Recalled Experience of Death (RED)

[jeremyp]

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.

[jeremyp]

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.

[Enki]

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

[Nearly Sane]

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?

[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.

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.

[bluehillside Retd.]

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.

[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.

We should differentiate between religious myths and secular spiritual ideas.

[bluehillside Retd.]

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?

[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.

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/

[jeremyp]

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.

[Sriram]

We have RED's and documented reincarnation cases. Instead of laughing away such  phenomena they should be evaluated.

[bluehillside Retd.]

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.     

[bluehillside Retd.]

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.

[Sriram]

These phenomena are beyond the tool box of science,as Eagleman says.....

[jeremyp]

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.

[Maeght]

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.

[jeremyp]

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.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

These phenomena are beyond the tool box of science,as Eagleman says.....

They're not phenomena, and no he doesn't.

[Outrider]

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.

[Gordon]

Interesting read in today's Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/02/new-science-of-death-brain-activity-consciousness-near-death-experience

[Enki]

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

[torridon]

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"