One thing that stands out in studying NDEs is the changed life of the experiencers. Most researchers consider this to be evidence that something real has happened to the individual. No duplication of the NDE has happened in this respect. It would be nice to be able to change people into loving and caring individuals as does the experience.
After the writings of Raymond Moody, Jr. we have the surgery of Pam Reynolds, more than an hour brain dead. The surgery was video taped, her body was hooked up to many instruments to measure everything. The documentation has never been questioned, it was very scientific. Yet Pam was able to accurately described the surgery and many other things that happened while she was dead. Yes, it is possible to be dead one moment and brought back to life in the next.
This surgery has become the bench mark of NDE evidence of consciousness lives after death of the brain and body.
Now, as has been said, you are free to believe anything you want, but that doesn’t detract from the objective evidence of NDEs that they are spiritual.
I read the links provided by Jon the Geek, but see nothing in them that discounts real near death experiences. Perhaps people should understand that many concepts of science are theories and not based in fact. Disassociation is theory. Remember, if science doesn’t know what consciousness is or where it comes from or how it works, then we can’t make statements about it like they were facts.
I know there are posters here willing to discount every statement said to the favour of real NDEs. But they are not willing to study the material.
Perhaps you didn’t read the experience by an atheist scientist, so I will repost it.
Kinda blows away your true believer to true believer theory of near death experiences. Experiences are anonymous so the experiencer will not have to face ridicule from those of your persuasion. If you want to talk to some personally, I can arrange it, just say the word.
Yes, I would believe in my experience with or without scientific evidence, but I don’t have to. There is a lot of objective evidence to NDEs.
A scientist experiments (gains experience) with something unknown until he finds the answer. Then other scientists receive his experiences and duplicate them. After a while and many duplications the discovery is declared fact.
A thousand people die (for one reason of another) and are brought back to life by modern medical techniques. They all tell of seeing a light, feeling great love, being out of their body, and the other elements of a near death experience. The experience totally changes their personality. They become peaceful, caring, and compassionate. Is this not like duplication of the same experience under the same circumstances. There is no reason to doubt the experiences of thousands of people just because they are not scientists, no reason at all.
All tell of seeing a light, etc, lekatt? The studies I linked said that something like 10% of patients who “die” experience any form of NDE. In this very post, you linked to a NDE description that read:
What exactly did you think it was persuasive off? Those articles offered little in relation to the spiritual aspect of NDEs.
Which scientific links did Lekatt provide that went against his position?How was the scientific process misused? Post number is fine. Your response is a confusing mix of science and opinion. You seem to be again saying that your take on the evidence provided is obviously the correct one. The fact that others don’t agree doesn’t make us gullible crackpots.
One or two or even a dozen NDE stories isn’t compelling or significant. As I said before. It is the volume and similarities that make it significant. The fact that NDE’s are being studied pretty much verifies that. Some study it to understand brain function and consciousness only. Others are also interested in the spiritual aspects, or even primarily ficused on the spiritual aspect. That’s the area where science has little to offer.
So don’t believe. Thats your perogitive. You and others keep coming back to a point where your point seems to be “my opinion is more valid because it’s based on facts and science” Well, it isn’t. Science can’t answer these questions and doesn’t claim to. Your opinion is based on a lack of facts and the absence of real scientific evidence. You’re welcome to it, but that doesn’t make it better.
I quoted Dr. Moody several times in a post to Lekatt Those are quotes I find significant. {In case you missed them} Dr. Moody is a very intelligent serious minded researcher not given to flights of fancy and drawing erroneous conclusions. He displays a clear understadning of science method.What I noticed in several questions was the true believer reporter trying to get Dr. Moody to imply some spiritual meaning that he refused to do.
I can’t imagine an impartial reporter would have gotten anything else. What probing questions do you think an impartial reporter might have asked?
Yes, I read this unvarified, anecdotal and anonymous tale. It is not evidence. I have no desire to have you arrange a meeting with someone who can tell me their tale personally, for it would prove nothing more that people can tell stories verbally as well as they write them down.
I simply want a link to a scientific study that supports your position.
No more anonymous tales.
No more gushing “interviews.”
No more puff pieces disguised as news stories written by true believers.
No more lists of books designed to look impressive but actually used as a stall tactic. A link to a scientific study that supports your position.
In his opinion it wasn’t a real NDE, in my opinion it was, because it had the interaction of life or death. He was shown the coffin, and the light of the spirit world through the bottom of it. This was saying “only through the coffin (death) can you enter the spirit world.” The symbolism was strange to him, but not to me. That’s why I believe it was a real experience. Also there is the realness of the experience to him, and it changed him, he is no longer a hard atheist, he questions now.
Just my opinion, but it’s all I have.
I have furnished you many links that support my position.
But you always seem to read them differently. Your belief system is so strong that it filters out anything that opposes it. There has been some interesting research on this, but look it up for yourself.
Haven’t you heard of Occam’s Razor, aka The Principle of Parsimony ? “One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.”
If there is no factual reason to believe in God, psychic powers, the soul, or the “mystical” aspects of NDE, then you should not. Before science can “answer these questions”, someone needs to demonstrate that there is a meaningful and necessary question to be asked. And by “necessary”, I mean that you must show that something exists that is not already easily explained.
Yeah, you’ve posted tons of links that support your position. Unfortunately, most of them are useless links to your own site, and not one of them was a scientific study. So you can link to sites that show that you support your own position. I would be shocked if anyone else in the world tried something this transparent.
That last sentance is a horrible distortion of OR if it’s related at all. Incidently, OC does not apply to spirituality and William of Ockham was a monk who did believe in God.
What are you saying? I must prove something exists before science will bother trying to explain it. Ridiculous. Hasn’t science discovered things they didn’t even know existed, based on a question of possible existence?
In this case there are enough recorded NDEs to raise a meaningful question which is indeed being addressed. Try to be relevant.
I think I mistakenly responded to Czarcasm regarding this post. My bad.
I’ve already said I don’t see NDEs as proving anything about life after death or being conclusive about our spirit in any scientific sense.
Your links provided only the beginning of the article and I couldn’t access the rest. Too bad, sounded interesting.
You mean “lacking evidence that I find compellng” which is fine. NDE’s is not an area that science can properly address at this time. As I’ve already said. It seems obvious to me that serious intelligent people are researching them. I find it hard to believe that in hundreds of documented cases everyone was consciously or unconsciously distorting the information in the way you described.
I have no problem with anyone who chooses for their own reasons to not believe.
What I do have a problem with is those who think that what amounts to their opinion is somehow far more valid than those who disagree with them.
On one hand you say the NDE is not something science can properly address, and on the other you keep asking me for conclusive evidence. I recognize a no-win situation when I see one.
Sorry for the brief drive-by, but BBC Focus magazine has an excellent article this month (the October 2005 edition) on p.61-65 (but for heaven’s sake, don’t turn to p. 66!). It describes various means of causing Out of Body Experiences and Autoscopic Experiences via electromagnetically stimulating (or restricting oxygen flow within) the junction of the temporal/parietal lobe, eg. an E-M helmet, G-forces in pilots and the use of specific drugs.
If “spiritual experiences” can be caused by physical means, does choosing a spiritual explanation in place of a physical one not violate Ockham’s razor? Or are these, like the Scotsman who takes sugar on his porridge, not “true” experiences?
And Newton was a Young Earth creationist, yet his theory of universal gravitation requires no such dogma: we ought not take into account what else the discoverer or innovator of a useful principle believed. In any case, the general principle of Parsimony was around long before William of Ockham. Would you not agree that proposing that angels pushed the planets around the sun violates OR since we have a perfectly viable natural explanation from Newton, irrespective of what other nonsense he believed? If so, it is surely no stretch to ask ourselves whether natural neuropsychological explanations are all that are necessary for these vivid dreams?
I will try to get a copy of this edition of BBC Focus.
Come to think of it, I suppose there is no evidence for a spirit and thus it may as well not exist other than as a meme for the purpose of psychic comfort.
I will stay tuned - maybe some evidence will appear.
An out of body experience can happen anytime. It can happen when one is relaxing, when one is meditating, even when one least expects it. When Robert Monroe was young he used to slip out of his body frequently. This was a frightening experience at first until he learned to accept it and control it. He wrote several books, and established an institute in Virginia called the Robert Monroe Institute. Studies of OBEs have been going on there for decades. Your scientists friends are far behind in understanding this spiritual phenomenon.
OBEs are not near death experiences and don’t come close to them. True a person having an NDE does leave the body in the first stage, but from there on everything is different. I notice they say nothing about what the out of body person observes while out of body. This can reveal the true nature of the experience. Many visit other places and can accurately tell what was happening there when they return to their bodies. Yogas, monks, gurus, and other spiritual people have been doing this sort of thing for thousands of years. Science is far, far behind. I will concede it may be possible to electrically stimulate the brain and produce an out of body experience, but this is not a near death experience.
As for evidence of spirit, it is everywhere you look. Near death experiences are objective evidence of spiritual existence.
Now, as I have said all along, scientists could produce a near death experience if they killed the patient as in the case of Pam Reynolds. But then they don’t really produce the experience, they only allow it to happen by fooling the body into thinking it is dying.
There is considerable evidence, good solid evidence of the existence of the spiritual nature of mankind. When science catches up with spiritual people they too will understand it.
Realizing you probably won’t read the link I will bring part of the link to you. I do want you to learn about your own spiritual nature before death. There is much happiness and joy associated with it.
That is in fact my point about areas where science has no conclusive evidence and isn’t likely to get one soon. You can explain that you don’t agree, or believe and share the innformation that leads you to that conclusion, but why critisize someone for not having the ability to prove belief, when you can’t prove yours either.
I do understand your point about the quality of information and agree. In this case I think Dr. Moody, the priliminary study, and the PHD RN represent serious minded study that equals the links you preovided. They are all good information that allows someone to make a judgement call.
Coming from you, in a thread like this, that’s one of the funniest things I’ve read for some time.