triplew00t

I am at a loss to refute the more specificly, medically accurate NDEs in which a patient reports precise events that occur while they are "dead" that could not be seen, even if they were conscious in the prone position that the operation was taking place in. (i.e. seeing the needles on a defibrilator and the voltage settings used on then, or the discoloration of their heart, etc, etc.) The main place I have encountered these is in a book entitled "God: The Evidence". If anyone has any experience in debating these specific varieties of NDE, please let me know how you would explain them from a naturalistic, skeptical perspective.

- In Peace, Nero

"What is good? Everything that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? Everything that is born of weakness" - Nietzsche

Dominus Paradoxum

I'm not sure. Most would probably be suspicious that really do rember such things. You usually hear that in anecdotal accounts, and I don't think there is any hard evidence for it. But you also have to rember there's good evidence against NDE's. For example, they seem to vary from culture to culture, and very similar kinds of experiences can be induced in a lab. While there is a lot of agreement between accounts, there's also a lot of disagreement. I think science knows pretty well how the brain generates those kind of experiences and there's no reason to attribute any special significance to it.

Roland98

I haven't read that book. Are they actually credible accounts--or is it bible-thumper BS cooked up to sound good?

triplew00t

The book is relatively sound. It draws more conclusions than it gives evidence for, I think, of course, but it is by no means written as biblethumper crap. I would not even bother to bring it to this board in a serious manner if it was that worthless.

-In Peace, Nero

Roland98

Well, ya never know...

Sharif

So the 'soul' has eyes (or some kind of visual imput area) and can see things, not to mention interpret the visual experience and remember it and transfer this memory back into the body upon re-entry? So there is a an interaction between the physical light waves we represent as color with the immaterial soul, which happens to see things exactly as we do?

What's the point of the body in the first place if the soul can do everything the body can and in the exact same way?

eh

Also keep in mind, bible thumpers HATE near death experiences. After all, it's just Satan playing tricks on unbelievers.

ps418

triplew00t,

Obviously one would have to see the account and all related evidence before drawing any firm conclusions. But there are a couple of points to keep in mind.

One is that such perceptions would only be impressive if they could not have been aquired through the normal senses, and its hard to prove that this could not happen. Second, it need not be the case that sensory perception is completely and immediately abolished by cardiac arrest, as many people assume, which is a clinical death state. Perhaps perception can continue in some form until the death of the brain? Perhaps the individual hears somone say something along the lines of "Set the defib settings to such-and-such," or "Dr. Jones, have a look at Mr. Smith's heart: its discolored," and then constructs a visual 'perception' that fits the auditory narrative, much as can happen during sleep, when environmental sounds are incorporated visually into the dream.

Though relatively rare and probably decreasing in incidence due to better monitoring, certainly there are many cases where individuals under general anaethesia, who to all appearances are completely unconscious, have demonstrated remarkably accurate recall of their procedure and such details as the conversations taking place in the operating theater.

Yet another possibility is that facts and events learned after the event, from medical staff or family, are subsequently 'remembered' as taking place during the NDE trauma. The only way to control for this is to record the experience immediately, before there is any conversation between NDE experient and medical staff/family, which in such situations are obviously not the first priority. Note that this need not mean that the individual reporting such an experience is lying, only that they are mistaken. Having said all that, I haven't read the book you're referring to, so I can't comment on the specific examples.

Patrick

Ovazor

First it is important to notice, that nobody knows when the reported NED actually occured. Was it during the time the patient was really "dead", and how was it established that he was really out.

Second point is, that most of these NDE stories are uncorroborated. It is not checked that the details described by the person are accurate. In many occassion, when this has been done, the evidence seems suddenly lot less impressive.

john_v_h

Here is a skeptical backgrounder on NDEs.

As far as refuting tales of NDE clairvoyance ... well, why should these stories be any more credible than other claims of the paranormal? Because they are supposedly corroborated by physicians? Most paranormal accounts include authoritative witnesses: police, scientists, military personnel, et. al. These elements don't bolster the credibility of the story unless they can be independently verified. Even then, when the facts are adequately accounted for by ordinary explanations, it is unreasonable to resort to extraordinary ones.