Does consciousness survive death? A BBC investigation.

[JaredJames]

Your point is moot if evidence is shown that they have specific knowledge of events they couldn't have known about. You seem to be ignoring the most significant comment.

Evidence of knowledge says nothing about how that knowledge is gained.

My point is that people say "ooh you know about X, the only way I can think you got that is if you were actually there." Non-sense.

I know Derren Brown is a lot more involved, but you only have to watch what he does (and he himself explains it in everyday life) to see how things can influence us and create memories that are false.

Where do they use the word "spiritual". On a first pass it seems like you are inferring and not citing it.

An extension of this has been the view that contrary to popular perception, what has traditionally been perceived as spirituality, is therefore also an objective branch of knowledge with its own laws, theorems and axioms [53].

Like I said, they are basing a new branch of science on what we currently consider 'spirituality' to be.

Well, this is being done. It has been in the news many times.

That is precisely how the tests are designed. So you are passing judgement in a vacuum.

In the news many times =/= had results.

Despite the relative ease with which you can conduct these tests (finding a dying person aside), there is nothing out there which says "we did X, patient reported X". It all comes back to anecdote and uncontrolled tests.

They say "we can do this test" and then report results from anecdote, not the tests. What happened?

Again you ignore the aspect of obtaining specific information that shouldn't have been possible. And they are trying to provide better controls. However, it is also true that the paper was published, and published work always trumps personal opinion, so you would need to show published objections to the work in question. One can hardly require peer review for one side of the debate but not the other.

You've missed my point.

This thread starts with "consciousness surviving death" and there are a number of posts here who claim that. As I've read, pftest's posts (see his initial which jumps straight in with it) are in support of forestman - who made that claim.

This is how I'm reading everything. In respect to this initial comment.

The paper is fine, I don't see anything wrong with what it says, but it doesn't back up this claim. Hence my problem with them being used to support it.

Right now, I have a claim of "consciousness surviving death" with no support. Last time I checked, you backup what you claim. Or should I be providing a paper which says consciousness doesn't survive death?

 

[pftest]

You need to support your position with specific quotes before making another post here. If you have been misrepresenting factual information, you might be banned by the time I get caught up here. Now is the time to clear this up one way or the other.

I did that a few pages back:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3185707&postcount=80

Other than that, i don't know what the chaps here are saying that i claimed or misrepresented.

 

[pftest]

I also wrote:

... When a patient has an abnormality in the brain and also reports an abnormality in his perceptions, then this is very useful information for neuroscience. One example is a woman with epilepsy in switzerland who had part of her brain stimulated with electrodes and reported an out-of-body experience...

Heres the link for that one:
http://www.nature.com/news/1998/020916/full/news020916-8.html

 

[pftest]

This thread starts with "consciousness surviving death" and there are a number of posts here who claim that. As I've read, pftest's posts (see his initial which jumps straight in with it) are in support of forestman - who made that claim.

This is how I'm reading everything. In respect to this initial comment.

I see the problem. Please read my posts without thinking that I am trying to support Forestman's views or that i am claiming what he claims. I am merely putting a few scientific sources on the table, and, as i mentioned, I am not convinced either way.

 

[nismaratwork]

@pftest:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3182298&postcount=22
In which you offer support directly for Forestman’s point.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3182392&postcount=24
In which you seem to be making the same point.

Then here… where you do it again: https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3182421&postcount=27

Originally Posted by jarednjames
Are you saying that another part of my body, my feet perhaps, are responsible for it? Or are you trying to say there is something spiritual that causes it?
No, even if we look at it purely physically. I don't think "being responsible" is a physically meaningful term. For example: is the brain responsible for its atoms? Are the feet responsible for its atoms? These arent really meaningful questions. If we stick with a purely physical view on the body, then we have physical ingredients that change their position in space. Evo linked to an article earlier that mentioned that "a surge of electrical activity" may be the cause of NDE's. Yet physically, electrical activity simply goes somewhere else. How does this fit with the idea that consciousness goes nowhere and vanishes.

Then follow up with your own particular version of the burden of proof, which in this thread, and in at least one other was explained to you by Berkeman.

I'm sorry... it's an ASSUMPTION?! I'm going to ask you to back that up with a study, or SOMETHING, or retract. That's painfully laughable, as JnJ has pointed out, and if you're arguing for Dualism, that's a separate issue entirely.
The burden 'o proof. Show the evidence that consciousness is created by the brain (as opposed to merely interacting with it or influencing it). Also, there are many types of monism, and materialism is just one of them. The idea that abandoning materialism leads to dualism is therefor false.

You then, “drop it” here: https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3182456&postcount=35
And take it up again in the next post… about 7 minutes later… still it seems your point is either never made, or you’re posting in support of the thesis of the OP. You’ve made no other point up to this point.
https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3182456&postcount=35

You call this, “A relevant paper”: https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3185366&postcount=58
Relevant to what? So far, again, you’re only acting in support of the OP, with no independent point made.
You continue to cite papers in support of… what?... in post 64,
Then say this: https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3185427&postcount=66
|”An abstract offers a short description of the content of the paper. I am simply putting some published work forward. Like Ivan said, this isn't an opinions column.”
OK, you’re putting published work forward, in service of what? What point are you making that isn’t the OP’s… to this point, you’d done nothing else.
It isn’t until post #74 that you actually bother to respond without a link to JnJ:
“The papers speak for themselves, there is no need to rephrase them. The overall picture is that there are many indicications that, contrary to the popular assumption, awareness continues when brainfunction is severely impaired, or even in the case of clinical death. This is what needs further investigation. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it may very well be a duck. As far as i know, Parnia is currently researching this on a much greater scale. Specifically he is testing if during OBE's (occuring during cardiac arrest), people can see specific tags attached to emergency room ceilings, or if they can recall specific sounds that were played.”

Here you mention Parnia… from the Nour Foundation page:

...A graduate of the Guys and St. Thomas' medical schools in London, Dr. Parnia obtained his doctorate in cell biology from the University of Southampton. He has published numerous articles in peer reviewed scientific journals in the field of pulmonary medicine as well as near-death experiences, and is a current reviewer for The New England Journal of Medicine. He has also served as a member of the Southampton University Trust Hospital Resuscitation Committee, where he launched the first ever study of near-death experiences in the UK. The results of the study received widespread coverage and were published in the medical journal "Resuscitation." Dr. Parnia is the author of What Happens When We Die? , and his groundbreaking research has been featured on the BBC and Discovery documentary, The Day I Died and will be highlighted in an upcoming National Geographic episode entitled Explorer: At the Moment of Death.

So... he’s a pulmonologist, and an NDE ‘expert’ who makes money through books and features relating to NDE’s. In particular, he’s involved with the BBC documentary Forestman originally started the thread about... so... You’re still just commenting?

At post 82, you finish your pivot having been sufficiently challenged by Thorium, that you explain you’re not showing proof, just... ‘stuff’. Then, you start the line you’ve been on recently, but one that is divorced from your previous posts.
Then you move on to this: https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3185951&postcount=85 And we’re back at Parnia, and your wish that papers about “mights” would be published... which is already done more than not, but hey, let's not weigh you down with facts. You do express surprise at Thorium’s conclusions, although your stance had only changed in response to him, and only after repeated attempts. After that, you return to posting the same papers, this time in full.

I'm not impressed.

Parnia is also the guy who founded: http://www.horizonresearch.org/

Which is a charitable organization funding... the very research he does, but it's OK, they're friends with the Nour Foundation, which is friends with sites that PF finds Kosher. Nothing to be concerned about there.

Beyond my own suspicious bent, his "experiments" don't follow the scientific method, and I'd strongly question the value of him as an expert, just because he's a pioneer in a field he... well... according to The Nour Foundation, started in the UK.

I'm curious how the equivalent of a peer-reviewed blogger, and practically a world unto himself in his extremely questionable research (the methods, not the goal), passes muster as a source here.

Then we have him actually submitting to some form of interview that isn't paying or praying to him... and we get this:

http://www.prunderground.com/dr-sam-parnia-claims-near-death-experience-probably-an-illusion/004376/

Interview with NDE researcher and AWARE Project leader explores limits of experiments on near-death experience.

San Diego, CA (PRUnderground) October 15th, 2010
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with the NDE expert and author of, What Happens When We Die?, Dr. Sam Parnia. During the interview Dr. Parnia is asked why he suspects NDEs are an “illusion”, a “trick of the mind”. When pressed, Dr Parnia stated, “…It may well be. You’re pushing and I’m giving you honest answers. I don’t know. If I knew the answers then I don’t think I would have engaged and spent 12 years of my life and so much of my medical reputation to try to do this. Because to appreciate people like me, I risk a lot by doing this sort of experiment. So I’m interested in the answers and I don’t know. Like I said, if I was to base everything on the knowledge that I have currently of neuroscience, then the easiest explanation is that this is probably an illusion.”

While Parnia’s position regarding the validity of the NDE phenomena stands in contrast to most other near death experience researchers he continues to push forward. His AWARE Project asks cardiac arrest patients who experience a NDE to recall hidden pictures placed above their bed. This methodology has been criticized by NDE experts who give it little chance of yielding positive results. Dr. Parnia responds, “I don’t know if [the tests will] be successful or not. That’s an important point to make. As I said, I don’t have a particular stance. It’s possible that these experiences are simply illusionary and it’s possible that they’re real. Science hasn’t got the answers yet. So we have to go fair-minded. Right now what we have is a setup that can at least, we hope, objectively determine an answer to the question.”

The Skeptiko interview (audio and transcript) is available at: http://www.skeptiko.com/sam-parnia-claims-near-death-experience-probably-an-illusion/
The Skeptiko interview (audio and transcript) is available at: http://www.skeptiko.com/sam-parnia-claims-near-death-experience-probably-an-illusion/

About Skeptiko
Skeptiko.com is the first scientifically oriented Podcast exploring new research in controversial areas of science such as telepathy, psi, parapsychology, near-death-experience, psychic detectives, medium communication, reincarnation, and after-life encounters. Each episode features open, honest debate on new scientific discoveries. The show includes interviews with top research scientists and their critics.

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I'm not seeing a whole lot of consistancy, or his expressed views contradict your earlier ramblings about the brain. I'd add, while he's in the afformentioned BBC bit, his area of research is limited to cardiac arrest, which is hardly clinical OR brain death.

 

[JaredJames]

I see the problem. Please read my posts without thinking that I am trying to support Forestman's views or that i am claiming what he claims. I am merely putting a few scientific sources on the table, and, as i mentioned, I am not convinced either way.

Your initial post here jumps into support forestman's claim of "consciousness surviving death", which you have continued to do throughout this thread.

So far, I have not seen anything in the papers provided that is even remotely relevant to this. Support for NDE's happening at the point of nearly dying, certainly. But nothing to support the initial claims. This is where my problem stems. Claims made and evidence provided aren't discussing the same thing.

@Ivan: There is a lot of confusion here, but I hope you understand my point above and it clarifies my stance in this thread.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'm locking this until I've had time to review the information in detail. I was in PF withdrawal and needed some play time today.