Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Science and Technology => Topic started by: Sriram on March 06, 2024, 02:55:53 PM
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Hi everyone,
Here is an article about RED...Recalled Experience of Death. This is a new term for NDE's.....and probably more accurate.
https://bjgplife.com/recalled-experience-of-death/
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Recalled Experience of Death (RED) is the new terminology for an old phenomenon known as Near-Death Experience (NDE). Recently, researchers in the field of consciousness have decided to adopt RED due to its specificity. RED portrays more accurately the relationship between the non-functioning brain and consciousness than NDE, which has been extrapolated to report other human-altered states of consciousness, such as in meditation and psychedelic experiments.
There is no physiological explanation to RED’s six stages: (1) Perceived death and separation of the body (out-of-body experience – OBE); (2) Heading towards a destination (moving through a tunnel); (3) Reliving the recording of life that is educational (life review); (4) Being home again; (5) Returning back to life (entering the body); and (6) Reported effect after the experience, such loss of fear of death, seeking purpose and meaning in life.1
Despite the challenges to pin down the reality and meaning underlying RED, the studies on the subject make it impossible to deny the claims of awareness in relation to death.1
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Cheers.
Sriram
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I've decided to call them, and probably more accurately, mind farts. Begging the question is not big and it's not clever.
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Hi everyone,
Here is an article about RED...Recalled Experience of Death. This is a new term for NDE's.....and probably more accurate.
https://bjgplife.com/recalled-experience-of-death/
***********
Recalled Experience of Death (RED) is the new terminology for an old phenomenon known as Near-Death Experience (NDE). Recently, researchers in the field of consciousness have decided to adopt RED due to its specificity. RED portrays more accurately the relationship between the non-functioning brain and consciousness than NDE, which has been extrapolated to report other human-altered states of consciousness, such as in meditation and psychedelic experiments.
There is no physiological explanation to RED’s six stages: (1) Perceived death and separation of the body (out-of-body experience – OBE); (2) Heading towards a destination (moving through a tunnel); (3) Reliving the recording of life that is educational (life review); (4) Being home again; (5) Returning back to life (entering the body); and (6) Reported effect after the experience, such loss of fear of death, seeking purpose and meaning in life.1
Despite the challenges to pin down the reality and meaning underlying RED, the studies on the subject make it impossible to deny the claims of awareness in relation to death.1
***********
Cheers.
Sriram
The term near death experience was already deeply misleading as the phenomena are replicated in other highly extreme physiological scenarios that are not close to, nor have anything to do with, death. But to imply these phenomena are recalled experiences of death is downright dishonest. The people in question have not died, did not die and therefore cannot recall death as they have not experienced death.
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The term near death experience was already deeply misleading as the phenomena are replicated in other highly extreme physiological scenarios that are not close to, nor have anything to do with, death. But to imply these phenomena are recalled experiences of death is downright dishonest. The people in question have not died, did not die and therefore cannot recall death as they have not experienced death.
I think we should leave that to the medical experts and researchers to decide.
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I think we should leave that to the medical experts and researchers to decide.
So when you said 'probably more accurately', you were using your medical expertise?
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Hi everyone,
Here is an article about RED...Recalled Experience of Death. This is a new term for NDE's.....and probably more accurate.
https://bjgplife.com/recalled-experience-of-death/
***********
Recalled Experience of Death (RED) is the new terminology for an old phenomenon known as Near-Death Experience (NDE). Recently, researchers in the field of consciousness have decided to adopt RED due to its specificity. RED portrays more accurately the relationship between the non-functioning brain and consciousness than NDE, which has been extrapolated to report other human-altered states of consciousness, such as in meditation and psychedelic experiments.
There is no physiological explanation to RED’s six stages: (1) Perceived death and separation of the body (out-of-body experience – OBE); (2) Heading towards a destination (moving through a tunnel); (3) Reliving the recording of life that is educational (life review); (4) Being home again; (5) Returning back to life (entering the body); and (6) Reported effect after the experience, such loss of fear of death, seeking purpose and meaning in life.1
Despite the challenges to pin down the reality and meaning underlying RED, the studies on the subject make it impossible to deny the claims of awareness in relation to death.1
***********
Cheers.
Sriram
Near death seems more accurate to me.
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I think we should leave that to the medical experts and researchers to decide.
Wikipedia - Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism.
Collins online - Death is the permanent end of the life of a person or animal.
Merriam-Webster - a permanent cessation of all vital (see VITAL sense 2a) functions : the end of life
Doesn't seem like anyone who's experienced 'death' is going to be in a position to recollect it. Near-death experiences, as has been pointed out, was something of a misnomer but wasn't intrinsically self-contradictory. 'Recalled experience of death' is just an oxymoron.
O.
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I think we should leave that to the medical experts and researchers to decide.
Indeed and genuine medical experts and bone fide researchers are clear that the phenomenon of so-called 'near death' experiences occur in situation that are not 'near death' let alone are consistent with someone who has died and would be recollecting death.
People without the requisite medical or research expertise but with some kind of 'spiritual' point to prove may think otherwise, but their opinions are merely that, opinions, not expert opinions nor evidence-based opinions. You use the evidence to justify your explanations and conclusions, you do not cherry pick and misrepresent evidence to justify a pre-formed dogma.
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Wikipedia - Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism.
Collins online - Death is the permanent end of the life of a person or animal.
Merriam-Webster - a permanent cessation of all vital (see VITAL sense 2a) functions : the end of life
Doesn't seem like anyone who's experienced 'death' is going to be in a position to recollect it. Near-death experiences, as has been pointed out, was something of a misnomer but wasn't intrinsically self-contradictory. 'Recalled experience of death' is just an oxymoron.
O.
That is a circular argument. You can't define something unknown in a certain way and then deny the phenomenon when it exceeds that limited definition.
Change your definition...!
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Indeed and genuine medical experts and bone fide researchers are clear that the phenomenon of so-called 'near death' experiences occur in situation that are not 'near death' let alone are consistent with someone who has died and would be recollecting death.
People without the requisite medical or research expertise but with some kind of 'spiritual' point to prove may think otherwise, but their opinions are merely that, opinions, not expert opinions nor evidence-based opinions. You use the evidence to justify your explanations and conclusions, you do not cherry pick and misrepresent evidence to justify a pre-formed dogma.
Sam Parnia is a critical care medical expert. So are most of the people who have researched on this subject. You can't dub them all as people with a 'spiritual point to prove'.
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That is a circular argument. You can't define something unknown in a certain way and then deny the phenomenon when it exceeds that limited definition.
Change your definition...!
No, use a different word or phrase than death.
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Sam Parnia is a critical care medical expert. So are most of the people who have researched on this subject. You can't dub them all as people with a 'spiritual point to prove'.
But as far as I'm aware even he doesn't like to use the term 'near death experience', let alone 'Recalled experience of death'.
And while his observational studies of the experiences themselves are sound (albeit fail to demonstrate some aspects such as out of body phenomena) his interpretations are evidence-less and have been described as pseudoscience.
Interesting too that someone who has had a nigh-on 30 year career post qualification has only attained the level of associate professor (or senior lecturer in old money) - doesn't suggest that his research is highly regarded.
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Hi everyone,
Here is an article about RED...Recalled Experience of Death. This is a new term for NDE's.....and probably more accurate.
https://bjgplife.com/recalled-experience-of-death/
***********
Recalled Experience of Death (RED) is the new terminology for an old phenomenon known as Near-Death Experience (NDE). Recently, researchers in the field of consciousness have decided to adopt RED due to its specificity. RED portrays more accurately the relationship between the non-functioning brain and consciousness than NDE, which has been extrapolated to report other human-altered states of consciousness, such as in meditation and psychedelic experiments.
There is no physiological explanation to RED’s six stages: (1) Perceived death and separation of the body (out-of-body experience – OBE); (2) Heading towards a destination (moving through a tunnel); (3) Reliving the recording of life that is educational (life review); (4) Being home again; (5) Returning back to life (entering the body); and (6) Reported effect after the experience, such loss of fear of death, seeking purpose and meaning in life.1
Despite the challenges to pin down the reality and meaning underlying RED, the studies on the subject make it impossible to deny the claims of awareness in relation to death.1
***********
Cheers.
Sriram
Changing the name of something won't magically make it what you want it to be.
If anybody is in a position to recall an experience, they were never dead.
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If anybody is in a position to recall an experience, they were never dead.
Indeed, which is why the term 'recalled experience of death' is deeply dishonest.
Near death experience would be reasonable if the phenomena, and their likely causes, were limited to experiences that are ... err ... near death. But they aren't - the phenomena are pretty well identical to other situations where there is extreme physiological stress, but is not near death - for example the effects of high g forces on fighter pilots.
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Indeed, which is why the term 'recalled experience of death' is deeply dishonest.
Near death experience would be reasonable if the phenomena, and their likely causes, were limited to experiences that are ... err ... near death. But they aren't - the phenomena are pretty well identical to other situations where there is extreme physiological stress, but is not near death - for example the effects of high g forces on fighter pilots.
But if it is an experience you are having because you are near to death it seems reasonable to call it that. An experience you have due to high G can be called something else.
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But if it is an experience you are having because you are near to death it seems reasonable to call it that. An experience you have due to high G can be called something else.
But that isn't really helpful if the phenomena are similar (which they appear to be) and the likely cause seems to be physiologically similar. To call them different terms suggests they are different things phenomenologically, physiologically and neurologically, which doesn't seem to be the case. The key point seems to be that the phenomena are triggered by extremely physiological stress which may, or may not, be associated with the process of dying. To ascribe the phenomena as 'near death' seems inappropriate to me at the phenomena also occur in similar physiologically stressed situations which are not near death.
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That is a circular argument.
It is neither circular nor even an argument.
You can't define something unknown in a certain way and then deny the phenomenon when it exceeds that limited definition.
The entire point of my post was taking no position on whether the phenomenon was accurately understood or not, it was that renaming it with an oxymoron doesn't help.
Change your definition...!
I cited dictionaries and encylopedias - it's not 'my' definition, it's the usage of the language. That's what 'death' means, the irreversible cessation of activity. Even given the limitation of the phrase 'near death experience' - where, as has been pointed out, the phenomenon doesn't appear to be intrinsically linked to the proximity of death and appears in other situations - it's still a better phrase than one which is literally self-contradictory.
O.
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It is neither circular nor even an argument.
The entire point of my post was taking no position on whether the phenomenon was accurately understood or not, it was that renaming it with an oxymoron doesn't help.
I cited dictionaries and encylopedias - it's not 'my' definition, it's the usage of the language. That's what 'death' means, the irreversible cessation of activity. Even given the limitation of the phrase 'near death experience' - where, as has been pointed out, the phenomenon doesn't appear to be intrinsically linked to the proximity of death and appears in other situations - it's still a better phrase than one which is literally self-contradictory.
O.
And yet billions of people use the term death as meaning part of a process where the individual continues to exist. So in that usage it's not an oxymoron.
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Sriram,
That is a circular argument. You can't define something unknown in a certain way and then deny the phenomenon when it exceeds that limited definition.
No it isn’t. Death isn’t an unknown at all – it’s well defined and widely understood to mean the cessation of life. If people think they remember being dead they’re not remembering being dead – they’re remembering the experience of events that typically occur prior to being dead.
If a woman remembers the experience of sex she’s not also therefore remembering being pregnant, notwithstanding that sex generally occurs before pregnancy.
Can you see why not?
Change your definition...!
No, change yours. If you actually mean something other than death, don’t call it death.
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Hi everyone,
Here is an article about RED...Recalled Experience of Death. This is a new term for NDE's.....and probably more accurate.
https://bjgplife.com/recalled-experience-of-death/
***********
Recalled Experience of Death (RED) is the new terminology for an old phenomenon known as Near-Death Experience (NDE). Recently, researchers in the field of consciousness have decided to adopt RED due to its specificity. RED portrays more accurately the relationship between the non-functioning brain and consciousness than NDE, which has been extrapolated to report other human-altered states of consciousness, such as in meditation and psychedelic experiments.
There is no physiological explanation to RED’s six stages: (1) Perceived death and separation of the body (out-of-body experience – OBE); (2) Heading towards a destination (moving through a tunnel); (3) Reliving the recording of life that is educational (life review); (4) Being home again; (5) Returning back to life (entering the body); and (6) Reported effect after the experience, such loss of fear of death, seeking purpose and meaning in life.1
Despite the challenges to pin down the reality and meaning underlying RED, the studies on the subject make it impossible to deny the claims of awareness in relation to death.1
***********
Cheers.
Sriram
This just looks like a modification of Parnia's 'TED', Sriram. I referred to Parnia's use of this term in 2021:
https://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=18665.msg835436#msg835436
when it was used by Parnia in the context of a CA hospital environment. He emphasised that it was unclear as to whether recall could be affected by implicit memories. Here is the passage in full:
External awareness and internal cognitive activity may occur during CA. However, it is unclear whether explicit recall sufficiently describes the entirety of cognitive processes during CA, or whether implicit memories may also form. In some survivors, memories lead to greater life-meaning and a positive transformation, which contrasts with negative psychological outcomes such as PTSD. In this context, in place of NDE a more appropriate term might be transformative experience of death (TED). Further studies, are needed to delineate the role of implicit and explicit learning and how cognitive activity during CPR may relate to brain resuscitation quality and overall psychological outcomes.
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.140.suppl_2.387
And remember too that Parnia, in his Aware 2 study, accepted the possibility of confabulation in his findings. This is worth mentioning as your link pays particular attention to Parnia's single instance of recalled OBE(auditory) phenomena.
There are of course plenty of scientific explanations on what is occurring when a person experiences an NDE. Here, for instance, is just one:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/peace-of-mind-near-death/#:~:text=Although%20the%20specific%20causes%20of%20this%20part%20of,oxygen%20loss%20that%20are%20both%20common%20to%20dying
I think NDE is reasonably adequate even though such experiences can be undergone in a non-death situation. Certainly RED does nothing to elucidate the phenomenon because there is no evidence that such experiences occur when dead. It is I suppose a useful acronym for those who attach such experiences to certain beliefs.
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Indeed, which is why the term 'recalled experience of death' is deeply dishonest.
And deliberately so, in my opinion.
Near death experience would be reasonable if the phenomena, and their likely causes, were limited to experiences that are ... err ... near death. But they aren't - the phenomena are pretty well identical to other situations where there is extreme physiological stress, but is not near death - for example the effects of high g forces on fighter pilots.
You could argue that high G forces on fighter pilots can be a near death experience because they do sometimes black out, fail to recover and crash.
Of course, that would make the term nearly meaningless. I could argue I am having a near death experience now as, if I was about three metres further West, I'd be plummeting towards the ground from outside my third floor flat.
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I think you guys are just being adamant.....out of fear that your fondly held views about life and death might come under question.
Death is an unknown and nobody....nobody....knows what it really is, regardless of what any of you might say to the contrary!
Definitions of death are tentative and even medical experts are undecided on the point when death really occurs. It is not just Sam Parnia but many other doctors worldwide who are involved in the study of NDE's (RED'S).
RED's or NDE's are definitely a window into death and it is extremely foolish not to take them seriously.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL2Y43BHBnk (4 minutes)
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Death is an unknown and nobody....nobody....knows what it really is, regardless of what any of you might say to the contrary!
Definitions of death are tentative and even medical experts are undecided on the point when death really occurs. It is not just Sam Parnia but many other doctors worldwide who are involved in the study of NDE's (RED'S).
I disagree entirely - I think you are misunderstanding the differences between the definition of death and an understanding of the processes leading to death and (if you are that way inclined) what happens after death. But the definition is very clear.
Death is defined as the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death
So firstly the notion of recall after death, with recall requiring the use of functioning physiological/neurological processes is an oxymoron as, by definition, if someone is death those attributes have been irreversibly lost, so if they have come back the person is not and was not dead.
Further, with the advances in medical practice there is a lot of challenge to the point at which death actually occurs, specifically when those processes have irreversible ceased. And there is debate over situations where someone is not dead by the definition, but has lost key functions (while others remain) that are deemed to be essential to the person, hence the various notions of 'brain death'. But you will note that these terms caveat brain death; brain-stem death; clinical death. They need to be caveated because in none of those cases is the organism actually dead according to the definition that requires irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism.
RED's or NDE's are definitely a window into death and it is extremely foolish not to take them seriously.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL2Y43BHBnk (4 minutes)
No they don't - they may provide an interesting insight into the process of dying but they tell us nothing about being dead as in no case where someone is able to recount a NDE etc was that person dead, because, by definition they never demonstrated an irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism because those biological functions came back.
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I think you guys are just being adamant.....out of fear that your fondly held views about life and death might come under question.
Death is an unknown and nobody....nobody....knows what it really is, regardless of what any of you might say to the contrary!
Definitions of death are tentative and even medical experts are undecided on the point when death really occurs. It is not just Sam Parnia but many other doctors worldwide who are involved in the study of NDE's (RED'S).
RED's or NDE's are definitely a window into death and it is extremely foolish not to take them seriously.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL2Y43BHBnk (4 minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnFmNAi5YU8
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The point in question here is evidence that conscious awareness can exist when there is no measurable brain activity. In the vast majority of cases the cessation of brain activity is permanent, and there is no opportunity for the person to recount what happens when physical brain action ceases. The recounted experiences of people who were brain dead and came back to physical life have several things in common - a feeling of love and joy which words cannot describe, a reluctance to return to their material bodies, an awareness of being greeted by past relatives or friends and being filled with vast amounts of knowledge in a short time period.
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I disagree entirely - I think you are misunderstanding the differences between the definition of death and an understanding of the processes leading to death and (if you are that way inclined) what happens after death. But the definition is very clear.
Death is defined as the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death
So firstly the notion of recall after death, with recall requiring the use of functioning physiological/neurological processes is an oxymoron as, by definition, if someone is death those attributes have been irreversibly lost, so if they have come back the person is not and was not dead.
Further, with the advances in medical practice there is a lot of challenge to the point at which death actually occurs, specifically when those processes have irreversible ceased. And there is debate over situations where someone is not dead by the definition, but has lost key functions (while others remain) that are deemed to be essential to the person, hence the various notions of 'brain death'. But you will note that these terms caveat brain death; brain-stem death; clinical death. They need to be caveated because in none of those cases is the organism actually dead according to the definition that requires irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism.
No they don't - they may provide an interesting insight into the process of dying but they tell us nothing about being dead as in no case where someone is able to recount a NDE etc was that person dead, because, by definition they never demonstrated an irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism because those biological functions came back.
I think the 'irreversible' bit does lean to the circukarvin discussions of what being dead might be like if thete is such a thing as consciousness after death. Like many things definitions of death can be different in context.
As you note medical advances have meant that we are have influenced the point when that 'irreversibleness' occurs. This means there are people who would once have been declared dead who we now 'reverse' the process for. Given that thise people who we have done that for have experience of a time that previously we would have said they were dead, then in one view it is an after death experience.
Note I'm not making a medical pount here, rather looking at how we look at describing this in a wider context.
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The point in question here is evidence that conscious awareness can exist when there is no measurable brain activity. In the vast majority of cases the cessation of brain activity is permanent, and there is no opportunity for the person to recount what happens when physical brain action ceases. The recounted experiences of people who were brain dead and came back to physical life have several things in common - a feeling of love and joy which words cannot describe, a reluctance to return to their material bodies, an awareness of being greeted by past relatives or friends and being filled with vast amounts of knowledge in a short time period.
Not universally in common, in general imagery is cukturally influenced, and the experiences also have comminality with some drug taking. Is death just a good trip? Or a bad one in some cases?
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The point in question here is evidence that conscious awareness can exist when there is no measurable brain activity.
We understand that, but the same sensations and experiences are reported in other situations of extreme neural stress, which suggests that it's not the 'proximity to death' part that's directly relevant. It also undermines the hypothesis derived from the 'near death' element that this is evidence for 'souls' or some other non-neurological element of the human psyche.
O.
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AB.
The point in question here is evidence that conscious awareness can exist when there is no measurable brain activity.
No it isn’t. “Measurable” activity is only an indicator of the contemporaneous ability to measure such things, not necessarily of actual death. Try Romeo and Juliet to see what happens when the two are confused.
In the vast majority of cases the cessation of brain activity is permanent, and there is no opportunity for the person to recount what happens when physical brain action ceases.
So far as we know, that’s true in all cases in which brain activity has actually ceased (rather than just become undetectable with the available methods and tools).
The recounted experiences of people who were brain dead and came back to physical life have several things in common - a feeling of love and joy which words cannot describe, a reluctance to return to their material bodies, an awareness of being greeted by past relatives or friends and being filled with vast amounts of knowledge in a short time period.
Yes, which is why for example some indulge in asphyxiophilia – apparently the euphoria etc thereby experienced is quite the high.
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As you note medical advances have meant that we are have influenced the point when that 'irreversibleness' occurs. This means there are people who would once have been declared dead who we now 'reverse' the process for. Given that thise people who we have done that for have experience of a time that previously we would have said they were dead, then in one view it is an after death experience.
Not sure I agree - the key point about the definition of death is its irreversibility. Therefore as medical interventions advance then the point at which death occurs (i.e. it becomes irreversible) also shifts. So although someone today may be able to be resuscitated through intervention when they wouldn't have been 200 years ago doesn't mean that person is 'dead' - they aren't as there is clearly reversibility. And, by definition, if someone is able to provide a view on what they experienced prior to resuscitation (and restoration of key physiological/neurological functions) then they weren't 'dead' during that phase as there was no irreversible cessation of those processes.
So these experiences cannot be described as 'after death' as definitionally there was no death - they could be classed as near death in a situation where death was actually averted, but not after death.
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Not sure I agree - the key point about the definition of death is its irreversibility. Therefore as medical interventions advance then the point at which death occurs (i.e. it becomes irreversible) also shifts. So although someone today may be able to be resuscitated through intervention when they wouldn't have been 200 years ago doesn't mean that person is 'dead' - they aren't as there is clearly reversibility. And, by definition, if someone is able to provide a view on what they experienced prior to resuscitation (and restoration of key physiological/neurological functions) then they weren't 'dead' during that phase as there was no irreversible cessation of those processes.
So these experiences cannot be described as 'after death' as definitionally there was no death - they could be classed as near death in a situation where death was actually averted, but not after death.
That's just restating the circular approach, and continuing to look at it from a specific medical approach. If there is such a thing as consciousness extending beyond what specific line we can draw at any time as the 'irreversible' bit, then using the term in the way you do makes discussion impossible. Given that billions believe that consciousness does extend beyond death then it seems difficult to have a discussion about why one thinks they are wrong by pointing to a definition that they don't accept.
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Not universally in common, in general imagery is cukturally influenced, and the experiences also have comminality with some drug taking. Is death just a good trip? Or a bad one in some cases?
It only means that Consciousness can detach itself from the body under different circumstances, not necessarily only at death. However, during death it becomes permanent.
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That's just restating the circular approach, and continuing to look at it from a specific medical approach.
I don't think it is a circular approach, merely using the definition of death. And surely any meaningful definition of death relates to the end of life, which is in itself defined in terms of ongoing biological processes.
If there is such a thing as consciousness extending beyond what specific line we can draw at any time as the 'irreversible' bit, then using the term in the way you do makes discussion impossible. Given that billions believe that consciousness does extend beyond death then it seems difficult to have a discussion about why one thinks they are wrong by pointing to a definition that they don't accept.
But isn't that the issue - that there are those that consider that consciousness is able to continue following the irreversible cessation of physiological/neurological processes (i.e. death), thereby decoupling consciousness from biology. That would certainly appear to be the view of many religious people, not least the likes of Sriram and AB on these boards. Now I don't think there is any evidence for this whatsoever, but that is surely their argument.
Now following on from this, were someone's consciousness to be able to communicate to others despite an irreversible cessation of biological processes then this would be 'after death' - some people think this can happen - I've seen no credible evidence for this. However if someone is resuscitated and those biological processes have not irreversibly ceased then there has been no death and whatever they may tell you cannot be an experience of death, because they were never dead.
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It only means that Consciousness can detach itself from the body under different circumstances, not necessarily only at death. However, during death it becomes permanent.
But that's not what you believe if you are arguing for RED, since you are arguing the person is remembering sonething that you think is death?
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I don't think it is a circular approach, merely using the definition of death. And surely any meaningful definition of death relates to the end of life, which is in itself defined in terms of ongoing biological processes.
But isn't that the issue - that there are those that consider that consciousness is able to continue following the irreversible cessation of physiological/neurological processes (i.e. death), thereby decoupling consciousness from biology. That would certainly appear to be the view of many religious people, not least the likes of Sriram and AB on these boards. Now I don't think there is any evidence for this whatsoever, but that is surely their argument.
Now following on from this, were someone's consciousness to be able to communicate to others despite an irreversible cessation of biological processes then this would be 'after death' - some people think this can happen - I've seen no credible evidence for this. However if someone is resuscitated and those biological processes have not irreversibly ceased then there has been no death and whatever they may tell you cannot be an experience of death, because they were never dead.
Surely you can see the circularity in your last sentence.
As to Alan and Sriram you seem to have just repeated my point, and then ignored what it means. We are having the discussion with them, so you just using your circular definition gets us nowhere.
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But that's not what you believe if you are arguing for RED, since you are arguing the person is remembering sonething that you think is death?
What I am saying is that Consciousness can detach itself under different circumstances and people can remember that also. When people remember consciousness leaving the body during 'death' they can also remember. It is just an extreme situation.
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Surely you can see the circularity in your last sentence.
There is a difference between an argument which is circular and a suggestion which is oxymoronic due to the definition of some key element. The point I am making is one of an oxymoronic kind, not a circular one - by definition you cannot talk to someone (who is using key biological processes to engage in that conversation) about their experiences of being dead, because if they possess those processes they aren't dead and weren't dead. It is oxymoronic, not circular.
As to Alan and Sriram you seem to have just repeated my point, and then ignored what it means. We are having the discussion with them, so you just using your circular definition gets us nowhere.
But using standard/orthodox definitions is important as otherwise you can simply redefine something for your own agenda. That's what those who use the term recall experience of death are doing and the reason they do this is to subtly (or not so subtly) lead others into a world where they accept there is 'something after death' to be recalled. Now, of course, there might be (there is no credible evidence I've seen for this) but if there were then that recall would need to be conveyed to us via mechanisms which do not involve those key biological processes which, definitionally, need to have irreversibly ceased for that person to have been dead.
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There is a difference between an argument which is circular and a suggestion which is oxymoronic due to the definition of some key element. The point I am making is one of an oxymoronic kind, not a circular one - by definition you cannot talk to someone (who is using key biological processes to engage in that conversation) about their experiences of being dead, because if they possess those processes they aren't dead and weren't dead. It is oxymoronic, not circular.
But using standard/orthodox definitions is important as otherwise you can simply redefine something for your own agenda. That's what those who use the term recall experience of death are doing and the reason they do this is to subtly (or not so subtly) lead others into a world where they accept there is 'something after death' to be recalled. Now, of course, there might be (there is no credible evidence I've seen for this) but if there were then that recall would need to be conveyed to us via mechanisms which do not involve those key biological processes which, definitionally, need to have irreversibly ceased for that person to have been dead.
You're locked in a position of ignoring context, and there is no difference between oxymoronic and circular in the context you are using.
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... and there is no difference between oxymoronic and circular in the context you are using.
Yes there is.
A circular argument is where you claim that A is true because B is true; B is true because A is true. That isn't the same as saying the definition of x precludes y. So saying that definitionally a circle cannot be a triangle isn't a circular argument at all, but one that is based on definitions and therefore to say that a triangle can be a circle is oxymoronic.
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Yes there is.
A circular argument is where you claim that A is true because B is true; B is true because A is true. That isn't the same as saying the definition of x precludes y. So saying that definitionally a circle cannot be a triangle isn't a circular argument at all, but one that is based on definitions and therefore to say that a triangle can be a circle is oxymoronic.
Which is fine if you are saying we are talking about what we are referring to as death in the context of a methodological naturalist approach such as medicine but since you aren't in this discussion, it becomes circular. That wad why I talked about context.
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You're locked in a position of ignoring context,
Nope - definitions aren't something that you can just shift for your own purpose 'cos of context'.
You cannot argue that I'm ignoring 'context' if I refuse to accept that definitionally a triangle can have 6 sides.
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Nope - definitions aren't something that you can just shift for your own purpose 'cos of context'.
You cannot argue that I'm ignoring 'context' if I refuse to accept that definitionally that a triangle can have 6 sides.
It's not about shifting definition, it's about using a definition out of context.
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It's not about shifting definition, it's about using a definition out of context.
In what way is using the standard definition of death (used in medical and scientific research contexts amongst others) out of context within a discussion on the 'Science & Technology' section of this MB when discussing research around so-called near death (or recalled experience of death) experiences.
You might as well argue that using the standard definition of a triangle is out of context in a discussion of trigonometry.
Think you might want to slope off and give your head a tweak ;)
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In what way is using the standard definition of death (used in medical and scientific research contexts amongst others) out of context within a discussion on the 'Science & Technology' section of this MB when discussing research around so-called near death (or recalled experience of death) experiences.
You might as well argue that using the standard definition of a triangle is out of context in a discussion of trigonometry.
Think you might want to slope off and give your head a tweak ;)
Because as already pointed out in discussion with Alan amd Sriram they aren't using that definition. That they too are using a definition out of context as Sriram does here just means you are talking past each other.
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The point in question here is evidence that conscious awareness can exist when there is no measurable brain activity.
But we don't know this, do we.
In the circumstances you suggest a person had normal physiological/neurological activity, suffered catastrophic (but not irreversible) physiological/neurological activity, which was then restored through medical intervention. That once they have had those activities restored they report certain phenomena tells us nothing about when during those series of processes those experiences/memories happened. They may be associated with the shutting down stage of the process or the 'rebooting' stage of the process, rather than the stage where there is no measurable brain activity.
And also measurable is a key word here - just because something isn't measurable doesn't mean there is nothing, merely that it is below the threshold that we can (currently) measure.
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Because as already pointed out in discussion with Alan amd Sriram they aren't using that definition. That they too are using a definition out of context as Sriram does here just means you are talking past each other.
Aren't they - although they seem to talk in a different language, my understanding is that they are talking about then possibility that consciousness can exist once physiological/neurological processes have ceased. Which is completely in line with the discussion/definition. 'Life after death' so to speak.
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Aren't they - although they seem to talk in a different language, my understanding is that they are talking about then possibility that consciousness can exist once physiological/neurological processes have ceased. Which is completely in line with the discussion/definition. 'Life after death' so to speak.
Aren't they what?
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Aren't they what?
Talking about life after death - which I paraphrase as being the continuation of some kind of consciousness which isn't linked to the physiological/neurological processes of life (which irreversibly cease at death).
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Perhaps the word 'life' needs to be defined. As a noun it seems to suggest that there is an entity which exists in its own right e.g. in the saying attributed to Jesus - 'I am the Way the Truth and the Life'. When one tries to examine it objectively, it appears to be more a process e.g. living forms rather than life forms.
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Talking about life after death - which I paraphrase as being the continuation of some kind of consciousness which isn't linked to the physiological/neurological processes of life (which irreversibly cease at death).
They are talking about thar but they are also talking about the experiences being of death so they aren't looking at death in that sense as being irreversible. So they obviously aren't working with the same definition. Alan, apart from anything else, believes in resurrection.
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They are talking about thar but they are also talking about the experiences being of death so they aren't looking at death in that sense as being irreversible. So they obviously aren't working with the same definition. Alan, apart from anything else, believes in resurrection.
I don't think they are considering that as somehow just a restarting of physiological/neurological processes though, are they.
But this is the Science & Technology MB so it is perfectly reasonable to expect people to use the standard scientific definition of death when engaging in conversations on Science & Technology.
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Perhaps the word 'life' needs to be defined. As a noun it seems to suggest that there is an entity which exists in its own right e.g. in the saying attributed to Jesus - 'I am the Way the Truth and the Life'. When one tries to examine it objectively, it appears to be more a process e.g. living forms rather than life forms.
That's surely more about a generalised concept. Both those arguing that there are such a thing as 'REDs' and against ard talking about individual entities. Note in the case of those arguing for that applies more clearly to Alan than to Sriram.
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I don't think they are considering that as somehow just a restarting of physiological/neurological processes though, are they.
But this is the Science & Technology MB so it is perfectly reasonable to expect people to use the standard scientific definition of death when engaging in conversations on Science & Technology.
I've already said I think their usage of their definition is problematic. I'm not sure whether they think of it as a restarting of physiological/neurological processes makes much difference, though I'm not sure how you could think of resurrection without that. They do think the individual has experienced 'death' and that they have not remained 'dead' so they can't logically be thinking of it as irreversible.
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A long time ago I owned a shop and an old chap called Arthur used to come in daily for his cans of Guinness.
We got on well and talked about all sorts of things.
One of these things was his health. He had a heart problem and he told me that he had died three times in the hospital and been brought back.
He also told me and I'll try and quote him word for word:
"All this afterlife stuff is bollocks, there was no white light, no tunnel, on-one calling me. It's all bollocks. I was dead and there was nothing"
Bollocks was one of his favourite words.
I know it is anecdotal, as such feel free to dismiss it, as I do the other anecdotes I've read.
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A long time ago I owned a shop and an old chap called Arthur used to come in daily for his cans of Guinness.
We got on well and talked about all sorts of things.
One of these things was his health. He had a heart problem and he told me that he had died three times in the hospital and been brought back.
He also told me and I'll try and quote him word for word:
"All this afterlife stuff is bollocks, there was no white light, no tunnel, on-one calling me. It's all bollocks. I was dead and there was nothing"
Bollocks was one of his favourite words.
I know it is anecdotal, as such feel free to dismiss it, as I do the other anecdotes I've read.
I like the sound of Arthur
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A long time ago I owned a shop and an old chap called Arthur used to come in daily for his cans of Guinness.
We got on well and talked about all sorts of things.
One of these things was his health. He had a heart problem and he told me that he had died three times in the hospital and been brought back.
He also told me and I'll try and quote him word for word:
"All this afterlife stuff is bollocks, there was no white light, no tunnel, on-one calling me. It's all bollocks. I was dead and there was nothing"
Bollocks was one of his favourite words.
I know it is anecdotal, as such feel free to dismiss it, as I do the other anecdotes I've read.
Once upon a time doctors would use the term 'clinically dead' - what this actually meant was that the cessation of the heart beating and breathing. Now years ago that would have been the same as actual death, because we had no way to start the heart beating again and start breathing again. But that isn't actually death at all, as certainly nowadays in many cases people 'clinically dead' can be readily resuscitated.
So, your chap never died, let alone three times, although he may have been told that. He actually had three episodes where there was a temporary and reversible cessation of blood circulation and breathing.
He didn't experience anything during those hugely physiologically traumatic episodes - others apparently do, but the research clearly points to a series of measurable alterations in physiology and neurophysiology associated with that physiological stress. Others experience similar effects in situations which are similarly physiologically stressing but not associated with death.
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I like the sound of Arthur
I suspect he may be dead now - not just clinically dead, but actually dead.
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As I have said earlier, we can't define something on the basis of our limited understanding and then expect reality to match that definition. Definitions of such unknown phenomena have to necessarily be tentative.
Death is the great unknown. We can't be casual about our knowledge of it.
It is like we are sitting inside a robot and every once in a while (for whatever reason) we might peep out of the robot to see the outside world directly. These are the OBE's. Finally we close down the robot and exit permanently. This is death.
Death is not just about the exiting of the soul or consciousness. It is also about the closing down of the power supply. Like switching off the electricity. As long as the electricity is on...the consciousness can come back. Once the power supply is off, it is permanent.
In Hinduism the idea of death is about the Prana (life force... like electricity) exiting the body/mind. It is in fact defined as the prana leaving the body/mind. Once this happens, the atma (soul) exits permanently.
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I suspect he may be dead now - not just clinically dead, but actually dead.
He was a lovely chap. He hated the Tories way back then.
And yes he is no more.
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"The question of whether there is life after death is one that has been debated throughout human history, and it touches on both scientific and philosophical beliefs.
Scientifically, there is no conclusive evidence that life continues after death. The biological perspective defines death as the end of the physical functions of the body, and from this viewpoint, there is no continuation of life as we know it once these functions cease1.
However, many people believe in some form of afterlife, often based on religious or spiritual beliefs. Near-death experiences (NDEs) have been reported by some individuals, which they interpret as evidence of an afterlife2. These experiences and their interpretations vary widely, and while they are compelling to those who have them, they do not constitute scientific proof of life after death.
Philosophically, the concept of an afterlife is a matter of personal belief. Some philosophical arguments suggest that consciousness could continue in some form after physical death, but these ideas are not empirically verifiable.
Ultimately, the existence of an afterlife remains a matter of faith or personal conviction rather than scientific fact."
Reply to a question put to A.I.
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Sriram,
As I have said earlier, we can't define something on the basis of our limited understanding and then expect reality to match that definition. Definitions of such unknown phenomena have to necessarily be tentative.
But we can define it, and adding contrary speculations to the definition doesn’t invalidate the definition we have. Death is defined as the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. People who think they experience death temporarily and then return to talk about it weren't dead. They have experienced something other than death no doubt, but not death. You can no more expand the meaning of death to suit your personal beliefs than I can expand the meaning of rainbows to include “those things that leprechauns put there to store their pots of gold” to suit my beliefs.
Death is the great unknown. We can't be casual about our knowledge of it.
No it isn’t.
It is like we are sitting inside a robot and every once in a while (for whatever reason) we might peep out of the robot to see the outside world directly. These are the OBE's
Like I occasionally observe leprechauns you mean? If you want to reify your faith claims into facts, you have no basis then deny me the same opportunity about my faith claims.
Finally we close down the robot and exit permanently. This is death.
If you’re trying to say here something like, “there are deep comas that some recover from to discuss but others don’t and then actually die” then I agree.
Death is not just about the exiting of the soul or consciousness. It is also about the closing down of the power supply. Like switching off the electricity. As long as the electricity is on...the consciousness can come back. Once the power supply is off, it is permanent.
What “power supply” would that be?
In Hinduism the idea of death is about the Prana (life force... like electricity) exiting the body/mind. It is in fact defined as the prana leaving the body/mind. Once this happens, the atma (soul) exits permanently.
And in aboriginal beliefs it’s thought that the entire world was made by their ancestors at the very beginning of time, called the Dreamtime. Lots of ancient folklore and myth are available, but if you want to elevate any of them to fact you have to find a method of verification. Until you can do that, your Hindu beliefs and the Aborigine's beliefs are epistemically equivalent.
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https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/near-death-experiences-during-cpr-impetus-better-care-2024a10002m7?form=fpf
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"Many people label recalled experiences of death as 'near-death' experiences, but they're not," Parnia said. "Medically speaking, being near to death means your heart is about to stop. But the whole point is that these people are not near death. They actually died and came back from it."
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https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/near-death-experiences-during-cpr-impetus-better-care-2024a10002m7?form=fpf
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"Many people label recalled experiences of death as 'near-death' experiences, but they're not," Parnia said. "Medically speaking, being near to death means your heart is about to stop. But the whole point is that these people are not near death. They actually died and came back from it."
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This probably references the modern understanding that death is a process. Traditionally we viewed someone with no pulse as dead; now we know that is rather simplistic given we can often resuscitate people following coronary heart failure if we act quickly enough. These people were dead in a sense, but not fully dead, still having some neurological function despite heart failure.
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It's not about shifting definition, it's about using a definition out of context.
Here is the problem. If you don't use PD's definition of death, then the phenomenon of NDE's becomes uninteresting. I don't think anybody would dispute the possibility of having experiences after the heart stops but before the brain shuts down permanently.
Don't forget that Sriram's real conjecture is that people have souls independent of their physical bodies and that they can exist and continue to have experiences after the physical body has died. It's only remarkable if death is defined as irreversible cessation of biological function.
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Sriram,
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/near-death-experiences-during-cpr-impetus-better-care-2024a10002m7?form=fpf
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"Many people label recalled experiences of death as 'near-death' experiences, but they're not," Parnia said. "Medically speaking, being near to death means your heart is about to stop. But the whole point is that these people are not near death. They actually died and came back from it."
I’m no medic, but this is plainly wrong – or at least its plainly wrong unless you define “death” in the idiosyncratic way that he does. Even the most cursory reading of the literature will tell you that brain function typically continues for up to ten minutes after circulatory failure, and there are documented cases of recovery after much longer periods of circulatory failure than that – here for example is the Anna Bågenholm case in which she experienced circulatory arrest after 40 minutes in the water but nonetheless recovered many hours later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_B%C3%A5genholm
As Jeremy notes though, NDEs aren’t especially interesting for someone looking to confirm their a priori faith beliefs about a supposed afterlife (ie you) because for this purpose the only rational response is “so what?”. The subject may have been “dead” only in the Parnia sense, but not in a way that makes biological brain activity impossible.
Here’s Wiki on confirmation bias too by the way, which appears to have you firmly in its grip:
“Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values.[1] People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Confirmation bias is insuperable for most people, but they can manage it, for example, by education and training in critical thinking skills.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
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https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/near-death-experiences-during-cpr-impetus-better-care-2024a10002m7?form=fpf
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"Many people label recalled experiences of death as 'near-death' experiences, but they're not," Parnia said. "Medically speaking, being near to death means your heart is about to stop. But the whole point is that these people are not near death. They actually died and came back from it."
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Parnia also accepted that there is evidence that the cells in the body (including the brain) can remain viable for several hours after being starved of oxygen.
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https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/near-death-experiences-during-cpr-impetus-better-care-2024a10002m7?form=fpf
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"Many people label recalled experiences of death as 'near-death' experiences, but they're not," Parnia said. "Medically speaking, being near to death means your heart is about to stop. But the whole point is that these people are not near death. They actually died and came back from it."
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I'm sorry but he is talking non-sense. Someone who has suffered a cardiac arrest isn't dead, until or unless there is an irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. Parnia is being at best disingenuous in the extreme and at worst deeply dishonest in claiming that someone merely suffering a cardiac arrest is dead - they aren't.
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It is quite clear therefore that no one knows what death really is. It is a process and no one is clear precisely where and at what point it takes a definitive turn towards permanence and irreversibility.
We should perhaps stop trying to define death as purely a biological process and try defining it in terms of consciousness.
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It is quite clear therefore that no one knows what death really is. It is a process and no one is clear precisely where and at what point it takes a definitive turn towards permanence and irreversibility.
We should perhaps stop trying to define death as purely a biological process and try defining it in terms of consciousness.
Consciousness is a biological function, one of many
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It is quite clear therefore that no one knows what death really is. It is a process and no one is clear precisely where and at what point it takes a definitive turn towards permanence and irreversibility.
We should perhaps stop trying to define death as purely a biological process and try defining it in terms of consciousness.
A person can lose consciousness quite easily in situations entirely unrelated to death, so, although consciousness is one element, there are, I suggest, other equally or more important factors to consider when describing the death process.
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Sriram,
It is quite clear therefore that no one knows what death really is. It is a process and no one is clear precisely where and at what point it takes a definitive turn towards permanence and irreversibility.
We should perhaps stop trying to define death as purely a biological process and try defining it in terms of consciousness.
Here's another set of corrections for you to ignore.
1. Yes we do know what death “really is” – it’s the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. When exactly these functions become irreversible is delineated by our ability to define and detect these phenomena but the principle at least is broadly agreed.
2. No, death isn’t a process. Dying is a process, but death itself isn’t.
3. Death is definable as “as purely a biological process” as consciousness is a biological process too. If you want to insert the notion of life/death involving a non-biological component then you have all your work ahead of you first to define and then to demonstrate the existence of such a thing.
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Consciousness is a biological function, one of many
That is just an assertion. You don't actually know that for a fact....!
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Sriram,
That is just an assertion. You don't actually know that for a fact....!
Yes he does.
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That is just an assertion. You don't actually know that for a fact....!
Given the range and extent of demonstrable correlations between not just consciousness and neural activity, but particular states of consciousness and particular patterns of neural activity in particular regions of the brain, it would take wilful ignorance to assert that consciousness isn't, at least in part, a biological activity.
There remains the possibility that it is not JUST a biological activity, but there seems no immediate reason to presume that it's anything more than biological activity.
It is, though, beyond any reasonable doubt, a biological activity.
O.
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It is quite clear therefore that no one knows what death really is.
Speak for yourself. What is wrong with PD's definition?
It is a process and no one is clear precisely where and at what point it takes a definitive turn towards permanence and irreversibility.
If you don't know the point at which death occurs, how can you possibly say that NDE's occur while the patient is dead?
We should perhaps stop trying to define death as purely a biological process and try defining it in terms of consciousness.
That doesn't help you. If death is permanent loss of consciousness, then people who have experienced NDE's are definitely not dead.
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That is just an assertion. You don't actually know that for a fact....!
If you want to assert that consciousness isn't a biological process then be my guest, provide some evidence. As far as I can see there is a huge body of evidence from neuroscience and neuropsychology linking consciousness to brain function. On the other hand there appears to be zero credible evidence to suggest that consciousness can exist outside of neurophysiological processes.
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A very interesting video on the subject. I think I have posted it before....but worth repeating...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDXbXhRlEn0&t=60s
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Sriram,
A very interesting video on the subject. I think I have posted it before....but worth repeating...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDXbXhRlEn0&t=60s
1. Notice the way he and his interviewer repeatedly elide near death experiences and actual death. Why do you think this is interesting?
2. Why do you continue to ignore the various corrections you're given here?
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If you want to assert that consciousness isn't a biological process then be my guest, provide some evidence. As far as I can see there is a huge body of evidence from neuroscience and neuropsychology linking consciousness to brain function. On the other hand there appears to be zero credible evidence to suggest that consciousness can exist outside of neurophysiological processes.
Consciousness existing independent of the brain is a definite possibility and there is enough evidence in the form of recalled experiences of death. There are also other reasons to believe that besides RED's.
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/mind-and-brain/
You have no definitive proof that consciousness is only brain generated.
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Consciousness existing independent of the brain is a definite possibility and there is enough evidence in the form of recalled experiences of death. There are also other reasons to believe that besides RED's.
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/mind-and-brain/
You have no definitive proof that consciousness is only brain generated.
We have no 'definitive proof' that consciousness is not only brain generated. It is the principle of parsimony, it is only living things that exhibit signs of being conscious therefore until we find evidence to the contrary we conclude that consciousness is a biological process. Why would a bus stop be conscious ? It has no need of being conscious, and therefore no survival value to it.
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Consciousness existing independent of the brain is a definite possibility
Absent of any evidence or investigation, arguably yes.
... and there is enough evidence in the form of recalled experiences of death.
As has been repeatedly explained, there is no 'recalled experience of death' - no-one who has died has come back to talk about it, because if they've come back they haven't died. There are people who have undergone significant biological trauma, in various ways, and there are patterns to their recounts of their experiences, yes: it's not clear, however, if these are indicative of some sort of clarity about notional non-corporeal elements to consciousness, or indicative of common patterns of neural activity in stressful conditions. The existence of accounts of similar experiences in different circumstances speaks against the 'proximity to non-corporeal consciousness' interpretation, but it's not absolutely definitive.
There are also other reasons to believe that besides RED's.
Here we go...
The brain did not create itself.
Why would that be a requirement? My body didn't create itself (well, actually, the body I have now was self-created, but the body I was born with was created by someone else... sort of...), but it's definitely my body, and you don't seem to be suggesting that there's a 'ghost' part out there somewhere which is necessary for my body to exist.
The brain does not function independently of the total human anatomy and physiology.
And given the evidence available, neither does my consciousness - that's a point in favour of the corporeal source of consciousness argument, not against it. The crux of the failure of this argument, so far as I can see, is in this: "...there has to be an agency independent of the system that decides its role in the system."
Why? Why does my consciousness have to come from somewhere else? If I turn on a light-bulb, the light doesn't come from somewhere else and become manifested by the bulb, it originates in the bulb. It's caused by other phenomena (electricity, energy changes in electrons etc.), but the light comes from the bulb. It's a result of prior conditions, but it emerges from that entirely physical structure - why is the pattern of behaviour that we identify as 'consciousness' different from that?
Our emotions are not generated by the brain.
As you already pointed out, our brains don't exist in isolation; that they are influence by our bodies is already accepted - that in no way undermines the notion of consciousness, it informs it. If consciousness were independent of the brain, or partially independent of the brain, we'd expect that emotional impact to be lessened, presumably.
We are not born with a complete and fully developed brain.
In the absence of any evident feedback mechanism, if our consciousness is informed from outside of the body, how would experience change it? Our consciousness would simply be? You're presumably considering that the 'soul' is, and the changes in our brain structure as a result of experience influence how that 'soul' is interpreted or manifested? That makes the soul less of an element of our consciousness and more some kind of power-source - an animating power, but not in any meaningful way a part of consciousnesss.
Even in day to day experience we can see that when we practice something our skills in those areas grow and develop... These instances show that the brain does not decide our abilities and skills, rather, our experiences and training decide how the brain should be internally connected and developed.
I can't lift 150 kg. I train, I build muscle, and now I can lift 150kg. Your theory is that this is because I have a ghost, and not because I've changed my physique? The brain is an organ, and as it is used it changes to accommodate that use; I learn things, and those things are now available to my consciousness because I learnt them. That displays EXACTLY that our brain decides our abilities - it also shows that if we want to change those abilities we have to change our brain, we have to train, we have to learn. Nothing in that precludes a corporeal source of consciousness - if there were non-corporeal source or influence on consciousness we'd expect to see instances of changes in consciousness without accompanying changes in brain activity. I'm curious to see if you have any evidence of that?
Usually, specific areas of the brain have specific fixed functions, such as language skills, abstract thinking, mathematics and so on. This remains largely true under normal circumstances.
However, in recent times there have been some notable exceptions. Some people who have been involved in major accidents or had severe brain infections or tumors, have had significant parts of their brain removed.
If you can show examples of people manifesting these traits WITHOUT clear evidence of parts of the brain adapting to host them, that will be evidence for your non-corporeal consciousness theory - if every example you cite is this brain works differently but it's still a brain, you're reinforcing the brain being the seat of consciousness, not undermining it.
The process through which our consciousness actually experiences things is still not understood by neuroscientists. The issue of qualia and consciousness is still unresolved among neuroscientists and psychologists
Current science doesn't have a full explanation, therefore magic. Not even wrong.
Genetic memory has been proved in many cases where trans generational memory transfers have been identified. Epigenetic mechanisms have been found through which memories of experiences can be passed on through genes from one generation to the next.
What's the next step down from not even wrong? Not even wronger? Notter even wrong? Firstly, and most importantly, that's a misuse of 'epigenetic' that borders on criminal. 'Genetic memory' has in no way been proven - it's been alleged in a few cases, and thoroughly debunked in the majority of those. People 'remembering' past lives is at best fringe science, most of the time not even that, and is so far away from proven it's likely to be Trump's next presidential immunity claim - I have presidential immunity from before I was president because I remember one of my ancestors being president.
While epigenetic effects are a demonstrable phenomenon, and whilst they are considered to include elements that affect brain function, and therefore character traits, there is absolutely no credible evidence that they pass on 'memories' - I think you've watched 'Assassin's Creed' and mistakenly thought it was a documentary.
It was earlier thought that people who go into coma and remain in a vegetative state for several months and years (even decades), are in a state of unconsciousness and oblivion, because most of their brain functions had ceased.
However, it has now been found with very sophisticated brain scan techniques that such people are actually conscious and are even able to communicate indirectly.
This just undermines your claim that 'near death' experiences have to be the result of some external 'soul' which is predicated on the idea that brain function ceases - turns out it can diminish...
In rare cases, people have been born with virtually no brain at all but have been known to live productively almost like normal people. In such cases, the fact that the person virtually had no brain, was not even known till a CT scan was taken for other reasons, many years later.
Whether you think the brain produces consciousness or the brain conducts consciousness from somewhere else, this (admitttedly spectacularly intriguing) fact doesn't speak for or against either theory - whether it's half a 'computer' or half an 'antenna' doesn't speak to one idea or the other.
Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) as it is now called, is a very common phenomenon in some countries. Normally called ‘split personality’….this disorder involves a person having two or more personalities in the same body with every personality being very different from the other.
A few minor points before we address the argument: firstly, DID is not 'very common' anywhere; secondly, not all the personalitie in DID are very distinct, there is often a high degree of commonality between them, and the truly divergent characters are either exceedingly rare, or exist as the end-points of a spectrum of intermediate personalities. ("The average number of different personalities noted in such patients is said to be 16." - I'd be very interested to see where you got this figure from. Wikipedia's article on DID, for instance, cites that over half of cases present with fewer than 10 personalities, with the majority having fewer than 100).
The majority of DID cases are identified in mid- to late-childhood, with identification of symptoms typically having started between the ages of 5 and 10, which suggests this is in some way developmental - which implies a physical source given the lack of any apparent feedback mechanism to a non-corporeal consciousness element.
For example, it was found in a boy that during the presence of one particular alter personality, he developed an allergy to orange juice which did not happen when the other personalities were present. In some cases, skin rashes would appear spontaneously whenever one particular alter personality was dominant but would disappear automatically when the other alter personalities were dominant.
You cited, earlier, that the brain and the body are intrinsically interconnected, and yet it seems a surprise to you that as much as 'bodily' activity can affect 'brain output' is obvious, 'brain activity' can affect 'body output' is a miraculous? That some parts of our autonomous systems are controlled and/or influence by brain activity shouldn't really be a stretch: when we get scared we suddenly produce large quantities of adrenaline, but it's not our kidneys that are feeling scared.
Further, though, what's the part of DID that you think promotes a non-corporeal explanation for consciousness? Are you suggesting some people have multiple souls attached to them? Why would that only start after birth, after personality has started to develop, what are these wandering souls doing for the rest of the time? If that's not the explanation, why do multiple non-corporeal personalities make more sense than multiple brain-resident personalities when we can see the brain activity changes? Why do the differences in bodily behaviour (like your allergy example) mean that a non-corporeal source is more likely, given that it still has to change the brain activity on the way through - at best it does nothing to add to your claim.
Researchers have found that psychosis (madness) can be shared by two or more people. This is called Folie a deux (French for ‘madness shared by two’). The psychosis can be shared by family members or even other people, called folie en famille and folie à plusieurs respectively.
Given that we've already established, above, that we can learn and change and that's in no way a validation of your claims, this is just a specific iteration of that failed general argument.
Which then brings us back to the NDE argument, which is fairly thoroughly countered in numerous different ways through this thread.
You have no definitive proof that consciousness is only brain generated.
True. However, we have strong evidence that conciousness and brain activity are at least heavily intertwined, and we have models of consciousness which work and don't require additional elements.
You have no strong evidence for any non-corporeal element of consciousness, no strong evidence for any brain activity which is not a result of other physical phenomena and a raft of misunderstanding, non-sequitur's, irrelevancies and pleas to tradition.
Science is rarely definitive, but I don't see mainstream science out looking for 'souls' that it can't find in the way that it was out looking for Higgs' Boson - it might, in the future, if we get surprised by current research finding something inexplicable, but that's not currently looking likely.
O.
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You have no definitive proof that consciousness is only brain generated.
Not this crap again.
It's amazing how many religious people are prepared to take the jump from "you can't absolutely rule out X" to "X MuSt Be TrUe" and hope we don't notice.
Actually, it's not amazing. It's the typical type of dishonest tactic used by people with no evidence to back up their arguments so why wouldn't you use it.
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Not this crap again.
It's amazing how many religious people are prepared to take the jump from "you can't absolutely rule out X" to "X MuSt Be TrUe" and hope we don't notice.
Actually, it's not amazing. It's the typical type of dishonest tactic used by people with no evidence to back up their arguments so why wouldn't you use it.
Agreed - if someone wants to posit an idea the onus is on them to provide the evidence in support of that idea. The absence of evidence that something isn't the case does not provide evidence that it is.
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Consciousness existing independent of the brain is a definite possibility and there is enough evidence in the form of recalled experiences of death. There are also other reasons to believe that besides RED's.
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/mind-and-brain/
You have no definitive proof that consciousness is only brain generated.
Over to you Sriram - if you want to propose that consciousness can exist independently of physiological and neurological activity, be my guest - provide the evidence as the onus of proof rests with you.
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Over to you Sriram - if you want to propose that consciousness can exist independently of physiological and neurological activity, be my guest - provide the evidence as the onus of proof rests with you.
Not necessary. As has been argued many times....the onus in not always on the person proposing a non material process! Stating that material processes are enough to generate consciousness and mind and that all life is merely a biological process....in spite of lots of evidence to the contrary....all these are claims that require to be proved too!
You people think passing the buck will do the trick.
Currently there is no proof that life is an entirely biological process. No proof that death is the cessation of that process. No proof that the mind is entirely generated by the brain. All these are mere assertions.
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Not necessary. As has been argued many times....the onus in not always on the person proposing a non material process!
You've done it again.
"Just occasionally, the onus is not on the person proposing a non material process"
Therefore (according to the religionist)
"A nOn MaTeRiAl PrOcEsS iS TrUe iN ThIs CaSe"
The onus is on you. We won't believe you as long as you keep making these claims without evidence.
Stating that material processes are enough to generate consciousness and mind and that all life is merely a biological process....in spite of lots of evidence to the contrary....all these are claims that require to be proved too!
Bu there isn't lots of evidence to the contrary. All the evidence points to consciousness being part of biology.
You people think passing the buck will do the trick.
We know it doesn't which is why your trying it here is so unsuccessful.
Currently there is no proof that life is an entirely biological process. No proof that death is the cessation of that process. No proof that the mind is entirely generated by the brain. All these are mere assertions.
To be pedantic, there is no proof about anything that happens in the real world, there is only evidence and the evidence is not on your side.
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Sriram,
Consciousness existing independent of the brain is a definite possibility…
Your poor reasoning ability is letting you down again here. Leprechauns are a “definite possibility”. An orbiting teapot is a “definite possibility”. Any logically coherent truth claim is a "definite possibility". So what though? It’s a non-point.
… possibility and there is enough evidence in the form of recalled experiences of death.
There are no verifiable recalled experiences of death, and recalled experiences of episodes that typically happen prior to death are not evidence that there are.
There are also other reasons to believe that besides RED's.
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/mind-and-brain/
Quoting your own logical incoherence and basic reasoning errors doesn’t help you here.
You have no definitive proof that consciousness is only brain generated.
You have no definitive proof that women give birth to babies…therefore you must accept my “evidence” that invisible storks bring them instead.
You fundamentally fail to grasp to grasp still that epistemological truth is probabilistic in character. Even if there is an objectively real, “out there” reality we have no basis to assume that our understanding of it necessarily maps to what is. The most we can do is to observe and to apply methods to our observations that give us provisional truths that are useful. There is no “definitive proof” for anything and just using that truism as a back to door to privilege any truth claim that happens to appeal to you is epistemically worthless.
Try at least to understand where you go wrong here – endlessly correcting you as you make the same mistakes over and over again is wearisome.
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Not necessary.
What you assert without basis can be rejected without argument. If you don't make a case, there is no case to dispute.
As has been argued many times....the onus in not always on the person proposing a non material process!
The detail of the claim isn't important to the concept that if you're the one making the claim the onus is on you to justify the claim or it can just be ignored.
Stating that material processes are enough to generate consciousness and mind and that all life is merely a biological process....in spite of lots of evidence to the contrary....all these are claims that require to be proved too!
What's being stated is that material processes could be enough to generate consciousness, and are strongly linked to consciousness. There is no evidence of something lacking in that explanation, although all the details are not yet fully understood. If you want to posit something else being involved, you need to justify that claim; a gap in the current understanding is not evidence for your magic claims, it's evidence of the need for further investigation.
You people think passing the buck will do the trick.
We don't have a buck to pass, it's still yours. You say magic, we say explain your working.
Currently there is no proof that life is an entirely biological process.
Currently there is no evidence that life is at all a non-corporeal process. There is strong evidence that biology is at least part of life; there is no solid evidence that life has a non-corporeal component. That there is not absolute proof does not mean your unsupported assertion has any merit, let alone equal or more merit than the conventional explanation.
No proof that death is the cessation of that process.
The absence of dead people explaining their continued life is arguably weak evidence for it. The absence of dead people explaining their continued existence leaves you with still no supporting evidence for your claim.
No proof that the mind is entirely generated by the brain.
There is strong evidence the brain activity and consciousness are connected. There is no evidence for any other elements involved.
All these are mere assertions.
No, they are conclusions from the available evidence.
There are two claims here - one is provisional and has evidence in support, whilst the other has no evidence. Rather than try to make a case, you keep trying to squeeze your magic claims into gaps in the detail of current understanding. I posted a point-by-point rebuttal of your thinking, above, and you've ignored it in favour of trying to ignore the evidence and pretend that there are just two spitballed ideas thrown into the ring.
O.
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Not necessary. As has been argued many times....the onus in not always on the person proposing a non material process! Stating that material processes are enough to generate consciousness and mind and that all life is merely a biological process....in spite of lots of evidence to the contrary....all these are claims that require to be proved too!
You have not produced any solid evidence to the contrary though(anecdotal evidence doesn't count).
You people think passing the buck will do the trick.
When you suggest ideas that do not seem to be borne out by rational explanation, what on earth is wrong in asking you for the evidence that substantiates your ideas? Evidence that, so far, you don't seem able to give!
Currently there is no proof that life is an entirely biological process. No proof that death is the cessation of that process. No proof that the mind is entirely generated by the brain. All these are mere assertions.
Of course there is no proof, but there is plenty of evidence that points towards the idea that the brain and the mind are inextricably linked, and there seems to be no evidence that the mind can exist outwith the brain. Hence the rational conditional conclusion is that the mind is a product of the brain.
In contrast your blog adds nothing in the way of evidence to support your contentions.
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Not necessary. As has been argued many times....the onus in not always on the person proposing a non material process!
Nope - the onus is on the proposer of a proposition to justify that proposition with evidence - it matters not whether the claim is material or not. The exceptions would be when the assertion is merely a matter of subjective opinion - I like Mozart - but that isn't what we are talking about. We are talking about factual objective claims - in your case that human consciousness can exist independently of biological processes. If that's your claim, the onus is on you to justify it with evidence.
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Currently there is no proof that life is an entirely biological process. No proof that death is the cessation of that process. No proof that the mind is entirely generated by the brain. All these are mere assertions.
None of the above sentences are correct, you have all your logic backwards, which is both misleading and disingenuous.
"Currently there is no proof that life is an entirely biological process." Proof is a concept in maths or logic, not science. That life is a biological phenomenon is both definitional and a matter of observation. As far as we know it is only living things that exhibit metabolism or respiration or reproduction which are the markers of living things. How many lamp posts have been observed metabolising ?
"No proof that death is the cessation of that process." Again, proof is irrelevant. That death is the cessation of the life of an organism is simply definitional
"No proof that the mind is entirely generated by the brain". Proof, again, is irrelevant. Science values evidence and all the evidence we have points to mind and brain being the same phenomenon, just viewed from different aspects, one subjective, the other objective.
Your claims are merely fantastical assertions without any evidence. Up to you to provide compelling evidence for them
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Death is the exiting of life or Consciousness from the body.....could also be a correct definition. RED's are evidence that consciousness exits the body during the process of death. There is no evidence that consciousness ceases to exist after death.
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Death is the exiting of life or Consciousness from the body.....could also be a correct definition. RED's are evidence that consciousness exits the body during the process of death. There is no evidence that consciousness ceases to exist after death.
Consciousness is a process, not a thing. 50 mg of propofol would be sufficient to stop it happening. A sudden blow to the head would also suffice. After such interventions, consciousness may restart after a while, but not after irreversible death.
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Take the analogy of the computer system. The hardware is the body/brain, software in the mind, the user is the soul/consciousness. If there is a problem with the hardware or software the screen will go blank. Does not mean that you will cease to exist.
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Death is the exiting of life or Consciousness from the body.....could also be a correct definition.
It's not about 'correct', it's about current usage. Convention, in this day and age, has a particular meaning for the word 'death', and if you subborn it to mean something else then, in the short term at least, you're likely to be misinterpreted.
RED's are evidence that consciousness exits the body during the process of death.
On first inspection, yes. Further investigation showing that this type of experience is not solely related to those circumstances undermines that hypothesis. Examination of the detail also shows that the experiences reported are culturally tailored, further undermining the idea that this is some sort of universal 'natural' effect.
There is no evidence that consciousness ceases to exist after death.
Every single reliable measure of consciousness that we have available to us ceases upon death. That is evidence, if not especially strong - it's as strong as the self-reported 'near death experiences' of a small portion of the people who undergo significantly traumatic events is evidence for non-corporeal consciousness.
Regardless of that, the lack of absolute proof that consciousness is tied to our physical bodies is not in any way evidence for a non-corporeal conclusion, it's evidence for further study being required.
O.
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'Regardless of that, the lack of absolute proof that consciousness is tied to our physical bodies is not in any way evidence for a non-corporeal conclusion, it's evidence for further study being required'.
I like that open mind. Yes...further study is required. But further study requires an open mind (no....our brains will not fall out as Dawkins fears) and a certain positive premise is to be adopted which will enable positive outcomes. The premise with which we start a study matters a lot on the direction the research will take.
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But further study requires an open mind (no....our brains will not fall out as Dawkins fears) and a certain positive premise is to be adopted which will enable positive outcomes. The premise with which we start a study matters a lot on the direction the research will take.
By premise, do you mean 'hypothesis'? That's fine, put forward your hypothesis by all means, but to elevate a premise from mere guesswork to an hypothesis requires that it somehow be testable. You have to have not just a guess, but a mechanism (even a notional one) by which your hypothesis can be validated or refuted. So far as I can see you don't have that. You have no mechanism by which this non-corporeal element of consciousness can be shown to interact with the physical, no way of establishing that it exists beyond personal conviction of some people's subjective experiences during extreme trauma.
That's not a reliable mechanism for determining the validity of the claim - I could shamelessly steal someone else's idea and suggest that we're conscious because Leprechauns were throwing their intangible rainbow gold at us the evidentiary support for that claim would be absolutely the same. Instinctively I feel that's an even more outlandish suggestion (although not by much) but I have no factual basis to support that feeling, just as I have no factual basis for supporting either contention at all.
I do have a strong evidentiary basis for thinking that consciousness and the brain are intrinsically linked - which, so far as I can tell, you agree with - but I don't see any intrinsic problem with accepting the notion that we don't NEED anything else in the equation to make it work. Why do we need something more than brain activity to account for consciousness?
O.
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Take the analogy of the computer system. The hardware is the body/brain, software in the mind, the user is the soul/consciousness. If there is a problem with the hardware or software the screen will go blank. Does not mean that you will cease to exist.
The problem you have with that analogy is that it objectifies the nouns 'user, soul, consciousness' and this invites others to ask you to demonstrate its existence e.g. extract some of it from yourself and inject it into a dead mouse and see if the mouse exhibits signs of conscious life.
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'Regardless of that, the lack of absolute proof that consciousness is tied to our physical bodies is not in any way evidence for a non-corporeal conclusion, it's evidence for further study being required'.
This is the real world. There is no such thing as absolute proof.
All the evidence we have (which is to say things not including anecdotes believed by people who are frightened of ceasing to exist) points to consciousness ceasing when the brain ceases to function. There's no reason whatsoever to believe it continues after the brain stops. None.
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Sriram,
Death is the exiting of life or Consciousness from the body.....could also be a correct definition.
Rainbows are put there by leprechauns could also be the correct definition. Yet again: any truth claim that’s logically coherent could be true. Your problem though remains to find a path from a could be to a likely is. Why is this so hard for you to grasp?
RED's are evidence that consciousness exits the body during the process of death.
Rainbows are evidence for leprechauns. You can’t just assert a phenomenon to be evidence for your subjective opinion about its cause.
There is no evidence that consciousness ceases to exist after death.
Oh dear:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
Take the analogy of the computer system. The hardware is the body/brain, software in the mind, the user is the soul/consciousness. If there is a problem with the hardware or software the screen will go blank. Does not mean that you will cease to exist.
Depends what you mean by “you” – theoretically at least you could remove someone’s brain and keep all their bodily functions going with machines. Does that mean that person has ceased to exist?
In any case though, it’s a false analogy – for it to work you’d need the computer to be smashed up and the software somehow to persist in the ether.
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By premise, do you mean 'hypothesis'? That's fine, put forward your hypothesis by all means, but to elevate a premise from mere guesswork to an hypothesis requires that it somehow be testable. You have to have not just a guess, but a mechanism (even a notional one) by which your hypothesis can be validated or refuted. So far as I can see you don't have that. You have no mechanism by which this non-corporeal element of consciousness can be shown to interact with the physical, no way of establishing that it exists beyond personal conviction of some people's subjective experiences during extreme trauma.
That's not a reliable mechanism for determining the validity of the claim - I could shamelessly steal someone else's idea and suggest that we're conscious because Leprechauns were throwing their intangible rainbow gold at us the evidentiary support for that claim would be absolutely the same. Instinctively I feel that's an even more outlandish suggestion (although not by much) but I have no factual basis to support that feeling, just as I have no factual basis for supporting either contention at all.
I do have a strong evidentiary basis for thinking that consciousness and the brain are intrinsically linked - which, so far as I can tell, you agree with - but I don't see any intrinsic problem with accepting the notion that we don't NEED anything else in the equation to make it work. Why do we need something more than brain activity to account for consciousness?
O.
The consciousness - brain connection is not as simple as all that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
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The consciousness - brain connection is not as simple as all that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
Even allowing for the hard problem being correct, snd not every agrees that it is as your link shows, none of that is at odds with Outrider's post.
ETA - nothing in the hard problem as it is formulated by Chalmers has any connection to 'REDs' as discussed here. I think you are misunderstanding it.
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Sriram,
The consciousness - brain connection is not as simple as all that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
The hard problem of consciousness tells you nothing at all about your un-argued and un-evidenced claims of consciousness operating independent of minds. Nor by the way does it refute any of the numerous corrections you've been given about the multiple wrong arguments you've attempted here.
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Sriram,
The hard problem of consciousness tells you nothing at all about your un-argued and un-evidenced claims of consciousness operating independent of minds. Nor by the way does it refute any of the numerous corrections you've been given about the multiple wrong arguments you've attempted here.
Arguably it undermines some of the NDE approach in that it means that arguing for commonality of experience in terms of tunnels of light etc is impossible.
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The consciousness - brain connection is not as simple as all that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness
The hard problem of consciousness is that we don't currently have a full explanation, it doesn't rule out the possibility of an explanation in any way. I've posited a number of questions, and you've erroneously cited something that itself, and in your incorrect usage, fails to address any of them.
You have no reliable evidence for a non-corporeal element to consciousness.
You have no reliable methodology by which you might demonstrate such an idea.
You have no counter to the corporeal model which necessitates a non-corporeal component.
I have an open mind to any explanations you think you have, but you don't offer any. You offer poor criticism of the current models, sometimes, and the rest of the time pleas to complexity (which is just an argument from personal incredulity masquerading as independent) and nudge-nudge-wink-wink spirituality in scepticism's clothing.
O.
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The hard problem of consciousness is that we don't currently have a full explanation, it doesn't rule out the possibility of an explanation in any way.
...
O.
I agree with most of the post but most formulations of the 'hard problem' is that it isn't explainable in the terms of the 'question'. Even so, none of that backs up the idea of consciousness not being biological.
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The hard problem of consciousness is that we don't currently have a full explanation, it doesn't rule out the possibility of an explanation in any way. I've posited a number of questions, and you've erroneously cited something that itself, and in your incorrect usage, fails to address any of them.
You have no reliable evidence for a non-corporeal element to consciousness.
You have no reliable methodology by which you might demonstrate such an idea.
You have no counter to the corporeal model which necessitates a non-corporeal component.
I have an open mind to any explanations you think you have, but you don't offer any. You offer poor criticism of the current models, sometimes, and the rest of the time pleas to complexity (which is just an argument from personal incredulity masquerading as independent) and nudge-nudge-wink-wink spirituality in scepticism's clothing.
O.
promissory materialism.
How do we distinguish between a conscious entity and one without consciousness but great intelligence?
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promissory materialism.
Erudite pigeon?
I'm afraid, Mr Bond, I don't have a copy of today's code book, perhaps you could try speaking in whole sentences?
How do we distinguish between a conscious entity and one without consciousness but great intelligence?
Do we need to? Is there a difference? What consciousness is hasn't really been a part of the discussion - if you can show something that necessitates a differentiation between 'intelligence' (for any given definition of that) and 'consciousness' (for any given definition of that) it'd be of great use to Sriram who's trying to find something to support his contestation that consciousness has to have an external, non-corporeal source.
O.
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Erudite pigeon?
I'm afraid, Mr Bond, I don't have a copy of today's code book, perhaps you could try speaking in whole sentences?
....
O.
Promissory materialism was recently raised in yhe Mind and Consciousness thread, see link. It's used in the video and had been used by Vlad sometime previously, as is covered in the thread. I think it's originally a term of Popper's, and is the idea of 'we can't explain it now but we will'.
https://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=21250.msg880710#msg880710
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NS,
Arguably it undermines some of the NDE approach in that it means that arguing for commonality of experience in terms of tunnels of light etc is impossible.
Yes, though that’s true too of all descriptions of objective, “out there” reality because they all rely on commonality of experience, which is axiomatic. Here's the Mary’s Room thought experiment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument#:~:text=The%20experiment%20describes%20Mary%2C%20a,actually%20experienced%20it%20for%20herself.
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Outy,
Erudite pigeon?
I'm afraid, Mr Bond, I don't have a copy of today's code book, perhaps you could try speaking in whole sentences?
By way of context, after countless attempts at straw manning his interlocutors with the charges of “scientism” and “physicalism” – ie, that all of reality must ultimately be explicable in material terms using the scientific method – Vlad has now retrenched instead to the less strident “promissory materialism” – ie, that materialism has the promise of ultimately explaining everything. That may or may not be true, but it’s not a claim that anyone here makes either so it’s another straw man but he seems to think it’s less egregiously wrong than his previous straw men so he's relocated to it.
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NS,
Yes, though that’s true too of all descriptions of objective, “out there” reality because they all rely on commonality of experience, which is axiomatic. Here's the Mary’s Room thought experiment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_argument#:~:text=The%20experiment%20describes%20Mary%2C%20a,actually%20experienced%20it%20for%20herself.
As a generic problem, yes, but the specific issue here is Sriram using the 'hard problem' of consciousness, which is related to Mary's Room, to back up a claim that it undermines.
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Why do we need something more than brain activity to account for consciousness?
O.
There is no feasible explanation for how a single entity of conscious awareness can be generated from material reactions alone.
Correlation does not define causation.
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There is no feasible explanation for how a single entity of conscious awareness can be generated from material reactions alone.
Correlation does not define causation.
Using the word 'feasible' here means you are claiming omniscience. Are you omniscient?
And that's leaving aside begging the question of 'single entity'.
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NS,
As a generic problem, yes, but the specific issue here is Sriram using the 'hard problem' of consciousness, which is related to Mary's Room, to back up a claim that it undermines.
As I suggested, the hard problem of consciousness offers no support at all to Sriram notwithstanding that he seemed to think it does. As a “for or against” argument though it seems to me to be neutral in its effect too – we just have to assume as our axiom that we share experiences because if we don’t then all bets are off.
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AB,
There is no feasible explanation for how a single entity of conscious awareness can be generated from material reactions alone.
Correlation does not define causation.
You continue to manage to pack a lot of wrong into very few words.
1. How do you know that there is no feasible explanation, and what objective measure of "feasible" are you attempting here?
2. At one level my car is a single entity, but it’s also a large number of interacting parts. The same goes for brains, only with trillions more interacting parts. What makes you so sure that such a vast number of real time interactions couldn’t give rise to consciousness?
3. Regardless of your guessing about this, what “feasible explanation” do you have for a supposed “soul” doing the thinking instead? In other words, what makes you think that a jig-saw puzzle with some of the parts is less likely to indicate the final picture than a jig-saw puzzle with no parts at all?
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NS,
As I suggested, the hard problem of consciousness offers no support at all to Sriram notwithstanding that he seemed to think it does. As a “for or against” argument though it seems to me to be neutral in its effect too – we just have to assume as our axiom that we share experiences because if we don’t then all bets are off.
Except the 'hard' problem is based around a rejection of the axiom.
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There is no feasible explanation for how a single entity of conscious awareness can be generated from material reactions alone.
Correlation does not define causation.
That we haven't figured out all the details does not require of us to deny that it happens somehow. Brains evolved the capacity to integrate multiple multi modal sensory input streams into a single experiential flow eons ago and they do it so effortlessly that some people mistake it for magic, or so it seems.
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The fact that Consciousness uses the brain as a platform but is essentially independent of it....is not magic. It is just reality.
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The only way the hard problem of consciousness can be explained is by realizing that consciousness is a basic property of the soul that exists independent of the body/brain. The body and brain are only platforms....like a computer hardware being used by a human.
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The fact that Consciousness uses the brain as a platform but is essentially independent of it....is not magic. It is just reality.
It's not a 'reality' as there is no evidence to support this assertion
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The only way the hard problem of consciousness can be explained is by realizing that consciousness is a basic property of the soul that exists independent of the body/brain. The body and brain are only platforms....like a computer hardware being used by a human.
Another baseless assertion. We don't have any evidence for souls, so how can anything be a property of them ?
You're away with the fairies it seems.
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The only way the hard problem of consciousness can be explained is by realizing that consciousness is a basic property of the soul that exists independent of the body/brain. The body and brain are only platforms....like a computer hardware being used by a human.
That's like saying the only way to make a car go faster is to imagine powerful unicorns pulling it.
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That's like saying the only way to make a car go faster is to imagine powerful unicorns pulling it.
... or by increasing its phlogiston levels.
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. Brains evolved the capacity to integrate multiple multi modal sensory input streams into a single experiential flow eons ago...
Hahahahaha I absolutely love that.
Have you thought of working for Dolby Audio you'd be great.
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There is no feasible explanation for how a single entity of conscious awareness can be generated from material reactions alone.
Correlation does not define causation.
There's no feasible explanation of how a single entity of conscious awareness can exist independently of a brain.
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The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining qualia and subjective experience through neural activity. Once we understand that consciousness is a property of the self or subject, then the need to explain subjective experience through neural activity does not arise at all. It becomes fundamental.
Like trying to explain the experience of virtual reality merely through pixels, circuits and software. It is not possible. But once the person watching the VR is taken into account the experience is self explanatory.
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The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining qualia and subjective experience through neural activity. Once we understand that consciousness is a property of the self or subject, then the need to explain subjective experience through neural activity does not arise at all. It becomes fundamental...
However, you have it the wrong way round. The 'self' is a property of consciousness, or a product of a conscious mind.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/97/The_Illusion_of_the_Self (https://philosophynow.org/issues/97/The_Illusion_of_the_Self)
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The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining qualia and subjective experience through neural activity. Once we understand that consciousness is a property of the self or subject, then the need to explain subjective experience through neural activity does not arise at all. It becomes fundamental.
Like trying to explain the experience of virtual reality merely through pixels, circuits and software. It is not possible. But once the person watching the VR is taken into account the experience is self explanatory.
'Understand' here seems to mean 'accept with no reason or evidence'. You are, as you so often do, begging the question. And the hard problem has absolutely nothing to do with it. Indeed it argues precisely against the idea that you can generalise like you want to.
It's very like Alan Burns when he uses the idea of quantum to assert something that it in way backs up. It illustratrs in both that you don't understand the 'hard problem' and he doesn't understand the quantum world.
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However, you have it the wrong way round. The 'self' is a property of consciousness, or a product of a conscious mind.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/97/The_Illusion_of_the_Self (https://philosophynow.org/issues/97/The_Illusion_of_the_Self)
One of the things that I find odd about Sriram's, and Alan Burns', approach is that they assert things to be true from their experience but deny the experience of others who experience is differently. I don't have the 'single entity' experience they hold to. Or rather 'I' don't seem to based on descriptions
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Like trying to explain the experience of virtual reality merely through pixels, circuits and software. It is not possible. But once the person watching the VR is taken into account the experience is self explanatory.
Virtual reality is a consequence of pixels, circuitry and software.
I feel the analogy works the opposite way to what you expect.
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The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining qualia and subjective experience through neural activity. Once we understand that consciousness is a property of the self or subject, then the need to explain subjective experience through neural activity does not arise at all. It becomes fundamental.
Like trying to explain the experience of virtual reality merely through pixels, circuits and software. It is not possible. But once the person watching the VR is taken into account the experience is self explanatory.
If the 'subject' is a stone then there is no evidence that consciousness is present. If the 'subject' is a Thompson's gazelle then all the evidence points to its consciousness emanating from its brain. If you are talking about the idea of 'self' then you seem to be talking about self awareness which is an aspect of consciousness, not something which is dependent on it. Either way you add nothing of clarity to the hard problem of consciousness.
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Virtual reality is a consequence of pixels, circuitry and software.
I feel the analogy works the opposite way to what you expect.
The pixels, circuits and software only create the virtual reality and present it. To whom is it presented? To the person watching the VR! This is the subject.
Similarly the brain, nerves, neurons, senses and mind create the reality around us and present it to Consciousness.....which is the one experiencing the reality.
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Similarly the brain, nerves, neurons, senses and mind create the reality around us and present it to Consciousness.....which is the one experiencing the reality.
Not quite right. The 'presentation' of all that sensory information is consciousness. You cannot be conscious of your consciousness, that makes no sense.
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The pixels, circuits and software only create the virtual reality and present it. To whom is it presented? To the person watching the VR! This is the subject.
Similarly the brain, nerves, neurons, senses and mind create the reality around us and present it to Consciousness.....which is the one experiencing the reality.
We're in 'If a tree falls in the wood, does it make a sound' territory here, aren't we. Which I found fascinating for 6 and half minutes when I was 14.
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Sriram,
The pixels, circuits and software only create the virtual reality and present it. To whom is it presented? To the person watching the VR! This is the subject.
Similarly the brain, nerves, neurons, senses and mind create the reality around us and present it to Consciousness.....which is the one experiencing the reality.
Leaving aside your odd terminology here ("present it to" etc) that we become aware of thoughts as they emerge from the subconscious does not require or imply a separate consciousness somehow floating about the place, untethered from minds.
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There's no feasible explanation of how a single entity of conscious awareness can exist independently of a brain.
I never claimed it is independent of the brain.
The entity of awareness perceives and interprets sensory brain activity into conscious meaning.
It also has the power to interact with physical brain activity to enable our gift of free will.
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Not quite right. The 'presentation' of all that sensory information is consciousness. You cannot be conscious of your consciousness, that makes no sense.
No.
The sensory information exists in physical form - but this does not define our conscious awareness.
Conscious awareness requires some means to perceive and interpret the sensory information into the meaningful thoughts which formulate our awareness.
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Similarly the brain, nerves, neurons, senses and mind create the reality around us and present it to Consciousness.....which is the one experiencing the reality.
No they don't create the reality around us. That exists independently of neurones. What they do is create the consciousness that experiences reality.
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I never claimed it is independent of the brain.
The entity of awareness perceives and interprets sensory brain activity into conscious meaning.
It also has the power to interact with physical brain activity to enable our gift of free will.
What evidence do you have that "the entity of awareness" is not part of the brain?
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The pixels, circuits and software only create the virtual reality and present it. To whom is it presented? To the person watching the VR! This is the subject.
Similarly the brain, nerves, neurons, senses and mind create the reality around us and present it to Consciousness.....which is the one experiencing the reality.
You seem to be presenting some form of dualism here, a dualism which seems to be pure conjecture on your part. I see no reason why you should separate 'self' from the 'nerves, neurons, senses and mind' and the reality they create.
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I never claimed it is independent of the brain.
The entity of awareness perceives and interprets sensory brain activity into conscious meaning.
It also has the power to interact with physical brain activity to enable our gift of free will.
What entity of awareness? An entity is a thing with an independent existence. What does it consist of? Where exactly in the brain is it located? How and where does it interact with other entities? Can its power be measured? If you can't answer these then you are in the realm of pure speculation.
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AB,
No.
The sensory information exists in physical form - but this does not define our conscious awareness.
Conscious awareness requires some means to perceive and interpret the sensory information into the meaningful thoughts which formulate our awareness.
The subconscious is mainly located in the limbic system, especially the Amygdala. Brain stem and some cortical regions (like insula) are also involved but the main activity is in the limbic system.
Consciousness on the other hand is situated in the cortex, especially the prefrontal and posterior occipital cortices and the claustrum.
Both locations are parts of the brain. To justify your religious beliefs though you assert to be true instead a magic soul conjecture for which there is no evidence at all. When pressed on why you think this to be the case you collapse into one or several logically false arguments (argument from incredulity, shifting the burden of proof etc).
Why you persist with this vapid idiocy is unknowable, but persist with it you do nonetheless.
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A nice TED video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY&t=601s
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Sriram,
A nice TED video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY&t=601s
Do you think that some part(s) of the talk supports you? Which part(s)?
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AB,
The subconscious is mainly located in the limbic system, especially the Amygdala. Brain stem and some cortical regions (like insula) are also involved but the main activity is in the limbic system.
Consciousness on the other hand is situated in the cortex, especially the prefrontal and posterior occipital cortices and the claustrum.
Both locations are parts of the brain.
You are using labels to indicate which parts of the brain can show activity which correlates with conscious awareness.
This in no way offers any explanation for what comprises conscious awareness or how it can manifest within material reactions alone.
To justify your religious beliefs though you assert to be true instead a magic soul conjecture for which there is no evidence at all.
The evidence lies in your demonstrable ability to consciously manipulate your own thought processes to offer arguments to justify your consciously chosen objective. An ability which you have deemed to be a logical impossibility within the limits of materialistic behaviour.
When pressed on why you think this to be the case you collapse into one or several logically false arguments (argument from incredulity, shifting the burden of proof etc).
My ability to argue any case is ample evidence of my God given freedom.
Why you persist with this vapid idiocy is unknowable, but persist with it you do nonetheless.
I continue to witness to the truth of our own God given power to think, to choose, to perceive the difference between good and evil.
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A ten minute interview on consciousness with Hoffman....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynTqCFBhRmw
A ten minute interview with Tononi on consciousness...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK72pPa_gSE&t=70s
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You are using labels to indicate which parts of the brain can show activity which correlates with conscious awareness.
This in no way offers any explanation for what comprises conscious awareness or how it can manifest within material reactions alone.
Identifying where certain mental activities are located is the first step to understanding them.
The evidence lies in your demonstrable ability to consciously manipulate your own thought processes to offer arguments to justify your consciously chosen objective. An ability which you have deemed to be a logical impossibility within the limits of materialistic behaviour.
Nobody has shown that our conscious abilities are a logical impossibility within the limits of materialistic behaviour.
My ability to argue any case
You don't have an ability to argue a case. You simply repeat the same old tired assertions again and again without providing any evidence or justification.
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There is no feasible explanation for how a single entity of conscious awareness can be generated from material reactions alone.
You can claim that, of course and I can claim otherwise. Do you have a basis for that statement, because otherwise it just feels like an argument from personal incredulity.
Correlation does not define causation.
No, it doesn't. But the fact that correlation does not define causation is not a sufficient basis to claim 'therefore gods'.
O.
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AB,
You are using labels to indicate which parts of the brain can show activity which correlates with conscious awareness.
Yes. And when these parts are damaged then the functionality of subconscious and conscious activities is changed or impaired. This is a pretty good indication that these activities are occurring in these parts of the brain. It does not though suggest that an invisible little gremlin called a “soul” is not is only pulling the strings but also selecting different parts of the brain to which it also somehow decides to attach those strings.
This in no way offers any explanation for what comprises conscious awareness or how it can manifest within material reactions alone.
But it does explain that different parts of the lived experience emanate from different parts of the brain, which is the point.
The evidence lies in your demonstrable ability to consciously manipulate your own thought processes to offer arguments to justify your consciously chosen objective. An ability which you have deemed to be a logical impossibility within the limits of materialistic behaviour.
Why do you persist with this stupidity given how many times it’s been falsified without you even attempting a rebuttal of the falsifications you’re given? That’s not evidence of a “demonstrable ability to consciously manipulate your own thought processes” at all – instead it’s just a poorly thought-out story you tell yourself – and it’s impossible not just “within the limits of materialistic behaviour” but, more importantly still, within the limits of logic.
My ability to argue any case is ample evidence of my God given freedom.
You’ve shown no ability actually to argue for anything, and specifically “my God given freedom” is just a repetition of a blind faith claim, not an argument.
I continue to witness to the truth of our own God given power to think, to choose, to perceive the difference between good and evil.
What you actually continue to do is dishonestly to run away from the plethora of actual arguments that show you to be wrong.
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AB,
Yes. And when these parts are damaged then the functionality of subconscious and conscious activities is changed or impaired. This is a pretty good indication that these activities are occurring in these parts of the brain. It does not though suggest that an invisible little gremlin called a “soul” is not is only pulling the strings but also selecting different parts of the brain to which it also somehow decides to attach those strings.
But it does explain that different parts of the lived experience emanate from different parts of the brain, which is the point.
...
I think the whole concept of brain damage and abnormalities is something that causes huge problems for sny idea of a single entity even in materialist terms. Indeed, the idea of a single entity in the terms of consciousness has to be dualist?
(As an aside, the term 'lived experience' just seems tautologous to me)
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NS,
I think the whole concept of brain damage and abnormalities is something that causes huge problems for sny idea of a single entity even in materialist terms. Indeed, the idea of a single entity in the terms of consciousness has to be dualist?
Yes, but they’re informative nonetheless inasmuch as they indicate where various mental functions occur (or cease to occur after the episode). I would go further and say “likely emanate from”, whereas AB for reasons he’s never been able to explain adds a “soul” that presumably therefore selects different parts of the brain to interact with according to which behaviour it’s trying to initiate. Or control. Or something – it’s impossible to know what he thinks about that because his entire case begins and ends “soul” with no supporting detail of any kind.
(As an aside, the term 'lived experience' just seems tautologous to me)
I agree, but “different parts of experience” seem to be missing something somehow. I’ll try to do better next time though.
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NS,
Yes, but they’re informative nonetheless inasmuch as they indicate where various mental functions occur (or cease to occur after the episode). I would go further and say “likely emanate from”, whereas AB for reasons he’s never been able to explain adds a “soul” that presumably therefore selects different parts of the brain to interact with according to which behaviour it’s trying to initiate. Or control. Or something – it’s impossible to know what he thinks about that because his entire case begins and ends “soul” with no supporting detail of any kind.
I agree, but “different parts of experience” seem to be missing something somehow. I’ll try to do better next time though.
As should I, since I obviously didn't make clear thar brain damage and abnormalities seem to me yo be good evidence for a materialist approach, as well as damaging to the idea of a seperate entity.
In terms of damage, I often think of Phineas Gage, and split brain syndrome here but there are many other examples.
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Why should brain damage and such things imply a materialistic source to consciousness? If you are sitting inside a robot under the sea, any damage to the robot or its circuits or software, would naturally affect your vision through ts cameras, its movement, hearing through its microphones etc. That does not mean you as a person don't exist independent of the robot.
It is important to realize that by consciousness we mean not just wakeful awareness but also the unconscious mind which is a much larger and more powerful component compared to wakeful consciousness.
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Why should brain damage and such things imply a materialistic source to consciousness? If you are sitting inside a robot under the sea, any damage to the robot or its circuits or software, would naturally affect your vision through ts cameras, its movement, hearing through its microphones etc. That does not mean you as a person don't exist independent of the robot.
The idea of a person inside the robot watching the camera feed has long been debunked not just because of the evidence (or lack of it) but in logical terms as it implies an infinite regress of inner homonculae needed to perceive what the outer guy is perceiving.
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The idea of a person inside the robot watching the camera feed has long been debunked not just because of the evidence (or lack of it) but in logical terms as it implies an infinite regress of inner homonculae needed to perceive what the outer guy is perceiving.
Cue Intervention by those who advocate an infinite regress to explain the universe...
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Come on chaps....
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Sriram,
Why should brain damage and such things imply a materialistic source to consciousness? If you are sitting inside a robot under the sea, any damage to the robot or its circuits or software, would naturally affect your vision through ts cameras, its movement, hearing through its microphones etc. That does not mean you as a person don't exist independent of the robot.
It is important to realize that by consciousness we mean not just wakeful awareness but also the unconscious mind which is a much larger and more powerful component compared to wakeful consciousness.
“Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage. The mechanism by which a damaging stimulus in the body is perceived as painful by the brain is a complex one which is not yet fully understood.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK534269/#:~:text=Pain%20is%20defined%20as%20an,actual%20or%20potential%20tissue%20damage.&text=The%20mechanism%20by%20which%20a,is%20not%20yet%20fully%20understood.
When my friend had crippling stomach pain that stopped when his gallstones were removed was it a reasonable working hypothesis that:
i. The gallstones caused the pain even though the phenomenon of pain is not yet fully understood; or
ii. There is a universal property of pain just floating about the place that lampposts and rocks experience too, and that somehow decides to attach itself to gallstones?
I assume you’d opt for i., yet with no greater evidence for it you'd opt for ii. when “pain” is replaced with “consciousness”. But for your a priori superstitious beliefs, why would you do that?
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Vlad,
Cue Intervention by those who advocate an infinite regress to explain the universe...
No-one has done that.
Come on chaps....
What are you asking people to defend your straw man?
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Why should brain damage and such things imply a materialistic source to consciousness? If you are sitting inside a robot under the sea, any damage to the robot or its circuits or software, would naturally affect your vision through ts cameras, its movement, hearing through its microphones etc. That does not mean you as a person don't exist independent of the robot.
We are not talking about damage to our sensory organs, we are talking about damage to our brains.
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Why should brain damage and such things imply a materialistic source to consciousness? If you are sitting inside a robot under the sea, any damage to the robot or its circuits or software, would naturally affect your vision through ts cameras, its movement, hearing through its microphones etc. That does not mean you as a person don't exist independent of the robot.
It is important to realize that by consciousness we mean not just wakeful awareness but also the unconscious mind which is a much larger and more powerful component compared to wakeful consciousness.
Because brain damage and abnormalitirs seem tk affect the personality. See Phineas Gage
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
And look at split brain syndrome effects
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
Anyone who has had contact with people with dementia will also likely see affects.
If the entity is independent, that shouldn't change.
Note you also switch between talking about independent entities and there being only one consciousness. This seems contradictory.
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Cue Intervention by those who advocate an infinite regress to explain the universe...
Cue non sequitur by someone who totally has a cogent argument against the notion of an infinite regress somewhere around here...
O.
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It is obviously more complicated than that.
Consciousness exists independently of the body/brain but it projects itself into the Personality through the mind. That is why when the Personalty (body) gets damaged the mind also gets affected. The mind incidentally, is different from consciousness.
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It is obviously more complicated than that.
Consciousness exists independently of the body/brain but it projects itself into the Personality through the mind. That is why when the Personalty (body) gets damaged the mind also gets affected. The mind incidentally, is different from consciousness.
How do you explain dementia then?
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The mind is the interface between consciousness and the physical world. Dementia is a problem with the brain/mind (hardware/software). Obviously if the interface is affected, communication and interactions with the world will get affected.
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Sriram,
It is obviously more complicated than that.
Not in principle it isn’t. Why do you think otherwise – other that is than just asserting it to be so?
Consciousness exists independently of the body/brain but it projects itself into the Personality through the mind.
So now you’re asserting there to be consciousness somehow just floating about the place that when the mood takes it decides to “project” itself onto minds. And your evidence-denying grounds for that remarkable claim would be what exactly?
That is why when the Personalty (body) gets damaged the mind also gets affected. The mind incidentally, is different from consciousness.
Perhaps it would help if you started by telling us what you think the difference between the mind and personality to be maybe supported with some citations to academic research into this matter, or at least by some reasoned grounds rather than unqualified guesses and assertions?
Or are we supposed just to take your word for it?
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The mind is the interface between consciousness and the physical world. Dementia is a problem with the brain/mind (hardware/software). Obviously if the interface is affected, communication and interactions with the world will get affected.
Have you never had a loved one or a friend with dementia? My friend got somewhat distressed when her father couldn't recognise her anymore, or recall that he had a daughter. This is more than just a communication issue.
I'm sure that I could find some form of brain damage that will affect just about any aspect of consciousness. If every part of consciousness is dependent on the brain in one way or another, what reason could there be for pretending that any of it is separate from the brain?
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It is obviously more complicated than that.
Consciousness exists independently of the body/brain but it projects itself into the Personality through the mind. That is why when the Personalty (body) gets damaged the mind also gets affected. The mind incidentally, is different from consciousness.
That's not obvious at all.
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It is obviously more complicated than that.
Given that we don't have a complete explanation, you mean?
Consciousness exists independently of the body/brain but it projects itself into the Personality through the mind.
You can assert that, but you need to justify the claim. Why do you think consciousness is separate from the physical body?
That is why when the Personalty (body) gets damaged the mind also gets affected.
It's not inconsistent with your claim, but it's not inconsistent with the materialist explanation, either.
The mind incidentally, is different from consciousness.
I don't know that anyone's arguing against that, although there are probably a number of us who would contest with you what your suggestion is for the reason why.
O.
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The mind is the interface between consciousness and the physical world. Dementia is a problem with the brain/mind (hardware/software). Obviously if the interface is affected, communication and interactions with the world will get affected.
This reads as if you've never dealt with anyone with dementia. It's not just forgetfullness.
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If the mind is the interface between consciousness and the physical world, naturally all interactions and behaviors will be affected in a person with dementia.
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If the mind is the interface between consciousness and the physical world, naturally all interactions and behaviors will be affected in a person with dementia.
Including what appears to be personality? Why would that happen if the entity is seperate from the brain. Given that it does happen with damage to the brain, see earlier mention of Phineas Gage, and split brain syndrome, that argues that there is no seperate entity.
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If the mind is the interface between consciousness and the physical world, naturally all interactions and behaviors will be affected in a person with dementia.
What do you suggest would be the difference between a consciousness produced by material activity in a body, and consciousness imparted onto a physical body by some non-physical source?
O.
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https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/understanding-grief/202311/terminal-lucidity-and-the-near-death-experience
********
An NDE occurs when a person is close to death or pronounced dead. It is often triggered by a medical trauma such as a car accident, heart attack, etc. Typically, there is an out-of-body experience: The individual viewing themselves from above, traveling through a tunnel, seeing vivid imagery, encountering deceased family members, and bright lights, and perhaps perceiving angelic-like beings. The person is often told that it is not their time to die and returns to life. Terminal lucidity occurs more often when someone who is close to death and has been uncommunicative and unresponsive—as in the late stages of dementia—becomes alert, lucid, and verbal at the end of their life. It is as though the old self has returned after all have assumed the “self” has been destroyed. Sadly, it is followed closely by death.
They go against everything we know so far about death and dying, and yet these events are well documented. It seems that initially when the near-death experiences were brought to the public’s attention, they were dismissed as delusions, wishful thinking, or simply lies. Professionals did not deem them worthy of research and criticized those who did. Today, NDEs are more widely accepted as phenomena that can occur when someone is dying. With increased public and professional acceptance, people are more willing to share their experiences without fear of ridicule. Recognition of terminal lucidity is still in its early stages;
In exploring these end-of-life experiences, many questions arise: Is the mind separate from the brain? Where was the former self during the time that the person was “away?" Was it hibernating or preserved somewhere? Do changes in neurochemical transmitters trigger the experience? What implications does this have for the treatment of Alzheimer's or dementia? Do both TL and NDE suggest that there may be more to us than our biological self? What can we learn from these experiences about consciousness?
*********
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https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/understanding-grief/202311/terminal-lucidity-and-the-near-death-experience
********
An NDE occurs when a person is close to death or pronounced dead. It is often triggered by a medical trauma such as a car accident, heart attack, etc. Typically, there is an out-of-body experience: The individual viewing themselves from above, traveling through a tunnel, seeing vivid imagery, encountering deceased family members, and bright lights, and perhaps perceiving angelic-like beings. The person is often told that it is not their time to die and returns to life. Terminal lucidity occurs more often when someone who is close to death and has been uncommunicative and unresponsive—as in the late stages of dementia—becomes alert, lucid, and verbal at the end of their life. It is as though the old self has returned after all have assumed the “self” has been destroyed. Sadly, it is followed closely by death.
They go against everything we know so far about death and dying, and yet these events are well documented. It seems that initially when the near-death experiences were brought to the public’s attention, they were dismissed as delusions, wishful thinking, or simply lies. Professionals did not deem them worthy of research and criticized those who did. Today, NDEs are more widely accepted as phenomena that can occur when someone is dying. With increased public and professional acceptance, people are more willing to share their experiences without fear of ridicule. Recognition of terminal lucidity is still in its early stages;
In exploring these end-of-life experiences, many questions arise: Is the mind separate from the brain? Where was the former self during the time that the person was “away?" Was it hibernating or preserved somewhere? Do changes in neurochemical transmitters trigger the experience? What implications does this have for the treatment of Alzheimer's or dementia? Do both TL and NDE suggest that there may be more to us than our biological self? What can we learn from these experiences about consciousness?
*********
All of which shows no clarity of thought around dementia, or other examples of brain damage and abnormality in that it ignores the effects of dementia in terms of the 'entity' existing seperately from the brain.
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https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/understanding-grief/202311/terminal-lucidity-and-the-near-death-experience
********
An NDE occurs when a person is close to death or pronounced dead. It is often triggered by a medical trauma such as a car accident, heart attack, etc. Typically, there is an out-of-body experience: The individual viewing themselves from above, traveling through a tunnel, seeing vivid imagery, encountering deceased family members, and bright lights, and perhaps perceiving angelic-like beings. The person is often told that it is not their time to die and returns to life. Terminal lucidity occurs more often when someone who is close to death and has been uncommunicative and unresponsive—as in the late stages of dementia—becomes alert, lucid, and verbal at the end of their life. It is as though the old self has returned after all have assumed the “self” has been destroyed. Sadly, it is followed closely by death.
They go against everything we know so far about death and dying, and yet these events are well documented. It seems that initially when the near-death experiences were brought to the public’s attention, they were dismissed as delusions, wishful thinking, or simply lies. Professionals did not deem them worthy of research and criticized those who did. Today, NDEs are more widely accepted as phenomena that can occur when someone is dying. With increased public and professional acceptance, people are more willing to share their experiences without fear of ridicule. Recognition of terminal lucidity is still in its early stages;
In exploring these end-of-life experiences, many questions arise: Is the mind separate from the brain? Where was the former self during the time that the person was “away?" Was it hibernating or preserved somewhere? Do changes in neurochemical transmitters trigger the experience? What implications does this have for the treatment of Alzheimer's or dementia? Do both TL and NDE suggest that there may be more to us than our biological self? What can we learn from these experiences about consciousness?
*********
None of that adds anything new. There are believers out there, there is a degree of commonality amongst the experiences of those undergoing significant physical trauma (although it doesn't balance that with the fact that similar experiences can be achieved by other means).
It doesn't answer the question, though: if you want to posit a non-corporeal source for consciousness, how do you propose to demonstrate that? How would that manifest differently from an entirely corporeal consciousness?
O.
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Sriram,
An NDE occurs when a person is close to death or pronounced dead…
So not necessarily actually dead then?
In exploring these end-of-life experiences,…
But not post-life experiences right?
Do you have anything to suggest that the experiences the article describes also happen after people are actually dead?
If not – and we know you haven’t – what point do you think you’re attempting to make?
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I don't know what you people expect. A complete, detailed, comprehensive and conclusive understanding of all things regarding consciousness, mind, brain, death etc.? ::)
I have only told you my understanding of why the idea of consciousness being separate from the brain does not conflict with brain problems leading to cognitive impairment.
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I don't know what you people expect. A complete, detailed, comprehensive and conclusive understanding of all things regarding consciousness, mind, brain, death etc.? ::)
I have only told you my understanding of why the idea of consciousness being separate from the brain does not conflict with brain problems leading to cognitive impairment.
And I've only pointed out the problems that I see in your understanding. I didn't any for any 'complete, detailed, comprehensive and conclusive understanding of all things regarding consciousness, mind, brain, death etc.'
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Yes...there are incomplete aspects of the phenomenon. Lots to be understood still. It is a very complex subject.
But there are reasons to believe that consciousness is different from the brain. The idea is not as fantastic as you people make it out to be.
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Yes...there are incomplete aspects of the phenomenon. Lots to be understood still. It is a very complex subject.
But there are reasons to believe that consciousness is different from the brain. The idea is not as fantastic as you people make it out to be.
I don't think anyone has said the brain is consciousness so you've misphrased that. Rather that consciousness is a function of the brain.
Your position is that there is a conscious entity seperate from the brain. I've not rejected your 'evidence' because the idea itself is 'fantastic' but because it doesn't appear to be evidence for the claim.
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I don't know what you people expect.
I'm not sure why, we've explained often enough - apart from your own personal incredulity regarding a purely physical origin for consciousness, on what basis do you make the claim that consciousness is 'prompted' by some non-corporeal external factor acting upon our physical bodies.
A complete, detailed, comprehensive and conclusive understanding of all things regarding consciousness, mind, brain, death etc.? ::)
If you've got one, yes please. However, like the rest of us I suspect that you don't, so on that basis a rationale behind the formulation that you do have.
I have only told you my understanding of why the idea of consciousness being separate from the brain does not conflict with brain problems leading to cognitive impairment.
We see the same phenomena that you do, and yet we don't feel the need to try to crowbar 'souls' into the equation. You've not explained WHY you think consciousness can't be physical, you've offered no explanation for why you think something of consciousness MUST be non-corporeal, and yet you persist with the claim when people ask you 'why?'
O.
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It is obviously more complicated than that.
Consciousness exists independently of the body/brain but it projects itself into the Personality through the mind. That is why when the Personalty (body) gets damaged the mind also gets affected. The mind incidentally, is different from consciousness.
Consciousness is a part of the functioning of mind. A very small fraction of total mind functioning is conscious.
Your first two sentences are what is known as 'gobbldeygook', I believe is the correct term.
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I have presented the views of Sam Parnia and the RED phenomenon. I have also linked about the many reasons to believe that the mind is different from the brain. I have also linked videos of prominent neuroscientists expressing their views about why consciousness cannot be just neural activity.
Your mental programming just does not allow you to see the reality that is quite clear to many others.
The only thing that is left for you people is to take up yoga and meditations and look into your own self and subjective nature and see the reality for yourselves on a first person basis.
I however know that is not going to happen.
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I don't know what you people expect. A complete, detailed, comprehensive and conclusive understanding of all things regarding consciousness, mind, brain, death etc.? ::)
Just some evidence for your dualism. Nothing more.
Actually, we don't expect even that because we know that you will never provide it. If you could, you would have done it already.
I have only told you my understanding of why the idea of consciousness being separate from the brain does not conflict with brain problems leading to cognitive impairment.
You haven't yet explained what dementia is with regard to that model.
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I have presented the views of Sam Parnia and the RED phenomenon.
And everybody pointed out the flaw in thinking that NDE's demonstrate a separate soul independent of the brain.
I have also linked about the many reasons to believe that the mind is different from the brain.
I don't think anybody would disagree that the mind and the brain are not identical. What you have failed to do is give us a reason why the mind can't be seen as an emergent property of the brain. This seems to be evident from the fact that it goes away when the brain dies or is altered when the brain is damaged or subjected to certain drugs.
I have also linked videos of prominent neuroscientists expressing their views about why consciousness cannot be just neural activity.
Really? I don't believe that. I think you misunderstand what they are saying.
Your mental programming just does not allow you to see the reality that is quite clear to many others.
Your mental programming has turned you into a credulous fool.
Yes that's an insult, but so is what you say about us.
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I have presented the views of Sam Parnia and the RED phenomenon. I have also linked about the many reasons to believe that the mind is different from the brain. I have also linked videos of prominent neuroscientists expressing their views about why consciousness cannot be just neural activity.
Your mental programming just does not allow you to see the reality that is quite clear to many others.
The only thing that is left for you people is to take up yoga and meditations and look into your own self and subjective nature and see the reality for yourselves on a first person basis.
I however know that is not going to happen.
I'm with Jeremy here. I think you take a dishonest approach. I have never said that the brain is the same as the mind. I have always suggested that the mind is the result of the workings of the brain. I have also drawn attention to Sam Parnia's Aware studies which did not provide any evidence that NDEs and OBEs are a sign that there is life after death, except in one OBE auditory case where Parnia agreed that confabulation could not be ruled out.
The rest is simply you expressing your one sided point of view and criticising others for not accepting what you say. Unfortunately for you, on this forum, most people aren't going to easily accept your ideas without strong evidence to back up your ideas. Your problem seems to be that you have no such evidence and your alternative is simply to berate 'you people' as not being willing to follow your techniques. Even that is not accurate though as I'm sure many of us do look into our own subjective natures. Indeed, that is one reason why I, for one, demand as objective evidence as possible to inform my views on a variety of subjects. Perhaps you should look at your own subjective nature, Sriram. It could be that your inbuilt biases are not allowing your mind to be as open as it should be.
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Sriram,
I have presented the views of Sam Parnia and the RED phenomenon. I have also linked about the many reasons to believe that the mind is different from the brain. I have also linked videos of prominent neuroscientists expressing their views about why consciousness cannot be just neural activity.
No, you’ve linked variously to fringe figures, to peddlers of pseudo-science and to people speculating about possible phenomena. You’ve studiously avoided mainstream science, evidence-based conclusions and testable hypotheses.
Moreover, no-one says that the mind isn’t different from the brain – rather that the mind is likely to be an emergent property of functioning brains, an explanation that relies on fewer assumptions than a supposed, “out there” consciousness floating about the place that decides somehow to “project” itself onto selected parts of the brain.
Your mental programming just does not allow you to see the reality that is quite clear to many others.
The only “mental programming” you’re encountering is the request for some sound reasoning and evidence, rather than just accepting at face value your various badly argued, evidence-free claims and assertions.
The "mental programming" you’re bringing to the table is a suite of a priori woo beliefs that you cannot countenance being wrong, so you’re compelled to reject any falsifications of them you’re given by resorting to avoidance, ad homs (“you people” etc) and various logical fallacies.
The only thing that is left for you people is to take up yoga and meditations and look into your own self and subjective nature and see the reality for yourselves on a first person basis.
So rely on subjective truths rather than objective ones just as you have you mean. What’s odd to me about the way you privilege your unqualified opinions over facts is that, presumably, in other aspects of your life objective verification is important to you. You wouldn’t for example not wear your crash helmet when riding your motor bike on the assurance from me that magic fairies will protect you if you have a crash (perhaps supported by a video of a fringe mystic propounding fairyism) yet you expect us to accept your claims on the same basis.
I however know that is not going to happen.
You could abandon the multiple logical fallacies on which your claims rely and instead try at least to find some sound reasoning to justify your beliefs. I however know that is not going to happen.
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I have presented the views of Sam Parnia and the RED phenomenon. I have also linked about the many reasons to believe that the mind is different from the brain. I have also linked videos of prominent neuroscientists expressing their views about why consciousness cannot be just neural activity.
But the 'views' of individuals aren't useful - all sorts of individuals have all sorts of views. What is relevant is evidence - some people's views are clearly based on evidence and therefore carry far more weight than others whose views are devoid of supporting evidence. Bottom line - it is the evidence, not the subjective views of individuals, that it important.
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But the 'views' of individuals aren't useful - all sorts of individuals have all sorts of views. What is relevant is evidence - some people's views are clearly based on evidence and therefore carry far more weight than others whose views are devoid of supporting evidence. Bottom line - it is the evidence, not the subjective views of individuals, that it important.
How can the views of prominent neuroscientists not matter?! They are professionals in the field and are familiar with their subject, certainly much more than lay people like yourselves.
These are areas where clear and definite ideas are not possible. I am sure they know what evidence is and how much they should speculate.
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Sriram,
How can the views of prominent neuroscientists not matter?! They are professionals in the field and are familiar with their subject, certainly much more than lay people like yourselves.
Why are you lying about this? He didn't say that peoples' views don't matter - he said that peoples' views that aren't supported by evidence don't matter.
These are areas where clear and definite ideas are not possible. I am sure they know what evidence is and how much they should speculate.
If there's evidence then it can be examined and tested; if there's just speculation though, then the claims of fact you make that you justify with those speculations are themselves also therefore just speculations.
This shouldn't be difficult to understand, even for someone whose grasp of reason is as tenuous as yours.
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How can the views of prominent neuroscientists not matter?! They are professionals in the field and are familiar with their subject, certainly much more than lay people like yourselves.
These are areas where clear and definite ideas are not possible. I am sure they know what evidence is and how much they should speculate.
Surely then you should take on board the utterances and evidence of prominent neuroscientists like Kevin Nelson, a Professor of Neuroscience or do you only select out anyone who supports your point of view?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6170042/
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I have presented the views of Sam Parnia and the RED phenomenon.
And we've reviewed it, and it's unconvincing at best.
I have also linked about the many reasons to believe that the mind is different from the brain.
No, you've explained some things about how that would work if it were the case, but I've not seen anything that qualifies as a reason why anyone should think that it is the case.
I have also linked videos of prominent neuroscientists expressing their views about why consciousness cannot be just neural activity.
And yet the very nature of neuroscience presumes that it is; there may well be some neuroscientists who, when they take off their lab-coats, believe in souls, but that's not part of their work. And it's not a logical conclusion, or a conclusion from the evidence, that's at all widely accepted in the field of neuroscience.
Your mental programming just does not allow you to see the reality that is quite clear to many others.
Or, conversely, your mental programming has integrated this delusion, and you keep attempting to wedge it into phenomena that don't need it. See, I can throw an ad hominem in place of an argument, too.
The only thing that is left for you people is to take up yoga and meditations and look into your own self and subjective nature and see the reality for yourselves on a first person basis.
Ah, personal revelation - another ad hominem, cloaked in mystic bullshit. "You'd understand if only you'd meditate properly, it's a personal failing on your part'. If you can't explain it, if you can't understand it without - by your own admission - entering some sort of altered mental state, maybe it's not real.
And I meditate fine, thank you - wood-turning videos on YouTube are disturbingly calming for me.
I however know that is not going to happen.
You don't 'know', but you strongly suspect, just as I strongly suspect that you'll cling to this belief in souls in the absolute absence of any reason to do so.
O.
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Well...You guys can keep banging the table for evidence all you want but if you can't see it, no one can help you. As I have said here many times, evidence can be all around us but we may not see it. It depends on ones programming and mental make up.
The evidence for consciousness being independent of the body and brain is available all around us and within us. Even many scientists have spoken about it as I have mentioned above. But then...like light 'doesn't exist' for a blind man, such matters just don't seem to make a dent in your awareness and understanding.
It is also quite funny the way you guys position yourselves as expert judges on the work and views of professional scientists.... just because many of them are coming out of rigid materialism/physicalism! ::)
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The evidence for consciousness being independent of the body and brain is available all around us and within us. Even many scientists have spoken about it as I have mentioned above. But then...like light 'doesn't exist' for a blind man, such matters just don't seem to make a dent in your awareness and understanding.
There isn't currently any evidence for consciousness being independant of minds or of it being a fundamental property of matter. What such claims are, is a philosophical speculation that has attracted interest as a route to solving the hard problem of consciousness. But evidence, no, there is not even any definition of what to look for in order to detect it. How would we measure the level of consciousness of an electron if we don't know what to look for.
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Well...You guys can keep banging the table for evidence all you want but if you can't see it, no one can help you.
Why do you mean? If there's no evidence for a phenomenon that we re sceptical about, why do we need help. Isn't it the people who refuse to accept that the evidence points to them being wrong who are in need of help.
That's you, by the way.
As I have said here many times, evidence can be all around us but we may not see it. It depends on ones programming and mental make up.
Your programming seems to need some adjustment.
The evidence for consciousness being independent of the body and brain is available all around us and within us.
You keep saying that but you can't actually provide any.
It is also quite funny the way you guys position yourselves as expert judges on the work and views of professional scientists.... just because many of them are coming out of rigid materialism/physicalism! ::)
And what makes you think you are an expert?
Edit: one of us is a professional scientist.
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Well...You guys can keep banging the table for evidence all you want but if you can't see it, no one can help you.
Well, if you guys keep banging on about unsubstantiated woo no-one can help you.
As I have said here many times, evidence can be all around us but we may not see it. It depends on ones programming and mental make up.
As has become clear, if you're not picky about the standards of 'evidence' you can find evidence for any nonsense you like in the absence of any evidence at all. It just needs the right indoctrination and mental failures.
The evidence for consciousness being independent of the body and brain is available all around us and within us.
If you aren't worried about validity and just accept claims based on the sincerity of the claimant, there are hundreds of London Bridges for sale at the right price.
Even many scientists have spoken about it as I have mentioned above.
Even smart people can be stupid sometimes.
But then...like light 'doesn't exist' for a blind man, such matters just don't seem to make a dent in your awareness and understanding.
Blind Non-believing people are stupid, and don't realise that they're blind non-believing, that vision in other people souls can be demonstrated to be a thing, and that we have machinery to detect light souls, predictions about how light souls will be emitted in particular circumstances which have been tested and proven to be true...
It is also quite funny the way you guys position yourselves as expert judges on the work and views of professional scientists.... just because many of them are coming out of rigid materialism/physicalism! ::)
It's also funny the way you just accept any old horseshit and the position yourself as an expert judge on the work of science when it's readily apparent you don't really grasp how science works.
O.
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Sriram,
Well...You guys can keep banging the table for evidence all you want…
Just asking for evidence isn’t banging the table, and why wouldn’t someone ask for evidence to justify an otherwise unqualified truth claim such as those you make here?
…but if you can't see it, no one can help you.
If you can’t provide it, no-one can help you.
As I have said here many times, evidence can be all around us but we may not see it.
That much at least is true, but your problem remains to find a route from a “may be” to an “is”.
It depends on ones programming and mental make up.
Not really. You for example I presume would demand evidence that meets various objective criteria for my claims about leprechauns before you accepted them, yet you expect others to abandon exactly the same objective evidential criteria in respect of the claims you make. Why the blatant and egregious double standard?
The evidence for consciousness being independent of the body and brain is available all around us and within us.
Where?
Even many scientists have spoken about it as I have mentioned above.
Stop lying. Some scientists have speculated about it, but none that I know of have provided testable evidence for it, had their findings peer reviewed and published, been cited by other researchers etc.
But then...like light 'doesn't exist' for a blind man, such matters just don't seem to make a dent in your awareness and understanding.
That false analogy has been detonated without rebuttal here multiple times in the past. Why on earth have you returned to the same mistake now?
It is also quite funny the way you guys position yourselves as expert judges on the work and views of professional scientists.... just because many of them are coming out of rigid materialism/physicalism!
You really struggle with the difference between the subjective and the objective don’t you. What “you guys” may or may not position ourselves as being is irrelevant – what’s relevant is just the arguments we make. Your efforts here and on your blog are littered with basic mistakes in reasoning, yet rather than ever address the explanations you’re given for why they’re mistakes you just ignore the problem, deflect, try ad homs etc and then return to exactly the same mistakes over and over again. This wilful ignorance does you no credit here.
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A nice (9 minute) video of David Eagleman (neuroscientist). Listen to his Kalahari tribal analogy....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kLhFIeIiVs
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A nice (9 minute) video of David Eagleman (neuroscientist). Listen to his Kalahari tribal analogy....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kLhFIeIiVs
He's not advocating the case, which is important, but what he says boils down to the fact that non-material explanations exist because the material explanation isn't absolutely complete. Explicitly he's pointing out that we don't have any evidence for it - the 'Kalahari' analogy relies on explicit ignorance from the tribesman.
If you want that radio analogy to be accepted, you need to demonstrate the radio waves, or the encryption, or the signal being received by the receiver in the brain, or the transmitter... you have none of it, you just a have a gap in an otherwise comprehensively more robust explanation into which you're inserting ancient superstition.
O.
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A nice (9 minute) video of David Eagleman (neuroscientist). Listen to his Kalahari tribal analogy....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kLhFIeIiVs
At 6:50 he says "I hope I don't get quoted on this" and here you are "quoting" him on it.
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He's not advocating the case, which is important, but what he says boils down to the fact that non-material explanations exist because the material explanation isn't absolutely complete. Explicitly he's pointing out that we don't have any evidence for it - the 'Kalahari' analogy relies on explicit ignorance from the tribesman.
If you want that radio analogy to be accepted, you need to demonstrate the radio waves, or the encryption, or the signal being received by the receiver in the brain, or the transmitter... you have none of it, you just a have a gap in an otherwise comprehensively more robust explanation into which you're inserting ancient superstition.
O.
And it should be pointed out that the explanation of the radio is entirely material and eventually, the Kalihari tribesman will discover that, if he attempts to solve the problem with science.
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A nice (9 minute) video of David Eagleman (neuroscientist). Listen to his Kalahari tribal analogy....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kLhFIeIiVs
Glad to see that you have linked to a David Eagleman video. (There's hope for you yet ;))If you want to explore further, may I suggest you look at some of his other conjectures. For instance, the well established idea that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain.
To understand human consciousness, we may need to think not in terms of the pieces and parts of the brain, but instead in terms of how these components interact. If we want to see can give rise to something bigger than themselves, look no further than the nearest anthill.
p212 'The Brain the Story of You' by David Eagleman
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A nice (9 minute) video of David Eagleman (neuroscientist). Listen to his Kalahari tribal analogy....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kLhFIeIiVs
Where he says, and he does in your other video that you put up, raise the issue of brain damage, as I did but you dismissed. Are you saying you now agree with Eagleman about it?
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'Our mind is integrally dependent on the brain...whether that is all that is required and whether there is something else is the question'. Or words to that effect... is what he concludes the interview with.
That the wakeful awareness part of consciousness is dependent on the brain is obvious. Whether we can explain all the minds characteristics only through neural activity is the question.
There are enough reasons such as RED's, qualia, some people virtually living without a brain and other factors, that raise the possibility that the mind and consciousness have many layers many of which are not dependent on the body/brain.
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Sriram,
'Our mind is integrally dependent on the brain...whether that is all that is required and whether there is something else is the question'. Or words to that effect... is what he concludes the interview with.
Yes, but it’s just a question – there’s no suggestion that there’s any evidence for the latter, so it's not a testable hypothesis. I could say the same about gravity too, but so what?
That the wakeful awareness part of consciousness is dependent on the brain is obvious. Whether we can explain all the minds characteristics only through neural activity is the question.
No, we know already that we can’t do that. What we don’t know is whether there’s some fundamental reason that neural activity alone cannot explain consciousness, or whether instead it’s the limitations of our current understanding of neural activity that limit our understanding of consciousness.
There are enough reasons such as RED's, qualia, some people virtually living without a brain and other factors, that raise the possibility that the mind and consciousness have many layers many of which are not dependent on the body/brain.
That’s a non sequitur. That there’s a “possibility that the mind and consciousness have many layers many of which are not dependent on the body/brain” is axiomatic, just as there’s a possibility that behind gravity there sits some hitherto unsuspected cause is axiomatic. REDs etc add nothing to that because the notion that they do rests on bad reasoning…
…and speaking of bad reasoning, did you notice that when Eagleman raised this his interlocutor asked how he’d deal with the charge that he’s opening the door to lots of very bad ideas about “souls or spirits that pollute humanity” (7.00). That meant you and your like, though you seem not to have realised this.
PS I’m a bit if a fan if Eagleman by the way. His “The Brain: The Story of You” is worth reading, as is his fiction too.
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At 7 minutes the interviewer tells Eagleman that he (Eagleman) is allowing 'bad ideas such as souls and spirits to come in....because they bring in religion'.
Eagleman then says that we should listen and put all hypotheses on the table before we gather data and then evaluate it. He is clearly not biased against such ideas.
We should differentiate between religious myths and secular spiritual ideas.
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Sriram,
At 7 minutes the interviewer tells Eagleman that he (Eagleman) is allowing 'bad ideas such as souls and spirits to come in....because they bring in religion'.
Eagleman then says that we should listen and put all hypotheses on the table before we gather data and then evaluate it. He is clearly not biased against such ideas.
No, but your various claims and assertions aren't hypotheses, or at least not testable ones – they're just claims and assertions with no more justifying reasoning or evidence than my claims about leprechauns. Where you consistently go wrong is to overreach by telling us they're something more substantive than that, which is not what Eagleman proposes at all.
We should differentiate between religious myths and secular spiritual ideas.
Why?
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Quite clearly Eagleman is open to ideas and open to evaluate them as valid hypotheses. He is obviously not biased or dismissive of any idea unless it is proven wrong.
Why....we should differentiate between religious myths and spirituality?!!! Really?! If in all these years you still don't know the difference between religion and spirituality....what can I say?! No wonder we keep going around in circles......!
If you want to know the difference between spirituality and religion try this....
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/spirituality-and-religion/
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At 7 minutes the interviewer tells Eagleman that he (Eagleman) is allowing 'bad ideas such as souls and spirits to come in....because they bring in religion'.
Eagleman then says that we should listen and put all hypotheses on the table before we gather data and then evaluate it. He is clearly not biased against such ideas.
We should differentiate between religious myths and secular spiritual ideas.
But we can't evaluate your data because you don't have any.
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We have RED's and documented reincarnation cases. Instead of laughing away such phenomena they should be evaluated.
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Sriram,
Quite clearly Eagleman is open to ideas and open to evaluate them as valid hypotheses. He is obviously not biased or dismissive of any idea unless it is proven wrong.
But nor does he accept them as true either. Try to remember this.
Why....we should differentiate between religious myths and spirituality?!!! Really?! If in all these years you still don't know the difference between religion and spirituality....what can I say?! No wonder we keep going around in circles......!
If you want to know the difference between spirituality and religion try this....
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/spirituality-and-religion/
That's just more of your logical dog's dinner nonsense. The differing degrees of codification between religious woo and spiritual woo aren't relevant here. Both assert truth claims for very bad reasons - to that extent there is no difference.
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Sriram,
We have RED's and documented reincarnation cases. Instead of laughing away such phenomena they should be evaluated.
They have been. Neither survive rational scrutiny.
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These phenomena are beyond the tool box of science,as Eagleman says.....
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We have RED's
No we don't. The experiences recorded in NDEs (RED is a lie), do not demonstrate any kind of consciousness without the brain.
Why do you keep lying about this?
and documented reincarnation cases. Instead of laughing away such phenomena they should be evaluated.
They have been evaluated as far as sketchy anecdotes can be evaluated and they have been found wanting.
If you are trying to convince us, you need to come up with something better. Your evidence is not persuasive and simply repeating it is not going to make it stronger.
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No we don't. The experiences recorded in NDEs (RED is a lie), do not demonstrate any kind of consciousness without the brain.
Why do you keep lying about this?
They have been evaluated as far as sketchy anecdotes can be evaluated and they have been found wanting.
If you are trying to convince us, you need to come up with something better. Your evidence is not persuasive and simply repeating it is not going to make it stronger.
The meme is strong with him.
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These phenomena are beyond the tool box of science,as Eagleman says.....
He doesn't say that at all. You need to watch the video again and listen more carefully.
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Sriram,
These phenomena are beyond the tool box of science,as Eagleman says.....
They're not phenomena, and no he doesn't.
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We should differentiate between religious myths and secular spiritual ideas.
Why?
I'd be more interested in 'how'. In what functional way is 'secular spiritual' any different to 'religiously spiritual'? It's still reliant on just accepting claims without evidence. Religion is just what you get when enough people accept the same unevidenced claim.
We have RED's and documented reincarnation cases. Instead of laughing away such phenomena they should be evaluated.
We have documented claims of these, whether that's what they are remains to be seen. I'm intrigued as to how you suggest we should evaluate them given that, apparently, you believe...
These phenomena are beyond the tool box of science
If, as you suggest, they are observable phenomena I'm intrigued as to how you think they are 'beyond the tool box of science' (I'm going to agree with the majority here and disagree with your assertion that this is a fair interpretation of what Eagleman had to say, at least in the video you linked).
How are any observable phenomena beyond science? Your claims of non-corporeal causes might be beyond science - if so, how do you suggest 'instead of laughing away such phenomena they should be evaluated'? How do you evaluate something that apparently leave no trace? How do you link an untraceable cause to an observable phenomenon through an untraceable mechanism? What's your methodology? How do you validate it?
In what way is just accepting the claim because it's technically not explicitly impossible any different from, say, just making shit up?
O.
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Interesting read in today's Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/02/new-science-of-death-brain-activity-consciousness-near-death-experience
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Interesting read in today's Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/02/new-science-of-death-brain-activity-consciousness-near-death-experience
An interesting article. It sums up the various interpretations linked to NDEs very well, I thought. Jimo Borjigin's research is not alone, of course. Here is another example:
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnagi.2022.813531/full
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Interesting read in today's Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/02/new-science-of-death-brain-activity-consciousness-near-death-experience
Key takeaway tldr : "Perhaps the story to be written about near-death experiences is not that they prove consciousness is radically different from what we thought it was. Instead, it is that the process of dying is far stranger than scientists ever suspected"