CHRISGEN2002

This message edited by Coragyps to provide a link - please refrain from posting long articles that might violate copyright laws.

<a href="http://www.cinemind.com/atwater/zapsb.html" target="_blank">Here.</a>

[ July 19, 2002: Message edited by: Coragyps ]</p>

Dr Rick

The reviewer assumes the viewpoint of the biased believer.

Rick

Philosoft

What is it you want, Chris? If you want us to see the scientific evidence for life-after-death, then show it to us. Your website is all over the place. I'm not about to go hunting William Crooke's experiments if you can't even show us evidence that legitimate research is being suppressed.

tronvillain

I suggest that a moderator remove the above immense cut and paste job and link to <a href="http://www.cinemind.com/atwater/zapsb.html" target="_blank">here</a>.

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: tronvillain ]</p>

ksagnostic

Oh please.


Pot, kettle, black. Sure Blackmore takes a position, but so does Stone. Put another way, the author uses Blackmore's stated position to support his assertion that her work is "biased", and yet in the subsequent paragraph defines religion according to his own position on "the life of the spirit". The question is not whether someone takes a position, but how one arrives at a position. Blackmore has done a lot of hands on research on NDE's, and was successfully able to replicate NDE type phenomenea by pursuing the hypothesis that NDE's arise from changes in the central nervous system. In fact, if one is indeed trying to discerne a "spirit" (whatever that may be), one would want to try to isolate NDE phenomena which are not likely to be attributible to central nervous system events.
[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]

[ July 19, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Well, it's good that someone took the time and effort to consider the skeptic position in depth. Would be nice, though, if we could get some objective evidence of a spirit first before we proceed with NDEs.

A new NDE center recently opened here in Taiwan. I'll be interested to see what kind of stuff is forthcoming from them.

CHRISGEN2002

I'm very interested to here why you think you are smarter than some the great Nobel Prize of the past. Even now there are very smart scientists investigating life after death. If the mind and body are separate then evolution of our reciever body is still true. Why do you act so agressively? Is it cause this isn't the religious bull shit that caused your 'knee-jerk reaction' athiest belief's. I believe in science not religion. Science means to seek knowledge, not replace religious crap with athiest crap. All I want to see is that you understand that you cannot possibly say (unless your a crazy egotistical idiot) there is no life after-death when even your explanation's of how consciousness arises from purely brain function alone are still in there infancy (even thats a complement!). I want you athiest's to fight (farely!) with nothing but scientific evidence that there's no after-life. Instead of at present with your pathetic 'oh nothing leaves the body it's all in your mind' explanation which does not agree with NDE research if you bother to look at it any great depth and which is rejected by NDEr's in particular. Your Ketamine explanation is crap as most NDE's occur with NO ketamine present in the body. In fact all your matter obsessed theories are crap because parapsychologists have obtained scientific evidence that there participants do leave there body as they observed object's completely outside there range of vision. I don't ask you to suddenly go 'Oh my shit there is a God,praise the Lord'.Just look at the subject. I know that most scientist's, epecially biologist's(who mosly know nothing of physics only mostly macro-atomic chemistry, laugh at the idea of an after-life, but if there is a background sub-atomic medium called ether; that forms neural nets and has abilities that are unheard of while we inhabit our reciever bodies; which limits our mind's power and only gives it five senses to observe this physical place, then why don't you investigate it without prejudice? You say Out-of-body experience's cannot be objectively proven. But surely if you design an experiment that proves the mind of the participant has left there body and observed what they could not possibly see with brain originator theory, then you have proved the mind and body are separate OBJECTIVELY. Many great mind's from the past examined certain apparently gifted medium's and were convinced that they could make contact with etheric minds of various levels of mental development. Even now I'm sure that I could get the names of great present day thinkers who reject religion, like Professor Abdus Salam who was discomunicated by the Islamic Mullahs for stating that there could be a scientific explanation for an after-life, but don't reject that science could explain the after-life using ether, not matter.

ksagnostic

I, for one, think I am much smarter than a Nobel Prize of the past. So are you. So, for that matter, is an earthworm or a jellyfish. Nobel Prize winners are another story, but I am sure I presume to disagree with Nobel Prize winners frequently, particularly with their opinions outside of their areas of expertise (and even there, with Prize winners in economics, whose theories sometimes appear to correspond with political positions).

As for the rest of your run-on paragraph presentation, much of which is a rant against strawmen versions of skeptics and atheists...

1) Speaking for myself, I would love to see evidence of the existence of intelligence/awareness after death, having suffered through the loss of a very close loved one very recently. However, something doesn't become real because I or anyone else want it to be.
2) Blackmore actually got into this game trying to find evidence of a spirit, but she is also a rigorous scientist, and her work led her to opposite conclusions.
3) There is a huge amount of research that links consciousness and awareness to processes occuring in brains, and that links changes in awareness and consciousness to changes in brains. Any indications to the contrary must therefore eliminate the possibility of the brains physical involvement, a very difficult (although not necessarily impossible) proposition, because there is evidence that human brains try to make sense of the traumatic events that occur when someone almost dies (for example, filling in missing bits of time during which one was truly unconscious).
4) NDE and out of body experiences can be induced by medications, directly stimulating the brain, or even more simply by evoking perceptual illusions. This is the very sort of research that Susan Blackmore has participated in. This is positive evidence that NDE's CAN be reduced to explanations relying on neurological processes within the brain. Again, to indicate otherwise would have to involve replicable research that can conclusively eliminate that possibility.

I for one think that NDE's are still worth exploring, but to convince me that they constitute evidence of an afterlife, it will take much more than an unbroken paragraph of a rant.

[ July 20, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]

[ July 20, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]

[ July 20, 2002: Message edited by: ksagnostic ]</p>

Dr Rick

When they come-up with some objective, verifiable and potentially falsefiable hypotheisis, please post it and the supporting evidence for us to see. Thanks.

<strong> Your rant is the most aggressive post on this thread, so far.

<strong> Science utilizes a method of inquiry that requires objective and verifiable evidence. It doesn't matter to us what you believe; what matters is what evidence or lack of evidence there is to support your views.

<strong> That and the answer to it are akin to demanding evidence that Big Foot and demonic possessions don't exist; many people claim one or both do, but the argument from silence (lack of objective data) argues against both and justifies continued rejection of these unsubstantiated assertions.

<strong> Ketamine? huh?

<strong> We all observe things without seeing them while in our bodies and do so frequently with our other five senses. For instance, one's mind can construct the appearance of what is happening in a nearby kitchen by hearing the voices of the cooks and hearing and smelling the sounds and scents of the activities there.

<strong> Just present some objective, verifiable and potentially falsifiable evidence to support your views instead of ranting at us about "crap."

<strong> Absolutely false; the overwhelming majority of scientists are theists and believe in an afterlife.

<strong> That sounds like a swell idea; just tell us how you or others have investigated before and what objective, verifiable evidence you or they have found.

<strong> No, we're saying there's no objective evidence to support their existence, and the available objective data convincingly tells us that the mind ceases to function with the demise of the body. We see evidence that a person is thinking when they are alive, and all that evidence disappears upon death.

<strong> Please let us know when such an experiment has been done.

<strong> Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but opinions are no substitute for scientific inquiry.

Rick

Vorkosigan

But surely if you design an experiment that proves the mind of the participant has left there body and observed what they could not possibly see with brain originator theory, then you have proved the mind and body are separate OBJECTIVELY.

You certainly have not. This is why, despite your claims, parapsychological researchers have proven nothing. Because controlled experimentation is impossible where psychic powers are assumed.

Let's imagine that we have a brave volunteer who will accept temporary death in order to have an NDE. Let's further assume that our volunteer, Ned, actually has an NDE and describes for us in minute detail the contents of the room next to the surgery where Ned is being temporarily killed, a room he has never seen.

Well, now we're in the brave new world of psychic powers, and all the bets were off. What are the possibilities?

1) His spirit has left its body and floated over to the next room.

2) His mind has reached out to one of the doctors and lifted the description from the doctor who has been there, and presented it to himself as an NDE

3) One of the doctors, eager for the experiment to succeed, has put the experience in the mind of Ned with telepathy.

4) Ned's mind has looked into some future where he does see the room, pulled up the information, and returned to the present to inform the doctors. Alternatively, one of the doctors has done this and fed it to Ned's mind.

5) No NDE has taken place. Ned has reached into the doctors minds and made them think that he experienced an NDE. Alternatively, one of the doctors has done this.

6) Ned is a telekinetic and reached into the room to re-arrange it so it fits the description generated during his NDE. Alternatively, one of the doctors has done this.

7) Ned's mind is the world.

8) Some combination of all of the above.

Whenever you run into someone making claims that consciousness acts directly on the world outside the brain, you run into this problem. Controlled experiments cannot be done with psychic powers. That is why eventually all experimenters come to:

9) Ned is a fraud, and has somehow tricked the experimenters. Or the experimenters have committed fraud, or the experiment is badly controlled, terminology ill-defined, and methodology full of holes.

Vorkosigan