and point to magnetite deposits in the area of the pineal gland (the so-called third eye of the mystics) and theorize that in some people w/ larger deposits, it may play a role in such reception of information from living sources who are broadcasting this information via their thoughts.

However it does not prove these thoughts, memories, abilities, traits, opinions, personality etc survives death in some way even though that would be a likely explanation.

TR: Now, if we're studying just that, meaning the survival after death of the mind or consciousness, we cannot really postulate that Super-ESP would be implying anything else than survival. Meaning that is not really a counter-hypothesis in this case (of NDE-research), not even in its retrocognitive version which on top is less parsimonious than a straightforward real time-ESP hypothesis during flat EEG.

Reply: Super-Psi was invented or postulated at least to do exactly this: -- circumvent the survival hypothesis for mediumistic receipt of information attributable to a deceased communicator. While turning it around to support survival is possible, if you stick to the definition of the term, it represents only a small part of what is required to evidence post-mortem survival of a consciousness.

I agree there are examples where using super psi to explain a mediumistic retrieval of information from a deceased communicator is far less parsimonious than survival itself. In a case under recent discussion the sitter did not know the information from the deceased being communicated. Only the parents of the deceased, who were 5 000 miles away overseas could verify this information. The medium not only would have to be reading the mind of the sitter but also the thoughts of the parents, whom she did not know or know anything about. Is i reasonable to assume that of all the people in the world this medium would zero in on the thoughts of these two people in connection with the reading she was giving for a sitter who didn't know them well and was thousands of miles away from them? No.
But super psi would have us accepting this as the explanation.

Chanileslie

12th August 2003, 04:15 PM

There is so much we don't understand about the functions of the brain, and this is one of those things. I believe it is more a dream like state, another brain function that we don't quite understand. And I believe there are those who have preset notions about what they will see and what will happen in a NDE or at death, and I think subconsciously that effects what is seen during these events.

As for the events in the operating room that she described, well, they were hardly enough for me to say, "Wow, she really knows what happened". It seemed more like what she may have expected to see and hear, or maybe she did see it and hear and then put it into the context of her NDE dream. I have to agree with Dr. Susan Blackmore who is quoted below.

"I think what's happening is that people are trying to validate their experience by making these paranormal claims, but you don't need to do that," said Susan Blackmore, a psychology professor at the University of the West of England in Bristol. "They're valid experiences in themselves, only they're happening in the brain and not in the world out there."

She (Dr. Blackmore) believes the experiences are like a movie that our brains run at times of extreme traumatic stress. The brain creates endorphins which can reduce pain, and under extreme stress, these large amounts of endorphins produce a dreamlike state of euphoria. http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/DrJohnson/GMA020108Near_death_experiences.html

Goddidit and such is always a lousy and lazy explanation for anything in my opinion, but it answers no questions and lays to rest no doubts.

BTW, I am not saying that this woman did not experience exactly what she claims to have experienced, but rather that it was an effect caused by the lowed functions of her brain and natural biochemical, electrical stimulus that we don't quite understand as of yet.

Pyrrho

12th August 2003, 04:24 PM

Originally posted by Diogenes
Why should anyone have to explain it..

How can we possibly verify, that what the subject experienced ( lucid, detailed experiences ...according to the subject ), was during the exact time frame in which the EEG was flat ? ( .. or very close to it.. ) :confused:
This crucial point continues to be ignored in favor of pronouncements of hypothetical mechanisms for paranormal NDE, when paranormal NDE has yet to be established. Until paranormal NDE has been established, speculation about the nature of it is premature.

tracer

12th August 2003, 04:36 PM

Originally posted by Darat
Can you provide any references etc. for your claim "About animal experiments for parapsychology or PSI research: some were unpleasant and involved electrical shocks, the killing of individual animals or the induction of tumors in them."?
Several years ago, I'd heard that the Soviet Union conducted an experiment wherein a female rabbit was separated from her babies, the little baby bunnies were taken to the other side of the world, and then all the little babies were deliberately killed simultaneously. Supposedly, the Soviet researchers instantly saw the mama rabbit jump around all worried and anxious, as though the trauma of her offsprings' deaths were somehow being communicated to her over that vast distance.

I suspect that either (A) the experimenters watching the mama rabbit "gave away" the fact that something important was going on by their actions, which the mama rabbit could have been reacting to, or (B) the experiment never occurred and was just a story made up to paint the Soviets in a negative light ("They killed baby bunnies! Cute furry little baby bunnies! See how mean they are?!").

Of course, animal experiments involving the intentional death of the subjects or the inducement of tumors are nothing new in medical research.

joyrex

13th August 2003, 03:55 AM

Originally posted by tracer
I suspect that either (A) the experimenters watching the mama rabbit "gave away" the fact that something important was going on by their actions, which the mama rabbit could have been reacting to

Was anything mentioned about the surveillance? A one-way method would be better, like using video cameras, so there wouldn't be a risk to give away information.

Skeptical Greg

13th August 2003, 07:05 AM

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

Furthermore, if Braude believes that flat EEG is not really flat, he still has to explain how anyone could have lucid, detailed experiences during a phase which would certainly be very close it. The point is not that the brain would be irreversibly dead, or that flat EEG would be flat 100%, but that the state the brain is in during the process cannot account for the claimed range of consciousness experienced.

Titus

Re: Re: Super-ESP as an argument for survival

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Diogenes said:
Why should anyone have to explain it..

How can we possibly verify, that what the subject experienced ( lucid, detailed experiences ...according to the subject ), was during the exact time frame in which the EEG was flat ? ( .. or very close to it.. )
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pyrrho said:
This crucial point continues to be ignored .....

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

Titus said...... ( Well ???? )

Skeptical Greg

13th August 2003, 07:36 AM

Originally posted by tracer
.......................
Several years ago, I'd heard that the Soviet Union conducted an experiment wherein a female rabbit was separated from her babies, the little baby bunnies were taken to the other side of the world,
...................................

" Other side of the world "... Makes my baloney alarm go off....

Titus Rivas

13th August 2003, 07:54 AM

Titus said Well, as I show in my paper I personally find the evidence for veridical impressions during flat EEG compelling enough and I'm not the only one of course.

Why? Because I judge such accounts to be more than just useless anecdotes. In the case of Pam Reynolds I've been personally in touch with her surgeon, dr. Spetzler, through e-mail, as I've said before. This won't be enough for a debunker, but it is for me. It isn't necessary that he's an expert on NDEs, as it is sufficient that he is an important, reliable medical doctor who was a first-hand witness in this case.

Titus

Skeptical Greg

13th August 2003, 08:10 AM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Well, as I show in my paper I personally find the[]u evidence[/u] for veridical impressions during flat EEG compelling enough and I'm not the only one of course.

Why? Because I judge such accounts to be more than just useless anecdotes. In the case of Pam Reynolds I've been personally in touch with her surgeon, dr. Spetzler, through e-mail, as I've said before. This won't be enough for a debunker, but it is for me. It isn't necessary that he's an expert on NDEs, as it is sufficient that he is an important, reliable medical doctor who was a first-hand witness in this case.

Titus

You didn't answer the question..

What evidence?

How do you correllate the time frame of the experience the subject is reporting, with the data in the EEG..

What more can you do than 'assume' the experience was occuring during the ' flat ' readings?

Perhaps I overlooked a previous explanation for this. I would be interested in seeing your anwer..

Titus Rivas

13th August 2003, 08:24 AM

Well, Diogenes, as I've understood the case all along, Pam Reynolds perceived events that took place after the standstill procedure had been carried through. Meaning that they occurred while her brain showed a flat EEG and there was no response from her brain stem either. If she hadn't, the case wouldn't have caused such a stir in the first place. It is the whole point of this case.

Titus

Skeptical Greg

13th August 2003, 08:41 AM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Well, Diogenes, as I've understood the case all along, Pam Reynolds perceived events that took place after the standstill procedure had been carried through. Meaning that they occurred while her brain showed a flat EEG and there was no response from her brain stem either. If she hadn't, the case wouldn't have caused such a stir in the first place. It is the whole point of this case.

Titus

Never mind... The evidence is overwhelming...

:rolleyes:

tracer

13th August 2003, 09:41 AM

Originally posted by Diogenes
" Other side of the world "... Makes my baloney alarm go off....
Like I said, I only heard about this experiment, and this was only from somebody repeating to me what he'd heard, not a TV or radio program.

I'm leaning toward the "it was all made up and never happened" explanation myself. (Those poor, cute little baby bunnies!)

c0rbin

13th August 2003, 10:45 AM

Titus Rivas

13th August 2003, 10:59 AM

How would she--or anyone else--know this?

Well, cOrbin, because the surgery is supposed to take place after the standstill procedure, not before. And the neurosurgeon has confirmed that the account given by Dr. Michael B. Sabom is accurate. So one knows this on the basis of the testimony of Pam Reynolds and her surgeon Dr. Spetzler.

Titus

Skeptical Greg

13th August 2003, 11:03 AM

Originally posted by c0rbin

How would she--or anyone else--know this?

The explanation is:

She described specific, detailed events that took place while she was flat-lined.. It is further stated that there is no possible way she could have been aware of these events, other than, as an observer.

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

So far, we do not seem to have any information/evidence that would lead us to believe that either of these statements are true.

Skeptical Greg

13th August 2003, 11:15 AM

From the page describing Pam's experience.. (http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html)

This operation, nicknamed "standstill" by the doctors who perform it, required that Pam's body temperature be lowered to 60 degrees, her heartbeat and breathing stopped, her brain waves flattened, and the blood drained from her head. In everyday terms, she was put to death. After removing the aneurysm, she was restored to life.

Has this procedure been performed on anyone else?

Shouldn't we expect similar experiences?

Has anyone heard of any ?

Skeptical Greg

13th August 2003, 11:25 AM

Again, From Pam's Story.. (http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html)
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. Her remarkably detailed out-of-body observations, during her surgery, was later verified to be very accurate. The following is the account of her NDE in Pam's own words.

( my bold )

Are we to understand she had contact with Sabom before the experience, and was told about what he was investigating?

My, my...:eek:

Phil

13th August 2003, 11:55 AM

Her remarkably detailed out-of-body observations, during her surgery, was later verified to be very accurate. The following is the account of her NDE . . .
I hate to keep bandying terms, but this is what I referred to several pages ago in this thread. Phrases like 'very accurate' are vague. I could give you details of a basketball game that I didn't even see (Several big guys dribbled and threw a ball. One guy hit a lot of three point shots. The ref made some bad calls. Another big guy slam-dunked the ball and the whole backboard shook), and my account could be termed as very accurate.

I'd be much more interested in Pam's case if her remarkably detailed out-of-body observations, during her surgery, were later verified to be DETAILED and EXACT.

Skeptical Greg

13th August 2003, 12:12 PM

Originally posted by Phil

I hate to keep bandying terms, but this is what I referred to several pages ago in this thread. Phrases like 'very accurate' are vague. I could give you details of a basketball game that I didn't even see (Several big guys dribbled and threw a ball. One guy hit a lot of three point shots. The ref made some bad calls. Another big guy slam-dunked the ball and the whole backboard shook), and my account could be termed as very accurate.

I'd be much more interested in Pam's case if her remarkably detailed out-of-body observations, during her surgery, were later verified to be DETAILED and EXACT.

Yes, her detailed observations include things like:

"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.......
Surely we could nail down the precise time that this event took place ..:rolleyes:

Was another account transcribed that has more detail than this.. Surely it would behoove anyone, trying to make their case, to present such an account, if it exists.. Particularly the account of exact events that took place when the EEG was flat... :confused:

Titus Rivas

13th August 2003, 11:43 PM

Perhaps I overlooked it, but I don't think anyone has already quoted a message from the yahoo nde-group. As I member I have found this message dating from January 12th 2001 (long before I joined the group), posted by one Rabindranoth (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nde/message/26970?source=1) . The message is called: Pam R, Baers, Sabom,skeptics and it states:

Group, I just discovered something very interesting on Melvin Morses board.
Michael Sabom was being questioned by a skeptic about Pam Reynolds
NDE. During that well documented case, Reynolds underwent a
"standstill" procedure where the blood in her brain was drained out.
During this time, she had her NDE. She adamantly describes hovering
above the body and watching the doctor use an instrument that looks
like a toothbrush.

The skeptics claim that, since patients can still hear during these
experiences, that it is likely for them to contrive scenarios with
their imaginations as to what is going on in the room, and this is
why they can be so accurate about the events of the procedures. Pam
had no prior knowledge of the instrument that would be used, but was
extremely accurate about the events of the procedure.

Anyways, I always thought this wasn't conclusive about anything
until I read this discussion with Dr. Sabom.
Pam's eyes were taped shut, and her ears were plugged during the
procedure! Not only that, but she had no brainstem activity.
A BAER(BRAIN STEM AUDITORY EVOKED RESPONSE) was used to see if
there was any brain activity. What this does is pulses a sound into
the ear. If there is brain activity the eeg will spike as it registers
the sound. There was absolutely no response in Pam's BAER. Her eeg was
flat. The brainstem contains the vital nuclei for respiration and
heart rate. The medulla oblongata is the most vital 1 1/2" of the
body. Hers was turned off.She was *dead*.
During this time she describes popping out of her head, watching
the procedure and having a complete near death scenario where she knew
she had to go back. She was totally conscious, totally aware, and
remembered the experience. What is more conclusive than this?
I have no idea what skeptics may think about these things, I'm sure
they can conjure up some explanation out of their bag of tricks, but
that bag of tricks is getting awefully empty.
R

Melvin Morse's discussion board is supposed to be
here (http://www.melvinmorse.com/light.htm) , but I'm having trouble getting connected to this part of the side.

Titus

Titus Rivas

14th August 2003, 12:05 AM

Yesterday, I sent a message to Pam Reynolds, who can be reached through her website (http://www.geocities.com/pamreynoldsus/). Though I had asked her some questions twice before, she was kind enough to answer a few additional ones, inspired by this thread, only a few hours later.

About any pre-op briefing she might have had, she answers me:
I saw Dr Spetzler in the afternoon. I was examined and informed that the surgery would involve
stopping my heart. My mother,brother and husband were present at all times. I was not given a tour,nor was I "walked thru the process." my examination took 20 minutes and we left immediately as we had a tee time.
(a tee time is something related to golf, according to the internet, I didn't know the term before).

About her having a flat EEG and at the same time perceiving specific details, she writes:

I saw them operating on my groin while the body was dead and was concerned. I couldn't understand why
they would do this for brain surgery.

About the moment she first told anyone about her NDE:
When I entered the body, I heard music. I told him that his choice of music was insensitive. then dr.spetzler entered and I began to ask about the groin thing. He told me it was just part
of the process. I then asked him about the electric tooth brush, the way they shaved my head, the music and on and on and on. y'all are going to make write a book.Whew!"

About the investigation of her case:
Spetzler and the staff of the Institute knew all about it but dr. Michael sabom researched the records
and made the case public. He interviewed me and a couple years later, verified the info. At first, he
thought I was a nut case. brain surgery does that to some people. I retain my i.q. which is pretty high and perfect pitch.

Finally, she adds:
still don't see what the big deal is. This or something like this happens to all of us
eventualy. Y'all take care,

I'm very grateful for Pam's contribution.

Titus

Phil

14th August 2003, 09:09 AM

I'm just waking up as I read the new posts in this thread this morning (CST), so my judgement may be a little off, but it seems like we've now come full circle on this issue. We're still mulling over the same arguments and supposed 'evidence' that we were at the start of this thread.

1. The testimony of Pam Reynolds (the solitary eye-witness, if you will).

2. Corroboration by some of the attendant staff that her testimony was an 'accurate' description of what took place in the O.R.

3. And most importantly, the inability of many NDE supporters to understand critical thinking and how skeptics approach a claim such as this.

I'll speak to each briefly, and then step aside for more enlightened (read as awake) posters to pick up the thread.

1. No disrespect to PR, but as the solitary 'eye-witness', by definition her testimony cannot be directly corroborated. No one knows when (the moment during the operation) the supposed OBE took place, or the exact circumstances under which it began and/or ended, or if PR was simply spinning a tale influenced by what she'd seen before being put under, or what she'd seen on television and in movies, or if she was influenced by other NDE stories she'd heard or read about, or if she flat out lied. Unless PR admits to lying about certain aspects of her story, there is just no way for any of us to know any of that for sure.

2. Corroboration by the attendant staff is contingent upon PRs testimony. So far, all of the accounts presented in this thread have them saying that what PR recalled was very accurate. However, many of them were interviewed months or even years after the procedure took place, and none used the words 'detailed' and 'exact' when describing what she supposedly saw during her NDE. And I'm not quite clear on whether the doctors were kept blind for it, but let's not forget, this was part of a NDE 'experiment', and even intelligent, highly trained medical staffers can be drawn into the hype, wanting to be a part of a big discovery, maybe even needing to believe. Who knows what they could have had invested in the procedure.

3. And finally, I would like to establish that critical thinking and skepticism doesn't necessarily equate to debunking. Most of us are not in the business of purposefully exposing outrageous claims as nonsense. We are simply trying to draw the most rational conclusions about things based on the evidence available. We have no 'bag of tricks' other than a critical eye and the scientific method. I readily concede that PR's case is an interesting one with many questions on both sides of the issue. Skeptics, however, are not inclined to jump from "this is an interesting story with many unanswered questions" to "her case is unique, her story was accurate, and some doctors were impressed with it, so OBEs and NDEs are real, and there is an afterlife". That's simply not a rational approach.

Now I'm going to get some coffee.

Skeptical Greg

14th August 2003, 09:43 AM

Welll said Phil..

I will say, that I do not find her story particularly interesting..

Rivas' revelations about his latest communication with PR reinforces that opinion. I do not understand what his point was or why he(?) wasted his time.

I am frankly puzzled/ perplexed by the interest of the NDE/OBE investigative camp.. ( .... in this story )

All the fantastic ' detail ' that others seem so excited about, is mysteriously, not so apparent to me..

I've seen much better stories..

Titus Rivas

14th August 2003, 09:44 AM

Hi Phil,

Was the coffee any good?

her case is unique, her story was accurate, and some doctors were impressed with it, so OBEs and NDEs are real, and there is an afterlife". That's simply not a rational approach If anyone concluded something like that, without any additional reasonable considerations, it would not very be rational, I agree. However, I wouldn't know of any NDE-researcher who is just jumping to conclusions all the time. Instead, most are very aware of all the pros and cons, of philosophical (ontological), psychological and neurological considerations, of skeptical counter-hypotheses, etc. Furthermore, the PR case is often seen as good evidence for the existence of paranormal cases of its kind, meaning that there are similar cases histories which all seem to point in the same direction. That doesn't sound irrational to me.
PR might be seen as the kind of evidence NDE-research was waiting for.

Titus

renata

14th August 2003, 10:04 AM

I fail to see what if anything she may have perceived that would have to be explained only by means of an out of body experience. Just because under influence of heavy drugs she thought it was an out of body experience does not mean it was.

The groin operation? Assuming she was not prepped for it while conscious (shaving, etc) and was not told about it before, wouldn't she have stitches after, thus knowing surgeons worked on the groin?

tracer

14th August 2003, 10:06 AM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
About the moment she first told anyone about her NDE:
When I entered the body, I heard music. I told him that his choice of music was insensitive. then dr.spetzler entered and I began to ask about the groin thing. He told me it was just part
of the process.
Wait a minute ... she's saying that she asked Dr. Speltzer about being operated on her groin after the operation was over, not in her own mind while she was still having her near-death experience?

And Dr. Speltzer said that groin work was part of the process? He said that in real life?

What kind of brain anyeurism surgery requires work on the groin?!

Skeptical Greg

14th August 2003, 10:07 AM

Originally posted by renata
....................
The groin operation? Assuming she was not prepped for it while conscious (shaving, etc) and was not told about it before, wouldn't she have stitches after, thus knowing surgeons worked on the groin?

This puzzled me also...

" Yes, we secretly operated on her groin, and the only way she could have known, was via the OBE ... " :rolleyes:

Interesting Ian

14th August 2003, 10:09 AM

Originally posted by Phil

3. And finally, I would like to establish that critical thinking and skepticism doesn't necessarily equate to debunking. Most of us are not in the business of purposefully exposing outrageous claims as nonsense. We are simply trying to draw the most rational conclusions about things based on the evidence available. We have no 'bag of tricks' other than a critical eye and the scientific method. I readily concede that PR's case is an interesting one with many questions on both sides of the issue. Skeptics, however, are not inclined to jump from "this is an interesting story with many unanswered questions" to "her case is unique, her story was accurate, and some doctors were impressed with it, so OBEs and NDEs are real, and there is an afterlife". That's simply not a rational approach.

Now I'm going to get some coffee. [/B]

I'm not sure if anyone saying this case proves there is an afterlife. But NDE's considered as a whole, and particularly with reference to such cases as Pam's, might be said to be fairly suggestive of an afterlife.

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! :eek:

Let's suppose the situation were reversed, and instead of there being a colossal amount of evidence suggestive of the survival hypothesis, that there were in fact a colossal amount of evidence suggesting that we cease to exist when we die. Now in that situation it would be like me declaring that, despite all the evidence against an afterlife, because it is at least conceivable that such evidence opposing an afterlife could be "explained away", that therefore the most rational position to adopt would be to suppose there is an afterlife! :eek:

Stupid huh? And yet this is precisely what all you skeptics are doing except you're saying that despite all the evidence for an afterlife, because it is at least conceivable that the evidence can be explained away, the rational approach is that we should reject the survival hypothesis.

You're all completely bewitched by the common western metaphysic and you simply cannot seem to think outside its box. You are not rational, and you certainly do not apply Occam's razor. On the contrary it seems that on issues like these skeptics are profoundly irrational.

From a psychological perspective it's fascinating.

Now I think I'll have a coffee, then maybe a few cans of lager afterwards :)

Skeptical Greg

14th August 2003, 10:11 AM

Originally posted by tracer
What kind of brain anyeurism surgery requires work on the groin?!

For the sake of argument..

The groin is frequently used as an access point for veins and arteries, but I do not see in this case, how this part of the story served to validate the claim.. ( see Renata's and my post above )

Skeptical Greg

14th August 2003, 10:16 AM

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

I'm not sure if anyone saying this case proves there is an afterlife. But NDE's considered as a whole, and particularly with reference to such cases as Pam's, might be said to be fairly suggestive of an afterlife.

.......

AFTER-life....

She didn't die...

I guess " fairly suggestive ", somewhat vindicates you...

That said, I enjoyed the coherency and tone of your post..

Titus Rivas

14th August 2003, 10:37 AM

I found the following about the groin in relation to aneurysm:

Embolization (http://www.healthcare.ucla.edu/pls/ntracr.htm)
The goal of this procedure is to plug the aneurysm and prevent blood from flowing into this bulge in the artery wall. A small tube, called a catheter, is inserted into an artery in the groin and guided into the skull to the site of the aneurysm with the aid of x-rays. The catheter releases either a small balloon or wire coils into the bulge of the aneurysm, shutting it off from the flow of blood and preventing it from rupturing.Embolization preserves normal circulation through the artery and generally requires a hospital stay of two to four days.

Why it is at least remarkable that Pam Reynolds observed something like this during the NDE? Presumably because she was unaware of the procedure before her operation.
Stitches would only do as an explanation if you discount the possibility out of hand that she really perceived the procedure during her NDE, rather than making it up deliberately or undeliberately afterwards.

Titus

Skeptical Greg

14th August 2003, 11:33 AM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
I found the following about the groin in relation to aneurysm:

Embolization (http://www.healthcare.ucla.edu/pls/ntracr.htm)

Why it is at least remarkable that Pam Reynolds observed something like this during the NDE? Presumably because she was unaware of the procedure before her operation.

Titus
At least?

Since this procedure would have been performed while her heart was still pumping , and blood was flowing in her brain, it would have taken place before she ' flat-lined ', which you seem to indicate is the cornerstone of the uniqueness and significance of her experience???:confused:

-------------------------------
Your turn...

Phil

14th August 2003, 11:35 AM

Wow. Back from lunch to find some good stuff here. Let's see what we've got. Oh, Ian's post looks 'interesting'. I'll start there.
Originally posted by Interesting Ian

I'm not sure if anyone saying this case proves there is an afterlife. But NDE's considered as a whole, and particularly with reference to such cases as Pam's, might be said to be fairly suggestive of an afterlife.
"Might be said to be fairly suggestive"? Okay. You can't see me right now, and I could say that that might be said to be fairly suggestive that I'm invisible. I only call attention to this phrase because 'Might be said to be fairly suggestive' is wishy washy language; the type used by people hanging onto a slippery branch on the side of a cliff.
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! :eek:

Wrong!! Skeptics simply don't skip over all the mundane bits in the middle to get to the point where the outrageous explanation is all that's left. Mundane explanations may or may not apply, and are given no more weight in the argument than anything else. But your Occams Razor asks why accept the outrageous explanation when the mundane explanation is more likely the correct one. Don't pack a cargo trunk when an overnight bag is all you need.

Let's suppose the situation were reversed, and instead of there being a colossal amount of evidence suggestive of the survival hypothesis, that there were in fact a colossal amount of evidence suggesting that we cease to exist when we die. Now in that situation it would be like me declaring that, despite all the evidence against an afterlife, because it is at least conceivable that such evidence opposing an afterlife could be "explained away", that therefore the most rational position to adopt would be to suppose there is an afterlife! :eek:

Stupid huh? And yet this is precisely what all you skeptics are doing except you're saying that despite all the evidence for an afterlife, because it is at least conceivable that the evidence can be explained away, the rational approach is that we should reject the survival hypothesis.

Wrong again!! See my previous comments. You're making the same leap, only in reverse, and your argument holds water about as well as you after a few lagers.

You're all completely bewitched by the common western metaphysic and you simply cannot seem to think outside its box. You are not rational, and you certainly do not apply Occam's razor. On the contrary it seems that on issues like these skeptics are profoundly irrational.

Wrong yet again!! We have no problem thinking outside the box of western metaphysics. At least I don't. I often entertain myself and others with mental flights of fancy that manefest themselves in stories, jokes, and simple 'what ifs', and daydreams. I can imagine all sorts of wonderful possiblities that have no basis in fact and no supporting evidence, and I can discuss them at length, sometimes even forming my own fanciful theories. But when it comes to discovery, true understanding, and weeding out the minutia that lies between what is and what is thought to be, that box is well suited for the skeptic.

As to thinking outside the box in the traditional sense, if anything, by giving weight to the mundane explanations, skeptics always think outside the box created by the outrageous claim. Generally, the outrageous claim is a leap to an extraordinary conclusion. That is linear thinking. It generally leaves no consideration for other possible explanations. How is that thinking outside a box?

Also, Ian, I would suggest you find yourself a good dictionary and look up the word rational. You seem to be having trouble with that one, too, in this case.

Titus, thanks for the info on the groin incision as it relates to the aneurysm. I suspected that was part of the procedure, though was a unsure, as were some others posting.

c0rbin

14th August 2003, 11:40 AM

She gets that close to "crossing over" and not even one book deal yet!?!

From her website:
If you are a publisher, and you are interested in seeing the Proposal for Pam's new book available in February, click here and we will be in touch with you.

What is this world coming to? The answers to questions we have asked for thousands of years, probably before written record, and no one will publish her story!?!

What a cynical world we live in :p

Titus Rivas

14th August 2003, 01:28 PM

Since this procedure would have been performed while her heart was still pumping , and blood was flowing in her brain, it would have taken place before she ' flat-lined ', which you seem to indicate is the cornerstone of the uniqueness and significance of her experience???

Well Diogenes, the experiences Pam had while being flat-lined (or extremely close to it) are indeed the cornerstone. Please note that Pam claims notes that they were working on her groin while the body was dead

I suppose the procedure I found on the internet might have close parallells during a standstill procedure. We're getting very technical here, but why not? Perhaps you could try to find out what embolization would mean in such a specific context?

Titus

Skeptical Greg

14th August 2003, 01:47 PM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas

Well Diogenes, the experiences Pam had while being flat-lined (or extremely close to it) are indeed the cornerstone. Please note that Pam claims notes that they were working on her groin

I suppose the procedure I found on the internet might have close parallells during a standstill procedure. We're getting very technical here, but why not? Perhaps you could try to find out what embolization would mean in such a specific context?

Titus

Not even a good sidestep...

You were the one who got technical with the description of the procedure.. to corroborate your assertion ... that PR observed same.

Since Pam witnessed the procedure, why can't she describe what they did? I thought her account is ' one of the most compelling ' available among claims of OBE and NDE ???

Titus Rivas

14th August 2003, 02:08 PM

Not even a good sidestep...

You were the one who got technical with the description of the procedure.. to corroborate your assertion ... that PR observed same. I wasn't referring to Pam's description, but to our trying to find out exactly what medical procedures were involved. I don't know about you, but I'm not even a physician, let alone a brain surgeon (I'm a philosopher and theoretical psychologist). For me, it is quite enough if the (medical) experts don't object to Pam's descriptions. Though it can be interesting to know more about the details, I agree.

Since Pam witnessed the procedure, why can't she describe what they did? I thought her account is ' one of the most compelling ' available among claims of OBE and NDE Perhaps... because she wasn't a medical doctor either, but a musician!!! The point is not whether she gave an expert description of the procedure but that whatever she tells about it was supposedly unknown to her before it took place and that she observed it in a state of (or very close to) flat EEG.

Titus

Skeptical Greg

14th August 2003, 02:38 PM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas

Perhaps... because she wasn't a medical doctor either, but a musician!!! The point is not whether she gave an expert description of the procedure but that whatever she tells about it was supposedly unknown to her before it took place and that she observed it in a state of (or very close to) flat EEG.

Titus

O.K. Lets procede with your point : " whatever she tells about it "..

I saw them operating on my groin while the body was dead and was concerned. I couldn't understand why.....

How did she know the ( her ) body was dead at he time she was observing the groin procedure?

More importantly, since some of the medical personel present seem to be corroborating this story, was the ' groin procedure ' being performed during the ' flat-line ' time frame?

Interesting Ian

14th August 2003, 08:17 PM

Originally posted by Phil
[Originally posted by Interesting Ian

I'm not sure if anyone saying this case proves there is an afterlife. But NDE's considered as a whole, and particularly with reference to such cases as Pam's, might be said to be fairly suggestive of an afterlife.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Might be said to be fairly suggestive"? Okay. You can't see me right now, and I could say that that might be said to be fairly suggestive that I'm invisible. I only call attention to this phrase because 'Might be said to be fairly suggestive' is wishy washy language; the type used by people hanging onto a slippery branch on the side of a cliff.

Is this supposed to be remotely relevant to anything? If you do not believe NDE's are fairly suggestive of the survival hypothesis then could you please explain why? I genuinely am unable to understand.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wrong!! Skeptics simply don't skip over all the mundane bits in the middle to get to the point where the outrageous explanation is all that's left.

Outrageous explanation?? Your emotions are shining through here. I am really not interested in your emotional feelings about the matter, especially as I highly suspect their source can be traced to your subliminal assimiliation of the "wisdom" of modern western ideas about the world. Come on Phil! Let's have some actual arguments which call into question the survival hypothesis! I'm not an unreasonable guy. If you say anything which I consider to be of merit then I will readily acknowledge it. I believe I have been wrong about such things in the past ie my former belief when I was a teenager that nuts and bolts alien spacecraft are visiting our planet! I recognise now how implausible that belief was. So perhjaps you can help me in the case of NDE's? Give me some actual real arguments for me to suppose that NDE's are not what they appear to be. If you do not have any such arguments why should I suppose NDE's are not what they appear to be?

Mundane explanations may or may not apply, and are given no more weight in the argument than anything else. But your Occams Razor asks why accept the outrageous explanation when the mundane explanation is more likely the correct one. Don't pack a cargo trunk when an overnight bag is all you need.

Are you truly unable to comprehend that what you feel is an "outrageous explanation" might not be shared by other people?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let's suppose the situation were reversed, and instead of there being a colossal amount of evidence suggestive of the survival hypothesis, that there were in fact a colossal amount of evidence suggesting that we cease to exist when we die. Now in that situation it would be like me declaring that, despite all the evidence against an afterlife, because it is at least conceivable that such evidence opposing an afterlife could be "explained away", that therefore the most rational position to adopt would be to suppose there is an afterlife!

Stupid huh? And yet this is precisely what all you skeptics are doing except you're saying that despite all the evidence for an afterlife, because it is at least conceivable that the evidence can be explained away, the rational approach is that we should reject the survival hypothesis.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wrong again!! See my previous comments.

I'm sorry? Which previous comments? It seems to me precisely what the skeptics are doing. I repeat, you and they are unbelievably stupid. Let's have some arguments instead of your irrational emotional outbursts. Is that really too much to ask?

You're making the same leap, only in reverse, and your argument holds water about as well as you after a few lagers.

Oh dear. This is what it comes to is it when you can't think of anything else to say?? :rolleyes:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You're all completely bewitched by the common western metaphysic and you simply cannot seem to think outside its box. You are not rational, and you certainly do not apply Occam's razor. On the contrary it seems that on issues like these skeptics are profoundly irrational.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Wrong yet again!! We have no problem thinking outside the box of western metaphysics. At least I don't. I often entertain myself and others with mental flights of fancy that manefest themselves in stories, jokes, and simple 'what ifs', and daydreams. I can imagine all sorts of wonderful possiblities that have no basis in fact and no supporting evidence, and I can discuss them at length, sometimes even forming my own fanciful theories. But when it comes to discovery, true understanding, and weeding out the minutia that lies between what is and what is thought to be, that box is well suited for the skeptic.

If you refuse to say anything of any substance I shall not be replying to you again.

As to thinking outside the box in the traditional sense, if anything, by giving weight to the mundane explanations, skeptics always think outside the box created by the outrageous claim.

No one is suggesting that mundane explanations should not be considered very carefully. You seem to misunderstand my whole appoach to this issue. I simply state that when mundane explanations become so convoluted, implausible and desperate to explain some data, when at the same time other more simple explanations explain all the facts, but constitute an explanation inconsistent with modern western ideas about the nature of reality, then we should take a deep breath and seriously question whether we ought to abandon our ingrained metaphysical presumptions about the world.

Also, Ian, I would suggest you find yourself a good dictionary and look up the word rational. You seem to be having trouble with that one, too, in this case.

I understand the word by its original definition, not its seemingly current definition where it appears that anything which is "rational" is an unthinking adherence towards a certain metaphysical interpretation of the world, despite its questionable intelligibility and the collosal amount of evidence against such an interpretation.

Skeptical Greg

14th August 2003, 08:37 PM

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
... If you do not believe NDE's are fairly suggestive of the survival hypothesis then could you please explain why?

If by survival, you mean " survival of the 'soul' ", after death, I would say that NDE's are certainly not suggestive of such a thing.
Why? Because ' NEAR ' is the operative word.

When a " Lazarus ( by now he stinketh )" gives us a play by play, then we will have something that is fairly suggestive..

That said, I would certainly agree that the merits of any particular NDE, are certainly as credible as any ' survival hypothesis...

Loki

14th August 2003, 09:06 PM

titus riva,

Furthermore, the PR case is often seen as good evidence for the existence of paranormal cases of its kind, ...
The point has been made (well) by Phil, but overlooked as far as I can see - why is this "good evidence"? There seem at least two simple mundane possibilities - luck, and fraud.

Assume she simply is repeating something she dreamt during the pre or post stages of the surgery. The fact that some details align with reality is significant only if (a) you know how many details she gave in total, and (b) you know how many such testimonies (from other patients) have been "unpublished" because they didn't get any details correct. The assigning of the "good" tag to this evidence is based upon the number and quality of "hits". But how many "misses" are there? Without this information, you *cannot* tell if the "hits" are "good", or just "average".

Assume for a moment she is lying. What value then is her testimony? How do you propose to discover if she lied or not? Doesn't this mean *at the very least* that the quality of this evidence is directly linked to the degree to which you can be sure she isn't lying?

These are just two possible mundane explanations. If you can't eliminate either of these, then why jump to the conclusion that this is "good" evidence?

Titus Rivas

15th August 2003, 12:32 AM

Loki,

By good evidence I mean evidence which is at least highly suggestive of a non-mundane explanation AND which cannot reasonably be ignored because that would threaten the openness of one's scientific theorizing.

Assume she simply is repeating something she dreamt during the pre or post stages of the surgery. The fact that some details align with reality is significant only if (a) you know how many details she gave in total, One strong hit would certainly be enough, and in the case of PR it just so happens that there seems to be more than just one strong hit. To explain this away by no more than luck or even lying seems quite irrational.

and (b) you know how many such testimonies (from other patients) have been "unpublished" because they didn't get any details correct. Ever heard of what they said in the Ganzfeld-debate, the so called file drawer-(effect) argument? It was quite effectively shown to be false there too. Time to be very careful about that argument, I'd say :roll:

The assigning of the "good" tag to this evidence is based upon the number and quality of "hits".
Yes, but I suppose you're already quite impressed by the quality of the hits claimed by Pam Reynolds and corroborated by the medical staff, aren't you?

But how many "misses" are there? Without this information, you *cannot* tell if the "hits" are "good", or just "average". If there had been any important misses, we would certainly have heard about them from Dr. Spetzler. Why would he be so careless as to risk a splendid reputation as a brilliant surgeon just to defend a case of which he knows it certainly contains important misses? Has anybody thought about that already? Remember I wrote him an e-mail and it should have been quite clear to him he could use the occasion to debunk what Pam and Michael B. Sabom (or anybody else) had written about the case. Or at least express some serious doubt about the NDE. He did neither. Now how do you explain that, taking into account the average mental abilities of a brain surgeon? In my view, it's only natural to be struck by this, especially within a scientific context.

All in all, I'm not exactly impressed by any of your attempts at simply explaining the whole case away by so-called mundane theories. I expect one day the 'mundane (or rather normal) theories' will include personal survival after death, as more and more people will realize how irrational it is just to ignore all the evidence for it. Reason does not equal the adherence to materialist theories.

Titus

Loki

15th August 2003, 01:40 AM

Titus Rivas,

One strong hit would certainly be enough,...
Surely you can see why this cannot be true?

To explain this away by no more than luck or even lying seems quite irrational.
Have you seen a full transcript of the interviews between PR and Sabom? Have you any idea of what she actually said in full, as opposed to what has been reported in Sabom's book? If you haven't, then how are you judging the quality?

Ever heard of what they said in the Ganzfeld-debate, the so called file drawer-(effect) argument? It was quite effectively shown to be false there too. Time to be very careful about that argument, I'd say
I'm *not* saying that the "file drawer effect" *is* occuring here. Just asking how it is you've eliminated that possibility? How did they eliminate in the Ganzfeld deabte? By showing that the statistical effect being registered wold only be cancelled out by an enormously large number of "file -drawer" studies. Can you show the same here? If not, then how can you consider the PR case as "more than data mining"? How many testimonies did Sabom gather from patients and not publish because they showed nothing significant?

If there had been any important misses, we would certainly have heard about them from Dr. Spetzler. Why would he be so careless as to risk a splendid reputation as a brilliant surgeon just to defend a case of which he knows it certainly contains important misses? Has anybody thought about that already?
Are you seriously saying that (a) intelligent people can't have irrational beliefs and (b) you know the personal motivations of Dr.Spetzler? Cherie Blair is a Queens Council (senior lawyer), wife of the British PM, and a firm believer in homeopathy!

Or at least express some serious doubt about the NDE. He did neither. Now how do you explain that, taking into account the average mental abilities of a brain surgeon?
See above. Isn't it a fact that it's possible to be a brain surgeon and also accept as true that (a) some guy in Judea in 33 C.E. rose from the dead; or (b) that bowing 5 times a day to Mecca is necessary; or (c) that a god with the head of an elephant and the body of a man truly exists? How do I explain the personal beliefs of intelligent people? I can't in general, because they don't all beleive the same thing, and often beleive contradictory things. Go figure...

All in all, I'm not exactly impressed by any of your attempts at simply explaining the whole case away by so-called mundane theories.
That's okay - I'm not exactly impressed by someone who obviously can't eliminate even the simplest of mundane explanations, yet still wishes to ask the quesion "how can you explain such great evidence?". I find the PR case to be interesting, but until you (or anyone else) can show why even the basic explanations can't apply, then I can't understand why this case is "exceptional". It's another anecdote, basically unverifiable. That makes it interesting, and it may even be true, but it's not much use as evidence.

In case it isn't clear, I'm not saying that I believe that either luck or fraud are the explanations for the PR case. I'm just asking you how you've eliminated these options. It appears that your answer is "they don't seem likely". I'd agree, actually - they don't seem likely! But as scientific evidence this case isn't much chop, because even the simple issues haven't been controlled for or eliminated. It's interesting reading. It's not good evidence. Is that clearer?

Titus Rivas

15th August 2003, 02:42 AM

Okay, Loki,

so you're just saying that mundane explanations might in principle apply here. I very much doubt it, but in my definition science is not only about absolute truths, but also about what seems plausible given a certain amount of data. Perhaps you should read this paper by a friend of mine, Mary Rose Barrington, What is proof? (http://www.c-far.org/docs/articles/mrb_what_is_proof.htm) .

Are you seriously saying that (a) intelligent people can't have irrational beliefs and (b) you know the personal motivations of Dr.Spetzler
I'm not saying that intelligent people can't have irrational beliefs, as I consider most serious skeptics quite intelligent. However, are you implying that believing Pam's NDE basically happened as she claims, is irrational? (Are you implying the same about Islam by the way, though that's quite off topic I think)

Maybe this is the whole point. Apart from the issue of differences in definitions of science, skeptics seem to find the whole idea of consciousness surviving physical death downright irrational so that it would take extraordinary evidence going beyond anything necessary for less 'irrational' claims to incorporate it into science.
What I fail to see is why you do so. What makes a theory that accepts the survival of consciousness after death any less rational than a theory that doesn't?

Titus

Loki

15th August 2003, 04:53 AM

Titus Rivas,

so you're just saying that mundane explanations might in principle apply here
Actually, I'm saying that and going one step further. Since there is no details of any any attempt to eliminate mundane explanations, I can't see why we should move past them at this stage.

but in my definition science is not only about absolute truths, but also about what seems plausible given a certain amount of data...
No argument from me about this - *nothing* is absolutely proven, ever. But again, in the specific instance of the Pam Reynolds case, I can't see that there's much in the way of 'controls' over the data collection and analysis, so the whole thing appears to be an anecdote. There's a poster here call "max" who has recounted a tale of an encounter that he and his wife had with a ghost. If I was top accept that Pam's account is "great evidence" for an afterlife, then Max's account is brilliant evidence! Then again, it's just an unverified anecdote. Max might be lying. Pam might be lying. Sabom might be lying. You're prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to Sabom and Reynolds, even given that there is not verification, and that they clearly had (a) preconceived ideas of what they would find and (b) a vested interest in certain results. Fine, I understand that - but I hope you can understand that I don't think that amounts to "great evidence".

However, are you implying that believing Pam's NDE basically happened as she claims, is irrational?
No, I was referring to why the neurosurgeon (Spetzler) might not want to "back away" from supporting PR and Sabom. You seemed to be implying that since he is (a) very intelligent and (b) supportive of the PR case, then the conclusion must be "it's good evidence". I'm saying that he may well have believed in NDEs prior to this, and would do so given very little evidence at all.

Are you implying the same about Islam by the way, though that's quite off topic I think
Yes, quite off topic, and yes, I don't think human religions are rational.

What I fail to see is why you do so. What makes a theory that accepts the survival of consciousness after death any less rational than a theory that doesn't?
I don't have the time to answer this right now (it's getting late on a Friday evening), but in a nutshell it's probably got at least something to do with the fact that despite untold millions of people trying over the past few thousand years, the best scientific evidence to support the paranormal seems to be the statistical "bump" that is the Ganzfeld. Not much, given the time and effort expended in the looking. But that's not really a logical contradiction in "a belief in the afterlife", which I think is what you're asking? Perhaps we can pursue this next week?

Titus Rivas

15th August 2003, 06:15 AM

Loki,

Actually, I'm saying that and going one step further. Since there is no details of any any attempt to eliminate mundane explanations, I can't see why we should move past them at this stage. How would you call the investigation by Sabom then? Can that not be seen as an attempt to eliminate mundane explanations, for example by trying to get as much as corroboration as possible?

Pam might be lying. Sabom might be lying. Is there any reason to think so?

Fine, I understand that - but I hope you can understand that I don't think that amounts to "great evidence". I was talking about good evidence, but anyway :wink8:

I'm saying that he may well have believed in NDEs prior to this, and would do so given very little evidence at all. Why should he begin his answer by revealing that he "remains skeptical" then? For me, that simply doesn't make sense.

Yes, quite off topic, and yes, I don't think human religions are rational. Don't you think there could theoretically speaking be a third category, next to rational, irrational, namely arational, which refers to things that possibly go beyond reason but not against it? (I'm not saying this because I'm religious in that sense by the way)
But again, something for another thread.

I don't have the time to answer this right now (it's getting late on a Friday evening), but in a nutshell it's probably got at least something to do with the fact that despite untold millions of people trying over the past few thousand years, the best scientific evidence to support the paranormal seems to be the statistical "bump" that is the Ganzfeld. Not much, given the time and effort expended in the looking. But that's not really a logical contradiction in "a belief in the afterlife", which I think is what you're asking? Yes, that's what you was asking.

Perhaps we can pursue this next week? Alright.

Titus

Skeptical Greg

15th August 2003, 07:14 AM

Titus Rivas,

I'm still wondering if anyone has documented specific ( not necessarily detailed ) events ( such as the procedures in the groin area ), that were described by Pam, and corroborated by personel in the operating room, as having transpired while her EEG was flat (or nearly so). Of course, we would want to be reasonably sure she could not have learned of such events from alternate sources..

In spite of a lot of dancing around in this area, I haven't seen anything that could reasonably construed as ' specific '.. ?

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

Are you ignoring my questions for any particular reason ?

To recap:............

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Titus Rivas

Perhaps... because she wasn't a medical doctor either, but a musician!!! The point is not whether she gave an expert description of the procedure but that whatever she tells about it was supposedly unknown to her before it took place and that she observed it in a state of (or very close to) flat EEG.

Titus
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diogenes:
O.K. Lets procede with your point : " whatever she tells about it "..

quote:...( by Pam )
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I saw them operating on my groin while the body was dead and was concerned. I couldn't understand why.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diogenes:

How did she know the ( her ) body was dead at he time she was observing the groin procedure?

More importantly, since some of the medical personel present seem to be corroborating this story, was the ' groin procedure ' being performed during the ' flat-line ' time frame?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From your first post in this thread:
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'.
I ask again ..

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.

No one here, set out to debunk this extraordinary story before you brought it to our attention as a spetacular example of the ' soul ' existing independantly of the physical brain.

All we have so far, is the run-of-the-mill ' light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel" ' dreams ' and auditory perceptions, that have been satisfactorly explained from a traditional biophysical approach.

The key to this story ( and yes I'm repeating myself and others, because you have failed to respond in a conclusive manner ) is suppose to be her account of events while her EEG was flat ( or nearly so ). And I point out that you have failed to document such events in conjunction with corrobative, coherent accounts of these ' specific ' events.

A good example, if you were to present it, might be something like:

Surgeon: "During the time that the brain was drained of blood, and the EEG was flat, someone stuck their head in the door and said " Dr., we are ordering lunch. Do you want your usual Ham & Swiss on Rye ?" .. I know it was at this time, because I remember the sight of her bloodless brain, made me think that maybe some head cheese would be good today.. "

And then, we find that Pam's account includes something about ' ordering out from the Deli. '..
No technical details that a musician couldn't relate to, just a specific event that couldn't have happened or been fed to her at any other time..

If you don't care for my attempt at humor, how about..

Pam :
" I saw them operating on my groin while the body was dead ......" ( I realize 'dead' is a technical term subject to interpretation, but maybe you could give us this one... )

Surgeon:
" Her knowledge of this is astounding. All of the work in the groin area, took place while the brain was drained of blood.. "

If you cannot provide any such information, I will accept ' No I can't. " as an answer, with no further need on my part, for you to elaborate on any point you are trying to make here..

Titus Rivas

15th August 2003, 08:22 AM

Well, Diogenes,

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.

Dr. Spetzler has not given me any additional details, but just confirmed the account published in Light and Death. As I got it, he meant to say, that the description of the case published in the book and summarized on the two websites, is correct. So any claim on Pam's side of correctly recalling specific events, the ''toothbrush'' used when her EEG was (practically) flat, etc. would be basically and 'remarkably' (i.e. at least to an extent he wouldn't have expected within his skeptical world view) correct. I can't give you more details than that, as I was quite happy with this answer already and thought I shouldn't take too much of this important surgeon's valuable time. But it's up to you (meaning you personally or any other member of this forum) to decide if you wish to ask him for more details. Here's his contact information (http://www.societyns.org/society/detail.asp?MemberID=145) .

Keep us informed.

Titus

Skeptical Greg

15th August 2003, 08:37 AM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Well, Diogenes,

Dr. Spetzler has not given me any additional details, but just confirmed the account published in Light and Death. As I got it, he meant to say, that the description of the case published in the book and summarized on the two websites, is correct. So any claim on Pam's side of correctly recalling specific events, the ''toothbrush'' used when her EEG was (practically) flat, etc. would be basically and 'remarkably' (i.e. at least to an extent he wouldn't have expected within his skeptical world view) correct. I can't give you more details than that, as I was quite happy with this answer already and thought I shouldn't take too much of this important surgeon's valuable time. But it's up to you (meaning you personally or any other member of this forum) to decide if you wish to ask him for more details. Here's his contact information (http://www.societyns.org/society/detail.asp?MemberID=145) .

Keep us informed.

Titus

Thanks for taking the time..

I take it that this is a " No, there are no specific examples, such as you describe .. "

I will not bother the good Dr. I have no interest in pushing the agenda that you brought to us.

I trust others here, will see my point.. (... Of course, you see it also... )

P.S.

The 'toothbrush' ( some type of bone saw, I presume ) would obviously have been employed before her brain was drained of blood.. ( not that it wasn't also used, during that time... ) So, ' no cigar' there..;)

Phil

15th August 2003, 08:37 AM

Originally posted by Diogenes

Surgeon: "During the time that the brain was drained of blood, and the EEG was flat, someone stuck their head in the door and said " Dr., we are ordering lunch. Do you want your usual Ham & Swiss on Rye ?" .. I know it was at this time, because I remember the sight of her bloodless brain, made me think that maybe some head cheese would be good today.. ":D

Titus Rivas

15th August 2003, 09:05 AM

Of course, you see it also
Well no, Diogenes, unless you are a neurosurgeon or at least an expert on surgery. But if by any chance you aren't either of these, I wouldn't use the word 'obviously' too lightly if I were you. It would be bad for your reputation as a critical thinker, unless jumping to skeptical conclusions is something to be commended for in this special universe.

Perhaps you don't want to stumble upon any data that might really upset your world view? Just guessing. No-one is stopping you from trying to quench your thirst for more details.

Titus

Skeptical Greg

15th August 2003, 09:33 AM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas

Perhaps you don't want to stumble upon any data that might really upset your world view? Just guessing. No-one is stopping you from trying to quench your thirst for more details.

Titus

You are the one bringing ' earth shattering revelations ' to the skeptical world. Now you want me to ' stumble ' upon the evidence to support your propositions?:rolleyes:

Just so everyone remembers..

Everytime I ask you to provide ' technical detail's ', your reply is that, such details are not relevant to the validity of PR's experience. When I presume to hint at technical details, it is necessary for me to reveal my expertise, otherwise my observations are irrelevant..

I'm trying hard to imagine that you really expect to be taken seriously.

My imagination is failing me thus far.

Titus Rivas

15th August 2003, 10:52 AM

Just for the record: I would just as much like to know more details of the PR case as Diogenes would. The difference is that I hold the case to be important even without more details. Diogenes acts as if I'm Michae B. Sabom or even Robert F. Spetzler. I really am not (I'm not even using a pseudonym). If he wants to know more than is available already he should approach them directly. If he doesn't, it would be honest of him if he simply said so.

Maybe that will make it possible for me to take him seriously again.

Titus

Skeptical Greg

15th August 2003, 12:16 PM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas

Well no, Diogenes, unless you are a neurosurgeon or at least an expert on surgery. But if by any chance you aren't either of these, I wouldn't use the word 'obviously' too lightly if I were you. It would be bad for your reputation as a critical thinker, unless jumping to skeptical conclusions is something to be commended for in this special universe.

Perhaps you don't want to stumble upon any data that might really upset your world view? Just guessing. No-one is stopping you from trying to quench your thirst for more details.

Titus
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Spetzler, Robert M.D." <Robert.Spetzler@bnaneuro.net>
To: "Gregory Gatz" <GregoryGatz@netscape.net>
« Previous | Next »

It was a saw to open the skull and it does look like a electric
toothbrush.

rfs

RSpetzler@theBNI.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you think we might speculate that the skull was opened before the blood was drained from her brain?

Now, what were the events that Pam experienced while the EEG was in or near a Flat-Line condition?

Skeptical Greg

15th August 2003, 12:26 PM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Just for the record: I would just as much like to know more details of the PR case as Diogenes would. The difference is that I hold the case to be important even without more details. Diogenes acts as if I'm Michae B. Sabom or even Robert F. Spetzler. I really am not (I'm not even using a pseudonym). If he wants to know more than is available already he should approach them directly. If he doesn't, it would be honest of him if he simply said so.

Maybe that will make it possible for me to take him seriously again.

Titus
These are your words.
In this case, the subject would have observed the procedure while her brain processes had been artifically stopped.

What are the ' facts ' that would lead us (not you ) to believe your statement is correct.

If you do not have these facts, then this would appear to be a mis-statement.

If I discover anything to support your statement, I assure you, I will share it with you.

Titus Rivas

15th August 2003, 12:33 PM

Nice work, Diogenes (I actually mean it)!

Regarding your (in itself valid) question: Perhaps you should read the online accounts again, or if you don't trust those, kindly ask Robert F. Spetzler to answer just one additional question.

For your information, I just happen to have sent Michael B. Sabom a message about this thread. No idea whether he will have the time to respond or not.

By the way, did you really meet Alexander (http://users.otenet.gr/~ziggy/alex1.html)? :D Or was that just another anecdote?

Best wishes,

Titus

Phil

15th August 2003, 12:47 PM

This has been a fun thread to read and be a part of, and if Sabom enters the fray, it should get even more interesting.

I'm off to Mexico for a surfing trip, so I'm going to be out of touch for a while. I'll check in when I get back. Maybe the debate will still be raging. Or even better, maybe we'll finally see this good evidence we've been hearing about.

Adios amigos!

Skeptical Greg

15th August 2003, 01:15 PM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas
Nice work, Diogenes (I actually mean it)!

Regarding your (in itself valid) question: Perhaps you should read the online accounts again, or if you don't trust those, kindly ask Robert F. Spetzler to answer just one additional question.

For your information, I just happen to have sent Michael B. Sabom a message about this thread. No idea whether he will have the time to respond or not.

By the way, did you really meet Alexander (http://users.otenet.gr/~ziggy/alex1.html)? :D Or was that just another anecdote?

Best wishes,

Titus

I have read the material you have linked to. I find the story fascinating, particularly the cryogenic stuff. I had no idea such a procedure was being performed. Apparently it is still pretty rare.

I agree that this story would be unigue if we could correlate any of PR's sensations to the time period in which she was clinically ' brain-dead '.. I see nothing that leads me to believe this took place. If you think it is important to present such a case, I defer the research to you.

If the soul can leave the body and return, there would be millions of opportunities for such a phenomenon to be demonstrated..
Nothing you have presented so far, prompts me to give such a phenomenon, serious consideration.

By the way, did you really meet Alexander? Or was that just another anecdote?

I must say, that was so very long ago, it is really hard to seperate what I would like to believe, from what really happened..

All I can say for sure, is that I remain quite cynical, and I am still looking for an honest man..:D ( If you don't count Sundog, that is.. )

Titus Rivas

15th August 2003, 02:55 PM

Nothing you have presented so far, prompts me to give such a phenomenon, serious consideration.

Well, Diogenes, at least on this you count as the honest man you were already searching for such a long time ago :D

Titus

SteveGrenard

15th August 2003, 03:25 PM

A few comments.

1. First of all "rarity" of the procedure. Surgery during induced profound hypothermia is not necessarily rare. Not common, but not extremely rare either.

There are 23 pages of citations(*) in MedLine as far back as it goes and it was done by the Russians for many years before MedLine even existed.

2. The surgery to groin area involves cannulating the femoral artery and using it as a conduit to the aorta. It is the most superficial point of entry to reach the aorta. This was done to
drain the blood from the body (an arterial outflow tract is created) so this would NOT have initially been done after the blood was drained. However, the cannula may've been removed and site closed after blood was removed , and the patient re-infused (transfused) through a vein as is conventional. Arteries are used to exit blood from the body and veins to return it. In addition the patient, on recovering and waking up will find some discomfort in the groin area and maybe a few stitches as well. The blood was probably saved and PR was transfused wth her own blood afterwards. This is known as autologus blood transfusion.

3. On the other hand there is no reason to saw open the cranium and loose blood in such a field if they knew they could do it bloodlessly after the the patient has been cooled down and then drained of her blood. Therefore unless the neurosurgeon says otherwise and then I'd question him further as to why, the saw would've been used after the patient was cooled down and drained of her blood. The objective of the procedure was a boodless field to remove an aneurysm. Removal of this aneurysm in the presence of the pt's normal circulating blood volume could have resulted in massive hemorrhage.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
(*) some examples of MedLine cites on this:

NE, Reitz BA, Miller DC. Related Articles, Links
Does profound hypothermic circulatory arrest improve survival in patients with acute type a aortic dissection?
Circulation. 2002 Sep 24;106(12 Suppl 1):I218-28.
PMID: 12354737 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Chiappini B, Savini C, Marinelli G, Suarez SM, Di Eusanio M, Fiorani V, Pierangeli A. Related Articles, Links

Cavoatrial tumor thrombus: single-stage surgical approach with profound hypothermia and circulatory arrest, including a review of the literature.
J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2002 Oct;124(4):684-8. Review.
PMID: 12324725 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Bodian CA, Griepp RB. Related Articles, Links
Effect of hypothermia on cerebral blood flow and metabolism in the pig.
Ann Thorac Surg. 2002 Jan;73(1):191-7.
PMID: 11834009 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

18: Safi HJ, Miller CC 3rd, Estrera AL, Huynh TT, Rubenstein FS, Subramaniam MH, Buja LM. Related Articles, Links
Staged repair of extensive aortic aneurysms: morbidity and mortality in the elephant trunk technique.
Circulation. 2001 Dec 11;104(24):2938-42.
PMID: 11739309 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Hilson A. Related Articles, Links
Charles Drew's profound hypothermia apparatus.
Lancet. 2001 Nov 10;358(9293):1650. No abstract available.
PMID: 11716933 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

20: Aebert H, Reber D, Kobuch R, Philipp A, Birnbaum DE. Related Articles, Links
Aortic arch surgery using moderate systemic hypothermia and antegrade cerebral perfusion via the right subclavian artery.
Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2001 Oct;49(5):283-6.
PMID: 11605138 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

(many of the studies do not even have hypothermia in their title as this procedure is so common it is only mentioned as a key word since the procedures described were done under hypothermic circulatory arrest)

CFLarsen

15th August 2003, 03:38 PM

Steve, I thought you had abandoned this forum forever?

You made your future presence on this board dependent on somebody answering a question honestly and not be ridiculed for it.

May I ask who answered a question honestly and was not ridiculed for it?

Skeptical Greg

15th August 2003, 06:33 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
A few comments.

1. First of all "rarity" of the procedure. Surgery during induced profound hypothermia is not necessarily rare. Not common, but not extremely rare either.

.. lot of other stuff....

(many of the studies do not even have hypothermia in their title as this procedure is so common it is only mentioned as a key word since the procedures described were done under hypothermic circulatory arrest)

Your point?

Titus Rivas

15th August 2003, 06:41 PM

Steve,

Thanks a lot for your valuable observations!

2. The surgery to groin area involves cannulating the femoral artery and using it as a conduit to the aorta. It is the most superficial point of entry to reach the aorta. This was done to
drain the blood from the body (an arterial outflow tract is created) so this would NOT have initially been done after the blood was drained.

Even so, as I understand it, the draining of the blood is done after the heart and breathing has been made to stop and the body temperature has lowered to the point that Pam showed a flat EEG (on the page at Near-Death Experiences and the Afterlife (http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence01.html) dedicated to Pam the exact wording about the different steps is: Pam's body temperature be lowered to 60 degrees, her heartbeat and breathing stopped, her brain waves flattened, and the blood drained from her head ). So this certainly suggests that Pam is right about perceiving the procedure "while the body was dead".

Here is a description of the same order of events in another patient (http://www.cryonics.org/surgery.html) (this time of a colleague of Dr. Spetzler, Dr. Robert Solomon):

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.

Clicking and whirring, the bypass machine took over circulation. At 60 degrees, Dr. Craig R. Smith, the cardiac surgeon charged with masterminding the body's blood flow, signaled the start of a trip to the netherworld of consciousness. "Everybody ready?" he asked as Dr. Solomon resumed his seat over the hole in the head. "All right. Bypass off. Circulatory arrest. Let's drain."

The blood halted its habitual pumping course through the young man's arteries. It drained to a still pool in a sterile chamber on the floor. The lines on the monitors fell ominously flat. For the next half hour, Donald Rogers was an inanimate object, a patient in limbo, not measurably alive, but not quite dead either.

Suspended animation, a staple of science fiction, is now being used at a few hospitals to allow surgeons to operate on certain badly deformed blood vessels that cannot be repaired while full of blood. These deformities, known as aneurysms, are places where weak spots puff out from the wall of the blood vessels of the brain.

So I guess Pam's observations of the work on her groin could well have taken place before the blood was drained from her body, and after her EEG had flattened. Though from a materialistic point of view, the other possibility mentioned by you is just as anomalous, as she would have observed the procedure while there wasn't enough blood in her brain yet to account for normal brain activity.

All this would explain also why Dr. Spetzler hasn't corrected her on this important point.

Titus

Skeptical Greg

15th August 2003, 07:07 PM

It would still be helpful to have a time-line of what took place. proceduraly, before during and after the flat line. I find it puzzling, that amidst all the information being offered, this critical data is missing.

Steve seemed to be trying to make a point that perhaps the cranial sawing took place after the EEG flattened..

I find it interesting, that you began your quote immediately following this paragraph..

"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.

I'm sure it's just my cynism at work, and no particular intent to leave out information, on your part..?

SteveGrenard

15th August 2003, 07:15 PM

The Point

Diogenes wrote: “I had no idea such a procedure was being performed. Apparently it is still pretty rare.”

Incorrect. The procedure is not “still” pretty rare. Evidence of that given. It was actually done more than 50 years ago by Russian doctors in the former USSR.

Diogenes says he speculates: “Do you think we might speculate that the skull was opened before the blood was drained from her brain?”

What is the point of draining the blood to have a bloodless field and then opening the skull
before this was done? None

And the point is, most importantly, was what Pam Reynolds herself wrote as quoted here:

“I saw them operating on my groin while the body was dead and was concerned. I couldn't understand why they would do this for brain surgery.”

They do not do this for the brain surgery Pam they do this to create a means by which to drain
all the blood from your body quickly. This may’ve been done before or after you were cooled but before your EEG became completely flat. You may have felt a surgical assistant perform a cut down to your femoral artery (in your groin—actually just below crease between the upper anterior aspect of your thigh and your lower abdomen) and insert a catheter; you probably did not feel them pull the catheter out and stitch it up. Your blood was re-introduced via a vein, probably the brachial vein in the arm. After you awoke you found yourself with a dressing over the hole in your groin, a few stitches and some unpleasant discomfort there. One cannot chalk up the groin procedure to the NDE. Since it is obvious you would be able to detect the procedure on your groin after you awoke, I am skeptical of you saying you saw it while you was completely flat-lined. Pam this procedure would not routinely be performed after you flat-lined but prior to this. They need your blood pressure to get your blood to pump itself out.

The groin procedure was in fact required to drain the blood and not after the body was dead but as a mean to induce that state.

The point is also we need more information as to the precise times Pam recalled things and how they relate to what stage of the procedure she was in. I agree with Diogenes on this.
Clearly the opening of the skull and the device she saw was related to the period she had a flat EEG and had already had all her blood removed.

The groin procedure as described (and its purpose) is usually done beforehand so it cannot be part of an NDE. The point is also Diogenes that you said know more about this than you
say you are letting on. So what it is you know and how do you know it? Do you agree with the above assessments?

Titus, breathing is stopped rather easily with paralyzing agents. It is maintained artificially if necessary by a ventilator. However, the blood pressure is required to drain the blood from the body, and to this end, the contraction and relaxation of the beating heart remains the best way to have that blood pressure. When the blood is out, and the body cooled, the heart can be arrested. I maintain that the so-called "groin procedure" was not done during cardiac standstill, profound cooling or flat EEG phase. The other case you quote is not Pam's case and involved a man placed on an extracorporeal heart/lung pump; the heart is
stopped and the pump takes over but its hooked up and rolling first. If this is the way Pam's blood was drained I agree she does not need her heart beat to do the complete job. This was not clear. However, even a heart lung machine needs an arterial outflow track and this is the femoral/aortic
cannulation/catheterization described as the groin procedure. And it is done well before they are ready to hook up. So the cutting and cannulating of the femoral artery would still take place as a preface to the procedure and not while she was clinically dead.

Skeptical Greg

15th August 2003, 07:32 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard

Incorrect. The procedure is not “still” pretty rare. Evidence of that given. It was actually done more than 50 years ago by Russian doctors in the former USSR.

Curious that we don't have many more accounts of NDE's while flat-lined, and we are still chewing on this poorly documented one??

Diogenes says he speculates: “Do you think we might speculate that the skull was opened before the blood was drained from her brain?”

What is the point of draining the blood to have a bloodless field and then opening the skull
before this was done? None

You must have been composing when I noted:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The point is we need more information as to the precise times Pam recalled things and how they
relate to what stage of the procedure she was in.

We are in agreement on this..

P.S.

I used 'rare' in a relative sense.. Do you think this procedure might be more rare than heart bypass surgery?

Also, as noted above, for the sake of this discussion, your suggesting it is ' not so rare ', would make us wonder why Pam's poorly documented experience, is being touted as such a pool of evidence for the validation of the NDE/OBE experience...

SteveGrenard

15th August 2003, 07:39 PM

You wrote before I finished editing.

Why is the K.C . case of somebody else the same as the Pam
Reynold's case? I have monitored several hundred heart lung bypass procedures as well as performed END testing intraoperatively during brain surgeries where cooling but not standstill was used. You still need the blood pressure intact
when you hook up to the pump but then you can arrest the heart as the pump takes over.

The fact that we do not have more NDE cases in connection
with this procedure can be answered by the fact that not all people have NDEs at all, many who do don't talk about them and others are brushed off by doctors and nurses who tell the patients they were hallucinating or, to be polite, dreaming.
Such people then suppress or promptly forget about them, brushing them off themselves.

The Reynolds case may be compelling to some but we do need specifics aligned with the time line of the procedure. We are operating here with inadequate information. As usual.

Skeptical Greg

15th August 2003, 07:57 PM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
You wrote before I finished editing.

Why is the K.C . case of somebody else the same as the Pam
Reynold's case?

I don't know that it is.. It seems that keeping the flat-line time to a minimum, might be a good reason.

Of course, keeping the field free of blood, as you mentioned, seems to be an important consideration also.

However, isn't removal of a portion of the skull and exposing the brain, usually a relatively bloodless procecure. Or do we need to agree on the meaning of relatively, before I venture such a speculation.

As far as what took place with Pam, You might ask Dr. Spetzler.. I'm not going to bother him again..

SteveGrenard

15th August 2003, 07:58 PM

Originally posted by Diogenes

P.S.

I used 'rare' in a relative sense.. Do you think this procedure might be more rare than heart bypass surgery?

Also, as noted above, for the sake of this discussion, your suggesting it is ' not so rare ', would make us wonder why Pam's poorly documented experience, is being touted as such a pool of evidence for the validation of the NDE/OBE experience...

if you want to qualify your remark by adding its status relative to other procedures, it is much rarer. Heart/lung procedures by the way are exceedingly common, particularly bypass surgery. Centers like the Cleveland Clinic and Baylor in Houston and many others have virtual assembly lines doing a dozen+ patients a day.

Diagnosed artheriosclerotic heart disease is much more common than a detected, operable brain aneurysm. Pam was one lucky patient. Most such cases end up as brain hemorrhages and die.
The first time they are diagnosed is at autopsy or shortly before
that procedure.

NDES under all crcumstances are pretty common when properly reported and not suppressed. You have to look into the literature on this. I gave some reasons above why not as many as you would like are ever published. I think the combination of the procedure Reynolds had and the existence of the alleged NDE makes it more noteworthy than either factor alone.

Most NDE reports are pretty subjective and we only have the percipients word for their "vision." They are an interesting side issue in the paranormal debate but as I said above a prominent parapsychologist such as Stephen Braude doesn't think they are at all suggestive of post mortem survival. And its not hard to shoot holes in them.

SteveGrenard

15th August 2003, 08:35 PM

Titus quoting: Pam's body temperature be lowered to 60 degrees, her heartbeat and breathing stopped, her brain waves flattened, and the blood drained from her head ). So this certainly suggests that Pam is right about perceiving the procedure "while the body was dead".

I am not clear on something with the above. It says the blood is drained from her "head" but doesn't mention the rest of her body.

Are we to assume from this that they did not drain all of her blood but only the head? If they did the head and the rest of the body, which was first? This would put a whole different aspect on how draining the blood from the head only would take place...certainly not through the femoral artery but probably through the carotid. There is no other reason I can think of them to operate on her groin other than to cannulate the femoral and drain all all of the body's blood through that.

Also like Dr Soloman's case, was Pam on a heart/lung pump?

Skeptical Greg

15th August 2003, 08:48 PM

According to Pam's account that Titus is pointing us to:

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

I remember the heart-lung machine. I didn't like the respirator ...

From what I can google, heart - lung bypass, is always part of a hypothermic cardiac arrest procedure.

SteveGrenard

15th August 2003, 09:16 PM

If she was tied in to a heart lung machine or extracorporeal pump, there is more to this procedure than we know about. Without a doubt the groin procedure was part of her being hooked up to that machine.

A cut down is performed on top of the femoral
artery and a catheter or canula is passed into that vessel and
secured with a stopcock to prevent the patient from exsanguinating. This is still a prefatory procedure and would still be performed before she was drained of all her blood since it is necessary to have this in order to drain it. The patient is then hooked up and the blood starts flowing into he pump, the heart is arrested and the pump takes over for it. Usually such devices are used to bypass the area being operated on (e.g. the coronary arteries of the heart, for example) but it forms a continuous loop with the patient and circulates the patient's blood out of the body via the femoral/arotic catheter and back in again through the femoral vein and vena cava. Heart lung machines also oxygenate the blood and remove CO2 through spreading the blood through a membranous coil or similar device. However, it can be used to simply drain the blood and keep it in a sterile resevoir until which time it is switched back on and the blood pumped back in. Anticoagulants are used to prevent the bood from clotting and then these are reversed after the patient is re-perfused.

So the recall of them futzing with a procedure in the groin area would still have taken place prior to her being super-cooled, in cardiac standstill and flat-lined EEG. Draining the blood from her head may be another matter.

It would be interesting to hear her description of the respirator
also. In the O.R. the patient is endotracheally intubated and placed on an anesthesia ventilator which does not look like the
the respirators used outside the O.R. Her perception and description of the device rather than its mere mention would be more interesting. Even its color would be important. Different brands have different color schemes. A description of the heart lung machine would also be useful.

In answer to the question regarding the bloodlessness of removing the skull to expose the operative field, there could be some bleeding as the scalp is pretty well supplied with capillaries
but I agree it is not as much as other parts of the body. You are pobably thinking of the membranous layers (dura mater, pia mater and arachnoid) below the bone which are bereft of significant blood supply. There still doesnt seem to be any reason the surgeon would commence with this while there was still blood flow and before she was cooled but yes, he could've prefaced the procedure by doing this as prep work before she was flat-lined. Only he could answer that. It just didnt make sense to me.

Loki

15th August 2003, 09:26 PM

SteveGrenard,

(I'm just dropping by ... gotta run... time for a quick comment only..)
We are operating here with inadequate information. As usual.
Precisely the point I was trying to make.

Most NDE reports are pretty subjective and we only have the percipients word for their "vision." They are an interesting side issue in the paranormal debate but as I said above a prominent parapsychologist such as Stephen Braude doesn't think they are at all suggestive of post mortem survival. And its not hard to shoot holes in them.
I still don't see any way to eliminate "sitter buy- in" (to borrow a phrase) and "count the hits, disgard the misses"as potential explanations if NDE research continues to simply ask the patient for a summary, and then data-mine for matches.

Skeptical Greg

15th August 2003, 09:31 PM

Steve,

Your interesting, well informed opinion is noted..

We seem to agree, there are many variables here. and the particulars of this case, if well documented, have yet to be revealed to us here.

The cynic in me, had me jumping on Titus, with the attitude of " Show me the beef ".

I'm glad to say, these exchanges confirm my suspicion that my brain is not full.

lekatt

15th August 2003, 10:01 PM

Originally posted by Phil

Are you saying she proved there's an afterlife, or she proved she experienced near death phenomena?

I have not had time to read all the specifics, but let's say the doctors stopped everything to where she was not supposed to experience anything at all. That point doesn't really matter. That's precisely why I included my own knee surgery experience. I was awake, though barely, before the operation, and lucid enough to look around the O.R., soaking up much of what I saw. Had I the gumption, I could have spewed a nice tale of the procedures that took place while I was out that would not have been completely accurate, but would have contained enough 'hits' that the gullable would believe I had somehow seen the operation in progress.

I'm suggesting that the same thing could be happening here. This woman at some point gathered information about things around her, or perhaps recalls something she saw on ER, and laid down a good story afterward with enough 'hits' that someone bought it and deemed her recollection accurate. (Notice no one ever says 'exact' in these cases).

The big question I guess is, how close to death were these memories (if they can be called memories) formed?

Maybe your questions can be answered by science.

http://www.ndeweb.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?tpc=65&post=730#POST730

There are more of these studies underway, NDEers know that life continues after death and science shows they are right.

Titus Rivas

16th August 2003, 01:02 AM

Steve,

I'm not a physician but just took your own previous description about where the groin fits in as my point of departure. Again, the main issue is not whether Pam's body was irreversibly "dead" (it wasn't by skeptical standards since following those she should have remained dead) nor even whether all the blood had been drained from her body or just her head, but exclusively whether she observed everything (or most of what she saw) during a state very close to flat EEG . That's the only thing that is important for this discussion, how ever interesting the medical procedures may be in themselves. For me it is enough if the procedure happened after Pam's brain had been brought into a state of flat EEG or else while she was still supposed to be totally unconscious (again due to her EEG). By the way, if it did not, that wouldn't invalidate the whole case! Let's not forget that.

Titus

Titus Rivas

16th August 2003, 01:50 AM

Hi Lekatt,

Welcome to this forum!

There are more of these studies underway, NDEers know that life continues after death and science shows they are right. That's how I would it put too.

Since this study, funding and permission has been made available for a much larger study, and it is now in progress. It is due in about two years. That would be in about one year by now! Great!! :D

Titus

Interesting Ian

16th August 2003, 05:51 AM

lekatt (on other board)
In order to understand NDEs, I believe it is necessary to read several hundred of them. After that, you will see the thread of logic and truth all contain. http://www.ndeweb.com/board00.htm

I must confess that although I've read a fair few of them I haven't read that many. The trouble with reading recent accounts is that NDE's have enterered into mainstream consciousness. I feel that accounts related before 1975 ( ie before the publication of Moody's "Life after life" and the subsequent coining of the term NDE) are liable to be more accurate in the sequence of events reported during these experiences. Modern accounts have the danger of being moulded and interpreted and even embellished according to what is perceived as the stereotypical NDE.

SteveGrenard

16th August 2003, 06:07 AM

TR: I'm not a physician but just took your own previous description about where the groin fits in as my point of departure. Again, the main issue is not whether Pam's body was irreversibly "dead" (it wasn't by skeptical standards since following those she should have remained dead) nor even whether all the blood had been drained from her body or just her head, but exclusively whether she observed everything (or most of what she saw) during a state very close to flat EEG .

Reply: If you referring to much earlier comments in this thread, they were my feeble atempt to rehash Bradue in discounting
NDEs as evidence of post mortem survival of consciousness.

The groin procedure is very simple. Pam claims she looked down and saw them performing a procedure on her groin.
This indeed happened. But the procedure would definitely be
known to her in two ways other than as a NDE. The surgery
to the groin is routinely explained to the patient before it
takes place and that knowledge is part of the informed consent
the patient signs along with everything else about the rest of the procedure. The second way the patient knows about it is the
pain and discomfort of the groin incision experienced on awakening. There is other business at this end of the patient as well which is also explained ahead of time: the insertion of a catheter to collect (and then measure) urinary output which is critical in balancing fluids. This would also be explained to the patient ahead of time and this also would be something patients wake up with, in this case with the catheter still in place.

TR: That's the only thing that is important for this discussion, how ever interesting the medical procedures may be in themselves. For me it is enough if the procedure happened after Pam's brain had been brought into a state of flat EEG or else while she was still supposed to be totally unconscious (again due to her EEG). By the way, if it did not, that wouldn't invalidate the whole case! Let's not forget that.

I tend to disagree. The medical procedures are extremely important as it is these along with less verifiable "visions"
(such tunnels, light phenomena, vortices, dead relatives) that make up the evidence for the NDE. I believe that the single most validating evidence may be her description of the power tool used to open the skull (bone saw). However, we have to dismiss procedural ocurrences which she (a) was advised of ahead of time and/or (b) would be evident to her when she regained consciousness. I agree with you that even if there were other ways and means of knowing some things about the procedure doesn't mean she did not also obtain them during an OOBE or ND-related OOBE and that one or two absolutely airtight observations are all that are needed to make such a case.

Also extremely important in such cases would be comments
made by the staff; and, when during the procedure these were made. Nowadays everything that takes place in the O.R. for major procedures such as this would've been audio, even audio-videoed recorded. A recording of this type of case certainly exists and would back up Pam's peceptions as to what was said by staff present and when. I recall just one set of comments on this and it involved a comment on the size of her blood vessels which would logically have ocurred when a nurse or anesthetist would've been inserting IV lines. When would such lines be
placed? Also as a prefatory procedure. They would be extremely hard to place after all the blood was drained and the patient cooled down. At least one such line is placed to start fluids and used to give meds including IV anesthetic agents prior to her even being completely "asleep." So this comment is impeachable as well as she may've been awake or only lightly sedated at this time. (These kinds of IV lines are known as KVOs or Keep Vein Open).

So a knowledge of the medical procedures and when they took place would be critical in helping to establish the veridicality of this case. But so would less technical observations which I why I brought up the example of the shoe case (which the skeptics could impeach only by saying it was a figment of a social worker's imagination) --actually several shoe cases. There are other mundane examples I also mentioned among the case histories such as the respiratory therapist who was wearing a yellow jacket or the nurse who had plaid shoelaces on while the percipient was in a near-death state and could not have possibly seen those consciously. This kind of evidence is more compelling than Pam's in spite of the extreme nature of Pam's case.

Interesting Ian

16th August 2003, 06:10 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard

Most NDE reports are pretty subjective and we only have the percipients word for their "vision." They are an interesting side issue in the paranormal debate but as I said above a prominent parapsychologist such as Stephen Braude doesn't think they are at all suggestive of post mortem survival. And its not hard to shoot holes in them. [/B]

I have to disagree. It seems to me that NDE's, considered as a whole, are highly suggestive of the survival hypothesis. If it is not hard to shoot holes in them then perhaps you could do so? Perhaps you could summarise Braude's reasons?

Thanks.

lekatt

16th August 2003, 06:16 AM

If you read a great many NDEs, you will notice the main theads of truth in them. I have been reading them for about 15 years now and can usually tell when someone is not being completely honest. I have read over a thousand of them and still reading.

Since I have had the experience, I know the reality of them. When you see your body separate from yourself, can hear, and move around to different places at will it becomes very apparent to you.

SteveGrenard

16th August 2003, 06:29 AM

IAN: I have to disagree. It seems to me that NDE's, considered as a whole, are highly suggestive of the survival hypothesis.
If it is not hard to shoot holes in them then perhaps you could do so?

In individual verifiable facts given as seen during NDEs I just did. See above. I did NOT have to appeal to the alleged "insanity" or problems of an observer as a reason for dismissing an account either as was done to Kimberly Clark by skeptics here. (see above also) Seeing something mundane or silly such as a sneaker on the roof or a window ledge, when verified as present after the fact, remains the solidest type of evidence for an OOBE or ND-related OOBE there is.

IAN: Perhaps you could summarise Braude's reasons?

I have tried to do so above. Braude does not consider NDEs on their own as serving as compelling evidence of post mortem survival but as some other type of phenomena unrelated to this. Please scroll up to avoid having to repeat this. Thanks.

Here is a brief quote and comment from a much longer discourse by Braude on this subject:

“Moreover we shouldn’t overestimate the degree of similarity among NDEs generally and near-death OBEs in particular. And when we consider some of those variations, the externalist approach to NDEs loses much of its plausibility. One important difference concerns the conditions under which the experience occurs. Many reported NDEs happen when the subjects are neither seriously ill nor in any life threatening situation, and often those experiences differ little from those that take place under genuinely life threatening conditions. In these cases, experiencers were not really about to die; they simply thought they were. The reason this is important is that an externalist account of the cases seems extravagant compared to the internalist alternative. The externalist would have to say the mere fear of death causes the detachment of something from the body. Now, we can agree with Griffin that a life threatening event “might frighten one out of one’s skin” (Griffin, 1997, p 240). And perhaps fear alone, in the absence of any real danger, can do the same thing. But the internalist proposes simply that the fear of death produces an unusual psychological state that helps reduce the fear. To me, at least, that seems clearly to be the more parsimonious option. Moreover, it has systematicity
on its side. It makes NDEs continuous with many other altered states (e.g. trauma associated dissociation) that have the function of alleviating pain or fear.”

(Braude goes on to discuss the cultural differences between NDEs and gives the example of one British case, personally known to Alan Gauld, of a woman (SJ case) following childbirth who described all the features of the standard NDE but was accosted by a blurry-faced celestial quiz-master who was ultimately revealed to the percipient as Bamber Gascoigne. The experiencer eventually chalked up her account to a bizarre dream rather than as a NDE after she realized she was not near death.)

(reference: Braude, S.: 2003. Immortal Remains: The Evidence for Life After Death. pp 327. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield)

Titus Rivas

16th August 2003, 07:52 AM

Steve,

You're entitled to your Super_ESP interpretation a la Braude, but you can't expect others to swallow it just because "Braude said so". For instance I've given sound reasons (here and in my paper linked by yourself) to discard Braude's apllication of Super-ESP to NDEs. And even if you don't agree with them, it should be clear by now some persons still claim to have strong reasons to continue regarding NDEs as evidence for survival.

Then, of course, more specific statements would provide even stronger evidence for a paranormal process, but it seems rather rash to discount less specific statements just because they are less specific (rather than because they wouldn't be at all anomalous). Less specific statements can still be paranormal.

But the procedure would definitely be is routinely explained to the patient before it
takes place and that knowledge is part of the informed consent
the patient signs along with everything else about the rest of the procedure. The point is it is claimed in this case that this wasn't done. Pam would not have been aware of such details! Either because she hadn't carefully read what she supposedly had to sign (something which happens quite often whenever people are confronted by medical technicalities), or because the informed consent simply didn't involve such details.

The second Right, distortion, but we shouldn't jump to that debunking hypothesis I'd say.

My comments weren't (or aren't) meant to downgrade your contributions by the way. But let's just start by giving this case the benefit of the doubt rather than finding debunking ways out. There are others on this forum who are already passionate enough about that :wink8: .

Best wishes,

Titus

SteveGrenard

16th August 2003, 08:00 AM

Insofar as Braude is concerned no one has to agree with him.
I don't, but I will quote him in order to present his point of view. He is, by the way, a supporter in general of the survival hypothesis and has spent decades seeking answers he
can assess as veridical in every way. As Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Univ of Maryland, Baltimore, he is the antithesis of the skeptical philosophers and their weak arguments dismissing survival. Because he is so overwhelmingly objective and considerate of alternative arguments, it lends greater weight to his conclusions. I like to think that if I consider all the aspects of a case like Pam Reynolds and have found the proverbial chinks and still conclude it was veridical, I have done my job as well. Its the difference between blind acceptance, which we see too much of versus the one-liners of the cynics and so-called skeptics and a truly reasoned approach. Calling Kim Clark, for example, a psychologically disturbed liar re the Maria case is not a sufficient argument to lodge against that example, especially in light of the convoluted attempts made by the CSICOP investigators in trying to overturn the fact that Maria, arriving flat on her back in a Medic One ( Seattle) ambuance could somehow have seen he shoe on he ledge before she was wheeled into the emergency room truly near death.

I think that if Braude's new book has anything to offer, and this would be the reason I'd recommend it, is that like Gauld before him, it is one of the very few supporter books that helps to teach critical thinking regarding the evidence for survival. This is clearly what he has attempted to do with respect to NDEs but it is a discussion I have not yet finished absorbing or studying.

Braude spends a lot of time considering how super psi may be involved , expounds on it relentlessly but reaches no firm conclusion that it is the only hypothesis as its many proponents have. I personally found that evidence of survival reaches beyond super psi and in many cases individual findings are totally at odds with the concept.

Titus Rivas

16th August 2003, 08:07 AM

Hi Ian,

I must confess that although I've read a fair few of them I haven't read that many. The trouble with reading recent accounts is that NDE's have enterered into mainstream consciousness. I feel that accounts related before 1975 ( ie before the publication of Moody's "Life after life" and the subsequent coining of the term NDE) are liable to be more accurate in the sequence of events reported during these experiences. Modern accounts have the danger of being moulded and interpreted and even embellished according to what is perceived as the stereotypical NDE.
Actually, there is quite some variations in specific elements, and though Moody made a list of elements that were frequently present, he acknowledged that none of them were included in all NDEs. Although there is a lot of coherence (which has to be explained), I don't think many persons who claim to have had a NDE just unwittlingly repeat what they have read or heard. I've recently interviewed several such people here in the Netherlands and every NDE is in a sense unique even now. Besides, recent paranormal NDEs are just as paranormal as ancient ones.
I do admit though there may be some influence of what people have read, (seen or heard on the topic,) during the NDE itself, which would be in accordance with the ideoplastic hypothesis of the afterlife of for example H.H. Price (http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/307/afterlife.htm) . What we experience in that realm may be much more coloured by our expectations than what we experience in this physical world. All that should appeal to you as an immaterialist :D

Titus

Titus Rivas

16th August 2003, 08:14 AM

Because hs is so overhwlemingy objective and considerate of alternative arguments, it lends great credence to his conclusions. I can understand why you should think so and I respect that. But I personally think nothing lends any credence to anyone's conclusions (not even to my own :eek: ) except for the strength of the argumentation itself. I probably respect Braude as much as you do, but that does not mean I would have to give him more credit apriori on any of his views. The argumentation itself should be convincing, regardless of whether it is expressed by an intellectual giant or by an intellectual midget. I expect you'll agree with that .

By the way, my views of what constitute real science leave room for fundamental disagreement. What should count is an approximation of truth, not mere consensus.

Sorry if I misunderstood you by the way.

Best wishes,

Titus

SteveGrenard

16th August 2003, 08:26 AM

By alternative arguments, I mean findings of fact:

example:

Fact: Pam woke up with a pain in her groin; a dressing over it, a few stitches there.

Fact: Pam woke up with a urinary catheter in place.

Fact: Pam was told of these things before hand and explained to her
- regardless of whether we can surmise she ignored this
instruction which is weak since it may've remained in her
thoughts regardless of her conscious recognitions; certainly
as someone who was told she may die in the short term made
her mind foggy and filed with other considerations and
thoughts besides what the doctors were telling her ahead of
time.

Fact: Comments on Pam's veins are MOST likely to have been made during an attempt to insert an IV line(s), before she was asleep or while she was only mildly sedated. If you drain the
entire blood supply of the body the veins will collapse and you
will have a hellluva time restablishing them, hence the need for
IVs to KVO. This is assuming she was hooked to the pump, it removed all the blood in her body and from her brain and then was shut off, the blood allowed to pool in a resevoir and then used to reprime the pump and pump it back into her when the procedure was completed. Still not clear on these details.

Ultimate Fact: Pam woke up, and found she was still alive. At some point she took stock of her situation and surroundings: the pain in her groin, the urine catheter, the IVs in her veins, perhaps the tube in her throat hooked up to a ventilator (aka respirator). How long after this did she express her NDE?

I am not arguing from ignorance but from known facts that directly impact on at least some of the evidence given for Pam's NDE and the conclusion it was veridical. Now having said that,
this does not mean that whatever else she said which was not impeachable could not be the smoking gun necessary to prove the NDE occurred. I indeed know some dishonest cynics aka skeptics around here who would focus on these to the exclusion of the good evidence so I understand your lament. However, this does not mean that we cannot work with the WHOLE truth even though others selectively hammer away at the chinks. I have decided, in fact, to ignore them.

Braude, by example, teaches us to THINK critically about survival but, as I elaborated above, this also means you dont have to agree with him.

Interesting Ian

16th August 2003, 09:07 AM

Originally posted by SteveGrenard
IAN: I have to disagree. It seems to me that NDE's, considered as a whole, are highly suggestive of the survival hypothesis.
If it is not hard to shoot holes in them then perhaps you could do so?

SteveGrenard
In individual verifiable facts given as seen during NDEs I just did.

The fact that from the scientific perspective it might be argued that the evidence isn't particularly compelling doesn't negate the fact that overall the evidence is highly suggestive of the survival hypothesis, especially if one considers the evidential nature of personal experience.

IAN: Perhaps you could summarise Braude's reasons?

Steve
I have tried to do so above. Braude does not consider NDEs on their own as serving as compelling evidence of post mortem survival but as some other type of phenomena unrelated to this. Please scroll up to avoid having to repeat this. Thanks

II
Well the thread is rather long. I don't wish to waste time and find what I feel to be Braude's refutation, only for example for you to state that is peripheral to Braude's main point or whatever. Perhaps if you could copy and paste? Thanks.

Here is a brief quote and comment from a much longer discourse by Braude on this subject:

“Moreover we shouldn’t overestimate the degree of similarity among NDEs generally and near-death OBEs in particular.
And when we consider some of those variations, the externalist approach to NDEs kiawa much of its plausibility.

NDE's have common elements. However what one precisely sees does vary according to ones cultural background. So what? I fail to see how this constitutes any evidence against the survival hypothesis. What we actually see in everyday life also varies according to our cultural backgrounds and hence implicit expectations. Our minds play a very large role in moulding what we actually see. They mould the information coming from our senses so as we can build up a certain theoretical interpretation of the world. Everything we ever see is a result of low level theory about the world. Without such low level theory we wouldn't even be able to see a 3 dimensional world, but rather a chaotic splash of differing shades and colours of lights.

So we in the western world see a cube when looking at a 2 dimensional drawing of a cube where as a primitive tribe would simply see an array of lines. Or with that old woman/young woman "illusion", some of us see a young woman and some of see an old woman (I immediately see a young woman but vice versa when I was a kid!). Does that mean the cube is not really there and is a hallucination? Does that mean neither woman are really there and they are simply an hallucination? Of course not! They are both real and there is no contradition in saying this. And if what we see in everyday reality is moulded so much by the mind, even though our perceptions have an external origin, then why on earth do you imagine that what we see during NDE states should be any different?? If anything one might be disposed to think that the characteristics of the environment of an "otherworldly" reality would be even more moulded by the mind.

One important difference concerns the conditions under which the experience occurs. Many reported NDEs happen when the subjects are neither seriously ill nor in any life threatening situation, and often hose experiences differ little from those that take place under genuinely life threatening conditions.

It would depend in what way they differ. If a person who is not near death yet undergoes an NDE, and is offered a choice of whether to cross the boundary (the boundary marking the point of no return), then it would seem that choice is not a genuine one. Hence this might cast doubt on the genuineness of the experience as a whole. But otherwise I see no reason why people who are not near death, yet undergo NDE's, should constitute any evidence that NDE's are not what they seem.

In these cases, experiencers were not really about to die; they simply thought they were. The reason this is important is that an externalist account of the cases seems extravagant compared to the internalist alternative. The externalist would have to say the mere fear of death causes the detachment of something from the body. Now, we can agree with Griffin that a life threatening event “might frighten one out of one’s skin” (Griffin, 1997, p 240). And perhaps fear alone, in the absence of any real danger, can do the same thing. But the internalist proposes simply that the fear of death produces an unusual psychological state that helps reduce the fear. To me, at least, that seems clearly to be the more parsimonious option.

I think he needs to give more details than this! Simply declaring something is more parsimonious without declaring why isn't going to get us very far. Seems to me he's implicitly pre-supposing the materialist metaphysic in his judgement of parsimony.

(Braude goes on to discuss the cultural differences between NDEs and gives the example of one British case, personally known to Gauld, of a woman following childbirth who
described all the features of the standard NDE but was accosted by a blurry celestial quiz-master who was ultimately revealed to the percipient as Bamber Gascoigne. The experiencer eventually chalked up her account to a bizarre dream rather than as a NDE after she realized she was not near death.)

(reference: Braude, S.: 2003. Immortal Remains: The Evidence for Life After Death. pp 327. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield)

There are a few rare occasions where people appear to see still living people in their experiences. This would seem to pose a difficulty for the survival hypothesis. However they are very rare so far as I am able to gather. The overwhelming majority of apparitions of people seen during these experiences are of dead people. Moreover there are some accounts whereby the person undergoes an NDE or deathbed vision where they see an apparition of someone they believed to be alive, but who is actually dead!

Still I agree that seeing living people, even if only on rare occasions, is a bit puzzling. I wonder if it is related to seeing apparitions of living people under normal circumstances? In as much as the evidence suggests that these living apparitions appear to have their origins in the person whose apparition it is, this might then suggest that such apparitions, rather experienced during NDE's or not, are not hallucinations.

Titus Rivas

16th August 2003, 10:06 AM

However, this does not mean that we cannot work with the WHOLE truth even though others selectively hammer away at the chinks. I agree, Steve, that wouldn't be a good idea and I personally try to avoid showing no more than a mirror of an average skeptic's onesided-ness. However, I don't think it's a good idea either to just assume that Pam Reynolds -contrary to what is generally said about her- was after all well informed before the operation and subconsciously incorporated this information by cryptomnesia into a distorted memory of a NDE she never really had. Again, why should Dr. Spetzler or Michael B. Sabom find the case 'remarkable' (etc.) if it were easily explicable by distorted memory + some type of cryptomnesia?
Thus, there must be more to the claim that Pam Reynolds really was not well informed about what would happen to her during surgery, or else both Spetzler and Sabom would be extremely naive, or worse still lying . 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

Titus Rivas

16th August 2003, 10:21 AM

Ian said:

Moreover there are some accounts whereby the person undergoes an NDE or deathbed vision where they see an apparition of someone they believed to be alive, but who is actually dead! Right, they are sometimes called Peak in Darien-experiences, see this website (http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/books/barrett/dbv/chapter2.htm) by the way.

Still I agree that seeing living people, even if only on rare occasions, is a bit puzzling. I wonder if it is related to seeing apparitions of living people under normal circumstances? In as much as the evidence suggests that these living apparitions appear to have their origins in the person whose apparition it is, this might then suggest that such apparitions, rather experienced during NDE's or not, are not hallucinations.
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

Kerberos

16th August 2003, 12:21 PM

Originally posted by Titus Rivas

The point is it is claimed in this case that this [having the procedure explained] wasn't done. Pam would not have been aware of such details! Either because she hadn't carefully read what she supposedly had to sign (something which happens quite often whenever people are confronted by medical technicalities), or because the informed consent simply didn't involve such details.

... we shouldn't jump to that debunking hypothesis I'd say.

My comments weren't (or aren't) meant to downgrade your contributions by the way. But let's just start by giving this case the benefit of the doubt rather than finding debunking ways out. There are others on this forum who are already passionate enough about that :wink8: .

That's got to be my cue :biggrin: Basically the case proves nothing because the procedure is so full of holes that an elephant could slip through. There are IMO two main problems.

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.

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.

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

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 either don't bother using a protocol that does exclude every non-paranormal explanation, the experiment is un-succesfull 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.

Edited for clarity and misquoting.