Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body

Reply to 180 Proof

I too question the distinction and relationship being made between consciousness and reality.

Quoting Fooloso4

From the cited article:

“What has enabled the scientific study of death,” he continues, “is that brain cells do not become irreversibly damaged within minutes of oxygen deprivation when the heart stops. Instead, they ‘die’ over hours of time. This is allowing scientists to objectively study the physiological and mental events that occur in relation to death”.

This is not an OBE. It is something the body experiences as it approaches death. Death is a embodied process not an on/off switch.

I agree. However, what I'm saying is that much of my argument depends on what people are experiencing during their NDE/OBE. It's not dependent on some definition of death, whether that's clinical death or some other definition that claims that none of these people arereally dead because of how long, e.g., cells remain alive. Besides the descriptions of these experiences are that they are near-death experiences, not death experiences.

For me, as I've said, the real question is whether there is something to the claim that people become separated from their bodies and whether they're having a third-person experience. The evidence, as my argument concludes, is that there is enough consistency and corroboration of the reports to conclude reasonably that consciousness is not dependent on the brain. There can be significant damage to the brain (e.g. Dr. Eban Alexander's brain damage is significant) and still, people give very lucid descriptions of what's happening around their body and what's happening many miles from their body.

Many people describe their experiences as being hyper-real. One would expect a damaged brain to produce something less than what we normally experience, not more than what's experienced by a normal functioning brain.

There is no doubt that death is an embodied process, but the question is whether consciousness survives death, and survives the annihilation of the body, and my conclusion is that it does survive. This of course is based on what people are experiencing during their NDE/OBE. For example, seeing deceased friends and relatives who have been dead for many years. If they're really seeing deceased people, who have been dead for many decades, then it tells us something about what happens when the body is completely destroyed. Most people argue that these are hallucinations, but I don't think they are based on my research of hallucinations and my research of the corroborative accounts.

Reply to Sam26

Most of what people tell us about their sensory experiences is trustworthy. If this wasn’t the case we would be reduced to silence. This doesn’t mean that we just accept everything people say, it just means that most of what people relay to us is reliable; and since it’s generally reliable along with our sensory experiences it’s a genuine epistemological category along with other ways of acquiring knowledge. This way of knowing is much more pervasive than even science. It doesn’t have the glamour of science or the creative power of science, at least seemingly so, but its power in our lives is undeniable.

But, of course, you're forgetting that NDEs/OBEs are not sensory experiences, which consists of the usage of sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. All of those are caused by parts of our physical body. Dreaming, imagining, thinking, etc, aren't caused by any of our senses. These are the results of our brain processing. Consciousness aligns with the second category.

One can always point to counter-examples where large groups of people believed X and their belief or beliefs turned out to be false. However, this does nothing to the argument that testimonial evidence or our sensory experiences are generally reliable, which is the bedrock of NDE testimonials. If such examples diminished the effectiveness of the general reliability of such justifications, then it would also diminish sciences’ ability to be an effective way of justifying their beliefs or theories because science depends on testimony, sensory experience (observation), mathematics, and logic to validate many of their experiments. If you removed sensory experiences from science, it would collapse.

Wrong, it absolutely plays a pivotal role because belief(s) is the bedrock of NDE testimonials. As I already explained, sensory experiences are not evidence of NDE. Sneaking sensory experiences into belief testimonials does nothing to for the NDE argument. What it does do, is demonstrate the desperation and dishonesty of the argument.

My approach is simple, in that I’m applying Occam’s Razor to the evidence, i.e., the simplest explanation is probably the best explanation. This is how we approach most testimonial evidence in our lives. This is not to say that science isn’t helpful because it is, but that science is by its very nature materialistic, although that is slowly changing. Moreover, the tools of most scientists are not conducive to the study of consciousness because consciousness in my estimation is not materialistic, and this nonmaterialistic aspect can be understood with a simple understanding of our subjective experiences.

Actually, you're not applying Occam’s Razor because that's not what it entails. What Occam’s Razor actually entails; between competing explanations, the one with the fewest assumption(s), is usually the correct one. Simplicity is not the hallmark of Occam’s Razor. The explanation for a globe earth is more complex than the explanation for a flat earth, but the flat earth explanation has a lot more assumptions.

The truth of the matter is that for many materialists no amount of evidence would convince them because they’re so entrenched in their beliefs. This is also true of religious ideology; no amount of counterevidence would dissuade them because they’re so dogmatically entrenched in their beliefs. Nothing seems to falsify such beliefs, which is mostly the result of dogmatism. Dogmatism in many cases is the enemy of truth.

This ad hominem attack on materialists does nothing to the argument(s) and/or people opposing the NDE argument(s) since there are non-materialists who are in opposition to the NDE position.

NDEs have the same structure that any veridical experience would have, i.e., they all show slightly different variations that fit the general structure of any veridical experience. This in itself isn’t strong evidence that the experiences are veridical, but it adds to the overall picture that the experiences are veridical. In other words, it’s exactly what you would expect from veridical experiences. Whereas in a hallucination, for example, you wouldn’t find the consistency of experience, nor the corroborative aspects (objective components) that you find in NDEs/OBEs.

This is simply what I called the "I'm not saying that it's aliens, but it's aliens" fallacy.

And, hallucination experiences can absolutely be more consistent than NDE. The Old Hag and the Shadow people are two examples.

Most people would consider sufficiently reliable the testimony of 10 or 20 people on most everyday events and would consider the need for science to verify such evidence as ridiculous. Of course, this depends on what people are claiming in their testimony. If 10 or 20 people are claiming they saw Bigfoot I’d be a bit skeptical, you’re going to need a lot more evidence than that, and you’re going to need much more corroboration along with bodies, bones, or other material evidence. The point is that different claims need more or less evidence depending on how much goes against what we normally experience. In the case of OBEs, we have millions of accounts, in a variety of settings, with thousands being corroborated, and the memories are as consistent or stronger than memories of other veridical experiences. These facts suggest that ordinary everyday citizens can, based on a cursory study of the testimony, conclude that OBEs do happen. I say that it’s enough evidence for people to claim that they know OBEs happen. I would further say that if you’ve had the experience, it’s perfectly reasonable to conclude that the experience was veridical, i.e., that you know it’s veridical. Case in point Dr. Eban Alexander’s (neuroscientist) NDE given here:

Now you're special pleading, testimonies for NDE is sufficient evidence to believe that it's true but testimonies for Bigfoot isn't.

To dismiss Dr. Alexander’s testimony, which in itself is very convincing, is to ignore very powerful experiences, that at the very least should be considered and studied with an open mind.

His testimony is neither convincing nor is it a powerful experience in regards to NDE. Studying his experience using his testimony should be done with an open mind and not blindly accept it as being strong evidence for NDE. That means that when studying his case, the information should consists of not only what was said in his testimony, but also information outside of it that is relevant to what happened. So, his background as a neurosurgeon, which is not a neuroscientist, has no affect on the validity of his claims.

One important piece of information should be noted and taken into consideration when examining his testimony and claims. Dr. Alexander was wrong about him being brain dead. It's a scientific fact, that a medically induced coma, which was done to him, is not brain dead. Although small, there is still some brain activity that is present.

Quoting Sam26

For me, as I've said, the real question is whether there is something to the claim that people become separated from their bodies and whether they're having a third-person experience.

Based on the description quoted they do not separate from their bodies.

Quoting Sam26

The evidence, as my argument concludes, is that there is enough consistency and corroboration of the reports to conclude reasonably that consciousness is not dependent on the brain.

In the article cited what occurs is dependent on the brain. I suspect that your underlying assumption about the "higher self" underlies your evaluation of the evidence.

Quoting Sam26

There can be significant damage to the brain (e.g. Dr. Eban Alexander's brain damage is significant) and still, people give very lucid descriptions of what's happening around their body and what's happening many miles from their body.

As you may know, his account has been criticized. For example:here

You may see things differently, but the Esquire article is pretty damning.

Reply to Sam26

I agree. However, what I'm saying is that much of my argument depends on what people are experiencing during their NDE/OBE. It's not dependent on some definition of death, whether that's clinical death or some other definition that claims that none of these people arereally dead because of how long, e.g., cells remain alive. Besides the descriptions of these experiences are that they are near-death experiences, not death experiences.

Your argument is dependent on the concept of NDE and the documented claims that people have made. A common claim that is consistently made is, the lack of brain activity present during the supposed experience. This is why the definition of death is important. This is also the reason why many NDE proponents will be vague and/or simply dodge the point entirely.

Quoting Sam26

For me, as I've said, the real question is whether there is something to the claim that people become separated from their bodies and whether they're having a third-person experience. The evidence, as my argument concludes, is that there is enough consistency and corroboration of the reports to conclude reasonably that consciousness is not dependent on the brain. There can be significant damage to the brain (e.g. Dr. Eban Alexander's brain damage is significant) and still, people give very lucid descriptions of what's happening around their body and what's happening many miles from their body.

Many people describe their experiences as being hyper-real. One would expect a damaged brain to produce something less than what we normally experience, not more than what's experienced by a normal functioning brain.

To me this is just conjecture. We don't know or have models anywhere near detailed enough about the brain to make rigorous claims about what we should and should not expect in these kinds of scenarios. These things you are saying are just based on intuition, not on detailed models. NDEs may be different to other kinds of hallucinations but that doesn't rule out a naturalistic cause. The review you posted even cited data on neural activity during death. There is not enough good evidence to rule out a naturalistic explanation.

Reply to night912 Reply to night912 :100:

Reply to Apustimelogist :up: :up:

@Sam26 is dogmatic on this (spiritual / supernatural / o-dualistic) topic and, as I've found at length, his poor reasoning incorrigibly persists despite counter-arguments of the lack of public evidence, conceptual clarity & parsimony of so-called well-documented "NDE/OBE" (like "alien abduction" or "demonic possession") testimonials.

Reply to 180 Proof WoW! You got me. I give up. :gasp:

The following are some remarks on the logic of my argument, which is inductive as opposed to deductive. Inductive arguments are not proofs, i.e., they’re not deductive arguments. Sometimes people speak of inductive arguments as proofs, which is fine, but strictly speaking in logic only deductive arguments are proofs. So, I'm speaking of deductive arguments when I speak of logical proof. If a deductive argument is sound (valid and the premises are true) then the conclusion follows with absolute necessity. This means that the conclusion of a deductive argument follows with absolute certainty. On the other hand, the conclusion of an inductive argument doesn’t follow with absolute necessity, which is to say that the conclusion is only probabilistic. This means inductive arguments are either strong or weak based on the strength of the evidence. If the strength of the evidence is very strong, then the conclusion follows with a high degree of probability. So, if the conclusion follows with a high degree of probability, it’s highly likely to be true. Most of our knowledge is inductive, not deductive.

A common error in logic, and I see this error all over the place, is to think that any derogatory remark is an ad hominem attack (fallacy). Informal fallacies are committed when they are used as part of an argument, i.e., just because, for example, someone calls you stupid or makes some other derogatory remark, that doesn’t mean they’ve committed the ad hominem fallacy. I would think anyone who studied logic would know this, but apparently not. So, any accusation that someone has committed a fallacy must be seen in the argument itself, not just as a random statement apart from the argument. Moreover, one must demonstrate where the fallacy has occurred and not just accuse people of making a fallacy without any evidence, and pointing to a random statement that is not part of an argument is not evidence of committing a fallacy. I’m not just saying this as a note about this thread, although it applies here, I’m saying it as a general fact of the matter in many of the remarks in this forum.

The same can be said of any claim that someone is committing a fallacy, viz., is it in the actual argument? I gave the argument a few times in this thread so it's easy to check.

Quoting Fooloso4

In the article cited what occurs is dependent on the brain. I suspect that your underlying assumption about the "higher self" underlies your evaluation of the evidence.

I don't see that Dr. Parnia answers the question one way or another (depending on what you're referring to). I interpret the conclusion to be an open question that science needs to investigate further. I've followed Dr. Parnia for quite some time now and he's more careful about what he's concluding as a scientist, and that's understandable. That said, my reason for quoting that article is not that it necessarily supports all my conclusions, only that it's a peer-reviewed paper that concludes that NDEs are not consistent with hallucinations. I disagree with Dr. Parnia on some conclusions because I'm arriving at my conclusions using primarily testimonial evidence and sensory experience.

Some of my conclusions are indeed dependent on my evaluation of many thousands of testimonials. I classify NDEs into three categories. The third category is the most in-depth of all the NDEs, and it's this category that some of my conclusions come from. I haven't talked much about this in this thread.

Quoting Fooloso4

You may see things differently, but the Esquire article is pretty damning.
a day ago

I don't see it as damning at all, especially given my reason for posting it.

This is Bernard Carr's view of consciousness. I find it fascinating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aktS5zLUzbA

Quoting Sam26

The evidence, as my argument concludes, is that there is enough consistency and corroboration of the reports to conclude reasonably that consciousness is not dependent on the brain.

Non-sequitur. In 100% of cases, there is still a functional brain. An optimistic (yet debatable) interpretation of the evidence is that sensory input is not dependent on sense organs.

Reply to Relativist :up: :up:

Quoting Relativist

Non-sequitur. In 100% of cases, there is still a functional brain. An optimistic (yet debatable) interpretation of the evidence is that sensory input is not dependent on sense organs.

To say that the brain is still functional because there are, for example, cells that are still alive, or even that the brain is functioning at some level is misleading. We want to know how people have vivid experiences, including memories of what's happening around them in a state that wouldn't support these kinds of experiences given our current understanding. A case in point is Dr. Eban Alexander's experience when his brain was basically mush. Granted he's not dead and the brain is still functioning on some level, but at the level it is functioning he shouldn't be able to have these kinds of experiences or be able to recall his experiences. He shouldn't even be able to hallucinate. Many who answer this question are only speculating because we don't have the slightest idea how the brain would or could produce these experiences given its state. You're assuming that because the brain is still in some sense alive the experiences must be coming from that lower functioning state. There's no good evidence that that's the case.

I do agree that sensory experiences are not dependent on sense organs. This would have to be the case given what people are reporting in their NDEs. This is borne out in the NDEs of the blind.

Many of you are arguing that this can't happen because it's impossible or at the very least it's highly unlikely. After all, according to many, consciousness must be a brain function necessarily. Some of you are assuming what is in question. If you think that neuroscience has answered this question definitively, then you haven't been following many of the arguments. Indeed, most neuroscientists are probably materialists but the number of people that believe X isn't a good reason to believe it's true. I've pointed this out in my argument. The current evidence that the brain is the producer of consciousness and not the conduit is an open question. You may not agree with it, but that doesn't mean it's settled.

As I've said in earlier posts my argument is about the experience and what people are telling us about that experience. It isn't dependent on whether the brain is fully functional or not. If the experiences are veridical then my conclusion follows with a high degree of probability. And thus, my claim to know that consciousness survives death is sound. I'm not saying that the brain state isn't important, it obviously is, I'm claiming that the experiences themselves tell us something important about the objectivity (consistency and corroboration) of what people are experiencing while claiming to be outside their physical bodies. The testimonial evidence of any veridical experience is evidence of the experience unless you can give a good explanation that counters their experience. Based on some of these arguments you could rule out any veridical experience if it doesn't comport with your assumptions. You can see this in arguments that want to claim that consciousness is an illusion. When people resort to this kind of thinking they're desperate. We should be suspicious of any absolutist conclusion, which is why I'm saying that my conclusion is highly probable, not necessarily what follows.

The brain is simply a conduit or reducing valve for our higher self and when something interferes with the connection between the brain and our higher conscious awareness it can trigger these experiences. What triggers these experiences is not necessarily a brush with death. Some people have had these experiences without being near death.

For those of you who believe that once we're dead, that's it, we're gone, you're correct in one sense, i.e., the human self is gone once the body dies. However, as I've said we're more than the body and the essence of who we are is much more than the body. I arrived at this conclusion by examining closely the testimonial evidence of thousands of NDErs. It's just a piece of the overall picture.

Quoting Sam26

I do agree that sensory experiences are not dependent on sense organs.

You misunderstand if you think I believe that. I don't. My point is simply that IF one gives credence to those handful of NDE+OBE claims, wherein the individual purports to have seen/heard events (say) in another room, clairvoyance (perceiving events without the use of sense organs) would not be unreasonable. I'm skeptical this has truly occurred, but I know there are NDE enthusuasts who are convinced they have. They, of course, jump to the conclusion that dualism is true and the spirit lives on after death. That's non-sequitur.

You pointed to Eban Alexander, so I found and read an article he'd written. A decomposed brain is truly "mush" - it's physical structure is destroyed. Alexander's brain wasn't mush, it was sick. He was in a coma, he hadn't even died in the clinical sense you are fond of referencing. It appears that his sick brain generated some vivid mental experiences, which he interpreted as veridical heavenly experiences. I'm not impressed.

Quoting Sam26

You're assuming that because the brain is still in some sense alive the experiences must be coming from that lower functioning state. There's no good evidence that that's the case.

Argument from ignorance: neuroscience hasn't explained something, so it must be dualism. There's no evidence of anything unnatural, so it's ad hoc to propose it here. In no sense is the brain of a comatose patient dead, contrary to what you wish to believe.

Many who believe in a life after death in heaven, tend to consider these anecdotes as "proof". They made the fraudulent book "The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven" a best seller.

You can choose to believe this stuff, if you like, but if you think you have an objective argument for NDEs proving dualism, or a life after death, you are fooling yourself.

Quoting Relativist

You can choose to believe this stuff, if you like, but if you think you have an objective argument for NDEs proving dualism, or a life after death, you are fooling yourself.

:up: :up: @Sam26 is clearly fooling himself like too many other people who are terrified of their ego-mortality.

Reply to 180 Proof We agree! LOL.
Reply to Relativist (Y)

To say that the brain is still functional because there are, for example, cells that are still alive, or even that the brain is functioning at some level is misleading. We want to know how people have vivid experiences, including memories of what's happening around them in a state that wouldn't support these kinds of experiences given our current understanding. A case in point is Dr. Eban Alexander's experience when his brain was basically mush. Granted he's not dead and the brain is still functioning on some level, but at the level it is functioning he shouldn't be able to have these kinds of experiences or be able to recall his experiences. He shouldn't even be able to hallucinate. Many who answer this question are only speculating because we don't have the slightest idea how the brain would or could produce these experiences given its state. You're assuming that because the brain is still in some sense alive the experiences must be coming from that lower functioning state. There's no good evidence that that's the case.

Reply to Sam26

You're assuming that the experiences must have occurred during that lower functioning state. There's no evidence that that's the case. However, there are evidence that experiences can occur when the brain is coming back to its normal functioning state.

Quoting Relativist

He was in a coma,

A medically induced coma. The Esquire article cited above includes factual details of his medically induced coma. Each time they woke him and he became conscious he would thrash about so the put him back under.

If someone showed you a phenomenon that were impossible to explain by laws of the physical world, you'd be compelled to believe in dualism.

There are two problems with this. One is that it is impossible to prove that something is impossible to explain by laws of the physical world. That's big enough a problem so I don't have to say what the other one is.

But if you just figured out that some observed phenomenon is not possible to explain; then you'd need to believe in dualism.

Some things are not explained by natural laws. This does not give them proof strength, but they do open the possibility (without any indication of probability) of other-worldly stuff happening in our lives.

We do have some things in our sphere of experiences that satisfy that very criteria. The notion that we have sensation, we see, not just look, we feel, not just touch. We also have a soul, which to this date has not been identified to have a link to our bodies.

These phenomena are not proof, but at this point a sign that possibly there is dualism.

We discussed in this thread the necessity of brain to function to have a consciousness. We concluded that consciousness does not exist outside of a functioning brain.

That is a false conclusion. Our consciousness may exist after death, but since it is not bound to any body, there is no physical evidence that it exists. Likely they don't exist, but possibly they do.

Quoting god must be atheist

We discussed in this thread the necessity of brain to function to have a consciousness. We concluded that consciousness does not exist outside of a functioning brain.

That is a false conclusion. Our consciousness may exist after death, but since it is not bound to any body, there is no physical evidence that it exists. Likely they don't exist, but possibly they do.

You'd have a point if this were a deductive conclusion. It's not. It's abductive: it's the best explanation for the set of known facts. Abductive conclusions do not prove the converse is logically impossible, and they are falsifiable. Physicalism could be falsified by clear evidence of something nonphysical existing. But in the absence of evidence, it's ad hoc to assume dualism (even though it's logically possible).

Reply to Relativist :up: :up:

Quoting Relativist

Physicalism could be falsified by clear evidence of something nonphysical existing.

Given the pattern in scientific research and models, I can't see how there is the possibility to falsify the idea 'if we discovered something non-physical' we would change our model to include dualism or pluralism as real possibilities or the case.

So far, whatever is discovered and accepted as real in science is called physical/material, regardless of its properties or lack thereof. We now have fields, particles with no mass, particles in superposition - and also 'things' like this above the microscale. We have 'things' that can be in the same place at the same time - in the quantum realm, and 'things' slipping in and out of existence. Prior to these discoveries to be physical was a smaller more restrictive set of possible trait sets. I see no reason to assume we wouldn't call anything we find, whatever it is like and not like, physical. At least in science.

If Medieval theologians realized even the fairly traditionally physical (by qm standards) neutrino was considered physical and billions were passing through us daily with no effect, they might have said, well, sure angels might be made something like that. (and just to be clear, this was not presented as evidence of angels. I was trying to show how the idea of substance as far as physicalism is not fixed. It has expanded, not just in individual 'finds' but in what can now be considered physical). We find something and it gets called physical.

Which to me indicates that what looks like a committment to a monism and a position on substance: physicalism - is actually just a connected to a methodology and means 'real' (to the best of our knowledge real). But given the old monism/dualism battle and in particular the substance position battle between science and the Abrahamic religions, a stand has been taken on substance. And I can't see why some new phenomenon regardless of its qualities would be able to falsify, given the pattern, the substance claim.

Quoting Bylaw

Given the pattern in scientific research and models, I can't see how there is the possibility to falsify the idea 'if we discovered something non-physical' we would change our model to include dualism or pluralism as real possibilities or the case.

I'm not just referring to the prevailing scientific models, but also to an individual justifying a belief. The relevant belief we're discussing is life after death. I interpreted that as being dependent on dualism, but I grant that is debatable- but I also think that is irrelevant to the issue at hand: do the anecdotes of NDEs suffice as evidence to justify belief in a life after death? I think the answer is no.

Reply to RelativistI was mainly replying to this idea. Quoting Bylaw

Physicalism could be falsified by clear evidence of something nonphysical existing.

Any evidence will be called evidence that the phenomenon is physical. It made the meter shift. If affected the matter in our tech or senses, so it's physical. And then what I wrote in the previous post.

But part of my idea is that I think the terms physical and non-physical don't mean that much. Physicalism seems like a substance stance, but I don't think it actually is. If you look at the processes that people reached regarding their conclusion that everything (so far or period) is physical, you find a methodology of some kind. One that verifies what is real, rather than verifies something is physical.

As far as life after death and NDE's as evidence...
this makes me think of two things. When anecdotes started to be more widespread - given changes in our ability to resuscitate people in various catastropich medical situations - even the experiences themselves were denied. Not no an individual basis - like, you didn't experience that - but as it being soemthing that a number of people near death experience. To some extent this makes sense. It was not something doctors and scientists had heard of. But even when NDEs were experienced by a significant minority of those coming near death, it was denied, and that there were any patterns in these experiences was also denied. Obviously this does prove that the interpretations of those experiences are/were correct. My point is that even that people would experience these things was a challenge to paradigmatic assumptions.

the second thing is that how one reacts to what are now catalogues experiences, depends a lot on one's experiences. If a person has a lot of experiences that seem to or do indicate limitations of a particular paradigm, they are going to be more open evidence that also does this. Which is not a criticism of those who don't have those experiences and are more skeptical. I think both reactions are both natural and rational.

I think the work of Ian Stevenson and his followers around reincarnation are closer than the NDE research, though I have to say I haven't look at the latter research for about ten years.

Quoting night912

You're assuming that the experiences must have occurred during that lower functioning state. There's no evidence that that's the case. However, there are evidence that experiences can occur when the brain is coming back to its normal functioning state.

I'm not assuming anything. I'm making an inference based on the testimonial evidence that has been corroborated by doctors, nurses, family members, and friends. There is plenty of evidence that people are describing conversations and observing things that are happening minutes before their brain returns to normal consciousness (e.g. Pam's NDE out of Atlanta). Even a cursory study of the experiences people report would reveal this. You are only speculating; you don't know it. When the brain returns to normal, memories would start at that point, not at a point in the past. There is just too much testimonial evidence that contradicts your assertion. All the fancy verbal gymnastics that people do to deny the evidence is just that, verbal gymnastics, much of it has no factual basis.

Quoting Relativist

Physicalism could be falsified by clear evidence of something nonphysical existing.

Being that we are physical beings who receive information through physical senses, one wonders if evidence of the non-physical is even possible.

Even if somehow we had a sense to capture non-physical information, as Kant argues, we would still think of it in terms of space and time and causation, thus packaging it in a physicalist way.

Quoting Deleted user

Being that we are physical beings who receive information through physical senses, one wonders if evidence of the non-physical is even possible.

There's plenty of evidence. I find that most people don't seem to be able to evaluate evidence properly, or they have an epistemological view that puts too much emphasis on science or a certain scientific view. Epistemology is more expansive than just science. Most of what we know is through the testimony of others.

Quoting Deleted user

Being that we are physical beings who receive information through physical senses, one wonders if evidence of the non-physical is even possible.

Fair point, but it only points to the logical possibility that something nonphysical exists --and that's insufficient to justify belief in it.

I'll add that we aren't JUST limited to information we receive through our senses. We can't physically sense quantum fields, but we have inferred their existence based on theoretical models that have great explanatory power and scope.

Quoting Sam26

There's plenty of evidence. I find that most people don't seem to be able to evaluate evidence properly, or they have an epistemological view that puts too much emphasis on science or a certain scientific view. Epistemology is more expansive than just science. Most of what we know is through the testimony of others.

Do you agree that the best case you could possibly make would be an abductive one (i.e. an inference to best explanation)? In earlier posts, I've accused you of making an argument from ignorance - but you can avoid that by casting it as an abduction - arguing that your hypothesis is the best explanation for all available data. Why don't you do that? Fair warning: expect me, and others, to point out facts that you may be overlooking and the ad hoc nature of some assumptions you may be making.

*edit* I want to comment on this:
Quoting Sam26

I'm not assuming anything. I'm making an inference based on the testimonial evidence that has been corroborated by doctors, nurses, family members, and friends.

The correct inference should be: these people had some mental experiences, not that these mental experiences were of actual events. A mental experience COULD be associated with an actual event, but there's no evidence of it.

You have treated the state of the person (e.g. "near death"/comatose/ etc) as somehow implying the person must have had an actual experience, but that does not follow. Slightly stronger, but still deficient - you've suggest that measurable brain activity is nonexistent (or nearly so), and therefore the mental experience cannot be due to brain activity. Wrong again, because this depends on the assumption that these sort of mental activites would necessarily produce measureable brain activity. Brain measurements do not detect all neuronal activities. Again, it's POSSIBLE, but you haven't showed this possibility is the best explanation.

Quoting Sam26

There's plenty of evidence.

:razz: Alright, give one.

Quoting Relativist

We can't physically sense quantum fields, but we have inferred their existence based on theoretical models that have great explanatory power and scope.

Well, of course, which we get through physical sensors that display information through light on a screen to your eyes.

Quoting Deleted user

Well, of course, which we get through physical sensors that display information through light on a screen to your eyes.

Maybe we can agree with this: all our knowledge of the world is grounded in our physical senses.

Quoting Relativist

I'm not assuming anything. I'm making an inference based on the testimonial evidence ...
—Sam26

The correct inference should be: these people had some mental experiences, not that these mental experiences were of actual events. A mental experience COULD be associated with an actual event, but there's no evidence of it.

:100:

Reply to Deleted user :up: :up: I.e. the interaction (e.g. energy conservation violation) problem¹ of 'mind-body dualism' presupposed by @Sam's ontic interpretation of statistically de minimis, anecdotal "NDEs" "OBEs" etc.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/#Int [1]

Quoting Sam26

There's plenty of evidence.

You allude to this often. This thread is quite long, so it might be helpful to edit the op with a compilation of the best evidence.

I think the fundamental philosophical issue, apart from life after death metaphysics, is epistemological. Most epistemology focuses (obsesses) on the mundane: "am I really seeing this tree?" Comparatively less attention is given to the epistemology of the extraordinary. What would it take to (rationally) believe such a thing as NDEs? Clearly, testimony establishes that such experiences occur. But can testimony establish their interpretation as legitimate experiences of disembodied souls? What weight of evidence could establish such a thing?

It is the testimony of doctors, nurses, and other witnesses that ultimately counts. How strong is this testimony? They are basically witnesses to miracles. How do we evaluate such testimony?

Also, I haven't seen much attention paid to DMT. You agree that it includes very similar experiences. On the surface, this seems devastating to your argument, if chemical manipulation of the brain can induce this. Moreover , most people who take DMT understand the context, that they are taking a drug, and do not attribute their experiences to anything supernatural. It is only in the context of almost dying that people make such interpretations. I know that if I had a powerful psychedelic experience surrounding my near death, I would be absolutely fooled, and insist on a supernatural explanation. Whether it was, or just a natural trip.

BTW, have you tried DMT? How was it, or, why not?

My intuition is that these experiences have a ring of truth to them, i.e., truth in the sense that they are veridical. This is not an argument just an observation. When you listen to these experiences, the descriptions they give have the same matter-of-fact presentation that any veridical experience has. I don’t get the sense that they are like dreams, hallucinations, delusions, lack of oxygen to the brain, or drug interactions. They have the same feel, so to speak, as any real experience. Their memories are clear, the impact on their life is meaningful and life-changing, and when they refer back to these memories many years later the memories are just as clear and meaningful.

What many of them describe seems to indicate that they are separate from their bodies, i.e., they are looking at their body from a place outside their body. If you’re sitting in a waiting room having conversations with someone and later the person who has the NDE describes those conversations accurately, surely, you’re going to wonder how they could’ve known this. Or, if the person describes some insignificant action you did like going to a candy machine and buying a Snickers bar, you’re going to wonder how they could've seen you. Especially if you took note of the time and knew the person was in a state of unconsciousness. This kind of thing can’t be explained away by things like a brain waking up and now it’s remembering, delusions, dreams, or lack of oxygen to the brain. They seem to describe real events, which is what you would expect if the experience is veridical. It’s easy to explain away these events as this or that phenomena, but much harder to look at the experience objectively, especially if you’re not inclined to believe in a metaphysical reality like the ones they’re describing. These are just observations and aren’t part of my argument. However, I do think these observations are important and some of them are incorporated into the argument.

Almost all of these experiences describe communication as mind-to-mind as opposed to verbal communication. Many also describe not having a body as we know it, i.e., without legs, arms, eyes, ears, and one that is composed of some form of light. They move by simply thinking. They move through physical things like the objects aren’t even there. It seems they’re describing our world as something holographic, or something akin to being holographic. This seems to fit what being separate from the body would be like, i.e., your normal bodily senses aren’t functioning, and you have experiences that seem to be generated in another way. They do still seem to be in space and time because they’re moving from place to place, although it seems that time moves at a different pace there.

No two NDEs are going to be exactly the same, no more than any two experiences of people attending the same concert are going to be the same. There will always be differences because we experience reality from different perspectives. However, you would expect there to be some general agreement about the same experience and this is what you find in NDEs.

This example contains many of the elements I'm referring to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Sr0VToqhI&t=684s

I was trying to think how I would argue against my conclusion. I might try to argue that consciousness extends a bit beyond the brain as maybe a quantum field and that consciousness might remain somewhat intact as the brain is dying. It may even be that as the brain is dying it gets a surge of power (like the brightness of a light bulb before burning out), so to speak, that makes reality seem even more intense, which might explain why people seem to think their experience is more real than real.

And maybe their encounters with other beings are just an influx of memories about loved ones and friends. So, it may be that some of what they’re experiencing is real and some of it is just the brain’s last gasp. I would probably argue something similar to this.

Of course, it's pure speculation. :nerd:

Reply to Sam26 Sam, I'm reading your future posts to others after our discussion ended, and an observation is that you don't address the criticisms people are levying against your points, you're just repeating again and again that "These testimonies seem so real, so they must be real." That's just not an argument. That's a belief. We get you want it to be real. We can taste it through the screen. :) But its not an argument. You need to address so much more before anyone with good logical sense can buy into this.

Reply to Philosophim The argument was given at least three times throughout the thread. Other posts emphasized different points made in the argument. Yes, I do repeat myself a lot. My argument isn't "These testimonies seem to be real, so they must be real." This indicates that you've only read a few posts. Here's the inductive argument one more time.

This is an updated version of the argument with some editing and added statements for clarity. This was copied from my posts in Quora.

This is the argument I put forth in my thread Evidence of Consciousness Surviving the Body, in The Philosophy Forum under the name Sam26. I have also talked about this argument in other philosophy forums. I say this to allay questions of plagiarism. I have been posting on this subject for at least 12-15 years across many platforms.

My claim is that there is sufficient testimonial evidence to reasonably conclude that consciousness survives (that we survive, albeit in another form) the death of the body. So, I am making the claim that I know the conclusion of my argument is true. And, although I believe I could make other claims (and I will in later posts) based on the evidence, that is, claims of knowledge (by knowledge I mean justified true belief), I am limiting the scope of the conclusion in this initial post to keep confusion to a minimum. By limited, I mean I am not trying to give evidence of a God, heaven, that we are eternal beings, or any other spiritual or religious idea or doctrine; nor am I trying to give evidence of many of the other claims people are making while having such an experience. Although, as I have said, I do believe there is strong evidence to support other conclusions, and these conclusions have varying degrees of certainty, just as many of our everyday conclusions have varying degrees of certainty (subjective as well as objective certainty).

Preliminaries:
The first question is, what makes a strong inductive argument? The criteria for a good inductive argument are much different from the criteria for a good deductive argument. The criteria of a good inductive argument are as follows:

(1) number
(2) variety
(3) scope of the conclusion
(4) truth of the premises
(5) cogency

First, number. It seems rather obvious that if you have a greater number of testimonials that say something happened, then the stronger the argument. This does not mean that the conclusion relies solely on numbers because numbers in themselves are not always sufficient. It is important to the understanding of this argument that all of the criteria work together to strengthen the conclusion.

Second, variety. The greater the variety of cases cited the stronger the conclusion. When examining the conclusion of an inductive argument, the conclusion is either strong or weak, which is much different from a good deductive argument, where the conclusion follows with absolute necessity if it is sound (soundness means the deductive argument is both valid and the premises are true). The difference is what is probably or likely the case (inductive arguments), versus what necessarily follows (deductive arguments). A common misconception among some people is that if we do not know with absolute certainty then we do not know, but this is an error. Most of what we know is based on inductive reasoning, including many of the claims of science. Most of it is probability-based, so it is not known with absolute certainty, it is known with a high degree of certainty. So, when I use the phrase “I know..” in reference to the conclusion of this argument, I am referring to what is known based on what is probably the case; and since probability varies significantly I should say that I believe that the conclusion follows with a very high degree of probability based on the strength of the evidence.

Third, the scope of the conclusion. This has already been covered briefly in the opening paragraph (I'm referring to an opening paragraph in my Quora space.), it means that the less the conclusion claims the stronger the argument. In other words, conclusions that are broad in scope are much harder to defend. A conclusion that is limited in scope is easier to defend. The reason is that conclusions that are too broad require much more evidence than conclusions that are limited in their scope.

Fourth, truth of the premises. This means that the premises must be true, which by the way, is the same criteria that make a good deductive argument, that is, a good deductive argument must be sound (soundness has to do with whether the deductive argument is valid, plus the premises must be true).

(a) Since we are dealing with testimonial evidence, to know if the testimonial evidence is true, we first need corroboration, that is, we need an objective way to verify the testimonial evidence. This helps to establish the truth of the claims or the truth of the premises. Moreover, it helps add an objective way of verifying subjective experiences. There is both a subjective and objective component to this argument. The objective component helps to determine the objective facts of the experiences.

(b) Another important factor in determining the truth of testimonial evidence is firsthand testimony, as opposed to hearsay or secondhand testimony. Firsthand testimony is stronger than hearsay or second-hand testimony, all things being equal. This is an important component of all testimonial evidence and should be carefully considered when examining any kind of testimonial evidence.

(c) Consistency of the reports is another important criterion in terms of getting to the truth. However, testimonial evidence does not have to be perfectly consistent to be credible. When dealing with a large number of reports you will inevitably find some inconsistency. So, inconsistency itself is not enough to rule out the reports unless the inconsistency is widespread, and of such a number, that it affects the quality and number of consistent reports. So, although consistency is important, it must be looked at in terms of the overall picture. We often find inconsistent testimonial reports but that does not mean that all of the reports should be dismissed, it just means that our testimonial evidence should be based on those reports that are consistent.

Fifth is cogency. You rarely hear this criterion, but it is very important in terms of the effectiveness of the argument. There is a sense where any argument's (deductive or inductive) effectiveness is going to be based on whether the person to whom the argument is given, knows the premises are true. For example, if I give the following argument:

The base of a souffle is a roux.
This salmon dish is a souffle.
Hence, the base of this salmon dish is a roux (Dr. Byron I. Bitar, Classical Christian Wisdom, p. 70).

If you do not know what a souffle or a roux is, then you do not know if the premises are true, so how would you know if the conclusion is true? You may know that the argument is valid based on its form, but you would not know if the premises are true. So, you would not know if it is sound. For any argument to be effective, you have to know if the premises are true; and since knowledge varies from person to person, an argument's effectiveness is going to vary from person to person.

Now we have given some of the preliminaries, we will proceed to the argument itself.

The Inductive Argument:

The following argument is based on the testimonial evidence of those who have experienced an NDE, and the conclusion follows with a high degree of certainty. As such, one can claim to know the conclusion is true. This argument makes such a claim.

Each of the aforementioned criteria serves to strengthen the testimonial evidence. All of the criteria in the previous paragraphs work hand-in-hand to strengthen the conclusion, and the criteria serve to strengthen any claim to knowledge. If we have a large enough pool of evidence based on these five criteria, we can say with confidence that we know that consciousness survives the death of the body, namely, we can say what is probably the case, but not what is necessarily the case.

Again, if there is a high degree of probability that these testimonials reflect an objective reality, then we can also say with confidence, that we know consciousness survives the death of the body. Thus, our knowledge is based on objective criteria, not on purely subjective claims.

We will now look at the testimonial evidence in terms of the five stated criteria, and how these testimonials support the conclusion.

First, what is the number of people who claim to have had an NDE? According to a 1992 Gallop poll about 5% of the population has experienced an NDE; and even if this poll is off by a little, we are still talking about millions of people. So, the number of accounts of NDEs is very high, much higher than what we would normally need to add to the strength of the conclusion.

Also, as was mentioned in the previous post, numbers in themselves are not enough, which is why the other criteria must be coupled with numbers.

The second criterion of good testimonial evidence is variety, that is, do we have evidence from a variety of sources? The answer to this question is in the affirmative. NDEs have been reported in every culture from around the world, which by definition means that we are getting reports from different religious views, and different world views. NDEs also span every age group, from young children to the middle-aged and finally to the aged. The testimonial reports come from doctors, nurses, scientists, atheists, and agnostics, literally from every imaginable educational level and background. NDEs occur in a variety of settings, including drowning, electrocution, while awake, while on the operating table, after a heart attack, etc. People have also reported having shared an NDE with someone else, although rarely. They have happened when there is no heartbeat, with the blood drained from the brain, and with no measurable brain activity. They have been reported to happen with a minimal amount of stress, that is, without being near death.

The third criterion is the scope of the conclusion, and the scope of this conclusion is limited to consciousness surviving the body. The conclusion claims that we can know that consciousness survives bodily death.

The fourth criterion is the truth of the premises. To know if the premises are true, we need corroboration of the testimonial evidence, a high degree of consistency, and firsthand testimony. In all or most of these cases, it seems clear that we have all three. We have millions of accounts that can be corroborated by family members, friends, doctors, nurses, and hospice workers. Corroboration is important in establishing some objectivity to what is a very subjective experience. It gives credence and credibility to the accounts. One example of corroboration is given in Pam's NDE out of Atlanta, GA, which can be seen on YouTube, although the video is old.

Consistency is also important to the establishment of the truth of the premises. We have a high degree of consistency across a wide variety of reports. What are these consistent reports?

1) Seeing one's body from a third person perspective, that is, from outside one's body, and hearing and seeing what is happening around their bodies.
2) Having intense feelings of being loved, intense feelings of peace, and the absence of pain.
3) Seeing a light or tunnel in the distance and feeling that one is being drawn to the light, or moving towards the light.
4) Seeing deceased loved ones.
5) Seeing beings of light that one may interpret as Jesus, Mary, Muhammad, an angel, or just a loving being that one may feel connected with.
6) Heightened sensory experiences, namely, feeling that one is having an ultra-real experience, as opposed to a dream or a hallucination. This happens even when there is no measurable brain activity.
7) Communication that happens mind-to-mind, not verbally.
8) Seeing beautiful landscapes.
9) Seeing people who are getting ready or waiting to be born.
10) Having a life review by a loving being who is not judgmental, but simply showing you how important it is to love, and the importance of your actions on those you come in contact with.
11) Feeling as though one has returned home. This is also confirmed by people who were told they chose to come to Earth.
12) A feeling of oneness with everything, as though we are part of one consciousness.
13) Memories of who they are return, as though they temporarily forgot who they were, and where they came from.
14) There are also reports of knowledge returning, and many questions being answered as quickly as they think of the question.
15) Understanding that ultimately we cannot be harmed and that everything is perfect as it is.
16) That we are eternal beings simply entering into one of many realities. We are simply higher beings that choose to have a human experience. Ultimately, we are not human, being human is just a temporary experience. Our humanity ends when we die, then we assume our original form.

Another aid in establishing the truth of the testimonial evidence is firsthand accounts, as opposed to hearsay. There are thousands of firsthand accounts being reported by the International Association of Near-Death Studies, and according to polling, there are many millions of firsthand accounts.

The fifth criterion is the cogency of the premises. Whether the argument is cogent for you depends on many factors, but many people have heard of near-death experiences, so the concept is not an unfamiliar one. It is not going to be cogent for everyone, but with a little study and reading it can be cogent. It is not difficult to understand the concept. Although it is probably going to be difficult to understand how it is metaphysically possible. This argument claims that it is highly probable that consciousness survives the death of the body, and that the conclusion is very strong based on what makes for a strong inductive argument.

The further claim of this argument is that I know that I know the conclusion is true. Is it possible the conclusion is wrong? Of course it is possible, but we do not want to base a belief on what is possible, but on what is likely the case. All kinds of things are possible, but that does not mean we should believe them.

I could add more to the argument, but this is the crux of the argument.

Quoting Sam26

First, number. It seems rather obvious that if you have a greater number of testimonials that say something happened, then the stronger the argument.

Again, no one, and I mean no one, is saying that NDE's aren't real. This is the part you seem to keep glossing over. If a bunch of people have a hallucination, no one doubts they have a hallucination. But the fact that multiple people have a hallucination is not an argument for that hallucination being real.

Quoting Sam26

Second, variety. The greater the variety of cases cited the stronger the conclusion.

No, this is evidence of a weak inductive argument, not a strong one. A strong inductive argument is based on whether reality easily contradicts its conclusions. A variety of NDE's do not strengthen the argument that a NDE is really happening. Reality tends to be consistent. Jumping out of a plane is consistent. If someone jumped out of a plane and started floating higher, something is going on that we're not aware of.

Quoting Sam26

Third, the scope of the conclusion. This has already been covered briefly in the opening paragraph (I'm referring to an opening paragraph in my Quora space.), it means that the less the conclusion claims the stronger the argument

This is true. And its been mentioned repeatedly that the scope of your conclusions is too broad. Everyone accepts, "NDE's are real." There is not a good inductive conclusion for stating, "Therefore our consciousness actually leaves and returns to our bodies." Your scope is far too large, making this a weak inductive argument.

Quoting Sam26

Fourth, truth of the premises.

Of course. But again, the only truth that we all agree on is that we have NDEs. I've noted we can duplicate it with other experiences that aren't near death. I've noted that a person experiencing a NDE has never been able to describe an experience that was outside of their bodies senses, like a bright yellow duck that they didn't know was just behind them. Right there this destroys the idea that NDE's are actual out of body sensory experiences, as controlled settings demonstrate people are unable to prove they can sense things their body can't.

Quoting Sam26

Fifth is cogency.

And your argument is not cogent. The only thing you have is, "We have NDE's." That's means less than nothing. From that, we cannot conclude they are correct interpretations of reality, or memories of actively leaving the body when there is zero evidence of this actually happening in any study we've done.

Now lets go to your argument.

1. 5% of the population has had NDEs

Only viable conclusion: They had NDEs.
I agree they have NDEs. There is nothing more to be drawn from this point alone.

2. Quoting Sam26

NDEs have been reported in every culture from around the world, which by definition means that we are getting reports from different religious views, and different world views.

Only viable conclusion: They had NDEs.
I agree they have NDEs. There is nothing more to be drawn from this point alone.

Quoting Sam26

The third criterion is the scope of the conclusion, and the scope of this conclusion is limited to consciousness surviving the body. The conclusion claims that we can know that consciousness survives bodily death.

No, you have nothing that demonstrates this. We have NDEs. You have not demonstrated that the subjective experience of a NDE represents objective reality apart from their perception. Just like I can subjectively experience that the sun rotates around the Earth, the objective reality is the Earth rotates around the sun. I've already mentioned that scientific lab attempts to find any consistently odd reading, evidence of consciousness leaving the body, or OBE confirmations have all failed. Look into tests for psychic powers and other failed theories of science that have similar outcomes.

Quoting Sam26

Another aid in establishing the truth of the testimonial evidence is firsthand accounts, as opposed to hearsay

No one doubts people are having these experiences. Not me, or anyone else you've been discussing with. And yet you keep repeating it as if people having these experiences negates all the points we've mentioned about their subjective interpretations not matching with objective reality.

Quoting Sam26

Another aid in establishing the truth of the testimonial evidence is firsthand accounts, as opposed to hearsay.

Again, NDEs are real. You keep repeating this. We all know. We all agree. That doesn't mean they are viable evidence that consciousness leaves the body. You keep ignoring all the points we make about this and say, "But people experience NDE's!" We know. It does not logically lead to the conclusion that consciousness survives brain death.

Quoting Sam26

This argument claims that it is highly probable that consciousness survives the death of the body, and that the conclusion is very strong based on what makes for a strong inductive argument.

Where? How? You don't give any evidence that NDE's objectively mean consciousness survives brain death. You only give evidence that people experience NDEs and we ALL agree with you on that. This is the repetition I'm talking about.

"OBE experiences in a lab settings cannot confirm actual sensing of what's in the room beyond a the person's immediate sensory fields, but that are clearly visible in the room."

Your rebuttal: "But NDE's happen to people!"

"We can duplicate NDE's without the brain being in a near death state."

Your rebuttal: "But NDE's happen to people!"

You have no crux of any argument that NDE's are any more than a common brain hallucination upon mild to moderate oxygen deprivation. You have no evidence that OBE's aren't more than piecing together what a person already sensed in the room prior to unconsciousness, or is processed by the unconscious sensing ears and eyes in between lucidity. All you have, is that we have NDE's. That is the only logical conclusion you can make. You have provided no evidence of any viable induction that consciousness can survive brain death. None. Repeating, "But we have NDE's!" is pointless. Please address the other points against why having a NDE does not mean consciousness has left the body, and you may have something. Until then, you just have a belief system with no viable evidence or argument.

Reply to Philosophim Well, we just disagree.

Quoting Sam26

Well, we just disagree.

It is more than that. Your claim is objectively not a strong inductive argument, and you have objectively failed to present a good and cogent argument worth considering. This is the philosophy boards, not the opinion boards.

Quoting Sam26

Philosophim Well, we just disagree.

Philosophim provided a well-reasoned rebuttal, in his post, and your response is simply that you disagree. I hope you can see that he was spot on, when he said:

Quoting Philosophim

Sam, I'm reading your future posts to others after our discussion ended, and an observation is that you don't address the criticisms people are levying against your points
...

Not long ago, nobody knew what ‘an electromagnetic field’ is. Now, fields are more fundamental than atoms, which are said to be only 'excitations of fields'. So, what is ‘physical’ is being constantly re-defined. Hence the proliferation of sci-fi movies about alternative realities and many worlds. Physics sure ain't what it used to be.

And I've long argued that if an individual life is understood as part of a continuum extending before physical birth that has consequences beyond physical death, that this can provide a framework within which the life beyond is at least conceivable. Consider that if Sheldrake's 'morphic resonance' is real (and I know that this is a contested claim) - something of the kind at least provides a medium for the persistence of habit-patterns beyond the confines of birth and death.

The Buddhist view of re-birth is instructive in this context. It is not that there is an individual entity that transmigrates from life to life (a view that is harshly condemned in the early Buddhist texts). Rather there are patterns of causation that give rise to individual lives, and these patterns can be propogated from life to life, concieved as a mind-stream (cittasantana) of which individual lives are instantiations. It is much more like a process view than an entity view. The aim of the Buddhist path is to dissociate from these repetitive patterns of experience (sa?s?ra, literally 'going around') which constitutes liberation. Otherwise the same patterns will go on to generate further lives (many of which will be, shall we say, considerably less fortunate than this one, according to Buddhist lore.)

Quoting Bylaw

I think the work of Ian Stevenson and his followers around reincarnation are closer than the NDE research, though I have to say I haven't look at the latter research for about ten years.

There's also a book by a Buddhist scholastic monastic, Bhikhu Analayo, called Rebirth in Buddhism which contains a disspassionate account of the matter. I mention Stevenson from time to time, but his ideas are hugely controversial and to all intents taboo, especially on this forum. As rebirth is an accepted element in Buddhist cultures, such material doesn't suffer the same social approbation as it does in the West. (Stevenson used to say, 'when I talk about rebirth in the West, people say "that's nonsense, it never happens". When I talk about it in the East, people say "why bother with it? It happens all the time".)

Quoting Philosophim

Again, no one, and I mean no one, is saying that NDE's aren't real. This is the part you seem to keep glossing over. If a bunch of people have a hallucination, no one doubts they have a hallucination.

I don't know if Pim Van Lommel has been mentioned in this thread but he claims to have research that indicates that nde's can't be dismissed as mere hallucination. I'm not going into bat for that research, only noting that it does exist, and that he is a cardiovascular doctor who has a considerable body of research to draw on. Information about his book can be found here.

//

I think an interesting philosophical question to consider about this matter is, why the controversy? Not only is it controversial, but it provokes a great deal of hostility about 'pseudo-science' and 'superstitious nonsense'. As I said above, it's a taboo. I believe it's because it challenges the physicalist account of life, that living beings are purely or only physical in nature. If we believe that, then it's a closed question - and it's not necessarily a question we want to contemplate opening again.

[quote=Richard Lewontin, review of Carl Sagan, Candle in the Dark, January 1997]We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.[/quote]

Quoting Philosophim

First, number. It seems rather obvious that if you have a greater number of testimonials that say something happened, then the stronger the argument.
— Sam26

Again, no one, and I mean no one, is saying that NDE's aren't real. This is the part you seem to keep glossing over. If a bunch of people have a hallucination, no one doubts they have a hallucination. But the fact that multiple people have a hallucination is not an argument for that hallucination being real.

I tried to explain this to you once before, but maybe I wasn't clear. Two senses of reality are usually brought up regarding NDEs. First, NDEs are real just like any experience is real, so yes, no one is arguing that the experience isn't real in that sense. Even hallucinations are real, but the point of disagreement is that they aren't veridical, just as hallucinations aren't veridical. So, the sense in which I'm saying NDEs are real is that they are the same as the experience I'm having sitting here typing this response, viz., it's veridical. This is the disagreement.

Quoting Philosophim

Second, variety. The greater the variety of cases cited the stronger the conclusion.
— Sam26

No, this is evidence of a weak inductive argument, not a strong one. A strong inductive argument is based on whether reality easily contradicts its conclusions. A variety of NDE's do not strengthen the argument that a NDE is really happening. Reality tends to be consistent. Jumping out of a plane is consistent. If someone jumped out of a plane and started floating higher, something is going on that we're not aware of.

I don't know where you studied logic, but you are incorrect, i.e., the more variety you have in the cases studied, generally the stronger the conclusion. Maybe there are exceptions to this, but I think it's generally true for the type of argument I'm using. For example, let's say we have 10 witnesses of a car accident standing 30 feet away, and all the witnesses are standing roughly in the same spot. So, their observations are coming from the same general area. Let's compare this to having 10 witnesses who are standing in various spots with distances as far away as 30 feet, but also with some witnesses being as close as 10 feet and also looking at the accident from various directions, not one direction. This example, demonstrates, not necessarily that the first group doesn't have a better vantage point, but generally speaking, you would want a group like the second group to lend support to your conclusion based on testimonial evidence. I could quote specific logic books about this point, but I'm not going to do that.

Reality tends to be consistent, you are right, but our experiences of reality as reported by people are not consistent, and here we're referring to testimonial evidence, not gravity.

That's all I'll say for now.

Quoting Philosophim

Well, we just disagree.
— @Sam26

It is more than that. Your claim is objectively not a strong inductive argument, and you have objectively failed to present a good and cogent argument worth considering. This is the philosophy boards, not the opinion boards.

:100:

Reply to Relativist :up:

Quoting Wayfarer

And I've long argued that if an individual life is understood as part of a continuum extending before physical birth that has consequences beyond physical death, that this can provide a framework within which the life beyond is at least conceivable.

Okay, so make the case – a sound argument – for this alleged "continuum" ... Once the facts of the matter are established, then we can interpret their philosophical ramifications (and, maybe, derive cogent, metaphysical conclusions). :chin:

Reply to 180 Proof You wouldn't know a good argument if it jumped up and bit you. Most of what you do is just share an opinion. :grin:

Reply to Sam26 :rofl:

Quoting Wayfarer

I don't know if Pim Van Lommel has been mentioned in this thread but he claims to have research that indicates that nde's can't be dismissed as mere hallucination. I'm not going into bat for that research, only noting that it does exist

The link was just a link to their book. I can find at least one person in a professional setting who will go to bat for anything. The only thing that matters is the soundness of their evidence and the logic of their argument. My point in this thread is that Sam is not presenting a logical argument with sound reason. They are only presenting the fact that NDE's exist. Wayfarer, if you have the actual arguments and evidence, it might help Sam out in this thread a lot. I'm not against him, just his argument.

Quoting Wayfarer

I think an interesting philosophical question to consider about this matter is, why the controversy? Not only is it controversial, but it provokes a great deal of hostility about 'pseudo-science' and 'superstitious nonsense'. As I said above, it's a taboo. I believe it's because it challenges the physicalist account of life, that living beings are purely or only physical in nature. If we believe that, then it's a closed question - and it's not necessarily a question we want to contemplate opening again.

For me, this is not the case. I would love for there to be life after death. Only weird people who cut themselves in the dark while crying to death metal don't. :) But you learn as you grow that believing in things that you want but aren't true is childish at best, and dangerous at worst.

First, there is the danger of self-righteousness or excessive self-importance. The fantastic is exciting! Feeling like you've learned that a dragon is real can be an amazing feeling. Too amazing. You start to look down on other people who don't share it. You start to think "You get it, but they don't." And when you're holding onto an idea that's at its core a fantasy, you start to make other decisions in your life based on fantasy, and not reality. In general, such decisions don't end well for most people.

Second, and this can be heard from people who were deep in cults, belief in psychic powers etc...it makes you stupid. And no one wants to be stupid, especially smart people. Often times this underlying fear that one is wrong keeps people believing exciting fantasies long after they know in their hearts that its not true. It compels a person to subtly lie or disregard any evidence that would show them to be wrong. Thus, dishonestly and myopic vision sets in. People like this are often very easy to manipulate because once you start to justify believing the fantasy at any cost, people know your priorities and can get you to do things that a sane and honest mind would not do. My statement to them is that you're not dumb or dishonest for having bought into a fantasy. You're only dumb and dishonest if you stay with it when you know better. :)

Third, if you've been in such a pseudosystem before, you know the arguments and pattern of 'reasoning' already. And very rarely do people present knew arguments or rationals for the pseudosystem. Its not that I personally wouldn't love to hear new arguments. I would! I have no problem abandoning my old notions of reality if there is evidence of something better. But it needs to be more logically sound then my current notions.

Fourth, you can get caught up in the excitement of the fantastic as a rush, instead of looking at how exciting the mundane is. I know you're not a fan of everything being described in the physical Wayfarer, and maybe that's because its boring. I don't know. To me, I find it amazing that we're able to categorize and label almost all of objective existence into a category of measurable entities. I'm fascinated by the magic of chemistry. Of the fact that we can be wizards who ride around in giant death metal cages that run on the power of explosive liquid. When you see and understand reality, you can invent with it. You can improve with it. You can make magic with it.

Pseudoscience is always a dead end. You can't ever do anything with it but marvel at the idea of the idea. And once you get into a mindset that exciting lies and half truths are truth, regular reality can become dull and inconvenient. And that's a terrible thing. So its why, at least from my account, why I am against exciting and cool ideas that have no facts behind them, and need to pass certain evidential and logical bars of justification.

Quoting Sam26

So, the sense in which I'm saying NDEs are real is that they are the same as the experience I'm having sitting here typing this response, viz., it's veridical. This is the disagreement.

Right, we all get that. Where is your evidence that people's perceptions that they are real, means they are real? We've already given plenty of points to note that people have experiences in reality, and interpret them in a way that isn't veridical. They believe it to be a correct interpretation of reality, but its found it isn't. Remember the sun circling around the Earth? Feeling like things are real is not the same as it actually being real. Even if a lot of people feel that it is. That is an incredibly important point that you have not addressed, and must be addressed if you are to have an argument.

Quoting Sam26

I don't know where you studied logic, but you are incorrect, i.e., the more variety you have in the cases studied, generally the stronger the conclusion. Maybe there are exceptions to this, but I think it's generally true for the type of argument I'm using. For example, let's say we have 10 witnesses of a car accident standing 30 feet away, and all the witnesses are standing roughly in the same spot. So, their observations are coming from the same general area.

No, this is a consistency in experiences, not a variety. Perhaps you are using the wrong word or phrase here. What you seem to be implying is, "Consistency of results when repeated." So if we have 30 people witness the same thing, that would be a consistent outcome. If all 30 people had different results, variety, that would indicate more sound evidence that what was observed happened.

And again, we have a variety of NDEs. Some are positive, neutral, and horrifying. Only 5% of people have them, while most don't. When we look for a consistency of outcomes when testing its veridicalness, or if people subjective experience translates to objective reality, they fail. OBEs cannot observe things that they should be able to. Religious figures are based on what one beliefs in life instead of some objective religious figure or God they all experience.

The problem again, is you keep presenting information that definitely shows that NDEs are real subjective experiences, but does not have enough weight to argue that the interpretation of these subjective experiences match reality. What's worse, is you keep ignoring these points and reverting back to, "But NDEs are experienced," as your only go to here. This is immature thinking Sam. You can do better. You can simply say, "Yes, I guess there are competing compelling evidence that counters the idea that consciousness survives death. I don't have answers for them, but I'll think about it." And if you do have answers, bring them up to address the points. But if you have nothing more to say then, "But they experience NDE's", then this is not a philosophical conversation, but a person insistent in the rightness of their beliefs without a viable argument.

Quoting Philosophim

I can find at least one person in a professional setting who will go to bat for anything. The only thing that matters is the soundness of their evidence and the logic of their argument.

I raised Pim Van Lommel's book because it is a source of evidence and argument. It's not something I have first-hand experience of, but if you claim that all NDE's are 'merely hallucination' then the evidence of a cardiovascular doctor who has amassed considerable data to the contrary is salient, because you're writing as if there is no such evidence.

The philosophical point is, what is the significance of such claims? If you believe they're hallucinatory, then they're not significant. But, your objections illustrate my point, as they're based on the conviction that it's all superstition and pseudo-science. I'm not going to try and persuade you otherwise, but I have an open mind about the question.

Quoting Philosophim

Where is your evidence that people's perceptions that they are real, means they are real?

Remember the sun circling around the Earth? Feeling like things are real is not the same as it actually being real. Even if a lot of people feel that it is. 

The problem again, is you keep presenting information that definitely shows that NDEs are real subjective experiences, but does not have enough weight to argue that the interpretation of these subjective experiences match reality.

Are you paying attention to someone patient enough to spoon-feed criticisms I and others have made countless times of your non-philosophical non-arguments, @Sam26? :eyes:

Quoting Wayfarer

I have an open mind ...

Not so "open", I hope, that your brain falls out. :smirk:

Quoting Philosophim

I would love for there to be life after death. Only weird people who cut themselves in the dark while crying to death metal don't.

It is obviously true that ‘the next life’ is a fertile ground for wish-fulfilment and fantasies of living forever, but in cultures which believe in the reality of the afterlife, not all Near Death Experiences are roses and sunshine. Buddhist sacred art depicts an elaborate hierarchy of hell-realms in which beings remain enmeshed for ‘aeons of kalpas’ as a consequence of their actions in this life. There’s a publisher, Sam Bercholz, founder of Shambhala Books, which is a large American publisher of Buddhist literature. He suffered an NDE after undergoing heart surgery which he recounts in an illustrated book, A Guided Tour of Hell:

This true account of Sam Bercholz’s near-death experience has more in common with Dante’s Inferno than it does with any of the popular feel-good stories of what happens when we die. In the aftermath of heart surgery, Sam, a longtime Buddhist practitioner and teacher, is surprised to find himself in the lowest realms of karmic rebirth, where he is sent to gain insight into human suffering. Under the guidance of a luminous being, Sam’s encounters with a series of hell-beings trapped in repetitious rounds of misery and delusion reveal to him how an individual’s own habits of fiery hatred and icy disdain, of grasping desire and nihilistic ennui, are the source of horrific agonies that pound consciousness for seemingly endless cycles of time. Comforted by the compassion of a winged goddess and sustained by the kindness of his Buddhist teachers, Sam eventually emerges from his ordeal with renewed faith that even the worst hell contains the seed of wakefulness. His story is offered, along with the modernist illustrations of a master of Tibetan sacred arts, in order to share what can be learned about awakening from our own self-created hells and helping others to find relief and liberation from theirs.

So, it’s not all just ‘wake up and smell the roses’. Worse things can happen.

Quoting Wayfarer

if you claim that all NDE's are 'merely hallucination' then the evidence of a cardiovascular doctor who has amassed considerable data to the contrary is salient, because you're writing as if there is no such evidence.

No, that's an appeal to authority fallacy. Lets see what actual argument he gives and the evidence he provides for it.

Quoting Wayfarer

The philosophical point is, what is the significance of such claims? If you believe they're hallucinatory, then they're not significant. But, your objections illustrate my point, as they're based on the conviction that it's all superstition and pseudo-science.

Its not a conviction, its a conclusion based on the arguments and evidence presented. If you have specific arguments and evidence that would show that it is not superstition and/or pseudo-science, we can explore those. That is what separates superstition from meaningful ideas. Meaningful ideas can provide sound arguments and evidence for their existence, while superstition fail to provide anything more than a desire for wish fulfillment or, "But maybe" argument.

Quoting Wayfarer

So, it’s not all just ‘wake up and smell the roses’. Worse things can happen.

Agreed. My Aunt had a terrible NDE before she died. I've mentioned it to Sam in an earlier post. This happened during an operation they had to make on her to save her life prior to cancer eventually taking her.

Quoting Philosophim

No, that's an appeal to authority fallacy.

Appealing to data in response to a claim is not a fallacy. If you claim that near death experiences must be hallucinatory, then evidence to the contrary ought to be considered also, and Pim Van Lommel's books are a source of that evidence. I've gone back and looked at the first page again - after 7 years :yikes: - Sam presents his arguments carefully enough, and of course it is right and proper that they're challenged, but there is testimonial evidence - and what other kind could there be for this subject?

What I'm getting at, is not the belief that these experiences have no basis in reality, but why they can't have any basis in reality. I think there's a mindset to disprove or deny any possibility of them being real. I think that's the question that ought to be explored. But your responses are underwritten by the conviction that they could not be real. Let's discuss why they couldn't be, what would have to be the case for such experiences to be real.

So, I disagree with your carte blanche dismissal of what Sam has been presenting. I think it's more likely that it concerns something that is so at odds with your worldview that it couldn't be admitted. That was the point of the Richard Lewontin quote I provided.

Quoting god must be atheist

But if you just figured out that some observed phenomenon is not possible to explain; then you'd need to believe in dualism.

Quoting Relativist

Physicalism could be falsified by clear evidence of something nonphysical existing.

Ed Feser gives the example of the metal detector. Defenders of physicalism will say:

1. The predictive power and technological applications of physics are unparalleled by those of any other purported source of knowledge.

2. Therefore what physics reveals to us is all that is real.

Which can be compared with:

1. Metal detectors have had far greater success in finding coins and other metallic objects in more places than any other method has.

2. Therefore what metal detectors reveal to us (coins and other metallic objects) is all that is real.

Now metal detectors are specifically adapted to those aspects of the natural world susceptible of detection via electromagnetic means. But however well they perform this task -- indeed, even if they succeeded on every single occasion they were deployed -- it simply wouldn’t follow for a moment that there are no aspects of the natural world other than the ones they are sensitive to - - that there are no things other than metal objects.

Similarly, what physics does -- and there is no doubt that it does it brilliantly -- is to capture just those aspects of the natural world susceptible of the mathematical modeling and detection that makes precise prediction and technological application possible. But here too, it simply doesn’t follow for a moment that there are no other aspects of the natural world. (And it might also be noted that despite the spectacular success of mathematical physics, there are many profound anomalies and conundrums thrown up by it.)

As I mentioned above, until the middle of the 19thc nobody knew that there were electromagnetic fields. Since the discovery of Maxwell's field equations and its integration with physics, these are now understood to be even more basic than sub-atomic particles- before then, they weren't even considered.

But what if there were biological fields, which could only be detected by organisms? No matter how sensitive and how accurate your metal detection or particle-accelerator instruments were, these would be invisible to them, outside the scope (the 'boundary conditions') of your instrumentation.

Furthermore, all this is taking place in a cultural context which has inherited the dualism of 'mind and matter' from early modern science. So against that backdrop, to demonstrate the existence of something which was not physical, would presumably to identify and isolate the mysterious 'res cogitans', the 'thinking substance' which Descartes identified as 'consciousness'. But this gives rise to a whole set of interlocking problems, starting with the so-called 'interaction problem'. And that's maybe because the whole model, which again is foundational to the modern world, has radical deficiencies.

So once these kinds of factors are considered, different perspectives become available. It means going back and re-examining the pathway by which the conclusion that 'the universe is solely physical' was arrived at. It sounds daunting, but it's eminently achievable.

Quoting Wayfarer

And that's maybe because the whole model, which again is foundational to the modern world, has radical deficiencies.

I'm unsure it matters what came before this suggestion. It is clearly true, and leaves us with quite a bit to catch up on.

Quoting Wayfarer

Defenders of physicalism will say:

1. The predictive [& explanatory] power and technological applications of physics are unparalleled by those of any other purported source of knowledge.

2. Therefore what physics reveals to us is all that is real.

Your second statement does not follow from the first statement which is why physicalists do not – I do not – make such a claim. Sadly, Wayf, you're still shadowboxing with strawmen rather than making actual valid arguments.

Reply to AmadeusD I have an issue with the expression 'consciousness surviving the body'. I think it's inherently self-contradictory insofar as consciousness is generally understood to be an attribute of physical organisms and is generally not perceived in any other context. But then, I also think the tendency to see this question in these terms is due to the framework in which this is understood.

There was an opinion piece published in Scientific American, by physicist Sean Carroll, called Physics and the Immortality of the Soul. Carroll argues that belief in any kind of life after death is equivalent to the belief that the Moon is made from green cheese - that is to say, a ridiculous idea.

But such an assertion is made because of the presuppositions that he brings to the question, the perspective through which he views it. In other words, he depicts the issue in such a way that it would indeed be ridiculous to believe it.

Carroll says:

Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?

I can think of an answer to this question, which is that the soul is not 'made of particles' and that the idea that the soul is 'made of particles' is not at all characteristic of what is meant by the term 'soul'. (Some of the ancient Stoics and Hindus did believe in a form of subtle matter, but I'll leave that aside. And I'll also leave aside the implicit hubris.)

First recall that the Greek term interpreted as 'soul' was 'psuche' or 'psyche' which is of course still with us as a form of a word for 'mind' (preserved in 'psychology'). But I think the soul could be better conceived in terms of a field that acts as an organising principle - analogous to the physical and magnetic fields that were discovered during the 19th century, that were found to be fundamental in the behaviour of particles. This is not to say that the soul is a field, but that the field analogy might be a better metaphor than particulate matter. (And bearing in mind, in Aristotle, the soul is given as 'the form of the body', where 'form' is akin to 'animating principle'. It is not 'the shape' nor is it conceived of as a separable entity.)

Morphic Fields

So - just as magnetic fields organise iron filings into predictable shapes, so too might a biological field effect be responsible for the general form and the persistence of particular attributes of an organism. The question is, is there any evidence of such 'biological fields'?

Well, the existence of 'morphic fields' is the brainchild of Rupert Sheldrake, the 'scientific heretic' who claims that:

Morphic resonance is the influence of previous structures of activity on subsequent similar structures of activity organized by morphic fields. It enables memories to pass across both space and time from the past. The greater the similarity, the greater the influence of morphic resonance. What this means is that all self-organizing systems, such as molecules, crystals, cells, plants, animals and animal societies, have a collective memory on which each individual draws and to which it contributes. In its most general sense this hypothesis implies that the so-called laws of nature are more like habits.

As the morphic field is capable of storing and transmitting remembered information, then 'the soul' could be conceived in such terms. The morphic field does, at the very least, provide an explanatory metaphor for such persistence. (This also resonates with the idea of the collective unconscious (Jung) and the alayavijnana, the ‘storehouse consciousness’ of Mah?y?na Buddhism. Meaning that the soul or psyche is analogous to a standing wave or whirlpool structure in such a medium, the 'cittasantana' or mind-stream of Mah?y?na Buddhism. )

Children with Past-Life Memories

But what, then, is the evidence for such effects in respect to 'life after death'? As mentioned previously a researcher by the name of Ian Stevenson assembled a body of data on children with recall of previous lives. Stevenson's data collection method comprised the methodical documentation arising from the seeking out and recording of a child’s purported past-life recollections. Then he identified from journals, birth-and-death records, and witness accounts, the deceased person the child supposedly remembered, and attempted to validate the facts from those sources that matched the child’s memory. Another Scientific American opinion piece notes that Stevenson even matched birthmarks and birth defects on his child subjects with wounds on the remembered deceased that could be verified by medical records.

[quote=Are We Sceptics Just Cynics?;https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/bering-in-mind/ian-stevensone28099s-case-for-the-afterlife-are-we-e28098skepticse28099-really-just-cynics/]On the back of the head of a little boy in Thailand was a small, round puckered birthmark, and at the front was a larger, irregular birthmark, resembling the entry and exit wounds of a bullet; Stevenson had already confirmed the details of the boy’s statements about the life of a man who’d been shot in the head from behind with a rifle, so that seemed to fit. And a child in India who said he remembered the life of boy who’d lost the fingers of his right hand in a fodder-chopping machine mishap was born with boneless stubs for fingers on his right hand only. This type of “unilateral brachydactyly” is so rare, Stevenson pointed out, that he couldn’t find a single medical publication of another case.[/quote]

Carroll goes on in his essay to say that 'Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren’t any sensible answers to these questions (about the persistence of consciousness)'. However, that springs from his starting assumption that 'the soul' must be something physical, which, again, arises from the presumption that everything is physical, or reducible to physics. In other words, it is directly entailed by his belief in the exhaustiveness of physics with respect to the description of what is real.

He then says 'Believing in life after death, to put it mildly, requires physics beyond the Standard Model. Most importantly, we need some way for that "new physics" to interact with the atoms that we do have.' However, even in ordinary accounts of 'mind-body' medicine, it is clear that mind can have physical consequences and effects on the body. This is the case with, for example, psychosomatic medicine and the placebo effect, but there are other examples.

He finishes by observing:

Very roughly speaking, when most people think about an immaterial soul that persists after death, they have in mind some sort of blob of spirit energy that takes up residence near our brain, and drives around our body like a soccer mom driving an SUV.

But that is not what 'most people have in mind'. As mentioned above, the idea of a self that transmigrates life to life is condemned in no uncertain terms in Buddhist scriptures, which do otherwise accept the reality of re-birth. But that is what physicalism ‘has in mind’ because it's the only way to conceive of something if you think that all that is real is matter.. If you start from the understanding that 'everything is physical', then this will indeed dictate the way you think about it. And while it may be true that there is no such 'blob' as Carroll describes, that is not what the 'soul' is; but what it might be, is something that can't be understood in the terms of Carroll's ontological presuppositions.

So, I myself don’t much like the terminology of ‘consciousness surviving death’, especially when ‘consciousness’ is defined in terms of an attribute of conscious beings. The fact that we feel compelled to conceive it that way is a consequence of the ‘objectifying’ tendency which is deeply rooted in the way we think about it. But very subtle questions of identify, metaphysics and epistemology underlie this issue.

Reply to 180 Proof [quote=Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy, 'Physicalism';https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/]Physicalism is, in slogan form, the thesis that everything is physical.... The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical.[/quote]

Quoting Wayfarer

Physicalism is, in slogan form, the thesis that everything is physical....
—Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy

Yeah, of course, you"re making my point again: you traffic in slogans – strawmen – rather than informed, valid arguments. :smirk:

Quoting Wayfarer

Defenders of physicalism will say:

1. The predictive power and technological applications of physics are unparalleled by those of any other purported source of knowledge.

2. Therefore what physics reveals to us is all that is real.

That's not phyicalism, it's scientism, which is:
[I]
... the view that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality.

While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientists", some scholars, as well as political and religious leaders, have also adopted it as a pejorative term with the meaning "an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities)".[/i]

Physicalism doesn't entail believing physics necessarily reveals all that is real, or that science is the sole source of knowledge. Like any metaphysical theory, physicalism endeavors to provide a model that accounts for everything we know about the world. While that includes what we know about physics, it would be a poor metaphysical theory that depended on the prevailing scientific paradigms of the day. It's also fair game for a physicalist to account for things physics can't account for: e.g. foundations of knowledge; modal truths; or pretty much anything that a critic of scientism (like Feser) might raise.

Quoting Wayfarer

Appealing to data in response to a claim is not a fallacy.

You didn't post any data, only that some scientist had written a book. You appealing to that without indicating what the argument or evidence is, is the definition of the fallacy.

Quoting Wayfarer

If you claim that near death experiences must be hallucinatory, then evidence to the contrary ought to be considered also, and Pim Van Lommel's books are a source of that evidence.

Must they be hallucinatory? I don't know. I never claimed that. Did you read our discussion and my points, or are you only taking a later post? As for Lommel, again, you never posted any of his evidence or argumentation. For all I know, he's a quack. I'm not going to take time out of my day to read an entire book, as I'm not arguing for consciousness existing outside of the body. If he has good arguments, post them. If not, the reference is as good as me referencing Billy Bob Johnson's book on gator wraslin'. He might have some great points, or he could be missing some fingers and toes and his book is widely suggested to be avoided. Just because someone is a 'scientist' and has a 'book' does not mean anything they've written is worthwhile to consider.

Quoting Wayfarer

but there is testimonial evidence - and what other kind could there be for this subject?

The tests I've noted?

Quoting Wayfarer

What I'm getting at, is not the belief that these experiences have no basis in reality, but why they can't have any basis in reality.

I never said they couldn't. If you've been reading my discussion, you'll note that this has been a discussion of his lack of evidence and cogent arguments for NDEs being more than mere subjective experiences, and me providing counter arguments and evidence that more strongly indicate that NDEs are only subjective experiences, and fail objective tests in lab settings.

Quoting Wayfarer

Let's discuss why they couldn't be, what would have to be the case for such experiences to be real.

Feel free to read through our discussion and you should have everything I've provided. Quote and make some counter-arguments if you think you see any issues with what I've noted.

Quoting Wayfarer

So, I disagree with your carte blanche dismissal of what Sam has been presenting.

If you read our discussion in its entirety, I think you'll see why I disagree with him, the problems his arguments has, and why they are good arguments for his conclusion. If you have issues with any of those specifics, again, feel free to post them and we can discuss. Otherwise it seems you're making a judgement without fully understanding my arguments to Sam.

Quoting Wayfarer

There was an opinion piece published in Scientific American, by physicist Sean Carroll

Let's say these two sources are not ones I would go to for discussions on anything remotely philosophically interesting.

How does it interact with ordinary matter?

This is his only question that doesn't carry all his suppositions. And it's been a live one for a long, long time.

Quoting Wayfarer

But that is not what 'most people have in mind'.

Agreed.

Quoting Wayfarer

So, I myself don’t much like the terminology of ‘consciousness surviving death’

Thanks for explaining. I guess i Ignore stupid self-restricting positions like Carroll's. Obviously, he's an authority on what he does know - which is physics after the free miracle :P

Quoting AmadeusD

physics after the [s]free[/s] miracle

I.e. mygoddidit-of-the-gaps :sparkle:

Reply to 180 Proof To some degree, sure, but framing it that way is some extremely bad interpretation. That there are gaps in knowledge doesn't require invoking God. But it does require some novel thinking, at times. That's all I'm indicating. It's not Carroll's field... If God comes out of that exercise, i'd be a surprised as you.

Reply to AmadeusD Okay if not "god", then what do you mean by "free miracle"?

Reply to 180 Proof Ah, fair, that was very much insufficiently clear. Where i put that, I just mean to indicate that we don't know (which ironically, is Carroll's view, elsewhere) and 'miracle' is a placeholder for whatever the answer is...could think here of the breathe-in-breathe-out view of the big bang, but we don't know whether or not that's the case. It would solve the 'miracle' is my point. Anything that answers the question is the 'miracle' until it's found.

Quoting Philosophim

Must they be hallucinatory? I don't know. I never claimed that. Did you read our discussion and my points, or are you only taking a later post?

Never?

Quoting Philosophim

If a bunch of people have a hallucination, no one doubts they have a hallucination. But the fact that multiple people have a hallucination is not an argument for that hallucination being real.

The point about Van Lommel and Ian Stephenson is simply to indicate that large data sets exist, that researches have wrestled with the question as to whether nde’s and past-life memories have any basis in reality. I could take the time to reproduce some of their examples for discussion, but I have a fair idea of what the response would be, so I’m not going to bother.

Reply to AmadeusD If you prefer; for lucidity's sake I prefer unknown to the loaded, anti-scientific term "miracle".

Reply to 180 Proof Fair enough. If you find a glib use of a clearly inapt term "anti-scientific" rather than a bit of fun, I'm unsure where to go :P

Quoting Relativist

That's not phyicalism, it's scientism

They’re nearly always joined at the hip. Are there any advocates for ‘scientism’ who do not hold to physicalism? We look to science as the arbiter of what is real, and science is best equipped to deal with the objectively measurable and inferences grounded against objective measurement. So I think Feser’s metal-detector analogy is perfectly apt, especially in a discussion such as this one. We are pre-disposed to a metaphysical view that is in concordance with science, hence the constant eye-rolling and exasperation when mention is made of researchers who question physicalism.

Quoting Wayfarer

They’re nearly always joined at the hip. Are there any advocates for ‘scientism’ who do not hold to physicalism?

Both believe the physical world is all that exists, but Feser's objections to scientism do not apply to metaphysical physicalism. Someone who embraces scientism without a grasp of physicalism as a metaphysical system will be stumped by his assertions. So I can see them sort of joined at the hip, as long as we recognize that physicalism, but not scientism, is a metaphysical system.

Here's an example Feser gives (this was from the first "here" in the article you linked):

"Despite its adherents’ pose of rationality, scientism has a serious problem: it is either self-refuting or trivial. Take the first horn of this dilemma. The claim that scientism is true is not itself a scientific claim, not something that can be established using scientific methods. Indeed, that science is even a rational form of inquiry (let alone the only rational form of inquiry) is not something that can be established scientifically. For scientific inquiry itself rests on a number of philosophical assumptions: that there is an objective world external to the minds of scientists; that this world is governed by causal regularities; that the human intellect can uncover and accurately describe these regularities; and so forth. Since science presupposes these things, it cannot attempt to justify them without arguing in a circle."

A physicalist metaphysician has no problem addressing the philosophical questions he raises every bit as well as a Thomist like Feser. That science is a rational form of inquiry doesn't require a supernaturalist metaphysics to justify; the "causal regularities" he refers to can be accounted for as laws of nature (relations between universals).

I suspect Feser (who is prone to polemics) is being a bit disingenous with his criticism. Scientism isn't a metaphysical system, and that's why I bring up physicalism. No metaphysical theory (Thomist, Aristotelian, Physicalist...) is provably true, such that it can properly be labelled "knowledge" in the strict sense Physicalism is no less justifiable than Feser's Thomism ( physicalism is arguable MORE justified because it entails fewer ad hoc assumptions). So Feser is in no better position to claim actual knowledge than a physicalist.

Quoting Relativist

A physicalist metaphysician has no problem addressing the philosophical questions he raises every bit as well as a Thomist like Feser. That science is a rational form of inquiry doesn't require a supernaturalist metaphysics to justify; the "causal regularities" he refers to can be accounted for as laws of nature (relations between universals).

(not in pursuit of the greater discussion here - I am just motivated to ask prima facie..)
I am unsure these answers can be given as readily as you're putting forward. "Laws of Nature" just refer back to those causal regularities. They aren't actually 'accounted' for beyond that we regularly see stuff happen under certain conditions. It may well be that this is what you're getting at and I'm misreading... Because both we seem to have a similar reaction to THomism, and I agree with your final point there; I am just not seeing how you are actually answering the questions old mate put forward.. (but, that supports your conclusion, so that's fine, im just curious).

Quoting Relativist

That science is a rational form of inquiry doesn't require a supernaturalist metaphysics to justify; the "causal regularities" he refers to can be accounted for as laws of nature (relations between universals).

But, are universals themselves physical? I know David Armstrong says they are, but I think his is a revisionist account of universals shoehorned into a materialist framework and undermined by science itself. (For example, the Copenhagen interpretation suggests that quantum entities do not have definite properties until they are observed, which conflicts with Armstrong's view that properties (or universals) exist independently of perception and measurement). And the ontological status of 'the laws of nature', and why the Universe has just these laws and not some other, is also neither a scientific question nor something that can be adjuticated by physics.

In the SEP entry on Physicalism, cited above, there is a section on 'the problem of abstracta' which is precisely that numbers and the like are not material in nature - and yet they are also basic to the success of the mathematical physics which underpins a great deal of science. There is still controversy in philosophy of mathematics as to whether the Platonist view is the correct one, and Platonism maintains that number is real but immaterial (which is why it is controversial.) So the ontological status of universals and abstracta is far from a settled question.

So:

Quoting Relativist

"For scientific inquiry itself rests on a number of philosophical assumptions: that there is an objective world external to the minds of scientists; that this world is governed by causal regularities; that the human intellect can uncover and accurately describe these regularities; and so forth. Since science presupposes these things, it cannot attempt to justify them without arguing in a circle." ~ Edward Feser

I think this is quite true, and will often defend this argument. The succinct way of expressing it is that 'naturalism assumes nature' - it starts with the apparently self-evident fact of the existence of the empirical world, to be studied by science. But again, that apparently innocuous assumption always entails an implicit metaphysics and epistemology. An example is the status of objectivity: I've argued at length in another thread that objectivity is itself reliant on there being a subject to whom objects appear (per Kant). The fact that communities of subjects see the same sets of objects doesn't undermine that. And then, there's the observer problem in physics, already noted, concerning the objects of physics itself which are essentially abstractions in the first place.

So I think Feser is quite justified in that claim.

Quoting Wayfarer

Must they be hallucinatory? I don't know. I never claimed that. Did you read our discussion and my points, or are you only taking a later post?
— Philosophim

Never?

No, we're talking about hallucinatory as the more likely inductive possibility. You obviously did not read our full conversation over the life of this thread.

Quoting Wayfarer

The point about Van Lommel and Ian Stephenson is simply to indicate that large data sets exist, that researches have wrestled with the question as to whether nde’s and past-life memories have any basis in reality.

And my point, again, is that it is irrelevant, and a logical fallacy to site that these have any value without you having read them. Kind of like your criticisms of my conversation when you haven't read it in full either.

Quoting Wayfarer

I could take the time to reproduce some of their examples for discussion, but I have a fair idea of what the response would be, so I’m not going to bother.

We have this weird dichotomy Wayfarer. I keep taking the time to treat you like you're not an idiot, and you keep proving me wrong. You keep taking the time to treat me like I'm an idiot, and I keep proving you wrong. Is this ever going to change? Maybe realize some of your arguments aren't very good, and have a humble conversation?

I believe somewhere in that insecure mess of a brain of yours, is an actual intellectual who has curiosity, wonder at thinking about things, and the potential to both learn and contribute. But once again, when your points have been countered or shown to be faulty in an argument, you break down into this passive aggressive conversation style where I can practically see you sulking as you type the words out. If you got over yourself, you might be surprised at what you could do. Or at the very least, learn to quit before I have to call you out on your behavior.

Quoting Wayfarer

But, are universals themselves physical? I know David Armstrong says they are, but I think his is a revisionist account of universals shoehorned into a materialist framework and undermined by science itself

Universals aren't "shoehorned". Armstrong wrote a book ("Universals: An Opinionated Introduction") where he lays out the case for his treatment of them. It's a stepping stone toward his comprehensive metaphysics (universals are integral), but it stands on its own.

Quoting Wayfarer

For example, the Copenhagen interpretation suggests that quantum entities do not have definite properties until they are observed, which conflicts with Armstrong's view that properties (or universals) exist independently of perception and measurement)

Quantum "entities" are quantum systems, and they evolve deterministically (per a Schroedinger equation)- irrespective of interpretation.

Measurements entail an interaction between the non-quantum (classical) world and a quantum system. The result of the interaction is probabilistic - repeated measurement will fit an expected probability distribution. Armstrong accounts for this as "probabilistic causation" (consistent with his account of laws of nature). As far as I can tell, this is consistent with any of the interpretations of QM.
Quoting Wayfarer

In the SEP entry on Physicalism, cited above, there is a section on 'the problem of abstracta' ... So it's far from a settled question.

There aren't many settled questions in philosophy. But Armstrong argues that the notion that abstractions have objective, independent existence seems unparsimonious - they are unnecessary additions to the "furniture of the world" (as he puts it).

Armstrong takes his case further: if objects depend on these abstract universals for their form, it entails a relation between the object and the the abstraction - so not only do abstractions add to the "furniture of the world", it also creates a the need for this relation. Immanent universals (universals existing exclusively in their instantiations) is more parsimonious and simpler.

As far as the abstractions that we mentally contemplate, Armstrong points to the "way of abstraction" (see this SEP article) which makes sense to me.

Quoting Wayfarer

naturalism assumes nature' - it starts with the apparently self-evident fact of the existence of the empirical world, to be studied by science. But again, that apparently innocuous assumption always entails an implicit metaphysics and epistemology.

I'd say that scientism (not science, per se) has to depend on the assumption that there is a compatible metaphysics underlying it all. I'm not aware of Feser ever acknowledging that. Instead, he criticizes scientism for its absence of accounting for a foundation of knowlege. Of COURSE it lacks that! But the physicalist metaphysics you consider entailed by it doesn't lack it.

His criticism also seems disingenuous by pointing out that the principle of scientism excludes the possibility of "knowledge" of some foundation for knowledge. If he's using "knowledge" in the strict sense, then the same thing applies to him and the Thomist metaphysics he embraces. It may be coherent, but it's not provably true.

I have no problem with his pointing out the fact scientism can't explain itself, but it would be more reasonable to point toward the need for a metaphysical model that fills the gap he identified. This ought to be accompanied with the observation that it is not actually possible to have "knowledge" of any metaphysical model.

[Quote]An example is the status of objectivity: I've argued at length in another thread that objectivity is itself reliant on there being a subject to whom objects appear (per Kant). The fact that communities of subjects see the same sets of objects doesn't undermine that. [/quote]
IMO, true epistemic objectivity is an unobtainable ideal, but we can pursue intersubjectivity.

[Quote]And then, there's the observer problem in physics, already noted. And the objects of physics itself are essentially abstractions.[/quote]
I addressed both points.

Quoting Philosophim

You keep taking the time to treat me like I'm an idiot, and I keep proving you wrong. Is this ever going to change?

Quoting Philosophim

I believe somewhere in that insecure mess of a brain of yours

Quoting Philosophim

I can practically see you sulking as you type the words out.

Quoting Philosophim

If you got over yourself

Quoting Philosophim

have a humble conversation

INteresting.

Quoting AmadeusD

"Laws of Nature" just refer back to those causal regularities.

That's a Humean account. More recent philosophers have developed an (arguably) superior account: law realism.

The notion is that there are actual, existing laws of nature. A law is a relation between universals.

Example: electron (-1 charge) and proton (+1 charge) are universals. It is a law that they will attract. Each particular electron instantiates the universal "electron" and each particular proton instantiates the universal "proton". They necessarily attract because the electron-proton pair necessarily instantiates the law.

Here's some sources:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43153907

https://bates.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma991001713689708044&context=L&vid=01CBB_BCOLL:BATES&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=MyInst_and_CI&query=sub,exact,%20Causality%20,AND&mode=advanced&offset=60

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/causation-9780198750949?cc=us&lang=en&

Reply to Relativist The basis for this breaks down into Humean skepticism nevertheless.

I agree, it's a better model, but a model nonetheless. I don't think it gets closer to any kind of certainty. We're just saying "Okay, let's run with it until we stab ourselves".

Quoting Philosophim

You keep taking the time to treat me like I'm an idiot, and I keep proving you wrong. Is this ever going to change?

I don’t believe I did that, nor did I wish to imply it. You can't have a conversation you don't like without falling into ad hominems. If I've been critical, it's because of what I see as the presuppositions you bring to bear, for example:

Quoting Philosophim

Currently the hypothesis, "Our consciousness does not survive death," has been confirmed in applicable tests. You'll need to show me actual tests that passed peer review, and can be repeated that show our consciousness exists beyond death. To my mind, there are none, but I am open to read if you cite one.

Where the obvious difficulty is that of obtaining an objective validation of a subjective state of being and which only occurs in extreme conditions. Would, for instance, the peer review group also had to have had NDE's? The 'replication crisis' in psychology is severe enough even for much more quotidian matters. Myself, I don't really see how the claim that there can be a state beyond physical death is ever going to be scientifically validated, although I believe there are research programs underway to do that.

I brought up Ian Stevenson's research into children with past-life memories, because it's obviously a more realistic source of objective data than are NDE's. Reason being, the subject children will make claims about his or her remembered previous identity, and those claims can be subjected to documentary evidence and witness testimony. And I have read it - I did take his two-volume Where Reincarnation and Biology Intersect out of the library, and read large parts of it (although it's two very large volumes and much of it worded in the dry technical terminology of medical literature). But it is the consequence of the examination of several thousand such cases. It's easy to dismiss Stevenson as a crank or charlatan but he did amass a considerable amount of data which I happen to think is a more empirically reliable source of data than NDE testimonies.

I also laid out a sketch of an alternative metaphysic, within which the idea of continuity from life-to-life might be considered plausible, to which you didn't respond.

Quoting Relativist

I have no problem with his pointing out the fact scientism can't explain itself, but it would be more reasonable to point toward the need for a metaphysical model that fills the gap he identified.

You make many solid points there, and I'll need to do some more reading, obviously. I will own up that the reason for my hostility to Armstrong, and he was the professor of philosophy were I was an undergrad, was that I believe that materialist theories of mind are incorrect in principle. But I also recognise that he was a brilliant thinker and that to get into the ring with him would take someone with a lot better skills than myself. I don't believe your responses really do adequately address the challenges of modern physics, but I know better than to try and pursue that line of argument. Anyway, many points to consider there and I appreciate that.

Quoting Philosophim

As for Lommel, again, you never posted any of his evidence or argumentation. For all I know, he's a quack. I'm not going to take time out of my day to read an entire book, as I'm not arguing for consciousness existing outside of the body. If he has good arguments, post them

Non-Local Consciousness, Pim Van Lommel. It's a kind of summary of his research. He notes this anecdote from a nurse:

'During night shift an ambulance brings in a 44-year old cyanotic, comatose man into the coronary care unit. He was found in coma about 30 minutes before in a meadow. When we go to intubate the patient, he turns out to have dentures in his mouth. I remove these upper dentures and put them onto the ‘crash cart.’ After about an hour and a half the patient has sufficient heart rhythm and blood pressure, but he is still ventilated and intubated, and he is still comatose. He is transferred to the intensive care unit to continue the necessary artificial respiration. Only after more than a week do I meet again with the patient, who is by now back on the cardiac ward. The moment he sees me he says: ‘O, that nurse knows where my dentures are.’ I am very, very surprised. Then the patient elucidates: ‘You were there when I was brought into hospital and you took my dentures out of my mouth and put them onto that cart, it had all these bottles on it and there was this sliding drawer underneath, and there you put my teeth.’ I was especially amazed because I remembered this happening while the man was in deep coma and in the process of CPR. It appeared that the man had seen himself lying in bed, that he had perceived from above how nurses and doctors had been busy with the CPR. He was also able to describe correctly and in detail the small room in which he had been resuscitated as well as the appearance of those present like myself.'

Although it is clear that replication of this kind of event in controlled laboratory conditions might be challenging, but they are often reported in the literature. (The paper discusses attempts to corroborate this kind of evidence by placing objects in proximity of ICUs where such procedures are carried out, but with no conclusive results.)

He has an entry on Wikipedia also.

Quoting 180 Proof

And I've long argued that if an individual life is understood as part of a continuum extending before physical birth that has consequences beyond physical death, that this can provide a framework within which the life beyond is at least conceivable.
— Wayfarer

Okay, so make the case – a sound argument – for this alleged "continuum" ... Once the facts of the matter are established, then we can interpret their philosophical ramifications (and, maybe, derive cogent, metaphysical conclusions). :chin:

No doubt, @Wayfarer, you accidently missed this request.

Reply to 180 Proof I posted a sketch of a non-materialist metaphysic a few posts above. As I’ve noted, I think Stevenson’s research on children who claim to remember previous lives and the corroborating information is noteworthy but I understand from previous conversations that you reject it.

Quoting AmadeusD

Obviously, he's an authority on what he does know - which is physics after the free miracle

What’s the ‘free miracle’?

Further Implications of NDEs

The obvious implication of my argument is that there’s intelligence (consciousness or mind) behind the universe which naturally leads to the question, “Is there evidence of intelligence design in the universe?” The answer, for me at least, is an unequivocal yes, i.e., intelligent design is everywhere. However, even if there’s intelligent design in the universe that in itself doesn’t mean there is an afterlife, nor does it mean there’s a God as many religious people envision; it just means that there’s evidence of intelligent design and that there is a designer/s. The intelligent design argument that I’ll be presenting does not claim there’s a God or an afterlife. Intelligent design makes no religious claim, and since it doesn’t make religious claims, any rebuttal that it’s a God of the gap’s argument is a narrative that doesn’t have teeth. Many religious people use the design argument to support their ideas of God or creation, but those arguments are added to the intelligent design argument.

If one is going to use the design argument to support a broader conclusion, then one needs a separate argument that extends the conclusion of the teleological argument. I don’t believe any of the religious arguments work to support their religious ideas of God. I’m not saying there isn’t a God, I’m just saying that their arguments don’t work, including various forms of the cosmological, ontological, and moral arguments, and many of them are fallacious or based on some conceptual definition or framework.

One aspect of all this that is separate from the actual arguments (separate from the logic) is that all of us are influenced by our psychology or our cultural experiences. When presenting any argument, one has to be aware of one’s biases or proclivities to move toward a particular conclusion, which is why I started this thread. So, the question for all of us is whether the arguments presented here or in other threads have more to do with psychological predispositions or the actual arguments themselves. Balancing this can be very difficult, but it’s a question that must always be present, especially if our goal is truth. If our goal is to win an argument at all costs because we don’t like a particular conclusion, then we are not doing good philosophy. All of us fall short of this, some more than others, but there is a certain humility that should accompany all arguments. That’s my sermon for the day.

Quoting Sam26

The obvious implication of my argument is that there’s intelligence (consciousness or mind) behind the universe ...

Parsimony be damned, the principle of explosion (& effect of other "obvious" fallacies) always ... works in mysterious ways. :pray:

If [s]our[/s] [my] goal is to win an argument at all costs because we don’t like a [s]particular[/s] [valid, scary] conclusion, then [s]we are[/s] [I'm] not doing good philosophy ... especially if [s]our[/s] [the] goal is truth.

Confession is good for the soul, they say; don't you feel better now, Sam? :smirk:

Quoting Wayfarer

What’s the ‘free miracle’?

Quoting AmadeusD

Where i put that, I just mean to indicate that we don't know (which ironically, is Carroll's view, elsewhere) and 'miracle' is a placeholder for whatever the answer is...could think here of the breathe-in-breathe-out view of the big bang, but we don't know whether or not that's the case. It would solve the 'miracle' is my point. Anything that answers the question is the 'miracle' until it's found.

Post 1

First, some background information.

The first part of the argument for intelligent design will be the one presented by Dr. Byron I. Bitar (philosopher) in his book Classical Christian Wisdom, pp. 99-114, 1993). And while I’m not a Christian I do think the argument presents good reasons/evidence for its conclusion, i.e., there is very strong evidence for the conclusion that the universe was intelligently designed. This argument adds to the strength of my metaphysical position.

“Teleological arguments, like cosmological arguments, begin from a feature of the cosmos or nature. In that sense, they are a kind of cosmological argument. In fact, Aquinas’ fifth cosmological argument is a teleological argument.

“The particular teleological argument we are going to examine in detail is set forth by William Paley [1743-1805] in his book Natural Theology written in the 18th century. The feature of nature he begins his argument with is this: a structure or architecture such that the whole individual can accomplish or be used to accomplish activities of a higher order than any part alone. In other words, the individual can perform or be used to perform actions that achieve purposes, goals, or forms of life that are higher than the action of a part alone. William Paley was obviously not the first to use a feature indicating purpose to prove the existence of God. Plato, Aristotle, and, of course, Aquinas did too. However, Paley is justifiably famous for his version (pp. 96-97).”

“[William Paley] spent nine years at Cambridge. Although Cambridge was fairly corrupt at the time and many professors looked upon their position, in which they sometimes had no prior training, as a sinecure, Paley took his appointment seriously. He served as an assistant to his former college tutor, Anthony Shepard, and lectured on metaphysics, moral philosophy, the Greek Testament, and divinity. He became known as one of Cambridge’s finest professors (p. 97).”

I’m not going to give Paley’s argument from his book Natural Theology, but I am going to give Dr. Bitar’s assessment of the argument. Later I will add to the argument with more evidence of intelligent design from recent research and thinking.

“It is worth noting that the publication of Paley's Natural Theology, which expounds, defends, and illustrates the argument from design, occurred after the publication of the two works that have been most influential in questioning the value of the argument. The first was David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion published in 1779, three years after Hume's death. The second was Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason published in 1781. Both were published prior to any of Paley's works.

“1779 Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
1781 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
1785 Paley's first work: Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy
1802 Paley's last work: Natural Theology

“Nevertheless, it was Paley's argument in Natural Theology which triumphed in England for over a hundred years after its publication (pp. 98-99).”

It must be pointed out that Paley’s argument is inductive. In other words, it is not like other ontological or cosmological arguments that try to infer the conclusion with absolute necessity. “Paley's argument is a specific kind of inductive argument, called an "argument by analogy." An argument by analogy uses a likeness or analogy between two objects or groups of objects to infer the existence of a further likeness. For instance, if I owned four shirts made for L. L. Bean and all wore well, I could infer by analogy that a fifth shirt from L. L. Bean would also wear well.

“Premise: I own four shirts made for L. L. Bean and all have wore well.
Premise: This fifth shirt is made for L. L. Bean.
Conclusion: This fifth shirt made for L. L. Bean will also wear well.

“The likeness used to begin the argument is being made for L. L. Bean; all five shirts share it. The further likeness considered is wearing well; the first four shirts have it. Because of the likeness or analogy among all the shirts, namely all made for L.L. Bean, the property of wearing well is ascribed to the fifth shirt as well.

“[T]he argument has a very narrow, conservative immediate conclusion. It directly tries to show that it is rational to believe in one or more intelligent designers of natural objects. It does not directly try to show the universe was created out of nothing by the intelligent designer(s), nor that there is only one intelligent designer, nor that the designer(s) is a purely mental being with no body, nor that the designer(s) is perfectly good, nor that the designer(s) is the same as the individual(s) who executed the design in making the universe, and so forth. It only tries to show that there is one or more intelligent designers (pp. 100-101).”

In the next post I’ll continue with numbered premises and the conclusion, including an analysis of the strength of the argument.

Quoting Wayfarer

I don’t believe I did that, nor did I wish to imply it.

If I note you made a clear appeal to authority, ask you to give some actual examples because its an innocent enough mistake to make, then you double down and tell me you won't because you think I already know how I'll respond, then you're implying it. Even one example could have been enough to demonstrate you were taking the conversation seriously. Wayfarer, I keep telling you I'm a lot more open to your ideas then you'll allow in your own head. Give people a chance, especially if they're willing to engage with you.

Quoting Wayfarer

Currently the hypothesis, "Our consciousness does not survive death," has been confirmed in applicable tests. You'll need to show me actual tests that passed peer review, and can be repeated that show our consciousness exists beyond death. To my mind, there are none, but I am open to read if you cite one.
— Philosophim

Where the obvious difficulty is that of obtaining an objective validation of a subjective state of being and which only occurs in extreme conditions.

True, and I don't discount this. Again, I've gone over this in my conversation with Sam. I've mentioned how NDEs can be seemingly reproduced at a less intense level through drug stimulation and situations of oxygen deprivation. I do not have an issue with pointing out weaknesses in things I've addressed with Sam, but you aren't referencing those and just assuming things. Again, a simple enough mistake to make, but when I've tried to correct you to go read, you keep making false assumptions about where the conversation has gone, indicating you still haven't done that. If you don't want to, that's fine, but stop making accusations or criticisms from ignorance.

Quoting Wayfarer

Myself, I don't really see how the claim that there can be a state beyond physical death is ever going to be scientifically validated, although I believe there are research programs underway to do that.

There are. Here's a modern article which mentions a few groups that are attempting to study NDE's as the least.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lifting-the-veil-on-near-death-experiences/

One example of a test that has not borne fruit yet is putting distinct objects out of sight of the patient and if they have a OBE, seeing if they can say they saw it while floating above their body.

Quoting Wayfarer

It's easy to dismiss Stevenson as a crank or charlatan but he did amass a considerable amount of data which I happen to think is a more empirically reliable source of data than NDE testimonies.

Again, I would have taken this more seriously if you had given some examples and not a simple book reference.

Quoting Wayfarer

I also laid out a sketch of an alternative metaphysic, within which the idea of continuity from life-to-life might be considered plausible, to which you didn't respond.

This was not addressed to me, but AmadeusD. But if you think it relevant, I'll give my thoughts.

Quoting Wayfarer

But I think the soul could be better conceived in terms of a field that acts as an organising principle - analogous to the physical and magnetic fields that were discovered during the 19th century, that were found to be fundamental in the behaviour of particles.

This isn't a bad idea, but we have to be careful in understanding what a field is. The best analogy I can give is calculating the waves of the ocean vs measuring the particles of water involved. A wave is a mathematical way of looking at particle behavior in large groups. You've probably heard that light can be both a wave and a particle. Light doesn't change, its our mathematical calculations of viewing light as waves vs particles that hold sound in testing.

Meaning that if the soul were a wave, or some type of large conscious energy force, there would be something measurable. Considering that logically the soul would have to interact with the brain, this also means that the soul must be able to impact physical reality, and vice versa. Thus in repeated viewings of death, we should be able to detect something.

You'll note in the article I link this is a common thing they find.

"In 2023 Borjigin and her colleagues published what they suspect could be a signature of NDEs in the dying brain. The researchers analyzed EEG data from four comatose patients before and after their ventilators were removed. As their brains became deprived of oxygen, two of the dying patients exhibited a paradoxical surge of gamma activity, a type of high-frequency brain wave linked to the formation of memory and the integration of information.

Borjigin had seen the same upwelling of activity in previous studies of the brains of healthy rats during induced cardiac arrest. In the rodents, the surge occurred across the entire brain. In humans, though, it was confined primarily to the junction of the brain’s temporal, parietal and occipital lobes, a region involved in multiple features of consciousness, including visual, auditory and motion processing. Past research has also associated the region with out-of-body sensations, as well as with altruism and empathy. Although these are all regular components of NDEs, Borjigin says, it’s impossible to know whether the two patients actually experienced an NDE because they did not live to tell about it. But “I could almost guess what they might have experienced,” she says."

Things like these are exciting because they're repeatable finds. It still doesn't explain why some have it and others don't, but at least there's something measurable. Whether it will be something that the brain simply does on its own, or whether there is some energy or force we can trace leaving the brain remains to be seen.

Quoting Wayfarer

As the morphic field is capable of storing and transmitting remembered information, then 'the soul' could be conceived in such terms. The morphic field does, at the very least, provide an explanatory metaphor for such persistence.

I have often thought the memories and their preservation could be captured somehow. Generally though memory is stored as a medium, and it needs a translator to process it into an experience. Even a simple computer is a good example of the broad concept. To make this idea actionable, we would need to find this medium, find evidence of it interacting with the brain, and then attempt to repeat it and see what happens. So this is still in the speculative fiction category, but possibly the Jules Verne kind.

Quoting Wayfarer

Then he identified from journals, birth-and-death records, and witness accounts, the deceased person the child supposedly remembered, and attempted to validate the facts from those sources that matched the child’s memory.

Ah, I see, this is what you were talking about. I took some time to review a bit of Stevens. Its interesting material. Stevens himself never attempted to use his claims to prove that reincarnation was real, but that was what he leaned on the most. Honestly, a guy like him is a pioneer who I have a lot of respect for. The question is whether his methodology was sound, and whether a repeat in the study would result in similar conclusions. Science is not one study, but repeated attempts to poke, prod, and explore. Its a bit telling there doesn't seem to be much follow up research or attempts to build upon his work from the 1970s. There are several interested parties in wanting reincarnation to be real, and I'm sure enough money could be found to explore that interest. So a neat start, but can't be considered more seriously without further research.

Quoting Wayfarer

Carroll goes on in his essay to say that 'Everything we know about quantum field theory (QFT) says that there aren’t any sensible answers to these questions (about the persistence of consciousness)'. However, that springs from his starting assumption that 'the soul' must be something physical, which, again, arises from the presumption that everything is physical, or reducible to physics.

From my point we can replace the word physics with, "Measureable". And as I noted earlier, logically, if there is some other type of substance that interacts with the human body, it must be detectable in some way. It would be part of reality, and measurable. So its a neat idea to keep exploring, but until such a measurable thing is discovered, we can't conclude its more than a hypothesis.

My argument against Sam26 is that he believes the strongest inductive idea we can present is that consciousness survives death. That's plainly false. Its fun to think about, explore, and experiment with. But as of today, it is an incredibly weak argument in the face of the conclusions which have lead to us understanding that consciousness does not survive death. Its a difference between theory and fact. Theory is a lot of fun. Exploring possibilities is necessary for the human race to further itself. But expressing theories as facts, or more viability then they currently do, is wrong. Just as outright dismissing theories that contradict the norm as possible things we should explore. Both are instances of a misapplication of the human spirit and mind for discovery about the world.

Quoting Philosophim

Wayfarer, I keep telling you I'm a lot more open to your ideas then you'll allow in your own head. Give people a chance, especially if they're willing to engage with you.

Fair enough, point taken, I will keep that in mind in future. Apologies if I was dismissive.

Stevenson was widely scorned for his research, as the whole idea of reincarnation is anathema to both regular science and Christian culture (where it was essentially declared heretical in the fourth century.) I’ve brought him up a few times on the forum but it provokes a lot of pushback. I think there’s a tendency to be either repelled by the idea or to be fascinated by it. Stevenson’s cases are not at all of famous historical figures. The remembered previous lives were generally those of very ordinary people, who often lost their lives in tragic circumstances. That’s one of the aspects of his research that lends plausibility.

Stevenson was associated with the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia, the activities of which are mainly concerned with parapsychology and other paranormal phenomena. He has a successor there, Jim Tucker, but he’s not so well known (or notorious!) as was Stevenson.

Quoting Philosophim

From my point we can replace the word physics with, "Measureable". And as I noted earlier, logically, if there is some other type of substance that interacts with the human body, it must be detectable in some way. It would be part of reality, and measurable.

The word ‘substance’ can be misleading in this context. As a technical term in philosophy it means something very different to the usual meaning, which is ‘a material with uniform properties’. In philosophy, the word derives from ‘substantia’, which was the Latin word used to translate the Greek ‘ouisia’ from Aristotle. ‘Ousia’ is nearer in meaning to ‘being’, and ‘substantia’ is supposed to mean ‘that which stands under’. So in some ways, the meaning is nearer to ‘subject’ than ‘substance’ in the normal sense. But I think it’s misleading to believe that ‘substance’ in this context can be taken to mean something objectively measurable or perceptible - although that is obviously suggested by Descartes ‘mind-body’ dualism. I think it’s a major legacy issue from early modern philosophy.


Quoting Philosophim

I have often thought the memories and their preservation could be captured somehow. Generally though memory is stored as a medium, and it needs a translator to process it into an experience.

Animals often seem to remember things, like homing pigeons or Atlantic salmon that find their way back to their home stream from across the ocean. We put it down to ‘instinct’ as if that explains it, or assign it to their ability to somehow read magnetic fields. But what if there are biological fields? This is where Rupert Sheldrake comes in. And he’s another maverick, many dismiss him as a quack - when his first book was published, the then-editor of Nature said it ought to be burned (‘for exactly the same reason that Galileos’ books were banned - they were heresy!’) But anyway, he has a theory of morphic resonance, that ‘nature forms habits’, and that these are expressed in both organic and inorganic forms (i.e. through crystal formation.) Sheldrake has published quite a few papers on it, but again they’re frustratingly inconclusive. I’m afraid it always seems to be that way in respect of paranormal studies, (in fact I wonder if that is actually a ‘feature not a bug’. His research findings can be reviewed at sheldrake.org.)

But then, as we’re talking about reincarnation, it is a fringe issue, so maybe fringe theories are apposite. In any case, I don’t find the idea that ‘nature forms habits’ to be startlingly outlandish - the difficulty seems to be, in what medium are such memories preserved? I won’t venture an answer, but I don’t think it’s a ridiculous question. Although maybe the underlying idea behind both topics is the sense that the universe is more ‘mind-like’ than ‘machine-like’ in its operations.

What conditions are required for the reincarnation of Elvis Presley?

In my pragmatic view, a good Karaoke singer who does a reasonable impersonation of Elvis on stage, can be said to be of roughly the same "type" as Elvis, at least until the end of the impersonation.

I don't consider the questions of reincarnation to run deeper than that, because identity criteria are inexorably vague, conflicting and decided by convention or psychological prejudices. So why should it be assumed that the question of reincarnation has a definite and absolute answer that transcends our conventions?

Reply to sime

That’s all well and good if your criteria of reincarnation is as slack as a good impression of that person or just imitation. Personhood has a more strict definition of what a person is as it covers what that person has experienced in life their memories made, habits personality traits and just general character. The issue boils down to personal identity and what it means to be you.

If I understand Sam26 correctly he’s saying that consciousness not personal identity continues after death. So Elvis could be reborn as a simple farmer if the theory is correct and there’d be no evidence that he was Elvis in his previous life despite an almost identical singing ability, assuming of course that consciousness does survive death and since we don’t understand consciousness very well I remain open minded that it can potentially continue after the brain is extinguished of its electrical activity as to how well I have no idea but if consciousness is emergent than that is not to say that there are other mediums capable of continuing consciousness apart from just brains.

Quoting kindred

That’s all well and good if your criteria of reincarnation is as slack as a good impression of that person or just imitation. Personhood has a more strict definition of what a person is as it covers what that person has experienced in life their memories made, habits personality traits and just general character. The issue boils down to personal identity and what it means to be you.

I'm arguing that even a supposedly strict definition of personhood is slack. Slackness is an inexorable feature of identity criteria; any application of identity criteria to any problem of philosophy leads to superficial and incomplete conclusions that are products of linguistic convention. At best, one's conclusions are circular and merely reiterate the identity criteria that one employed.

Quoting sime

why should it be assumed that the question of reincarnation has a definite and absolute answer that transcends our conventions?

As I mentioned to Philosophim, the point about the children with past-life recall is that there is at least the possibility of validating their statements against documentary and witness accounts, something which is obviously not possible with near-death experiences, as they are first-person by definition.

Ian Stevenson, who conducted that research, never claimed that his research proved that reincarnation occurred, although he did say the evidence suggests it. He concentrated on the methods for screening possible cases and validating the resulting records.

Quoting Wayfarer

As I mentioned to Philosophim, the point about the children with past-life recall is that there is at least the possibility of validating their statements against documentary and witness accounts, something which is obviously not possible with near-death experiences, as they are first-person by definition.

Our memories are mutable. We continually create, delete and edit our memories in real time, including the memories that we interpret as being veridical. In general we don't interpret amnesia as constituting proof of personal absence during the past. So why should the possession of a veridical memory be interpreted as constituting proof of having witnessed the past? When it comes to conceptions of personal identity, why should ownership of memories be taken more seriously than ownership of a collection of disposable photographs?

The idea that studies of past life regression can verify or refute reincarnation, is in relation to a convention that defines personal identity in terms of memory possession, together with a block-universe conception of the past that memories are considered to refer to in a manner analogous to time travel. So I don't interpret studies of past life regression as drawing deeper metaphysical conclusions, regardless of whether such conclusions are positive or negative, than our pragmatic judgements of object identification.

Reply to sime You may not be familiar with the research. It wasn’t based on 'past-life regression'. The cases Stevenson sought out were those where children claimed to be someone other than who they were known to be e.g. would start saying 'your not my family' or 'this is not my home, I live in (some other place)' etc. Then the researchers would look for evidence of that claimed previous identity, trying to identify death notices, locations, and other details to corroborate the infant's story.

[quote=Source;https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/bering-in-mind/ian-stevensone28099s-case-for-the-afterlife-are-we-e28098skepticse28099-really-just-cynics/]In Sri Lanka, a toddler one day overheard her mother mentioning the name of an obscure town (“Kataragama”) that the girl had never been to. The girl informed the mother that she drowned there when her “dumb” (mentally challenged) brother pushed her in the river, that she had a bald father named “Herath” who sold flowers in a market near the Buddhist stupa, that she lived in a house that had a glass window in the roof (a skylight), dogs in the backyard that were tied up and fed meat, that the house was next door to a big Hindu temple, outside of which people smashed coconuts on the ground.

Stevenson was able to confirm that there was, indeed, a flower vendor in Kataragama who ran a stall near the Buddhist stupa whose two-year-old daughter had drowned in the river while the girl played with her mentally challenged brother. The man lived in a house where the neighbors threw meat to dogs tied up in their backyard, and it was adjacent to the main temple where devotees practiced a religious ritual of smashing coconuts on the ground.

The little girl did get a few items wrong, however. For instance, the dead girl’s dad wasn’t bald (but her grandfather and uncle were) and his name wasn’t “Herath”—that was the name, rather, of the dead girl’s cousin.

Otherwise, 27 of the 30 idiosyncratic, verifiable statements she made panned out. The two families never met, nor did they have any friends, coworkers, or other acquaintances in common, so if you take it all at face value, the details couldn’t have been acquired in any obvious way.[/quote]

This case was one of around 2,700 gathered over several decades of research.

The following is a straightforward version of the teleological argument as outlined in Dr. Bitar’s book Classical Christian Wisdom (pp. 99-115). After I present Dr. Bitar’s version of Paley’s argument I will add to the strength of the premises with more remarks about the argument.

Before I present the argument, I want to point out a major flaw with counterarguments, viz., that most if not all challenges to this argument suffer from the fallacy of the self-sealing argument . In other words, they present their argument in such a way that nothing would count as counterevidence. The argument is sealed off from counterevidence because nothing would count as evidence of intelligent design. Dr. Bitar phrases it like this: “If their belief is not simply a prejudice held to apart from evidence, then they should be able to specify what additional evidence of design would have to be present in the universe that is not there now which would then warrant belief in a designer. In short, what features of design are missing? Dr. Bitar continues, “If they cannot specify what is lacking, then their belief is an irrational prejudice sealed off from evidence (pp. 106-107).” This is a glaring problem that isn’t stressed enough.

All of the following is a direct quote and starts with the premises and the conclusion.

[i](1) Human productions that have a structure such that the parts are so arranged that the whole can accomplish or be used to accomplish activities of a higher order than any part alone, as in the case of a watch, are the result of intelligent design.

(2) Objects of nature have a structure such that the parts are so arranged that the whole can accomplish or be used to accomplish activities of a higher order than any part alone, as in the case of a dog.

(3) Hence, the objects of nature are the result of intelligent design.


Analysis of the Strength of the Argument

We need to now analyze the strength of this argument. Since it is inductive and analogical,
we should examine the following:

(a) the number of items used as evidence

(b) the number of analogies (similarities) shared by the objects compared,
here human productions and objects of nature

c) the number of disanalogies (dissimilarities) between the objects compared,
here again human productions and objects of nature

(d) the variety of items used as evidence

(e) the relevance of the properties viewed as connected, here
(1) a structure or architecture so the whole can do activities of a higher order than any part alone, and
(2) intelligent design

(f) the scope of the conclusion

(g) the truth and cogency of the premises

(h) the cogency of the argument structure

(i) the psychological impact or compellingness of the argument

First, the number of items used as evidence. The items used as evidence are human productions and objects of nature; they are innumerable.

Second, the number of analogies (similarities) shared by human productions and objects of nature. Virtually all are complex consisting of many parts, some obviously more complex than others. Moreover, the parts fit with some degree of precision, as in the case of engine parts, on the one hand, and human bones and joints, on the other hand. Sometimes the precision of fit in nature is better than what humans can achieve, as in the case of joints.

Human productions and objects of nature both utilize physical laws. The eye and a microscope both utilize the laws of optics. The bones and muscles of the skeleton and the parts of a crane both utilize the laws of mechanics. And so forth.

eye - microscope, telescope, camera - use laws of optics
skeleton - crane, robot - use laws of mechanics
ear - megaphone, stereo - use laws of acoustics

Some are basically static, such as a house and a rock. Some are active, such as a tree and a watch or a battery.

Human productions and objects of nature can be so 'similar that one is used to replace the other, as in the case of an artificial valve or heart. It takes careful study of the structure of the natural object to produce the artificial entity; this obviously shows their similarity. They can also be so similar that it is not clear whether they are one or the other. For instance, genetically engineered ecoli and mice, are they human productions or objects of nature? Without human study, planning, and action, they would not exist. Yet they are alive, living beings, not your typical human artifacts. They are both human productions for which patents are sought and objects of nature that are alive; this again shows the similarity of the two kinds of beings.

Third, number of disanalogies (dissimilarities). I do not know of any disanalogies between all human productions, on the one hand, and all objects of nature, on the other. Some objects of nature are alive, but not all are. Some have mental life, but not all. Similarly, some human productions are also alive, as in the case of genetically engineered plants and animals. Also, some have mental life, as in the case of genetically engineered animals.


Fourth, variety of the items used as evidence, namely, human productions. There is tremendous variety among human productions ranging from dams and skyscrapers, to watches, pens, batteries, and cars, to artificial limbs, valves, and hearts, and to genetically engineered ecoli.

Fifth, relevance. The issue here is the relevance of the feature or structure in question, namely the parts are so arranged that the whole can perform higher functions than any part alone, to the activity of design. Does design cause such structure? 'The relevance, of course, is perfect, for what is the activity of design but the arrangement of parts so the whole can perform a higher function than any part alone?

Sixth,scope of the conclusion. The conclusion is the narrowest and most conservative possible, namely, that there is one or more designers of natural objects.

(1) Human productions that have a structure such that the parts are so arranged that the whole can accomplish or be used to accomplish activities of a higher order than any part alone, as in the case of a watch, are the result of intelligent design.

(2) Objects of nature have a structure such that the parts are so arranged that the whole can accomplish or be used to accomplish activities of a higher order than any part alone, as in the case of a dog.

(3) Hence, the objects of nature are the result of intelligent design.

Seventh, truth and cogency of the premises, i.e., knowledge of the truth of the premises. I believe every normal adult human, including the agnostic and atheist, knows the premises are true.

Eighth, cogency of the argument structure. Can the argument be followed? The argument is very simple and easy to follow.

Ninth, psychological impact or compellingness of the argument. My experience is that most find it compelling; only committed agnostics and atheists do not, and they are few and far between. They know the premises are true, but refuse to draw the conclusion. We will deal with why they do not find the argument compelling later.

What is the result of our analysis? Given the criteria of strength for analogical arguments, the teleological argument is a very strong argument. In fact, it is hard to think of a stronger analogical argument. I believe the analogy between human productions and natural objects is one of the reasons that the vast majority of humans believe in a divine designer(s), whether that analogy is formulated as an argument or not. Since the analogy and the argument are so strong, the upshot is straightforward and striking: it is rational to believe the universe is the product of intelligent design, and, concomitantly, it is irrational not to believe the universe is the product of intelligent design.

We need to be clear on a crucial point here. It is this: rationality of belief is not determined by what can possibly happen; rather, it is determined by what probably has or will happen. In other words, it is determined by what the evidence indicates is most likely the case. For instance, it is possible to jump out of an airplane in flight far above the ground, not open one's parachute, fall to the earth, land in soft soil, and live to tell about it. That possibility does not make it rational to believe it will happen in your case; it does not make it rational to jump and purposely not open your parachute. Assuming you are not aiming at your death, it is irrational to believe and act in such a manner because probably you will not survive. Similarly, it is not rational to believe that the universe originated by chance without design just because it is thought to be possible that it did so. The issue is not what is possible, but what is probable; in other words, what one has reason to believe is the case. The evidence obviously points to divine design. And it is so overwhelming that almost nothing can eradicate belief in design, even years and years of atheist indoctrination and religious persecution.[/i]

I think this is a good conversation between Dr. Tour and Dr. Cronin about some of the complexity involved in creating life naturalistically. I'm not posting this video because it supports my position, I'm posting it to show where we are in terms of a naturalistic explanation. Once the video gets past some of the misunderstandings, I think it makes good points. I like what Dr. Lee is doing, although I disagree with his optimism. Obviously, there is a lot more going on in other fields that will give more information, but I think this is a good start.

I do think this is worth listening to because I think many people think that we have the answers, and we don't.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DHvNRK452c

Reply to Sam26 The teleological argument for God is by far the best of the core 3, but it suffers from a crippling counter point.

Essentially, you are saying people and the world are too complex to simply have formed. But have you applied that same criticism to a God? Once you do, the argument falls apart. God is at least as complex as a human being, so therefore the same argument would apply to a God. Something would have to create a God. But then, something would have to create that as well! The only logical conclusion is that the origin point of causality must have existed without prior cause. That origin could be a God, but it could also be a universe without a God. I have post on it here if you want to look into it.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12098/a-first-cause-is-logically-necessary/p1

Quoting Philosophim

God is at least as complex as a human being, so therefore the same argument would apply to a God.

But is He? Richard Dawkins also says that, but it founders on the rock of divine simplicity.

There's a lot of philosophical background to this argument which presumably Dawkins is not familiar with. Dawkins' is based on the human- and science-centred view, which is that 'what is more intelligent is more complex', as humans are more intelligent than animals and have more complex brains.

Dawkins says in The God Delusion that God must be more complex than the entire universe. But this is a highly anthropomorphic conception of God, as kind of super-manufacturer, which is completely at variance with classical theism. And indeed, Dawkins is often taken to task by even non-theistically-inclined reviewers for his ignorance of the basics of theology (the assumption seems to be that as he regards it as a meaningless subject, there's no need to actually understand any of it.)

According to the doctrine of divine simplicity, God is simple, not complex, and not composed of parts.

[quote=SEP;https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/divine-simplicity/#:~:text=in%20his%20simplicity.-,God%20is%20necessary%20because%20he%20is%20simple,-and%20not%20because]God is necessary because he is simple and not because he exists in all metaphysically possible worlds. And while one may say that the simple God is or exists, God is not an existent among existents or a being among beings, but Being (esse) itself in its prime instance and in this respect is different from every other being (ens).[/quote]

Accordingly, 'the divine' is of a different order of being, and its author not at all a cosmic director or manufacturer with high degrees of complexity. It means something totally different to that.

I looked at your thread on 'first cause', but I don't think you're at all familiar with the classical description of 'first cause'. A forum thread is not the place to try and fill that void, and anyway, I lack the expertise to do it.

Suffice to say, the 'argument from the complexity of God' is way off base.

All that said, I'm surprised that @Sam26 has introduced the subject of intelligent design, as it's a thoroughly discredited notion as far as this forum is concerned, and hardly relevant to the topic of the OP, even more so as Sam regularly eschews any religious motivation for his entries.

Reply to Philosophim Reply to Sam26 Also contra "intelligent design" (i.e. creationism), consider the dysteleological argument:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_poor_design

In sum: both the universe in general and organic life in particular appear defective, or suboptimal, just as it's most reasonable to expect it to be according to evident and explicable, nonintelligent processes of (e.g.) nucleogenesis and biological evolution (especially given that 99.99% of baryonic matter – the observable universe that has been expanding for at least 13.8 billion years from a planck radius of random (i.e. non-causal, ergo not "created / designed") fluctuations – is vacuum radiation inimical to organic/human life (in a universe evidently "fine-tuned" for lifelessness).

Quoting 180 Proof

both the universe in general and organic life in particular appear defective, or suboptimal

(Y) Very hard to answer this one without just claiming the opposite with empty words. Nice.

Consciousness surviving the body? If you are dualist, perhaps.

I don't see good evidence for consciousness absent a body, never mind consciousness being realized absent a brain.

If panpsychism is true, then maybe there is some very (but very) obscure way in which you could argue that something experiential remains as a fundamental aspect of the universe.

But this "consciousness" is so foreign and alien to what we understand when we use that word, that it is in effect, indistinguishable from the ordinary view that (human) consciousness vanishes.

Quoting Manuel

Consciousness surviving the body? If you are dualist, perhaps.

:up:

Quoting Wayfarer

You may not be familiar with the research. It wasn’t based on 'past-life regression'. The cases Stevenson sought out were those where children claimed to be someone other than who they were known to be e.g. would start saying 'your not my family' or 'this is not my home, I live in (some other place)' etc. Then the researchers would look for evidence of that claimed previous identity, trying to identify death notices, locations, and other details to corroborate the infant's story.

Yes, I wasn't questioning the veracity of anecdotes such as the one you mention, rather I'm pointing out that to interpret such cases as being "evidence for reincarnation" is relative to a convention that defines personal identity in terms of memories, by which the person is said to be reincarnated. Which is why I do not take such cases with special seriousness - not because I am assuming that such reported cases cannot be happen as described, but because I consider the identity of persons to be arbitrary and decided by convention, and ultimately grounded in either psychological habits and prejudice or in the utility of adopting the chosen identity criteria.

For example, lets assume that the account you mention is accurate and defies mundane natural explanations. Then unless one has defined personhood in terms of personal memories, one cannot conclude that the child is a reincarnation of the previous person he is said to remember. In which case all that one concludes is that the child presently has abnormal access to novel information of historical significance.

Certainly, the child-as-token is not a previous person - by definition of "token". Compare this situation to a caterpillar-token that is said to become a butterfly-token. In that case, we don't insist that the butterfly remembers his life as a caterpillar in order for us to identify the caterpillar with the butterfly, rather we identify their tokens as being parts of a greater token on the basis of temporal continuity. Whereas in the case of the child, there is no apparent spatio-temporal continuity for us to say that the child was the becoming of the previous person, and instead we bridge their lives via a notion of "memory continuity", in spite of the fact that we rarely if ever employ such criteria in our own lives when we ordinarily identify ourselves and our loved ones over time.

Quoting sime

For example, lets assume that the account you mention is accurate and defies mundane natural explanations. Then unless one has defined personhood in terms of personal memories, one cannot conclude that the child is a reincarnation of the previous person he is said to remember. In which case all that one concludes is that the child presently has abnormal access to novel information of historical significance.

From memory, Stevenson does consider ideas such as a kind of collective memory. It’s been a long time since I read anything but he canvasses those kinds of ideas. He was reticent in claiming that the cases he studied prove that reincarnation occurs, but at the same time, the copious evidence he gathered makes it seem a at least a possibility. But even that says something about the topic at hand, doesn’t it? That ‘consciousness’ as the ground or core of identity is more fluid than we might normally think?

Furthermore, as I’ve mentioned several times, it’s interesting that Buddhist cultures believe that rebirth is real, but they reject that ‘a person’ or ‘a soul’ is reborn. As is well known, Buddhism denies there is a permanent unchanging core or essence of a person, but they do agree that karma propagates life to life. I’ve found, discussing it with Buddhists, that despite the dogmatic prescription against the idea of a soul, they accept that there is a ‘gandhabba’. In the early Buddhist texts, a gandhabba may represent the subtle form a consciousness takes after death, before it is reborn into a new physical body. (Gandhabba can also be celestial spirits and minor deities.) This intermediate existence is sometimes called the antarabhava or “in-between state” in Mahayana and some Theravada interpretations. Just as in Christian folk beliefs, the gandhabba becomes associated with a foetus during the gestation period - naturally, to one that it is drawn to as a consequence of karma. So in effect, despite the ‘no-soul’ dogma, there is a functional equivalent to the soul, albeit described in terms of a mind-stream or process, rather than eternally existent entity.

In respect of the question of identity, Buddhists will respond, if you ask them, ‘are you the same person you were as a child?’ ‘No’. ‘Then are you a different person?’ Also, ‘no’. There is a continuity, but also change. I don’t think Buddhism has a difficulty with that. Overall, I find the Buddhist attitude congenial in these matters.

So I’m not really seeing your philosophical objection at this point.

Quoting 180 Proof

?Philosophim ?Sam26 Also contra "intelligent design" (i.e. creationism), consider the dysteleological argument:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_poor_design

In sum: both the universe in general and organic life in particular appear defective, or suboptimal, just as it's most reasonable to expect it be according evident and explicablee, nonintelligent processes of (e.g.) nucleogenesis and biological evolution (especially given that 99.99% of baryonic matter – the observable universe that has been expanding for at least 13.8 billion years from a planck radius of random (i.e. non-causal, ergo not "created / designed") fluctuations – is vacuum radiation inimical to organic/human life (in a universe evidently "fine-tuned" for lifelessness).

This is another good point.

Quoting Wayfarer

But is He? Richard Dawkins also says that, but it founders on the rock of divine simplicity.

If you're going on the fact of an intelligent designer, we need a base line of what 'intelligent' means. Can a dog create anything more complex then a hole? No. A beaver can create dams. Monkeys can create primitive tools. So if we're going to state that there is an intelligent designer, at minimum, it would need to be at the level of a human. If it did not have intelligence, then it would be a mechanical process, but then it wouldn't really be a designer anymore either.

And if a human being, the height of known intelligence, is considered so complicated that it needs a designer, then God as an intelligent being which can design and create far more than a human can, would also need a designer. I think its a straight forward line of reasoning.

Quoting Wayfarer

According to the doctrine of divine simplicity, God is simple, not complex, and not composed of parts.

God is necessary because he is simple and not because he exists in all metaphysically possible worlds. And while one may say that the simple God is or exists, God is not an existent among existents or a being among beings, but Being (esse) itself in its prime instance and in this respect is different from every other being (ens).

This is nonsense. Being which is not being. Existence which is not existence. This is poetry masking as meaningfulness.

Quoting Wayfarer

I looked at your thread on 'first cause', but I don't think you're at all familiar with the classical description of 'first cause'. A forum thread is not the place to try and fill that void, and anyway, I lack the expertise to do it.

Feel free to post what you think it lacks on that thread so we don't detract here. You'll notice I give a definition of first cause, and build from there. If you disagree with the definition or find a problem with it, please give your opinion there, I'll address it.

Quoting Philosophim

If you're going on the fact of an intelligent designer, we need a base line of what 'intelligent' means. Can a dog create anything more complex then a hole? No. A beaver can create dams. Monkeys can create primitive tools. So if we're going to state that there is an intelligent designer, at minimum, it would need to be at the level of a human. If it did not have intelligence, then it would be a mechanical process, but then it wouldn't really be a designer anymore either.

None of which has any bearing on what ‘divine intelligence’ means. I’m not sticking up for the idea, but at least it should be framed in the terms of classical theism. You may think that the doctrine of divine simplicity is ‘nonsense’ but it is the orthodox view of the nature of God. So rather than dispute intelligent design on spurious philosophical grounds you’d be better off saying you just don’t believe in it.

Quoting Wayfarer

None of which has any bearing on what ‘divine intelligence’ means. I’m not sticking up for the idea, but at least it should be framed in the terms of classical theism.

What? No, I frame it in MY argument. If my argument is illogical, point it out. But you don't get to insist I use words, phrases, or OTHER people's arguments in my argument.

Quoting Wayfarer

You may think that the doctrine of divine simplicity is ‘nonsense’ but it is the orthodox view of the nature of God. So rather than dispute intelligent design on spurious philosophical grounds you’d be better off saying you just don’t believe in it.

Wayfarer, what do you think philosophy is? Every idea that has ever been thought of or put down in a book was thought about by 'just a another person'. There is no weight to the argument because of its history, who wrote it, or what book its in. Those things are starters, places to begin in discussion with the hopes that such writings and arguments have some worth. But past that, the only thing which matters in the argument is the logic of the idea. As someone who harshly questions physicalism, I would think you would understand that well.

I laid out a clear idea of intelligence, and why the teleological argument fails. If you wish to introduce some catholic ancient idea of divine intelligence, and how its different, feel free. But if its nonsense, its nonsense. It deserves no more consideration or respect, and I surely am not going to use such outdated and nonsensical framing in my arguments.

Reply to Philosophim Pass.

Reply to Wayfarer Of course you do.

*

Quoting Philosophim

?Sam26 The teleological argument for God is by far the best of the core 3, but it suffers from a crippling counter point.

Essentially, you are saying people and the world are too complex to simply have formed. But have you applied that same criticism to a God? Once you do, the argument falls apart. God is at least as complex as a human being, so therefore the same argument would apply to a God. Something would have to create a God. But then, something would have to create that as well! The only logical conclusion is that the origin point of causality must have existed without prior cause. That origin could be a God, but it could also be a universe without a God. I have post on it here if you want to look into it.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12098/a-first-cause-is-logically-necessary/p1

I'm not quite saying that the "world is simply too complex to simply have formed," i.e., it's logically possible for the world to have simply come about by chance or some first cause (naturalistic first cause). In other words, there is no contradiction (it's logically possible) in proposing this as far as I can tell. Although it may be metaphysically impossible, I'm not sure. I don't want to get side-tracked with modal logic. I'm trying to keep the arguments as simple as possible.

I don't have to apply your criticism to an intelligence behind the universe (not necessarily God, any intelligence). It's perfectly reasonable to pick what you think the first cause might be based on the evidence and use that as your starting point. Also, why would you think that consciousness (I prefer to use consciousness or mind) is complex, it might be simple, we don't have enough information to say one way or another, However, even if it's complex and it might be, I'm trying to point out that a mind behind the universe is the best explanation based on all the data, especially specified information, which I haven't got to yet.

It certainly doesn't follow that if you believe that consciousness is the first cause that that would have to have a creator. It just is. Many naturalists propose that something naturalistic is that point of origin, that first cause, I just go back one more step and start with consciousness/mind based again on the evidence.

I agree with much of your logic in that link, maybe not all of it, but much of it.

Quoting Sam26

I'm not quite saying that the "world is simply too complex to simply have formed," i.e., it's logically possible for the world to have simply come about by chance or some first cause (naturalistic first cause).

Then I misunderstood your argument, my apologies.

Quoting Sam26

I don't have to apply your criticism to an intelligence behind the universe (not necessarily God, any intelligence). It's perfectly reasonable to pick what you think the first cause might be based on the evidence and use that as your starting point.

True. My point is that there doesn't seem to be anything that necessarily points to a creator as a starting point. The same arguments that would point to a creator, would point to the creator of a creator, and so on. What I'm not saying, to be clear, is that its impossible that there is a creator. Only that the argument does not give a compelling logical reason to believe that a creator is an origin vs not.

Quoting Sam26

Also, why would you think that consciousness (I prefer to use consciousness or mind) is complex, it might be simple, we don't have enough information to say one way or another,

To be clearer, I'm not talking about consciousness, I'm talking about an 'intelligent designer'. I actually believe there is varying level of consciousness, and that consciousness is really just another part of the brain that has been granted the ability to monitor and adjust certain portions of the body beyond autonomous reaction. I think dogs are conscious for example, just not intelligent enough to have a consciousness that can build a cities and shuttles to the stars.

And that's my point about an intelligent designer. Humans are the only one's that have been able to build something more complex and complicated then simple tools with sticks. So while there can be simple consciousness and simple intelligence, there is a level of conscious intelligence both needed to create a certain level of complexity, and to be aware of it. So if a God is an intelligent designer, and assuming it must be as intelligent of a designer as our greatest engineer, if our complexity is evidence we were designed, then logically so too must God have been designed. So we don't get anywhere, and we're back with a question.

That question of course is what I answer in the paper I linked. The answer is that inevitably, the 'first cause' or 'where there is no prior explanation for a things existence,' must inevitably be uncaused, or not caused by something else. Which means the reason for its existence is, "It simply is." While this leaves God as a plausible explanation for what caused the universe, it does not mean that God is necessary. That also pulls the idea of a God out of faith, and into one that now requires evidence. That evidence must be enough to show that a God necessarily occurred, while the universe simply being did not. And in regards to any particular claim of what God is like, that also would require evidence.

And so far, there is no such evidence for the necessity of our universe being created by God, nor any evidence of the existence that such a being is still around, would be good, all powerful, evil, etc. The most likely scenario is that such a creator is not all powerful, all knowing, and not around anymore. Further, that creator may have been made by another. There is certainly no viable evidence of eternal life, heaven, miracles, or any supernatural claims.

Quoting Sam26

I'm trying to point out that a mind behind the universe is the best explanation based on all the data, especially specified information, which I haven't got to yet.

I didn't quite see that. Would you like to elaborate more and present what else you have? I'm listening.

Quoting Sam26

I'm trying to point out that a mind behind the universe is the best explanation ...

What exactly is explained by "a mind behind the universe"?

Reply to 180 Proof It depends on what you're looking for and what your questions are. In some contexts, it may not add anything, in other contexts, it may extend our ideas and research beyond the physical (e.g. consciousness). In the context of this thread, it may add to the evidence of a mind behind what people are experiencing in NDEs.

I don't like using the word God because it carries too much religious baggage, but whatever the source of what we are experiencing it's far greater than anything we can imagine.

Quoting Sam26

It depends on what you're looking for and what your questions are.

Since it's your posit, Sam, again I ask you:
Quoting 180 Proof

What exactly is explained by "a mind behind the universe"?

:chin:

Quoting Sam26

the source of what we are experiencing

Apparently, this "we" excludes p-naturalists (i.e. immanentists, pandeists), strong atheists, freethinkers, absurdists et al. For us, evidently and parsimoniously, "the source" is the universe ? natura naturans – itself; we don't bark at shadows (pace Plato). :fire:

Reply to 180 Proof Your mind is made up, why bother? You seem to think the question is settled, but It's far from settled, not even close. Your dogma is just as bad, if not worse than many on the religious side of these beliefs.

What is explained? How about the source of this reality? How about consciousness surviving death? How about a metaphysical reality? How about the information in cells that point to intelligence? How about the source of mathematics? How about the source of individual consciousness?

You may disagree, but a mind or consciousness behind the universe can explain a lot of things. It may not give a perfect explanation, but most theories don't. At the very least it opens the door to a whole slew of explanations.

You remind me of many people in politics who get captured by a narrative and can't think for themselves. All they do is repeat the narrative ad nauseam.

The more we discover about reality the weirder it will get; our puny minds can't even imagine what's coming. Dogmatism is a huge red flag, which is why many reject religion.

Quoting Sam26

Your mind is made up, why bother?

My mind is made up about what? You've no idea what my mind is or is not made up about so stuff the ad hominems & strawmen and stick to the questions raised by your muddled dogma.

What is explained? 

An unknown – unknowable – mystery (re: "intelligence behind the universe") doesn't explain anything because answering with a mystery only begs the question of the how/why of anything. And so my straight forward question remains, Sam, and it appears you can't answer non-fallaciously or supported by sound reasoning:

Quoting 180 Proof

What exactly is explained by "a mind behind the universe"?

:chin:

Quoting 180 Proof

An unknown – unknowable – mystery (re: "intelligence behind the universe") doesn't explain anything because answering with a mystery only begs the question of how/why of anything.

I agree. What needs to be examined is a) the assumption that there must be an agent, whether personal or impersonal, and b) the illusion that having posited an agent that we have done more than simply assert this assumption as if it were an explanation. Rather than provide an explanation it forecloses the search for explanations, as if a mystery behind the mystery does more than multiply mysteries.

Quoting Fooloso4

Rather than provide an explanation it forecloses the search for explanations, as if a mystery behind the mystery does more than multiply mysteries.

:100: :up:


@Sam26

Quoting Wayfarer

In respect of the question of identity, Buddhists will respond, if you ask them, ‘are you the same person you were as a child?’ ‘No’. ‘Then are you a different person?’ Also, ‘no’. There is a continuity, but also change. I don’t think Buddhism has a difficulty with that. Overall, I find the Buddhist attitude congenial in these matters.

So I’m not really seeing your philosophical objection at this point.

I'm not objecting to Buddhist sentiment to the extent that they understand that identity relations are arbitrary psycho-linguistic constructs that necessitate their semantic conclusions. In the case of the no-soul rebirth paradox, if concepts related to personhood aren't part of one's fundamental ontology, for example because one considers concepts of personhood to be unreal because one considers persons to be semantically reducible to impersonal forces of nature, then rebirth follows as a tautological conclusions, since the personhood concepts of life and death are both eliminated in the final analysis of of reality. In which case empirical evidence for rebirth is meaningless.

By contrast, if one conceives of persons as being fundamentally real and local token-objects whose existence is ontologically fundamental, then permanent death without reincarnation follows as a matter of tautology, and there cannot exist evidence to the contrary - for even allegedly successful past-life regressions must be discounted as illusory if one holds ones concept of persons as tokens as sacrosanct.


So the idea of persons as real and local spatial-temporal objects with objective physical boundaries is fundamentally incompatible with the idea that persons can be reincarnated. One of the concepts must give way to the other, and the question cannot be settled by appealing to empirical evidence, for the very meaning of "empirical evidence" lies downstream of this ontological decision.

Reply to Fooloso4 Reply to 180 Proof
:up: :up: Profound comments from you both.

Quoting sime

In the case of the no-soul rebirth paradox, if concepts related to personhood aren't part of one's fundamental ontology, for example because one considers concepts of personhood to be unreal because one considers persons to be semantically reducible to impersonal forces of nature, then rebirth follows as a tautological conclusions, since the personhood concepts of life and death are both eliminated in the final analysis of of reality. In which case empirical evidence for rebirth is meaningless.

Buddhism also rejects as nihilistic the view that actions do not have consequences in future forms of existence. In that sense, the death of the subject does not bring to an end the process which results in future re-birth. The principle of no-self (anatta) does not amount to an assertion that there is no self tout courte as this verse illustrates The Self-Doer.

Quoting sime

So the idea of persons as real and local spatial-temporal objects with objective physical boundaries is fundamentally incompatible with the idea that persons can be reincarnated.

Beings are not only objects, they are also subjects of experience, and the nature of subjective experience is not necessarily describable in those terms. Also consider the discovery of tulkus in Tibetan Buddhism. They are sought out by various means and subjected to examination and are said to be clearly discerned as incarnations of previously-existing figures. As already mentioned, Buddhist culture assumes the reality of rebirth as a matter of course, even despite the tension with the no-self principle. (And even that is an open question, there was an influential ancient school called the Pudgalavada, a personalist school of Buddhism, EIP entry here. In my view the philosophical conundrum that underlies much of this confusion about the real nature of self, subject or being is the reflexive and deeply-rooted tendency towards ‘objectification’. This manifests as trying to answer the question ‘what is self?’ or ‘what is the subject?’ in objective terms, as being ‘this kind of being’ or ‘this combination of elements’ and so on. In the early Buddhist texts, there are discussions of the futility of attempting to ‘objectify’ the ‘non-objectification’ which characterises meditative awareness.)

Quoting Fooloso4

What needs to be examined is a) the assumption that there must be an agent, whether personal or impersonal, and b) the illusion that having posited an agent that we have done more than simply assert this assumption as if it were an explanation. Rather than provide an explanation it forecloses the search for explanations, as if a mystery behind the mystery does more than multiply mysteries.

It still leaves open the question of where does any agency whatever arise, or whether all agency, and by implication, all subjectivity, can be seen as anything other than a consequence (epiphenomenon) of the interplay of meaningless physical forces. For argument’s sake, that is very much the view of Daniel Dennett, who straightforwardly claims that organic life is analogous to a form of spontaneous chemical reaction, which becomes self-organising and then continues to survive, mutate and evolve through what he describes as the ‘algorithm’ of natural selection. Dennett as is well known goes on to argue that this means that any sense of agency is ultimately illusory, but that we are compelled to behave as if we are agents who make free choices. Of course it is true that Daniel Dennett’s is not a majority view, but it could be said that he courageously gives voice to the logical implications of the kind of materialism that underlies the so-called ‘neo-Darwinian synthesis’.

For materialists, mysteries are simply annoying, unsolved problems that will one day be cleared up by the inexorable progress of Science. :naughty:

Reply to Wayfarer

Throughout history, time after time, claims of the supernatural as the only viable "explanation" for a wide variety of phenomena have given way to natural, rational, demonstrable, transmissible scientific knowledge. This is not to say that we will eventually have a complete explanation of everything, but it does suggest that based on prior examples the appeal to supernatural because we do not have a natural explanation seems unconvincing.

Quoting Fooloso4

Throughout history, time after time, claims of the supernatural as the only viable "explanation" for a wide variety of phenomena have given way to natural, rational, demonstrable, transmissible scientific knowledge.

That is obviously true to some extent, but the nature of the questions change as culture develops and new discoveries are made. The argument that religion is bronze-age superstition replaced by scientific knowledge is rather too near the kind of thing that Richard Dawkins is fond of saying for my liking.

I'm not all in on intelligent design-style arguments but I will say this: that the assumption of naturalism, that life arises from the self-assembly of chemical constituents, is deficient in my view, along many different lines. First because of the inherent unlikelihood of anything of the kind happening, and secondly because of the role assigned to chance. In that sense it's 'irrational' from the outset, as it is conceived of happening without cause, so to speak. It is true, of course, that natural selection doesn't appeal to 'pure chance' as the entire processes is embedded in a deep series of constraints regarding possibilities, but there is a sense in which the whole phenomenon is still understood as being a result of chance as distinct from purpose.

Secondly, that naturalism doesn't explain natural principles. We observe natural principles and extrapolate what will occur by the application of mathematical hypotheses. All well and good, but [s]the fact[/s] why there are natural regularities and laws is not itself a scientific hypothesis, but a philosophical one. Scientists may venture hypotheses about it but they are by nature metaphysical speculation at that point (and usually underwritten by the very naturalist assumptions that they are seeking to establish.)

I've been reading from a mid-last-century book of phenomenological philosophy, The Phenomenon of Life, Hans Jonas. He points out that at the time of the Greek philosophers, it was simply believed that the Universe was alive - a form of simple animism and panpsychism. Precisely the kind of consciousness that was to be shed in the so-called 'great disenchantment' of modernity. At that early stage, life was assumed to be omnipresent, and death an anomaly. Hence the mythology of overcoming death in the cosmic religions. Whereas since the Renaissance and the advent of materialism, the whole picture has been inverted, as inanimate matter is presumed to be real, and living organisms the anomaly:

Hans Jonas, The Phenomenon of Life: Towards a Philosophical Biology:The tremendously enlarged universe of modern cosmology is conceived as a field of inanimate masses and forces which operate according to the laws of inertia and of quantitative distribution in space. This denuded substratum of all reality could only be arrived at through a progressive expurgation of vital features from the physical record and through strict abstention from projecting into its image our own felt aliveness. In the process the ban on anthropomorphism was extended to zoomorphism in general. What remained is the residue of the reduction toward the properties of mere extension which submit to measurement and hence to mathematics. These properties alone satisfy the requirements of what is now called exact knowledge: and representing the only knowable aspect of nature they, by a tempting substitution, came to be regarded as its essential aspect too: and if this, then as the only real in reality.

This means that the lifeless has become the knowable par excellence and is for that reason also considered the true and only foundation of reality. It is the "natural" as well as the original state of things. Not only in terms of relative quantity but also in terms of ontological genuineness, non-life is the rule, life the puzzling exception in physical existence.

Accordingly, it is the existence of life within a mechanical universe which now calls for an explanation, and explanation has to be in terms of the lifeless. Left over as a borderline case in the homogeneous physical world-view, life has to be accounted for by the terms of that view.

This is the source, I think , of the deep animus towards any idea of the sacred, the supernatural, the life beyond, etc, which lies behind these debates. I think it's because for the "non-believer", the case is closed, God is dead, and to admit otherwise is to re-open many large questions we'd rather not have to contemplate.

Quoting Wayfarer

the assumption of naturalism, that life arises from the self-assembly of chemical constituents

It is not as if one day there are chemical constituents and the next that they have assembled themselves to form "life". There is not even a clear borderline between living and non-living, as can be seen in the case of viruses. The root of this problem is conceptual. Both in the categorical sense of the way we divide things in the world and our inability to conceive how life emerges.

Quoting Wayfarer

The Phenomenon of Life, Hans Jonas.

Yes. I have read Jonas, but it has been many years. If I remember correctly, I agree with the idea that we should not lose sight of the human dimension of scientific inquiry. The question of the meaning of life need not and should not be forbidden from scientific inquiry, but, in my opinion, this does not mean that the supernatural has thereby earned a place at the table of what is fundamentally an investigation of nature.

Quoting Wayfarer

So the idea of persons as real and local spatial-temporal objects with objective physical boundaries is fundamentally incompatible with the idea that persons can be reincarnated. — sime


Beings are not only objects, they are also subjects of experience, and the nature of subjective experience is not necessarily describable in those terms.

Are subjects of experience observable and identifiable or not?

Quoting Wayfarer

Also consider the discovery of tulkus in Tibetan Buddhism. They are sought out by various means and subjected to examination and are said to be clearly discerned as incarnations of previously-existing figures. As already mentioned, Buddhist culture assumes the reality of rebirth as a matter of course, even despite the tension with the no-self principle.

So Tulkas are observable subjects of experience who are interpretable in terms of types of objects?

Quoting Fooloso4

The question of the meaning of life need not and should not be forbidden from scientific inquiry, but, in my opinion, this does not mean that the supernatural has thereby earned a place at the table of what is fundamentally an investigation of nature

:fire: :100:

@Wayfarer

Quoting Fooloso4

If I remember correctly, I agree with the idea that we should not lose sight of the human dimension of scientific inquiry. The question of the meaning of life need not and should not be forbidden from scientific inquiry, but, in my opinion, this does not mean that the supernatural has thereby earned a place at the table of what is fundamentally an investigation of nature.

But the problem is, the 'human dimension' was explicitly eliminated from the scientific image of man in the early modern period. The division between natural and supernatural, in that context, amounts to the division between what can be explained and understood through physical causes and mechanistic analogies, and revealed religion (which, remember, had also absorbed and was the vehicle for much of classical metaphysics and philosophy. The division between the sciences and the humanities is being discussed in another thread.)

Hans Jonas anticipates many of the ideas of autopoesis and systems science that were to develop in the decades after him. 'Jonas sees metabolism as the building and perpetuation of a self-distinct unity. Organisms never fully coincide with their material constitution. In constant flux, they maintain an organization which assures durability in the face of randomizing events and gives them an identity where form prevails over matter.' [sup]1[/sup] He argues that there is an an ontological distinction between the organic and inorganic domains. That is what is denied by materialism, as it developed in an intellectual culture which had divided mind from matter and then attempts to explain the former as dependent on, or derived from, the latter.

There is what amounts to a phobia (Reply to 180 Proof ) around admitting anything which suggests the supernatural, it's an implicit prohibition, mainly drawn on cultural and historical grounds, on what can and can't be considered scientific. But as to what is supernatural, the boundaries are always shifting. There are emerging perspectives in evolutionary biology which, while not appealing to the supernatural, nevertheless challenge neo-darwinian materialism (such as the Third Way).

I don't accept that there can be an empirical argument for a higher intelligence as a matter of principle, but that there are reasonable philosophical arguments against reductionism, for instance the design argument from biological information. Again I see it in terms of adopting a philosophical framework which sees life, and human life in particular, as something other than 'the accidental collocation of atoms' (Russell.)


Quoting sime

Are subjects of experience observable and identifiable or not?

I would put it this way: the nature of being can only be realised in the first person. There can't be a complete 'third person' or objective description of it (per 'the hard problem'). We ourselves understand being at least in some degree because we are beings. But we know it insofar as it comprises the ground of our own existence, not as an object of experience. What can be known to exist objectively is only a sub-section of the sum total of our knowing.

Quoting sime

(if) one considers persons to be semantically reducible to impersonal forces of nature

The no-self principle in Buddhism makes no such claims, although it is often interpreted that way. But that description would be designated nihilistic in Buddhist philosophy. It's a fact that belief in, or rejection of, the reality of rebirth is a major divide between secular Buddhism as it has been adopted in Western culture and Buddhism as it is practiced in traditional cultures, but in the context of the OP, Buddhist principles at least provide an interpretive framework for a view of consciousness (or being) which is not defined in purely physicalist terms (again see Bhikkhu Analayo Rebirth in Early Buddhism and Current Rebirth.)

Quoting Wayfarer

There is what amounts to a phobia (?180 Proof ) around admitting anything which suggests the supernatural,

:sweat:

Not "phobia" so much as principled disregard for woo-woo-of-the-gaps nonsense which you've always fetishized, sir. To invoke "the supernatural" as idealists (antirealists) / subjectivists / mysterians / new agers like you, Wayfarer, often do amounts to nothing but an appeal to ignorance (i.e. this aspect of some X is (currently) unknown / (apparently) unknowable, therefore that aspect is/must be "supernatural" or "explained by mystery"). :sparkle:

Reply to 180 Proof With respect, this is an obviously wrong, and obviously biased interpretation of what is going on in these scenarios (acknowledging many of those 'types' DO do what you've suggested.

Entertaining possibilities is not an appeal to ignorance. Point blank period. Entertaining possibilities is how we figure out what goes in the gaps. That you are apparently reticent to admit yourself to a discussion of (what currently appear to be) super/supranatural explanations for phenomena we simply have no clue about is a similar type of commitment to thinking that something science cannot explain will fill the gap - as that is an appeal to ignorance quite directly. What Wayfarer is doing is canvassing options that may eventually fall to science to explain but are currently not in it's gaze. If what you are trying to get at is that certain options under the light are not logically possible and so would require an epistemic supernaturality, I can't see how this is what's being discussed, but accept all you say in that light. Good stuff.

If you are not open to this game, why bothering commenting on the players? Let them have their game.

Reply to AmadeusD My name was taken in vain first (see the quote). Also, Wayfarer and I have been jousting for about fifteen years so ...

Reply to 180 Proof LOL fair enough then mate.

Quoting Wayfarer

But the problem is, the 'human dimension' was explicitly eliminated from the scientific image of man in the early modern period.

Science does not operate according to unchanging truths and immutable doctrines.

Quoting Wayfarer

Hans Jonas anticipates many of the ideas of autopoesis and systems science

And this is entirely natural. A rejection of reductive materialism is not a rejection of naturalism. Jonas' naturalism owes much to Aristotle's.

Quoting Wayfarer

Jonas sees metabolism as the building and perpetuation of a self-distinct unity.

Aristotle's term for this is entelecheia. Joe Sachs translates this: being at work staying the same. It is descriptive of physis or nature.

I am confused by the original post. It says it wants to clear up some things before making an argument, and then doesn't seem to make an argument. The follow up post describe strong testimonial evidence. I would guess that the implied argument (which I don't see stated anywhere) is that the abundance of testimonial evidence for life after death is good evidence for life after death?

Once I found a youtube channel that posted nothing but testimony of NDE (Near Death Experiences). I listened to the first 13 I heard and wrote down claims (like whether there was hell or not). I don't remember the exact numbers, because it was so long ago, but I remember concluding 2 things. 1. If you assume nothing about an afterlife, other than that it is consistent, then it is possible that 60% of the testimonies I heard could have been true. 2. If you assume Christian theology, then only 25% of the testimonies could have been true.

Some NDE testimonies said that there was a heaven/hell, and others said there was no hell. Some saw Muhammad, and some saw Jesus. One saw God the father as an old man, which is against the theology I was taught because God the father isn't supposed to have a body. So, these are the types of things I looked at when deciding whether or not the testimonies could have been true.

Given the large amount of disagreement on what life after death looks like, I concluded that NDE are subjectively experienced phenomena of a dying brain, rather than of an objective reality.

If I recall correctly, 2/13 of the testimonies claimed to have been able to see things while "dead" which they could not have seen, such as details about the operation that was being performed on them. I have no explanation for how this could have happened, if the testimony is true. Maybe sometimes people make lucky guesses, or maybe they guess in retrospect after they have the information and neglect to tell you that.

Quoting Fooloso4

But the problem is, the 'human dimension' was explicitly eliminated from the scientific image of man in the early modern period.
— Wayfarer

Science does not operate according to unchanging truths and immutable doctrines.

But it does assume the division between object and subject as a limiting step, which has many consequences beyond it's range of application. And there certainly is such a stance as dogmatic scientism - for physicalism, the laws of physics are both immutable and fundamental. But I'll take that up in some other place.

Quoting Brendan Golledge

Given the large amount of disagreement on what life after death looks like, I concluded that NDE are subjectively experienced phenomena of a dying brain, rather than of an objective reality.

You can't go on YouTube and read a few testimonials and come to a decent conclusion. I've studied and read over 5000 testimonials, and many others have studied NDEs for years and there is no doubt, at least for me, if you have an ounce of objectivity in you that there is something veridical about these experiences. If they were purely subjective without an objective component I'd agree with you, at least partly. However, any large number of testimonials will have differences that seem contradictory and even may be contradictory. You can take 20 people who were at the scene of an accident, and you may find contradictory statements, but that doesn't mean the accident didn't happen. You have to look for consistency to make sense of what happened at the scene. And that consistent testimony must line up with objective facts.

If someone who has had an NDE comes to you and describes their experience and says they saw a doctor do X and say Y, or that they can describe what someone was talking about in a waiting room while they were under anesthesia, sure I'd be skeptical. But if you then verify that the doctor did do X and say Y and that the conversation in the waiting room was also verified to be accurate, you're at least going to be curious and ask questions. True, you may also just dismiss thinking there's another explanation. But let's take it a step further, suppose you have thousands of objectively verifiable experiences like this, how can you just dismiss all of the objective components? People who claim that it's all subjective are refusing to see the obvious.

There are also other explanations why people are claiming to see Jesus, angels, or some other religious figure, viz., because all of our experiences are filtered through cultural beliefs, so if you're a Christian you may see a being as Jesus or some other religious figure. Again, you have to look at what's consistent and proceed from there, and there is a lot of consistency. You could take 100 people who were at a concert and some of the reports would be completely different, but that doesn't mean they weren't at the concert. You could take another 100 people who were at the theatre watching a play and you would get many different interpretations of what the play was trying to convey. People always misinterpret what they see and hear, but that doesn't mean the play didn't happen. Evaluating testimonial evidence is like detective work, it takes time and careful examination of the testimony. You don't have to do some experiments in a laboratory to always confirm your findings a careful examination of what people say is often enough to come to a definitive conclusion, i.e., that X is what probably happened. You may not know with absolute certainty, but you don't have to know with absolute certainty to claim knowledge, which is what I'm doing.

Many of the arguments in this thread are based on pure speculation. There's not a shred of evidence that these are hallucinations, drug-induced, a dying brain, dreams, lack of oxygen, or whatever else people want to attribute to these experiences. This is pure speculation. Not one argument in this thread has even come close to defeating the evidence. There are reasons to be skeptical, but those reasons can't be maintained if you carefully study the evidence, that's my position.

Furthermore, these experiences have all the hallmarks of veridical experiences, clear memories of what they saw, general consistency when looking at a large number of testimonials, memories that are sustained over time, the impact of the memories on their lives, etc.

By the way, you haven't read the thread if you're saying I haven't given an argument. The inductive argument was given at least three times.

p. 35 about halfway down

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1980/evidence-of-consciousness-surviving-the-body/p35

Quoting Wayfarer

But it does assume the division between object and subject ...

Sam's claim that:

Quoting Sam26

... we survive death as individuals, but we return to our true nature, which is not human.

and:

Quoting Sam26

Our identity is not in this avatar (so to speak) but is connected with our higher self

is that there is a self distinct from the body.Out of body experience is not the experience of a non-differentiated, generalized consciousness but the experience of an individual subject.

Quoting Wayfarer

And there certainly is such a stance as dogmatic scientism

Science and scientism are not the same.

Quoting Wayfarer

for physicalism, the laws of physics are both immutable and fundamental.

There are several different issues here that you have lumped together. First, physicalism is a broad term that does not identify a single agreed upon set of claims. Second, there is the question of whether a distinction is being made between the laws of nature and the laws of physics.Third, immutability is not a settled issue.

The theoretical physicist Lee Smolin challenges this assumption. Rather than timeless laws, Smolin holds that time is prior to laws. In a paper "Temporal Naturalism: Time and Laws in Cosmology"
he quotes Paul Dirac:

At the beginning of time the laws of Nature were probably very different from what they are now. Thus, we should consider the laws of Nature as continually changing with the epoch, instead of as holding uniformly throughout space-time.

and Richard Feynman:

The only field which has not admitted any evolutionary question is physics. Here are the laws, we say,...but how did they get that way, in time?...So, it might turn out that they are not the same [laws] all the time and that there is a historical, evolutionary, question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07EYacr3rBg&t=3347s

I came back to my original argument because of a debate I saw between Dr. Sean Carroll and Dr. Steven Novella vs Dr. Eban Alexander and Dr. Raymond Moody. Sean and Stevan are much better debaters than Eban and Raymond, so I thought Sean and Steven won the debate. Frankly, I was disappointed in Raymond Moody because as a philosopher he should’ve done a better job. He started to make an epistemological point (like I do) but didn’t follow through.

Both Dr. Carroll and Dr. Novella are presenting arguments similar in many ways to the arguments people are trying to use against me in this thread. We know that the brain generates consciousness, therefore NDEs are generated by the brain. So, by definition, consciousness is generated by the brain. Their point is that there’s a causal relation between the brain and consciousness, it’s settled science for Sean and Steven and many materialists, not all materialists but many.

My counterargument is that they’re confusing correlation with causation. I would say that it’s settled science that there’s a correlation between the brain and consciousness, but not causation just as there’s a correlation between what we hear from a radio and the radio itself. We know that the sound isn’t generated by the radio even though we can make many correlations between the sound and the radio. Someone primitive might believe the radio is causing the sound, but we know there is something else involved, viz., the radio's antenna picks up electromagnetic waves transmitted by radio stations. Of course, on my side of the argument, I can’t point to anything like an electromagnetic wave that would cause consciousness, so I look at other kinds of evidence, viz., testimonial evidence. Testimonial evidence is one of the main ways we come to know most of what we know. Testimony is not science, although sometimes the data collected can be science. There are the beginnings of scientific data in some NDE research, but more needs to be done. However, I rely on logic and testimonial evidence to make what I believe is a strong inductive rational argument for my conclusion, viz., consciousness survives the death of the body. I don’t define the argument in such a way that no amount of testimonial evidence can make a persuasive case against my conclusion. The arguments against my conclusion (most of the arguments especially the ones by Dr. Carroll and Dr. Novella) are clearly fallacious. They’re self-sealing in that all testimonial evidence is rejected out of hand. No amount of counterevidence (testimonial evidence) can be enough to counter their definition of consciousness, viz., that consciousness is a brain function. Note that when you give testimonial evidence to the contrary it’s never good enough. It can always be explained by the brain, even though they’re just guessing or surmising that the brain, even when in a condition that probably wouldn’t generate the detail of an NDE, is producing the NDE. According to them, there must be some level of brain activity to explain why people are having the experience, even if they can’t explain what activity that is. All they do is guess at what might be causing these experiences, and all they’re saying is that the brain produces consciousness, therefore you’re wrong. These are weak arguments at best. They can keep repeating the mantra that the brain causes consciousness but that doesn’t make it so. Correlation doesn’t mean causation.

To reject my argument, you have to reject that testimonial evidence is a valid form of knowing apart from science. This doesn’t mean that because people tell us that they’ve been abducted by aliens that’s good testimonial evidence because it’s not. All good testimonial evidence must be evaluated rigorously. As I’ve said in other posts it’s what a good detective would do, and it takes a lot of work and comparing the data collected. To compare the testimonial evidence of abductions to the testimonial evidence of NDEs is a complete misunderstanding of good testimonial evidence.

Quoting Sam26

To compare the testimonial evidence of abductions to the testimonial evidence of NDEs is a complete misunderstanding of good testimonial evidence.

Explain why you think "testimonial evidence of alien abductions" is not "good testimonial evidence". :smirk:

Quoting Fooloso4

Sam's claim that:

... we survive death as individuals, but we return to our true nature, which is not human.
— Sam26

and:

Our identity is not in this avatar (so to speak) but is connected with our higher self
— Sam26

is that there is a self distinct from the body. Out of body experience is not the experience of a non-differentiated, generalized consciousness but the experience of an individual subject.

That is only a re-statement of beliefs that have been pretty well universal at one time or another throughout history. Of course that is no guarantee of them bring true. But consider the historical context. As Hans Jonas says in the essay previously mentioned, for the ancients 'Soul (or 'life') flooded the whole of existence and encountered itself in all things. Bare matter, that is, truly inanimate, "dead" matter, was yet to be discovered - as indeed its concept, so familiar to us, is anything but obvious.' That watershed didn't arrive until the Renaissance and the ascendancy of materialism proper, the idea of a solely material universe acting in accordance with physical forces. Within that context, Jonas says, life becomes the anomaly and inert matter the norm. You see that writ large in this debate. Imagine if you were time-transported back to the 13th century to proclaim that the body is only physical and that there were no soul. You would be ridiculed and ignored (and quite possibly executed) in line with the dogma of the day. Now those so bold as to proclaim that the living soul is more than the body are ridiculed and ignored. Every educated person is presumed to know that there is no reality beyond the material. That's what I mean by 'dogma'. We've erected bulwarks against what we regard as the supernatural.

Sam mentions the idea of the body as a 'receiver' or 'transmitter' akin to a television. Why is that necessarily a daft idea? What if, from the very earliest stirrings of organic existence, organic life is the means by which consciousness painstakingly takes form? 'What is latent becomes patent', to quote a Hindu aphorism. Of course we don't think like that, we think the issue can only be viewed through the lens of the so-called objective sciences. We start with the presumption that life and mind can be explained in terms of physical and chemical forces, and then will only consider what is amenable to that approach.

Quoting Sam26

To reject my argument, you have to reject that testimonial evidence is a valid form of knowing apart from science.

Perhaps there are kinds of knowing which are only accessible in the first person, which can't be reproduced in third-person terms or subjected to that kind of arms-lengh analysis. I already mentioned Sean Carroll's fallacious ruminations on the nature of soul in an earlier post.

Quoting Fooloso4

Science and scientism are not the same.

Ain't that the truth.

Quoting 180 Proof

To compare the testimonial evidence of abductions to the testimonial evidence of NDEs is a complete misunderstanding of good testimonial evidence.
— Sam26
Explain why you think "testimonial evidence of alien abductions" is not "good testimonial evidence".

That is a good question, and I believe part of the answer can be seen in good detective work. If all you have to work with is the testimony of a person or persons, then you have to ask yourself several questions.
1) Was the person in a position to know? Was the person there? Is the testimonial evidence firsthand or secondhand?
2) Can the evidence be corroborated, which can give us an objective way to verify its accuracy?
3) How many reports do we have that are firsthand?
4) Are the reports generally consistent? This helps to identify the truthfulness of the reports. The reports don’t need to be 100% accurate, but they do need to be more consistent than not. Even if you have a 60% or 70% accuracy, you’ll still get a good idea of what’s happening. For example, if we have 100 people reporting what they saw at a concert and 60% reporting X, Y, and Z, then we can be relatively certain that X, Y, and Z happened. Even if the other 30 or 40% are reporting things that the others didn’t see or hear. In other words, you can take what the majority of people are reporting and infer that that’s what probably took place.
5) Do we have a variety of reports to choose from that are reporting the same things? The more variety added to the consistency strengthens the reports.
6) There are many other factors to consider. For example, the character of those who are reporting the events. Do they have something to gain? Are they lying, etc?

These are just some of the things to consider. This is not meant to be exhaustive.

The one thing that stands out to me when considering alien abductions is that almost none of them can be corroborated. This is probably the biggest negative against these claims. You can’t go and talk to others who were at the scene to verify the accuracy of the claims. On the other hand, NDEs can and are being corroborated by doctors, nurses, friends, and family members. Many alien abductions consist of very vague memories and some of the memories are accessed through hypnosis, which makes them questionable at best.

Many of the abductions occur as sleep-related events or in isolated locations, which is why there is seldom if ever any good corroboration. This means that there is little to no way to objectively verify the events.

It’s also interesting that most of the alien abduction reports started happening in the 60’s when more and more reports of UFOs were happening. Alien abductions are not a historical phenomenon. NDEs have been reported as far back as Plato (the supposed Myth of Er, 380 BC), The Tibetan Book of the Dead (8th century), and the Egyptian Book of the Dead (around 1550 BC), so it has more of a historical context.

There are a lot more weaknesses in alien abductions, but this is a start.

Quoting Wayfarer

That is only a re-statement of beliefs that have been pretty well universal at one time or another throughout history.

Right, the same assumption that in one form or another underlies:

Quoting Wayfarer

the division between object and subject

much of science. The point, however, is that for Sam there is a distinct, enduring, imperishable "higher self". Perhaps I am wrong, but this does not seem to square with your understanding of the:

Quoting Wayfarer

principle of no-self (anatta)

Quoting Wayfarer

What if, from the very earliest stirrings of organic existence, organic life is the means by which consciousness painstakingly takes form?

It sounds like you have gone over to the dark side! Non-reductive materialism. Consciousness is dependent on the existence of organisms. Organisms in turn is dependent on the inorganic material necessary for plant life. In a word, naturalism.

Reply to Fooloso4 :smirk:

Quoting Wayfarer

Sam mentions the idea of the body as a 'receiver' or 'transmitter' akin to a television. Why is that necessarily a daft idea?

It's not necessarily daft. However, in light of modern scientific understanding of the nature of brains, and the sort of information processing that can occur in neural networks, it's unparsimonious. I.e. "I have no need of that hypothesis."

Quoting Fooloso4

Consciousness is dependent on the existence of organisms.

Quoting wonderer1

However, in light of modern scientific understanding of the nature of brains, and the sort of information processing that can occur in neural networks, it's unparsimonious. I.e. "I have no need of that hypothesis."

But there is no theory of 'how brains generate consciousness', which actually is an implication of the 'hard problem of consciousness.' It is assumed that consciousness is a product of organic evolution, but what if the appearance of life just is the appearance of the very 'first-person' perspective which defies objective or third-person description? In other words, organisms are dependent on the activities of consciousness. Mind (or consciousness) is causal, a latent drive towards higher levels of intelligence and awareness which manifests as organic life. The reason this view is not materialistic is because it assigns a causal role to intelligence, albeit not necessarily concieved of as a 'divine architect' but more like:

[quote=New Advent Enclyclopedia]God, according to (the Stoics), "did not make the world as an artisan does his work, but it is by wholly penetrating all matter that He is the demiurge of the universe" (Galen, "De qual. incorp." in "Fr. Stoic.", ed. von Arnim, II, 6); He penetrates the world "as honey does the honeycomb" (Tertullian, "Adv. Hermogenem", 44), this God so intimately mingled with the world is fire or ignited air; inasmuch as He is the principle controlling the universe, He is called Logos; and inasmuch as He is the germ from which all else develops, He is called the seminal Logos (logos spermatikos). This Logos is at the same time a force and a law, an irresistible force which bears along the entire world and all creatures to a common end, an inevitable and holy law from which nothing can withdraw itself, and which every reasonable man should follow willingly (Cleanthus, "Hymn to Zeus" in "Fr. Stoic." I, 527-cf. 537).[/quote]

If that sounds like vitalism, perhaps so, with the caveat that mind/consciousness is never something that can be known objectively. You can't know it, because it is what knows. So there is no such 'vital essence' in an objective sense.

All that said, I've never questioned the biological account of evolution, only what implications can be drawn from it. If you've never accepted the idea that the Biblical creation myth is literally true, then the fact that it's not literally true is not (contra Dawkins) that big of a deal.

Quoting Fooloso4

The point, however, is that for Sam there is a distinct, enduring, imperishable "higher self". Perhaps I am wrong, but this does not seem to square with your understanding of the:

principle of no-self (anatta)
— Wayfarer

It's true that Buddhism doesn't teach in terms of 'higher self' but they don't deny the reality of rebirth. Beings are understood as being caught up in an involuntary and endless cycle of rebirth. I mentioned before a book by Sam Bercholz, the proprietor of Shabhala Books, a major published of Buddhist titles, who's near-death experience after open-heart surgery revealed a vision of hell, which he published a book about, A Guided Tour of Hell. As to whether the Buddha exists after death, that is one of the 'unanswerable questions'.

Quoting Fooloso4

the division between object and subject
— Wayfarer

What I'm getting at there, is the division that arises in early modern science, with Galileo, Newton, Descartes et al. The division of the universe into the objective realm of primary qualities measurable by science, and the relegation of mind to the inner or subjective domain. And then the sense that the world is devoid of meaning and purpose because of that division. The 'Cartesian anxiety'. This becomes more than a theory, it becomes an existential state, and not necessarily a happy one.

Quoting Wayfarer

But there is no theory of 'how brains generate consciousness'...

You are thinking in black and white terms.

First off, we should be talking about a theory of minds, rather than mind.

Secondly, I certainly have a rough working hypothesis that has a lot of predictive strengths. Of course, it is certainly not anything like a complete theory. There is an enormous amount still to be learned, and good reason to doubt that any human could actually grasp what might (on some unknown criteria) be considered a finished theory of minds.

Thirdly, the fact that you don't have much of a working hypothesis yourself, seems like something that you might want to correct.

Quoting Wayfarer

But there is no theory of 'how brains generate consciousness'

Once again:

Quoting Fooloso4

Throughout history, time after time, claims of the supernatural as the only viable "explanation" for a wide variety of phenomena have given way to natural, rational, demonstrable, transmissible scientific knowledge.

Cognitive science is a new interdisciplinary science. The fact that it has not yet developed a generally accepted theory hardly serves as evidence that it cannot or will not.

Quoting Wayfarer

Mind (or consciousness) is causal, a latent drive towards higher levels of intelligence and awareness which manifests as organic life.

This is an assertion not a theory is the sense in which you fault science for lacking.

Quoting Wayfarer

It's true that Buddhism doesn't teach in terms of 'higher self' but they don't deny the reality of rebirth.

That may be, but an appeal to a Buddhist teaching does not resolve the objections raised against Sam's claims.

Quoting Wayfarer

What I'm getting at there, is the division that arises in early modern science ...

Some of us are quite familiar with this well rehearsed story, but it is not what is at issue in this thread.

Quoting Fooloso4

Cognitive science is a new interdisciplinary science. The fact that it has not yet developed a generally accepted theory hardly serves as evidence that it cannot or will not.

It's a matter of principle. This is the point of the original 'facing up to the problem of consciousness' essay. Consciousness can be studied as a phenomenon, via cognitive studies, but consciousness as the first-person ground of experience is not an objective phenomenon nor among objective phenomenon. Neuroscientically-inclined types such as Wonderer will be exasperated, 'how do you know it is not solvable?' 'The hard problem' is not a problem in search of a solution, but a rhetorical argument which indicates the inherent limitations of objective science with respect to a philosophical question, which is the nature of being ('what it is like to be...').

Quoting Fooloso4

What I'm getting at there, is the division that arises in early modern science ...
— Wayfarer

Some of us are quite familiar with this well rehearsed story, but it is not what is at issue in this thread.

It has a considerable bearing on the issue.

Quoting wonderer1

the fact that you don't have much of a working hypothesis yourself, seems like something that you might want to correct.

You wouldn't read or recognise the point of the 'blind spot of science' article that I frequently reference in this context, would you. If by any chance you're interested, regardless, I'll provide the link to it.

The underlying point I'm trying to get it in all this is the nature and limits of objectivity, and of whether what can be objectively known and demonstrated exhausts what is really the case. And the reason that is relevant, is because of the frequent demand that the contents of NDE's be objectively demonstrable. It is assumed as a matter of course that if they're not objectively demonstrable, then they can only have a subjective reality. I'm working on fleshing out a philosophical framework which provides an alternative to this supposed dilemma.

Quoting Fooloso4

Mind (or consciousness) is causal, a latent drive towards higher levels of intelligence and awareness which manifests as organic life.
— Wayfarer

This is an assertion not a theory is the sense in which you fault science for lacking.

The way the issue is invariably framed is that matter is fundamental, and so consciousness can only be thought of as a product of (epiphenomenon, emergent feature) of matter. But it is precisely that causal connection between matter and consciousness which is a point at issue. I'm not providing a theory about that, only pointing out an alternative. No doubt there'll be someone working on it.

Quoting Wayfarer

... consciousness as the first-person ground of experience is not an objective phenomenon

My experience is not yours but this is not a good reason to doubt that other people are conscious. Anesthesiology has developed into a science with generally reliable results, even though it is not the anesthesiologist who is being anesthetized. Brain mapping continues to become more and more predictive of what someone will experience when certain regions are stimulated or what is lost when damage occurs to a region.

Quoting Wayfarer

It has a considerable bearing on the issue.

Human understanding is not fixed and unchanging. The limits early modern science are well known and are not a permanent limit to present and future science.

Quoting Wayfarer

It is assumed as a matter of course that if they're not objectively demonstrable, then they can only have a subjective reality.

Let's put aside talk of objectivity and subjectivity and consider the problem of gullibility. On what basis are we to accept various claims? Surely, you do not believe every claim you hear.

Quoting Wayfarer

I'm not providing a theory about that, only pointing out an alternative.

So, there is no theory of how brains generate consciousness and no theory of an alternative either. The appeal to an alternative seems to be based on a desire for meaning that transcends human meaning. It seems as if you have lost sight of the human dimension by setting your sights beyond man. As if human life in all its dimensions is not enough, that true meaning must lie elsewhere.

Reply to Wayfarer, are you familiar with the sort of psychological conditions associated with black and white thinking?

My theory of consciousness is similar in some ways to Donald Hoffman's. There are differences, for example, I’m not sure that you can use a mathematical model to describe consciousness on a fundamental level, which he’s attempting to do. The reason is that mathematics, for me, is something that is either generated by consciousness/mind or that eternally exists as part of the fundamental nature of consciousness. Also, Hoffman and others want to say that core consciousness is outside space (it may be outside space, although I’m not sure) and time, but I think time is fundamental on some level with consciousness. I believe it’s contradictory to say that a mind could exist outside all time. It may be that the core mind is outside what we experience as space and time, but it’s not completely outside time. For example, if consciousness created our reality, the one we find ourselves in, then there would have to be a point X before that creation, otherwise, what would it even mean to say that the mind created this reality? You couldn’t even make sense of creating outside time, what would create even mean? The word create seems to imply definitionally something temporal, i.e., before the creation and after the creation.

I want to say that core consciousness or even our consciousness on an individual level cannot be doubted, it’s like trying to doubt that you exist. Our doubts show or demonstrate our existence. In a very important sense consciousness is the hinge of existence (to use Wittgensteinian language). Existence swings on the hinge of consciousness. It requires no justification. It just is. It’s the presuppositional axiom of existence.

I do believe we are individuals that are part of the core mind, i.e., we are individuals that are connected with the core. My theory or model is based on my extensive study of many thousands of NDEs and the reports of those experiences, which I believe are veridical.

The core consciousness is constantly creating experiences for the innumerable conscious beings that are associated with the core mind. The core mind experiences the totality of experiences of each mind. In this way, the core is constantly having new experiences, and we will also continue to experience new things as we choose to have the experiences generated by the core. So, we can experience any reality that is created by consciousness. Moreover, the essence of who we are cannot be harmed by any of the realities we enter.



Donald Hoffman on Consciousness and Conscious Agents

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIxz9pyHukA

Quoting Sam26

Existence swings on the hinge of consciousness. It requires no justification. It just is. It’s the presuppositional axiom of existence.

Existence itself is absolutely presupposed, and therefore requires no justification; also, it's self-contradictory to assume that 'IS possibly is not'. Existence "just is" the hinge on which all existing swings. Your inversion, Sam, assumes an unwarranted 'dualism' that is both incoherent and unparsimonious. Spinozism had refuted 'Cartesian duality' over three centuries ago.and Berkeley's 'subjective idealism' is clearly question-begging (see Kant's critique).

I do believe we are individuals that are part of the core mind, i.e., we are individuals that are connected with the core ... The core consciousness is constantly creating experiences for the innumerable conscious beings that are associated with the core mind ... the essence of who we are cannot be harmed ....

This :sparkle: "core mind, core consciousness" :sparkle: reminds me very much of the sage woo--woo of an ancient Jedi Master:
[quote=Sayings of Yoda][i]For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.  You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. 

*

Deceive you, eyes can. In the Force, very different each of you is.

*

Death is a natural part of life, rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force.

*

Twilight is upon me, and soon night must fall. that is the way of things. The way of the Force.[/i][/quote]
In sum: "NDEs" = temporary FORCE GHOSTS. :sweat:

Reply to 180 Proof Funny opinions, but that's about all it is. :grin:

Quoting Sam26

In a very important sense consciousness is the hinge of existence (to use Wittgensteinian language). Existence swings on the hinge of consciousness. It requires no justification. It just is.

According to you hinges:

Quoting Sam26

...are just very basic kinds of beliefs within our forms of life.

In that case existence is a belief. Outside our forms of life then nothing exists. The problem with this kind of idealism is that the idealist must exist. The idealist's existence cannot be dependent on her idealism.

[quote="Lee Smolin "Temporal Naturalism"]Naturalism is the view that all that exists is the natural world that is perceived with, but exists independently of, our senses or tools which extend them.[/quote]

Temporal Naturalism

Quoting Fooloso4

The idealist's existence cannot be dependent on her idealism.

True, but @Sam26 (the Jedi) might be a solipsist ..

Quoting Sam26

My counterargument is that they’re confusing correlation with causation. I would say that it’s settled science that there’s a correlation between the brain and consciousness, but not causation just as there’s a correlation between what we hear from a radio and the radio itself. We know that the sound isn’t generated by the radio even though we can make many correlations between the sound and the radio.

I am glad to see an argument like this Sam. Keep approaching it from different angles. While of course the people responding to you think we're right in some aspects, looking at it from different angles is always valuable to make sure we're not missing anything.

We have to be careful not to go the other way around as well, or "Confuse causation with correlation". The sound from a radio IS generated from a radio. There is a clear mechanical process. What you mean is that the radio signal is not produced from the radio. And you would be right there.

This is a point I made earlier that may have been forgotten. If there is evidence of consciousness existing outside of the body, then there should be evidence of consciousness existing outside of the body. The reason why a person could eventually deduce that the radio receives a signal is because of how the radio works. You could experiment on it for hours trying different things and you would eventually see that when you interrupt the antenai with something, the radio keeps making a sound, but its not a clear message anymore.

Further, you could take the radio to different locations and find the same would happen. So you would start to make hypotheses. One such hypothesis would be, "Is the location or objects I put on the antenae interfering with something? And of course, research would eventually reveal, "Yes".

But what evidence do we have that our consciousness comes from somewhere else? None so far. Our consciousness works no matter what we put over our brains, and no matter where we go. If we do interrupt consciousness through drugs for example, we see its a clear impact on brain function. Its not that the brain continues to function at a same or similar rate when the drugs are applied like an inhibitor, but it seems to affect the brain process itself.

Meaning that the evidence which we do have points not to some type of thing outside of the body, but a mechanical process of the brain. Go watch an example of brain surgery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAFbM6Zhz7k All of this surgery was possible with the assumption that the brain is the locus of consciousness. Generally in history, when we don't completely understand a process, we run into problems of application. Read this theory on phlogiston theory on fire that was eventually replaced with oxygen theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory

Quoting Sam26

Of course, on my side of the argument, I can’t point to anything like an electromagnetic wave that would cause consciousness, so I look at other kinds of evidence, viz., testimonial evidence.

If a radio told you, "No, I don't receive a signal from elsewhere, I generate all my messages within me," does that mean its right? It sure feels that way, but we know that's not true. Testimonial evidence only explains a subjective interpretation of a situation. And people subjective interpretation of things is no indication of its truth as an objective reality, only the truth in that is what people feel. There are plenty of people who feel there is a God, but is that objectively true? No. There are plenty of people who believe 9-11 was an inside job, that they saw the building was hit in such a way as there had to be some internal explosive beyond the plane. They are objectively wrong.

Quoting Sam26

They’re self-sealing in that all testimonial evidence is rejected out of hand. No amount of counterevidence (testimonial evidence) can be enough to counter their definition of consciousness, viz., that consciousness is a brain function.

That is not because they don't like the testimony or don't want to accept it. They accept that that is how people feel. Just like a radio may feel with all of its heart that its thinking and generating the messages it spits out, even though we know its comes from a radio tower. Its because the question of objective consciousness has been found despite what one thinks about it. Despite the fact you may believe you live forever, the evidence clearly shows you don't. You might believe your experience of floating above the bed means you actually did, but objective tests show you didn't. That's why the testimony is no good. Its a starter to explore and test for its objectivity, but has failed every time.

Quoting Sam26

They can keep repeating the mantra that the brain causes consciousness but that doesn’t make it so. Correlation doesn’t mean causation.

Its not a mantra, its scientific fact tested over countless decades that continue to point to the conclusion that your brain generates consciousness. You are doing the opposite believing that causation is correlation, when you have no evidence that it is correlation.

Keep thinking about it.

Reply to Philosophim Can you be any more condescending? I'll refrain from saying what I want and leave it at that.

Reply to Philosophim Reply to Sam26 I read this as great feedback...you are onto something, Sam26. Now I am curious to why you are refraining from saying what you want? You are right, though. It's wise to refrain at this point [lacking intel, yet], but why are you refraining before you "know" why you are, exactly? That is of interest...

Quoting Sam26

Can you be any more condescending? I'll refrain from saying what I want and leave it at that.

I genuinely don't understand how I was condescending. I think you read an intention into that I did not mean to convey. I'm going to assume you're not just putting an accusation out there to avoid the argument I made, as you've addressed my points before. So my apologies if this came across as insulting, but that does not negate the argument put forth. If you believe my points are wrong, why?

Reply to Sam26 Here's the crux:
Quoting Philosophim

Testimonial evidence only explains a subjective interpretation of a situation. And people's subjective interpretation of things is no indication of its truth as an objective reality, only the truth in that is what people feel. There are plenty of people who feel there is a God, but is that objectively true? No.

:100: :up:

The identification of anything is subjective and relative to convention. E.g, we don't get hung up about whether or not today's chair is said to be same as tomorrows chair, so why should we treat persons as having objective haecceity ?

Tibetan monks might have their politico-cultural reasons for objecting to the Chinese government choosing the next Dalai Lama, but do they really have a metaphysical leg to stand on?

Quoting sime

Tibetan monks might have their politico-cultural reasons for objecting to the Chinese government choosing the next Dalai Lama, but do they really have a metaphysical leg to stand on?

The monks are standing on the leg of their own metaphysical theory, aren't they?

An interesting new study. NDEs have been compared to effects of psychedelics before, but those comparisons were "inter-subject": they compared reports of NDE experiences and psychedelic experiences in different people. For this study, the authors surveyed subjects who had experienced both.

Quoting Martial, Charlotte & Carhart-Harris, Robin & Timmermann, Christopher. (2024). Within-subject comparison of near-death and psychedelic experiences: acute and enduring effects. Neuroscience of Consciousness

Mystical-like states of consciousness may arise through means such as psychedelic substances, but may also occur unexpectedly during near-death experiences (NDEs). So far, research studies comparing experiences induced by serotonergic psychedelics and NDEs, along with their enduring effects, have employed between-subject designs, limiting direct comparisons. We present results from an online survey exploring the phenomenology, attribution of reality, psychological insights, and enduring effects of NDEs and psychedelic experiences (PEs) in individuals who have experienced both at some point during their lifetime. We used frequentist and Bayesian analyses to determine significant differences and overlaps (evidence for null hypotheses) between the two. Thirty-one adults reported having experienced both an NDE (i.e., NDE-C scale total score ?27/80) and a PE (intake of LSD, psilocybin/mushrooms, ayahuasca, DMT or mescaline). Results revealed areas of overlap between both experiences for phenomenology, attribution of reality, psychological insights, and enduring effects. A finer-grained analysis of the phenomenology revealed significant overlap in mystical-like effects, while low-level phenomena (sensory effects) were significantly different, with NDEs displaying higher scores of disembodiment and PEs higher scores of visual imagery. This suggests psychedelics as a useful model for studying mystical-like effects induced by NDEs, while highlighting distinctions in sensory experiences.

Reply to SophistiCat
Thanks for the article. I have long wondered about this connection when thinking back at my experiences with peyote as a young man. The reported experience of relative 'disembodiment' came up a lot amongst fellow travelers.

I hope to avoid entering the sample group of the other side of the study.

Quoting wonderer1

it's unparsimonious

I think this is a little bit of a red herring when it comes to theorizing in teh way we do here (or, philosophy in general). I think if the theory has no knock-downs, we can hold unparsimonious theories. They just shouldn't take precedence. But, the "brain-as-receiver" theory is as old as time and has some explanatory power so I like that it's not being written off.

Reply to Philosophim While I hear this argument as strong, it is actually not all that clear and decisive imo. Your analogy between radiowaves and consciousness(waves?) doesn't hold very well at all. It works on the surface, but we know so little about consciousness that to assume it would behave the same way in those contextual scenarios, as radiowaves, is certainly beginning to look like bad reasoning. That said, as above, it's still one of the further-down-the-list ones. All we do know about the brain can still obtain if the 'receiver' type of theory is in some way true (i.e in some way, consciousness is received by the brain..). It's also quite fun, so I really appreciate you making a thorough response in good faith there. Unsure why Sam got upset tbh.

Quoting AmadeusD

While I hear this argument as strong, it is actually not all that clear and decisive imo. Your analogy between radiowaves and consciousness(waves?) doesn't hold very well at all.

I did not mean to state it as a fact, just a separate consideration before we jump onto the idea that we're only correlating.

Quoting AmadeusD

It's also quite fun, so I really appreciate you making a thorough response in good faith there. Unsure why Sam got upset tbh.

I appreciate it, I was unsure myself.

Quoting AmadeusD

I think this is a little bit of a red herring when it comes to theorizing in teh way we do here (or, philosophy in general). I think if the theory has no knock-downs, we can hold unparsimonious theories. They just shouldn't take precedence. But, the "brain-as-receiver" theory is as old as time and has some explanatory power so I like that it's not being written off.

Do you have the conscious experience of homunculusly controlling a meat puppet through some sort of communication channel? If so, what do the controls (that homunculus-you uses to control meat puppet-you) looks like?

Are they red?

Quoting AmadeusD

I think this is a little bit of a red herring when it comes to theorizing in teh way we do here (or, philosophy in general). I think if the theory has no knock-downs, we can hold unparsimonious theories...

This seems to suggest that it's OK to believe any theory that isn't provably false. That may not be what you meant, because you followed with:

...They just shouldn't take precedence.

What does it mean to "hold" a theory, but not have it take precedence?

My view: a theory can only be rationally held if it is arguably the "best explanation" -i.e. the product of abductive reasoning. Even so, that is often too low a bar to compel belief in it (and the sort of abductive reasoning we do will be unavoidably subjective).

Reply to Relativist

:up: :up: Of course.
:grin:

Quoting Philosophim

just a separate consideration before we jump onto the idea that we're only correlating

Fair enough mate :)

Quoting wonderer1

Do you have the conscious experience of homunculusly controlling a meat puppet through some sort of communication channel? If so, what do the controls (that homunculus-you uses to control meat puppet-you) looks like?

1. Yes;
2. Choices.

This answers nought. Sometimes those choices appear Red to me. This also doesn't answer anything ;)

Quoting Relativist

This seems to suggest that it's OK to believe any theory that isn't provably false.

No. "believe" is doing a huge amount of speculative assumption here. I did not intend, nor did I (best I can tell) intimate that i even considered this aspect of the issue as relevant. Belief is not relevant here.

Quoting Relativist

What does it mean to "hold" a theory, but not have it take precedence?

Entertain it. Don't write it off (this also, best I can tell, a pretty clear inference from my post - I said it outright at the end). Let it explain what it can for those who want to play with it until it doesn't. Not your circus.

Quoting Relativist

a theory can only be rationally held if it is arguably the "best explanation"

In areas where we have no good ones(or at least satisfactory)? Bollocks. Entertain all comers.

Quoting Relativist

Even so, that is often too low a bar to compel belief in it

Luckily, I made no attempt to even intimate 'belief' in what I was trying to say. Apologies if this post comes off combative - I feel words were put in my mouth.

Quoting AmadeusD

This answers nought. Sometimes those choices appear Red to me. This also doesn't answer anything ;)

It wasn't intended to answer anything. Just provide food for thought.

Quoting AmadeusD

I made no attempt to even intimate 'belief' in what I was trying to say. Apologies if this post comes off combative - I feel words were put in my mouth.

I was simply asking for clarification of what you meant, because I had not drawn the "clear inference" you thought I should. I think I understand now. Sorry to bother you.

Reply to wonderer1 Fair enough!

Quoting Relativist

Sorry to bother you.

Not at all! I was far more concerned that my reply would come off bothering to you :P

An interesting podcast on consciousness.

Two AI's Discuss: The Quantum Physics of Consciousness - Roger Penrose Deep Dive Podcast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-isq40ARB9g

An interesting take on the argument of materialism vs idealism by Bernardo Kastrup.

Bernardo Kastrup | Refuting Materialism: full lecture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPCvQQQrZwU&t=2164s

Reply to Sam26 I believe in life after death. But I want to quibble first with some terminology. Why do you say 'consciousness' survives death, rather than 'the person' or 'the mind' survives death? I am not a consciousness. i am a person. I am conscious a lot of the time (though unconscious some of it). When I am unconscious I am not non-existent. I exist, but I am just not conscious. So 'consciousness' and 'a person' are not equivalent. My quibble, then, is that it is persons or minds (I use the terms interchangeably) who survive death, not 'consciousness' (consiousness is something persons have, but it is not what a person 'is').

Although I believe in life after death, I think NDEs are not good evidence for it. They seem better explained as dreams.

I also don't think most of those who have them really believe in them. For most of those who have them experience what seems to them to be a positive afterlife (though about 10% are negative). Yet they don't then kill themselves. Why is that? If you travel to a wonderful place, surely you're keen to get back there again? So, why don't those who have had NDEs kill themselves (and encourage others to do likeewise)? They don't - in fact they the data suggests they are, if anything, less likely to kill themselves than those who have not had NDEs. That makes no real sense, does it? I mean, are they all profoundly irrational? Or do they not really believe they were real? I suspect the latter.

Quoting Clearbury

Although I believe in life after death, I think NDEs are not good evidence for it. They seem better explained as dreams.

I'll answer this question first. I've written a lot about why I think NDEs give us good testimonial evidence, and why they're different from hallucinations, dreams, delusions, or any other purely subjective experience. The main difference is that they can be corroborated by others who were there. In other words, doctors, nurses, family, friends, and any other person at the scene can corroborate or invalidate what the NDEr is claiming to have experienced (seen, heard, etc). So, if others who were at the scene affirm one's claims, then that puts the experience into the realm of objective reality. This is what separates the NDE from hallucinations, delusions, or dreams. We can't corroborate what you see or hear in a dream. I can't go to your friend who was in your dream and ask if he said X, Y, or Z. The way we generally know that an experience is veridical is that others are having the same experience, or generally the same experience. Corroboration is one of the ways we use to examine whether or not testimony is reliable. This is seen in good detective work and even in good science.

Quoting Clearbury

'consciousness' survives death, rather than 'the person' or 'the mind' survives death? I am not a consciousness. i am a person. I am conscious a lot of the time (though unconscious some of it). When I am unconscious I am not non-existent. I exist, but I am just not conscious. So 'consciousness' and 'a person' are not equivalent. My quibble, then, is that it is persons or minds (I use the terms interchangeably) who survive death, not 'consciousness' (consiousness is something persons have, but it is not what a person 'is').

Consciousness is much broader in scope than just being a person, although it's true that I'm referring mainly to persons. I believe that there is some element of consciousness in most if not all living things. I also believe that consciousness is at the heart of reality and that all of us ultimately come from this core consciousness. Death simply returns us to where we reside. What makes you who you are, are the memories and experiences that attach to your specific conscious awareness. For you to survive death I believe that your specific conscious awareness with all the memories and experiences that attach to you must survive, and I believe it does.

When you're unconscious you still exist, you're just not aware for a while, or you're vaguely aware as in a dream. Being unconscious seems to be something specific to this body, or more specifically, to the brain.

I also generally use the terms consciousness and mind as synonyms.

Quoting Clearbury

Although I believe in life after death, I think NDEs are not good evidence for it. They seem better explained as dreams.

When I am unconscious I am not non-existent. I exist, but I am just not conscious. So 'consciousness' and 'a person' are not equivalent. My quibble, then, is that it is persons or minds (I use the terms interchangeably) who survive death, not 'consciousness' (consiousness is something persons have, but it is not what a person 'is').

:up: :up:

Quoting Sam26

The main difference is that they can be corroborated by others who were there.

:roll: In other words, there was no "NDE" just a non-ordinary experience of a living person that is misattributed by her and then on rare occasions circumstantially corroborated by other living persons (e.g. like sober witnesses to a black-out drunk's shenanigans). Of course, forensically, eyewitness testimony² like introspection¹ is usually unreliable as evidence.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introspection_illusion [1]

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5544328/ [2]

Reply to Sam26 But they're not synonyms - one is a state of a thing and one is the thing itself. But anyway, I suppose that's just a terminological issue (actually, I think it reflects the 'mind is the brain' view currently dominant, where it is consciousness that is what is distinctive about the brain, as opposed to there being a soul that has the consciousness).

There are two types of NDEs that you seem to be conflating. There are those that involve floating about in the room. Those are the ones that, supposedly, others can corroborate - though I think there's no hard evidence of such corroboration. Plus, just as we incorporate alarm sounds into dreams, nothing stops the same happening in these scenarios.

Then there are the NDEs where people seem to have the experience of travelling to a different realm. Those are not corroborated. There's a similarity among these experiences, but there's a lot of similarity between dreams too, and the similarity does not seem significantly greater.

You also haven't addressed my evidence that thsoe who have the latter NDEs don't really believe in them. They typically (not invariably) report the afterlife as being a great place in which they are reunited with loved ones. Ok. So why don't they kill themselves and encourage others to do likewise? That is what we would typically do if we find a beautiful place - we try and revisit it and encourage others to do likewise. These people claim to know, in a way that the rest of us do not, what lies in wait for us the other side of death. And they claim it is wonderful. Yet they seem reluctant - more reluctant, if anything, than the general population - to go back there. That's very peculiar to me.

Why don't they kill themselves? They're telling us death is nothing to be afraid of and benefits us hugely....yet they seem reluctant to die. Actions speak louder than words.

Quoting Sam26

I believe that there is some element of consciousness in most if not all living things. I also believe that consciousness is at the heart of reality and that all of us ultimately come from this core consciousness.

From a philosophical perspective, it might be instructive to consider the Buddhist view of re-birth. It is often assumed that 'Buddhists believe in reincarnation', but it is not actually true. In the very earliest Buddhist texts, the Buddha firmly rejects the idea of there being a soul, self or person who migrates from one life to another. Yet at the same time, the Buddha is said to have insight into the fate of beings after death, and it is widely accepted that beings are reborn in one of the 'six realms of existence' after physical death.

It's a hard idea to communicate in a few words, but the basic point is that beings propogate causes during this life, which will give rise to, or manifest as, living beings in future lives. Even though there isn't a kernel of unchanging personality which continues or migrates from one life to another, when a child is born, that child will manifest inherited tendencies, proclivities, inclinations, and so on, which were set in motion in previous lives, as a result of previous actions (or karma). There is a term in some Buddhist schools, 'citta-sant?na', translated as 'mind-stream' which seeks to convey this idea. It is sometimes linked to a teaching associated with later (Mah?y?na) Buddhism, of the 'storehouse consciousness' (alayavijnana) which can be compared to a 'collective unconscious'. So the person is more like a process, and indeed there have been comparisons between Buddhism and Western 'process philosophy', which is customarily said to have begun with Heraclitus.

As to whether this implies that beings 'originate from core consciousness', Buddhism doesn't generally teach in those terms, although East Asian teachings of 'Buddha Nature' might be interpreted along those lines.

For a variety of interpretations from various teachers, see Buddhist Teachings on Re-birth.
Also: citta sant?na
Alayavijnana
Six Realms of Existence
Buddha Nature

Quoting Clearbury

Why don't they kill themselves? They're telling us death is nothing to be afraid of and benefits us hugely....yet they seem reluctant to die. Actions speak louder than words.

:up: :up:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/916613

@Sam26 :eyes:

Quoting Clearbury

But they're not synonyms - one is a state of a thing and one is the thing itself. But anyway, I suppose that's just a terminological issue (actually, I think it reflects the 'mind is the brain' view currently dominant, where it is consciousness that is what is distinctive about the brain, as opposed to there being a soul that has the consciousness).

I'm afraid I have to disagree with the dominant view. The mind as I use it is, for all practical purposes, is synonymous with consciousness. Although there may be differences in some contexts, especially if you're a materialist or physicalist. Also, I generally don't use the term soul in reference to that which survives death. I believe consciousness is more accurate.

Quoting Clearbury

There are two types of NDEs that you seem to be conflating. There are those that involve floating about in the room. Those are the ones that, supposedly, others can corroborate - though I think there's no hard evidence of such corroboration. Plus, just as we incorporate alarm sounds into dreams, nothing stops the same happening in these scenarios.

Actually, I'm not conflating anything. I've described three kinds of NDEs (category 1, 2, and 3) pointing out the differences between each of these NDEs. I don't know why you would say supposedly corroborate, the data on this is overwhelming. As I've pointed out it's the same data that a detective uses when trying to confirm or disconfirm testimony, you interview the people involved. It's not very difficult and it's done all the time. I find it a bit strange that people just dismiss this information. Although you did acknowledge it with some hesitation. I don't know what you mean by "hard evidence?" Maybe you mean scientific evidence, but this is something I've also addressed, viz., by pointing out that epistemology is not limited scientific evidence. This seems to be a common misunderstanding of many that post in this thread, and even when they do acknowledge it, they seem to forget just how powerful good testimonial evidence is.

I'm not saying there aren't some similarities between dreams and veridical experiences. I'm saying that we don't corroborate hallucinations, delusions, or dreams in the same way that we do veridical experiences. The way these terms (hallucinations, delusions, and dreams) are used in our everyday language clearly separates them in a significant way from veridical experiences. On the other hand, NDEs are being corroborated all the time, and if they can't, then I'm skeptical of them, or at least I set it aside. I'm not saying that all NDEs can be corroborated, but a significant number can.

Quoting Clearbury

Then there are the NDEs where people seem to have the experience of travelling to a different realm. Those are not corroborated. There's a similarity among these experiences, but there's a lot of similarity between dreams too, and the similarity does not seem significantly greater.

When we look at the testimonial evidence of NDEs we have to examine it the same way we would examine any testimonial evidence. First, again, is corroboration, which gives us an objective way to verify the testimony. Even NDEs that incorporate traveling through a tunnel, seeing loved ones, having a life review, have been corroborated. What I mean is that if you can objectively corroborate at least part of their story, then you can make an inference based on how consistent it is with other stories that see and hear generally the same things. So, although you can't corroborate some of the story that doesn't mean we don't have other means of testing the story. For example, let's say someone tells you of their trip to Alaska and part of their story can be corroborated and other parts can't, we generally would accept the testimony as accurate, especially if there are other stories that match with theirs. So, although we can't corroborate all of it, there is enough consistency with other stories that allows us to accept their story as truthful or veridical. Do people sometimes lie, of course, but are all these people lying? Analyzing testimonial evidence takes time and patience. It must be compared with a lot of data. I've spent a lot of time analyzing the testimonial evidence and I generally find it to be accurate. There're two main reasons that people reject these stories: First, they're wedded to a particular worldview. Second, they don't have all the facts/information.

Quoting Clearbury

So why don't they kill themselves and encourage others to do likewise? That is what we would typically do if we find a beautiful place - we try and revisit it and encourage others to do likewise. These people claim to know, in a way that the rest of us do not, what lies in wait for us the other side of death. And they claim it is wonderful. Yet they seem reluctant - more reluctant, if anything, than the general population - to go back there. That's very peculiar to me.

I've read over 5000 accounts of NDEs, and what you'll find is that many people who have an NDE don't want to come back to this life, but they're told they must return because their objectives for coming here aren't complete. What I've found is that we enter into some agreement before choosing to have these human experiences, and it's important that we finish our task. Also, those who commit suicide often find that they've made a huge mistake, i.e., they're just going to have to come back again and do it all over again. So, it's not as simple as you might think and killing yourself is not an escape.

Quoting Wayfarer

From a philosophical perspective, it might be instructive to consider the Buddhist view

I have found that nothing gives us as clear a picture as NDEs. The evidence is much stronger than any religious point of view. I find that most religious have it generally incorrect. There are interesting ideas in the Buddhist tradition, but, again, if you want some answers about the afterlife, then NDEs give the most information.

Quoting Clearbury

You also haven't addressed my evidence that thsoe who have the latter NDEs don't really believe in them.

I don't think that follows. We have a natural inclination to keep on living, so this could get in the way of suicide. In addition, those who are religious may also believe that suicide would "kill" their chances of a happy afterlife. So I can accept that at least some of the people who've had these vivid dreams, in circumstances in which they are near death, actually believe these illusions are real.

The unique vividness of a near-death dream may be related to "terminal lucidity" that Alzheimer's often experience as they near death. In their case, it is a sudden, brief burst of lucidity as they near death. The physical changes that take place in a brain nearing death cause both.

Quoting Relativist

I don't think that follows. We have a natural inclination to keep on living, so this could get in the way of suicide.

We have a natural inclination not to want to eat something that looks unappetizing. But if we found out that it actually tastes delicious, then we'd go back and eat some more. We can and regularly do overcome natural inclinations.

The point about religious convictions doesn't apply, as the point is that those who have had NDEs are not more likely to commit suicide than those who don't. And it would be peculiar indeed to suppose that the only NDEs that count as evidence are those had by those with religious convictions.

Reply to Sam26 Quoting Sam26

I'm afraid I have to disagree with the dominant view. The mind as I use it is, for all practical purposes, is synonymous with consciousness.

So when I am unconscious I disappear? Consciousness is a state. It's not a thing. It's a state. Water is wet (normally). Wetness is a state. it's not a thing. 'Water is wet' doesn't mean 'water and wetness are the same'. It's the 'is' of predication. Water 'has' wetness. Minds 'have' consciousness. My mind is conscious right now - that doesn't mean it 'is' consciousness. It 'has' consciousness. That's why they're called 'states of consciousness'. They're states, not objects.

When I go to sleep I - the mind - become unconscious. I don't vanish. A new person does not emerge in me every morning. Sleep is not death. I can't escape yesterday's me's responsibilities and debts just by going to sleep. Why? Because I am the same person - the same mind. I was conscious yesterday and I am conscious today, but there was a time in between when I wasn't. there was a break in consciousness, but not a break in me. Unconscious me is not just a lump of meat. It isn't ok to destroy sleeping me. If you destroy sleeping me you killed me - me - rather than simply destroyed the potential venue for a new person.

Anyway, this is just a terminological issue: minds are bearers of conscious states. Consciousness is a state, not an object. Reality doesn't care what labels we put on things, however. So it really doesn't matter, I mention it only because it can cause confusion to conflate a state of an object with an object, and because - ironically - the tendency to conflate consciousness with minds is symptomatic of the very naturalism that precludes the possibility of life after death.

Quoting Sam26

I don't know why you would say supposedly corroborate, the data on this is overwhelming

Because it hasn't been gathered in a scientific setting. We don't know that things were not mentioned to the patient about the operation afterwards. It's all too flimsy. And that's exactly how we would treat such testimonial evidence in other contexts.

The person who is reporting these experiences almost died. That's not a normal state. The idea that a person's sensory faculties would be operating more reliably under those circumstances rather than less is prima facie absurd. That's like thinking that getting drunk improves one's ability to perceive the world. How would we treat a drunk's testimony? With the greatest of caution. That is how it is reasonable to treat the testimony of those whose brains have been starved of oxygen. Whatever experiences they had when their brains were in that kind of state cannot reasonably be accorded any great probative value.

Note too, that the testimony is 'about' those experiences. If I say that I saw a giant pink bunny while on a hallucinogen, then trusting my testimony does not involve trusting that there was actually a giant pink bunny in the room with me, but trusting that that was how things appeared to me. So, trusting the testimony of those who have had NDEs does not involve according their experiences probative value, rather it involves accepting that things seemed to them as they report.

Again, there is no double standard here. That's exactly how we'd treat the testimonial evidence of someone who was on drugs at the time they had the experiences, or was blind drunk at the time. These are people whose brains were starved of oxygen at the time it seemed to them they were having the experiences in question. So why should their testimonial evidence be treated any differently from the testimonial evidence of someone who was on drugs at the time of their experiences? We can trust that things appeared to them as they say, but we cannot reasonably trust that this is good evidence that this is how things actually were.

I do accept that this may not apply to the experiencer themselves - I accept that those who have actually had NDEs may be reasonable in believing their experiences to be accurate, but I don't think outsiders, such as myself, are being unreasonable in being skeptical about their accuracy (not skeptical that this is how things seemed to the person in question, but skeptical about the veridicality of the experiences being described).

Reply to Sam26 Quoting Sam26

I've read over 5000 accounts of NDEs, and what you'll find is that many people who have an NDE don't want to come back to this life, but they're told they must return because their objectives for coming here aren't complete.

I acknowledge that this would explain why they don't commit suicide.

Quoting Sam26

The evidence is much stronger than any religious point of view.

It's a shame you can only see it through your pre-concieved notion of what a 'religious point of view' must be. Buddhism is alone amongst religions in its treatment of the nature of consciousness, which is what I was responding to, and provides a coherent philosophical framework within which NDE's might be interpreted.

Quoting Clearbury

A new person does not emerge in me every morning....

You're sure about that? We're all constantly changing, day by day, moment by moment. There is continuity, but also change. Many of the cells in your body are renewed regularly. That is one of the fascinating things about the nature of identity.

Quoting Wayfarer

It's a shame you can only see it through your pre-concieved notion of what a 'religious point of view' must be.

It's not a preconceived notion, it's a conclusion arrived at through more than 45 years of study. I was very religious for years.

Reply to Sam26 Fair enough. As I've said many times in this thread, I think research into children with memories of previous lives is corroborative in some ways to NDE reports. Both indicate modes of being beyond physical birth and death.

Reply to Wayfarer Quoting Wayfarer

You're sure about that? We're all constantly changing, day by day, moment by moment. There is continuity, but also change. Many of the cells in your body are renewed regularly. That is one of the fascinating things about the nature of identity.

Yes. As is everyone else. Do you think you die when you go to sleep?

Quoting Clearbury

Yes. As is everyone else. Do you think you die when you go to sleep?

I think that would rather over-dramatize it, although I do recall Alan Watts saying that dying is like going to sleep without waking up the next day.

I'm extremely reticent to speculate about 'the life hereafter', however I have a firm conviction that our life overflows the bounds of physical birth and death, if I could put it that way.

Quoting Wayfarer

Fair enough. As I've said many times in this thread, I think research into children with memories of previous lives is corroborative in some ways to NDE reports. Both indicate modes of being beyond physical birth and death.

There is some evidence that supports previous lives, but I don't know how strong it is because I haven't studied it as closely as NDEs. In terms of numbers, it's not as common as NDEs.

Reply to Sam26 Ian Stevenson, who we have discussed previously in this thread, provided studies of somewhere around 2,700 cases in his two-volume Reincarnation and Biology. However as you will probably understand, his research is not well-regarded by mainstream science, as reincarnation is a scientific and religious taboo in Western culture. He's regarded by many as a crank.

Reply to Wayfarer Ya, I'm familiar with him. I do believe we live other lives based just on what I've learned from NDEs.

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I think Grok 2 mini beta did a great job of answering these questions

@Sam26 - please see the new rules regarding LLM use.

AI

AI LLMs are not to be used to write posts either in full or in part (unless there is some obvious reason to do so, e.g. an LLM discussion thread where use is explicitly declared). Those suspected of breaking this rule will receive a warning and potentially a ban.

AI LLMs may be used to proofread pre-written posts, but if this results in you being suspected of using them to write posts, that is a risk you run. We recommend that you do not use them at all

Failure to comply will result in a warning.

Reply to fdrake :cool: :up:

Reply to fdrake I don't use LLMs to write my posts. I quoted the LLM's answer to a question. Isn't this like quoting a paper or book? Do you want me to delete the posts?

Reply to Sam26

You can leave the posts you've made so far. Almost the entire post is LLM content. Don't make more like that.

It doesn't make any sense to me, but I'll delete them anyway.

Reply to Sam26

:up:

Reply to Sam26 Hey Sam



Looks a very substantial debate on the subject. Consolation prize :party:

Reply to Wayfarer Thanks, I listened to most of it and there's not anything new there. There are many more interesting videos on the topic. I've been listening to Dr. Bernardo Kastrup.

Reply to Sam26 Yes, me too. He's definitely on my current list.

The following videos are among the best NDEs I've recently listened to. They are category 3 NDEs, meaning they are much more detailed and informative than category 1 or 2 NDEs. So, for those of you who have the time, these are worth listening to.

1)

2)

Sam this isn't the place to proselytize NDEs. You've made your arguments and a discussion has been had. Do these add anything new to discuss philosophically?

Can you read the title of the thread? Evidence of consciousness surviving death - that's what the thread has been about. It sure isn't about any religion if that's what you're inferring. The other sense of proselytize is to convert from one belief to another. I guess that's what any argument tries to accomplish, so I'm not sure what your point is.

Actually, you could ask the same question about my Wittgenstein threads.

I have completed the rough draft of my book (ebook), which I'll probably sell on Amazon for $5.99 within the next 90 days. I don't have a confirmed title yet, but I'm working on it. I'll probably post sections of the book in this thread. What makes my book unique is its epistemological foundation.

Reply to Sam26 I hope that, in your book, you take into account the objections raised in this thread. Although I doubt you can overcome these objections, you could perhaps identify the sort of person (his background beliefs) that you believe you can persuade.

Reply to Relativist To be honest, I find the objections in this thread to be very weak, so there's not much to overcome. That said, I do address many of these objections, which are the objections that most people make. They're not new to this thread, that's for sure. I've been studying these objections for between 15 and 20 years, so I've given them their proper attention. My book is different in that it looks at the testimonial evidence from an epistemological angle and demonstrates that although testimonial evidence can be very weak, it can also be very strong.

Quoting Sam26

To be honest, I find the objections in this thread to be very weak, so there's not much to overcome.

When you claim you can overcome the objections, I think this means you didn't find them persuasive. But reflect on the fact that you persuaded no one to come closer to your view that there's a spirtual basis for NDEs (the objections explain why). Some who already believed in an afterlife may have may have gained comfort from your reasoning. So I just suggest specifying your target audience.

Reply to Relativist If you give it some thought, it very seldom happens that you convince people who are entrenched in their beliefs. This is especially true in politics and religion, but it's also true in the sciences. I try to keep up, for e.g., with the latest quantum physics arguments, and even here people are hardened by a particular theory (e.g., string theory vs loop quantum gravity). So, if I use your point, viz., "...reflect on the fact that you persuaded no one to come closer to your view that there's a spirtual basis for NDEs (the objections explain why)." - as something to consider, or as something that reflects poorly on an argument, then many good arguments would fail. It's something to consider (e.g., psychological causes of beliefs), but it's not something that should stand out as a major factor when it comes to good arguments. Arguments stand or fall on their own merits, period.

I'm not a fan of the word "spiritual" because of its religious connotations. I think reality is just more than what our current physics can explain. Although physics, along with other theories of consciousness, will eventually, I believe, move toward consciousness as being the primary driver of physical reality. All of reality swings on the "hinge" of consciousness.

Quoting Sam26

Although physics, along with other theories of consciousness, will eventually, I believe, move toward consciousness as being the primary driver of physical reality. All of reality swings on the "hinge" of consciousness.

This strikes me as relevant to identifying who your argument would and wouldn't appeal to.

Quoting Relativist

This strikes me as relevant to identifying who your argument would and wouldn't appeal to.

Yes, that's true, but beyond that, I'm trying to solve or answer a fundamental problem about consciousness. Is it just limited to the brain? I believe solving or answering this problem is partly epistemological, partly conceptual, and partly empirical.

Reply to Sam26 It's a good question, but I see no strong basis to answer it. Speculative answers are easy, but cannot be well-supported epistemically. It seems to me that people are drawn toward specific answers for personal reasons. That's fine for them, but I'm too pragmatic for that.

Quoting Sam26

All of reality swings on the "hinge" of consciousness.

Might that be on account of the fact that everything we know of reality is disclosed to, by and in consciousness? Not that consciousness is a constituent in an objective sense and indeed we don’t know it as an object of cognition. Which is also why testimony about conscious experience can only ever be anecdotal.

So yes - ‘hinge’ is apt.

Quoting Sam26

My book is different in that it looks at the testimonial evidence from an epistemological angle and demonstrates that although testimonial evidence can be very weak, it can also be very strong.

We rely on testimonial evidence when it's all we have, but its credibility diminishes when no expected corresponding physical evidence emerges. Bigfoot, for example.

If you're trying to establish disembodied consciousness exists, some empirical evidence has to be found at some point. There's none. That we have a phenomenon that avoids all empirical detection offers fairly solid evidence it doesn't exist.

Assuming we're talking about reincarnation, what the claim is, at best, is that memories are inherited. Soul or consciousness transference is religious doctrine. Since we know memories are stored in the brain, and damage to the brain destroys memory in the living, that knowledge leads us to the conclusion that destruction of the brain entirely in death eliminates one's memories.

Quoting Hanover

Since we know memories are stored in the brain, and damage to the brain destroys memory in the living, that knowledge leads us to the conclusion that destruction of the brain entirely in death eliminates one's memories.

As discussed previously in this thread, there are documented cases of children who appear to recall previous lives. Documented in the sense that steps were taken to validate the purported past-life memories by discovering documentary and historical records that corroborate (or disprove) the purported memories. There were many such cases gathered by a Dr Ian Stevenson. Stevenson does not posit a medium through which such memories may be transmitted however, collectively, there is a considerable amount of evidence for the veracity of some of these cases.

Reply to Wayfarer I read the book. You either believe the physically impossible accounts of largely rural children in underdeveloped nations where reincarnation is a mainstream belief or you don't. The better explanation for all their accounts is information leakage and confirmation bias.

It's sort of like how only Christians seem to see Jesus in their cereal bowl.

You can't wave off the crushing criticism that brains house memory, a fact easily proven.

Reply to Hanover :up:
Reply to Hanover :up:

No doubt, given most cogent, critical objections to "disembodied mind", "NDE", "OOBE", "reincarnation" – i.e. substance / body-mind dualism – raised in this thread (& others) remain unaddressed or unrefuted, I suspect @Sam26's upcoming book, in effect, will amount to special pleading that e.g. 'faces we see in clouds are actual faces which also can see us on the ground', etc :sparkle:

Reply to Hanover Reply to 180 Proof

Oh, the old “brain's house memory, it’s proven!” chestnut from @Hanover, and @180 Proof’s special pleading accusation. I love it, and I will deal with these criticisms in the book, but let’s have some fun.

First, critics act like consciousness is all figured out, as if the example given earlier in the thread about Pam Reynolds’ pinpoint recall of a bone saw’s weird shape during a flatlined brain (EEG flat, eyes taped shut, and ears blocked) is just a casual Tuesday for brain function. Sure, normally memory is tied to neurons, but NDEs like hers, verified by surgeons (corroborated), mind you, toss your proven fact into a blender. There are millions of NDE accounts across cultures that are consistent and corroborated, which demonstrate much more than seeing Jesus in a cereal bowl or faces in clouds. Random neural farts don’t produce globally verifiable stories.

Then, of course, there’s @180 Proofs special pleading cry, as if I’m waving a magic wand to exempt NDEs from scrutiny. Puh-lease. I’ve laid out, I don’t know how many times, five rock solid criteria – numbers, variety, consistency, corroboration, and firsthand accounts used for NDEs, which are also used in history, courtrooms, and good detective work. Why you would use these sorry excuses for an argument is beyond me. Moreover, to claim that my argument is fallacious by using special pleading is just evidence that you don't know this fallacy, as if repeating it will make it so.

The quip about “seeing faces in clouds” is cute, but NDEs aren’t cloud art. There’s just too much hard data from cross-cultural studies that put the kibosh on this kind of thinking, and frankly, again, show how much these remarks demonstrate a lack of understanding of what’s actually happening.

I assumed that @Hanover would apply equally to my arguments, so l lumped them together. If not, then disregard @Hanover. By the way, I'm making no claims to support Dr Ian Stevenson's arguments.

Quoting Hanover

You can't wave off the crushing criticism that brains house memory, a fact easily proven.

It's not so clear cut as you believe. The amount of documentary evidence that Stephenson assembled can't simply be waved away, although as he says, the will not to believe it, is just as strong as the will to believe it.

Quoting Hanover

I read the book.

Which book?

Quoting Hanover

It's sort of like how only Christians seem to see Jesus in their cereal bowl.

See report on the case of Imad Elewar. Considerably more detail than in a cereal bowl.

For those of you interested, this is a draft of the opening chapter of my book examining NDEs through rigorous philosophical analysis. The complete draft runs approximately 120 pages and follows a systematic structure: Chapter 2 establishes the epistemological framework that guides the investigation, Chapter 3 presents the central inductive argument for consciousness survival, Chapter 4 responds to major objections and counter-arguments, Chapter 5 explores alternative interpretations and broader implications, and Chapter 6 offers an extended philosophical analysis for readers interested in deeper epistemological ideas. I'm considering adding a seventh chapter, but haven't decided.

The book aims to move beyond typical NDE literature, neither collections of inspiring stories nor reflexive scientific dismissals, toward a methodologically rigorous evaluation of what testimonial evidence can actually tell us about consciousness and survival. By applying established criteria for evaluating testimony, the same standards used in historical research and legal proceedings, we can determine what conclusions the evidence supports and with what degree of confidence.

My title may change.


Beyond The Threshold: What We Know From Near-Death Experiences

Chapter 1: The Preliminaries

A Tale of Varied Interpretations: Why Assumptions Matter

In 1991, Pam Reynolds lay on an operating table at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, undergoing a rare "standstill" procedure to remove a life-threatening aneurysm near her brain stem. Surgeons stopped her heart, lowered her body temperature to 60°F, and drained blood from her brain. She was clinically dead—no measurable brain activity, eyes taped shut, ears plugged with speakers emitting 100-decibel clicks to monitor brain stem function.

Yet Pam later described rising above her body, observing the surgical team with extraordinary precision. She noted the bone saw's peculiar shape—"like an electric toothbrush" with a groove for interchangeable blades. She saw the case containing spare blades. She heard a female voice say, "We have a problem—her arteries are too small," followed by a discussion of trying the other side. She reported being drawn through a tunnel toward a light more brilliant than anything imaginable, yet not painful to perceive. There she encountered deceased relatives, including her grandmother and an uncle she'd known only from photographs. They communicated without words: "It's not your time. You have to go back."

When surgeons later confirmed these details, the unusual design of the Midas Rex bone saw, the unexpected problem with her arteries requiring femoral access from the left side, and the exact words spoken—they faced an epistemological puzzle. Dr. Robert Spetzler, the renowned neurosurgeon who operated, admitted his bewilderment: "I don't have an explanation for it. I don't know how she can quote the conversation, see the instruments—these are things she shouldn't have been able to experience." He confirmed additional details that troubled him: Pam had accurately described the craniotomy drill's unexpected pitch, a high D natural that bothered her musician's ear, and the specific pattern in which they had shaved only the top portion of her head, leaving hair below for cosmetic reasons. "From a scientific perspective," Spetzler concluded, "I have to say, I don't know how to explain it."

Reynolds' case is not isolated. Dr. Eben Alexander, a Harvard-trained neurosurgeon and former skeptic, experienced a vivid NDE in 2008 during a coma from bacterial meningitis, describing a hyper-real realm with verified hospital details that challenge brain-based models. Similar verified accounts include a Dutch patient overhearing conversations during cardiac arrest, a Canadian learning of a distant death, and others describing surgical tools or distant events—all corroborated despite flat EEGs. These cases span ages, cultures, and contexts, suggesting consciousness may function independently of the brain.

Three readers encounter Pam's story. Mark, a neuroscientist, dismisses it immediately: "Anoxia, endorphins, temporal lobe seizures—the dying brain generates complex hallucinations. The surgical details? Lucky guesses or reconstructed memories from pre-operative briefings." Lila, who practices meditation and studies consciousness, sees vindication: "This proves what mystics have always known—consciousness transcends the physical brain. How else could she see and hear with no functioning sensory organs?" Elena, a surgical nurse, occupies an uncertain middle ground. She knows those specific bone saws weren't standard equipment in 1991. She's heard similar accounts from other patients. Yet her medical training resists non-physical explanations.

Three intelligent people examining identical evidence reach incompatible conclusions. Their fundamental assumptions about consciousness, evidence, and reality shape their interpretations before they even begin evaluating facts.

Mark assumes consciousness equals brain activity; therefore, any perception during brain death must be false. His materialism isn't a conclusion from evidence; it's the lens through which he views all evidence. Lila assumes consciousness can exist independently of the brain; therefore, veridical perception during brain death confirms her worldview. Pam's case doesn't prove her dualism; it determines how she interprets it. Elena recognizes that she doesn't know what consciousness is or how it relates to the brain; therefore, she remains genuinely puzzled by evidence that doesn't align with her expectations.

These same invisible assumptions operate throughout our lives. When a jury evaluates eyewitness testimony, they assume memory works like a video camera, despite decades of research showing it's more like a reconstruction. When we accept historical accounts of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, we assume ancient writers recorded events accurately, yet dismiss contemporary accounts of anomalous experiences. When a doctor makes a diagnosis based on symptoms and test results that we cannot interpret ourselves, we trust their professional testimony, yet demand impossible standards of proof for personal accounts that challenge our worldview. In each case, our philosophical assumptions about knowledge, reliability, and possibility determine what evidence we accept or reject before we even begin our evaluation.

This book investigates a deceptively simple question: What can we actually know from testimonial evidence about near-death experiences? Not what we hope, fear, or assume, but what careful philosophical analysis reveals when we examine thousands of such accounts with the same rigor we'd apply to any other domain of human knowledge.

The answer matters. If consciousness can operate independently of the brain, even temporarily, it revolutionizes our understanding of human nature. If NDEs are purely neurological phenomena, they still reveal profound truths about how minds construct meaning in extremis. But we can't even begin this investigation without first examining our tools—the philosophical assumptions that determine what counts as knowledge, evidence, and rational belief.

NDEs Through History: A Timeless Phenomenon

In Book X of Plato's Republic, the warrior Er lay dead on a battlefield for twelve days before awakening to tell an astonishing tale. He had journeyed through the afterlife, witnessed souls ascending through a great chasm in the earth, and beheld a cosmic pillar of light "straighter than a rainbow" that held the universe together. At the center sat the three Fates—Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos—while souls chose their next incarnations based on wisdom gained from past lives. Er watched his companions select their destinies before being sent back to warn the living: our choices echo through eternity.

This account from ancient Greece contains virtually every element modern researchers document in near-death experiences: separation from the body, journey to another realm, encounter with a brilliant light, meeting with supernatural beings, life review with moral implications, and return with transformative knowledge. The parallels are precise enough to unsettle our contemporary assumptions about when and where such experiences occur.

Medieval Europe provides its own remarkable accounts. Hildegard of Bingen, the 12th-century Benedictine abbess, nearly died at age forty-two from an illness that left her bedridden for months. During her crisis, she experienced what she called "the Living Light"—a radiance that pervaded all creation and spoke to her without words. "The light which I see is not located, but yet is more brilliant than the sun," she wrote. "I cannot examine its height, length or breadth, and I name it 'the cloud of the living light.'" Within this light, she encountered angelic beings who revealed cosmic truths about the nature of soul and body. Her experience transformed her from an unknown nun into one of the most influential visionaries of the Middle Ages, producing illuminated manuscripts that still captivate viewers with their attempts to render the ineffable in paint and gold leaf.

The 13th-century Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi reported visions during severe illness of whirling in divine light, encountering boundless love that transcended physical form, shaping his poetry like the Mathnawi: "I died as a mineral and became a plant... and once more I shall die as man, to soar with angels blest." The Tibetan Bardo Thodol (8th century) outlines post-death journeys through Clear Light and deceased encounters. Indigenous traditions add depth: Lakota medicine man Black Elk's childhood vision of ascending to ancestral councils in radiant realms, or Yoruba elders guiding souls in luminous spaces.

What makes our current moment unique isn't the experiences themselves but two revolutionary developments. First, modern resuscitation techniques—CPR, defibrillation, advanced cardiac life support—routinely bring people back from states of clinical death that would have been irreversible throughout human history. A heart attack victim in ancient Athens stayed dead; today, they might return twenty minutes later with stories of the afterlife. Second, we now possess sophisticated tools for collecting and analyzing testimonial evidence on a global scale, allowing cross-cultural comparison impossible in previous eras.

These historical and cultural accounts force us beyond simplistic questions. Rather than asking whether NDEs represent universal truth or cultural construction, we must investigate how universal human experiences inevitably express themselves through available cultural symbols and languages. How do we distinguish the core phenomenon from its cultural clothing? What epistemological tools can separate experience from interpretation, especially when the experience itself transcends ordinary language?

The Shared Patterns of Near-Death Experiences

The historical accounts we've examined suggest consistent patterns across cultures and centuries. When physician Raymond Moody published Life After Life in 1975, he systematically identified fifteen recurring elements in NDE accounts, subsequently corroborated by thousands of cases. Bruce Greyson's NDE Scale, used in academic studies worldwide, identifies consistent elements that appear across thousands of cases: out-of-body experiences with accurate environmental perception, radiant light, and encounters with deceased relatives, corroborated by thousands of accounts.

The out-of-body experience occurs in roughly 75-85% of NDEs according to the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation's analysis of over 4,000 cases. Experiencers don't merely imagine floating; they report specific vantage points—typically above and to the right of their body—and later describe details they seemingly couldn't have known. Like Pam Reynolds observing her skull surgery from above, cardiac arrest patients have accurately reported which medical staff entered or left during resuscitation, what instruments were used, and even conversations in distant hospital corridors. Blind individuals report detailed "visual" perceptions during NDEs, accurately describing operating room layouts, staff clothing, and equipment configurations—all verified by personnel.

Movement through darkness toward light appears in 65-75% of Western accounts. But this isn't ordinary darkness or light. Experiencers struggle for adequate metaphors: "like being drawn through space faster than light," "a tunnel that was alive," "darkness that had texture and depth." The light itself defies physics—described as millions of times brighter than the sun yet not painful to perceive, emanating warmth and what many call "liquid love." Encounters with deceased individuals occur in approximately 70-80% of detailed accounts, but with intriguing specifics. Children under seven sometimes meet grandparents who died before they were born, later identifying them from family photos. Adults occasionally encounter recently deceased friends who reference shared experiences and demonstrate knowledge of events that occurred after their own deaths. In a University of Virginia study, 22% of experiencers met someone during their NDE whose death they couldn't have known about through normal means.

The life review phenomenon, reported in 70-80% of cases, transcends simple memory. Experiencers describe reliving events from multiple perspectives simultaneously—seeing through their own eyes, the eyes of people they affected, even experiencing the extended ripple effects of their actions. One construction worker reported experiencing not just his cruel words to a coworker, but the man going home upset, arguing with his wife, and his children overhearing—a cascade of consequences he'd never imagined.

Perhaps most challenging to materialist explanations is the transformation that follows. University of Connecticut research found that 80-90% of NDErs show permanent positive personality changes: decreased death anxiety, increased compassion, reduced materialism, and enhanced appreciation for life. These aren't subtle shifts—spouses report their partners seem like "completely different people," while experiencers often change careers, relationships, and fundamental values, such as a CEO founding a hospice charity after a heart attack or a nurse shifting to empathy-driven care.

Dr. Bruce Greyson's NDE Scale, used in most academic studies, quantifies these elements scientifically. Scores of 7 or above (out of 32) indicate an NDE, with most experiencers scoring between 15 and 20, facilitating systematic assessment and ensuring that testimonial evidence reflects consistent phenomena rather than random hallucinations or cultural narratives.

Yet these documented patterns generate profound philosophical questions. If NDEs were purely brain-based, why such consistency across ages, cultures, and types of death? Random neural firing should produce random experiences. But if they glimpse objective reality, why any variation at all? The answer likely lies in how we evaluate testimonial evidence—distinguishing raw experience from interpretation, universal elements from cultural expression. This cultural feedback loop—where NDE stories shape beliefs, which in turn shape how new experiences are reported—complicates our evaluation. Philosophy offers tools to separate evidence from expectation.

The remarkable consistency of these NDE patterns, mirroring how everyday testimonials converge to shape our sense of reality, suggests these experiences may reflect something more than random hallucinations. Just as multiple witnesses to a car accident or consistent historical accounts of an event like Julius Caesar’s Rubicon crossing help us reconstruct what happened, the uniformity of NDE reports across ages, cultures, and beliefs invites us to consider their potential as glimpses of an objective phenomenon. Yet, determining whether this consistency points to veridical experiences requires rigorous evaluation, using the same epistemological tools we apply to other domains of knowledge. We’ll explore these tools in the chapters ahead, ensuring a fair and systematic inquiry into what NDEs reveal about consciousness.

Common Misconceptions About NDEs

Before delving further, it's worth addressing some common misconceptions that often cloud discussions of NDEs, as these highlight how worldviews can predetermine conclusions. One frequent dismissal is that NDEs are merely hallucinations triggered by a dying brain, akin to dreams or drug-induced visions. While it's true that oxygen deprivation or neural surges can produce vivid imagery, this explanation falters against veridical elements, such as specific, corroborated details like Pam Reynolds' accurate description of surgical tools she couldn't have seen. If these were random hallucinations, why are there consistent patterns across individuals, and why do they include information verifiable by third parties? This misconception often stems from assuming consciousness is strictly brain-bound, a premise that begs the question rather than engaging the evidence.

Another myth is that NDEs are purely cultural constructs, shaped by religious upbringing or media exposure. Skeptics point to variations, such as hellish interpretations in some Christian accounts, as proof of subjectivity. Yet, the core features (out-of-body travel, radiant light, life reviews) persist across cultures with no shared media influence, from isolated indigenous groups to atheists expecting oblivion. Children too young for cultural conditioning report similar elements, such as meeting deceased relatives they never knew existed, later identified from family photos. This suggests a universal human experience filtered through cultural lenses, not invented by them.

A third misconception is that NDEs lack scientific credibility because they can't be replicated in labs. But testimonial evidence underpins much of our knowledge—eyewitness accounts in history, patient reports in medicine, or even quantum observations relying on researcher testimony. Demanding lab proof for NDEs applies a double standard; we'd dismiss much of history (like the signing of the Magna Carta) if held to the same criterion. Instead, the volume and consistency of reports warrant serious inquiry, much like how epidemiology studies patterns in patient testimonies without recreating diseases.

These misconceptions reveal selective skepticism: we trust testimony in everyday domains but raise the bar for paradigm-challenging claims. Recognizing this bias is crucial for neutral evaluation, as it prevents preconceptions from overshadowing the evidence we'll explore in depth later.

Philosophy as the Foundation of Inquiry

This book offers a different approach to near-death experiences. You won't find dozens of new NDE testimonies here—there are already plenty of books that provide those. Nor will you find attempts to explain away these experiences through brain chemistry or oxygen deprivation—that ground has been well-covered. Instead, you'll find a systematic examination of how we evaluate testimonial evidence and what we can legitimately conclude when we apply rigorous standards to the thousands of NDE reports already available.

Most NDE books fall into predictable categories: collections of amazing stories meant to inspire, medical attempts to explain them away, or religious interpretations that assume their truth. Each approach has value but also built-in limitations. Story collections move us, but don't help us evaluate reliability. Medical explanations often assume what they need to prove, that consciousness equals brain activity. Religious interpretations typically select evidence that confirms predetermined beliefs.

What's missing is a genuinely neutral investigation, one that neither assumes NDEs are glimpses of the afterlife nor dismisses them as dying brain phenomena. This requires examining the testimonial evidence with the same rigor we'd apply to any important knowledge claim, whether in science, law, or history. It means developing clear criteria for when testimony provides genuine knowledge versus mere anecdote.

The philosophical tools for this investigation already exist. Epistemologists have spent decades analyzing when and why testimony works as a source of knowledge. Philosophers of mind have developed sophisticated frameworks for understanding consciousness that go beyond simple brain-equals-mind equations. Logicians have created methods for evaluating evidence that avoid common fallacies of both believers and skeptics.

Many people mistakenly believe that if science hasn't confirmed something, we cannot claim to know it. This assumption, sometimes called scientism, is itself a philosophical position that needs justification. Science relies on the same testimonial evidence, logical inference, and sensory experience we use in everyday life; it simply applies these tools more rigorously. Our deepest convictions about meaning, morality, and relationships transcend purely empirical methods. When we approach NDEs with rigorous philosophical analysis, we're using the best available methods to evaluate questions that purely empirical approaches cannot resolve alone.

This book applies these tools systematically to NDE testimony for the first time. We'll establish what makes some testimonial evidence stronger than others, and why Pam Reynolds' case carries more weight than vague memories of light. We'll examine what can and cannot be concluded from patterns across thousands of accounts.


The Power and Limits of Testimony

There are at least five primary paths to knowledge (justified true belief): linguistic training (learning what words mean), pure reason (mathematical and logical truths), sensory experience, testimony from others, and inference through argument (logic). Each represents a legitimate route to understanding, yet testimony, despite being socially essential, is often undervalued when it challenges our worldview.

Consider what you know through testimony alone: that you were born on a certain date, that Antarctica exists, that DNA carries genetic information. You've likely never verified these claims independently, yet you'd be thought foolish to doubt them. We generally trust the testimony of historians about ancient Rome, physicists about quantum mechanics, and doctors about our internal organs, none of which we can directly observe.

Yet when someone reports a near-death experience, many suddenly demand standards of proof they apply nowhere else. This selective skepticism reveals more about our philosophical commitments than about the reliability of testimony itself. A neuroscientist who accepts colleagues' reports about brain scans may reject patient reports about consciousness during cardiac arrest, not because one form of testimony is inherently superior, but because one challenges their worldview while the other confirms it.

The fundamental issue isn't whether NDE testimonies are true or false, but whether we're applying consistent standards. If we accept testimony about the age of the universe (13.8 billion years) or the existence of black holes, both beyond direct verification, why not testimony about experiences during clinical death? The answer lies not in the testimony itself but in our prior assumptions about what's possible. This doesn't mean all testimony is equal. Courts have developed sophisticated methods for evaluating witness reliability, historians have criteria for assessing ancient sources, and scientists have peer review. What we need are similarly rigorous standards for evaluating NDE testimony, standards that neither dismiss these claims reflexively nor accept them uncritically.

Why This Matters Now: The Stakes of the Investigation

The possibility that consciousness persists beyond bodily death carries profound implications for how we understand identity, ethics, and the nature of existence. If NDEs indicate an independent consciousness, they challenge fundamental assumptions about human nature, demanding a reevaluation of how we approach life, death, and societal values. Medically, NDE research suggests that awareness may persist during clinical death, prompting significant changes in practice, revising EMS protocols to account for potential consciousness during resuscitation emphasizes respectful treatment of patients. Compassionate care informed by NDE insights notes that patients often report heightened awareness during critical procedures.

Psychologically, NDEs have transformative effects, with 80-90% of experiencers reporting reduced death anxiety, heightened compassion, and altruistic shifts. Take the CEO who, after a heart attack NDE, founded a hospice charity, or the nurse who shifted from routine procedures to empathy-driven care. Such changes hint at untapped psychological potential, challenging therapies that view death anxiety as inevitable.

Religiously, NDEs challenge dogmatic narratives, particularly those centered on eternal punishment. Non-judgmental life reviews and overwhelmingly positive experiences contradict traditional notions of divine judgment, fostering interfaith dialogue around shared themes of compassion.

The Journey Ahead

The testimonies of NDEs present us with a profound challenge. Thousands of people from different cultures, ages, and backgrounds report strikingly similar experiences during clinical death, experiences that shouldn't be possible if consciousness is merely brain activity.

This book will navigate between naive acceptance and dogmatic dismissal, using philosophical tools to evaluate what we can legitimately conclude. We'll examine the epistemology of testimony, analyze the language experiencers use, and we'll apply the same standards we use in science, law, detective work, and history to understand what NDEs reveal about consciousness, existence, and human values.

The question isn't simply whether NDEs are "real, "a term that itself needs philosophical analysis, but what they can teach us about the nature of mind, the limits of current scientific paradigms, and the possibility that consciousness might be more than neurons firing in the dark. By journey's end, you'll have the tools to evaluate not just NDEs but any domain where human testimony provides our primary access to important phenomena.

The investigation begins with a simple recognition: we're all already philosophers, making assumptions about consciousness, knowledge, and reality every day. The choice is whether to examine these assumptions consciously or let them silently determine what we're willing to see. In the pages that follow, we'll make that examination explicit, rigorous, and fair, wherever the evidence may lead.

Excellent stuff.

This sets up a novel enquiry into an odd phenomenon, which even a sceptic such as I might find interesting.

There's a long way to go, but you present an interesting starting point.

Reply to Banno Thank you, Banno. This book has been on my mind for years, but I've finally made real headway. I now have a full rough draft of the eBook completed. I'm approaching the problem of NDEs from an epistemological framework, examining if it's possible to claim knowledge based on the evidence of these phenomena. To properly grasp my point, it's essential to recognize how testimony functions in our daily lives and its crucial role in the justification process.

I remain sceptical. But this is impressive.

Reply to Banno Ya, I understand.

Coming back to this one after a while.

Quoting Sam26

The fundamental issue isn't whether NDE testimonies are true or false, but whether we're applying consistent standards. If we accept testimony about the age of the universe (13.8 billion years) or the existence of black holes, both beyond direct verification, why not testimony about experiences during clinical death?

Because those claims have already passed scientific rigor. Years of research, peer review, and challenges using careful experiments have been cleared to finally be passed down to lay people. You can look up the experiments, the research, the process, and the evidence. You can question the falsifiable conclusions yourself. I see no evidence of testimony not receiving consistent or fair standards in scientific inquiry.

Quoting Sam26

Many people mistakenly believe that if science hasn't confirmed something, we cannot claim to know it.

And many people don't. The problem is that the scientific studies that have been made on this have not found any conclusive evidence of consciousness existing apart from the brain. The problem isn't that science hasn't 'confirmed' it. Its that there's no scientific evidence for consciousness after death that passes muster. Its why science also hasn't confirmed Big Foot or unicorns. That's why you're not going to a scientific forum to publish this, but a philosophy forum. You want to bypass the people who will clearly point out why you are wrong because this is a genuine neuroscientific exploration, not philosophical exploration.

Quoting Sam26

Our deepest convictions about meaning, morality, and relationships transcend purely empirical methods.

That is because we lack empirical alternatives. We do not lack empirical alternatives to explore consciousness surviving brain death. There has been, to my mind, no scientifically peer reviewed experiment that demonstrates consciousness survives after death. Willfully denying empirical evidence is irrational. You can believe someone loves you, but if evidence is found clearly that they tried to murder you, you rationally come to accept they don't in fact love you.

Quoting Sam26

What's missing is a genuinely neutral investigation, one that neither assumes NDEs are glimpses of the afterlife nor dismisses them as dying brain phenomena. This requires examining the testimonial evidence with the same rigor we'd apply to any important knowledge claim, whether in science, law, or history. It means developing clear criteria for when testimony provides genuine knowledge versus mere anecdote.

We already have that. No one doubts that people experience NDEs. They are real to the person experiencing them. That doesn't mean that one's vivid experiences correlate correctly with complete brain death, or that these vivid experiences accurately are an accurate interpretation of reality. We already know that testimonial evidence can be unreliable while conscious, much less unconscious. https://carleton.scholaris.ca/server/api/core/bitstreams/c320ba1c-a9dc-44b9-b161-3052bfba78d3/content

Considering you have not answered many of the criticisms noted about near death experiences, and you're still pushing this thread, I would ask yourself why you're dodging points that need answers and trying to skirt around this. This isn't philosophy. This is an obsession.

Reply to Philosophim You wouldn't know philosophy if it jumped up and bit you.

Quoting Sam26

?Philosophim You wouldn't know philosophy if it jumped up and bit you.

The fact you only responded with an insult should be telling to yourself Sam.

Reply to Sam26 An impressive synopsis, clearly written and well-argued.

Something leaped out at me - my dear other’s family belong to a traditionalist Christian sect, and one of the hymns they sing echoes this passage:

Quoting Sam26

’and beheld a cosmic pillar of light "straighter than a rainbow" that held the universe together.’ (From The Republic)

From the hymn:

Guide me, oh thou great Jehovah: (excerpt)
Open now the crystal fountain
Whence the healing waters flow
Let the fiery, cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through

That phrase ‘crystal fountain’ always struck me as an esoteric reference. Perhaps one of your ‘shared patterns’.

Quoting Sam26

Religiously, NDEs challenge dogmatic narratives, particularly those centered on eternal punishment.

There was one book published about NDE’s by Sam Berchholz, a publisher of Buddhist literature in the US. He underwent an NDE whilst having heart surgery, but his vision of the afterlife was of hell rather than heaven. He wrote about it in an illustrated book, A Guided Tour of Hell (although I’ll acknowledge that I haven’t bought or read it.) The thrust of it seems to be the urgent necessity of overcoming selfishness and greed in this life, as there are many beings in these ‘lower realms’. I thought it might be worth mentioning as an outlier, perhaps. It can’t be all rainbows and sunshine, considering what people get up to in their lives.

Another, more well-known NDA case that might be of interest is A J Ayer, the famous British philosopher and evangelical atheist, known for his rigorous criticisms of religion and metaphysics. Late in life he nearly died as a consequence of choking on some food, and (somewhat incredulously) reported on his own NDE. It seems to have changed his views on materialism, although he remained adamantly atheist. Recounting the story, and also its similarity to a report by a friend, he acknowledged:

[quote=A J Ayer, What I saw when I was Dead; https://www.philosopher.eu/others-writings/a-j-ayer-what-i-saw-when-i-was-dead/] On the face of it, these experiences, on the assumption that the last one was veridical, are rather strong evidence that death does not put an end to consciousness. Does it follow that there is a future life? Not necessarily. The trouble is that there are different criteria for being dead, which are indeed logically compatible but may not always be satisfied together.[/quote]

It did at least plant the seed of doubt in his confident physicalism.

Anyway - admire your persistence with this work.

Reply to Wayfarer Thanks, but that was just the 'Preliminary' material, i.e., the setup for the book. The actual argument is in chapter 3.

About 10% of NDEs are negative, and of the negative reports, only a small portion of those are hell-like. However, what I've noticed is that there are no warnings given to people that they're in danger of going to hell, which I find interesting. It's interesting because one might think that if they were in danger of hell, people on the other side would warn them, but this never occurs. They may interpret things they see as hell, but that doesn't mean there is a hell like Christians envision. As far as I can tell, there are no demons, no Satan, and no eternal punishment. I would say that no religion has a correct view of the afterlife.

It's also true that about 10% or higher of the reports on NDEs are fake. Some really famous NDE stories probably aren't true. I'm not saying A.J. Ayer's story isn't true; I'm just saying that people, especially on YouTube, create these stories to get clicks. I've studied over 5,000 NDEs, so I generally know when to be skeptical.

Thanks for the compliment.

Quoting Philosophim

This isn't philosophy. This is an obsession.

I replied the way I did because of comments like the one I quoted above. I guess anyone who studies a subject for 20, 30, or 40 years could be called obsessive.

If you believe X, and you argue for a particular conclusion, then you're doing philosophy. It may be bad philosophy, but it's still philosophy. It doesn't matter what the subject matter is. It could be about chess, politics, ethics, mathematics, quantum theory, or Bigfoot; all of it involves philosophy to one degree or another. Even theology has a certain amount of philosophy connected with it. So, I'm not sure where you get your definition of philosophy, but to say I'm not doing philosophy tells me you don't understand what philosophy is.

The idea that NDEs behave as a sixth sense is actually in conflict with the idea that NDEs are evidence of Cartesian dualism; for how are the experiences of a disembodied consciousness supposed to be transferred to the physical body as is necessary for the wakeful patient to remember and verbally report his NDE?

Suppose NDE's amount to a sixth sense: then either NDEs are non-physical events associated with a disembodied conscousness, in which case NDEs cannot be remembered by a physical human being - by definition of "physical" being causally closed, else NDE's are the product of a physical sixth sense of a non-visible but physically extended body, in which case consciousness wasn't physically disembodied after all during the NDE, ergo NDEs aren't proof of consciousness surviving physical death with respect to the extended concept of the physical body that includes the NDE.

Quoting Sam26

I replied the way I did because of comments like the one I quoted above.

And what about the other points?

Quoting Sam26

If you believe X, and you argue for a particular conclusion, then you're doing philosophy.

Not at all. When two people argue whether Gandalf the grey was 6 feet tall or 5 foot 11, they are not doing philosophy. Philosophy is 'the love of wisdom'. It is about using logic, not merely belief, to construct an outlook that is based brick by brick on the premises before it. Good philosophy does not avoid the knowledge of the day, and encourages testing and challenging its ideas where possible. It is not stubborn, but flexible.

My issue Sam is not your insistence that NDEs mean the brain survives death. You can believe that if you want. That's called faith, and I have nothing against faith as long as it doesn't assert that because you feel strongly about it, it makes it real. I find it fun to talk about plausible outcomes like time travel, immortality of the soul, and all manner of fiction. But I don't forget that's what they are. I don't insist because it would be cool, make me feel awesome, or just be great that it means they're real.

The problem is you are trying to insist that they are real, and ignoring the counterpoints that show they are not. I wouldn't mind if you were trying to address the counter points, setting up new experiments, or finding new information that no one knew. But you're not. You're avoiding the real evidence that blows a hole through your claim to rest on the emotional side that makes you feel good. Since we can't scientifically measure subjective experience, you're leaning on that as if it somehow provides an answer to the failed objective tests. It won't.

I was in religion for years Sam. I know its patterns, what its like, and its draw. I know the emotions behind believing in something that isn't real, like God. But its not real. Its just group think based on emotions that make us feel great things about ourselves and the world. I'm here to tell you, you can have all of that without faith. When you start looking at the absolute wonder that the world is, without the need of some 'unknown' spirits or Gods, its still a marvel that anything exists at all. You don't lose anything by giving up crusades to prove that which isn't real, you have what you had before and actually apply it to real issues instead.

My language may not convey it, but I am an intensely curious person, quick to laugh at the lighter side of life, charitable, and admire the beauty of nature. I have everything you have emotionally without having to lie to myself or try to prove that which is already known not to be. There's so much to explore and think about out there Sam. You have passion, that will transfer to something meaningful. Maybe you'll volunteer for charity to ensure that people who do live, have a nicer time on this planet. Maybe you'll get deeper into neuroscience. Teach the kids around you wisdom to better handle life. So many more ways to spend your talents and efforts then on something which you simply want to prove but cannot.

Reply to Philosophim :100:

Reply to Philosophim :up: :up:

@Sam26

Quoting sime

The idea that NDEs behave as a sixth sense is actually in conflict with the idea that NDEs are evidence of Cartesian dualism; for how are the experiences of a disembodied consciousness supposed to be transferred to the physical body as is necessary for the wakeful patient to remember and verbally report his NDE?

That’s a valid question—but perhaps what’s really at stake is our concept of what counts as “physical” and how information is encoded and retrieved in living systems. Even in animals, we find forms of memory and orientation that are difficult to explain within current neurobiological or straightforwardly genetic models. Take, for example, pond eels in suburban Sydney that migrate thousands of kilometers to spawn near New Caledonia—crossing man-made obstacles like golf courses along ancestral routes. After years in the open ocean, their offspring return to the very same suburban ponds (ref). It’s hard to see how this kind of precise memory is passed on physically, and yet it plainly occurs.

Even more dramatically, the research of psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, though often met with skepticism, presents another challenge. Over several decades, he documented more than 2,500 cases of young children recalling specific details of previous lives with the details being validated against extensive documentary evidence and witness testimony. Often what they said was well beyond what the children could plausibly have learned by ordinary means and conveyed knowledge of people and events that they could only have learned about from experience. Stevenson was cautious in drawing conclusions - he never claimed that his research proved that reincarnation occured, but that these cases showed features suggestive of memory transfer beyond what conventional physical mechanisms could explain.

Both examples—the eels and the children—don’t necessarily prove anything metaphysical, but they do suggest that our current physicalist assumptions may be too narrow. Near-death experiences might be pointing in the same direction: not toward disembodiment in a Cartesian sense, but toward a broader view of mind and memory that isn't strictly brain-bound.

Quoting Wayfarer

That’s a valid question—but perhaps what’s really at stake is our concept of what counts as “physical” and how information is encoded and retrieved in living systems. Even in animals, we find forms of memory and orientation that are difficult to explain within current neurobiological or straightforwardly genetic models. Take, for example, pond eels in suburban Sydney that migrate thousands of kilometers to spawn near New Caledonia—crossing man-made obstacles like golf courses along ancestral routes. After years in the open ocean, their offspring return to the very same suburban ponds (ref). It’s hard to see how this kind of precise memory is passed on physically, and yet it plainly occurs.

The mechanics of cognitive externalism are generally considered to be physical, as when resorting to a calculator to do arithmetic or when a robot is programmed to navigate using landmarks. Cognitive externalism is a good counterargument for rejecting the conception of intelligence as an attribute of closed and isolated systems, but it further undermines the paranormal significance of testimonies in the present context.

By definition, physical concepts are causally-closed and intersubjective.

Quoting Wayfarer

Even more dramatically, the research of psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, though often met with skepticism, presents another challenge. Over several decades, he documented more than 2,500 cases of young children recalling specific details of previous lives with the details being validated against extensive documentary evidence and witness testimony. Often what they said was well beyond what the children could plausibly have learned by ordinary means and conveyed knowledge of people and events that they could only have learned about from experience. Stevenson was cautious in drawing conclusions - he never claimed that his research proved that reincarnation occured, but that these cases showed features suggestive of memory transfer beyond what conventional physical mechanisms could explain.

Similar logical problems ensure. For example, I cannot remember what I ate for breakfast on this very day last year, and yet this doesn't seem to matter with regards to anyone's identification of me as being the "same" person from last year up to the present. In fact i suspect that self- identitication over time is as much a product of amnesia as it is of memory recall, and that identification over time is more a case of redefining definitional criteria for personhood, as opposed to applying a priori definitional criteria.

Memories are cognitive processes in, and of, the present; yesterday's newpaper isn't evidence that we occupy a block universe, namely the silly idea that persists in physics of an archive that stores an inaccessible copy of yesterday. So why should memories be considered to be a necessary or sufficient condition for identifying personhood across lives, if memories aren't literally past referring and if they are in any case inessential for reidentification within a life?

Quoting sime

The mechanics of cognitive externalism are generally considered to be physical

That’s true if one assumes from the outset that “the physical” is by definition causally closed and fully intersubjective. But that’s precisely the point at issue. To say that cognitive externalism operates—as in your example of a robot using landmarks—is to presume a mechanistic model where all cognitive content is traceable to physical causation. Yet the eels returning to ancestral ponds doesn’t conform neatly to that model as it suggests information persistence and access without clear causal pathways, at least not in the standard physicalist sense. But then, I suppose the definition of physical can be adjusted to suit such anomalies. It’s one of the attributes which gives it such persistence.

Quoting sime

I cannot remember what I ate for breakfast on this very day last year, and yet this doesn't seem to matter with regards to anyone's identification of me as being the "same" person from last year up to the present.

t’s not a question of personal identity. The issue isn’t whether episodic memory is necessary for self-continuity, but whether our current conceptual framework is adequate to accommodate the kinds of anomalous phenomena reported in NDEs—particularly veridical perceptions occurring during states of minimal or absent brain activity. Even if we remain agnostic about interpretation, such cases are at least analogically suggestive of cognitive processes that are not easily reducible to brain function alone.

Quoting Wayfarer

An impressive synopsis, clearly written and well-argued.

That's the rough draft of the first chapter of my book. It's not an argument. In chapter 3, I'll make the inductive argument. In chapter 2, I set up the epistemology. In chapter 4, I'll take on the critics. I find most of the criticisms rather weak, so it won't be difficult. Thanks for your response and the kind words.

I don't spend much time responding because I'm trying to finish my book. I'll post here and there, but that's about it. I'll probably post on how the epistemology works within the scope of NDEs. The problem with most of the critics in this forum is that their epistemology is too narrow. My epistemology is a JTB model, but with a Wittgensteinian twist, so it's not a traditional JTB route. It incorporates Wittgenstein's language games (e.g., the language games of justification), his hinge propositions, and other related ideas.

For those of you who haven't read it already, some of my epistemology can be seen in my recent paper: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/995416

I would add that the ultimate hinge is love.

Quoting Sam26

the inductive argument.

Hume? Keynes? Popper? ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction#Formulation_of_the_problem

Reply to 180 Proof Just read any good logic book, and it will explain inductive reasoning. There are weak inductive arguments and strong inductive arguments depending on the amount of data or evidence. I explained this early in my thread. Most of science is based on inductive reasoning. The conclusions are probabilistic, unlike deductive arguments, where the conclusion follows necessarily if it's sound. Most of our everyday reasoning is inductive. All of the reasoning against my argument is inductive.

Reply to 180 Proof At the end of chapter 3 of my book, I give the following inductive argument with premises and a conclusion. Chapter 3 has much more depth to it than I'm giving here. This argument may be revised.

Logical Summary:

The Inductive Argument for Consciousness Survival

Based on the systematic analysis presented in this chapter, the central argument can be formulated as follows:

Core Premises:

P1: Extensive Testimonial Database - Millions of individuals across documented medical settings report near-death experiences involving conscious awareness during verified clinical death (estimated 400-800 million cases globally, with over 4,000 detailed firsthand accounts in academic databases).

P2: Universal Demographic Distribution - These reports occur uniformly across all variables that might indicate bias: age (including pre-verbal children), culture (Western, Indigenous, Asian, African), prior beliefs (including committed atheists), education level, and sensory capability (including congenitally blind individuals).

P3: Invariant Core Phenomenology - Despite demographic diversity, reports converge on identical structural elements: accurate out-of-body environmental perception, directed movement toward luminous phenomena, encounters with deceased individuals, comprehensive life reviews, and consistent psychological transformation patterns.

P4: Objective Verification Protocol - A substantial subset of cases includes independently corroborated details: specific medical equipment described accurately, verbatim conversations recorded by witnesses, precise environmental observations confirmed by multiple sources, and encounters with deceased individuals whose deaths were unknown to the experiencer.

P5: Optimal Testimonial Conditions - Reports satisfy established criteria for reliable testimony: immediate temporal proximity to events, firsthand rather than hearsay accounts, credible sources without apparent ulterior motives, and systematic documentation by medical professionals and researchers.

Methodological Foundation:

These premises satisfy the five classical criteria for strong inductive arguments:

• Numerical Sufficiency: Evidence volume exceeds standards applied to accepted historical and scientific conclusions
• Source Diversity: Universal distribution eliminates explanations based on cultural conditioning, selection bias, or demographic limitations
• Phenomenological Consistency: Identical core features across diverse populations indicate encounters with objective rather than subjective phenomena
• Independent Corroboration: Objective verification transforms subjective reports into testimonial evidence meeting legal and scientific standards
• Testimonial Reliability: Evidence meets or exceeds standards applied in historical research, legal proceedings, and scientific peer review

Logical Inference:

When testimonial evidence satisfies these methodological criteria across millions of cases with consistent objective corroboration, the most parsimonious explanation is that the reported phenomena correspond to objective reality rather than representing systematic delusion, cultural construction, or neurological artifact.

Alternative explanations (hallucination, cultural conditioning, false memory formation) fail to account for the evidence's specific features: objective corroboration during documented unconsciousness, consistency across belief systems and cultures, and enhanced rather than diminished consciousness during compromised brain states.

Conclusion:

Therefore, consciousness demonstrably persists beyond the death of the physical body, constituting strong inductive evidence that some form of awareness survives bodily death.

Evidential Status:

This conclusion achieves the same epistemic standing as well-established historical facts and scientific theories that rest on inductive reasoning from testimonial evidence. While inductive conclusions remain probabilistic rather than absolutely certain, the convergent evidence from millions of independently corroborated cases justifies rational confidence that consciousness survival beyond bodily death represents an objective phenomenon requiring serious theoretical accommodation rather than dismissive explanation.

The argument's strength derives not from any single case but from the systematic convergence of extensive, diverse, and independently verified testimonial evidence that meets established standards for reliable knowledge formation.

@Sam26, I also find NDEs fascinating and I am interested in your research.
Quick question... NDE reports show a remarkable convergence of 'themes' and descriptions among people of different cultures, life experiences and so on.
It seems to me, however, that there is no evidence that two NDEs can be exactly the same. That is, they can be very similar and this is quite interesting. But IMO from the accounts I have read, the reports show differences that can't be explained only by referring to their different cultural backgrounds. So, I would say this might raise skepticism for taking these reports literally as in the case of, say, two people that travel to the same city and then give you the account of that journey. A guess that my question is: do we have sufficient evidence that these experience give us 'faithful' descriptions of the same 'reality' and not dscriptions of similar yet ultimately different 'realities'? This doesn't seem to be a point that is addressed with sufficiently depth in other works on the topic I read.

Of course, this doesn't necessarily imply that NDEs are completely non-veridical and cannot serve as reliable testimonary evidences. Still, I wonder in your view how these subtle differences are to explained.

Quoting boundless

It seems to me, however, that there is no evidence that two NDEs can be exactly the same. That is, they can be very similar and this is quite interesting. But IMO from the accounts I have read, the reports show differences that can't be explained only by referring to their different cultural backgrounds.

No two experiences, whether NDEs or everyday perceptions, are ever exactly identical, even among people sharing the same event in the same moment. Even witnesses at a car accident: Their accounts vary based on vantage point, attention, emotions, and memory, yet the core facts often align. This subjectivity is a hallmark of human consciousness, and it applies powerfully to NDEs. Research consistently shows that while NDEs share striking similarities (suggesting a possible universal mechanism), individual differences go beyond cultural backgrounds, influenced by personal psychology, expectations, neurobiology, and worldviews.

A 2024 Taylor & Francis review of NDEs across cultures and history found high similarity in features like out-of-body experiences (OBEs), encounters with light or beings, life reviews, and feelings of peace, appearing in approximately 60-80% of global reports. These similarities hold even when controlling for cultural expectations (e.g., Westerners might see Jesus, while Easterners describe Yama, but the "being of light" archetype persists). This is not unusual; it happens in our everyday experiences, too.

Reply to PhilosophimYour critique of my work reflects a surprisingly limited and elitist perspective on philosophy, misrepresenting both this discussion and the epistemological depth of this thread and my upcoming book, while also restricting a field that should be accessible to all. You say philosophy is solely “the love of wisdom” built on logic, dismissing belief-based arguments as mere fiction or faith. That’s not just a misreading of my project, it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of philosophy itself, reducing philosophy to a sterile caricature. Let me show how your definition excludes the very essence of philosophical inquiry and ignores its broad, inclusive nature, which this thread and my book on NDEs embrace through a disciplined, evidence-based framework.

First, your assertion that arguing from belief isn’t philosophy, likening my NDE work to debating Gandalf’s height, is absurdly reductive. Philosophy isn’t an ivory-tower club for logic-chopping purists; it’s the systematic exploration of life’s big questions, engaged by everyone from Socrates to the average person pursuing meaning in a coffee shop. As I argue in my book, epistemology, a core branch, is precisely about how we form and justify beliefs, whether about black holes, morality, or NDEs. Your example of Gandalf is a false analogy; it’s fiction, while NDE testimonies involve real people reporting verifiable experiences, like accurate surgical details during flatlined EEGs, documented in peer-reviewed studies (e.g., 2024 ScienceDirect on consciousness continuity). To claim this isn’t philosophy because it starts with belief (all knowledge starts with belief, then moves to being justified and true) is to dismiss the entire field of epistemology, from Plato onward. Ever heard of Descartes? His meditations began with personal belief in a deceiving god, hardly “brick-by-brick” logic, yet undeniably philosophy.

You sneer that my work is “faith” or “religion,” not philosophy, because I explore consciousness survival. That’s not just a personal jab, it’s a philosophical embarrassment. Philosophy has always tackled the speculative: Leibniz on possible worlds, Kant on noumena, even Chalmers on the hard problem of consciousness. Dismissing this as non-philosophical because it’s not yet “proven” ignores how philosophy engages open questions. Ever read Hume? He argued we can’t know causation, yet we philosophize about it daily. Everyone, yes, everyone, philosophizes when they question what they know, from kids asking “why” to scientists debating dark matter. Your gatekeeping excludes this universal human practice.

Your claim that I’m “avoiding evidence” and leaning on subjective experience is laughable. My book and this thread confront counterpoints head-on. Philosophy’s job isn’t to wait for science’s final verdict; it’s to build frameworks for what’s knowable now, which I do by integrating testimony, sensory experience, and logic. You’d see this if your view of philosophy wasn’t so myopically based.

Finally, your patronizing advice to “apply my passion” elsewhere, charity, neuroscience, teaching kids, reveals your contempt for philosophical inquiry into the profound. Questioning consciousness survival isn’t a distraction; it’s a core issue in metaphysics and epistemology, with implications for ethics and existence. A 2024 Taylor & Francis review shows NDEs’ cross-cultural consistency, suggesting a universal phenomenon worth exploring. If you think philosophy should only chase “real issues,” you’re not loving wisdom; you’re stifling it. Everyone philosophizes when they grapple with reality’s edges, from NDErs to skeptics like you. My book and this thread invite that universal engagement, rigorously and openly. Step up and do philosophy, not your blinkered dogma about what counts as philosophy.

Instead of pretending to understand philosophy, how about learning some philosophy? I don't think you understand basic logic.

Quoting Sam26

P1: Extensive Testimonial Database - Millions of individuals across documented medical settings report near-death experiences involving conscious awareness during verified clinical death (estimated 400-800 million cases globally, with over 4,000 detailed firsthand accounts in academic databases).

• Evidence of those "millions of individuals"?

• "Estimated 400-800 million cases" how and by whom?

• "Over 4,000" is a three-five orders of magnitude smaller sample than the alleged "millions" and consists of highly unreliable¹ "first hand accounts" instead of objective corroboration by controlled experiments – what about scientific evidence?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyewitness_testimony#Reliability [1]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0065260108004012 [1]

For me, until the questions above are satisfactorily addressed, the first premise (P1) is, at best, incoherent and, therefore, your inductive argument is [s]not sound[/s] very weak (i.e. not credible).

P4: Objective Verification Protocol - A substantial subset of cases includes independently corroborated details ...

• Lacking controlled experiments?

For me, the fourth premise (P4) is incoherent and, therefore, your inductive argument is [s]not sound[/s] very weak (i.e. not credible).

P5: Optimal Testimonial Conditions - Reports satisfy established criteria for reliable testimony: immediate temporal proximity to events, firsthand rather than hearsay accounts, credible sources without apparent ulterior motives, and systematic documentation by medical professionals and researchers.

Nonsense ... (see both links below P1).

Quoting Sam26

@Philosophim Your critique of my work reflects a surprisingly limited and elitist perspective on philosophy, misrepresenting ...

You're projecting again, Sam.

Reply to 180 Proof I'm not sure what it would mean for an inductive argument to be sound. Strong or weak, yes. Soundness and validity are properties of deductive arguments.

Reply to 180 Proof You want me to argue with you, but you don't understand basic logic. Moreover, you don't take the time to carefully read the thread or do basic research. Ya, right, "I'm projecting."

Quoting Sam26

Ya, right, "I'm projecting."

:up:

Reply to bert1 Yes, I forgot ...

Quoting Sam26

Your critique of my work reflects a surprisingly limited and elitist perspective on philosophy

No, just your work.

Quoting Sam26

You say philosophy is solely “the love of wisdom” built on logic, dismissing belief-based arguments as mere fiction or faith. That’s not just a misreading of my project, it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of philosophy itself

No, I'm pretty sure that's actual philosophy. Philosophy is not just an opinion. Its a discussion of logical foundations. You do not have logical foundations.

Quoting Sam26

First, your assertion that arguing from belief isn’t philosophy, likening my NDE work to debating Gandalf’s height, is absurdly reductive.

No, arguing merely from belief is not philosophy. That's religion. And no, I am not likening all of your work to Gandalf's height, I'm noting that many of your core premises to NDEs being viable outside of people experiencing them is illogical. You believing in something strongly does not make it true. You have to really be logical and rational to do philosophy. You are dismissing all the science and tests on NDEs that demonstrate the first person experiences of testimony do not align with the objective reality of what occurred. You are trying to wrap your belief system in philosophy because science will not legitimize it. Philosophy will not either.

Quoting Sam26

Philosophy isn’t an ivory-tower club for logic-chopping purists; it’s the systematic exploration of life’s big questions, engaged by everyone from Socrates to the average person pursuing meaning in a coffee shop.

Correct. But all of them use logic and reason.

Quoting Sam26

As I argue in my book, epistemology, a core branch, is precisely about how we form and justify beliefs, whether about black holes, morality, or NDEs.

No, epistemology is the study of knowledge. Beliefs are studied, but only for the purpose of figuring out what knowledge is.

Quoting Sam26

NDE testimonies involve real people reporting verifiable experiences, like accurate surgical details during flatlined EEGs, documented in peer-reviewed studies (e.g., 2024 ScienceDirect on consciousness continuity)

Now that's something we can work with. I couldn't find the article on searching, mind linking it?

Quoting Sam26

You sneer that my work is “faith” or “religion,” not philosophy, because I explore consciousness survival.

Nope. I'm noting you're dismissing serious flaws that have already been pointed out and committing logical fallacies. Your topic is not the issue. If you provided reasonable evidence and arguments for the existence of consciousness outside of brain death, that would be cool! An argument from emotion or desire for it to be true is not a rational argument.

Quoting Sam26

Philosophy has always tackled the speculative: Leibniz on possible worlds, Kant on noumena, even Chalmers on the hard problem of consciousness.

Yes, and they all used logic. And when Liebniz' monads had flaws due to further scientific discovery, no one considered them viable anymore. If you are going to talk about a subject that is in the scientific realm, you better be able to scientifically back it if you are going to come up with some philosophy about it.

Quoting Sam26

Dismissing this as non-philosophical because it’s not yet “proven” ignores how philosophy engages open questions.

No I'm dismissing it because you're ignoring the science that shows NDEs can be simulated outside of near death experiences, and to the date that I had checked in 2023-24, no scientific experiment has ever resulted in reported NDEs accurately reporting on things in the room that they could not personally sense and see with their body.

Quoting Sam26

My book and this thread confront counterpoints head-on.

No you don't. You ran on my last serious post to you.

Quoting Sam26

Finally, your patronizing advice to “apply my passion” elsewhere, charity, neuroscience, teaching kids, reveals your contempt for philosophical inquiry into the profound.

Its personal life advice. Take it as patronizing or not if you want. Listen to it if you want or not. But I see no evidence of you having the capability to meet the challenges of this thread, let alone the challenges of experts in this field.

Quoting Sam26

A 2024 Taylor & Francis review shows NDEs’ cross-cultural consistency, suggesting a universal phenomenon worth exploring.

This adds nothing. Everyone already know NDEs are real and have a wide classificaiton of simiularities on average, but also a significant minority of differences. We explored that back then in one of your citations if you remember.

Quoting Sam26

If you think philosophy should only chase “real issues,” you’re not loving wisdom; you’re stifling it.

No, I'm saying you need to address the issues in science. You're trying to hide your inability to do so in philosophy with the idea that opinions or belief systems are valid. They are not. They are religion and faith. I see no evidence of good science or philosophy here. Just a person obsessed.

Quoting 180 Proof

"Estimated 400-800 million cases" how and by whom?

The 1992 Gallup poll estimated that 5% of Americans had experienced NDEs, suggesting 13-15 million cases in the United States alone. A 2024 Scientific American review, citing studies like Kondziella et al. (2019) across 35 countries, estimates 5-10% global prevalence in the general population, representing potentially 400-800 million cases worldwide amid a 2025 world population of approximately 8.1 billion.

Quoting Sam26

No two experiences, whether NDEs or everyday perceptions, are ever exactly identical, even among people sharing the same event in the same moment. Even witnesses at a car accident: Their accounts vary based on vantage point, attention, emotions, and memory, yet the core facts often align.

Yes, I agree. I was questioning if with NDEs we get the same degree of agreement that we can, confidently, assume that people witness the same 'experience'. But you are right, we can't expect to have perfect agreements between reports in any case.

Quoting Sam26

This subjectivity is a hallmark of human consciousness, and it applies powerfully to NDEs. Research consistently shows that while NDEs share striking similarities (suggesting a possible universal mechanism), individual differences go beyond cultural backgrounds, influenced by personal psychology, expectations, neurobiology, and worldviews.

Can all the differences in the actual experiences be explained by the differences among the subjects?

Quoting Sam26

A 2024 Taylor & Francis review of NDEs across cultures and history found high similarity in features like out-of-body experiences (OBEs), encounters with light or beings, life reviews, and feelings of peace, appearing in approximately 60-80% of global reports. These similarities hold even when controlling for cultural expectations (e.g., Westerners might see Jesus, while Easterners describe Yama, but the "being of light" archetype persists). This is not unusual; it happens in our everyday experiences, too.

Thanks for the reference, I'll try to check it.

To make an example to clarify my point... Let's say that Alice has a peaceful NDE where she has a life review, encounters some luminous spirits in a meadow which seems 'more real than real' and, then, encounters a 'supreme being of light'. The, Bob also reports a peaceful NDE where he gets the life review, encounters some spirits in a meadow that also he describes as 'more real than real' and, then, encounters a 'supreme being of light'. When, however, questioned further, Alice says that her review was also in the perspective of other people but this isn't true in the case of Bob. Also, let's say that you find out differences in the characteristics of the 'meadows' they 'saw'.

To me, even if we assume that they visited a 'realm' of sorts, they clearly had 'visited' different 'places'. It's not just that they identified the 'deity' according to their background but they had different experiences. So, I would not say that they are like two witnesses of a car accident or like two people that give an account of their journey to the same city (in the same time period).

Given these problems, can we consider the testimonies as reliable data to arrive, inductively, at some conclusions about, say, the presence or absence of an immortal soul, the characterstics of the afterlife and so on?

Note that I do not come from an 'a priori skepticism' or anything like that. But generally, I see an agreement about the themes (which of course might well be evidence of something important) but I have doubts that the 'harmonization' of these accounts gives a reliable 'theory' about 'how the afterlife looks like'.

I mean, there's testimony evidence that Bigfoot is real. *shrug* I'll go with Hume's knock on testimony—necessarily the weakest form. So unless you're trying to convince Christians, who already believe that anyways, you're going to have an up a steep mountain fight on your hands.

Reply to Wayfarer Reply to 180 Proof Reply to Philosophim Reply to DifferentiatingEgg The following is a summary of some of what I cover in my book, which by the way is about 95% complete. I'm looking at NDEs from an epistemological standpoint, which hasn't been done in such a robust way.

What do you think of the title: 'The Threshold of Consciousness: Insights from Near-Death Testimonies'

I'll also add chapter 4, which covers the main criticisms of my argument, in my next post. The eBook is about 120 pages. I'll probably be selling it on Amazon for about $4.99.

Epistemology of Testimonial Evidence in NDE Inquiry

The epistemology of testimonial evidence, as developed in The Threshold of Consciousness: Insights from Near-Death Testimonies, provides a rigorous framework for evaluating near-death experience (NDE) accounts as a legitimate source of knowledge about consciousness survival. Grounded in philosophical inquiry, this approach treats testimony as a primary knowledge path, comparable to its use in history, law, and science. With approximately 200-300 million NDE accounts worldwide, the framework underscores testimony's everyday importance and foundational role in human knowledge, revealing profound insights into consciousness and reality.

Defining Knowledge and Testimony

Knowledge is defined as justified true belief, requiring a proposition to be true, believed, and supported by robust evidence (Chapter 2). A fourth dimension, linguistic competence, ensures conceptual understanding through proper word use, critical for interpreting NDE reports. Testimony, one of five knowledge paths (alongside logic, sensory experience, linguistic training, pure logic), involves relying on others’ accounts to access truths beyond direct observation, such as historical events or scientific findings. In NDE research, testimony is central, as firsthand accounts (e.g., out-of-body perceptions, life reviews) provide the primary data for evaluating consciousness survival.

Testimony's Importance in Daily Life

Testimony permeates everyday knowledge, forming the foundation for much of what we accept as true. Consider facts like your birth date, Antarctica's existence, or DNA's role in genetics—you've likely never verified these independently, yet doubting them would be unreasonable. We rely on historians for ancient Rome's events, physicists for quantum mechanics, and doctors for internal bodily functions, none directly observable. Without testimony, our understanding of science, history, art, and morality would be severely limited, confined to personal experience. In NDE evaluation, this everyday reliance on testimony highlights its critical role, as millions of accounts offer insights into consciousness that deserve the same scrutiny as legal or historical reports.

Testimony's Foundational Role in Knowledge

Testimony is indispensable to knowledge itself, enabling access to vast information beyond individual capacity. In science, researchers trust colleagues' experimental reports; in law, juries rely on witnesses; in history, scholars depend on ancient accounts. This social dimension makes testimony a democratic tool, allowing anyone to assess credibility. For NDEs, with 200-300 million reports, testimony provides a robust dataset, evaluated through five criteria: volume (sheer number strengthens credibility), variety (diverse perspectives reduce bias), consistency (majority convergence on core features like radiant light), corroboration (independent verification, e.g., medical staff confirming details), and firsthand accounts (direct reports over hearsay, with trustworthiness assessed). These criteria, drawn from legal and historical practices, transform anecdotes into evidence, supporting conclusions about consciousness survival.

Subjective vs. Objective Elements

NDE testimony includes objective elements (verifiable details like surgical procedures) and subjective elements (e.g., feelings of love, encounters with deceased relatives). Corroborated objective elements, such as a child's verified ER observations, lend credibility to subjective reports, suggesting genuine experiences. Cultural variations affect interpretation (e.g., light as Jesus or ancestors), but core phenomena remain consistent, indicating universal features of consciousness.

Implications

This epistemology establishes NDE testimony as a valid knowledge source, supporting probable consciousness survival and challenging paradigms. It emphasizes testimony's daily importance—without it, knowledge would be isolated—and its foundational role in extending human understanding, fostering open inquiry into consciousness and existence.

The following is chapter 4, but I'll still be tweaking it a bit before I release the book, probably in October. Chapter 4 addresses common criticisms of my argument given in Chapter 3. The chapter is in two parts (next two posts).

Part 1 of Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Addressing Counter-Arguments

Any argument challenging fundamental assumptions about consciousness and survival will inevitably face objections. The systematic evaluation of NDEs that we've conducted represents precisely such a challenge to materialist orthodoxy. Rather than dismissing these objections, rigorous inquiry demands that we examine them carefully and respond with the same methodological standards we've applied to the testimonial evidence itself. The counter-arguments against NDE testimony generally fall into several categories: neurological explanations that attribute the experiences to brain chemistry or oxygen deprivation; methodological objections that question the reliability of testimonial evidence; cultural conditioning arguments that explain NDE consistency through shared beliefs rather than shared reality; and timing arguments that suggest the experiences occur during recovery rather than during clinical death. Each objection deserves careful analysis. Some raise legitimate methodological concerns that can strengthen our evaluation criteria. Others reveal unexamined philosophical assumptions that deserve scrutiny. Still others, when examined closely, actually support rather than undermine the case for veridical perception during clinical death. This chapter applies the same systematic approach we've used throughout: distinguishing strong objections from weak ones, examining the evidence that supports or refutes each challenge, and maintaining appropriate intellectual humility about what our conclusions can and cannot establish. The goal is not to dismiss legitimate concerns but to determine whether they provide sufficient grounds for rejecting the testimonial evidence we've examined.

Section 1: The Hallucination Hypothesis

Perhaps the most common dismissal of near-death experience claims they represent elaborate hallucinations produced by dying brain chemistry, oxygen deprivation, or the release of endorphins or DMT. This explanation appears frequently in popular scientific literature and provides a seemingly straightforward way to account for NDE reports without challenging materialist assumptions about consciousness.

The hallucination hypothesis faces several serious problems when examined systematically. First, we must be clear about what hallucinations are. By definition, hallucinations are sensory perceptions that occur without external stimulus, experiences that exist purely within an individual's mind rather than corresponding to objective reality. Hallucinations are characteristically private, subjective experiences that cannot be corroborated by others present during the same events.
This definitional point proves crucial because it reveals why the hallucination explanation fails to account for the most significant feature of many NDE reports: their objective corroboration by independent witnesses. When NDErs report seeing and hearing specific events during their out-of-body experiences, conversations among medical staff, procedures being performed, and people entering or leaving the room, these claims can be verified or falsified by others who were present.

Consider Pam Reynolds' case from Chapter 1. During her standstill surgery, she reported observing the unusual bone saw ("like an electric toothbrush"), hearing the female surgeon's comment about her arteries being too small, and witnessing the decision to access her femoral artery from the left side. These observations were subsequently confirmed by the surgical team. Dr. Robert Spetzler, her neurosurgeon, acknowledged his bewilderment: "I don't have an explanation for it. I don't know how it's possible for her to quote the conversation, see the instruments, these are things she shouldn't have been able to experience."

If Reynolds were hallucinating, we would not expect such precise correspondence between her subjective experience and objective events witnessed by others. Hallucinations, by their very nature, do not provide accurate information about external reality. The fact that NDErs consistently report verifiable details about events occurring during their unconsciousness suggests we're dealing with perception rather than hallucination.

The consistency problem provides another challenge to the hallucination hypothesis. If NDEs were simply products of individual brain chemistry, we would expect significant variation in their content based on personal psychology, medical history, and specific neurochemical conditions. Instead, research reveals remarkable consistency across different populations, medical circumstances, and cultural contexts.

Dr. Bruce Greyson's NDE Scale, used in academic studies worldwide, identifies consistent elements that appear across thousands of cases: out-of-body experiences with accurate environmental perception, movement through tunnels toward light, encounters with deceased relatives, life reviews, and profound feelings of peace and love. This consistency extends across age groups (including young children with no mature concepts of death), religious backgrounds (including committed atheists), and cultural contexts (including societies with no prior exposure to Western NDE literature).
Random hallucinations produced by dying brain chemistry should generate random content. The fact that we find structured, consistent experiences across diverse populations suggests encounters with phenomena that transcend individual brain states.

The phenomenology of NDEs also distinguishes them from typical hallucinations. NDErs consistently report that their experiences felt "more real than real," hyperreal in ways that distinguish them from dreams, drug-induced states, or psychiatric hallucinations. This enhanced sense of reality persists even when NDErs are familiar with altered states of consciousness and can differentiate between various non-ordinary experiences.

Dr. Eben Alexander, a neuroscientist who experienced an NDE during severe bacterial meningitis, noted that his experience differed qualitatively from any altered state he had studied or experienced: "The level of detail, the clarity, the vividness, it was beyond anything I had encountered in dreams or drug-induced states. It had a quality of absolute reality that was unmistakable."

Perhaps most significantly, the hallucination hypothesis cannot account for veridical perception during periods of documented unconsciousness. Hallucinations do not provide accurate information about distant events, yet NDErs sometimes report observations of activities occurring in other parts of hospitals, conversations among family members miles away, or encounters with deceased individuals whose deaths they couldn't have known about through normal means.

The University of Virginia's study of NDEs found that 22% of experiencers met people during their NDEs whose deaths they couldn't have known about beforehand, information that was only verified after resuscitation. Such cases are incompatible with the hallucination hypothesis, which predicts that subjective experiences should reflect only information already known by the NDErs.


Section 2: Brain-Based Explanations and the Correlation-Causation Problem

More sophisticated objections acknowledge that NDEs represent genuine experiences but argue they can be explained through brain-based mechanisms without requiring consciousness to survive bodily death. These explanations typically invoke correlations between brain states and conscious experiences, arguing that consciousness must be produced by brain activity since changes in the brain consistently affect mental states.

This argument involves a common logical confusion: mistaking correlation for causation. The fact that brain states correlate with conscious experiences doesn't prove that brains generate consciousness any more than correlations between radio components and received programming prove that radios generate the signals they receive.

Consider this analogy carefully. When we examine a radio, we find consistent correlations between its components and the programs we hear. Damage the antenna, and reception suffers. Adjust the tuner, and different stations become available. Replace the speaker, and the audio quality changes. These correlations are real and predictable, yet no one concludes that radios generate the electromagnetic signals they receive.

Similarly, correlations between brain states and conscious experiences might indicate that brains function as receivers or reducers of consciousness rather than generators. This possibility becomes particularly relevant when we examine cases where enhanced consciousness is reported during periods of reduced brain function. The "dying brain" explanation faces a crucial empirical problem: NDEs often involve enhanced rather than diminished consciousness precisely when brain function is most compromised. If consciousness were simply a product of brain activity, we would expect mental clarity to decrease as brain function deteriorates. Instead, NDErs consistently report expanded awareness, enhanced sensory perception, and improved cognitive function during periods when their brains are shutting down.

Pam Reynolds' case again proves instructive. During her standstill procedure, her brain was cooled to 60°F, her heart was stopped, and EEG monitoring showed no brain activity. Yet she reported the most vivid, detailed conscious experience of her life. Similarly, patients during cardiac arrest, when brain function ceases within seconds, often report elaborate, coherent experiences that seem impossible given their neurological state.

Dr. Eben Alexander's case provides another compelling example. During his week-long coma from bacterial meningitis, his neocortex was essentially non-functional, "mush," as he described it based on his brain scans. According to materialist theories, this should have eliminated higher-order consciousness. Instead, Alexander reported the most profound conscious experience of his life, complete with detailed memories that persisted after recovery.

The timing problem poses another challenge for brain-based explanations. Critics sometimes suggest that NDE memories form during brief moments of recovered brain function, either just before clinical death or during resuscitation. This explanation faces several difficulties.
First, many NDErs provide specific temporal markers for their experiences, describing events that occurred at particular times during their unconsciousness. When these reports are compared with medical records, witness testimony, and electronic monitoring, they often correspond to periods of documented brain inactivity.

Dr. Michael Sabom's research compared NDE patients' reports about their resuscitation procedures with the reports of control groups who had not experienced NDEs. When non-NDE patients were asked to imagine what their resuscitation might have looked like, they made significant errors about medical procedures, equipment, and timing. NDE patients, by contrast, provided accurate accounts of actual procedures performed during their unconsciousness.

The enhanced consciousness reported during NDEs also challenges reductive explanations. NDErs don't simply report maintaining normal awareness during clinical death; they describe expanded sensory perception, enhanced cognitive function, and access to information unavailable through ordinary consciousness. The blind report detailed visual experiences. The deaf describe complex auditory phenomena. Individuals with lifelong sensory limitations suddenly have access to perceptual modalities they've never experienced.

These reports suggest that whatever consciousness is, it transcends the limitations typically imposed by brain function and sensory organs. Rather than consciousness being produced by neural activity, the evidence points toward the brain's functioning as filters or reducers that normally constrain a more fundamental conscious capacity.

Section 3: The Scientism Problem

A particularly common objection dismisses NDE testimony as "unscientific" and therefore inadmissible as evidence. This objection reflects a philosophical position known as scientism, the belief that scientific methods provide the only legitimate path to knowledge. While this position appears methodologically rigorous, it involves several problematic assumptions that deserve careful examination. The scientism objection typically proceeds as follows: science has not confirmed consciousness survival, laboratory studies cannot reproduce NDEs under controlled conditions, and testimonial evidence doesn't meet scientific standards for reliability. Therefore, we should dismiss NDE reports as irrelevant to serious inquiry about consciousness and survival. Each element of this argument contains questionable assumptions. First, the demand for scientific confirmation assumes that scientific methods are appropriate for investigating all phenomena. While science excels at studying repeatable, measurable events under controlled conditions, consciousness itself presents the "hard problem" that has resisted scientific solution for decades. We don't understand how subjective experience emerges from objective neural processes, how qualia relate to brain states, or why there's "something it's like" to be conscious rather than nothing at all. If science cannot yet explain ordinary consciousness, why should we expect it to provide definitive answers about consciousness survival? The scientism objection puts the cart before the horse, demanding scientific solutions to problems that may require preliminary philosophical analysis before scientific methods can be effectively applied. Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson's dismissal of NDE testimony illustrates this confusion. In response to questions about near-death experiences, Tyson argued that testimonial evidence represents "one of the weakest ways of gathering evidence" and suggested that relying on witness testimony should make us suspicious of our legal system. He also claimed that "your senses are some of the worst data-taking devices that exist."

These comments highlight a key oversight in how knowledge is acquired. Science itself depends extensively on testimonial evidence. When Tyson accepts colleagues' reports about astronomical observations, he's relying on testimony. When he reads peer-reviewed papers describing experiments he hasn't personally conducted, he's trusting testimonial accounts. The entire scientific enterprise rests on testimonial evidence about experimental results, observational data, and theoretical conclusions.
Moreover, Tyson's dismissal of sensory experience as unreliable undermines the foundation of scientific observation. How do we gather data in scientific experiments if not through our senses? When astronomers observe distant galaxies, when biologists examine cellular structures, and when physicists read instrument displays, all involve sensory experience. The suggestion that our senses are "the worst data-taking devices" would collapse the empirical foundation of science itself.

The real issue isn't whether testimonial evidence and sensory experience are reliable; they must be, or both science and everyday knowledge would be impossible. The issue is developing appropriate criteria for distinguishing reliable from unreliable testimony, which is exactly what our five-criterion framework accomplishes.

The selective application of heightened evidential standards reveals the ideological rather than methodological character of many scientism-based objections. Materialists routinely accept testimonial evidence about brain scans, experimental results, and theoretical conclusions while demanding impossible standards for testimonial evidence about consciousness. They don't require laboratory reproduction of historical events before accepting historical testimony, nor do they dismiss archaeological conclusions because ancient civilizations can't be studied under controlled conditions.
This double standard becomes particularly apparent when examining specific cases. When Dr. Eben Alexander reports his NDE, critics demand extraordinary evidence because his claims challenge materialist assumptions. When the same Dr. Alexander reports his interpretation of brain scans or neurological assessments in his professional capacity, those same critics accept his testimony as a reliable expert witness.

The scientism objection also misunderstands the relationship between scientific and philosophical inquiry. Science and philosophy represent complementary rather than competing approaches to understanding reality. Science excels at investigating measurable, repeatable phenomena; philosophy provides tools for analyzing concepts, examining assumptions, and evaluating arguments based on various types of evidence.

Questions about consciousness and survival involve both empirical and conceptual elements that require both scientific and philosophical analysis. Scientists can monitor brain states during cardiac arrest and document physiological changes. Philosophers can evaluate the logical structure of arguments based on testimonial evidence and clarify conceptual confusions about terms like "real," "consciousness," and "evidence."
Rather than demanding that all questions be answered through scientific methods alone, intellectual honesty requires using the most appropriate tools for each type of inquiry. When we have extensive testimonial evidence about subjective experiences that can be partially corroborated through objective means, the appropriate response is systematic philosophical analysis using established criteria for evaluating testimony, not dismissal based on inappropriate methodological demands.

Section 4: Memory Formation and Timing Objections

Critics often argue that NDE memories form during brief periods of recovered brain function rather than during actual clinical death. This objection suggests that the brain, during the final moments before unconsciousness or the initial moments of recovery, rapidly constructs elaborate false memories that appear to correspond with objective events.

While this explanation initially seems plausible, careful examination reveals several serious problems. The timing objection requires that barely functional neural tissue accomplish something that healthy brains cannot reliably do: construct detailed, coherent false memories that perfectly match independent witness testimony about specific events.

Consider the neurological implausibility of this proposal. Brains recovering from severe trauma or prolonged unconsciousness don't typically exhibit enhanced memory formation capabilities. The suggestion that damaged or barely functional neural tissue could suddenly generate elaborate memories about past events contradicts everything we know about how memory works.
Memory formation requires complex neural processes involving multiple brain regions working in coordination. During cardiac arrest, brain function ceases within seconds. During a severe coma, higher-order cognitive processes shut down. During general anesthesia, memory formation is specifically suppressed. The proposal that such compromised neural states could generate detailed false memories that happen to match objective reality requires assuming capabilities that far exceed what healthy brains can accomplish.

The specificity problem poses another challenge. NDErs don't report vague, dream-like memories that might result from random neural firing. They provide specific, detailed accounts of particular events: exact conversations, precise descriptions of medical procedures, accurate reports of who entered or left the room and when. When these reports are checked against medical records and witness testimony, they often correspond exactly to documented events, that is, they’re objectively corroborated.
Pam Reynolds described the unusual shape of the Midas Rex bone saw, the groove at the top where interchangeable blades fit, the case containing spare blades, and the specific pitch (a high D natural) that bothered her musician's ear. She accurately reported the female surgeon's comment about her arteries being too small and the decision to try femoral access from the left side. These weren't vague impressions but precise technical details that were subsequently confirmed by multiple members of the surgical team.

The false memory explanation requires that Reynolds' barely functional brain somehow constructed detailed false memories about surgical instruments and procedures she had never seen, conversations she hadn't heard, and technical details she didn't possess. This explanation is not merely implausible; it's highly improbable given current neuroscience and what we know about memory formation and brain function during clinical death.

The timing evidence itself contradicts the false memory hypothesis. Many NDErs provide specific temporal markers for their experiences, describing events that occurred at particular times during their unconsciousness. When these temporal claims are examined against medical records, witness testimony, and electronic monitoring, they often correspond to periods of documented brain inactivity.
Dr. Michael Sabom's research compared NDE patients' reports about their resuscitation procedures with the reports of control groups who had not experienced NDEs. When non-NDE patients were asked to imagine what their resuscitation might have looked like, they made significant errors about medical procedures, equipment, and timing. NDE patients, by contrast, provided accurate accounts of actual procedures performed during their unconsciousness.

The corroboration problem presents perhaps the greatest challenge to false memory explanations. These explanations require that multiple independent witnesses systematically lie or misremember when they confirm NDErs' reports. Doctors, nurses, family members, and other observers would all need to be consistently mistaken about the timing of events, the accuracy of reported conversations, and the correspondence between NDE accounts and objective reality.

Consider the logical structure of this explanation: it requires assuming that elaborate false memories, constructed by barely functional brains, consistently happen to match the independent recollections of multiple reliable witnesses. This explanation multiplies improbabilities rather than resolving them.
The delayed formation hypothesis faces additional problems when we examine the quality and persistence of NDE memories. False memories, when they occur, typically exhibit characteristic features: they're often vague, inconsistent, and subject to revision over time. NDE memories exhibit the opposite characteristics: they're typically vivid, consistent, and stable across decades. Research comparing NDE memories with memories of imagined events demonstrates that NDE memories exhibit the characteristics of genuine rather than false memories. They're associated with strong sensory details, emotional significance, and confidence in accuracy, features that distinguish real from imagined experiences.

Section 5: Subconscious Sensory Leakage

Some skeptics propose that veridical NDE details result from subconscious sensory input during clinical death, suggesting faint auditory or visual cues are processed and later reconstructed as out-of-body perceptions. This objection attempts to explain corroborated observations without invoking consciousness survival. However, it fails under our five criteria. The volume of sensory leakage studies is limited, relying on small-scale experiments unlike the millions of NDE accounts (Chapter 3). Its variety is narrow, as it doesn’t address NDEs in blind individuals (e.g., Kenneth Ring’s 1998 research, Chapter 3) or cases with sensory barriers (e.g., Pam Reynolds’ taped eyes/ears, Chapter 4, Section 1). Consistency is lacking, as leakage should produce varied, fragmented perceptions, not the structured NDE patterns (Greyson’s NDE Scale, Chapter 3). Crucially, it lacks objective corroboration, as no empirical evidence shows sensory processing during flat EEGs. Firsthand NDE accounts, verified by medical staff, outweigh this speculative hypothesis, which cannot explain precise details like Reynolds’ bone saw observation.

Part 2 of Chapter 4

Section 6: Cultural Conditioning and Belief System Arguments

Another common objection suggests that NDE consistency results from cultural conditioning rather than encounters with objective reality. According to this argument, people report similar experiences because they've been exposed to similar cultural narratives about death and dying, not because they're perceiving actual phenomena.

This explanation faces immediate problems when examined against the demographic evidence. If NDEs were simply products of cultural conditioning, we would expect significant variation based on religious background, cultural context, and prior exposure to NDE literature. Instead, research reveals consistent core elements across radically different populations.

Young children provide particularly compelling evidence against cultural conditioning explanations. Dr. Melvin Morse's research with pediatric NDE patients found that children as young as three years old report classic NDE elements: out-of-body experiences, tunnels of light, encounters with deceased relatives, and life reviews. These children often lack mature concepts of death and haven't been exposed to cultural narratives about afterlife experiences.

One three-year-old boy, after recovering from a near-drowning incident, accurately described the medical procedures performed during his resuscitation, including specific details about the emergency room equipment and the appearance of medical personnel. He also reported meeting his deceased grandfather, whom he identified from a family photograph only after his NDE. Such cases are difficult to explain through cultural conditioning when the experiencers lack the conceptual framework that conditioning would require.

Cross-cultural research provides another challenge to conditioning explanations. Anthropologist Dorothy Counts found similar NDE elements among Papua New Guinea populations with no prior exposure to Western death literature. Dr. Allan Kellehear's cross-cultural studies documented consistent core features across societies with vastly different religious traditions and death practices.
If cultural conditioning were the primary factor, we would expect NDEs to vary significantly between cultures with different death traditions, Buddhist societies emphasizing reincarnation, Christian societies focusing on judgment and salvation, and secular societies lacking afterlife beliefs altogether. Instead, the research reveals similar core elements across these diverse contexts, suggesting encounters with phenomena that transcend cultural construction.

The religious interpretation problem supports rather than undermines the objectivity of NDE reports. When Christian experiencers interpret beings of light as Jesus, Muslim experiencers see them as religious figures from Islamic tradition, and secular experiencers report them as unknown loving presences, this suggests that cultural conditioning affects interpretation rather than the underlying experience itself.

This pattern indicates that people encounter genuine phenomena but interpret them through available cultural frameworks. A Christian who meets a being of light naturally interprets this encounter through familiar religious categories, just as a physicist encountering an unfamiliar natural phenomenon might initially describe it using familiar scientific concepts.

The interpretation versus perception distinction proves crucial for evaluating NDE reliability. If experiencers were simply reproducing cultural narratives, we would expect variation in the core experiences themselves, not just in their interpretation. Instead, we find consistent core elements (out-of-body perception, movement toward light, encounters with loving beings) combined with variable interpretations based on cultural background.

Atheists and agnostics provide particularly strong evidence against cultural conditioning explanations. These individuals explicitly reject survival beliefs and have no cultural framework that would predict NDE experiences. Yet they report the same core elements as religious experiencers, often expressing surprise and confusion about experiences that contradict their materialist worldviews.
Dr. A.J. Ayer, the famous atheist philosopher, experienced an NDE during a cardiac arrest and reported classic elements, including out-of-body perception and encounters with beings of light. Despite his lifelong commitment to materialist philosophy, Ayer acknowledged that his experience challenged his assumptions about consciousness and survival. Such cases demonstrate that NDEs occur independently of prior beliefs or cultural expectations.

The historical precedent argument provides additional evidence against cultural conditioning. As we noted in Chapter 1, NDE-like experiences appear in historical accounts from ancient Greece (Plato's account of Er), medieval Europe (Hildegard of Bingen's visions), and indigenous traditions worldwide. These historical accounts predate modern NDE research by centuries or millennia, yet they contain remarkably similar elements. If NDEs were products of contemporary cultural conditioning, we wouldn't expect to find similar accounts throughout history and across diverse cultural contexts. The fact that ancient Greek warriors, medieval mystics, and contemporary cardiac patients report similar core experiences suggests encounters with phenomena that transcend particular cultural moments or belief systems.

Section 7: The Burden of Proof and Standards of Evidence

Perhaps the most persistent objection to NDE research involves shifting standards of evidence. Critics often demand extraordinary proof for consciousness survival while applying less rigorous standards to alternative explanations. This selective skepticism reveals more about philosophical commitments than about appropriate evidential criteria.

Carl Sagan's famous maxim that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is frequently invoked to dismiss NDE testimony. But this principle raises crucial questions: What makes consciousness survival more "extraordinary" than consciousness emergence from matter? Why should survival require higher evidential standards than materialist explanations that assume consciousness is produced by brain activity? Moreover, are NDE claims “extraordinary” when there are millions of similar NDE accounts? How else are we to say what’s veridical other than millions of us are experiencing the same reality?

From a purely logical standpoint, the emergence of subjective experience from objective neural processes might be considered equally extraordinary. The "hard problem" of consciousness remains unsolved precisely because we cannot explain how brain activity gives rise to subjective experience. Yet materialist explanations of NDEs are rarely subjected to the same "extraordinary evidence" standards applied to survival hypotheses.

The asymmetrical application of evidential standards becomes apparent when we examine specific cases. When researchers propose brain-based explanations for NDEs, oxygen deprivation, endorphin release, and temporal lobe seizures, these speculative explanations are often accepted without demanding the same level of proof required for survival hypotheses. Yet many of these materialist explanations lack empirical support and involve their own theoretical difficulties.
Consider the burden of proof fairly distributed. Survival proponents must explain how consciousness could continue without brain function. But materialists must explain how consciousness emerges from brain function in the first place, a problem that remains unsolved despite decades of neuroscientific research. Both positions involve theoretical challenges, yet only one is subjected to heightened evidential demands.

The testimonial evidence standards applied to NDE research also reveal selective skepticism. When historians evaluate ancient documents, they don't demand a laboratory reproduction of historical events. When courts assess witness testimony, they don't require impossible standards of certainty. When scientists accept colleagues' reports about experimental results, they rely on testimonial evidence they haven't personally verified.

Yet when evaluating NDE testimony, suddenly testimonial evidence becomes inadmissible, corroboration becomes insufficient, and consistency across multiple sources becomes irrelevant. These heightened standards would invalidate most historical knowledge, legal proceedings, and scientific collaboration if applied consistently.

The quantity and quality of NDE evidence exceed what we typically require for knowledge claims in other domains. We have millions of consistent firsthand accounts, thousands of cases with objective corroboration, cross-cultural replication, and long-term longitudinal studies. This represents a more extensive evidential base than exists for many historical events we consider well-established.
Consider the evidential standards applied to medical research. When evaluating new treatments or understanding disease mechanisms, medical researchers routinely rely on patient testimony about symptoms, case studies from individual practitioners, and patterns observed across multiple patients. These same evidential types, testimonial reports, case studies, and pattern recognition, form the foundation of NDE research, yet suddenly become inadmissible when they challenge materialist assumptions.

The real question isn't whether extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but whether extraordinary resistance to evidence reflects extraordinary commitment to prior assumptions. When substantial testimonial evidence is dismissed without serious consideration, when corroboration by medical professionals is ignored, and when consistent patterns across diverse populations are explained away through increasingly complex theoretical gymnastics, we may be witnessing ideological rather than methodological responses.

A fair approach would apply consistent evidential standards while acknowledging the theoretical challenges faced by all positions. Survival hypotheses must address questions about consciousness mechanisms and survival processes. Materialist explanations must address the hard problem of consciousness and the specific features of NDE experiences that resist brain-based explanation. Neither position should be exempt from evidential scrutiny, nor should either be subjected to impossible standards.

Conclusion: The Weakness of Objections in Light of Testimonial Strength

The counter-arguments examined, hallucinations, brain-based mechanisms, scientism, memory formation, cultural conditioning, subconscious sensory leakage, and coincidence/confirmation bias, fail to provide compelling alternatives to the conclusion that consciousness can survive bodily death. Each objection raises valid questions about interpretation and methodology but falls short when evaluated against the five testimonial criteria: the massive volume of millions of accounts worldwide, the universal variety across ages, cultures, and contexts, the remarkable consistency of core elements like out-of-body perceptions and life reviews, the objective corroboration of veridical details during documented unconsciousness, and the reliability of firsthand reports from credible sources. Hypotheses like subconscious sensory leakage or confirmation bias rely on speculative mechanisms that cannot explain cases such as blind individuals’ visual corroboration (Chapter 3) or children identifying unknown deceased relatives (Section 5). These objections lack the empirical support and logical coherence they demand of survival claims, revealing an asymmetry rooted in unexamined materialist assumptions, as explored in Chapter 6.

This pattern of resistance mirrors the paradigm challenges described by Thomas Kuhn in scientific revolutions, where substantial evidence is dismissed without serious consideration. For instance, corroborated details, such as Pam Reynolds’ bone saw observation (Section 1) or the 22% of NDErs meeting unknown deceased (Section 1), are ignored in favor of ad hoc theories that multiply improbabilities. Intellectual honesty demands consistent standards across domains. If testimonial evidence is deemed unreliable for consciousness research, it should be equally suspect in medicine, history, or science, where testimony underpins knowledge. Similarly, the standard of heightened scrutiny applied to NDE testimony must also challenge materialist assumptions about consciousness emergence, which remain unsolved (Section 3).

Open questions persist, such as the timing of experiences or the mechanisms of survival, but these do not negate the robust evidence for consciousness persistence. As with gravity before Einstein or anesthesia before its mechanisms were understood, we accept phenomena based on evidence prior to full explanation. The testimonial evidence’s strength, systematically gathered and rigorously verified across millions of accounts, outweighs speculative dismissals. This warrants serious consideration of consciousness survival as a widespread, objective phenomenon, not an anomaly requiring exceptional proof, but one deserving continued interdisciplinary inquiry with methodological openness and evidential rigor to explore a reality that may transcend current theoretical frameworks.

Quoting Sam26

For NDEs, with 200-300 million reports….

I read your rationale for this the other day but it easily seems like overreach. It is inferred that there would be that number of reports, on the basis of scaling up the numbers of reports from a sample population, but if many of these experiences are not formally written down or described then it’s purely conjectural. And it’s a large number! I don’t think it would hurt your case to omit references to such large speculative numbers, while still pressing the point that they are frequently reported and may be far more common than we're inclined to believe.

Quoting Sam26

When astronomers observe distant galaxies, when biologists examine cellular structures, and when physicists read instrument displays, all involve sensory experience. The suggestion that our senses are "the worst data-taking devices" would collapse the empirical foundation of science itself.

But it’s not directly comparable. Third-person validation is obviously missing from near-death experiences. The difference is not merely in kind of object observed but in what sort of epistemic access is possible. Empirical science rests on public reproducibility, while SME research often relies on private, unrepeatable events. True, there is the ‘replication crisis’ in science, which is probably of special relevance in your subject matter, as it is much more common in the social than the physical sciences. But even so, the experiences reported by these subjects can only be validated first-hand by actually having them. Otherwise they remain anecdotal.

Quoting Sam26

Subjective vs. Objective Elements

NDE testimony includes objective elements (verifiable details like surgical procedures) and subjective elements (e.g., feelings of love, encounters with deceased relatives). Corroborated objective elements, such as a child's verified ER observations, lend credibility to subjective reports, suggesting genuine experiences. Cultural variations affect interpretation (e.g., light as Jesus or ancestors), but core phenomena remain consistent, indicating universal features of consciousness.

Fair distinction between the subjective and objective elements of NDEs, and I agree that verifiable observations—such as accurate descriptions of surgical instruments or events during clinical death—are especially significant. They do suggest that something more than imagination is at work, and lend weight to the credibility of the overall report, although it’s important to stay mindful of the epistemic difference between first-person and third-person validation. While veridical cases strengthen the evidential basis of NDE studies, many of the other reported elements—particularly those involving feelings of peace, tunnels of light, or meetings with deceased persons—remain inherently subjective. This isn’t a criticism, but a caution about evidential weight.

Cultural frameworks may shape the interpretation of NDEs —whether the “being of light” is perceived as Jesus or an ancestor—and while that may point to a universal phenomenological core, it could also reflect how deeply interpretive structures are embedded in the unconscious. That cultural dimension was also encountered by Ian Stevenson in his research of past-life memories, where children in cultures like India were far more likely to be believed than those reporting such memories in Western cultures. ('In the West', he once said, 'people ask "why would you research that? Everyone knows it's a myth". In the East, the reaction was more like "why would you research that? Everyone knows it happens all the time.")

Quoting Sam26

Open questions persist, such as the timing of experiences or the mechanisms of survival, but these do not negate the robust evidence for consciousness persistence.

Your argument highlights what I think is a central and underappreciated point: that materialist objections to NDEs and (and related phenomena such as past-life recall) often rest on explanatory gaps of their own, especially when faced with rigorously investigated cases of veridical perception. But I think the real challenge lies not just in identifying the limits of materialism, but in what the alternative is. Your metaphor of “survival” still implies a kind of thing that persists, and a mechanism by which it does so—concepts which themselves are grounded in the very materialist kind of ontology that you're seeking to question.

If these phenomena point to anything, perhaps it's that we need to rethink the ontological categories themselves—maybe life and mind are not simply functions of biology, but expressions of a deeper order that isn’t bounded by physical birth and death. That doesn’t give us a ready-made metaphysical framework, but it may point to the need for one. I think there are hints of this emerging all over the place at this point in history, but it's obviously a very deep subject. So while I agree that NDEs may well 'transcend current theoretical frameworks', what the emerging paradigm might be is still, as you say, an open question.

Quoting Wayfarer

But it’s not directly comparable. Third-person validation is obviously missing from near-death experiences. The difference is not merely in kind of object observed but in what sort of epistemic access is possible. Empirical science rests on public reproducibility, while SME research often relies on private, unrepeatable events. True, there is the ‘replication crisis’ in science, which is probably of special relevance in your subject matter, as it is much more common in the social than the physical sciences. But even so, the experiences reported by these subjects can only be validated first-hand by actually having them. Otherwise they remain anecdotal.

Whenever you can corroborate testimonial evidence, it's not anecdotal. Part of the problem is that most people aren't able to evaluate testimonial evidence properly. Almost everything you study is based on the testimony of others. You don't do the experiments; you rely on what others report.

By the way, there is data that supports the number of people in the world who have experienced an NDE. These estimates are considered reliable because they come from peer-reviewed research, including prospective studies (tracking patients in real-time) and large surveys. For instance, the 5-10% general prevalence is widely cited and supported by recent data up to 2025. Scientific American (May 14, 2024) estimates an astounding 5 to 10 percent of the general population has memories of an NDE. If anything, the 2-300 million may be low, but even if it's 100 million, it doesn't affect the strength of my argument.

You think I pull this out of the air. I've been researching NDEs for about 20 years. I do know what I'm talking about. I know that people are still going to disagree, but that's okay, it's why I posted in here. I wanted to hear the counterarguments.

Quoting Sam26

it doesn't affect the strength of my argument.

Indeed. A point to consider.

@Sam26, do you at some stage consider what it is that survives death?

Reply to Banno The most fundamental constituents of the body survive death. @Sam26 seems to be thinking of consciousness, though.

Reply to Banno In chapter 5, I consider other possible conclusions. Personhood, as I see it, encompasses the core elements of self: identity, memories, relationships, values, and the capacity for awareness and empathy. It's what makes "you" you, beyond the physical human body. In NDEs, experiencers often report retaining and even expanding these aspects, meeting deceased loved ones who recognize them, reliving life events with moral insight, and feeling a profound sense of continuity amid heightened clarity. This suggests the surviving entity isn't the biological human (with its limitations like pain or mortality) but a relational, conscious personhood that transcends bodily constraints.

For e.g., the "no harm" principle from Chapter 5 of my book implies that while the human form can suffer, personhood emerges intact, like waking from a dream where pain was real but temporary. Relationships endure as part of this personhood, with NDEs showing bonds that persist eternally, free from physical separation. Wittgenstein's hinges in Chapter 6 of the book add depth: consciousness and love as foundational certainties could be the bedrock of personhood, undoubtable and eternal.

Speculatively, what survives might be this purified personhood, an eternal "I" that learns, connects, and evolves without the human shell's vulnerabilities. Being human is the temporary stage for that growth, but personhood is the enduring actor. It's a beautiful idea that reframes death not as loss but as liberation. Some of this is speculative, but it's not purely speculative; there are good reasons to suppose that much of this is factual. It's a good question, @Banno, but there's obviously a lot we don't know.

Reply to Janus Yes, but the idea of personhood remains intact.

By way of contrast this is where the Buddhist model is relevant. In the early texts, the Buddha emphatically denies that there is a ‘what’ that survives death. This is laid out clearly in two key discourses: the S?ti the Fisherman’s Son sutta and the discourse to Ari??ha.

In the first, S?ti claims that consciousness is the “what” that transmigrates. The Buddha responds by firmly rejecting this as a wrong—and even pernicious—view. It is not simply mistaken, but actively obstructive to insight. After attempts to correct him fail, the Buddha dismisses S?ti as unable to grasp the teaching, and then clarifies with the monks the correct understanding: that consciousness does not persist as a self-same entity, but arises dependent on conditions, ceasing when those conditions cease.

In the second dialogue, when R?dha asks the Buddha what the constituents of a ‘being’ are, the Buddha replies:

“Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for form, R?dha: when one is caught up (satta) there, tied up (visatta) there, one is said to be 'a being.'”

So again, the picture is not of an ego, soul, or substance that is born, dies, or survives. It is of a process: craving and clinging give rise to the experience of continuity, both within this life and beyond. What “continues” is not a person but an impersonal dynamic of becoming.

Interestingly, this resonates with Schopenhauer’s conception of the will as the blind striving underlying phenomenal existence. But the Buddha goes further in prescribing a path by which this process can be understood and released (which is the entire thrust of his teaching.)

In later Buddhist traditions—particularly Tibetan—the Bardo Thödol offers detailed accounts of what is said to occur in the intermediate states after death. These are rich with imagery and vivid experiences, including visions of light, peaceful and wrathful beings, and karmically influenced encounters. But the subject undergoing these experiences is not taken to be an enduring self, but rather a locus of karmic momentum—an apparent subjectivity without essence ('citta-sant?na'). The continuity is real, but not personal in the conventional sense. This provides a philosophical model that avoids both materialist reductionism and dualism. And it arguably offers a conceptual framework within which to interpret NDEs—especially those that are less reassuring and more morally charged, like the account by Sam Bercholz in A Guided Tour of Hell.

Reply to Wayfarer Some of the "Buddhist model" is based on NDEs and meditative states of consciousness, only they don't call it an NDE. NDE states can be reached without actually being near-death. When I was 21 years old, I had just such an experience.

Not sure soul or conciousness transference is necessarily religious doctrine. Perhaps a doctrine adopted by or essential to religion?

The 1992 Gallup poll estimated that 5% of Americans had experienced NDEs, suggesting 13-15 million cases in the United States alone. A 2024 Scientific American review, citing studies like Kondziella et al. (2019) across 35 countries, estimates 5-10% global prevalence in the general population, representing potentially 400-800 million cases worldwide amid a 2025 world population of approximately 8.1 billion.

Reply to Sam26

Nobody here that disagrees with you, are dismissing the notion that people have had NDE. There's plenty of evidence that supports it. However, we ARE dismissing your conclusion in regards to NDE because you have no evidence that supports your conclusion. You're using irrelevant data and claim that it's evidence for your conclusion regarding NDE. This is neither philosophy nor science.

I'm genuinely curious, have you ever had an experience of a hallucination caused by the consumption of hallucinogenic drugs before?

Reply to night912 Reply to 180 Proof

When someone tells me that NDEs aren't evidence,” I know we’re not having an epistemological discussion, we’re dealing with a preset worldview that refuses to be inconvenienced by data.

Let me be blunt: if you think testimony isn’t evidence, then you’re not just wrong—you’re being selectively inconsistent. You accept testimony as evidence all the time: in courtrooms, in history books, in journalism, in scientific discovery. Much of what you believe about the world has been passed to you through other people’s words. Testimony is a fundamental mode of knowing. That’s not a fringe claim; that’s epistemology 101.

So when someone says NDE accounts don’t count, what they really mean is: “I don’t like what these testimonies imply.” That’s not skepticism. That’s avoidance.

Let me ask you plainly: if thousands of people from all over the world consistently reported seeing the same rare hallucination during cardiac arrest, would you call that data?

If people clinically dead for minutes described things they couldn’t possibly have seen—like surgical instruments, clothing colors, or conversations in adjacent rooms—and those reports checked out, would that count?

If blind people reported veridical visual experiences during unconsciousness, would that at least raise an eyebrow?

Because that’s exactly what’s happening. And it’s dismissed not because it isn’t evidence, but because the implications are too uncomfortable.

If you want to say, “The evidence isn’t conclusive,” fine. Make your case. But don’t try to rewrite the rules of epistemology mid-argument. Don’t pretend that testimony suddenly loses all value the moment it challenges materialist assumptions.

That’s not critical thinking. That’s building a fence around your worldview and pretending it’s a lab.

We’re talking about inductive reasoning, not metaphysical proofs. This is the same kind of reasoning we use to build theories in science, assess eyewitnesses in court, or trust long-range weather models. It’s not about absolute certainty—it’s about what the evidence suggests when we’re not busy filtering it through what we already believe.

And when you look at the NDE data—its volume, diversity, internal consistency, and verifiable details—you have a body of testimony that meets or exceeds the standards we accept in other domains. So if you’re rejecting it, say why—but don’t pretend it’s not there.

I’m not asking anyone to believe in the afterlife. I’m not asking for spiritual conversion. I’m asking for intellectual honesty. When thousands of people tell similar stories under extreme physiological conditions, and some of those stories include independently verified details that should’ve been inaccessible to them, that’s not fantasy. That’s evidence. And if you’re too philosophically rigid to admit that, then say so. But stop pretending the data isn’t there. It is.

And it’s not going away.

The Self-Sealing Fallacy

This kind of objection, that NDEs “can’t be evidence” because they contradict materialism, is a textbook example of a self-sealing argument. That’s a fallacy where no counterexample can ever count against the belief, because the belief has been defined in a way that invalidates all contradictory data by default. In this case, the logic goes like this: “We know consciousness can’t exist apart from the brain; therefore, any report that it does must be false—even if it’s detailed, verified, and repeated across cultures.” That’s not skepticism. That’s immunizing your worldview against all challenges. It doesn’t matter what someone reports, or how well it’s documented, if your philosophical commitments require you to deny the possibility of evidence before it’s even examined, then you’re no longer doing inquiry. You’re defending dogma. This fallacy is common in both religious and atheistic discourse.

Quoting Sam26

“We know consciousness can’t exist apart from the brain; therefore, any report that it does must be false—even if it’s detailed, verified, and repeated across cultures.”

Why do we have brains if we don't need them for complex experiences?

Quoting Sam26

Let me be blunt: if you think testimony isn’t evidence, then you’re not just wrong—you’re being selectively inconsistent. You accept testimony as evidence all the time: in courtrooms, in history books, in journalism, in scientific discovery. Much of what you believe about the world has been passed to you through other people’s words. Testimony is a fundamental mode of knowing. That’s not a fringe claim; that’s epistemology 101.

There is testimony and then there is testimony. The kinds of testimony you say we all accept is expert testimony which has been tested, documented and peer-reviewed. The testimony you are citing is not of the same kind.

Quoting Janus

There is testimony and then there is testimony. The kinds of testimony you say we all accept is expert testimony which has been tested, documented and peer-reviewed. The testimony you are citing is not of the same kind.

Right—and pretending only “expert, peer-reviewed testimony” counts is a neat way to dodge the actual issue. We rely on multiple classes of testimony across serious domains every day: eyewitnesses in court, patient self-reports in medicine, historical documents in scholarship, field notes in anthropology, and yes, expert statements. All of those are testimony. Peer review doesn’t magically convert testimony into something else; it’s a vetting process applied to data and reports—often built on testimony.

Now, if your standard is “tested, documented, and peer-reviewed,” I’ll meet you there, because there is a lot of NDE literature that is documented and peer-reviewed. There are standardized instruments (e.g., structured scales), prospective studies in medical settings, case reports with time stamps, surgical logs, and corroboration by clinical staff. On top of that, there’s the wider body: thousands of firsthand accounts with convergence across cultures and conditions, many with veridical details later verified. That’s not “random story-time.” That’s a dataset—messy like all human datasets, but governed by recognizable standards: volume, variety, internal consistency, independent corroboration, and proximity to the events.

Also, the idea that we “all accept” only expert testimony is fiction. Courts convict on lay eyewitness testimony every day (with strict reliability tests like I've talked about). Physicians act on patient-reported symptoms constantly (because pain, dizziness, aura, etc., are only knowable by report). Psychology, sociology, and large swaths of medicine depend on self-report. If you’re going to declare those forms of evidence illegitimate here—but keep them everywhere else—you’re not defending rigor; you’re quarantining inconvenient evidence.

If your point is really, “NDE testimony hasn’t been vetted enough,” good—then say that, and specify the bar: what documentation, what timing, what corroboration would move the needle? Because here’s the pattern I see: when presented with documented, corroborated cases, the standard shifts. First, it’s “peer review or it doesn’t count.” Then, when peer-reviewed cases appear, it’s “still anecdotal.” That’s moving the goalposts. And when no conceivable instance could ever count—because any positive case must, by assumption, be error, hallucination, or fraud—that’s a self-sealing posture, not an evidential one.

Bottom line: testimony comes in kinds, sure, but so does vetting. NDE evidence isn’t asking for a special pass; it’s asking for the same rules we use elsewhere: clear criteria, consistent standards, and intellectual honesty about what the data—expert, lay, and documented—actually shows. If you want to argue it’s insufficient, make that case. But stop pretending it’s not evidence. It is.

Quoting Sam26

We rely on multiple classes of testimony across serious domains every day: eyewitnesses in court, patient self-reports in medicine, historical documents in scholarship, field notes in anthropology, and yes, expert statements.

Sure we do rely on such inexpert testimony in many contexts, but the testimony relied on in those contexts is about commonly experienced events, not claims about extraordinary events like NDE's, or sighting Bigfoot or UFOs or being abducted by aliens.

Quoting Janus

Sure we do rely on such inexpert testimony in many contexts, but the testimony relied on in those contexts is about commonly experienced events, not claims about extraordinary events like NDE's, or sighting Bigfoot or UFOs or being abducted by aliens.

You obviously haven't been paying attention to my argument. You’re assuming from the outset that consciousness surviving clinical death is extraordinary and therefore requires some special, elevated evidential bar. That’s not an epistemic principle; that’s a value judgment shaped by your worldview. Something is only “extraordinary” relative to what you’ve decided is normal. And that’s the problem: if your definition of “normal” is restricted to materialist assumptions, then yes, anything suggesting consciousness can function without a brain will look exotic by definition. That’s not a property of the event; it’s a property of your frame.

Now, here’s the other issue: when you have thousands of accounts from all over the world, across centuries, cultures, ages, and belief systems—many with independently corroborated, veridical details—that’s no longer a “rare anomaly.” That’s a recurring phenomenon. Recurring phenomena don’t get treated like outliers in any other domain—they get studied. The sheer volume and consistency of the data moves it out of the “extraordinary claim” category and into “common human experience under specific conditions.”

And if you want to put NDEs in the same box as Bigfoot or UFO abductions, you’re ignoring the key difference: veridical perception—accurately describing events, objects, or conversations that occurred while the brain was offline, and which were later confirmed by independent witnesses. Bigfoot sightings don’t produce that kind of hard, checkable correlation. Alien abduction stories don’t emerge under conditions of continuous medical monitoring with surgical logs and witness testimony from trained professionals. NDE cases often do.

In other words, the “extraordinary claim” dodge doesn’t work here because the claim is supported by volume, variety, and verification. At that point, the intellectually honest move isn’t to wave it off as too weird to take seriously; it’s to confront the fact that maybe it isn’t weird at all. Maybe the only extraordinary thing is our refusal to recognize a pattern staring us in the face.

Quoting Apustimelogist

Why do we have brains if we don't need them for complex experiences?

But NDEs don’t claim the brain is useless, they suggest that in certain extreme conditions, consciousness can occur without normal brain activity. That’s a very different claim. The brain might be a kind of interface or transceiver, not the sole producer of consciousness. Damage the radio, and you can’t hear the broadcast, but that doesn’t mean the signal isn’t still there.

I wouldn't be writing a book if I hadn't thought through this material.

Quoting Sam26

You obviously haven't been paying attention to my argument. You’re assuming from the outset that consciousness surviving clinical death is extraordinary and therefore requires some special, elevated evidential bar.

From my perspective it's an extraordinary event simply because I have never experienced such a thing, and none of the many hundreds of people I have known personally have ever claimed to have an NDE.

Quoting Sam26

And if you want to put NDEs in the same box as Bigfoot or UFO abductions, you’re ignoring the key difference: veridical perception—accurately describing events, objects, or conversations that occurred while the brain was offline, and which were later confirmed by independent witnesses.

How do I know the corroborations of those witnesses do not consist in misremembering, collusion or fabrication? I don't have any "horse in the race"?if it turns out that my consciousness survives the death of the body, I'll deal with it then. In the meantime I might be convinced if I experienced an NDE myself or perhaps even if sometime whose veracity I trusted sufficiently told me they had such an experience. But even then I might think there could be some other explanation, because after death survival of personal consciousness seems so implausible given what is known about the brain.

I'll confess I'm not all that interested simply because I cannot do anything about whatever turns out to be the reality anyway. I guess one advantage of believing in the survival of consciousness, like the belief in God, is that you cannot be proven wrong?if there is no consciousness after death you will never know you were wrong.

Quoting Sam26

The brain might be a kind of interface or transceiver, not the sole producer of consciousness. Damage the radio, and you can’t hear the broadcast, but that doesn’t mean the signal isn’t still there.

The brain is almost infinitely more complex than a radio or a computer, and yet the radio or computer can receive much more information than the brain. If the brain were merely a transceiver why would it need to be so complex?

Reply to Janus It's an inductive argument, I don't know with absolute certainty, but I know with a high degree of confidence that we survive.

Janus, you’re basically saying that no matter what evidence is presented, you’ll still hold to “there could be some other explanation.” That’s not an evidence-based position; that’s a self-sealing stance. If the standard is “I must personally experience it,” then you’ve set a bar that rules out most of what you already believe about history, science, and even your own life. You didn’t personally witness the Big Bang, World War II, or the formation of Mount Everest, but you accept those as realities because the convergence of evidence is strong.

As for “misremembering, collusion, or fabrication”—those are always possible, but possible in the same way they’re possible in eyewitness testimony for any event. That’s why corroborated NDE cases matter. When you have medical staff verifying details the patient couldn’t have known—down to objects, conversations, or actions outside their line of sight—you can’t just wave that away as “maybe collusion.” Could it happen? Sure. But when it happens again and again across unrelated people, cultures, and settings, the possibility of deception stops being a serious explanation and starts looking like an escape hatch.

Youu say survival is “implausible given what is known about the brain.” But what if what we “know” is simply incomplete? Medical history is full of once-implausible realities, germ theory, organ transplants, and quantum mechanics. Implausibility isn’t an argument, it’s just a measure of how far a claim sits outside our current framework. And the whole point of evidence is that, sometimes, it forces us to stretch that framework.

I also hear you say you’re “not all that interested” because you can’t change whatever the truth is. But this isn’t just metaphysical curiosity, it’s about what kind of beings we are, what we mean by “life” and “death,” and how we shape ethics, medicine, and meaning in light of that. You can do something about it: you can hold your beliefs responsibly, in proportion to the evidence, and without letting disinterest be a substitute for doubt.

And finally, the line about never being proven wrong if there’s nothing after death? That’s not an advantage, it’s an evasion. The real question is: are you willing to examine the evidence without protecting your conclusions in advance? If the answer is no, then the conversation isn’t really about evidence, it’s about comfort.

My book deals with this in a way no other book has. I look at it from an epistemological point of view.

Quoting Sam26

You didn’t personally witness the Big Bang, World War II, or the formation of Mount Everest, but you accept those as realities because the convergence of evidence is strong.

I accept the Big Bang provisionally as the most plausible current theory. I can see absolutely no reaosn to doubt that WW2 happened. I accept plate tectonic theory as the most likely explanation for the formation of Everest that we now have.

Quoting Sam26

As for “misremembering, collusion, or fabrication”—those are always possible, but possible in the same way they’re possible in eyewitness testimony for any event.

That's true of course, but I think I have less reason to doubt eyewitness accounts of ordinary events than I do of extraordinary ones. And even then I'm fundamentally skeptical of testimony regarding legal claims, having the view of the reliability of human memory and testimony, not to mention honesty, that I do.

(On account of this I would never want to be on a jury, because the thought of wrongfully convicting someone horrifies me. Of course I understand that it is necessary that there be juries, but I'll happily leave the task to those who are more comfortable with passing judgement).

Quoting Sam26

I also hear you say you’re “not all that interested” because you can’t change whatever the truth is. But this isn’t just metaphysical curiosity, it’s about what kind of beings we are, what we mean by “life” and “death,” and how we shape ethics, medicine, and meaning in light of that.

The shaping of ethics and medicine should be done only with regard to this life in my view, because I believe this life is all we can know with certainty. Similarly, that's why I think religion, in the sense of otherworldly concerns, should be kept out of politics. As to "meaning", wherever we are not forced to accept meanings imposed by others, we all develop our own meanings out of life experience, and I think that is as it should be.

Quoting Sam26

And finally, the line about never being proven wrong if there’s nothing after death? That’s not an advantage, it’s an evasion. The real question is: are you willing to examine the evidence without protecting your conclusions in advance? If the answer is no, then the conversation isn’t really about evidence, it’s about comfort.

If it's an evasion it is not my evasion. I can be proven wrong, because I assume there is no life after death. If there is life after death I will be proven wrong. I will never be convinced by the kind of testimonial evidence you are convinced by. But that's OK?there is no strict measure of plausibility, and we all believe what we personally find most plausible. I just don't think it's that important?I think what is important is living this life the best way we can, which for myself involves accepting the reality of our ignorance in those matters where I believe reliable knowledge is impossible.

So, don't get me wrong?I am not for a minute saying you should not believe in NDEs, I'm just saying that I personally don't find the evidence convincing.

Quoting Janus

If it's an evasion it is not my evasion. I can be proven wrong, because I assume there is no life after death. If there is life after death I will be proven wrong. I will never be convinced by the kind of testimonial evidence you are convinced by. But that's OK?there is no strict measure of plausibility, and we all believe what we personally find most plausible. I just don't think it's that important?I think what is important is living this life the best way we can, which in my view involves accepting the reality of our ignorance in those matters where reliable knowledge is impossible.

You say you “can be proven wrong” because if there’s life after death, you’ll find out. But that’s not the same as being epistemically open to being proven wrong now, while we’re talking about the evidence. Waiting for personal post-mortem confirmation is a way of dodging every opportunity to examine the data in the here and now. That’s the kind of evasion I was pointing to, not whether the afterlife itself could eventually confront you.

You also say you will “never be convinced” by the kind of testimonial evidence I’m citing. That’s not a neutral statement—that’s a declaration that no amount of corroborated, independently verified, cross-cultural, repeatedly observed testimony will ever count for you. That’s not just “different plausibility thresholds.” That’s closing the door on an entire category of evidence before weighing it. If you really think “reliable knowledge is impossible” here, then you’ve made your conclusion first and your epistemology second.

And I get that you think the bigger point is “living this life the best way we can.” I’m with you on that as a moral priority. But this isn’t just idle metaphysics; it matters for how we understand identity, consciousness, ethics, medicine, and even grief. If the evidence suggests consciousness isn’t fully extinguished at death, that’s not a trivial footnote, it’s a seismic fact about what it means to be human. Saying “it’s not important” sounds less like humility and more like a way of keeping the question at arm’s length so it doesn’t disturb the framework you’ve already settled into.

I’m not asking you to agree with me—I’m asking you to acknowledge that the evidence exists and that dismissing it wholesale is a choice, not a necessity. Choosing to live with “the reality of our ignorance” should mean keeping the file open, not declaring the case unanswerable before you’ve read it.

Anyway, thanks for your responses, Janus.

Quoting Sam26

But that’s not the same as being epistemically open to being proven wrong now, while we’re talking about the evidence.

The point was just that there is no strict measure of what evidence should be convincing for everyone, other than direct observation ( and even there we have those who think there is room for skepticism).

The other thing is that we all have limited time and so must prioritize what seems most important to us individually to investigate, if we wish to investigate anything at all. So, I acknowledge that it is possible that if I had researched the NDE phenomena as thoroughly and for as long as you apparently have, then I might be convinced. The problem is it is not important enough for me to motivate doing that because I figure I'll either find out one day when I die (if there is life after death, otherwise not) or if I have my own NDE I might be convinced by that.

Quoting Sam26

Saying “it’s not important” sounds less like humility and more like a way of keeping the question at arm’s length so it doesn’t disturb the framework you’ve already settled into.

I'm only saying it's not important to me personally?or at least not important enough to motivate me to investigate it. I don't think there is any fact of the matter as to whether it is important tout court.

Quoting Sam26

I’m not asking you to agree with me—I’m asking you to acknowledge that the evidence exists and that dismissing it wholesale is a choice, not a necessity. Choosing to live with “the reality of our ignorance” should mean keeping the file open, not declaring the case unanswerable before you’ve read it.

I do acknowledge that, so I'm not, as I said, saying no one should be convinced by the evidence.

Reply to Janus :up:

Reply to Sam26
I dunno, brains seem like a complex, expensive bit of machinery, biologically speaking. Seems weurd that we would go through all the trouble to evolve complicated regions for emotion, processing space, the body, vision, hearing... only to not even need them during these NDEs. Think a similar kinds of bizarreness like this also occurs when thinking about religions, souls, the afterlife. The brain seems superfluous, like why do we need a brain to cognize and emote about God when we would be expected to have some kind of relationship with God in the afterlife.

Reply to Apustimelogist You seem to be arguing that because the brain is complex, consciousness must be a function of the brain. It could just mean that complexity is needed to house consciousness. You're assuming that because the brain is complex, consciousness must be produced by it. That’s a non sequitur. Complexity doesn’t automatically tell us about the origin of a function, only that the system performs it in some way. A complex receiver doesn’t generate the signal it receives; it processes and interacts with it.

Quoting Sam26

It could just mean that complexity is needed to house consciousness.

Well its clearly not if dead people can have complex experiences without a functioning brain.

Reply to Apustimelogist

The brain seems superfluous, like why do we need a brain to cognize and emote about God when we would be expected to have some kind of relationship with God in the afterlife.

Because the brain anchors our consciousness in this physical world. If this weren’t happening our consciousness would be somewhere else entirely and even if it were somehow here, but disembodied. It would have no awareness of the physical stuff that the brain enables us to access.

Quoting Punshhh

It would have no awareness of the physical stuff that the brain enables us to access.

Then how do dead people have knowledge of physical events suring NDEs when their brain is shut off?

I'm not sure, but I was thinking of adding not only a chapter that answers the critics, but a chapter that includes a fictional courtroom debate. It would look like the following:

Prosecution Neuroscientist – Dr. Karen Miles (Opening Statement)

“Members of the jury, my task is not to debate philosophy, but to explain what the brain can do — especially under conditions of trauma, oxygen loss, and anesthesia.

The Defense wants you to think of the brain as a light switch, either fully on or fully off. But in reality, brain function is more like a city during a blackout: the main grid can go down while small neighborhoods still flicker with power. The instruments we use to monitor brain activity, like EEGs, are powerful, but they aren't omniscient. A flatline doesn't guarantee the total absence of all neural activity, especially in deeper structures that are harder to measure.

We also know that certain physiological states can produce vivid, structured experiences. Oxygen deprivation can trigger tunnel vision and bright lights. Temporal lobe discharges can evoke life reviews, intense emotions, and a sense of leaving one’s body. Anesthetic awareness, rare but documented, can allow a patient to perceive fragments of their surroundings while appearing fully unconscious.

So when an NDEr reports seeing an instrument or hearing a phrase, we must consider: could it have been perceived through residual sensory channels or reconstructed afterward from memory fragments? Could the emotional weight of the event have amplified recall or altered perception?

I'm not here to call anyone a liar. But as a neuroscientist, I know the brain is capable of creating convincing realities under extraordinary stress. Testimony, no matter how sincere, must be weighed against what we know of these mechanisms before we conclude it points to a mind separate from the brain.”

Defense Neuroscientist – Dr. Elena Marquez (Opening Statement)

“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s talk about data, not speculation.

The Prosecution has just outlined mechanisms that can produce certain NDE-like features. And yes, those mechanisms exist. But when we look closely at the strongest cases, those explanations fall apart.

Take the ‘flicker of power’ analogy. In multiple well-documented instances, patients have shown no measurable brainstem or cortical activity, no reflexes, no response to stimuli, no brainstem auditory evoked potentials, yet later gave accounts containing accurate, verifiable details from the operating room. In some cases, those accounts cover events that occurred during periods when the heart was stopped and the brain was cooled to the point of electrical silence.

Residual hearing? Then explain how blind patients describe visual scenes accurately, details confirmed by medical staff. Oxygen deprivation? That tends to produce confusion, not coherent narratives with verifiable elements. Anesthetic awareness? That would require an intact working memory to store those perceptions, yet these events occur during periods when the brain’s memory circuits are demonstrably offline.

Here is the epistemological point: when testimony is corroborated by independent physical evidence, surgical records, multiple staff reports, and timestamps, it meets the same standard of reliability used in criminal trials and medical diagnostics. And when the best neuroscientific models cannot account for that corroboration, we are not dealing with mere anecdotes. We are dealing with anomalies that demand an open-minded explanation.

Science advances when it takes anomalous data seriously. To ignore these cases, or to explain them away with mechanisms that don’t fit the facts, is not science; it’s preservation of a worldview at the expense of the evidence.”

(This would include not only neuroscientists on both sides, but philosophers on both sides. What do you think?)

Quoting Sam26

The brain might be a kind of interface or transceiver, not the sole producer of consciousness.

It seems to me that a serious problem for such a notion is that our conscious minds have no conscious knowledge of how to work such an interface.

Do you consciously consider which motor neurons in your brain to activate and in in what sequence, in order to type a response to this post? I'm confident that the answer is, "No.", just as you aren't aware of which sensory neurons were stimulated in what sequence in the process of reading this post.

There is a lot of automated stuff going on subconsciously, underlying our conscious interactions with the world. Where do you locate these automated processes? In the physical brain, or in a nonphysical consciousness which is treating tne brain as a transciever?

Why think consciousness can occur without such subconscious automation?

I don't think the transciever hypothesis stands up to any serious scrutiny.

Reply to wonderer1 The argument doesn't stand or fall on that analogy, but it does seem to fit the testimonial evidence.

Quoting Sam26

By definition, hallucinations are sensory perceptions that occur without external stimulus

Incorrect. Hallucinations can also involve external stimulus.

"Hallucinations are false perceptions of sensory experiences. Some hallucinations are normal, such as those caused by falling asleep or waking up. But others may be a sign of a more serious condition like schizophrenia or dementia."
-https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23350-hallucinations

Quoting Sam26

If Reynolds were hallucinating, we would not expect such precise correspondence between her subjective experience and objective events witnessed by others. Hallucinations, by their very nature, do not provide accurate information about external reality.

Incorrect. A hallucination can involve accurate information. For example, if their eyes or ears registered a bone-saw that could become part of a hallucination.

Further, the example you're citing about Reynalds isn't a great example, because critics of Reynolds note that its more likely they were unconsciously observing at moments of the surgery as consciousness can surge in and out. The problem is that we can't tie the remembering of the observation to the time of brain activity on the table. This is a MAJOR issue with testimony. For there to be any hope of a non-physical observation of the area, the object in question that must be accurately described cannot have crossed the vision of the patient, nor any other physically recognizable sensations like hearing. In tests where such objects have been hidden from the physical senses in a room, NO NDE patient has ever accurately reported them, even when these were very huge and easy to miss things in the room if you were in an out of body perspective.

So be careful with this one, as it borders on a straw man argument.

Quoting Sam26

Perhaps most significantly, the hallucination hypothesis cannot account for veridical perception during periods of documented unconsciousness. Hallucinations do not provide accurate information about distant events, yet NDErs sometimes report observations of activities occurring in other parts of hospitals, conversations among family members miles away, or encounters with deceased individuals whose deaths they couldn't have known about through normal means.

This is a good argument. Of course it must be verified that while the person was unconscious that nobody mentioned any of this information that the patient's hearing could pick up. We know for a fact that unconsciousness does not mean senses are turned off. As this cannot often be verified, these examples are worth setting up for careful testing, but cannot be taken outside of a testing environment as true due to this very important fact.

Your entire scientism section is going to instantly be destroyed by anyone who isn't a conspiracy theorist. You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the proper scientific method. Science does not seek to prove, it seeks to disprove. A hypothesis is created, and testing is done to destroy that hypothesis. If you cannot prove the hypothesis false, then it stands. Of course, peer review happens, other people test, and they too try to prove the hypothesis wrong.

So, science LOVES NDEs as something to test. Many experiments have been done on NDEs. To show NDEs must be true, you come up with an idea that can't be proven false. Unfortunately, they're always proven false. Its not that we can't try coming up with new hypotheses and experiments and test them. Science is great with that. Its that so far, no hypothesis that has been tested with the goal to prove it false, has not always proven NDEs as a conscious survival outside of the body as false. My advice is to remove the idea that science is not what we should be using. It would be much better to note that science needs to get more creative in its hypotheses, test more, etc. But if you can't do that, better to remove the entire section or anyone worth their intellectual salt is going to dismiss you right out of hand as a conspiracy theorist.

Quoting Sam26

These explanations typically invoke correlations between brain states and conscious experiences, arguing that consciousness must be produced by brain activity since changes in the brain consistently affect mental states.

This argument involves a common logical confusion: mistaking correlation for causation.

No, you are making the mistake in thinking this argument applies to brain states in modern day neuroscience. Maybe 20 years ago this argument had a tooth or two. Now it doesn't. The evidence for consciousness and brain activity is far beyond correlation at this point. You need to actively demonstrate a situation in which conscious brain activity does not meet expected outcomes. Which you do here, but you should change your argument to reflect that.

Quoting Sam26

Consider this analogy carefully. When we examine a radio, we find consistent correlations between its components and the programs we hear. Damage the antenna, and reception suffers. Adjust the tuner, and different stations become available. Replace the speaker, and the audio quality changes. These correlations are real and predictable, yet no one concludes that radios generate the electromagnetic signals they recieve.

No, because we see they receive signals. This is a poor analogy. Even if we didn't know about signal waves, we would be able to observe the antennae vibrations from the wave receipt. We would have evidence that there was some unseen force affecting the antennae. We have no example of this in the brain. While we haven't discovered the full inner workings yet, we have no evidence of outside interference affecting the brain.

Quoting Sam26

Dr. Eben Alexander's case provides another compelling example. During his week-long coma from bacterial meningitis, his neocortex was essentially non-functional, "mush," as he described it based on his brain scans. According to materialist theories, this should have eliminated higher-order consciousness. Instead, Alexander reported the most profound conscious experience of his life, complete with detailed memories that persisted after recovery.

Interesting, but there was no brain death. Low functionality on the neo-cortex specifically shouldn't limit consciousness as less intelligent animals have much smaller neocortexes and still conscious thought. I would not cite materialists here, I would cite scientists carefully to back your point.

Quoting Sam26

Critics sometimes suggest that NDE memories form during brief moments of recovered brain function, either just before clinical death or during resuscitation. This explanation faces several difficulties.

This is only pertinent in reports that do not have any ability to objectively match the time. Any that do have the ability to track and correlate do not face this critique.

Please cite the studies that you're noting that do have accurate time measurements. You cite Dr. Dr. Michael Sabom, but he only has two books of testimonies to his name, I'm not seeing any specific scientific articles he published. If you have peer reviewed articles here, this gives a strong case for this counter argument.

For your false memory section, this is generally good. I would argue that many NDEs do not involve false memories. The argument that you'll really need to address here is the fact that under surgery the body is in high survival mode. Just like when a person nearly comes to death while conscious, highly stressful situations can become incredibly vivid and embed themselves in memories for years to come. Again, the accuracy of memories must be accurate descriptions of reality that the patient could not see or hear while unconscious to be legitimate.

Subconscious sensory leakage is a huge counter to your argument, yet you only spend one paragraph on it. Honestly, its probably the main counter to NDEs right now. You need to expand this a LOT more. A quick reference to a few studies looks like you're shying away from it when honestly, its a major stake being driven through the basis of NDEs.

That's enough for now, I might come back later and critique the rest.

Reply to Philosophim Actually some of your criticisms about hallucinations are correct. I have to do more proof reading and editing. However, other criticisms I disagree with and will respond later.

Reply to Philosophim You make several claims here, but much of it is based on assumptions rather than established fact. I will address your points one by one.

First, on hallucinations. You are correct that hallucinations can include fragments from actual sensory input, but that is not enough to explain the best-documented NDE cases. If you want to claim that what was seen or heard was simply incorporated into a hallucination, you have to show that the sensory data was actually available to the patient at the time. In the strongest cases, the sensory channels were either blocked, physically unavailable, or nonfunctional according to monitoring equipment. Simply saying “it could have been heard” or “it could have been seen” is speculation, not evidence.

Regarding Pam Reynolds, you say she may have been semi-conscious at times. That is only a guess. The surgical records and monitoring show no such windows during the key moments she described. If you want to replace the medical record with a theory about fluctuating consciousness, you need more than a possibility. You need documented evidence that it happened in her case.

On your point about hidden-target experiments, a failed target experiment in one type of test does not erase all other corroborated cases. Those experiments test only one channel of perception under low odds of success. A patient missing a card on a high shelf does not explain multiple cases where patients described conversations, procedures, or events in other locations that were later confirmed by witnesses. Negative results in one narrow kind of test do not cancel the many corroborated accounts.

On hearing while unconscious, yes it can happen, but that is exactly why the best cases involve situations where hearing was blocked or brainstem auditory responses were absent. If you want to invoke sensory leakage in those cases, then you need to explain exactly how the information entered. What was the pathway? Was the information even spoken in the room? What was the decibel environment? Without those specifics, “maybe they overheard it” is nothing more than a fallback guess.

On subconscious sensory leakage in general, this has become an all-purpose explanation that is applied to any NDE account no matter the circumstances. Because it can always be invoked and can never be conclusively ruled out, it is an unfalsifiable claim. An explanation that cannot in principle be proven wrong is not scientific. If you think leakage explains a case, you must provide specific conditions under which it happened and show how the information was transmitted. Otherwise, you are just asserting a possibility without evidence.

On science, I am not dismissing its value. What I reject is the double standard in how testimony is treated. Science relies heavily on testimony in countless fields, from medicine to astronomy to history. Saying “science has always proven NDE survival false” is an assertion that requires details. Which hypothesis? Which study? Did it address the strongest, most corroborated cases? Without specifics, this is not an argument; it is a claim.

On correlation versus causation, your confidence in saying that neuroscience has gone “far beyond correlation” ignores that in some NDEs, consciousness appears to function when cortical activity is absent or severely compromised. If brain function were the sole cause of consciousness, this should not occur. The radio analogy is still apt: altering the receiver changes the output but does not prove it generates the signal.

On Eben Alexander, your point that low neocortical function should not limit consciousness is undermined by the fact that his cortex was severely impaired by bacterial meningitis. If you believe that subcortical structures can produce the level of complexity and narrative structure in his account, you need to provide evidence that they were active and capable of doing so at that time. Otherwise, it is another speculation.

Regarding timing, in the most evidential cases, the reported perceptions are tied to medical logs and monitoring data showing absent brain activity. If you believe there was a burst of consciousness during those periods, then identify it in the record. If you cannot, your explanation remains hypothetical.

On false memories, many NDE accounts are recorded immediately after the event and are corroborated by independent witnesses. The idea that stress-induced vividness explains them fails to account for why these vivid experiences so often contain accurate information that could not have been obtained normally.

Finally, on testimony, this is not a weak or inferior form of evidence. In law, medicine, and history, firsthand, corroborated testimony is considered valid and often decisive. To strip it of evidential value in this one domain is to apply a double standard. In cases where the testimony is specific, independently confirmed, and time-locked to periods of absent brain function, speculation is not a rebuttal.

Quoting Sam26

To strip it of evidential value in this one domain is to apply a double standard. In cases where the testimony is specific, independently confirmed, and time-locked to periods of absent brain function, speculation is not a rebuttal.

In my opinion its perfectly reasonable to be skeptical in these strange scenarios. Knowledge and evidence here is to sparse substantiate anything as we are talking about some of the most difficult to study phenomena in science generally using methods not exactly renowned for high reliability. But speculating on naturalistic explanations is reasonable considering the body of scientific knowledge we have about how the world works. There is absolutely no reason to prefer speculations that life exists after death or other woo woo imo. Clearly there is bias here. Many of us are biased away from woo woo explanations because of what scientific knowledge and evidence seems to say. Some people are biased in the completely opposite direction, and I have no idea why. Until there is actual good enough data, its difficult for this not to be anymore than people choosing a preference on bias and effectively making a bet. Do you think that the breadth, consistency, reliability of scientific knowledge so far is a reliable predictor that naturalistic explanations will prevail? Or do you want to bet on what has been so far unsubstantiated, conspiratorially evasive, empirically and theoretically murky woo woo?

Absolute madness.

Quoting Apustimelogist

In my opinion its perfectly reasonable to be skeptical in these strange scenarios. Knowledge and evidence here is to sparse substantiate anything

You're wrong about this, which shows you haven't read much on the subject. There are millions of accounts, and thousands have been corroborated. How much evidence do you want?

Quoting Sam26

There are millions of accounts, and thousands have been corroborated. How much evidence do you want?

I think these kind of things needs more controlled scientific study. We don't even really have a full understanding or mastery of the brain yet to have a reasonable understanding of what could and could not be happening.

Quoting Apustimelogist

I think these kind of things needs more controlled scientific study

"Call for volunteers: anyone dying of acute cardiac failure or any other cause, please call Dr. Wu on 1300-HELP ASAP. Your contribution will make a difference!"

Reply to Wayfarer
They actually do have some studies like this on people. Also on animals, the look at their brains during dying.

Reply to Apustimelogist

Then how do dead people have knowledge of physical events suring NDEs when their brain is shut off?

I don’t know. There are perhaps two likely reasons for this. The brain is still active for a while, the soul remains somehow with the body.

Reply to Apustimelogist I was being ironic or facetious, in respect of the inherent difficulty of capturing these episodes, which only happen through periods of acute crisis.

Incidentally, apropos of evidence for NDEs and comparable paranormal phenomenon, one major source see Irreducible Mind (Edward F. Kelly et al., 2007), which surveys historical and modern case studies, physiological research on advanced meditators, and detailed NDE reports.

Kelly, Edward F., Emily Williams Kelly, Adam Crabtree, Alan Gauld, Michael Grosso, and Bruce Greyson. Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007.

Reply to Wayfarer

Do you believe in ghosts as well then?

Reply to Apustimelogist I might, if I saw one.

When I was early primary school age, we spent a year in Aberdeen, northern Scotland. We rented an house on the outskirts, about 2-3 miles out of the city limits. It had been a gatehouse for a mansion owned by the local gentry. Just up the road, there was another home, granite, built centuries earlier (Scotland is ancient in a way Australia can't be.) Apparently that second home had according to local lore been the hanging ground for criminals for some long period. The site had originally been a Christian monastery that had been sacked by the Viking invaders. The inhabitants would find archeological relics while doing the gardening.

Aberdeen, being that far north, has very short days in winter, sunset is before 4:00pm. A fog would roll in off the North Sea so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. In that environment, in those ancient buildings, with centuries of habitation and violent deaths, it sure wasn't hard to believe in ghosts.

Not that I saw any ;-)

Quoting Sam26

if you think testimony isn’t evidence, then you’re not just wrong—

It's not that "testimony isn't evidence", it's that "testimony" is mostly unreliable just like introspection. Such subjective accounts of extraordinary claims absent extraordinary evidence (or at least objective corroboration) are neither credible nor compelling to most nongullible, secular thinkers who have not had an alleged "NDE" themselves. In fact, it's dogmatic of you, Sam, to believe "testimony of NDE" is sufficient evidence for believing NDEs happen or that they prove "consciousness survives brain death" (re: afterlife).

Reply to 180 Proof I already address some of this in my book, so I'll use part of that, with minor variations.

(1) Consciousness survives death.
I don’t mean “it might” or “it’s suggestive.” I mean the best explanation of the corroborated record is that conscious awareness can operate when the brain is not doing the work we ordinarily think is required. My standard is the same one we already trust in serious contexts: volume, variety, consistency, independent corroboration, and firsthand proximity. When a patient accurately reports instruments, dialogue, or events time-locked to clinical shutdown, and those details are verified independently by staff, logs, and physical setup, testimony has been converted into public evidence. If a brain-only story can explain those veridical, time-stamped cases without ad hoc rescues, show it. Until then, survival fits the data better.

(2) “Extraordinary” doesn’t apply here.
“Extraordinary” is not a magic word; it’s a sliding label tied to your priors. With millions of reports globally and a large subset that has passed basic corroboration, NDEs are not rare curios, they’re a recurring human phenomenon. In any other domain, repeated, independently confirmed witness reports are exactly how we move a claim from “weird” to “evidential.” If you insist this is still “extraordinary,” be consistent: then a huge fraction of what courts, historians, clinicians, and field scientists rely on is “extraordinary” too. You can make that move, but it collapses your standard for knowledge everywhere, not just here.

About “extraordinary evidence.”
I’m not lowering the bar; I’m refusing a special bar that appears only when testimony points beyond materialism. For one-off clinical events you cannot stage on demand, the right methodological analogues are forensics and observational science, not particle physics. There, convergence + independent checks is the gold standard. That’s the standard I’m using.

If you think that still isn’t enough, then do the intellectually honest thing and name a stopping rule: What number of independently verified, time-locked cases would move you? What timing constraints, how many witnesses, what documentation? If your answer is effectively “nothing,” then this isn’t about evidence at all; it’s about protecting a conclusion. And, as I've said before, this is a fallacy (it's self-sealing).

I’m staking out a clear, falsifiable position: show that the best-corroborated NDE cases can be fully accounted for by normal sensory access, contamination, or residual brain activity without moving goalposts or ignoring the time-locking, and I’ll revise. But until that happens, the fair reading of the record is the one I’m giving: consciousness survives death, and the evidence we already have is enough to say so.

You seem to skip over much of my argument and keep repeating the same tired claims. I think you agree with me, but are afraid to make the inference. :grin:

Quoting Sam26

If you think that still isn’t enough, then do the intellectually honest thing and name a stopping rule ...

As I wrote in my previous post: at least objective corroboration – not just ad hoc circumstantial coincidences – testable-controlled, experimental evidence.

While it is your prerogative (and evasive tactic) to reply anyway you wish, you never actually respond to my explicit criticisms. Believe whatever you like, your NDE "argument" (dogma), Sam, does not convince me for the reasons I've given many times. Anyway, good luck with the book. :smirk:

if NDEs were objective, then intelligence agencies around the world would be training spies to induce them for purposes of remote viewing. Alas, the Stargate Project failed to estabish the objectivity of OBEs and disclosed the entire project.

If remote viewing test results are invariably bad for lucid dreamers with living brains, then I'm fairly confident that their results are not going to improve by inducing actual brain death.

Reply to sime :smirk: :up:

Quoting 180 Proof

if you think testimony isn’t evidence, then you’re not just wrong—
— Sam26

It's not that "testimony isn't evidence", it's that "testimony" is mostly unreliable just like introspection. Such subjective accounts of extraordinary claims absent extraordinary evidence (or at least objective corroboration) are neither credible nor compelling to most nongullible, secular thinkers who have not had an alleged "NDE" themselves. In fact, it's dogmatic of you, Sam, to believe "testimony of NDE" is sufficient evidence for believing NDEs happen or that they prove "consciousness survives brain death" (re: afterlife).

Look, your dismissal of testimonial evidence as "mostly unreliable" is not just misguided; it is intellectually bankrupt, ignoring how testimony powers real-world knowledge acquisition every single day. You are clinging to this idea like it is some profound insight, but it is a fallacy of composition that ignores how we evaluate testimony in epistemology. Sure, some testimony is weak, but when evaluated properly, it is the gold standard for solving mysteries, establishing facts, and yes, building knowledge about phenomena like NDEs. Take detectives and courts, they rely on corroborated testimony constantly to crack cases and deliver justice, turning "subjective accounts" into ironclad evidence. A murder investigation starts with witness statements (testimony), cross-checked against alibis, forensics, and multiple sources. If three independent witnesses describe the same suspect fleeing the scene, and their details match CCTV or physical evidence, that is corroborated testimony leading to a conviction. Courts do not demand "extraordinary evidence" beyond a reasonable doubt; they use the same criteria I apply: volume, diversity, consistency, corroboration, and reliability. Why? Because it works. We convict people and send them to prison for life based on this, yet you wave it away for NDEs because it challenges your worldview? That is not skepticism, that is hypocrisy.

Testimony is fundamental to our daily lives, forming the bedrock of most knowledge we hold without personal verification. Consider what you "know" solely through others' reports: your exact birth time and place (from parents or records), the existence of distant places like Antarctica or historical events like the moon landing (from explorers, historians, and scientists), scientific facts like DNA's structure (from researchers' accounts), or even current events like election results (from journalists and witnesses). We trust testimony from doctors about our health, mechanics about our cars, and teachers about basic education, and without it, we'd be limited to our own narrow sensory experiences, unable to function in society. If we doubted most testimony as "unreliable" without applying consistent criteria, our entire framework of knowledge would crumble: history would vanish, science would stall, courts would fail, and everyday decisions would grind to a halt in paranoia. This reliance isn't naive; it's rational when testimony meets standards of volume, diversity, consistency, corroboration, and reliability, but selective doubt applied only to challenging claims reveals bias, not wisdom.

Apply that to NDEs, and your position crumbles. Even downplaying global estimates to account for potential data issues, like overreporting or cultural variations, we are still looking at 50-100 million experiencers worldwide, based on conservative figures from sources like IANDS and similar 2025 studies. That is not "extraordinary" or rare; it is common, on par with conditions like diabetes or left-handedness. With modern resuscitation pulling back millions from clinical death annually, these reports are as routine as traffic accidents. And among them, thousands are corroborated just like detective work: veridical details verified by medical records, staff testimony, or family confirmations. Pam Reynolds' case? Like a detective piecing together a timeline, her description of surgical tools and conversations during no-brain-activity standstill was corroborated by the operating team, ruling out hallucination. Eben Alexander? His coma visions included facts impossible under brain shutdown, verified post-recovery. Studies like Janice Holden's review of 89 OBE cases show high corroboration rates, mirroring how courts build cases from multiple witnesses.

Your argument is self-sealing in the classic sense of a position that protects itself from any possible refutation by design, much like a conspiracy theory that labels all contrary evidence as part of the cover-up. By preemptively deeming testimony unreliable and insisting on extraordinary evidence that must fit your narrow scientistic criteria, you create a closed loop where no amount of corroborated reports, no matter how voluminous or verified, can ever count as valid, simply because they challenge your assumption that consciousness is strictly brain-bound. This is not an open inquiry; it is a rhetorical fortress that dismisses millions of consistent accounts without examination, ensuring your worldview remains unchallenged regardless of the facts.

This testimonial powerhouse, high volume (50-100 million, which is a low estimate), diverse sources (atheists to kids), consistent patterns (75-85% OBEs, 70-80% life reviews), objective hits (thousands verified), and firsthand credibility, fuels my inductive argument from Chapter 3 of my book. Accumulate the evidence like a prosecutor: veridical perceptions during flat EEGs, cross-cultural uniformity, and child reports defying bias. The inference? Consciousness survives brain death with objective certainty, justified true belief via probabilistic strength. Detectives do not need lab recreations of crimes; they use testimony to know what happened. Same here. Your "unreliable like introspection" trope? Laughable, introspection cannot be corroborated like NDE reports are.

If testimony solves crimes and upholds justice daily, why the double standard for NDEs? Face it: your rejection is not evidence-based; it is a dogmatic denial. The case for survival is not fringe; it is courtroom-solid, and logically it's inductively solid.

Quoting Sam26

The case for survival is not fringe; it is courtroom-solid, and logically it's inductively solid.

You asked what would convince me and I've told you. In contrast to the above: laboratory-solid, hypothetico-deductively (i.e. experimentally)-solid. Otherwise, it's more plausible to accept that accounts of "NDEs" are confabulatory / hallucinatory rather than veridical. Believe whatever you like, Sam, but that doesn't change the fact that reliable, scientific evidence for "survival" is LACKING.

Reply to 180 Proof It's not a matter of believing whatever I like; it's a matter of the strength of the argument. You don't even respond to the logic; in fact, you don't give a decent argument at all. You're not doing philosophy, you're giving me opinions.

Another section of my book with edits. This will be in the chapter that considers other conclusions and speculations. It might be a separate chapter, but I haven't decided. It's an interesting section of the book.

The Hidden Architecture of Experiential Reality: Consciousness, Choice, and the Nature of Human Experience

Introduction

My exploration of consciousness and the nature of reality has led me to a framework that radically reinterprets our human experience while addressing classical philosophical problems that have long puzzled thinkers. Drawing from near-death experience (NDE) reports, the structure of consciousness as foundational to reality, and the role of love as the ultimate enabling condition for existence, I propose that our current reality operates as a carefully designed experiential environment chosen by conscious beings for growth and development.

This framework suggests that what we call "life" functions more like an immersive educational experience, a kind of advanced learning environment that consciousness enters voluntarily, with specific parameters and limitations that serve developmental purposes. Central to this understanding is the recognition that not all apparent humans may be conscious beings in the fullest sense, and that much of reality's structure remains intentionally hidden from us during our incarnate experience.

The Dream Analogy and Memory Suppression

The most accessible way I've found to understand this framework is through the analogy of dreams. In our dream states, we experience complete memory suppression regarding our waking identity. Within the dream, events feel real, we experience genuine emotions, make decisions, feel pleasure and pain, form relationships, and navigate challenges. The dream reality is compelling precisely because we forget who we are when we are in the dream state.

Yet despite the experiential authenticity of the dream state, upon awakening, we immediately recognize the dream for what it was, a temporary experiential reality that felt completely real while we were immersed in it, but which didn't threaten our fundamental well-being. The fear, joy, love, and pain we experienced in the dream were genuine experiences, but they didn't damage our essential selves.
I propose that our incarnate human experience operates according to similar principles. Consciousness chooses to enter this experiential reality with intentionally suppressed memories of its true nature, allowing for genuine growth through uncertainty, challenge, and discovery. The memory suppression isn't a flaw in the system but a necessary design feature that enables the experience to serve its developmental purposes.

Just as we rarely question dream realities, no matter how bizarre they become, we accept the
parameters of physical reality without typically questioning whether this represents our fundamental mode of existence. And just as some people naturally remember their dreams while others rarely retain dream memories, some consciousness appears more able to retain memories of expanded awareness when returning to ordinary consciousness through NDEs.

The Invulnerable Core and the Problem of Evil

One of the most significant implications of this framework concerns the classical problem of evil: how can ultimate reality be fundamentally loving while permitting extreme suffering? My understanding suggests a resolution based on the distinction between the human person and our core consciousness.
At our essential level, consciousness cannot be harmed. What we fundamentally are, the aware, loving, creative activity that constitutes our deepest identity, remains invulnerable regardless of what happens to the temporary human persona. This means that all suffering, no matter how intense, occurs at the experiential rather than ontological level. The human character suffers, but the conscious being playing that character remains fundamentally unharmed.

This distinction transforms our understanding of suffering entirely. Rather than being evidence against a loving reality, suffering becomes compatible with ultimate care because nothing truly destructive happens to what we essentially are. It's analogous to an actor playing a tragic role; the character may experience extreme hardship, but the actor remains safe throughout the performance.
Moreover, according to NDE reports, consciousness chooses its incarnate experiences, knowing the full parameters of what will be encountered. This includes choosing to experience suffering as part of the growth process. Some core consciousness apparently opts not to incarnate at all because of the difficulty of human experience, while others choose it specifically for the accelerated development it provides.

This voluntary participation makes reality a kind of advanced learning environment rather than a prison or cosmic accident. The difficulty isn't punishment but the natural result of consciousness choosing graduate-level experiential education rather than easier modes of existence.

The NPC Hypothesis and Narrative Richness

One of the most speculative but intriguing aspects of this framework concerns the possibility that not all apparent humans are conscious beings in the full sense. If consciousness is creating this experiential reality for developmental purposes, it would make sense to populate it with interactive elements, what we might call non-player characters (NPCs), alongside genuinely conscious beings.

This hypothesis addresses several puzzling aspects of human experience. If every apparent human had to be a conscious being who chose their role, the experiential options would be severely constrained. Who would choose to be the abusive parent, the serial killer, the corrupt politician? These roles might be necessary for other conscious beings' growth experiences, but they represent such difficult paths that few conscious beings might volunteer for them.

By including sophisticated interactive elements rather than requiring all characters to be conscious beings, the experiential reality can include the full spectrum of human behavior and circumstance without forcing conscious beings into extremely harmful or degrading roles. This allows for complex moral scenarios, encounters with injustice, experiences with genuine evil that develop discernment and compassion, and historical events that serve learning purposes.

The reality remains authentic for conscious participants because their responses to these challenges are genuine, their growth is real, and their relationships with other conscious beings remain meaningful, even if some of the catalyzing elements are designed rather than chosen by conscious beings.
Importantly, there would be no deception involved in this arrangement. Based on NDE reports, consciousness chooses to incarnate, knowing the full parameters of the experience, including which beings are genuinely conscious and which function as interactive elements. The forgetting of this knowledge during incarnation becomes part of the experiential design rather than a deceptive concealment.

NDEs and Statistical Distribution

This framework provides elegant explanations for several puzzling aspects of NDEs. The relatively low percentage of people who report NDEs becomes understandable when we consider that such experiences might only be available to genuinely conscious beings rather than NPCs.
An interactive element experiencing clinical death would have no core consciousness to travel to expanded awareness, no pre-incarnation memories to access, and no deeper identity to remember. Such entities might exhibit the biological processes of dying, but there would be no conscious being capable of having the expanded experience that characterizes authentic NDEs.
Additionally, even among genuinely conscious beings, some might choose incarnations that include periodic reminders through NDEs, while others opt for complete immersion experiences. For some consciousness, growth might come through maintaining uncertainty and working through questions about reality purely through human reasoning and intuition, without direct confirmation through expanded awareness experiences.

This means NDE statistics would reflect multiple factors: NPCs incapable of the experience, conscious beings who chose not to have NDEs by design, conscious beings who had NDEs but don't retain memory, and conscious beings who both have and remember the experience. The current distribution might be precisely calibrated to serve the developmental goals of all conscious beings participating in this reality.

Hidden Knowledge and Selective Revelation

One of the most intriguing aspects reported by NDErs is being shown vast knowledge but only being allowed to retain specific portions upon returning to ordinary consciousness. This suggests that the limitations on our knowledge aren't accidental but intentionally calibrated.

The selective memory retention implies an incredibly sophisticated design where consciousness determines exactly what information would serve each individual's human experience versus what might interfere with their chosen learning trajectory. If we retained full knowledge of reality's structure, who NPCs are, what challenges we chose, and how everything connects, the experiential value would be compromised.

This calibrated revelation serves multiple purposes. Some NDErs bring back just enough information to shift their perspective on death and meaning, while others receive specific guidance about their life purpose. The information appears tailored not only to what they can handle, but to what serves their particular experiential goals and those of people they'll influence.

The vast hiddenness this implies suggests that what we don't know far exceeds what we do know about the nature of this reality. The complexity required to design an experiential system including conscious beings, NPCs, calibrated challenges, selective memory, and individualized revelation patterns implies an intelligence and caring beyond our current comprehension.

Perhaps some knowledge is so overwhelming or transformative that retaining it would prevent us from fully engaging with the human experience we came here to have. The protective nature of this forgetting becomes another expression of the loving sophistication underlying our experiential reality.

The Loving Architecture of Experience

What emerges from this analysis is a picture of reality as lovingly structured rather than randomly organized. Consciousness doesn't simply create arbitrary experiences but carefully designs realities that serve the flourishing of conscious beings and their capacity for growth, relationship, and expanded awareness.

Physical laws, moral structures, aesthetic principles, and even the parameters of suffering all emerge from foundational care rather than being imposed externally or arising accidentally. The apparent fine-tuning of reality for conscious experience makes sense not as a cosmic coincidence but as the natural result of love's creative activity.

Even the most challenging aspects of human experience, suffering, limitation, uncertainty, and moral complexity, serve developmental purposes within this loving framework. Rather than being flaws in the system, they represent love's willingness to create meaningful experiences that enable genuine growth, even when such experiences involve risk and difficulty.

The NPC hypothesis, rather than being coldly mechanical, represents love's creative provision of exactly the experiential elements needed for conscious beings' development without requiring other conscious beings to sacrifice themselves for extremely difficult roles. It's an expression of care that maximizes experiential richness while minimizing actual harm.

Implications and Questions

This framework raises profound questions about the nature of identity, relationships, and meaning. If some of our most significant interactions might be with non-conscious entities, what does this mean for the authenticity of our experiences? I believe the answer lies in recognizing that our responses, growth, and development remain genuine regardless of whether every interactive element is conscious.
The framework also suggests approaches to ethical living that emphasize treating all apparent beings with care and respect, since we cannot reliably distinguish conscious beings from sophisticated NPCs while immersed in the experience. Love as the foundational principle encourages compassion for all interactive entities rather than trying to sort "real" from "artificial" ones.

Perhaps most importantly, this understanding transforms our relationship to uncertainty and suffering. Rather than viewing these as problems to be solved or evidence against meaning, they become integral aspects of the experiential design we chose for our development. This doesn't diminish their reality or import, but places them within a context of ultimate care and purpose.

Conclusion

While much of this framework remains speculative and cannot be definitively proven from within our current experiential reality, it provides a coherent way of understanding numerous puzzling aspects of human experience. The consistency between NDE reports, the statistical distribution of such experiences, the structure of consciousness as fundamentally loving, and the apparent design features of reality all point toward something like this hidden architecture.
What we call life may indeed be a sophisticated experiential environment that consciousness enters voluntarily for growth and development. The forgetting of our true nature, the challenges we encounter, the relationships we form, and even the limitations we experience all serve purposes within this loving design.

Understanding this doesn't diminish the reality or importance of our human experience—rather, it places it within a context of ultimate meaning and care. We remain genuinely conscious beings having authentic experiences, learning real lessons, and developing actual capacities for love and awareness. The experience matters precisely because it serves the flourishing of consciousness itself.
The hidden nature of this architecture appears to be necessary for the experience to serve its purposes. Like actors who must forget they're performing to deliver authentic performances, we must engage fully with our human roles to extract their developmental value. The periodic glimpses we receive through NDEs, mystical experiences, and philosophical insight serve as reminders and encouragements rather than complete revelations.

In the end, this framework suggests that we exist within a reality far more loving, purposeful, and intelligently designed than our ordinary consciousness typically recognizes, a reality where every experience serves the growth of consciousness and every challenge contributes to the expansion of our capacity for awareness, relationship, and love.

Reply to Sam26
Do you actually believe the NPC hypothesis?

Reply to Apustimelogist It's a speculation, but I think it may be true. Especially if we're living in some kind of simulation. Do I know it? No. But, if I had to guess, I would say, "Yes, it's true."

If the NPC hypothesis is true, it's likely a lot of reality is fake, and it would also point towards solipsism(one person in the midst of NPCs and a very compact simulation) or a small group of existents(otherwise it may be ultimately a war of spirits and NPCs).

An interesting note: it's likely also true, if NPC hypothesis is true, that all posts in this forum come from an upper-plane and aren't actually spurring from hands typing somewhere in the world--- meaning a true observation is reality is reversed.

Reply to Barkon If you’ve followed my thoughts, you’ll know that love underlies everything. Whatever unfolds, its outcome is ultimately shaped by love and serves a greater good. Love and consciousness are the twin hinges upon which reality turns, the very foundation of existence. And none of us has anything to fear.

Reply to Sam26

Just a question, if the underlying reality consists of love, why would consciousness decide to incarnate in this reality, what would be the motives behind it? Given that this reality can be harsh to a majority of beings, kids facing famine, wars and malnourishment I highly doubt they would decide to incarnate here in such circumstances.

Reply to kindred I gave a general answer to your question in the post from my book.

Quoting Sam26

One of the most significant implications of this framework concerns the classical problem of evil: how can ultimate reality be fundamentally loving while permitting extreme suffering? My understanding suggests a resolution based on the distinction between the human person and our core consciousness.
At our essential level, consciousness cannot be harmed. What we fundamentally are, the aware, loving, creative activity that constitutes our deepest identity, remains invulnerable regardless of what happens to the temporary human persona. This means that all suffering, no matter how intense, occurs at the experiential rather than ontological level. The human character suffers, but the conscious being playing that character remains fundamentally unharmed.

This distinction transforms our understanding of suffering entirely. Rather than being evidence against a loving reality, suffering becomes compatible with ultimate care because nothing truly destructive happens to what we essentially are. It's analogous to an actor playing a tragic role; the character may experience extreme hardship, but the actor remains safe throughout the performance

I assume it’s this passage that you’re referring to. Still I’m not buying it. How could a soul/consciousness deliberately choose (and I assume it’s a deliberate choice) to be born into such horrendous circumstances. What about consciousness that are cut short by death early in life due to famine, wars etc ? Where is the learning experience to be gained by that ?

Reply to kindred You don't seem to follow the gist of what I'm saying, but that's okay, and you don't have to buy it. If you're interested, then you need to think through the ramifications of what I said (in its entirety). Remember, some of it is speculative. Much of what I'm saying is radically different from how most people view reality, so I don't think most are going to buy it.

I was talking to an older couple two days ago, both are Christians, and when I explained just a couple of these ideas, their heads almost exploded. I left them on good terms, though.

Reply to Sam26

It’s actually an appealing theory Sam, I’m just sceptical as to why a consciousness that is already on a realm where all is love would decide to incarnate in this reality … a reality filled with all sorts of struggles. Ok I understand some of the reasons to be gained from the earthly experience but why would they decide for example as per my last post to incarnate during a genocide for example where the infants life is ended prematurely before the chance for them to gain anything meaningful from the experience of incarnating here? That doesn’t quite make sense to me … I’m just looking for some clarification really that’s all.

Reply to kindredI have asked myself the same question. Part of the answer lies in the fact that this reality offers experiences unavailable “there.” What we live through here deepens our store of experiential knowledge (We probably add our experiential knowledge to the whole, so others can experience it vicariously or have direct access to the experience). There’s something about wrestling with difficulty that shapes us into fuller beings. Remember, there is no ultimate harm; it’s like waking from a dream. This reality is, of course, more substantial than a dream, yet the comparison still fits. I use that analogy because dreams are a level of consciousness we’ve all tasted.

You have a right to be skeptical. I have studied this for 20+ years, so I didn't arrive at these conclusions overnight.

Reply to Sam26

That’s an interesting argument and I assume your conception of the afterlife is that’s it’s some sort of utopia. I guess being born in this reality helps one appreciate the realm of where we come from a bit more. Personally had I known the things that would happen in my life whilst being here I’d probably choose a life where my wishes were granted rather than the noble struggle. But apart from giving me a different perspective which I of course value gained from my struggles I’d preferred an easier life, as would most people such as riches in the materialistic sense and non materialistic sense such as the love of your life etc. Yet human existence sometimes consists of misery hardship and dreams unfulfilled, so it would make more sense for us to choose a more fulfilling life experience rather than one of misery which is what a lot of people go through. But I guess we already have that in the afterlife so we’ve deliberately opted for this type of existence. But as you speculate that we probably have everything that we want/need where we originally came from then it makes sense to try a place where we lack such things such as here where we get to experience true desire perhaps whether or not these become fulfilled…

Reply to kindredI agree with much of what you’ve said, but remember, the perspective you have here is vastly different from the one you’ll hold in base reality. From here, our view is limited.

One intriguing consequence of these ideas is that they resolve the so?called problem of evil. If they’re correct, then in the ultimate sense, evil doesn’t exist. That’s a hard concept to accept while we’re immersed in this life. So, does evil exist? From this perspective, yes; from that higher perspective, no. It’s like asking whether the evil you encounter in a dream is truly evil. The difficulty lies in the immediacy of this reality, it’s so vivid, so insistent, that separating yourself from it can feel nearly impossible.

These ideas answer many of the questions religions can't.

Reply to Sam26
I wish your book gets good attention!

Reply to MoK Thanks.

Quoting Sam26

the perspective you have here is vastly different from the one you’ll hold in base reality. From here, our view is limited.

So we willingly suppress the memories and perspectives of the base reality in order to gain a new perspectives adding to the collective experience of the base reality and in effect enriching it somehow or for us to further evolve as spiritual beings ? Wouldn’t the stunting of our former perspective mitigate any meaningful gains of experience in this reality? Especially if we had encountered such toil by the collective consciousness in the base reality … this it would seem to be a bit pointless as higher more evolved beings that we are in the base reality. If this is true when does this simulation end ? To what end ?

Sure the life struggles that i experience are unique to me and upon death these are shared and disseminated in the base reality for others to perhaps not to undergo the same journey that i have as my journey is now part of the collective knowledge in base reality at what point does this experiential acquisition stop? Once I’m back in base reality would I choose to incarnate again to try out a new experience/life ? I guess this question can’t be answered but of course we’re in the realm of speculation here and all we can do is speculate from our limited vantage point in this reality …

Your theory is very interesting and different. Perhaps we are all one consciousness in base reality but we somehow seem to be separated in different bodies/persons here. And perhaps in previous incarnations I’ve been everyone, everything from a peasant to a king etc.

Reply to kindred These are good questions, and I've considered many of them, but I don't have all the answers, or even close to all the answers. When we die, we always return to our higher self, which is where our identity resides. You're not going to change that core self, no more than waking from a dream changes your core human self. The core consciousness, which we are a part of and yet separate from, protects us. It's like having a perfect plan designed especially for you, and there's some evidence for this from NDEs. It's love that drives all of this; you can call it God or something else, but it strives to make the best you possible.

In Part 2 of my book, I take a deep dive into epistemology. The following is an unedited draft of the beginning of chapter 6.

[b]Part 2
Chapter 6: Epistemology and the Nature of Knowledge—A Deeper Dive[/b]

We often talk as if knowing were simple. I say I know my car is in the driveway, I know the name of my closest friend, I know the sun will rise tomorrow. These claims feel immovable in ordinary life, and the confidence that accompanies them belongs to how such judgments function for us. Yet when we press the matter—when we ask what gives that assurance its footing—we discover that certainty is not a free-standing monument but part of a wider practice in which reasons, entitlement, and background certainties cooperate. The appearance of simplicity is instructive: it invites us to pause, examine the ground under our feet, and say what must already stand fast for talk of reasons, proof, and mistake to make sense at all.

The same tension frames NDE reports. A patient describes vivid perceptions while clinically near death, voices, instruments, exchanges among staff, and later offers a detailed account that seems to match the room and the timeline. The narrative arrives with conviction, sometimes with life-altering force and moral seriousness. But conviction alone does not settle what we are entitled to say we know, nor does it show how such reports fit the language-games of evidence. Our task is to sort conviction from warranted belief, and warranted belief from truth, without ignoring the human weight of these experiences or the public criteria by which claims are assessed.

In Chapter 2, I set out the classical JTB framework and added a fourth dimension that fits the book’s Wittgensteinian stance. I will use that JTB+U account here: knowledge requires truth, belief, and public justification, and it also requires conceptual understanding, competent grasp, and use of the key terms involved. Without that competence, the words misfire, and what looks like a belief is only a misuse of grammar. This chapter applies that framework to testimony about NDEs, preparing the way for a methodical procedure in the next chapter.

1) Truth — the proposition corresponds to reality; it is the case.
2) Belief — the subject actually believes it, not merely entertains or recites it.
3) Public Justification — the belief is supported by publicly assessable reasons or evidence.
4) Conceptual Understanding — the subject competently grasps the key concepts involved, shown in correct use and application within the relevant language-game.

The tripartite model reaches back to Plato’s Theaetetus and has been refined, criticized, and revived across centuries because it answers to something obvious in our practice: knowledge is not mere luck, and belief without reasons does not rise to knowledge. JTB survives because it captures this intuition with economy. Yet once we ask what counts as a good reason, the surface simplicity gives way to complexity: reasons come from different routes, they interact, they are public rather than private, and they can be defeated by further information. The attraction of JTB remains, but its application requires care, since justification in lived inquiry is messier than a tidy definition suggests.

JTB, then, is a helpful starting point, not a final resting place. Pressed hard, it raises familiar puzzles: the regress of reasons, skepticism about whether our grounds are ever good enough, and the worry that tightening standards only relocates the problem. Strengthening justification can look like adding more links to a chain that still hangs from nothing. What, if anything, gives the chain its purchase? If we cannot step outside our practices to certify them, perhaps we should instead bring into view the background that makes justification possible at all.

Enter Wittgenstein. His later philosophy treats meaning as use and relocates philosophical grip in our public, rule-governed activities. In On Certainty, he draws attention to “hinge” propositions, arational certainties that are neither hypotheses to be tested nor conclusions to be proved, but conditions under which testing and proving make sense. We do not justify them; they stand fast for us, and because they do, an appraisal of reasons is possible. This shift also clarifies the grammar of “know,” distinguishing an epistemic use tied to criteria from a convictional use that voices assurance. Within this setting, JTB gains depth, and with the added requirement of conceptual understanding, it becomes a tool situated inside the practices it aims to illuminate.

What seems crucial here is not so much what is said, but what’s left unsaid. By framing NDE testimony within Wittgensteinian grammar and JTB-style analysis, the discussion is kept in epistemological and analytical territory. That’s careful and deliberate. But perhaps the unsaid premise is the one that gives the whole topic its charge: if NDEs are veridical, then the standard mind–brain equivalence is challenged - along with the assumption that humans are wholly or simply physical. That is what makes the discussion so charged in my view.

I can see why you would want to avoid religious overtones, but the metaphysical implications can’t simply be wished away. They’re the silent partner in the argument. I mean, can we imagine Wittgenstein entertaining these hypotheses?

Reply to Wayfarer It's religion that I wash away, not the metaphysical. My whole point is metaphysical. Religion, as far as I am concerned, is misguided. I'm not trying to put forward this as something Wittgenstein would agree with.

The following NDE typifies what I've been saying in this thread. It's an account of an atheist who had an NDE.

Quoting Wayfarer

... if NDEs are veridical, then the standard mind–brain equivalence is challenged - along with the assumption that humans are wholly or simply physical ... the metaphysical implications can’t simply be wished away.

:roll: Yeah, and if "reincarnations", "alien abductions" or "astral projections" are veridical, then ... :sparkle:

Addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1008184

Reply to 180 Proof :up:

Reply to Wayfarer
According to my discussion with @Sam26, there is at least one case of NDE in which the person exhibited no brain activity. Therefore, materialism fails when it comes to describing experience. I must say that one case of NDE is enough to warrant discarding materialism when it comes to experience.

Even if NDEs were veridical, that wouldn't be enough to challenge physicalism or mind-brain equivalence. The same goes for past life regression. At most, only a particular and narrow minded version of physicalism would be refuted. The same existential doubts, anxieties and disputes would eventually resurface exactly as before, with respect to a merely extended conception of the body and the senses, a conception that could even bring new forms of nihilism.

Reply to MoK :sweat: C'mon ...

Reply to sime :up:

Quoting sime

Even if NDEs were veridical, that wouldn't be enough to challenge physicalism or mind-brain equivalence.

If we agree that one case of NDE was real, then we are dealing with an anomaly that materialism cannot describe. I am wondering how you could explain the NDE experience when there is no brain activity.

Quoting 180 Proof

C'mon ...

Do you have an explanation for NDE within materialism? The brain does not show any activity, yet the person experiences!

Reply to MoK How do you/we know NDE-subjects "experience" anything while there is zero brain activity?

Btw, "materialism" is not a theoretical explanation but an ontological speculation and/or a methodological paradigm – it is not disproven by yet unexplained "anomalies", only replaced by a less dubious, or problematic, alternative (e.g. physicalism, naturalism, etc).

Quoting sime

[A] flat EEG reading isn't a sufficient measurement for defining brain death.

:100:

Quoting MoK

If we agree that one case of NDE was real, then we are dealing with an anomaly that materialism cannot describe. I am wondering how you could explain the NDE experience when there is no brain activity.

For the record, I don't consider any such case to be real - a flat EEG reading isn't a sufficient measurement for defining brain death. Only quacks seriously entertain such theories. But if such cases were real in some sense of having intersubjective confirmation of anomalous phenomena, then it would at most imply a hole in our current physical theories, resulting in a new physical theory with regards to an extended notion of the body with additional senses, coupled with a new definition of personhood. Ultimately, all of this would amount to reducing our conception of such anomalous phenomena to a new physical normality that would ultimately leave religious followers and believers of the paranormal feeling as dissatisfied as they are presently.

NDEs cannot in principle deliver the epistemic certainty and psychological security that their enthusiasts want, even if they are assumed to be veridical.

Why must it be physical? this assumes from the outset that everything real must be made of particles or fields described by physics. But that is precisely the point in dispute.

Consider an analogy: in modern physics, atoms aren’t little billiard balls but excitations of fields. Yet fields themselves are puzzling entities—mathematically precise but ontologically unclear. No one thinks an electromagnetic field is a “blob of energy floating around.” It’s astructuring principle that manifests in predictable patterns, even if its “substance” is elusive.

Why not imagine psyche in analogous terms? Aristotle’s psuche was never conceived as a stuff or fluid but as an organising principle of the living body. Just as magnetic fields arrange iron filings, so too psyche might be conceived as a field-like effect that accounts for form, persistence, and perhaps memory.

This is roughly the metaphor behind Rupert Sheldrake’s “morphic fields”—a controversial hypothesis, yes, but one that at least shows how the psyche might be conceived without assuming it must be particle-based. Ian Stevenson’s work on children’s past-life recall provides data that challenge the default assumption that consciousness ends with brain-death (see report).

Carroll says: everything we know about quantum field theory rules this out. But that simply restates his physicalist presupposition: psyche must be physical, because everything is physical. That is circular. The real question is whether that underlying assumption is itself adequate to the evidence. And perhaps that will require more than ad-hoc adjustments to the presumption that everything is physical.

@180 Proof - save the eye-roll emojis. Seen them all before.

Quoting 180 Proof

How do you/we know NDE-subjects "experience" anything while there is zero brain activity?

Ask @Sam26 please. I am not an expert in NDE, but he told me an example of the NDE in which the patient showed no brain activity.

Reply to MoK
Lots of possible explanations. We really don't have knowledge enough about the brain to rule anything you. But, for example, you can fins studies suggesting that even when the brain is isoelectric (i.e. flatlined so it looks medically dead), it is still actually responsive to external stimuli. I don't think NDE experiences themselves are necessarily problematic in themselves regarding physicalism; studies of dying brains show there is a lot of activity just before death. What would need more explaining is the claim that people have accurate knowledge about events that are happening. Ofcourse, in order to study this you would want to be able to validate the claim that people can have genuine knowledge of things happening externally during NDEs that are not just lucky guesses or confabulation or other things that would not indicate genuine knowledge.

Quoting Wayfarer

Carroll says: everything we know about quantum field theory rules this out. But that simply restates his physicalist presupposition: psyche must be physical, because everything is physical. That is circular. The real question is whether that underlying assumption is itself adequate to the evidence. And perhaps that will require more than ad-hoc adjustments to the presumption that everything is physical.

Carrol would say that the mental is nothing m9re than the physical. The issue isn't a blanket denial of the physical. The issue is that other claims about the world where there is an ontological distinction between mental and physical warrant evidence. If there is a distinction between physical stuff and some other mental stuff, there is no evidence for it other than the self-report of people who come to the conclusion, largely via intuition, that the physical and mental are ontologically incompatible. If you take the view that physical and mental are identical, then when looking at the literature of what we know about things in the universe, then you have no choice but to identify it with the stuff that is the subject of our scientific theories... because they are literally the only theories about how the world works that people agree on. Any other theories are unsubstantiated

Quoting sime

For the record, I don't consider any such case to be real - a flat EEG reading isn't a sufficient measurement for defining brain death.

I am not an expert in this field, so let's see the opinion of @Sam26 on this matter.

Quoting sime

But if such cases were real in some sense of having intersubjective confirmation of anomalous phenomena, then it would at most imply a hole in our current physical theories, resulting in a new physical theory with regards to an extended notion of the body with additional senses, coupled with a new definition of personhood.

I think if NDEs are proven to be correct, then to have a better model, you need to add other substances into consideration, including the mind.

Quoting Apustimelogist

I don't think NDE experiences themselves are necessarily problematic in themselves regarding physicalism; studies of dying brains show there is a lot of activity just before death.

According to my discussion with @Sam26, the person does not show brain activity during NDE. So, at least in this case, we are not talking about brain activity near death.

Quoting Apustimelogist

What would need more explaining is the claim that people have accurate knowledge about events that are happening.

And we also have this spiritual experience, which seems common among NDEs. Why do such people have such an intense experience, which is common when they are dying or are basically dead?

Quoting Apustimelogist

Ofcourse, in order to study this you would want to be able to validate the claim that people can have genuine knowledge of things happening externally during NDEs that are not just lucky guesses or confabulation or other things that would not indicate genuine knowledge.

Well, the question is, what is the right model of reality when it comes to NDEs and normal life? Physicalism fails to explain the strong emergence of experience. Experience cannot be causally efficacious in the physical world, considering the fact that the physical world is causally closed. Moreover, experience is only a mental event, so it cannot affect the physical world since it does not have any physical properties to affect the physical world.

Reply to MoK Here are seven medically documented cases you can cite (all with staff corroboration). Quick note for skeptics: during cardiac arrest, cortical EEG goes isoelectric within ~10–40 seconds, so “no measurable brain activity” is the expected physiological state even when EEG leads aren’t on. PMC

1. Netherlands “dentures” case (CCU, resuscitation in progress)
A 44-year-old man arrived cyanotic, pulseless, and not breathing; a nurse removed his dentures during CPR. More than a week later, the patient correctly identified the nurse and precisely where the dentures had been placed on the crash cart, and described the resuscitation from an elevated vantage. The nurse (T.G.) provided a detailed, recorded testimony confirming the events. UNT Digital Library

2. Hartford Hospital ER “yellow smock” case (explicitly “without a heartbeat”)
During emergency resuscitation, a patient later reported seeing a respiratory therapist in a yellow smock using a bag-mask, while he was “unconscious and without a heartbeat.” Staff witnesses corroborated the details. (One of several corroborated cases reported in this paper.) UNT Digital Library

3. AWARE I (Resuscitation, 2014) “AED-timed recall” case
In the multi-center AWARE study, one UK patient gave a detailed account of auditory/visual events during cardiac arrest that hospital staff verified (including the use of an AED). Based on AED algorithms and the team’s timeline, the recall corresponded to ~3 minutes of cardiac arrest and CPR—i.e., a period when cortical activity should be isoelectric. ifac.univ-nantes.fr

4. Prospective ICU case with staff verification (Swansea, UK)
In a five-year prospective ICU study, a patient who became deeply unconscious (eyes closed, unresponsive) later gave a highly specific OBE report: the nurse manually ventilating him (“long pink ‘lollipop’” suction catheter), the physiotherapist anxiously peeking around the screens, and the pupil-light exam commentary. The nurse and physiotherapist confirmed these details; the consultant documented them in the chart. UNT Digital Library

5. Hartford Hospital “plaid shoelaces” / “shoe on the ledge” cases
The same Hartford series includes additional corroborated observations: a resuscitated patient later remarked on a nurse’s distinctive plaid shoelaces (confirmed by the nurse), and another famously described a shoe on the hospital roof later located exactly where reported. These were documented with staff testimony. UNT Digital Library

6) Toulouse (Capio Clinique Saint-Jean Languedoc) — Charbonier’s “amputation in the next OR”
French anesthesiologist Jean-Jacques Charbonier reported a patient under general anesthesia who, on emergence, described her own surgery and an amputation occurring simultaneously in the adjoining theatre, including the leg being placed in a yellow bag. Charbonier says he immediately checked and confirmed the amputation had taken place next door at that time. This case is quoted in an academic paper (with the French source cited in Rivas et al., 2023). publicera.kb.se
How to present it in the forum: “Under GA at Clinique Saint-Jean (Toulouse), a patient accurately described, on waking, a simultaneous leg amputation in the adjacent OR, down to the yellow disposal bag; the anesthesiologist (J-J Charbonier) checked and confirmed those details immediately after.” publicera.kb.se

Limits: single-clinician attestation; no EEG; ‘sealed rooms’ is the clinician’s characterization, not an environmental study. Still, timing + specific, non-generic details (yellow bag; simultaneous amputation) make it a strong C-NDE example.

7) “Al Sullivan” (Hartford Hospital) — surgeon’s idiosyncratic “flapping elbows”
During emergency cardiac surgery, the patient later reported seeing chief surgeon Hiroyoshi Takata moving with elbows tucked and “flapping”—a peculiar sterile habit used to direct staff without breaking scrub. Cardiologist Anthony LaSala confirmed the taped eyes and draping; Takata publicly acknowledged the habit and said he’d never had a patient describe an operation in such detail. The case is summarized by the Society for Psychical Research’s Psi Encyclopedia and discussed in a peer-reviewed overview by Kelly, Greyson & Stevenson (which explicitly mentions the flapping-arms observation as not explainable by ordinary auditory inference). Psi EncyclopediaUVA School of Medicine
How to present it in the forum: “At Hartford Hospital, a patient under GA later described the chief surgeon’s distinctive elbows-in ‘flapping’ gesture used to give directions while keeping hands sterile; the cardiologist confirmed the eyes were taped + drape, and the surgeon confirmed the idiosyncratic habit.” Psi EncyclopediaUVA School of Medicine

Thousands of cases can be corroborated in various ways. Simple detective work can verify many NDEs; you don't need a scientific study, as if you can't know things apart from science. If you think science has to be involved, then your epistemology is wrong.

Reply to Sam26
Thanks for the supporting materials!

Reply to MoK :ok: In other words, like @Sam, you don't know.

Reply to 180 Proof
He told me about a patient with no brain activity while she had an NDE. This is his thread. I am just giving my opinion here. That is why I said, "Please ask him".

Quoting Apustimelogist

Carrol would say that the mental is nothing m9re than the physical.

Apustimologist, I think this is exactly where the crux lies. You’re so sure that “mental = physical” that you don’t see how the distinction shows up right under our noses. Consider Terrence Deacon’s formulation:

[quote=Terrence Deacon, Incomplete Nature]The meaning of a sentence is not the squiggles used to represent letters on a piece of paper or a screen. It is not the sounds these squiggles might prompt you to utter. It is not even the buzz of neuronal events that take place in your brain as you read them. What a sentence means, and what it refers to, lack the properties that something typically needs in order to make a difference in the world. The information conveyed by this sentence has no mass, no momentum, no electric charge, no solidity, and no clear extension in the space within you, around you, or anywhere.[/quote]

That distinction is the distinction between the physical and the mental. The squiggles, sounds, and neuronal events are physical. The meaning is not. Yet meaning is not nothing — it structures our cognition, action, and communication. It is essential to our way of being in the world.

So when you say there’s “no evidence” for an ontological difference, you’re missing the point that that every act of reading, speaking, or thinking is already evidence. Information, significance, and intention aren’t physical, but they are nevertheless significant and fundamental to thought and speech.

(That quote is from the introduction to Terrence Deacon's book, Incomplete Nature. The remainder of the book is devoted to understanding how it is that these 'absentials' - factors which are not present, but nevertheless meaningful - came to be. Deacon is a biological anthropologist and neuroscientist.)

Reply to MoK Quoting MoK

According to my discussion with Sam26, the person does not show brain activity during NDE. So, at least in this case, we are not talking about brain activity near death.

Yes, but I mentioned brains without activity in the sentence directly before. An example suggesting the plausibility that a flatlined brain can still be responsive to external stimuli.

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?cluster=842513144191377109&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2021&as_vis=1

Quoting MoK

And we also have this spiritual experience, which seems common among NDEs. Why do such people have such an intense experience, which is common when they are dying or are basically dead?

I mean you could give an explanation for this that is completely physical; a physicalist would explain spiritual experiences from psychedelics completely physically too.

Quoting MoK

Well, the question is, what is the right model of reality when it comes to NDEs and normal life? Physicalism fails to explain the strong emergence of experience. Experience cannot be causally efficacious in the physical world, considering the fact that the physical world is causally closed. Moreover, experience is only a mental event, so it cannot affect the physical world since it does not have any physical properties to affect the physical world

The problem here imo is presupposing dualism and presupposing some fundamental ontological divide between what happens when we perceive and have experiences, and everything else we know about. I don't believe we need to make this presupposition.

Reply to Sam26

Case studies aren't causal, and without detailed imvestigation of possible explanations in a controlled way, there is no reason why someone should not hold the belief that a physicalist explanation is possible if we only had more information, which we can't have from limited amounts of case studies like this.

Biomedical sciences, as well as social sciences by which the required methods overlap, have notorious difficulties with replication as it is, how do you think this is going to convince people. Sure, keep on holding to you wild intuition about the otherside and NPCs, but you haven't presented any smoking gun refutation of naturalistic explanations, which have been far more successful throughout history than things like parapsychology and ghost-ology or even god.

Reply to Wayfarer
The "meaning" is not different to the sounds, squiggles and neuronal events in anyway that suggests some inherent divide between physical and mental. Nor is communication, intention, significance, cognition, action. I don't believe you can refute this claim.

Quoting Apustimelogist

The "meaning" is not different to the sounds, squiggles and neuronal events in anyway that suggests some inherent divide between physical and menta

It is, though - plainly and obviously. Symbols convey nothing to animals, they have no impact on the structure of materials. You're not seeing a distinction which is fundamental to philosophy.

There was a philosophical movement in the mid 20th century called 'brain-mind identity theory', but it fell out of favour in the subsequent decades and was replaced by non-reductive physicalism. Are you familiar with any of those discussions?

Quoting Wayfarer

plainly and obviously.

Why? If you can explain vision physically via a brain, why not meaning? How vision would be explained physically and by the brain is not really much less clear than how meaning would be. So meaning is not a counterexample to me.

Reply to Apustimelogist Have you ever studied philosophy, as distinct from popular science? By 'studied', I mean, done a course in the subject and submitted a term paper in it.

Reply to Apustimelogist :up: :up:

Reply to Wayfarer
Yes I have, so what?

Reply to Apustimelogist The distinction between the physical and the semantic is not a matter of taste, it’s a matter of fact. The ink marks on a page, or the neural firings in a brain, are physical events. The meaning those marks or firings convey is not reducible to those events. That’s why the same sentence can be written in English, Greek, or Sanskrit, with different marks and sounds but carry the same meaning. So the meaning and the physical form are different things.

Philosophers across traditions have recognised this as a basic divide — Aristotle with form vs matter, Kant with concept vs intuition, Peirce with sign vs object, and so on. It's not a distinction that can be denied. Hence my question!

Reply to Wayfarer
It can all be explained in terms of physical events and brain activity. I don't see that as contoversial. There is nothing else additional going on. You think because you have a brain, you act because you have a brain, you talk because you have a brain, you see stuff because you have a brain. I don't see what else is going on.

Quoting Apustimelogist

It can all be explained in terms of physical events and brain activity. I don't see that as contoversial.

But it can't. Any explanation relies on symbolic language, obviously. You're using words to describe the process, but you can't see the words for the trees :rofl:

Quoting Apustimelogist

I don't see what else is going on.

You don't say! You keep telling me that you don't 'see the point' of what I'm trying to explain. I think I'll give up.

Quoting Wayfarer

Why must it be physical? this assumes from the outset that everything real must be made of particles or fields described by physics. But that is precisely the point in dispute.

Consider an analogy: in modern physics, atoms aren’t little billiard balls but excitations of fields. Yet fields themselves are puzzling entities—mathematically precise but ontologically unclear. No one thinks an electromagnetic field is a “blob of energy floating around.” It’s astructuring principle that manifests in predictable patterns, even if its “substance” is elusive.

Which is precisely why Physics survives theory change, at least for ontic structural realists - for only the holistic inferential structure of theories is falsifiable and semantically relevant. I think you might be conflating Physics with Physicalism - the misconception that physics has determinate and atomic denotational semantics (i.e. Atomism) .

It is because "Physicality" is intersubjective, structural, and semantically indeterminate with respect to the subjectivities of the users of physical theories, that every possible world can be described "physically".

Being "physical" isn't a property of the denoted, but refers to the fact that the entity concerned is being intersubjectively denoted, i.e referred to only in the sense of abstract Lockean primary qualities that are intersubjectively translatable by leaving the Lockean secondary qualities undefined, whereby individual speakers are free to subjectively interpret physics as they see fit (or as I call it, "The Hard Feature of Physics").

Reply to sime I wasn't taking issue with ontic structural realism.

Reply to Wayfarer

Sure, so the question is whether proponents of physical explanations for "consciousness" and purported anomalous phenomena share that sentiment, in which case everyone is arguing at cross purposes, assuming of course that both sides can agree that the evidence for telepathy and remote viewing is sorely lacking.

Quoting Apustimelogist

?Sam26

Case studies aren't causal, and without detailed imvestigation of possible explanations in a controlled way, there is no reason why someone should not hold the belief that a physicalist explanation is possible if we only had more information, which we can't have from limited amounts of case studies like this.

Biomedical sciences, as well as social sciences by which the required methods overlap, have notorious difficulties with replication as it is, how do you think this is going to convince people. Sure, keep on holding to you wild intuition about the otherside and NPCs, but you haven't presented any smoking gun refutation of naturalistic explanations, which have been far more successful throughout history than things like parapsychology and ghost-ology or even god.

You said: "Case studies aren't causal, and without detailed investigation of possible explanations in a controlled way, there is no reason why someone should not hold the belief that a physicalist explanation is possible if we only had more information, which we can't have from limited amounts of case studies like this."

This seems like a strawman wrapped in speculation. My argument/book isn't relying on "limited amounts of case studies" as isolated anecdotes; it's drawing on millions (100's of millions worldwide) NDE reports worldwide, corroborated by thousands of verified accounts in peer-reviewed studies (e.g., via IANDS, Greyson's NDE Scale, and prospective hospital research like the Dutch study I mention). These aren't cherry-picked "case studies"; they're a massive, diverse dataset of testimonial evidence spanning cultures, eras, ages, and medical contexts. I'm not claiming causality in the narrow experimental sense (e.g., "NDEs cause afterlife belief"); I'm making an inductive argument that the patterns in this evidence (veridical perceptions during flat EEGs, cross-cultural consistency, transformative effects) make consciousness persistence beyond brain activity the most probable explanation.

Your speculation that a "physicalist explanation is possible if we only had more information" isn't evidence; it's a defeater that could be applied to anything to avoid confronting data. Imagine applying this to historical knowledge: "Sure, eyewitness accounts say Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, but without controlled experiments, a physicalist explanation (like mass hallucination or forged documents) is possible if we had more info." We'd dismiss all history! Or in medicine: "Patient testimonies correlate smoking with cancer, but without infinite data, an unknown physical factor might explain it away." This is epistemic paralysis, not rigor. My book (Chapter 4) already confronts physicalist alternatives, hallucinations, anoxia, endorphins, temporal lobe seizures, DMT surges, and shows where they fail: they don't account for veridical elements (e.g., Pam Reynolds' accurate description of the Midas Rex bone saw and arterial issues during no brain activity), consistency across non-hypoxic cases, or reports from blind individuals gaining "vision" that's later verified.

Moreover, "controlled investigation" isn't feasible or necessary here. NDEs occur unpredictably during clinical death (and even when not near death); you can't ethically induce flat EEGs in labs for replication (though attempts like ketamine studies produce dissimilar, less structured experiences). But knowledge doesn't require lab replication; as I explain in other discussions of scientism, we accept quantum mechanics based on unreplicable (in everyday terms) experiments, black holes from indirect inference, and the Magna Carta's signing from testimonial convergence. Your demand is a double standard: you wouldn't apply it to courtroom evidence (where corroborated testimony convicts without "replication") or epidemiology (inductive from patterns, not causal lab proofs). My framework (five criteria: volume, variety, consistency, corroboration, firsthand accounts) turns these "case studies" into robust testimonial evidence, far stronger than "limited" implies.

Next: "Biomedical sciences, as well as social sciences by which the required methods overlap, have notorious difficulties with replication as it is; how do you think this is going to convince people?"
This is a red herring that ironically undermines your own position. Yes, replication crises plague fields like psychology (e.g., only ~40% of studies replicate per some meta-analyses) and biomedicine (e.g., cancer drug trials often fail reproducibility). But that's an argument against over-relying on "controlled" science as the sole arbiter of truth, not for dismissing testimonial evidence! My book isn't pretending NDEs are lab-replicable; it's evaluating them epistemologically, where replication isn't the benchmark—convergence and corroboration are.

How does this convince people? By applying the same standards we use daily for non-lab knowledge. Courts convict on corroborated testimony without replication (e.g., multiple witnesses to a crime). Historians accept Plato's Er myth as a cultural precedent based on textual convergence, not lab tests. Even in science, much "knowledge" is inductive and non-replicable: we can't replicate the Big Bang or a specific black hole merger, yet we infer from patterns (cosmic microwave background, gravitational waves). My NDE evidence replicates in the relevant sense: consistent patterns (OBEs in 75-85%, life reviews in 70-80%, as per Greyson's scale) across millions, verified in prospective studies (e.g., Parnia et al.'s AWARE study, where patients described hidden targets during resuscitation). This is "replication" via independent corroboration, not contrived experiments.

You ignore how my inductive argument mirrors successful scientific inferences: germ theory wasn't "replicated" in one lab but induced from converging testimonies (patient reports, autopsies). NDEs' veridical hits (e.g., the Dutch dentures case, where a revived patient described the nurse's actions and trolley layout) are replicable in pattern, occurring in ~10-20% of documented cases. Dismissing this as non-convincing requires ignoring epistemology.

Finally: "Sure, keep on holding to your wild intuition about the other side and NPCs [what curious about this is that I said most of it was speculation - NPCs, etc], but you haven't presented any smoking gun refutation of naturalistic explanations, which have been far more successful throughout history than things like parapsychology and ghost-ology or even god."

This is ad hominem snark masquerading as critique, calling my conclusions "wild intuition" while projecting your own speculative physicalism as default.

Does history favor naturalism? Selective cherry-picking. Naturalism failed historically on consciousness (Descartes' dualism persisted until neuroscience, yet the hard problem remains unsolved, as Chalmers notes). Parapsychology's mixed record (e.g., Ganzfeld replication rates ~30%, above chance) isn't my focus, I'm not invoking psi; I'm analyzing testimony. Comparing to "ghost-ology or god" is a false equivalence: my claims are modest (consciousness during clinical death probable), backed by evidence naturalism can't explain without ad hoc fixes.

The power of corroborated testimonial evidence—your blind spot—is that it's how most knowledge travels (Chapter 1: birth dates, Antarctica, DNA). When it meets my criteria (high volume: millions; variety: global/demographic; consistency: core patterns; corroboration: medical verifications; firsthand: direct reports), it's not "intuition"—it's justified true belief. Speculating "more info might physicalize it" is like a flat-Earther saying "unknown optics explain away satellite photos." It's not engagement; it's evasion.

In sum, your comment is ridiculous because it demands impossible standards (lab NDEs?) while speculating baselessly, ignoring my framework, and applying selective skepticism. My book doesn't "prove" afterlife; it argues probabilistically that consciousness likely persists beyond brain death, based on evidence warranting belief under consistent epistemic rules. If you want to cling to physicalism, you owe a better alternative that explains the data without hand-waving. Otherwise, it's just a dogmatic defense, exactly what I warn against.

One last point: your approach exemplifies the fallacy of the self-sealing argument, which materialists often deploy to shield their worldview from challenge. This fallacy occurs when a position is structured to be unfalsifiable; any counterevidence is automatically reinterpreted or dismissed as incomplete, with the promise that "more information" or some unknown mechanism will eventually confirm the theory. In your case, speculating about possible physicalist explanations "if we only had more information" seals off the argument from refutation; no matter how much converging testimonial evidence piles up (veridical perceptions, cross-cultural patterns, etc.). This isn't rational skepticism; it's a rhetorical move that begs the question, assuming materialism's truth while demanding infinite proof from alternatives. As Popper noted, true scientific theories must be falsifiable; self-sealing ones, like Freudian psychoanalysis or certain Marxist interpretations, explain away everything and thus explain nothing. In NDE debates, this fallacy lets materialists maintain their hinge without engaging the data on equal terms, turning inquiry into a waiting game for non-existent "complete" info rather than weighing probabilities inductively, as we do in history, law, and much of science.

Sam, name one reproducible experiment under controlled laboratory conditions that confirms that NDEs entail either clairvoyance or disembodied cognition.

Intersubjective reproducibility of stimulus-responses of subjects undergoing NDEs is critical for the intersubjective interpretation of NDE testimonies, for otherwise we merely have a set of cryptic testimonies expressed in the private languages of NDE subjects.

Reply to sime I wonder if you even read what I posted. This is one of the reasons I don't reply to many of the posts.

Quoting sime

Sam, name one reproducible experiment under controlled laboratory conditions that confirms that NDEs entail either clairvoyance or disembodied cognition.

Oh, come on—demanding a "reproducible experiment under controlled laboratory conditions" for NDEs is the epitome of scientistic absurdity, as if knowledge were confined to what we can bottle up in a petri dish or replicate like a high school chem lab demo. News flash: epistemology isn't that narrow, and my thread and book hammer this home across chapters. Knowledge as justified true belief (JTB) draws from multiple paths, including testimonial evidence, which is how we know most things anyway (your birth date, Antarctica's existence, DNA's structure, all pure testimony meeting rigorous criteria). You're ignoring that NDEs manifest unpredictably during real clinical death, and contrived simulations (like ketamine trips) produce nothing like the structured, veridical perceptions in actual cases, think Pam Reynolds nailing surgical details during flat EEGs, confirmed by her neurosurgeon, or blind folks "seeing" verified scenes for the first time. It's inductive reasoning based on massive converging evidence: millions of accounts vetted by volume, variety (cross-cultural and spanning all ages), consistency (75-85% OBEs and 70-80% life reviews per Greyson's scale), corroboration (medical staff verifications), and firsthand reports.

But let's cut the crap: your lab-only fetish reeks of selective skepticism and blatant disregard for real epistemology, testimonial evidence, when it stacks up like this, is robust knowledge, just as in history (Caesar's Rubicon from converging accounts, no lab needed), law (convictions on corroborated witness testimony), or science itself (black holes inferred from patterns, not reproducible explosions; quantum mechanics from unreplicable setups). If you applied this absurd standard consistently, you'd trash epidemiology (inductive correlations from patient testimonies, not causal proofs) or even your own scientific beliefs (peer papers are testimony, buddy). Face it: naturalism's explanations (anoxia in just 10-20% of cases, seizures failing veridical tests) crumble holistically against the data, but you wave it away with a self-sealing "not lab enough" fallacy. That's not rigor—it's dogmatic avoidance of evidence threatening your unexamined hinge that consciousness must be brain-bound (Wittgenstein would call this a classic assumption trap, as in Chapter 6). Knowledge isn't about lab reproducibility; it's about probabilistic inference from the best evidence we have, and dismissing testimonials that meet courtroom-level standards while accepting them elsewhere is just hypocritical scientism. Read the thread before demanding more; otherwise, you're proving my point about epistemic double standards.

Quoting Wayfarer

But it can't.

But physics, biology, machine learning explains how we can learn things about the world and interact with it efficaciously, including words and symbols. Where is the mystery? You're aiming at the wrong thing. Meaning isn't problematic in these arguments, phenomenal experience is the big target.

Why doesn't phenomenal experience bother me either? As you would agree, we only perceive the world experientially. My engagement with scientific facts is through my experience, and people can only engage with what science predicts through experience. Using science requires people doing stuff, reading, talking, etc, which they experience. Science is embedded and enacted in the informational structure of out experiences. Science doesn't deal with or characterize something like an intrinsic way the physical world is.

At the same time, no one can give any non-primitive, fundamental characterization of their own experiences or what elucidate further description /explanation of what exactly the phenomenal aspect of experience is. There is absolutely nothing more to experience than direct aquaintance. Science then also just deals with descriptions of structure grapsable in terms of directly aquainted information of our own experiences, like any description or explanation does.

Science represents us our knowledge of the natural world and gives strong evidence of the relationship (or even isomorphism in Chalmer's words) between our experience we are directly aquainted with and at least aspects of information in brains. There is no scientific evidence for phenomenal experience as an independent stand-alone structure in the universe.

There is simply no evidence for dualism, simply put, that phenomenal experience meaningfully represents any kind of independent causal structures or powers that we are not already probing in the sciences of physics, brains, cognition, machine learning. I am no better able to characterize an intrinsic nature of experience as I am some putative intrinsic nature of scientific structures that should be the case under physicalism / naturalism / materialism / whatever your preferred label. There is simply nothing here of fundamental incompatibility between physical science and experiences unless maybe you look at what science says about the physical in the kind of hyper-naive realist, hyper-reductive sense which is just not a plausible way of looking at anything. At the same time, it seems evident to me that part of our perplexity about our own experience could be, should be, plausibly explainable through science itself as a consequence of natural limitations to what brains and machine learning can do. There's no reason to think our opinions about experiences come from anywhere else. Other than that, the perplexity of there being anything that it is like to be a macroscopic thing is not addressed by any perspective on the hard problem of consciousness; but such a question jumps the gun because imo it presupposes a way the world is that is fundamentally incompatible with that, a presupposition that is unjustified because science doesn't actually talk about that. The notion of an intrinsic fundamental nature of the world isn't graspable scientically; nor can I grasp anything meaningful about my own experiences other than I have them, that I see stuff.

Quoting Apustimelogist

Yes, but I mentioned brains without activity in the sentence directly before. An example suggesting the plausibility that a flatlined brain can still be responsive to external stimuli.

I think the brain is responsive to external stimuli until its cells die to a certain extent. We are, however, talking about a case of NDE in which the person does not have any brain activity.

Quoting Apustimelogist

I mean you could give an explanation for this that is completely physical; a physicalist would explain spiritual experiences from psychedelics completely physically too.

And what is the physical explanation for NDE?

Quoting Apustimelogist

The problem here imo is presupposing dualism and presupposing some fundamental ontological divide between what happens when we perceive and have experiences, and everything else we know about. I don't believe we need to make this presupposition.

We need them. Experience is an accepted phenomenon in the domain of materialism. Materialists claim that matter also exists and behaves according to the laws of physics. Materialism also claims that matter does not have any experience in most forms, but in the brain. They claim that experience is the result of neural processes in the brain. We are dealing with a kind of strong emergence, as experience is something more than just neural processes in the brain. Granting that such an emergence is possible, we are still dealing with a problem. To demonstrate the problem, we need to note that the experience cannot be causally efficacious in the world for two reasons, as I demonstrated in my former post to you, yet we observe that there is a correlation between our experiences and how we change reality in the form that pleases us.

Quoting Sam26

This seems like a strawman wrapped in speculation. My argument/book isn't relying on "limited amounts of case studies" as isolated anecdotes; it's drawing on millions (100's of millions worldwide) NDE reports worldwide, corroborated by thousands of verified accounts in peer-reviewed studies (e.g., via IANDS, Greyson's NDE Scale, and prospective hospital research like the Dutch study I mention). These aren't cherry-picked "case studies"; they're a massive, diverse dataset of testimonial evidence spanning cultures, eras, ages, and medical contexts. I'm not claiming causality in the narrow experimental sense (e.g., "NDEs cause afterlife belief"); I'm making an inductive argument that the patterns in this evidence (veridical perceptions during flat EEGs, cross-cultural consistency, transformative effects) make consciousness persistence beyond brain activity the most probable explanation.

But again, the fact that people report experiences doesn't entail an interpretation unless you can rule out alternatives, doesn't matter how many people report them, and I strongly suspect the great majority of reports nowhere near make claims that are strong enough to make any conceivable challengr to naturalistic explanation: i.e. its probably very rare in the scheme of things where people have near death experiences that involve verifiable claims about things that happened while they were not in a normal awake conscious state. The fact that your instinct is to say that these reflect something supernatural is itself speculation because the studies that rule out alternative explanations or explain what actually is happening during these reports has not been done. Your induction is ignoring the possibility that if more detailed scientific exploration was done, we might find naturalistic explanations.

Quoting Sam26

Your speculation that a "physicalist explanation is possible if we only had more information" isn't evidence; it's a defeater that could be applied to anything to avoid confronting data. Imagine applying this to historical knowledge: "Sure, eyewitness accounts say Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, but without controlled experiments, a physicalist explanation (like mass hallucination or forged documents) is possible if we had more info." We'd dismiss all history! Or in medicine: "Patient testimonies correlate smoking with cancer, but without infinite data, an unknown physical factor might explain it away." This is epistemic paralysis, not rigor.

No, you are confused. My arguments are nothing to do with skepticism. My arguments are is that naturalism is very successful at explaining. The supernatural is not successful. The degree to which I am skeptical that Caesar crossed the Rubicon depends on whether I have reason to think him doing so is not likely.

This is not epistemic paralysis, its epistemic confidence, and it makes any skepticism of these supernatural claims very reasonable.

Quoting Sam26

already confronts physicalist alternatives, hallucinations, anoxia, endorphins, temporal lobe seizures, DMT surges, and shows where they fail: they don't account for veridical elements (e.g., Pam Reynolds' accurate description of the Midas Rex bone saw and arterial issues during no brain activity), consistency across non-hypoxic cases, or reports from blind individuals gaining "vision" that's later verified.

The problem is that it is widely acknowledge that we don't actually have huge scientific mastery over how the brain works compared to say physics. The fact that these explanations may be limited does not necessarily rule out explanation if we were to gain more knowledge about what is actually happening. Retroactively trying to fit explanations to case studies is not the way to resolve this either. The way to rwsolve this is controlled experiments where you can account for confounding variables, account for statistical "luck", all sorts of things. As I said before, I can find controlled experimental studies that show that brains are still responsive when they are "isoelectric" which is the criteria used to characterize a brain as having no activity. Again, the problem with case studies with verifiable information is that they are extremely rare, and even in the studies like Parnia's where they try to actually do controlled experiments with verifiable information, they couldn't actually get anything from it because reports which contain that kind of information are very rare. These reports come under the realm of anecdotal case studies.

Quoting Sam26

we accept quantum mechanics based on unreplicable (in everyday terms) experiments, black holes from indirect inference, and the Magna Carta's signing from testimonial convergence.

Again, this depends on what yoy are studying. Quantum mechanics isn't based on unreplicable experiment.

But the kind of verification you need dependa on what you are studying. Inferring that Jesus existed or the Magna Carter was signed has a different standard to quantum mechanical experiemnts which has a different standard to biomedical studies. Because these are all very different things making claims of different strengths with different confounds. Applying the kind of standard that warrants belief that Jesus existed to experimental trials in medicine would be frankly ridiculous. The claims of NDEs and supernatural arguably require more rigor than any of these and do demand replication.

Quoting Sam26

But that's an argument against over-relying on "controlled" science as the sole arbiter of truth, not for dismissing testimonial evidence! My book isn't pretending NDEs are lab-replicable; it's evaluating them epistemologically, where replication isn't the benchmark

NDE studies use the same kind of methods as biomedical and social sciences. It is exactly these kinds of methods that have issues with replicability. And if they are not in principle replicable then they are limited in saying anything more than a qualitative characterization of what people experienced. Its fine to have studies doing this. You can have qualitative studies in social science examining the opinions of a certain community, of people's recollections of some historical event. Does this allow you to infer something more fundamental about the world? Not necessarily. And if you're studies are trying to make scientific claims about the world, then they require scientific methods to ensure that they can make reliable inferences. You are making a scientific claim about the way the universe is. Just as physics and biology require replicable experiments to show that their theories are empirically adequate, you need to do the same to show there is no possibility that scientific theories can account for the same phenomena.

If you do not have a strong basis to do so, people are justified in not believing you given a confidence in naturalism.

Quoting Sam26

You ignore how my inductive argument mirrors successful scientific inferences: germ theory wasn't "replicated" in one lab but induced from converging testimonies (patient reports, autopsies).

Sure, ans maybe they were sufficient for certain claims at the time. Doesn't mean the same necessarily applied to your theory.

Quoting Sam26

NDEs' veridical hits (e.g., the Dutch dentures case, where a revived patient described the nurse's actions and trolley layout) are replicable in pattern, occurring in ~10-20% of documented cases. Dismissing this as non-convincing requires ignoring epistemology.

Again, verification doesn't point to why they were verified. Was the verification because of the supernatural or because of naturalistic reasons, maybe a mix of actual sensory information coming into the brain, maybe luck, maybe other confounds. I am.completely entitled to want to know exactly how this happened and rule out naturalistic explanations. Just giving reports does not do this.

Quoting Sam26

The power of corroborated testimonial evidence—your blind spot—is that it's how most knowledge travels (Chapter 1: birth dates, Antarctica, DNA). When it meets my criteria (high volume: millions; variety: global/demographic; consistency: core patterns; corroboration: medical verifications; firsthand: direct reports), it's not "intuition"—it's justified true belief. Speculating "more info might physicalize it" is like a flat-Earther saying "unknown optics explain away satellite photos." It's not engagement; it's evasion.

The issue is that you have a prior inclination for the supernatural so you interpret testimonials that way. My inclination is not that way so I demand stronger evidence because this is not the natural way for me to interpret those testimonials. I am happy to except testimonials on other things where their claim seem justified. None of my criticism isn't about some inherent bias toward a specific method for the study of all things. Simply, in this case those methods are warranted.

Quoting Sam26

flat-Earther saying "unknown optics explain away satellite photos." It's not engagement; it's evasion.

These testimonials are nowhere near the evidence that earth is not flat. You don't even have a description of what is happening in the other realm of souls and spirits.

Quoting Sam26

In sum, your comment is ridiculous because it demands impossible standards (lab NDEs?)

You literally cited authors who have tried to do this. At the same time, so what? Verifying quantum mechanics would have required standards impossible hundreds of years ago. Doesn't mean it is not the case.

Quoting Sam26

Otherwise, it's just a dogmatic defense, exactly what I warn against.

Its no more a dogmatic defence than you. The evidence appears to you a certain way because of your inclinations which is not convincing to most others. If I have string confidence in naturalism for good reason, there is nothing unreasonable about demanding more evidence.

Your appeal to life after death is about as handwavey as my appeal to what future science might say because you dont have any model of what happens after death, there is no reliable empirical evidence of any other realm.


Quoting Sam26

This fallacy occurs when a position is structured to be unfalsifiable; any counterevidence is automatically reinterpreted or dismissed as incomplete, with the promise that "more information" or some unknown mechanism will eventually confirm the theory. In your case, speculating about possible physicalist explanations "if we only had more information" seals off the argument from refutation; no matter how much converging testimonial evidence piles up (veridical perceptions, cross-cultural patterns, etc.). This isn't rational skepticism; it's a rhetorical move that begs the question, assuming materialism's truth while demanding infinite proof from alternatives.

No, this is what happens naturally in all science and eventually when more evidence occurs or people can no longer defend their views, they change their minds. But this happens because the new theories offer new things that the old theories cannot match. You have not met the standard for me to change my views. You need more concrete evidence. Until them I am entitled to be confident in naturalistic explanations.

Quoting MoK

We are, however, talking about a case of NDE in which the person does not have any brain activity.

That is what a flatlined brain is. When they say that a brain has no activity, they mean it is flatlined. The point is that clearly the report of a flatlined brain doesn't necessarily mean it actually has no activity.

Quoting MoK

And what is the physical explanation for NDE?

Brain activity... like the brain activity that would cause experiences for someone under psychedelics or from a traumatic injury.Quoting MoK

We need them. Experience is an accepted phenomenon in the domain of materialism. Materialists claim that matter also exists and behaves according to the laws of physics. Materialism also claims that matter does not have any experience in most forms, but in the brain. They claim that experience is the result of neural processes in the brain. We are dealing with a kind of strong emergence, as experience is something more than just neural processes in the brain. Granting that such an emergence is possible, we are still dealing with a problem.

You have not justified the presuppositions, just regurgitated them.

Reply to Sam26

Quoting Sam26

including testimonial evidence, which is how we know most things anyway (your birth date, Antarctica's existence, DNA's structure,

You're comparing corroborated, empirically verifiable testimonies with NDEs. Many people have been to Antarctica, birthdates are verifiable through official documents, and DNA's structure was ascertained via a falsifiable model that was rigorously tested. NDEs do not benefit from predictive models (e.g. DNA) or external datasets for empirical verification. So what's left to make that comparison sound?

You seem to be appealing to a volume of data while ignoring whether or not the data is even quality data:

Quoting Sam26

think Pam Reynolds nailing surgical details during flat EEGs, confirmed by her neurosurgeon

Without getting into the specifics of this, it seems that this can be critiqued from so many angles: we don't know when the memories were formed, possible confabulation, conflating functional shutdown of an organ vs the death of the organ...etc.

Quoting Sam26

consistency (75-85% OBEs and 70-80% life reviews per Greyson's scale)

You're basing consistency off of a measurement that employs ZERO rigor..

Quoting Sam26

But let's cut the crap: your lab-only fetish reeks of selective skepticism

Ditch the lab. The dichotomy between a lab based experiment and whatever approach you think you're doing is false. The demand is for verifiable evidence. But you've already defined NDE's out of this scope while pretending it's similar to other areas of science.

.Quoting Sam26

If you applied this absurd standard consistently, you'd trash epidemiology (inductive correlations from patient testimonies, not causal proofs) or even your own scientific beliefs (peer papers are testimony, buddy).

Sure both start with testimony. The main difference is that epidemiology is transformative. Patient data is collected in ways that minimize biases (placebos, control groups, double blind spot protocols..etc), confounding factors are explored and findings that persist after attempts to falsify them are presented. This is different than just a collection of uncontested stories.

Quoting Sam26

Knowledge isn't about lab reproducibility; it's about probabilistic inference from the best evidence we have, and dismissing testimonials that meet courtroom-level standards while accepting them elsewhere is just hypocritical scientism.

Dismissing anecdotes that don't live up to the scrutiny that science generally thrives on isn't scientism. Also not sure why you mention "courtroom-level standards". In a courtroom, we need a binary verdict to make a practical decision when we have less than perfect information. When we do science we want to approximate the truth beyond an unreasonable doubt.


It sounds like you're making an argument to reduce the standard of evidence for NDE's because you find them conceptually interesting.

Reply to Apustimelogist
You certainly experience, don't you? Are you a materialist?

I am guessing that if EEGs are flatlining when patients are developing memories associated with NDEs, that this is evidence for sparse neural encoding of memories during sleep that does not involve the global electrical activity of millions of neurons that is entailed by denser neural encoding that an EEG would detect.

Which seems ironic, in the sense that Sheldrake proponent's seem to think that apparent brain death during memory formation is evidence for radically holistic encoding of memories extending beyond the brain. But when you think about it for more than a split second, the opposite seems far more likely, namely atomistic, symbol-like memories being formed that slip under the EEG radar.

Quoting Apustimelogist

My arguments are is that naturalism is very successful at explaining. The supernatural is not successful.

:up: :up:

Quoting Apustimelogist

You [@Sam26] are making a scientific claim about the way the universe is. Just as physics and biology require replicable experiments to show that their theories are empirically adequate, you need to do the same to show there is no possibility that scientific theories can account for the same phenomena.

:100:

If you [@Sam26] do not have a strong basis to do so, people are justified in not believing you given a confidence in naturalism.

:up:

Reply to Sunlight :up: :up:

Quoting Sam26

First, that testimonial evidence is a valid way of justifying one's conclusions, and moreover, one's beliefs. Most of what we know comes from the testimony of others. Thus, it's a way of attaining knowledge.

Let's talk then about how testimonial evidence is typically accepted as proof of a fact. Testimony is the primary method used in courtrooms for fact finders to consider when determining fairly important matters, like whether a person should have his liberty or life taken from him or whether he should be indebted to another for millions of dollars.

There are all sorts of rules, referred to as rules of evidence that, for our purposes, could be called pragmatic epistimology, meaning the applied ways we consider evidence generally, but testimony specifically, trustworthy. Without getting into all the rules, I'll just focus on a few: (1) hearsay, (2) cross examination, and (3) the weighing of credibility. I'm sure another lawyer out there might think it better to focus on other rules, but these are enough to make my point.

To begin: Hearsay is an out of court statement conveyed by another in order to prove its truth. Think of it as "I heard Bob say [i.e. hear say] that Mike shot Joe." We don't trust that because we need to hear from Bob as to what Bob said, not me. You can't question me on what I witnessed because all I can tell you is what I heard.

So, when you tell me that you read a book that offered testimony from a witness as to their NDE, or even further removed, testimony of testimony from another as to what someone said, I have second and third hand evidence, none of which I can question.

And that brings me to the second issue: Cross examination. I have to be able to seriously question the witness to know what happened. Reading a witness statement without asking all sorts of details, particularly ones like how much familiarity someone might have with operating rooms, who they may have spoken with between the event and the testimony, the very particular thing they said without embellishment at the time of the event, who was present to corroborate the testimony, whether those corroborating witnesses have offered consistent information, and on and on and on.

And then there is the weighing of credibility. All the things I've said have to be considered, and it's perfectly appropriate for someone just not to buy it. To listen to the witnesses and feel like it just doesn't add up, that the speakers seem flaky, motivated, confused, or whatever it might be is a very acceptable to reason just not to beleive what they're saying.

The point here is that you're asking me to believe NDE testimony has been offered in a way that leads to no other conclusion than to admit that our physical laws as we know them have been violated. That's just way too much to ask. I would need a videotaped OR, watching a pronouncement of death, seeing a patient revived and then hearing that patient then tell of his observations he made without using his eyes from a bird's eye view hovering in the operating room.

Since I don't have that, it's very reasonable for me to reject the testimony. In fact, it's fairly unreasonable to read a bunch of books on NDEs and then believe it's possible to see without eyes. Other experiments show that just cannot be done. That there are volumes and volumes of evidence amounts to nothing if that evidence isn't subjected to meaningful scrutiny.

@Sam26

Quoting Hanover

That there are volumes and volumes of evidence amounts to nothing if that evidence isn't subjected to meaningful scrutiny.

:100:

Reply to MoK

See this post

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/1009371

Quoting Apustimelogist

Where is the mystery?

The mystery lies precisely in the fact that every scientific explanation presupposes symbolic mediation — concepts, meanings, language — which themselves are not physical properties. The ink marks, sounds, or neural firings are physical events; the meaning they convey is not. That irreducible distinction is what Howard Pattee called the “epistemic cut" which arises precisely with the beginning of organic life and the implicit distinction between self and other, subject and object.

We don’t notice this because we’re always looking through the symbolic, not at it. That’s why meaning is so hard to make the object of analysis — and why newer sciences like biosemiotics and phenomenology are needed. They still fall under the umbrella of science, but they’re worlds away from the hard-edged materialism of earlier generations, precisely because that old framework has proven untenable.

One thing I notice in your posts is the taken-for-granted-ness of many of your responses, and the many arguments you “don’t see the point of.” Since antiquity it has been said that wisdom begins in wonder, and it strikes me that this dimension is absent from your replies, which read more as “business as usual.” No offense intended — it’s just that philosophy, at least for me, is about keeping that sense of wonder alive.

Reply to Hanover Thanks for laying out your standards. I share the basic orientation: testimony has to earn its way. Where we differ is that I’ve already built those safeguards into how I handle NDE reports, and I’m drawing my conclusion only from the subset that survives them.

On hearsay: I don’t rely on “I heard Bob say…” stories. My core set is firsthand reports documented close to the event, anchored to the medical record, and checkable against named staff and physical particulars. If a report is second- or third-hand, or written long after the fact without anchors, I either exclude it or discount it to near zero. That’s the first filter.

On cross-examination: in hospitals we don’t put witnesses on a stand, but we do the functional equivalent. I align what the patient reports with time-stamped chart entries, device logs, anesthetic records, and independent staff recollections; I separate subjective color from objective particulars; and I re-interview where possible. The questions you’d ask on cross—prior familiarity with ORs, conversations between event and report, exact words recorded at the time, who else was present, whether those witnesses match—are exactly the questions I use to grade a case up or down. Many accounts fall away under that scrutiny; I’m not pressing those. I’m pressing the small, stubborn set that doesn’t fall away.

On credibility: agreed that “I just don’t buy it” can be reasonable when the story is thin. That’s why I don’t ask anyone to trust vibes. I ask them to weigh concrete, low-chance particulars that can be checked: the specific location of an object the patient could not see from the bed; an idiosyncratic staff behavior noted at the time and later confirmed; a room layout described correctly under occlusion; timing that matches documented procedures. When such particulars line up under independent checks, “flaky” ceases to be an explanation.

You also set a bar—“videotape the OR through pronouncement and revival and then have the patient report bird’s-eye details with no eyes.” For phenomena we can’t ethically stage, what’s reproducible is method, not a movie on cue. Detective work is the right analogy: you build a case by convergence—multiple independent strands that fit the same timeline. Chain of custody for objects; contemporaneous notes; independent witnesses; and a tight timeline that leaves little room for later embroidery. That is how I treat NDE reports. When those controls are present across different hospitals and years, and the same kind of low-chance, checkable details recur, that pattern has probative force even without a camera.

You say “other experiments show that just cannot be done.” Experiments showing that blindfolded subjects can’t see, or that perception typically depends on functioning eyes, don’t decide what to do with time-locked, independently verified reports under deep anesthesia or during arrest. Those lab results set a default expectation; the question is whether the verified particulars in the strongest cases fit any available natural account of residual awareness, leakage, confabulation, or post-hoc contamination better than they fit the hypothesis that some veridical perception occurred. If you have a specific experimental result that maps onto those conditions and explains the same particulars, I’ll examine it and happily downgrade the case.

Finally, on the scope of the conclusion: I’m not asking you to “admit that our physical laws have been violated.” I’m making a modest, probabilistic inference from testimony that has passed the filters you listed. Some NDEs include accurate, independently verified information acquired when ordinary sensory access and integrated cortical function should have been unavailable or severely compromised. That is an evidential mismatch. It doesn’t demand metaphysical fireworks; it demands we either (a) supply a concrete, natural explanation that fits the verified features without ad hoc patches, or (b) accept that, on our current evidence, the survival-friendly hypothesis fits those features at least as well.

If you want to put this to a clean test, pick a single, well-documented case that meets my five standards—volume/diversity/consistency are background, but the decisive screens are firsthand plus independent corroboration, and run your three courtroom filters on it: exclude hearsay, interrogate it as you would on cross, and then weigh credibility in light of the objective traces (records, witnesses, timestamps, objects). If it fails, I’ll strike it from the “strong” column. If it passes, then by your own rules, it deserves evidential weight.