Testing the Nature of Consciousness
by BradfordThe nature of consciousness has long defied empirical resolutions. The First Few Minutes After Death discusses a study which may shed some light on the puzzle. It is known as the Human Consciousness Project and intends to explore what have been dubbed as near death experiences. Reports have depicted near death experiences as analogous to floating outside one's body. So a capacity to see things, that could not be physically observed from the vantage point of an individual undergoing a near death experience, could indicate a mind/brain duality. On the other hand perhaps differences in biochemically based brain states account for the floating sensation. Maybe we'll find out.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:40 am
From the article:
Can such a study be considered “empirical”? I think so. It is no different than when I go in for an eye exam and the optometrist asks me, by a controlled procedure, to compare one image with another over and over again to find a prescription that improves my vision.
What I find interesting is the willingness of researchers like Parnia to consider experiments like the one described above. If he had an a priori commitment to a materialist world view he would not have even considered something like this. Is Parnia an ID’ist? IMO, he probably would not describe his position in those terms. But he does reject an apriori commitment to materialism, and he does share some common ground with ID’ist for his willingness to think outside the box.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — November 9, 2008 @ 11:40 am
November 9th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
John A. Designer:
Agreed but I would take this a step further. What is being tested involves a key assumption related to ID namely, whether intelligence must arise from a unique configuration of matter or whether the time sequencing of minds and brains is skewed by materialist presumptions. If evidence is produced indicating that perceptual knowledge can be acquired apart from the known sensory perception routes (photons hitting retina etc.) then one would have an empirical basis on which to presume that intellligence front loaded the information needed to generate brain cells. Would that be any more counter-intuitive than a mind acquiring information through extra-sensory means?
Comment by Bradford — November 9, 2008 @ 12:02 pm
November 9th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Here's a little empirical evidence: A brain-dead woman recalling unique surgery details.
Comment by angryoldfatman — November 9, 2008 @ 3:58 pm
November 10th, 2008 at 5:15 am
If this research gets a positive result (and I am thinking here specifically about people seeing the image on the shelf) then one practical application would be to help the blind. Clearly people in this near-death state are not using their eyes to see; somehow they see these things in some other way. If science can determine how, then I would assume you could potentially work out a way to get blind people to "see" in the same manner (hopefully without the near-death part).
Comment by The Pixie Again — November 10, 2008 @ 5:15 am
November 10th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Pixie:
Didn't we learn recently that OOBs can be reliably triggered just by stimulating cells in a certain region at the "crown chakra" portion of the brain? Why don't researchers conduct these tests by stimulating the area and having the patients "go" to where there's something to see and report what they see?
Seems to me that if they can stimulate OOBs, they should be able to stimulate that kind of sight from 'inside' the body too. Implant an electrode and voila! Blindsight!
Comment by Joy — November 10, 2008 @ 4:42 pm
November 10th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
I, for one, am all for "after death" survival. But to be honest, I don't put any credence in the NDE experiences, having had quite a bit of experience with "occult" experiences, lucid dreaming, astral projection, and the sort. The descriptions sound very similar to what I experienced when I was into such things years ago. Did they give me interesting insights into consciousness? Oh yes. Did they convince me of after life survival as a human "ego". Not at all.
If you think about it, if someone really left their body/brain, how would their brain have any normal memory of the experience of which they can relate to us?
Comment by kornbelt888 — November 10, 2008 @ 10:36 pm
November 10th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Pixie wrote:
One of the two area’s of research that psychiatrist and NDE researcher Dr. Peter Fenwick suggested to Dr. Parnia was this so called “blind sight.” Parnia relates this in his book, What Happens When We Die. He writes:
“My inspiration had come during one of my meetings with Dr. Fenwick the previous autumn. One evening he said to me, ‘There are two areas of research that I’ve been thinking of recently. The first is the study of NDE’s in those who are congenitally blind. There have been anecdotal reports congenitally people who have never seen anything in their lives but their lives but during a critical illness have described separating from the body and being able to see things for the very first time! They’ve reported being able to recognize colors and images that they had only heard of before.’” (p32)
Parnia of course pursued Fenwick’s second suggestion which was to use targets mounted on shelves above eye level to see if any of the targets would be identified by those who have had NDE’s, and who have often reported observing themselves and the medical staff who are trying to revive them from somewhere near the ceiling. According to Parnia it was “so simple yet so brilliant…[and] it was the only aspect that was amenable to objective testing.” (p33)
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — November 10, 2008 @ 10:59 pm
November 11th, 2008 at 11:01 am
A further refinement of this test would be to put those dot patterns that are used to idntify colourblindness on the shelf, and see if the unconscious person can see the hidden number. This would tell us if the "blind sight" is in full colour or not, which would give us some insight into how it works (especially if the subject was himself colour blind).
Comment by The Pixie Again — November 11, 2008 @ 11:01 am
November 11th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
If there is a transcendent aspect to consciousness, imo it would be rather weird to presume this consciousness upon leaving the body would be blank. In fact, if the NDE evidence is suggestive of anything it is that people (sometimes) can recall their experience. In my view that would indicate that memory too has a trancendent quality.
Comment by Jean — November 11, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
November 11th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Hmmm…. I could have sworn I made a comment here, but it's disappeared. Well, no matter. Now I have time to make a more refined comment.
Jean says:
Once we start splitting up the hypothetical process into "consciousness" and "memory", it becomes obvious that we aren't talking about either consciousness or memory leaving the body; we're talking about eyes leaving the body and seeing things from some vantage point unrelated to the body's corporeal location. Since we are unconcerned about consciousness or memory functioning without physical support, we need not worry about the eyes functioning with similar limitations.
This isn't just a flip comment, but a simple observation of fact. While there are other aspects of near death experiences that intrigue us, the article itself tells us that visual cues in the room are the thing that will confirm an out of body event. And the experiment involves only detecting the powers of visual perception which tells us nothing about where the person's "consciousness" is at that time.
By the way, does anyone actually expect the results of the hidden picture experiment to be positive? I think it's a really good test, so I'm looking forward to hearing the results.
Comment by don provan — November 11, 2008 @ 9:39 pm
November 11th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Of course it is possible writes Dr. Parnia that “the experiences hadn’t taken place during the cardiac arrest, even though people genuinely believed they had. Memory is fallible, so perhaps they had take place during a very short period of time either before or after the brain had stopped functioning.
However though this was certainly a possibility, it couldn’t apply to cases where people had recalled watching events that had occurred in the middle of a cardiac arrest and had been verified by medical and nursing staff. For this to have happened, there must have been consciousness present at a time when all the scientific studies had demonstrated, at best, a severely disordered brain, and at worst, no brain function at all.” (p93)
Even the anecdotal evidence that Dr. Parnia has studied has been so compelling that he personally finds it to be highly convincing. Later in his book he writes:
“Until fairly recently, I used to believe that brain processes led to the formation of consciousness and the mind, although like all other the other scientists, I didn’t know how. However, studying near-death experiences in cardiac-arrest survivors has made me question my views, as has the lack of plausible biological mechanism to account from the causation of consciousness from brain processes. I’ve now decided to keep a completely open mind and let the evidence sway my opinion. After all, this wouldn’t be the first time in science that a prevailing view has been proved wrong. When we look back, we can see that many widely accepted theories have been modified or even completely changed in the light of new evidence. Personally, I’ve had to accept that the formation of consciousness is far from clear, and it could be that the latter view is correct.” (p168)
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — November 11, 2008 @ 11:54 pm
November 12th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Again, what is required is perception to be operating at that time. Any processing of those perceptions requiring consciousness could still take place after the measurable consciousness has resumed.
I'm all for Dr. Parnia having an open mind, but let's remain precise about what he has witnessed or will prove. It would be every bit as amazing and exciting to prove merely remote perception, but, alas, it would not be sufficient to support the hypothesis that consciousness or intelligence can exist disembodied.
Comment by don provan — November 12, 2008 @ 7:46 pm
November 12th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Don Proven wrote:
I would argue that consciousness is necessary for perception and needs to be concurrent with consciousness to be remembered and recalled. Explain to me how it isn’t.
I don’t think Parnia would argue that it necessarily does. Indeed, if he gets positive results on the first phase of the study, he plans another phase which will refine and focus the research further. It is premature to claim that such study at this point will establish anything firmly. But this is the kind of evidence one would expect if a persons conscious-self (soul?) can exist apart from their body, even if it’s for a very short time. Is it not?
However, I am not claiming (nor is Parnia) that that is the only explanation for NDE’s. But, on the other hand, why dismiss such a possibility a priori? The best way IMO to explore the unknown is to treat it as the unknown and consider every possibility that is a logical possibility.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — November 12, 2008 @ 10:12 pm
November 13th, 2008 at 4:11 am
I would argue that a physical body is necessary for perception, consciousness, and memory. Explain to me how it isn't.
The idea of out-of-body experiences already presupposes some incredibly unexpected and entirely unexplained mechanism. It's disingenuous of you to demand that I explain how perception can be disassociated from memory and consciousness when the alternative is perception, memory, and consciousness all being disassociated from known physical processes. You are rejecting my alternative for the exactly the same reason people reject out-of-body experiences in general.
Having said that, we have plenty of examples of perception and memory disassociated from consciousness. Humans have had such recording devices since writing was invented, and you very likely have a cell phone in your pocket that you can use to demonstrate the concept to yourself. I can't think of any similar example of consciousness disassociated from physical bodies, though. Can you?
What makes you say I'm dismissing anything a priori? I'm just discussing what is and is not demonstrated from this experiment. In fact, it seems more like you are trying to reject my hypothesis a priori.
Comment by don provan — November 13, 2008 @ 4:11 am
November 13th, 2008 at 7:31 am
dp:
Translation: I'm a materialist and a reductionist, and will handwave any conflicting evidence away.
Explain to me how your "hypothesis" holds up if Parnia's experiment succeeds in showing that perception and consciousness takes place during the time that the physical components which are deemed necessary for perception, consciousness and perception are not working.
The analogy to a recording device is absurd. There is no perception of any kind involved when information is recorded to it. Perception only exists in the mind of an observer. And we are not discussing whether recording devices are alive are we? You close your silly argument stating that you "can't think of any similar example of consciousness disassociated from physical bodies". It would seem you are obvlious to the fact that this is the crux of the NDE debate!
Comment by Jean — November 13, 2008 @ 7:31 am
November 13th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Jean, why is it that the disembodied soul appears to "see" the same part of the electromagnetic spectrum as the material body? Or are there reports that the disembodied soul can detect, say, X-rays?
Comment by Raevmo — November 13, 2008 @ 10:33 am
November 13th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
don provan:
I have already mentioned 2002 findings that OOBs can be triggered by stimulation of a certain area of the brain. It is the 'angular gyrus', believed to be involved in integrating perceptual data in nearby regions involved in vision, hearing, balance and touch.
Now, since perception is (in terms of the processing organ) just data that gets integrated 'as' sight, sound, orientation and tactile sense, it should be possible – once we know the details – to artificially stimulate blindsight. Perception itself (the data) exists apart from the perceiver, so the change in position of view is not necessarily an illusion, it could be the perceiver 'moving' to the position of the data instead of pulling the data in 'here'.
These are anomalies of consciousness, and consciousness is still a hot, unregulated free market right now. Of course we have physical mechanisms specialized in our brains to situate 'self' and process data. This could turn out to be physical tools for a physical purpose, not consciousness or perception itself.
Humans have been visiting the "Spirit Realm" on a semi-regular basis in all eras of human society. There are apparently humans who can do this naturally, others only with pharmaceutical aid or severe life-stress. So it's not exactly "incredibly unexpected" that such experiences occur. It's only unexpected in people who reject the long history of such experiences out of hand.
Arguments among those 'surprised' people about whether or not the experience is real are forever unlikely to convince anyone who has had the experience that it wasn't real.
Comment by Joy — November 13, 2008 @ 12:05 pm
November 13th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I think you missed that I was using the rhetorical device of echoing the previous comment's approach of making an unsupported assertion. It is true that this statement is the materialist position, but that was intentional to show the similarity to what JOHN_A_DESIGNER said.
First, can I ask that we have an honest conversation? I am presenting a hypothesis. Putting "hypothesis" in scare quotes is an entirely unwarranted sign of disrespect.
But my point is that Parnia's experiment (at least as described in the article) only shows that perception takes place during the time in question. You have added "and consciousness" even though nothing in the described experiment shows anything at all about consciousness. (Well, before anyone complains about it, let me quickly mention that part of the experiment involves measuring the physical manifestation of consciousness, but I am focusing only on the part of the experiment involving seeing hidden visual cues.)
But, as I've said a couple of times now, that's not to say there's anything wrong with the experiment, or that there's anything wrong with experiments that would show such consciousness. If you don't like my observation, why don't you suggest improvements in the experiment that would show something about consciousness?
I think you're splitting hairs about what "perception" means, but if you want it to mean something more than what a recording device is, you've got a problem: the experiment only demonstrates recorded observations, it doesn't demonstrate "perception" in the higher order sense you are talking about.
Again, I'd ask for a little more respect. My arguments are quite clear and rational, so I resent you fobbing them off as "silly". And I understand the duality is at the crux of the NDE debate: that's why I think it's so important to keep in mind that the proposed experiment doesn't actually demonstate it. (Although as JOHN_A_DESIGNER and I were discussing, it is a first step.)
Comment by don provan — November 13, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
November 13th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I specifically referred to the mechanism as being unexpected. I'm sure you are well aware that science has no explanation for this phenomenon, regardless of how common it is.
The rest of your note was a very good summary of the kinds of issues that need to be addressed before we can actually make any claims about the location of consciousness in these scenarios.
Comment by don provan — November 13, 2008 @ 2:49 pm
November 13th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Perhaps this is a good time to discuss the old saw, "Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence." The core of this idea is obvious, in that if something seems unlikely, one needs to go further to demonstrate that it's true. But here we're encountering another aspect of this: if an extraordinary claim requires overturning some accepted principle, then one must also consider all other claims that become possibilities if the threatened principle does, in fact, turn out to be false.
So in this case, the extraordinary claim involves the idea that something about our experiencing of reality does not required our physical body. If true, that makes it plausible that "consciousness" can leave our body, but it also makes it plausible that something else — I've been talking about "perception" — can leave the body. In either case, we're speculating about the continued relation of the detached facility and the physical form: for consciousness, one has to explain how it returns to the body, for example, while for perception, one needs to explain how the perceptions were delivered back to the consciousness that continues to reside in the body.
There's another point I've been hesitating the bring up because people might mistakenly think I'm disparaging the near death experience experiments, but I think I've laid enough groundwork for anyone to see the logic now:
The experiment must be careful to try to minimize the possibility of telepathy explaining the results. Otherwise an equally plausible explanation would be that the subject somehow telepathically receiving the recounted experience rather than actually experiencing it. But this just means it would be best if the experiment was designed so that no one at all knows what the subject should see until after the interview.
Comment by don provan — November 13, 2008 @ 6:54 pm
November 13th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
don:
??? There must be a mechanism, don. I thought that was a 'given'. We know that we have a dedicated, very metabolically expensive organ that does nothing but operate as our universal CPU governing unconscious functions top-down, and facilitating conscious activity. For as long as we are corporeal beings, there will be physical mechanisms to enable our being.
Science having no explanation for these mechanisms is irrelevant, isn't it? I mean, it's their job to seek them out because they don't know. Waving hands and dismissing 'Miracles' is stupid for science. That's supposed to be religion's job.
I'm not surprised by physical mechanisms of consciousness. Are you?
Comment by Joy — November 13, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
November 14th, 2008 at 12:14 am
Don Provan wrote:
I know Parnia has discussed at some future stage using randomly generated computer images for his shelf targets. Of course the computer would be programmed to record the time that these targets were displayed after they had been generated, and this information, unknown to anyone beforehand, would be available for post interview comparison. Of course you could argue that the computer might be telepathic, but why not at least consider the common sense interpretation: that there might be something in each of us that can survive death.
The following link takes you to a conference where Dr. Parnia gave a talk about his research. If you are open minded it worth listening to or watching. If nothing else it will save me some time in trying to describe his research as long as this discussion continues.
http://www.mindbodysymposium.com/
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — November 14, 2008 @ 12:14 am
November 14th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
Joy,
I was speaking of the mechanisms involved in out of body experiences. The scientific concensus is that such events don't happen because no scientific theory predicts any such mechanism. If experiments such as this one revealed that such events do occur, one might say that the mechanisms that explained them had been "unexpected", mightn't one?
The expected mechanisms are the ones that involve physical processes bound to the physical body. The whole point of this line of research is to overturn that expectation.
Comment by don provan — November 14, 2008 @ 5:16 pm
November 14th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Good. I fear that until he does so, any positive results he gets will be discounted because of the possibility of mundane human influences much simpler than telepathy.
A telepathic computer wouldn't explain past examples, so I wouldn't be too worried about that, at least initially.
I have no problem considering any interpretation. I am only interested in understanding what we can and will prove experimentally.
Personally, I find that the idea of perceptions originating from somewhere outside the body much more in line with our other experiences — at least the experiences of those of us that have not had extraordinary out-of-body experiences — than the idea of us being something other than our physical body. But that's why we do experiments: so we don't have to depend on anyone's personal opinion of what seems likely.
Thanks for the link, although I haven't had time to look at it yet.
Comment by don provan — November 14, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
November 14th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Let's assume for a minute that the experiment in perception returns negative results: no subjects at all report the visual cues. What would the next step be?
Comment by don provan — November 14, 2008 @ 5:34 pm
November 14th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
don:
Maybe people dying and experiencing NDEs aren't paying attention to what's displayed on top of the highest shelves. I mean… come on! How in the world do you expect to get reports on what particular books are on the shelves from someone viewing their body undergoing CPR or shock? Do they make deals with people likely to die any moment now to look for those specific mundane inanities?
I've said what the next step should be, based on the earlier finding that OOBs could be triggered by electrical stimulation of a certain area of the brain. THAT should be examined in a lot more detail. It's where real, live "blindsight" may come from. I've known and loved some blind people. What a great gift that would be!
I don't think science should be in the business of ruling out any experience documented to occur among humans. Altered consciousness, alternative consciousness, or any other anomalous displays thereof. Their job is to explain these things if they are indeed explainable.
I hate it when science groupies insist that everything there is to know is already known. They do more to damage the current reputation and future prospects of science than any random Luddite could ever do.
Comment by Joy — November 14, 2008 @ 9:14 pm
November 15th, 2008 at 3:48 am
OK, so Joy thinks a negative result will tell us nothing. Does everyone else agree? Is there any number of negative results that would satisfy us that consciousness can't leave the body?
Is their job to explain it? Or to explain it to your satisfaction? Because I'm not sure if you'll ever be satisfied.
No one's trying to stop Parnia as far as I can see. But it troubles me that there are a class of things he could discover that you would shrug off as not proving anything, "I mean… come on!" So could you lay out to me what set of results we could get that would convince you that out of body events are imaginary? Would it make a difference if we experimented more with electrical stimulation of certain areas of the brain, and we found that everything correlated 100% with consciousness having no existence beyond the physical body? Or would you just say, "I mean… come on!" and demand yet another test?
I'm very supportive of this line of research, but I'm starting to wonder if there's any point: after we've pursued the research, will you accept the results if they go against your desired outcome? There is much to be learned here, as you point out, but will you agree with what we learn?
Comment by don provan — November 15, 2008 @ 3:48 am
November 15th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
don:
If people keep on reporting that their consciousness left their body and they were aware of… anything… then no, I don't believe any random or specific doctor, nurse, orderly or 'other' can legitimately insist that it's not so. Parnia is attempting to get specific information that would experimentally confirm the reports, but nothing he devises will ever 'prove' that consciousness can't leave the body.
You don't want to believe it, so if people reporting NDEs were to be able to read the eye charts on top of the shelves you'd say it's just telepathy and doesn't 'prove' their consciousness was outside their body. This works both ways, you know. You have a preconceived bias, you look for evidence to confirm it, you will ignore all evidence that refutes it. Yet no amount of ear-covering, 'lalala-ing', foot-stomping, sputtering, insults or whining will ever convince someone who experienced an NDE that they didn't experience an NDE. That's just the way it is, nothing at all you can do to change it.
If nobody thinks to read signs on the top of shelves during an NDE, it will be demonstrated that nobody thought to read the signs on top of the shelves during their NDE. What does this 'prove', don? Answer: it 'proves' that none of the people involved read the signs on top of the shelves. It does NOT 'prove' they didn't experience an NDE. Even Parnia would agree with that, so why wouldn't you?
See, I have experienced OOB states (though not NDE, I've never died and come back to life). I've even experienced bilocation, a particularly nifty 'casting' of perception. So while you can deny, deny, deny that such experiences occur, you'll just have to accept that you cannot convince me they don't occur. I have no reason to doubt that people who report NDEs experienced that very thing. Neither do you.
Comment by Joy — November 15, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
November 15th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Another note to this subject: One of the physicists with whom I was privileged to interact in that Consciousness Studies course at UA in 1999-2000 was Alwin Scott. Who has sadly since died. He'd been severely injured riding his bike to campus when it was hit by a truck. He vividly recalled being outside his mangled body watching the goings-on, a genuine NDE. He too came back to his body, and he never walked again.
Al was a staunch disbeliever, maintained all his life that consciousness is an epiphenomenon of brain activity, and that science was never going to discover anything about consciousness that wasn't firmly rooted to random firing of biophotons in the brain.
So you see, don, that a person's belief about the nature of consciousness can indeed successfully overrule their own personal conscious experience. Yet Al never once claimed that he didn't experience what he in fact experienced. He just wrote it off to random firing of biophotons in his crisis-stricken brain. If you had insisted to him that he did NOT have that experience, he'd have written YOU off as hopelessly dumb and unworthy of further intellectual investment.
Comment by Joy — November 15, 2008 @ 1:26 pm
November 15th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Joy:
People keep reporting having seen Elvis (after his "official" death), but I can legitimately insist that it's not so. People lie and imagine stuff all the time. Anyone who has ever dreamed knows that the sensory-deprived mind can create quite convincing imagery (in full color). BTW, do colorblind people have NDEs in color?
If people with NDEs do accurately report the hidden pictures on top of shelves, well, for me that would definitely increase by a lot the plausibility of the mind being able to leave the body (which would be great IMO, even though I'm quite pleased with my very attractive body). I would suggest Parnia uses rather shocking images that are not easily overlooked or forgotten. Pictures of mutilated babies or something like that. But if the experiments fail, I would feel more confident that the mind cannot leave the body.
Comment by Raevmo — November 15, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
November 15th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Raevmo:
I once saw a guy in a grocery store parking lot sitting in the back of a beat-up crew cab pickup who looked an awful lot like Eric Robert Rudolph. It was the day that Bo and his gang were in Murphy flushing the woods pretending to look for him to protect him from the FBI. He struck me so strongly that I sketched him on a piece of paper in the glove compartment and recorded the license plate, gave it to the police chief later – just in case. Turned out not to be him, but if it had been him I'd have been a million dollars richer!
People who think they see an old Elvis probably do think they saw an old Elvis. Even if you could prove to them the old guy isn't really Elvis, they still saw what they saw, and think the guy looks a lot like an old Elvis. Heck, my daughter looks suspiciously like Marilyn Monroe, and her grandmother's name is in fact Norma Jean. These are normal connectives in our minds, nothing particularly flighty about them. Alien abduction is a whole other category…
I don't know if color blind people dream in colors they don't normally 'see'. As a synesthete, oddities of perception are something I am intimately familiar with. Along with the judgments of others that I do not perceive what I perceive. You get used to it, but no one's disbelief has ever actually made my perception anything other than what it is. Your belief is not required.
Comment by Joy — November 15, 2008 @ 5:01 pm
November 16th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Don Provan wrote:
In his book, What Happens When We Die, Parnia writes: “if a large group of cardiac arrest survivors had been studied and had reported out-of-body experiences, together to see events from above, we would expected them to identified the images accurately… Then we would have to reexamine our views about the relationship between the mind and brain. If, on the other hand, a large group of people had all claimed to be out of the body but had not been able to identify the images, then we would have to conclude that they had imagined being at the ceiling. This would have then supported the theory that the mind and consciousness are products of the brain, and out-of-body experiences are simply illusions.”
It appears to me that Dr. Parnia would be looking for another line of work.
I suggest that we let Dr. Parnia carry out his research and report his results before we start forecasting conclusions.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — November 16, 2008 @ 1:47 am
November 17th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
The accepted explanation is that the experiences are caused by something other than the subject's consciousness actually leaving their body. You think you are keeping an open mind, but you are admitting that you will deny one specific class of explanations no matter what evidence is produced.
I've already acknowledged that Parnia getting a negative result would not prove anything. The question I'm asking is, "How many experiments have to produce negative results before we should start thinking that, for practical purposes, at least, there will be no positive results?" At some point, don't you have to accept that there are no perpetual motion machines, even if you continue to examine each one presented, just in case?
For all you know, I do very much want to believe. But we're discussing a scientific hypothesis, so my beliefs and desires have nothing to do with evaluating the evidence.
Please. I'm just pointing out that that's what the experiment would show. If you think it would show more, please explain how. All it measures is perception, so all it can show it is something about perception.
You have no idea what my preconceptions might be and no reason to say I'd ignore anything. I've made a simple observation. If you think there's something incorrect about my observation, why don't you tell us what it is. Your guesses about my motives are both wildly incorrect and a waste of time.
I am doing nothing but impationately discussing the experiment. You, on the other hand, seem intent on denying my point without rational discussion.
You act as if it is unique for us to discover that a personal experience does not accurately reflect reality.
What makes you think I don't agree with that? I agree completely. My question was about a hypothetical body of results covering the problem from all angles, all with negative results. But even with that, you've confirmed that you would still insist that near death experiences happen because people report them.
Obviously the experiences occur. The question is about how the experiences relate to physical reality.
What about your experiences tells you that your consciousness was out of your body? As with Parnia's experiment, I'm not hearing anything in your reports that tells you anything about the location of your consciousness while you were perceiving reality from an unexpected point of view.
If someone using hallucinogenic drugs reported such experiences, would you consider that additional evidence?
Nonsense. People report experiences that don't correspond to reality all the time, for many different reasons. But that's beside the point. First, I support Parnia's experiment and look forward to the results. You make it sound like I'm denying the results of a completed experiment.
But more importantly, all I said was that Parnia's results would only show remote perception, and all the reported NDEs you talking about only show remote perception. You really need to stop and consider why you are so completely convinced that these reports say anything beyond that. Humans never have any sense of where their consciousness is, yet all of a sudden "I was floating above my body" is taken as valid and important report of the location of consciousness.
Comment by don provan — November 17, 2008 @ 8:40 pm
November 17th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Just to make sure we're clear on this, no one is denying that people are having near death experiences. (It wouldn't be the first time someone lied, of course, but we can discount that possibility because neither of us are interested in it.) What we are considering is what their experience tells us about reality. We do not question whether people using hallucinogenics had the experiences they report, but we do understand that their experiences were the result of the drug use, not because the things they report actually happened within the reality we are experiencing.
Comment by don provan — November 17, 2008 @ 8:50 pm
November 17th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Frankly, it kinda depends on whether he's getting his funding from people like Joy. Still, everything I've seen here suggest that he's a good scientist approaching a difficult subject with sufficient amounts of sympathy and objectivity. So I suspect he'll have plenty of work, even if it turns out not to be in the area of out of body experiences.
As you have shown by Parnia's own words, it is very important that we consider and understand what the results will tell us before we have them. In this case, it's important to discuss how many negative results are required to reach a scientific concensus. Otherwise how would we know if we've already reached the limit…
Comment by don provan — November 17, 2008 @ 9:06 pm
November 17th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
don:
Read that back to yourself, slowly. See where you first say "no one is denying," then turn right around and suggest they're "lying?" Everyone else can see it, you know.
Later you say…
then follow that immediately with…
Make up your mind if you've got one. Leave my mind to me.
No, I do not really need to stop suspecting or believing anything I suspect or believe about such experiences.
Do you honestly NEVER have any sense of where your consciousness is? That's very odd, I'm generally able to keep pretty good track of mine.
Comment by Joy — November 17, 2008 @ 9:50 pm
November 17th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
It's just a fact that lying could not be ruled out a priori. Your outrage at the suggestion demostrates your inability to consider this issue impartially.
I'm sorry I confused you. In the first case, I was using "experience" in the objective sense that implies a correlation to reality. After you made a subsequent post that suggested you were using "experience" in the subjective sense, I posted a clarification so that you would know that I was not denying that they had subjective experiences, I was only speaking of whether the experiences correlated with real events that could be observed by an objective observer. I'd give you some slack if you'd missed that, but I can't because you quoted from that post.
If I asked you to be civil, could you? Or are your posts going to continue to be little more than strings of insults?
I only asked you to consider. Is there some reason you think considering why you hold your beliefs might cause you to stop believing them?
Yes, I honestly never have any sense of where my consciousness is. Please tell us where yours is and how you know.
Comment by don provan — November 17, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
November 18th, 2008 at 11:22 am
don:
Three deep breaths, don. That will help to temper your reactions more toward what's actually here.
1. There is no evidence whatsoever that dead people lie about where their consciousness was while they were dead, thus no reason to suspect they're lying.
2. Humans have been capable of 'casting' their consciousness for as long as there have been humans, the ability has been important to human social evolution.
3. I have displayed no "outrage," I have called you on your silly hysterics and see-saw assertions.
All genuine empirical 'experience' is subjective. Not a one of us can enter the mind of another and perceive what they perceive as they perceive it. Heck, we can't even establish objectively that any other minds but our own personal ones exist. We cannot know that your 'blue' is precisely the same color my 'blue' is, that your aural sensibilities match mine, that the taste of 'sweet' is the same to you as it is to me. All we can do is agree upon the descriptive terms and see how well our reports jive with each other.
Hence if you are a doctor working on someone who just died to bring their body back to life, you can know nothing whatsoever about where their consciousness was while you were working. You can choose to believe or disbelieve their report on that question, but don't pretend there's any 'science' involved in that, because there simply isn't. Science offers us no means to enter into the consciousness of other people. Never has, and most likely never will. Belief is just belief, and cannot ever eliminate the experience of others, nor can it ever determine that the experience of others is either "hallucination" or "lie."
You are being oversensitive. We've been down this road before. You believe there is such a thing as "living matter," while I do not. But rather than tell you that you "need to" stop believing in living matter, I simply call you on your stubborn refusal to accept the fact that science does NOT establish this and I do NOT believe it.
I know why I hold the beliefs that I hold. It's bound up in my experience of life and death here on planet earth, where I have been busy with the job of experiencing for more than five and a half decades, in a variety of places and situations. Your simple disbelief will not make me stop believing what I believe, nor can your skepticism ever negate what I have actually experienced. I can't imagine why you think your beliefs must trump mine for me. That makes exactly zero sense.
Strange indeed. My consciousness is right here in my body at this moment, thinking of words to string into sentences and typing them on my keyboard, which is on my lap. I am sitting on my chair at my desk by the window to the back deck and yard, watching what I type appear on the monitor screen, occasionally looking out at the maple tree that is still impossibly red, at the blowing leaves and flapping Jolly Roger, wishing it were above freezing, alternatively drinking grapefruit juice and hot coffee (French Roast, smells great), appreciating the fact that I can see Heartbreak Ridge again, thinking about the various jobs I need to get busy doing today, planning a wedding this weekend.
I hardly ever lose myself completely, though I can multitask. Must be weird not to know where you are.
Comment by Joy — November 18, 2008 @ 11:22 am
November 18th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
OK, so here's our problem: although I specifically said, "a priori", you seem to think I was considering evidence.
These are all excellent points, and exactly why we use science to transcend these problems in order to agree on whether a given bridge design is safe even if our individual experiences conflict on the matter.
OK, so you are rejecting Parnia's experiment and similar scientific investigations on fundamental metaphysical grounds. I am accepting Parnia's opinion and commenting on his ideas, so it sounds like we have nothing more to discuss in this thread.
No, I'm really not. "Make up your mind if you have one," is nothing but an insult, and there's no reason I have to stand for such behavior.
I understand you believe that, but we were talking about sensing where your consciousness is. All you're doing is telling me that you associate your consciousness with your physical body (at the moment), which isn't really very helpful. I've been told my consciousness is in my body, too, but I'm not sure it's true. How can I convince myself?
Comment by don provan — November 18, 2008 @ 5:38 pm