Radorth

I'm sure we can argue about these forever, and the skeptics have their sites to post, but below are some of the sites I rediscovered.

One of the foremost researchers on drug induced NDE like experiences is Dr Karl Jansen. The following site explains how Ketamine might work on the brain, and how a lack of oxygen, etc might produce the NDE experience. I find it a stretch to say that a drug and dying must necessarily produce one and the same thing. There are some alternative explanations, such as that Ketamine “retunes” the mind to somehow allow spiritual reality in. Ketamine experiment subjects do not experience the long term changes in behavior and perspective of those who have actually had a real NDE.

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

However note that Jansen, changed his mind after doing this research, saying:

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

David J.Chalmers Ph.D. writes in the Scientific American (1997):
Consciousness, the subjective experience of an inner self, could be a phenomenon forever beyond the reach of neuroscience. Even a detailed knowledge of the brain's workings and the neural correlates of consciousness may fail to explain how or why human beings have self-aware minds.

I think he hit it on the nose there.

Carl Jung’s experience may be found here:
http://www.near-death.com/jung.html

Many other atheist experiences can be read here.
http://www.near-death.com/atheists.html

This one is especially fascinating
http://www.near-death.com/storm.html

Rad

Bumble Bee Tuna

I would think there's a somewhat obvious reason why people who have drug-induced "NDE"s don't have some great spiritual/character change afterwards is because...they know it was a drug, not coming close to death. A "real" NDE scares the bejeezus out of whoever it happens to and seems more likely to be paranormal to the subject. If the subject knows it's just a drug, they aren't going to think anything of it.

For the rest of it though, I don't know anything about it and I honestly don't care very much.

-B

alek0

How about this:

TITLE: What geometric visual hallucinations tell us about the visual cortex.
AUTHOR: Bressloff,-P-C; Cowan,-J-D; Golubitsky,-M; Thomas,-P-J; Wiener,-M-C
SOURCE: Neural-Comput. 2002 Mar; 14(3): 473-91.
JOURNAL NAME: Neural-computation;
INTERNATIONAL STANDARD SERIAL NUMBER: 0899-7667
LANGUAGE: English
MAIN ABSTRACT: Many observers see geometric visual hallucinations after taking hallucinogens such as LSD, cannabis, mescaline or psilocybin; on viewing bright flickering lights; on waking up or falling asleep; in "near-death" experiences; and in many other syndromes. Kluver organized the images into four groups called form constants: (I) tunnels and funnels, (II) spirals, (III) lattices, including honeycombs and triangles, and (IV) cobwebs. In most cases, the images are seen in both eyes and move with them. We interpret this to mean that they are generated in the brain. Here, we summarize a theory of their origin in visual cortex (area V1), based on the assumption that the form of the retino-cortical map and the architecture of V1 determine their geometry. (A much longer and more detailed mathematical version has been published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 356 [2001].) We model V1 as the continuum limit of a lattice of interconnected hypercolumns, each comprising a number of interconnected iso-orientation columns. Based on anatomical evidence, we assume that the lateral connectivity between hypercolumns exhibits symmetries, rendering it invariant under the action of the Euclidean group E(2), composed of reflections and translations in the plane, and a (novel) shift-twist action. Using this symmetry, we show that the various patterns of activity that spontaneously emerge when V1's spatially uniform resting state becomes unstable correspond to the form constants when transformed to the visual field using the retino-cortical map. The results are sensitive to the detailed specification of the lateral connectivity and suggest that the cortical mechanisms that generate geometric visual hallucinations are closely related to those used to process edges, contours, surfaces, and textures.

Cthulhu

Here are a few links:

http://www.truthtree.com/lad.htm

http://www.meridianinstitute.com/reports/neurocor.html

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scite...ody020919.html

http://neuro-www.mgh.harvard.edu/for...uro-EpilepticO

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

I'm sure there are many more to be found, and time permitting, I'll see what else I can dig up.

In the meantime, Rad, I would like you to address some questions I asked you in the other thread. Do you consider the NDE and OBE experiences that do not accord with Christian doctrine valid? Many people who have experienced such things talk about the reality of reincarnation, of choosing ahead of time where they'll be born, who their parents will be, what challenges they will face in their life, etc. Many of them also paint a picture of nonphysical reality that bears no resemblance to Christian teachings. So, tell me, do you think their experiences are valid? How about the "mystical" experiences of Native Americans, Aboriginals, and other non-Christians? And finally, where in Scripture does it say that human beings possess an immortal soul? I ask this because many Christians deny that belief, and say that there is no Biblical support for that notion. They say when we die, we merely cease to be until Jesus's second coming at which time they will be reconstituted. Since you apparently differ on this belief, could you give me some Scriptural support.

Gracias.

Radorth

The skeptic's arguments against these are attempts to explain what is really inexplicable, and the "laboratory" experiments fall far short of explaining many lengthy, cogent and detailed NDE's. The one's full of big scientific words are just uesless IMO. Nobody can understand them, although I imagine the faithful are most impressed.

From one of Ct's sites, claiming this was one of the few real "scientific" experiments:

Two seconds? How do we rationally reconcile a 2 second experience with Storm's remarkable experience? The argument that these are true "scientific" experiments and somehow negate more spontaneous experiences is pretty weak. For one thing all the "scientific" studies have patients who are even more open to suggestion. Saying "we're going to give you this drug and see if you feel anything" seems a bit loaded to me. Some of the things they say sound a little fishy, as if they are trying to copy something more real. It is most important for these studies to be double blind. I admit that is difficult to do, but sugar pills reallly do make people feel better.

But Ct's question about how previous conditioning affects the experience is not so easy to answer. I've read very few "Hindu" experiences and I hope he provides some examples. I'd like to see them before saying anything other than this: one might interpret what they see according to their beliefs, when actually what they saw was something different in reality. Or maybe different people go different places. Storm saw many different places before being "rescued" by the light. Jung, as I recall, simply floats around the earth like a ghost.

Where does scripture say we have an immortal soul? Well immediately after Jesus died, he went to preach to living spirits in a holding place. They were alive and well apparently. Paul speaks of a "cloud of witnesses" whom are apparently able to see what's going on. I imagine some more will come to mind if I think about it. It was never a question for me. The only scripture I can think of which suggests otherwise is Paul's statement about hose who "are asleep." I don't think he meant to say they were necessarily unconscious.

Rad

Gooch's dad

ROFL!!

Translated from fundy-speak: "I can't understand what those scientists are saying, therefore nobody else can either. Anybody who does claim to be able to understand it is a dogmatic atheist following the religion of naturalism."

Priceless, just priceless!

Radorth

here are some outstanding pro and con arguments

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/triggers07.html
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/experts09.html

The fact that people DO experience much, much different things is to me a "pro" argument, because it belies the argument that all this stuff can be produced in the lab. If scientists could reproduce the same things consistently, they would have a much better argument. The very fact that they get much different results, and can't reproduce complete experiences, should tell them something. People are in tunnels long after their brains are "starved for oxygen." Some people are starved for oxygen and never see a tunnel, etc.

Rad

Writer@Large

The fact that scientists can reproduce brain activity consistent with an NDE at all is a huge indicator to me that NDEs are nothing more than mental abberations. No, neurological researchers have not induced a full-fledged NDE experience ... yet. But they're moving down that road, and they're begining to piece the process together. So what if they haven't fully succeeded? That's what science is all about--experimentation and progress. Just because they haven't doesn't mean they won't, and that they've even progressed this far is a sign that they're on the right track.

Yeah: that they still have a lot to learn about how the brain works. But they knew that already; that's why we have neuroscientists.

--W@L

Biff the unclean

So-called NDEs have been so thoroughly explained and reproduced that the subject died years ago. I even heard Hank Hanegraaff, radio's Bible Answer Man give a fairly accurate scientific explanation of it to a call in listener.
Yet in the past month this old chestnut has shown up on three boards that I read on the Internet. Is this resurgence of pseudo-science just coincidence or are they all inspired by some new Fundi guru?

Dr Rick

Your lack of understanding and inability to comprehend explanations does not make NDE's "inexplicable."

Rick