Miracles from Heaven

[Shaker]

Of course Wiki will say what it says. It is so biased it is hardly worth bothering with.

Would that be the same reception you would give if it swallowed van Lommel's every claim uncritically? I very much doubt it.

But then I would; I'm a sceptic.

[Shaker]

Like Trent, I have had a number of friends (of different faiths, and none), die of cancer and other illnesses.  Currently, some of my friends are seriously ill with various conditions, including dementia, motor neurone, and cancer. 

I am in the dying generation.   So am I supposed to run around getting excited about possible miracles?   I don't feel like doing that.   I will be with my friends, until they die, that is the best way for me to deal with it.  I don't want false comfort.

"Whatever consoles us is fake." (Iris Murdoch).

[SusanDoris]

Every time someone lectures about an apparent NDE without explaining that the brain produces whatever images etc are remembered is holding back knowledge of scientific reality, is retarding progress away from superstition towards knowledge, is weakening people's confidence to say we don't know yet and, instead, is encouraging them to be side-tracked down a dead end, away from reality.

That is not well said, but it will have to do for now!

[Stranger]

Yes...and its this implicit assumption of naturalism that I am talking about. What is 'natural'?

It really isn't about what is 'natural', it's about whether you can build a testable hypothesis. It's all very well collecting stories of unexpected recovery or NDEs or whatever, but going from that data to a scientific conclusion requires formulating a hypothesis that you can test with experiment or further data collection. That is, it needs to be distinguishable from any other possible explanations.

Anybody can make up a story to 'explain' these experiences but unless you can test them, they are not science. So, we don't know exactly why some people recover unexpectedly and we don't know exactly why people experience what they do when they are near to death - what's wrong with that?

Postulating untestable stuff like souls, life after death or gods, is not unscientific because these things are somehow classified as not 'natural' but because they are nothing more than storytelling to 'explain' stuff we don't understand yet.

[ippy]

Sri,

So in your arrogant opinion, science should "evolve" from a sceptical system of evidence and peer-reviewed papers, to a gullible system of anecdotes and movies..?

Woo peddlars everywhere will be delighted.

I understood this post of yours NS it's a good post, I like it. the smiles are partly for Sriram.

ippy

[Aruntraveller]

I understood this post of yours NS it's a good post, I like it. the smiles are partly for Sriram.

ippy

Not NS it's SV.

[SqueakyVoice]

 It was just over thirty years ago that I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena and launched me on a crusade to show those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and that death was not the end. Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena - only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error and, occasionally, fraud. 

...
I couldn’t dismiss all those extraordinary claims out of hand. After all, they might just be true, and if they were then swathes of science would have to be rewritten.

Another "psychic" turns up. I must devise more experiments, take these claims seriously. They fail - again. A man explains to me how alien abductors implanted something in his mouth. Tests show it's just a filling, but it might have been…

No, I don’t have to think that way. And when the psychics and clairvoyants and New Agers shout at me, as they do: "The trouble with all you scientists is you don't have an open mind", I won't be upset. I won't argue. I won't rush off and perform yet more experiments just in case. I'll simply smile sweetly and say: "I don't do that any more."

The results of 30 years of being open minded ("but not so open minded that her brain fell out").

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/journalism/NS2000.html

[Enki]

Of course Wiki will say what it says. It is so biased it is hardly worth bothering with.

For example: where are the comments, on the section labelled 'Reception', from Sam Parnia or Penny Satori etc?

Okay, then let's take Penny Satori. She conducted a prospective study involving perceptual targets to test for Out of Body Experiences.

Her study lasted 5 years, from 2004. at the Morriston Hospital, Swansea. This involved "Symbols ...mounted on brightly coloured glow paper...placed on the top of [the cardiac] monitor...mounted on the wall...at each patient's bedside...above head height and concealed behind ridges to prevent them being viewed from a standing position"

Her report suggested that, "Not all of the patients rose high enough out of their bodies and some reported...a position opposite to where the symbols were situated"

Her results were all negative.

And exactly the same negative results came from another 4 OBE veridical studies conducted within the period 1990 to 2006. One of those, by the way, was conducted by Sam Parnia. It seems "anecdote rules ok" but as soon as any sort of rigorous scientific testing is pursued, it is a case of "Houston, we have a problem".

Oh, and by the way, none of the above information was gathered by me either from  Wiki, or even the internet at all.

[torridon]

Yes...and its this implicit assumption of naturalism that I am talking about. What is 'natural'?

Like you, I would say that there is no supernatural, there is only natural.  It is a dichotomy that is past its sell by date.  'Supernatural' as a concept was in its heyday in thirteenth century Europe when everyone believed the world was run by unseen unaccountable forces of good and evil; people with Tourettes were possessed by demons; people having religious visions were revered as prophets, when in all likelihood they were manifesting the symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy. Science has since done a good job of demolishing superstitions, ignorance and anthropomorphisms by showing that things work according to simple underlying insentient laws - a ball thrown in the air will always come back down at a speed that can be calculated with mathematical precision.  That is at the heart of what is 'natural', it is that things are born of simple underlying deterministic insentient mathematical laws, and it is only because of this that we can understand anything at all.  A supernatural world, should one exist, would be incomprehensible, life in it would not be able to arise in the absence of dependable cause and effect.

[Sriram]

Okay, then let's take Penny Satori. She conducted a prospective study involving perceptual targets to test for Out of Body Experiences.

Her study lasted 5 years, from 2004. at the Morriston Hospital, Swansea. This involved "Symbols ...mounted on brightly coloured glow paper...placed on the top of [the cardiac] monitor...mounted on the wall...at each patient's bedside...above head height and concealed behind ridges to prevent them being viewed from a standing position"

Her report suggested that, "Not all of the patients rose high enough out of their bodies and some reported...a position opposite to where the symbols were situated"

Her results were all negative.

And exactly the same negative results came from another 4 OBE veridical studies conducted within the period 1990 to 2006. One of those, by the way, was conducted by Sam Parnia. It seems "anecdote rules ok" but as soon as any sort of rigorous scientific testing is pursued, it is a case of "Houston, we have a problem".

Oh, and by the way, none of the above information was gathered by me either from  Wiki, or even the internet at all.

There is a reason why those experiments don't work.

What is to be remembered is that when we talk of spiritual life.....'up' and 'down' don't mean anything....much like in outer space.  Its gravity on earth that creates this up and down.

Its like Parallel Universes existing inches away from us. Are they up or down or where?!  They are just there around us everywhere.... in some sort of another dimension or something.

Similarly, when people leave their bodies and go 'up'... its not really meaningful in a physical sense to talk of a 'up'. Its not that they go to the floors above and see all other patients on those floors....and not the ones on the floors below.

They just go into another dimension that we can only refer to as 'above'.....but they need not see all things situated physically above the patient or the room.

Its also a moment when the patients are in a strong mental and emotional state....such that what they desire or feel is seen more intensely than things they don't care for. They are drawn towards things they feel strongly about. 

Its not a casual fly by....looking around at all sign boards on the way. 

[Sriram]

Like you, I would say that there is no supernatural, there is only natural.  It is a dichotomy that is past its sell by date.  'Supernatural' as a concept was in its heyday in thirteenth century Europe when everyone believed the world was run by unseen unaccountable forces of good and evil; people with Tourettes were possessed by demons; people having religious visions were revered as prophets, when in all likelihood they were manifesting the symptoms of temporal lobe epilepsy. Science has since done a good job of demolishing superstitions, ignorance and anthropomorphisms by showing that things work according to simple underlying insentient laws - a ball thrown in the air will always come back down at a speed that can be calculated with mathematical precision.  That is at the heart of what is 'natural', it is that things are born of simple underlying deterministic insentient mathematical laws, and it is only because of this that we can understand anything at all.  A supernatural world, should one exist, would be incomprehensible, life in it would not be able to arise in the absence of dependable cause and effect.

LOL!  You agree there is no supernatural...but by that you are only going back to your materialistic position, dismissing religions and spirituality and defining 'natural' as usual in your own restrictive way.

You haven't got the idea of a wide spectrum of reality all of which is natural of course....but not necessarily in the way materialists think of it. Your understanding of 'natural' is only one small subset of that big wide 'natural'. That's my point.

I know it is difficult and requires lots of reprogramming to understand....but that's reality for you.   

[Sriram]

It really isn't about what is 'natural', it's about whether you can build a testable hypothesis. It's all very well collecting stories of unexpected recovery or NDEs or whatever, but going from that data to a scientific conclusion requires formulating a hypothesis that you can test with experiment or further data collection. That is, it needs to be distinguishable from any other possible explanations.

Anybody can make up a story to 'explain' these experiences but unless you can test them, they are not science. So, we don't know exactly why some people recover unexpectedly and we don't know exactly why people experience what they do when they are near to death - what's wrong with that?

Postulating untestable stuff like souls, life after death or gods, is not unscientific because these things are somehow classified as not 'natural' but because they are nothing more than storytelling to 'explain' stuff we don't understand yet.

Your quote above..."Postulating untestable stuff like souls, life after death or gods, is not unscientific because these things are somehow classified as not 'natural' but because they are nothing more than storytelling to 'explain' stuff we don't understand yet".


How do you actually know that its all just storytelling?  Its your own fairy story to suit your mindset....that is all!   

[Stranger]

How do you actually know that its all just storytelling?  Its your own fairy story to suit your mindset....that is all!   

I don't know 100% that they are not true, but if you can't build a testable hypothesis, then they are indistinguishable from any other stories I could make up. For example, I could claim NDEs are because purple aliens are reading the mind state of people who are dying and beaming the information to the Andromeda galaxy. Or this universe is just a simulation and the light people see is about to resolve into a big "GAME OVER" message.

No testable hypotheses and my stories are just as (un)believable as yours....       

[Shaker]

Excellent post SKoS - let's see if it sinks in with Sriram.

My money's on no.

[Sriram]

I don't know 100% that they are not true, but if you can't build a testable hypothesis, then they are indistinguishable from any other stories I could make up. For example, I could claim NDEs are because purple aliens are reading the mind state of people who are dying and beaming the information to the Andromeda galaxy. Or this universe is just a simulation and the light people see is about to resolve into a big "GAME OVER" message.

No testable hypotheses and my stories are just as (un)believable as yours....       

Goodness....! 

The New Science is precisely what is required to build a testable hypothesis for such phenomena.

[BeRational]

Goodness....! 

The New Science is precisely what is required to build a testable hypothesis for such phenomena.

So you now believe that aliens from Andromeda are beaming thoughts to us?

Yes or No?

[Stranger]

The New Science is precisely what is required to build a testable hypothesis for such phenomena.

Jolly good...

How?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

There is a reason why those experiments don't work.

What is to be remembered is that when we talk of spiritual life.....'up' and 'down' don't mean anything....much like in outer space.  Its gravity on earth that creates this up and down.

That's an informal logical fallacy called "begging the question". You've just assumed the "spiritual life" a priori, and concluded that's it the fault of science that it can't find it. There is an alternative though - ie, there's nothing to find.

[ekim]

Jolly good...

How?

That's the real question.  The writer of the article said this:
"I believe that miracles only contradict what we know of nature at this point in time. ......  So I believe that miracles actually are consistent with mental and spiritual laws that we are only beginning to study."   I don't know what he means by mental and spiritual laws but perhaps somebody could suggest a way of testing for chakras which are often said to be part of a subtle body rather than the physical body.  Presumably an MMR scan would be useless.

[ippy]

Not NS it's SV.

Oops your right that's why I understood what it was saying, beg pud, I got that one completely wrong.

Good post S V.

ippy

[torridon]

LOL!  You agree there is no supernatural...but by that you are only going back to your materialistic position, dismissing religions and spirituality and defining 'natural' as usual in your own restrictive way.

You haven't got the idea of a wide spectrum of reality all of which is natural of course....but not necessarily in the way materialists think of it. Your understanding of 'natural' is only one small subset of that big wide 'natural'. That's my point.

I know it is difficult and requires lots of reprogramming to understand....but that's reality for you.   

I think you didn't read my post.  Either that or you didn't grasp the point. I wasn't defining natural/supernatural in terms of material/immaterial, that's your baggage not mine. My take on it was more to do with comprehensible/incomprehensible.  That we have been able to build abstracted models of reality and test them is because we find that things invariably obey natural insentient laws; if there were some other category of phenomena that appear to not derive from underlying law they would be incomprehensible to us, just meaningless random noise in our rule-structured world.  So I agree with you, an assumption of naturalism makes sense, everything is natural, and whatever we don't currently understand we can investigate, and we do so by taking a stab at an explanation, often no more than a hunch in the first place, building a theoretical framework round the hunch, see what predictions the theory would make and devise tests to gather evidence to either verify or falsify the theoretical model.  If you can improve on that model for investigating things then by all means shout out.

[Udayana]

That's the real question.  The writer of the article said this:
"I believe that miracles only contradict what we know of nature at this point in time. ......  So I believe that miracles actually are consistent with mental and spiritual laws that we are only beginning to study."   I don't know what he means by mental and spiritual laws but perhaps somebody could suggest a way of testing for chakras which are often said to be part of a subtle body rather than the physical body.  Presumably an MMR scan would be useless.

The chakras* are in the mind, ie information encoded and held somewhere in the brain - which usually does show up in MMR scans.

I quite like this:
http://hubpages.com/education/The-Anatomical-Proof-of-the-Existence-of-the-Chakras

* Assuming such things exist

[SqueakyVoice]

Oops your right that's why I understood what it was saying, beg pud, I got that one completely wrong.

Good post S V.

ippy

ippy,

If you can manage to phrase an apology to me that doesn't include a sly dig at NS, I'll accept it.

[Sriram]

I think you didn't read my post.  Either that or you didn't grasp the point. I wasn't defining natural/supernatural in terms of material/immaterial, that's your baggage not mine. My take on it was more to do with comprehensible/incomprehensible.  That we have been able to build abstracted models of reality and test them is because we find that things invariably obey natural insentient laws; if there were some other category of phenomena that appear to not derive from underlying law they would be incomprehensible to us, just meaningless random noise in our rule-structured world.  So I agree with you, an assumption of naturalism makes sense, everything is natural, and whatever we don't currently understand we can investigate, and we do so by taking a stab at an explanation, often no more than a hunch in the first place, building a theoretical framework round the hunch, see what predictions the theory would make and devise tests to gather evidence to either verify or falsify the theoretical model.  If you can improve on that model for investigating things then by all means shout out.

Take the case of NDE's.  How does the issue of comprehension change anything?  Currently, people assume that all the NDE experience is merely brain related and that the person is not actually dead....and so there is no need to go for the after-life idea.

Why is this conclusion arrived at?  Simply because the assumption is what leads to the conclusion. No one has investigated the possibility of  after-life at all.    They have only investigated the brain related theory.....and concluded that it is only a brain related experience.   As circular as that.

Now suppose scientists assume that an NDE is actually an after-life experience, would they be checking out the brain MRI's? No. They would be racking their brains about how to possibly investigate the after-life. They would eventually have to realize that instead of treating the phenomenon  as a 'supernatural' experience....they could think of it as a very natural experience except that it is at a different end of the natural spectrum.

This is how new ideas will be born, news ways of looking at the world....and new methodologies and new methods will evolve.  Its not about me or someone handing out methodologies on a platter.

This is what I mean by science evolving and developing new methodologies and systems to investigate  subtler and more intricate areas. 

Its no use saying...we have checked all the NDE stuff with our tried and trusted methods and they don't show any results ...therefore sorry...these phenomena are just peoples imagination, they cannot be real!!   That is rubbish way of trying to gain knowledge of the world.

Same goes for medical 'miracles', ESP's and many other phenomena.

The assumptions and premises that we start of with make all the difference in the direction the research takes.

[torridon]

Take the case of NDE's.  How does the issue of comprehension change anything?  Currently, people assume that all the NDE experience is merely brain related and that the person is not actually dead....and so there is no need to go for the after-life idea.

Why is this conclusion arrived at?  Simply because the assumption is what leads to the conclusion. No one has investigated the possibility of  after-life at all.    They have only investigated the brain related theory.....and concluded that it is only a brain related experience.   As circular as that.

Now suppose scientists assume that an NDE is actually an after-life experience, would they be checking out the brain MRI's? No. They would be racking their brains about how to possibly investigate the after-life. They would eventually have to realize that instead of treating the phenomenon  as a 'supernatural' experience....they could think of it as a very natural experience except that it is at a different end of the natural spectrum.

This is how new ideas will be born, news ways of looking at the world....and new methodologies and new methods will evolve.  Its not about me or someone handing out methodologies on a platter.

This is what I mean by science evolving and developing new methodologies and systems to investigate  subtler and more intricate areas. 

Its no use saying...we have checked all the NDE stuff with our tried and trusted methods and they don't show any results ...therefore sorry...these phenomena are just peoples imagination, they cannot be real!!   That is rubbish way of trying to gain knowledge of the world.

Same goes for medical 'miracles', ESP's and many other phenomena.

The assumptions and premises that we start of with make all the difference in the direction the research takes.

I don't see how a testable theory for after-life could be obtained, I don't think you could even get as far as defining what is meant by after-life.  What exactly is it that could be still present after life has ended by normal medical definitions.  With no detail to go on, just some woolly ideas, there would be no way to construct theory and test regimes.  It is for good reason that science has developed a culture of attention to detail and intellectual rigour; without that ethos it would be just another branch of woolly thinking and we wouldn't have the benefits of modern life that accrue from it.