A compilation of reasons why NDEs do not support the mind-body duality position
Posted on: November 28, 2009 - 7:13pm
Offline
A compilation of reasons why NDEs do not support the mind-body duality position
- ~ 20% of those who stop breathing and whose heart stops beating, and who are revived, report a NDE. Don't we all allegedly possess souls?
- People from different cultures report different NDEs. Aren't we all subject to the same afterlife/afterlives?
- People who incorrectly think that they're about to die, or who are taking certain drugs, or who are being subjected to high g-forces (air force cadets in centrifuges, as well as actual pilots making tight turns) report NDE-like experiences.
- Double-blind experiments have been conducted whereby an emergency room doctor has a text message, image, or animation placed on top of light fixtures in the emergency room. Since OBEs involving seeing one's body from above are a very common part of NDEs, these experiments are very ingenius. No one experiencing an NDE has ever identified these objects.
As if MRI scans of the brains of people performing certain tasks, and asked to think about certain things, the story of Phineas Gage, and many other lines of evidence are not enough, these gullible fools cling to the NDE as proof of life after death and mind body duality because "NDEs usually have a profound effect on people" and because "NDEs are reported as being very vivid and the people just know ( 
) that they had left their bodies".
- Login to post comments
What?
So you mean anecdotes aren't valid. That saying "it's obvious" isn't valid. You mean we need academic empiracal studies? You mean people have to prove that it's valid rather than people prove that it's not?
NDE are ridiculous. i had one myself while lying in bed smoking pot a few months ago. Nothing special.
Well, I happen to know two people who claim to have had NDEs. Honestly, neither of them say that they had the standard experience, from which I conclude that an NDE is a variable thing and when we hear about them, we are hearing a selection biased telling that only seems to suggest that there is anything that “everyone gets” whatever that may mean.
However, I would love to be a hospital administrator who is in the position of placing stuff on the top of the machines in the emergency room/operating rooms. Trust me on this, it would all be gay porn. No lame pages of text in my experiment.
If people don't claim to have seen dudes bending over other dudes then they were not floating around over their own bodies.
=
How was it?
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Physical and chemical brain damage which result in personality changes also do not supprt mind-body duality.
Zen-atheist wielding Occam's katana.
Jesus said, "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." - Luke 12:51
The case of Phineas Gage being an excellent, early example.
Twice as an adult I've had severe blows to the head. After both, and for varying lengths of time afterward, I'd see bright flashes of light. The first time, I thought I must have had a detached retina (I was hit in the head with a gun), but there was nothing wrong. After the second one (2x4 to the head that dropped me to the floor), I started seeing the "tunnel of white light" sometimes before falling asleep. I used to think the "tunnel of white light" was bogus, now I think it's related to head trauma. I'd be interested in knowing how many NDE's involving "tunnel of white light" are people who've had head trauma.
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."