Searching for GOD...

[Enki]

But Sam Parnia (see earlier link #10422) also offers substantial evidence for the soul, and he professes to have no religious faith.

Here is another quote from Sam Parnia:

As you probably realised from my lecture at Goldsmiths, the evidence is now suggesting that mental and cognitive processes may continue for a period of time after a death has started. This of course makes sense when we understand the process of death better, which is that it is essentially a global stroke of the brain. Therefore like any stroke process one would not expect the entity of mind / consciousness to be lost immediately.

http://forum.mind-energy.net/skeptiko-podcast/1458-aware-update-dr-parnia.html

Which I have no quarrel with at all.


Also, bear in mind, that during his AWARE study, the results of his OBE prospective testings were entirely negative.

[Alan Burns]

But all creatures, not just humans, perceive and interact with the physical world; what is your justification for thinking that other animals don't have souls ?

Can you not see a difference between reaction (animals) and interaction (humans) with this physical world?

The difference seems plain to me, but if you insist that animals can have the same sort of interaction as humans, then there is scope for animals having some form of God given soul too.

[torridon]

Can you not see a difference between reaction (animals) and interaction (humans) with this physical world?

The difference seems plain to me, but if you insist that animals can have the same sort of interaction as humans, then there is scope for animals having some form of God given soul too.

Clearly there is diversity in the richness and quality of experience and interaction from species to species and from individual to individual, but it makes no sense to propose a 'soul' as that which converts interactions at the level of biochemistry into mental experience if you then deny souls to all other creatures apart from H. Sapiens.  All higher creatures experience, they feel pain, they have desires and fears. If you need a soul for this then hyenas and hedgehogs and hamsters also have souls.  Which begs the question why then do minds exist, if souls are in fact filling that function it renders minds obsolete. Which then in turn begs the question why do we have bodies at all.  If you start bringing in supernatural elements into life, it eventually renders all biology pointless by the time you finish thinking it through.

[Alan Burns]

Dear Alan,

It may come as a surprise to you, but we all have a Spiritual existence, you really should step out of this Searching for God thread.

Gonnagle.

Dear Gonnagle,

I believe the first step in finding God is to discover your spiritual self.  Once found, it will then be easier to find God.  It looks like it will be a long thread 

[Alan Burns]

Ya, nice, but that is poetry really, not science.

But is poetry itself not evidence for a human soul?
What other creature could produce or appreciate such abstract entities?

[Sebastian Toe]

But is poetry itself not evidence for a human soul?

No.

[Alan Burns]

Also, bear in mind, that during his AWARE study, the results of his OBE prospective testings were entirely negative.

This was the summary of results from the AWARE study:

Results

Among 2060 CA events, 140 survivors completed stage 1 interviews, while 101 of 140 patients completed stage 2 interviews. 46% had memories with 7 major cognitive themes: fear; animals/plants; bright light; violence/persecution; deja-vu; family; recalling events post-CA and 9% had NDEs, while 2% described awareness with explicit recall of ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’ actual events related to their resuscitation. One had a verifiable period of conscious awareness during which time cerebral function was not expected.

reference:
http://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572%2814%2900739-4/fulltext

[torridon]

But is poetry itself not evidence for a human soul?
What other creature could produce or appreciate such abstract entities?

We cannot summon into existence an entire domain of previously undiscovered reality on the back of 'we like poetry'.  That wouldn't count for evidence in any other context.  A good understanding has to encompass all of life and all attempts to categorise humans as fundamentally different are bound to fail at some point as the entirety of our understanding from biology and genetics points to a continuum of related life forms built from the same organic principles through shared ancestry.  Humans might appreciate poetry sure enough but that doesn't categorise us as somehow separate from the great tree of life, and if we care to look at the rest of nature we don't have to go far to find some development of aesthetic sense in other creatures.  Flowers are beautiful aren't they, but flowers were beautiful long before humans evolved to wonder at them; natural selection wrought their beauty not for us but to appeal to bees and pollinating insects so we can infer that in the tiny brain of a bee, perhaps just a few million neurons, lies a primitive nascent ancestor of what has developed in us as a rich sense of aesthetics.  I see hints of our relatedness to the rest of the animal kingdom everywhere, in our physiology, in our behaviours, in our experience, and all that richness of insight and wonder is lost in a view that holds humans as separate, cut off, unrelated, made of some undiagnosed supernatural stuff.

[Leonard James]

  I see hints of our relatedness to the rest of the animal kingdom everywhere, in our physiology, in our behaviours, in our experience, and all that richness of insight and wonder is lost in a view that holds humans as separate, cut off, unrelated, made of some undiagnosed supernatural stuff.

There is nothing special about homo sapiens separating it from the rest of lif on earth except its own conceit.

[floo]

There is nothing special about homo sapiens separating it from the rest of lif on earth except its own conceit.

I am special of course, but as for the rest well I agree!

[Enki]

This was the summary of results from the AWARE study:

Results

Among 2060 CA events, 140 survivors completed stage 1 interviews, while 101 of 140 patients completed stage 2 interviews. 46% had memories with 7 major cognitive themes: fear; animals/plants; bright light; violence/persecution; deja-vu; family; recalling events post-CA and 9% had NDEs, while 2% described awareness with explicit recall of ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’ actual events related to their resuscitation. One had a verifiable period of conscious awareness during which time cerebral function was not expected.

reference:
http://www.resuscitationjournal.com/article/S0300-9572%2814%2900739-4/fulltext

Alan,

Do you not understand what these tests involved?


Read this, which appertains to Sam Parnia's AWARE study.:

That final category was tested by requiring the patients to describe characters and images on hidden placards that were placed in trauma and surgery bays in the participating hospitals.  These placards were place such that they could only be seen from a position at or above the ceiling of the room, thus if a person accurately described a placard they claimed to have seen during an out-of-body experience, it indicates that they, or their consciousness, was in a physical position required to see the placard.

You should notice a conspicuous missing claim in those conclusions.  It’s a claim that many wish was there, and some of whom are mistakenly insisting is there.  Not one participant was able to recount or recall the characters or images on any of the placards.
That is a very important detail that needs to be driven home.  The AWARE study has not proven the case for NDE’s or OBE’s.

Taken from:
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2014/10/aware-study-results-finally-published-does-not-prove-life-after-death/


I repeat, "Also, bear in mind, that during his AWARE study, the results of his OBE prospective testings were entirely negative."

[Maeght]

The most likely explanation for NDEs lies in our current incomplete understanding of the processes which take place when people are near to death and how good we are at measuring activity in the brain in such circumstances. Clinically dead indicates that we can measure no vital signs.

[Enki]

Alan,

There is so much anecdotal evidence that suggests [experiencers]can, at least, sometime, perceive veridically during their NDEs ....but isn't it true that in all this time, there hasn't been a single case of a veridical perception reported by an NDEr under controlled conditions? I mean, thirty years later it's still a null class(as far as I know). Yes, excuses, excuse-I know. But , really, wouldn't you have suspected more than a few such cases at least by now?...

written by the eminent NDE researcher Kenneth Ring, from an email exchange with Bruce Greyson on Sept. 7 2006.

From page 210 of 'The Handbook of Near-Death Experiences' by Holden, Greyson and James.

[torridon]

quite apart from which, just the suggestion that an immaterial body could somehow 'see' contradicts its its own supposition and displays an underlying naivety of understanding.  'Seeing' is a material interaction between photons and photosensitive proteins. An immaterial being would not be able to 'see' by its own definition.

[Enki]

quite apart from which, just the suggestion that an immaterial body could somehow 'see' contradicts its its own supposition and displays an underlying naivety of understanding.  'Seeing' is a material interaction between photons and photosensitive proteins. An immaterial being would not be able to 'see' by its own definition.

Quite agree. Torri. This is the sort of problem that arises when anecdotal accounts of seeing someone's bald head are suggested as evidence for an OBE. Ditto with hearing conversations. Have souls actually got ears? I wonder if they're jug ears! Alas, I fear, we will never know.

[wigginhall]

torridon wrote:

Flowers are beautiful aren't they, but flowers were beautiful long before humans evolved to wonder at them; natural selection wrought their beauty not for us but to appeal to bees and pollinating insects so we can infer that in the tiny brain of a bee, perhaps just a few million neurons, lies a primitive nascent ancestor of what has developed in us as a rich sense of aesthetics.  I see hints of our relatedness to the rest of the animal kingdom everywhere, in our physiology, in our behaviours, in our experience, and all that richness of insight and wonder is lost in a view that holds humans as separate, cut off, unrelated, made of some undiagnosed supernatural stuff.

Very well put.   Humans turn into a sort of non-life or even anti-life form, if we separate them in this way from the rest of the animal world.   Soul seems to turn to ash in our mouth, as it wrenches us out of this concrete life now.  This to me sounds less like salvation than damnation.

[Alan Burns]

Alan,

Do you not understand what these tests involved?


Read this, which appertains to Sam Parnia's AWARE study.:

Taken from:
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2014/10/aware-study-results-finally-published-does-not-prove-life-after-death/


I repeat, "Also, bear in mind, that during his AWARE study, the results of his OBE prospective testings were entirely negative."

The quotes you give are not taken from the original study, but appear to be a very selective opinion taken from a biased viewpoint, ignoring the main body of results and conclusions.  The summary I gave was taken from the results as published.

[Leonard James]

I am special of course, but as for the rest well I agree!

There's just the two of us then. 

[Alan Burns]

torridon wrote:

Very well put.   Humans turn into a sort of non-life or even anti-life form, if we separate them in this way from the rest of the animal world.   Soul seems to turn to ash in our mouth, as it wrenches us out of this concrete life now.  This to me sounds less like salvation than damnation.

From my own observations, bees are just as attracted to the dull looking raspberry bush as they are to magnificent flowers - they do not appear to appreciate the beauty that humans see.  I put it to you that God may well have created such beauty for the benefit of those creatures who have the true gift of perception.

[Sebastian Toe]

But is poetry itself not evidence for a human soul?
What other creature could produce or appreciate such abstract entities?

Another classic AB response.

Whenever anyone points out that other animals have a level of awareness, AB picks up the goalposts, dismantles them into a box, gives Fedex a call, transports them to a different continent, reassembles them in a small basement - et voilà -  'soul'.

[Sebastian Toe]

quite apart from which, just the suggestion that an immaterial body could somehow 'see' contradicts its its own supposition and displays an underlying naivety of understanding.  'Seeing' is a material interaction between photons and photosensitive proteins. An immaterial being would not be able to 'see' by its own definition.

If I recall correctly, AB states categorically that the 'soul' only sees as a result of 'quantum interaction' with our own physical optic system.
How the fuck can an unconscious, eyes closed patient send an accurate optical signal to the 'soul' and then 'describe' the surroundings at a later time?

[Shaker]

The quotes you give are not taken from the original study, but appear to be a very selective opinion taken from a biased viewpoint

And the unsupported assertions and speculations of John Eccles aren't.

Right.

[Rhiannon]

From my own observations, bees are just as attracted to the dull looking raspberry bush as they are to magnificent flowers - they do not appear to appreciate the beauty that humans see.  I put it to you that God may well have created such beauty for the benefit of those creatures who have the true gift of perception.

I find your ignorant arrogance and self-importance quite breathtaking. Flowers exist just for you to look at? Wow.

[Shaker]

I find your ignorant arrogance and self-importance quite breathtaking. Flowers exist just for you to look at? Wow.

Bog-standard theism, with the emphasis very much on the bog. Christopher Hitchens tells a story that when he was a tiny wee lad at school a pious teacher earnestly informed him that God made foliage - grass; leaves; stems and what have you - green because that was a nice restful colour for human eyes. Same thing as here. Alan probably thinks the teacher was bang on the money; the fact that bees collect pollen from whatever source, whether arbitrarily regarded as beautiful or ugly or all points between by some humans, really doesn't seem to appear in his impoverished and pinched mental landscape.

[Rhiannon]

Humans turn into a sort of non-life or even anti-life form, if we separate them in this way from the rest of the animal world.   Soul seems to turn to ash in our mouth, as it wrenches us out of this concrete life now.  This to me sounds less like salvation than damnation.

Yes, anti-life form is a good way of putting it. There is something dead in not feeling the kinship we have with the animal kingdom. Not so much them and us as it and us. No sense of relationship to this sensual, fragile, terrifying world. Perhaps that's it; religion doesn't do sensual well and shies away from terror. The fragility of it gets lost in the need to make it clean and controllable.