Is this one life all there really is?

All the evidence says that it is. Despite hocus pocus claims from preachers and urban legends about people who have been to heaven and come back, there's no evidence that life goes on after death. Consciousness is dependent on physical processes. When the brain dies and the body decays, there is no longer an organized physical process, so the only logical conclusion is that there is no consciousness.

But what about near death experiences? Couldn't they be proof of an afterlife? Let's examine the evidence. All the stories are just that – stories. Anecdotal evidence, as we've seen, is extremely weak, and should only be considered when stronger corroborating evidence exists. Were the people who experienced NDEs in good mental and physical condition? Obviously not, as near death is a pretty bad situation, both physically and mentally. We know that even minute changes in the brain can trigger wildly erratic perceptions and behaviors. Dying is considerably more than a minute change in the brain. On the surface, the evidence for NDE's as proof of an afterlife seems fragile at best.

We're still not done, though. Is there better evidence that NDE's are simply physical, and that the perceptions of heaven and hell are illusions? It turns out that there is quite a lot. Before discussing NDEs directly, we need to be clear on a few terms.

If you've ever watched the movie, The Princess Bride, you will remember Miracle Max's famous words about death: “Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do. Go through his clothes and look for loose change.” The scientific descriptions are not as witty, but they're not radically different. There is a big difference between clinical death and brain death. Clinical death usually results from cardiac arrest. When the heart stops pumping, neurons no longer receive oxygen. Without new oxygen, they continue to fire for a short while, sometimes with odd side effects. It would only be a slight stretch to say that a clinically dead person is mostly dead.

Brain death, on the other hand, is all dead. Clinical death can be reversed within a certain time frame. We've all heard stories, and seen depictions on medical dramas. The heart can be started chemically, electrically, and manually, depending on the situation. Assuming that there is still some neural activity, starting a clinically dead person's heart will bring them “back to life.” Not so with brain death. Once the brain dies, the person is fully dead, and will not come back.

What, then, can we say about people who are clinically dead? For one thing, they are the only people who have ever had NDE's and lived to tell about them. For another, we can make some observations about what happens when the brain begins to die. If these observations form a parsimonious explanation for NDE's, we will have a compelling reason to believe they are not supernatural, and do not give proof of an afterlife.*

As the brain becomes oxygen depleted, neural networks begin to break down. Infants and small children have small neural networks. As they age, they form larger and larger networks as they process more and more information. An adult can temporarily break down access to fully formed networks by using drugs, or possibly meditative practice (although the latter is the subject of considerable debate). In fact, it's ironic that in the vernacular, many people say they have “transcendent” experiences while on mind altering drugs. The reality is that they are actually moving to a lower level of consciousness!

The sense of “loss of self” is a commonly reported experience in NDEs, and it has a well understood cause. Though the technical explanation sounds quite daunting to non-scientists, the cause is quite simple. In some cases, extreme overproduction of serotonin can inhibit the ability of neurons to pump potassium out of neural channels, effectively de-electrolyzing the neurons. In others, drugs can perform a function known as transmitter masking, essentially inhibiting the ability of transmitters to function properly by substituting an imposter chemical (such as an opiate) for the “proper” chemical. The end result is that synaptogenesis (the process of forming synapses) becomes temporarily “flooded.” In other words, new synapses are formed and then overturned so quickly that the brain becomes unable to process them effectively.

Critics will often object at this point in a conversation. After all, scientists have not explainedevery aspect of NDEs. In fact, most scientists are perfectly willing to admit that there are some very puzzling things about them, and the explanations are not always apparent. Hopefully, you've gotten good at spotting the fallacy. Someone who wants to believe in NDEs will say, “Since science doesn't have an answer, it must be proof of the afterlife.” This is a fallacy of ignorance, and is not valid logic. Still, many will argue that there are common threads. People from different religions have the same kinds of experiences. Kevin Nelson, a neurophysiologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, has this to say: "People say that because there's a common thread running through them all there must be a spiritual element," he says. "I look at that common thread and I see a biological process." (New Scientist, October 17, 2006) Nelson believes that he can explain the entire experience in purely scientific terms. He might be able to, but then again, he might miss something. This is not as relevant as it may seem. The important point is that good critical thinking demands that we not make up answers.

In fact, there is a common misconception about NDEs. It's not necessary to be at death's door to experience one. Quoting from the New Scientist article:

Nelson says that that's because despite the name, NDE has little to do with actually being close to death. He argues that the experience stems from an acute bout of "REM intrusion" - a glitch in the brain's circuitry that, in times of extreme stress, may flip it into a mixed state of awareness where it is both in REM sleep and partially awake at the same time. "The concept that our brain is either 100 per cent awake or 100 per cent in REM sleep is absolutely erroneous," says Mark Mahowald, a neurologist at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis. "We can have pieces of one state intruding into another, and that's when things get interesting."

REM intrusion is a common feature of narcolepsy - a neurological disorder characterised by uncontrollable bouts of sleep that can cause elaborate hallucinations and, sometimes, out-of-body experiences. But REM intrusion can affect anyone, and frequently does. Recent estimates suggest that up to 40 per cent of people have experienced "sleep paralysis", a form of REM intrusion in which you awaken with part of your brain still in REM sleep and your body paralysed. Often the result is a terrifying feeling of being unable to move, accompanied by visual or auditory hallucinations and pressure on the chest. Sleep paralysis has been offered as a rational explanation for many apparently supernatural phenomena, including witch attacks, visitations by the dead, and more recently alien abductions.

Scientists are experimenting with the phenomenon of out of body sight, too. Olaf Blanke, a cognitive neurologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, has caused subjects to see their legs, disembodied, from a floating perspective, simply by applying an electrical stimulus to the angular gyrus, a part of the brain involved with processing sensory information. (New Scientist)

There's yet another example of transcendental experiences that we should look at. Epileptics often report NDE-like perceptions after having particularly intense seizures. Seizures which effect the limbic system are well known for causing religious or transcendent experiences. In a way, this is an opposite cause for a similar effect. When a person has a seizure, their brain is firing too many neurons at once. Just like a computer, our brain seldom uses all of it's capacity at once. The myth that we only use 10% of our brains comes from a simple misunderstanding of this concept. When a computer is idle, or is only running a few processes, it uses a small percentage of its total processing power. Our brains function essentially the same way. Also, just like a computer, when we over tax our brains, the results are not always pleasant. How this relates to clinical death is simple. When the heart weakens, the body must compensate by increasing blood pressure drastically, keeping precious oxygen flowing to the brain. The increase in pressure wreaks havoc on the brain. Though it is still alive, it is far from normal functioning.

There is much speculation about the connection between epilepsy and religion. A nun at a Carmelite monestary in California recently discovered that the visions and transcendental raptures she'd been experiencing for years were actually epilepsy. Careful review of the private lives of many religious figures has prompted the question, were many of the prophets and religious visionaries of the past epileptics? In the end, we will probably never know about those who have long since passed. New research is coming in all the time, however, and as the connection becomes more and more concrete, it's becoming harder and harder to dismiss the evidence that NDEs, as well as mystical experiences not associated with dying, are simply misfiring neurons playing a game with our perception.

We can look at this another way. Dismiss for a moment all the possible explanations that scientists have come up with. In a recent survey, researchers found that among people who had had NDEs, a full 60 percent had sleep problems involving REM intrusion. Only 24 percent of people who had not had NDEs had similar problems. There is clearly a physical connection between REM intrusion and NDEs. Which explanation makes more sense? That there is an afterlife, and the apparent connection to sleep problems is coincidence, or that the connection is evidence of what really causes them? (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12274186/)

So, in the end, we have to concede that though there might be compelling emotional reasons to want to believe in life after death, there's simply not enough compelling logical reasons. In fact, if we apply our objectivity test by substituting another trivial question, we see clearly that without the emotional tug on our reason, we would dismiss the question out of hand. There is simply no reason to believe it.

Freddie always claimed he devoted his life to the pursuit of Truth. But as Dee Wells was quick to point out when I visited her at York Street, where she has continued to live since Freddie's death, the truth could rapidly become meaningless for Freddie when it happened to suit him -- with women, for example.

Even with a completely strict materialistic world-view, there is nothing surprising about NDE's around the world exibiting the same, or similar symptoms. 

The brain plays weird sensery tricks on all of us every night, it's called dreaming.

It is not difficult to imagine that dying will cause the brain to create sensery experiences like warmth, a feeling of moving around, floating through a tunnel, and the memory, and imagination conjuring up various scenarios, like meeting deceaced loved ones, or deities.

The Pam Reynolds case is much more interesting. While her brain is being drained of blood she can experience a dreamlike state in which she thinks alot of stuff is happening that really isn't. This experience may also feel as though it lasts longer than it actually does, since that phenomenon is familiar to anyone who has woken up in the morning, looked at the clock, fallen asleep again and had what feels like a very long dream, only to wake up and see only 10 minutes have passed.

The ability to document things that has happened while she was out, is however, alot more interesting. Since this is only one case, it is not sufficient evidence to draw any conclussion, since it hasn't been repeated. With a p of 1, there is always the possibility of a fluke, a coincidence, or a hoax, but I'm not one to kill anyones buzz. 

Many NDE-accounts seem to include elements which, according to several theorists, can only be explained by an out-of-body consciousness...

In another account, from a prospective Dutch NDE study [2], a nurse removed the  dentures of an unconscious heart attack victim, and was asked by him after his recovery to return them. It might be difficult to explain in conventional terms how an unconscious patient could later have recognized the nurse. [10]

(source: Wikipedia: Near death experience)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_Death_Experience#cite_note-autogenerated2-43

Is this one life all there really is?

All the evidence says that it is. Despite hocus pocus claims from preachers and urban legends about people who have been to heaven and come back, there's no evidence that life goes on after death. Consciousness is dependent on physical processes. When the brain dies and the body decays, there is no longer an organized physical process, so the only logical conclusion is that there is no consciousness.

There is a big difference between clinical death and brain death. Clinical death usually results from cardiac arrest. When the heart stops pumping, neurons no longer receive oxygen. Without new oxygen, they continue to fire for a short while, sometimes with odd side effects. It would only be a slight stretch to say that a clinically dead person is mostly dead.

At the onset of clinical death, consciousness is lost within several seconds. Measurable brain activity stops within 20 to 40 seconds.[2]

(source: Wikipedia: Clinical death)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death

What, then, can we say about people who are clinically dead? For one thing, they are the only people who have ever had NDE's and lived to tell about them.

In fact, it's ironic that in the vernacular, many people say they have "transcendent" experiences while on mind altering drugs. The reality is that they are actually moving to a lower level of consciousness!

In 1964, Leary co-authored a book with Alpert and Ralph Metzner called The Psychedelic Experience, based upon the Tibetan Book of the Dead. In it, they wrote:

 

 

 

"A psychedelic experience is a journey to new realms of consciousness. The scope and content of the experience is limitless, but its characteristic features are the transcendence of verbal concepts, of space-time dimensions, and of the ego or identity. Such experiences of enlarged consciousness can occur in a variety of ways: sensory deprivation, yoga exercises, disciplined meditation, religious or aesthetic ecstasies, or spontaneously. Most recently they have become available to anyone through the ingestion of psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, etc. Of course, the drug does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key—it opens the mind, frees the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures."

 

 

 

(source: Wikipedia: Timothy Leary)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_leary

Critics will often object at this point in a conversation. After all, scientists have not explained every aspect of NDEs. In fact, most scientists are perfectly willing to admit that there are some very puzzling things about them, and the explanations are not always apparent. Hopefully, you've gotten good at spotting the fallacy. Someone who wants to believe in NDEs will say, "Since science doesn't have an answer, it must be proof of the afterlife." This is a fallacy of ignorance, and is not valid logic.

Still, many will argue that there are common threads. People from different religions have the same kinds of experiences. Kevin Nelson, a neurophysiologist at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, has this to say: "People say that because there's a common thread running through them all there must be a spiritual element," he says. "I look at that common thread and I see a biological process." (New Scientist, October 17, 2006) Nelson believes that he can explain the entire experience in purely scientific terms. He might be able to, but then again, he might miss something. This is not as relevant as it may seem. The important point is that good critical thinking demands that we not make up answers.

In fact, there is a common misconception about NDEs. It's not necessary to be at death's door to experience one. Quoting from the New Scientist article:

Nelson says that that's because despite the name, NDE has little to do with actually being close to death. He argues that the experience stems from an acute bout of "REM intrusion" - a glitch in the brain's circuitry that, in times of extreme stress, may flip it into a mixed state of awareness where it is both in REM sleep and partially awake at the same time. "The concept that our brain is either 100 per cent awake or 100 per cent in REM sleep is absolutely erroneous," says Mark Mahowald, a neurologist at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis. "We can have pieces of one state intruding into another, and that's when things get interesting."

REM intrusion is a common feature of narcolepsy - a neurological disorder characterised by uncontrollable bouts of sleep that can cause elaborate hallucinations and, sometimes, out-of-body experiences. But REM intrusion can affect anyone, and frequently does. Recent estimates suggest that up to 40 per cent of people have experienced "sleep paralysis", a form of REM intrusion in which you awaken with part of your brain still in REM sleep and your body paralysed. Often the result is a terrifying feeling of being unable to move, accompanied by visual or auditory hallucinations and pressure on the chest. Sleep paralysis has been offered as a rational explanation for many apparently supernatural phenomena, including witch attacks, visitations by the dead, and more recently alien abductions.

Scientists are experimenting with the phenomenon of out of body sight, too. Olaf Blanke, a cognitive neurologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, has caused subjects to see their legs, disembodied, from a floating perspective, simply by applying an electrical stimulus to the angular gyrus, a part of the brain involved with processing sensory information. (New Scientist)

There's yet another example of transcendental experiences that we should look at. Epileptics often report NDE-like perceptions after having particularly intense seizures. Seizures which effect the limbic system are well known for causing religious or transcendent experiences. In a way, this is an opposite cause for a similar effect. When a person has a seizure, their brain is firing too many neurons at once. Just like a computer, our brain seldom uses all of it's capacity at once. The myth that we only use 10% of our brains comes from a simple misunderstanding of this concept. When a computer is idle, or is only running a few processes, it uses a small percentage of its total processing power. Our brains function essentially the same way. Also, just like a computer, when we over tax our brains, the results are not always pleasant. How this relates to clinical death is simple. When the heart weakens, the body must compensate by increasing blood pressure drastically, keeping precious oxygen flowing to the brain. The increase in pressure wreaks havoc on the brain. Though it is still alive, it is far from normal functioning.

The NDE-scale also aims to differentiate between, what the field claims are, "true" NDEs, on one hand, and syndromes or stress responses that are not related to an NDE, on the other hand [28]. Examples of the last category would be the similar incidents experienced by sufferers of epilepsy. Greyson's NDE-scale was later validated using Rasch model scaling. [20]

(source: Wikipeida: Near death experience)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_death_experience#cite_note-26

New research is coming in all the time, however, and as the connection becomes more and more concrete, it's becoming harder and harder to dismiss the evidence that NDEs, as well as mystical experiences not associated with dying, are simply misfiring neurons playing a game with our perception.

We can look at this another way. Dismiss for a moment all the possible explanations that scientists have come up with. In a recent survey, researchers found that among people who had had NDEs, a full 60 percent had sleep problems involving REM intrusion. Only 24 percent of people who had not had NDEs had similar problems. There is clearly a physical connection between REM intrusion and NDEs. Which explanation makes more sense? That there is an afterlife, and the apparent connection to sleep problems is coincidence, or that the connection is evidence of what really causes them? (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12274186/)

Well, the first thing is that it is not entirely true that all NDE events are all that similar. Read your own links Paisley. They vary across cultural boundaries and children, who presumably are not yet fully acculturated report NDE events that are lacking in details.

Also, I must note that a friend of mine had one after an accident several years ago and his report was nothing like that standard one that we are supposed to expect. He reports that he had an angry conversation with some entity on the other side and was then shown his future before he was sent back. Apparently, some of what he was shown has subsequently occurred but he has never given me the details on that, so it may just be things that could happen to anyone are thus fail to be remarkable.

 

If there are any similarities, those are hardly surprising as the way that the brain is stressed in the process of dying may be similar across many people.

 

As far as Pam Reynolds goes, she had the most specific parts of her NDE at the beginning of her surgery when she was only under general anesthesia. While situational awareness is fairly rare in such cases, it has been documented in the medical literature. Hell's bells, there are even support groups for people who have been traumatized by the phenomenon.

  

In any case, the fact that she could describe what a bone saw looks like may not be all that controversial. Sure, she claims that she did not know that information but I don't really see how we could know that with certainty. Her surgeon may have explained the procedure to her, in fact, informed consent laws probably require some type of discussion before she can sign the consent forms. She may have seen one on TV at some point, she could have researched her surgery on the internet.

It's funny because I never really made a connection of it being a "near death experience," but I believe I've encountered this so called phenomenon several times. In fact, I can do it on command...

First off, let me just say I do NOT believe there is anything supernatural occurring during one of these episodes. I do not know the exact biological trigger that sets it off, but what I believe it to be is simply an involuntary lapse into lucid dreaming during a woken state. There have been studies that suggest REM during these NDE’s, and given the symptoms of temporary paralysis, increased sensitivity to light and sound, and often unexplainable brain activity (or visions), I think it makes more sense than “God didn’t think much of me before but now he’s handed me a mission!"

 

Ok, now I’ll explain my own personal experience with this (or whatever the hell it is that happens to me). It started when I was younger, when I was trying to go to sleep and would all of a sudden become paralyzed but still awake. I could move my eyes, remained conscious, could still hear everything going on around me, but I was definitely not asleep.

 

AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS NOW…I honestly thought I was being intruded by ghosts, since I was a child and had limited understanding of science and an overactive imagination. I would get cold chills and sweat which I believe was a response of being absolutely terrified, but one of the signs of being haunted is a sudden drop of temperature. I knew this, because I watched a lot of horror movies.

Now, I also don’t believe in ghosts so that theory got shit-canned years ago, but after researching my experiences I came across lucid dreaming and that seemed to make the most sense. The neat part, is I can create this state on command very easily. All I do is make myself extremely tired (works best when I stay up for 24 hours or longer playing games or whatever), I lay down and allow my body to relax (concentrating on each individual muscle), and NOT allowing myself to drift into sleep. You just allow your body to relax while remaining focused.

 

When you enter this state your first initial response is panic because you cannot move your body. It’s pretty much automatic, even as an adult, if you’re not used to it. You can struggle and get yourself out of this paralysis but it’s difficult. So difficult, in fact, my muscles would be tired after coming out of this. Especially my neck muscles because when you cannot move your body, I think turning your head seems to be a person’s response in determining if you’re really paralyzed (it was at least with me). Over time, I was able to get slip in and slip out of this state easily.

 

Now, this is just my personal experience and there are differences between what I go through and what others claim to go through. I don’t have visions, I never saw a bright blinding light, I HAVE gotten the sensation of lifting from my body. Not always, but occasionally it feels as if I’m levitating. I cannot look down at my body (especially since I cannot move my neck), but there’s a definite feeling of being stationary, and suddenly lifting. 

 

I would just assume that the average person who goes through one of these episodes either doesn’t have the control that I do, so they quickly enter a dream state, or maybe they have a more exaggerated episode than me. I considered doing a sleep trial to see if I’m right on my assumption is all just lucid dreaming but haven’t had the time. Feel free to offer any opinions, but be warned…I’m a skeptical person. I don’t believe in the paranormal so I’m not trying to lean my experiences in that direction, even though they probably sound weird to many of you.

Penn & Teller on NDE/OBE : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1YmEkCJ87s

And neuroscientist Michael Persinger recreates them in his lab : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCVzz96zKA0

Man, that "God Helmet" looks really dorky.

And this : http://www.skepdic.com/nde.html

"in 2006 scientists demonstrated brain activity in someone in a vegetative state, which is not identical to a flat EEG but which indicates that some machines might detect  brain activity while others do not.* Thus, those researchers who claim that their patients have memories of experiences they had when they were dead (as Dr. Michael Saborn does of musician Pam Reynolds) may be mistaken. Just because their machines don't register anything cannot be taken as proof positive that a person is dead, nor can it be taken as proof positive that the patient isn't aware, on some level, of what is going on around her. Unconscious patients may hear what surgeons and nurses are saying, even if the hospital machines aren't registering any brain activity.*"

"At this point in our knowledge, to claim that NDEs provide strong evidence that the soul exists independently of the body, and that there is an afterlife awaiting that soul that just happens to coincide with the beliefs and wishes of the near-death experient, seems premature."

Why do we bother with this shit?

It's funny because I never really made a connection of it being a "near death experience," but I believe I've encountered this so called phenomenon several times. In fact, I can do it on command...

First off, let me just say I do NOT believe there is anything supernatural occurring during one of these episodes. I do not know the exact biological trigger that sets it off, but what I believe it to be is simply an involuntary lapse into lucid dreaming during a woken state. There have been studies that suggest REM during these NDE’s, and given the symptoms of temporary paralysis, increased sensitivity to light and sound, and often unexplainable brain activity (or visions), I think it makes more sense than “God didn’t think much of me before but now he’s handed me a mission!"

 

Ok, now I’ll explain my own personal experience with this (or whatever the hell it is that happens to me). It started when I was younger, when I was trying to go to sleep and would all of a sudden become paralyzed but still awake. I could move my eyes, remained conscious, could still hear everything going on around me, but I was definitely not asleep.

 

AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS NOW…I honestly thought I was being intruded by ghosts, since I was a child and had limited understanding of science and an overactive imagination. I would get cold chills and sweat which I believe was a response of being absolutely terrified, but one of the signs of being haunted is a sudden drop of temperature. I knew this, because I watched a lot of horror movies.

Now, I also don’t believe in ghosts so that theory got shit-canned years ago, but after researching my experiences I came across lucid dreaming and that seemed to make the most sense. The neat part, is I can create this state on command very easily. All I do is make myself extremely tired (works best when I stay up for 24 hours or longer playing games or whatever), I lay down and allow my body to relax (concentrating on each individual muscle), and NOT allowing myself to drift into sleep. You just allow your body to relax while remaining focused.

 

When you enter this state your first initial response is panic because you cannot move your body. It’s pretty much automatic, even as an adult, if you’re not used to it. You can struggle and get yourself out of this paralysis but it’s difficult. So difficult, in fact, my muscles would be tired after coming out of this. Especially my neck muscles because when you cannot move your body, I think turning your head seems to be a person’s response in determining if you’re really paralyzed (it was at least with me). Over time, I was able to get slip in and slip out of this state easily.

 

Now, this is just my personal experience and there are differences between what I go through and what others claim to go through. I don’t have visions, I never saw a bright blinding light, I HAVE gotten the sensation of lifting from my body. Not always, but occasionally it feels as if I’m levitating. I cannot look down at my body (especially since I cannot move my neck), but there’s a definite feeling of being stationary, and suddenly lifting. 

 

I would just assume that the average person who goes through one of these episodes either doesn’t have the control that I do, so they quickly enter a dream state, or maybe they have a more exaggerated episode than me. I considered doing a sleep trial to see if I’m right on my assumption is all just lucid dreaming but haven’t had the time. Feel free to offer any opinions, but be warned…I’m a skeptical person. I don’t believe in the paranormal so I’m not trying to lean my experiences in that direction, even though they probably sound weird to many of you.

You can induce clinical death on command? Interesting.

To reiterate: OBEs (out-of-body experiences) and NDEs (near-death experiences) are not interchangeable terms. OBEs are fairly common. I have had many OBEs, but I have never experienced a NDE (at least not in the present life).

Also, your statement "but occasionally it feels as if I’m levitating" definitely lends itself to what many would call the paranormal.  

Perhaps you should have read what Hamby said as well as previous threads on this subject. Clinically dead is not dead - dead. The brain is still running on the last little bit of oxygen and blood. When the brain is dead-dead, there is no coming back. NDEs are no more than low power operations in a CPU that is untrustworthy and giving blue screens. 

During part of the operation she had no brain-wave activity and no blood flowing in her brain, which left her clinically dead. 

(source: Wikipedia: Pam Reynold's NDE)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pam_reynolds

Paisley wrote:

2) Everyone is essentially having the same "dream."

No. They are having oxygen deprived brain misfirings which are as a PC in blue screen, errors and bullshit occurring.

 

When I was 18 I was shot in the head and nearly died. I had no NDE. I was so drugged I have foggy memories of being examined and have no clue if I was awake or it was imagination. The next I knew I awoke in a bed with bandages all around my head. So everyone is not having the same "dream", as I had no dream. 

Note that brain electrical activity can stop completely, or drop to such a low level as to be undetectable with most equipment. This includes a flat EEG during deep anaesthesia or cardiac arrest.

Paisley thinks that physicalist monism is a faith that requires as much positive belief in the existence of physical realities, and only physical realities, as does dualism.

*HUGS Clockcat*

Hey. I know I haven't been around here much lately.

Been kind of quiet in general, huh?

Well... New Paisley thread... eh? Eh? That always lights a fire under everyone's collective ass, huh?

Nikolaj wrote:

Even with a completely strict materialistic world-view, there is nothing surprising about NDE's around the world exibiting the same, or similar symptoms. 

The brain plays weird sensery tricks on all of us every night, it's called dreaming.

There are several problems with your analysis.

1) The "dreaming" is taking place in a brain and body that is declared "clinically dead." IOW, the computer (to use the materialist's metaphor of the mind/brain) is without power. This presents problems for the materialist because he has to explain how the operating system and software applications (the metaphors employed to describe the mind on the materialist view) are executing while the hardware (the brain) is nonfunctional.

2) Everyone is essentially having the same "dream."

3) Those who are having the "dream" are having a dream of an out-of-body experience in which they are able to make observations in the emergency or operating room which are later confirmed by the medical staff.

Nikolaj wrote:

It is not difficult to imagine that dying will cause the brain to create sensery experiences like warmth, a feeling of moving around, floating through a tunnel, and the memory, and imagination conjuring up various scenarios, like meeting deceaced loved ones, or deities.

The problem is that avowed atheists are also having these "fantasies."

And to reiterate, the "imaginations" are occurring when the brain should not be able to generate any imaginations. How exactly does a clinically dead brain generate imaginations on the materialist view?

Nikolaj wrote:

The Pam Reynolds case is much more interesting. While her brain is being drained of blood she can experience a dreamlike state in which she thinks alot of stuff is happening that really isn't. This experience may also feel as though it lasts longer than it actually does, since that phenomenon is familiar to anyone who has woken up in the morning, looked at the clock, fallen asleep again and had what feels like a very long dream, only to wake up and see only 10 minutes have passed.

Paisley wrote:

Correction. Her "dreamlike state" does not begin until her brain is completely drained of all blood.

How do you know? Can you identify the time during the night where a given dream you are having commences and ends?

Paisley wrote:

What makes Pam Reynolds' case interesting is that the nature of her surgery required that the surgeons place her brain in a clinically dead state.

And while her brain was beeing drained, or as it was being "refilled" she might have dreamlike states that seemed to last longer (or shorter) than the actual time passing, just like a dream

Nikolaj wrote:

The ability to document things that has happened while she was out, is however, alot more interesting. Since this is only one case, it is not sufficient evidence to draw any conclussion, since it hasn't been repeated. With a p of 1, there is always the possibility of a fluke, a coincidence, or a hoax, but I'm not one to kill anyones buzz. 

Correction. It's not the only incident of a NDE in which an individual made an observation that was later confirmed by the medical staff.