BS: Out of body experiences

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: SINSULL
Date: 24 Oct 08 - 02:14 PM

If a person "dies" and can then identify the objects pictured above, it would open some interesting doors.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 24 Oct 08 - 02:08 PM

I think the logic of "SInce OOB is impossible because the brain causes consciousness, the premise that these experiences occurred during brain death must be false. Therefore there must be an undetected but operational layer of brain activity which will continue to support the thesis that all consciousness is born from brain activity." to be illogical, circular, and disingenuous. The brain flatlines and something you don't want to see happen occurs. Therefore hte brain didn't flatline. Talk about Occam's razor!!

See, the thing about Occam is he didn't duiscuss the case where the "simplest explanation" is straight denial.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: bobad
Date: 24 Oct 08 - 02:04 PM

"What we have found though is that when you study the brain and consciousness during death, the brain shuts down."

It is conceivable that there remains, for some time, residual brain activity that is not measurable with existing technology.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 24 Oct 08 - 01:54 PM

Hell, past studies already have, Bill. Read up on Kubler Ross, for example.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Oct 08 - 12:03 PM

"... when the brain ceases functioning, the mind can continue to exist."

That's not exactly what the study they refer to suggests. Since they are studying "...people who go through cardiac arrest and clinical death ..", a better way of stating the tentative conclusion might be, ..."when the brain ceases functioning *well*, the mind can continue to exist, though not *normally*".
When the brain really ceases functioning, there is a special term used for that state.

As I have posted a number of times, I have no doubt that people have these experiences & memories. It is not even surprising that cardiac arrest and partial shutdown of major bodily functions, including a reduction of blood & oxygen to the brain, would cause some erratic and random 'events' in the brain, resulting in unusual memories when they are revived.
   I 'suspect' that future studies will show some commonality in the general types of memories reported.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 24 Oct 08 - 11:43 AM

From ABC NEws:

"According to conventional science, when people's hearts stop beating and they stop breathing, the brain shuts down and consciousness disappears. That school of thought believes that without the brain, consciousness isn't possible.


But a new study launched earlier this month will test a different theory: that consciousness is not localized to the brain and when the brain ceases functioning, the mind can continue to exist.

Led by Dr. Sam Parnia, an expert in the field of consciousness at the United Kingdom's University of Southampton, the study will monitor brain activity during cardiac arrest and test the validity of near-death and out-of-body experiences.

Called the "world's largest-ever study of near-death experiences," the Aware (Awareness During Resuscitation) study is a collaboration between 25 hospitals in the United Kingdom and the United States. U.S. participants include Indiana State University, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, the University of Virginia and New York University, according to a spokesman for the University of Southampton.

..."Parnia said a number of recent studies conducted by independent researchers have shown that 10 to 20 percent of people who go through cardiac arrest and clinical death report near-death experiences.

A 2001 study published in the medical journal The Lancet found that 2.5 percent of 344 people studied had out-of-body experiences associated with cardiac arrest. Out-of-body experiences are a subset of near-death experiences.


Citing a Gallup survey published in 1982, the International Association for Near-Death Studies Inc. said that 5 percent of the adult population in the United States has had a near-death experience.


Verifying Out-of-Body Experiences

Although Parnia recognizes that he can't verify what people experience when they say they have a near-death experience, he said his project will try to verify out-of-body experiences.

Hospitals participating in the study will place signs with specific information on them in places that can only be viewed from the ceiling. If a cardiac patient reports seeing the information on the cards, Parnia said, it could mean that the patient could have indeed obtained the information while his consciousness was detached from his body.

"In most cases in life, we can't separate the mind from the brain," Pernia said. "There's no way we can separate them out. What we have found though is that when you study the brain and consciousness during death, the brain shuts down. Does the mind shut down as well?" ,,,""Whenever you're doing something that's at the edge of science, people are always resistant because colleagues who have been around have already formed an opinion on a particular subject," he said. "If you start to go against it, people will resist it.

"We're doing something that's never been done before. ... Death is commonly perceived to be a subject for philosophy or religion or theology. Of course, there's no reason for that to be the case. Science should be able to study it and guide it."

"

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: SINSULL
Date: 24 Oct 08 - 08:43 AM

BBC news reports an innovative approach to studying the phenomenon. Pictures are being placed along the walls near the ceiling of ICU rooms. They can only be seen from above. If someone is truly out of body they should be able to identify the pictures.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7684684.stm

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Art Thieme
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 11:41 PM

Hi, Bill.

The only time I ever had an out of body experience was when I was living in Santa Meera, California. In the middle of the night somebody snuck into my room and left a huge seed pod. In the mrning, I was still there, but stuff was "different" -- if ya know what I mean. I always figured I never should've taken that sleeping pill.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 10:42 PM

some like the outs, some like the ins.....and some like the ins & outs.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: frogprince
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 08:02 PM

I tried, and tried, to restrain myself from mentioning how much I enjoy certain in-body experiences...

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: GUEST,John O'L
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 07:03 PM

Time for a little cosmic relief? Without the discord the concord is bland and boring.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 01:12 PM

Ah guess thread daid, too...ah, well.... we all said about what we needed to earlier. It's hard to tell who takes it all the most seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 10:32 AM

Yeh. They daid.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Paul Burke
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 10:30 AM

Aye, 'appen. But Hamlet was crackers, wasn't he? And look how they all ended up.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 10:22 AM

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: bobad
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 10:17 AM

Willie Nelson
I Let My Mind Wander

I let my mind wander,
And what did it do?
It just kept right on going,
Until it got back to you.
I let my mind wander.

Can't trust it one minute,
It's worse than a child.
Disobeys without conscience,
It's drivin' me wild,
When I let my mind wander.

Try to keep my mind busy,
On thoughts of today.
But invariably, memories,
Seem to lure it away.

My lonely heart wonders,
If there'll ever come a day,
When I can be happy,
But I can't see no way,
'Cause I let my mind wander.

Instrumental Break.

I try to keep my mind busy,
With thoughts of today.
But invariably, mem'ries,
Seem to lure it away.

My lonely heart wonders,
If there'll ever come a day,
When I can be happy,
But I can't see no way,
'Cause I let my mind wander.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 10:07 AM

THanks, gentlemen--your usual courtesy having given way to the smug, self-satisfied condescension of the overly certain, I will say g'day as far as this thread is concerned. You have not addressed the issues, and it is clear you will not.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 09:23 AM

Hmmm...more chords there than I usually can handle on an autoharp....but I may have to learn that one, even if it's acapella.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Paul Burke
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 07:53 AM

This (found on the JREF Forum) may get the thread promoted Above The Line:

Pardon me boy
But are you chatting with a woo-woo?
They're rather inclined
To have a single track mind.

Will you get bored
If you keep chatting with a woo-woo?
The repetition will wear
As their hands wave in the air.

They'll leave the factual information lying dead on the floor
After explanations, they'll just repeat more
Anecdotal data
That doesn't even rate a
Footnote, to be followed by failed logic later.

After "pseudoskeptic" is directed at you
"Close minded" as an epithet will be along too.
Although they have no goal in
sight, they'll keep on trollin'
Woo-woo, chatting with one, what to do?

Eventually
There'll be a rather strained relation.
They simply can't see
Objective reality.
You can be sure
That their delusion will never die.
So, chatting with a woo-woo...
With a woo-woo why try?
Chatting with a woo-woo...
With a woo-woo why try?

Lyric accredited to one TjW.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Paul Burke
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 03:34 AM

Like anatta?

I prefer cheese without it.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 12:21 AM

It's not that you are appreciating the things that are, Bill; it' s that you are appreciating the bemusing panoply of the things, in which you believe.

Somehow you fail to notice your own admiration of beauty as a different order of qualitas.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 10:40 PM

"...untold universes of consciousness and creative will..."

I see them at work every day.... I just have no problem comprehending them as materially based.

remember the mantra of the 'Intelligent Design' folks? "I just can't imagine a universe this magnificent & complex unless it had been planned by an eternal mind!"

Very sad...some of us cannot imagine that that amount of complexity could have BEEN planned by any mind. We can't even imagine how a 'mind' or anything capable of planning could have existed in order TO plan...etc.
So, I will wait and slog along - appreciating the things that are, and leave imagining things that might not be to others...except for poetic/literary devices.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: John O'L
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 08:52 PM

"Easter bunnies, leprechauns and lots of other things you don't believe in."

Like anatta?

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 07:43 PM

Well, sure you can, Bill, until the combined effect of your deep agreements with mechanism and materialism, and the endless grind of gravity and friction, sap you of your creative energies and you can't recall where to turn to find any more!

Outside the fields of Infinite Mechanism, there are untold universes of consciousness and creative will at play. Easter bunnies, leprechauns and lots of other things you don't believe in.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 07:38 PM

Entropy Will Get You If You Don't Watch Out
.....of course, entropy will get you if you DO watch out.




Fields of Infinite Mechanism? I can at least stomp the dandelions there. What grows in The Fields of Abstract Subjectivism?

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 07:16 PM

Right. A keen intellectual discrimination, indeed, to lump anything relating to any spiritual phenomena, and equate it to the dullest of unthinking propositions concerning an extreme superstition.

I swear, Bill, sometimes I want to throw up my hands and just let you wander off into the fields of Infinite Mechanism and Entropy where you seem so at home.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 06:44 PM

"...one additional datum that then aligns wide areas of non-conforming data ..."

after unraveling the linguistic knots of that phrase, I 'think' you just claimed that Occam favors you because 'lotsa stuff is explained with only one extra premise needed'.

That is called 'sweeping generalization' in some circles....and sure, it can cover a lot. If you don't know how something happened, you attribute it to ....oh.... something like 'divine intervention'. I saw that used just this morning in the Washinton Post sports news where the Redskins just beat the Dallas Cowboys IN Dallas, something they seldom do. So, one player says "I think God must have had a hand in this somewhere".
Neat, huh? It is easy to group a bunch of hard-to-explain events under a simple conceptual principle...as long as you don't have to worry about the existential status of the entities involved. When I say that you DO infer a number of unstated premises, that's what I mean: and just referring to "thousands of vignettes and anecdotes.." doesn't cover all the bases.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 06:21 PM

I had a deep, prescient experience where I 'saw' that I could have post 100...so

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Alan Day
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 05:59 PM

Many Years ago a group of us started up a new Folk Band.We practiced hard and decided it was time to go public with it and offered our services free to a small Folk Club who kindly accepted.We were all very nervous, but were calmed by the fact that there would only be a few people there so we had nothing to worry about.Imagine our surprise and horror when we arrived at the venue to find the Outside Broadcast Van of the BBC there to record us.One of the producers knew some of the members of the band and thought it would make a good programme.To say we were nervous would have been an understatement and I can say that I have never concentrated so much on my playing as I did that night and this may be the key to this subject.During the playing of one tune I actually left my body and watched myself playing.(I faced myself)
This broke my concentration and I made a big mistake whilst playing and snapped back into my body.It has never happened again,even under extreme circumstances.It was a dreadful night with everything being spoilt by a mistake of some sort.Except for one tune that really went well."Thank goodness", I thought, "this is great".With that the microphone which was above my head swung round and crashed to the floor.Oh the joys of performing.
Al

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 01:58 PM

Sure. And I have pointed multiple times that Occam's premise suits my model as well or better than yours; it calls for one additional datum that then aligns wide areas of non-conforming data without the additional argument of "complicatedness" as a retreat. Both models have to address those areas which are not fully known, such as OOBEs, NDEs, and the thousands of vignettes and anecdotes which point toward non-local knowledge.

Mine just does it better. Yours (in my view) is like (as I have said before) trying to insist that the components of a cell-phone will provide the answer to the mystery of the unlimited communication which comes through it. "SOmewhere int here is a circuit or chip which generates all those voices and stories, no doubt--it's just too complicated to understand just now". Maybe there's electromagnetic tides with humours in them that do it...




A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 01:11 PM

Galen did ok as far as he knew. Harvey was able to examine Galen's ideas objectively. A fine idea!

If you wish to propound something other than neural activity as components of perceptual reality, we need something **OTHER** than assuming them in order to proceed. Occam was a step in that direction. He doesn't solve anything or DISprove anything, but he gives a nice blueprint for test design.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Paul Burke
Date: 29 Sep 08 - 05:28 AM

Your premise that the body's sensory system is the primary court of reality is of course a popular one.

You really need to read up on the scientific investigations of neuropsychology and the nervous system that have occupied the last 200 years or so (coincidentally, my son is currently postgraduate research on the history of this field). Most importantly, chemical or mechanical damage can transpform a person's perception of reality, in ways that can be related to specific neural connections, and in ways that make the mediaeval concept (which is yours) of a spiritual observer in a "Cartesian theatre" simply untenable. As I've said before, Oliver Sacks is a good writer to start with.

I don't think ANYBODY thinks the sensory system is where "reality" is. A billion years of evolution has taught us the lesson that reality is what's "out there" that can bite you very hard- even harder than THUS. And that the sensory system gives us a useful, but imperfect, reflection of what's out there- which is why you didn't see the tiger that caught you.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 09:18 PM

Well, it was only equitable. Your premise that the body's sensory system is the primary court of reality is of course a popular one.

But so was old Galen's vision of blood in tides and emotions from humours.

Someone (Harvey) who looked a little more carefully found otherwise, and would have been run out of town for doing so except that he was an aristocrat.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 07:14 PM

yep..I do. Using 'ordinary language', I of course usually (contemplating possible exceptions)perceive things better when I focus attention on them....therefore?

Now be careful what premises we assert are being tested here. This whole debate is largely as a result of MY (and a few others) questioning of claims made about various (purported) psychic phenomena. I make very few claims.

Do you know the story of Bishop George Berkeley who championed an early theory about existence & perception?

Boswell told this story:

"After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which [Dr] Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it: "I REFUTE IT THUS."
James Boswell, 1791."

well, of course, that was not exactly a learned philosophical refutation, but it makes a certain point.... We DO experience material things, and, if we have no handicaps like color blindness, we experience them in about the same way. We can measure them...commerce depends on material regularity....weights, density, wave lengths...etc.
   Suppose someone were to file a claim in court asserting that he 'saw' something...perhaps a document...or an event (a fire), and that his warnings went un heeded, and that he is therefore entitled to compensation because....whatever... Testing and proving assertions need to have some standard, but those who assert psychic or other metaphysical phenomena have data that is often only subjective or hearsay, and if they do have some seemingly statistically relevant evidence, there is almost always another possible explanation that does not ask us (here comes the circular part) to assume that the assertion is true in order to judge the conclusion....after all, it IS the truth of the assertion that is under scrutiny.
   If a couple of folks are merely comparing notes on weird experiences, we can shrug, but sometimes we are asked, as in Tarot, Astrology or religious visions, to act and even base lifestyles on such claims. (Didn't Bush say he "looked into Putin's eyes and saw his soul.."?? ) ok, ok...I had to toss that in.

So... once more... investigate further, if we can agree on what might be included in 'investigation'? Sure...but turning the question around and making claims about MY circularity "Your arguments .... are quite as circular as mine." sounds very like some political rhetoric these days. (you know...from 'those guys')

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 06:32 PM

Circularity is not a reflection on premises themselves but in whether they are embraced in the logic used to support them. You argue that my arguments are circular, although you do not specifically point out why. I offer that yours are equally so; they are tested only on their own premises of materiality, using testing methods designed intentionally to ward off any other elements.

It is not that I say I "know better". It is that your espousal of material methods is self-satisfied, and self-satisfying.

Now, here's a question: do you, or do you not, put your attention on things, and perceive them more if you put more attention on them?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 05:16 PM

Huh?...ummm...that was a week ago. What is I do again? Lessee...first, I am not 'loyal' to any position. I see problems with certain explanation of some positions, leading me to use ideas like ol' Willie-O's razor to 'hold' on till someone finds better evidence for the more...ummm.. 'arcane' ones.

2nd...nope, won't agree to circularity. Mine proceed from premises discovered and regularly re-examined -- not assumed in order to support a thesis.

'twould take many pages to outline, and you could then STILL say, "But I know better.."

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 01:03 PM

Bill:

Your arguments in the direction of attention being purely electrochemical are quite as circular as mine.

I appreciate your steadfast loyalty to materialism; it shows a certain perseverance of process on your part, which can easily be taken for virtue.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 12:16 PM

I woke up in the middle of a general anaesthtic, does that count?
Sal

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: bobad
Date: 28 Sep 08 - 12:08 PM

What Happens When We Die?

By M.J. STEPHEY Tue Sep 23, 6:40 PM ET

A fellow at New York City's Weill Cornell Medical Center, Dr. Sam Parnia is one of the world's leading experts on the scientific study of death. Last week Parnia and his colleagues at the Human Consciousness Project announced their first major undertaking: a 3-year exploration of the biology behind "out-of-body" experiences. The study, known as AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation), involves the collaboration of 25 major medical centers through Europe, Canada and the U.S. and will examine some 1,500 survivors of cardiac arrest. TIME spoke with Parnia about the project's origins, its skeptics and the difference between the mind and the brain.

More

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 01:29 AM

Nice pictures, Bill. ;-) I think I know that girl. I saw her at the last Fall Fair barbecue or something.

The spare body I have here is not showing any signs of attention in the usual sense, which is to be expected, since the brain has been removed.

The bad news is that the brain is not working properly in its new host, however....

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 12:06 AM

No I won't...

I will stipulate that attention IS real and operative for Amos right now despite no clear evidence of brains.





NOW I will quit

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 12:01 AM

But he seems to be attentive! So maybe....hmmmm....





ok,ok...I'll quit now...

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 11:58 PM

Now, you see, attention can be deceptive. Even you might agree with that one, Amos.

Perhaps this is what happens to create the one above

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 11:48 PM

I hear that 'brain' is not necessary for 'spirit' to be operative, so be careful what you accept, Donuel.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Are you arguing that the existence of attention is problematical?"

Amos...I kinda got lost in overlapping posts and missed that one. I can't see what I said that brought THAT up. Not even sure what I'm being asked.
   'Attention' is not exactly something that I think of as having any sort of independent status, but rather is usually mentioned as a 'state' or attribute of consciousness...which we loutish materialists then consider as a 'process' of the brain.

Say...maybe Little Hawk can tell us if that spare body he has available has some 'attention' despite that big empty space between the ears....if so, I need to reconsider everything!

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 10:27 PM

I'm not ready to die yet, Donuel, but when I do, you can have mine. Send me your mailing address.

In the meantime, I do have a body here that Ygor brought in last night, and it's pretty good. Just the brain is missing, since I needed that for a little project I'm working on. So I could send you that one, sans brain. Just say the word.

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:58 PM

I'm out of bodies, Can anyone here spare some?

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:40 PM

'tsuris' got me, Amos... I do pretty well with vocabulary, but Yiddish slang I need to look up. 'hassles'? Well, maybe tsuris is built into the very search for clear answers....

"You perceive things when you direct your attention to them."

ummm...that's kind of a re-formulating of the sort of embedded premise *I* was referring to. We do have some difficulty agreeing on what sort of entities qualify AS 'things' and what kind of 'directing of attention' can actually be presumed.

I don't deal well, as you have seen for years, with concepts that seem to be only self-defining and circular in definition.

Sometimes I think "Handsome is as handsome does" is a model for many other profound truths.....

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Amos
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:24 PM

Bill, hold on a minute.

Are you arguing that the existence of attention is problematical? That it may not exist?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:18 PM

"They who simply do not look for something (because they don't believe in it) are highly unlikely to ever find it, ..."

We've been down that road.... you kinda know how I approach that one

Subject: RE: BS: Out of body experiences
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 07:24 PM

Kind of like: "Seek and ye shall find."

They who simply do not look for something (because they don't believe in it) are highly unlikely to ever find it, and they probably wouldn't even notice it if it was staring them in the face.

They'd be focusing on something else at the time. ;-)

Thus a man's body gets out of shape and his marriage deteriorates while his attention remains fixed on his job and his TV programs...