Hoover Institute video on Mathematical Challenges to Darwin's Theory

[SkepticThinker]

Much more investigation, study and controlled experimentation is necessary to get you to where I am. I do not need it however.

No, you don't need it, because you've got confirmation bias and arguments from incredulity to base your conclusions on. Sorry but those are not sound foundations for belief, in my opinion.

The reason the rest of us don't believe it, is because all you seem to have are claims and cherry-picked anecdotal stories. No measurements. No demonstrations. No controlled experiments of the sort we use to determine true things from false things in every other arena of life. And not only that, you haven't even demonstrated the connection between "somebody experienced a thing" and "minds leave bodies and float around outside them which means that the specific god I believe in exists as well as some spiritual realm." You've got a lot of work to do to tie the former claim in with the latter.

 

[SkepticThinker]

In the study I linked.

What is it that you think those "2 or 3 lines of evidence" are evidence of, exactly?
I ask because the conclusions of the study you linked don't seem to match the conclusions you've come to, about NDEs.

 

[SkepticThinker]

The persons having the OBE observed that their consciousness was active and observing things from outside their body and while their body was pretty much dead on an operating table.

So a human person "observed their consciousness" ... ? What did their consciousness look like? How did they measure it? Or did you mean to word that differently? How does one "observe their consciousness?"

"Pretty much" dead isn't dead, right? So what we're talking about here is brains doing things that brains can do. I've had many dreams where I felt like I was above my body, but I wasn't near-death. I was just dreaming.

These people recorded in their memory what they observed during this time.

Another strangely worded statement. These people "recorded in their memory" ... What does that mean?

So these people were in a room that the were actually in, and "recorded in their memory" things that happened in the room they were in. This is remarkable because ... ?

After their body was resuscitated they told their story and the people who were there confirmed the story and so confirmed that the persons claiming an OBE really had an OBE.

So nobody witnessed any disembodied minds?


So, let's summarize here.
Some people have "OBE experiences" when they are close to death and their brains are shutting down.
Some of these people can accurately report things that occurred in the room they were in, supposedly at the time their brains were shutting down.
Some of these people feel like they are floating above their bodies.
When the people wake up, their reporting of what happened in the room they were in, matches the reporting of what happened in the room by other people who were in the room at the time.
Let's just assume all of this is correct.

So, from this, you've concluded that:
-That consciousness is separable from the brain as a "disembodied mind."
-That there is some afterlife in which these disembodied minds live on (as 'spirits'?)
-This afterlife takes place in, and was created by the specific god of the Bible that you worship.
-That having an "OBE experience" is direct evidence for your religious beliefs.
-That a brain is at it's most lucid at the time it is dying.

Even though:
-Nobody has ever seen nor demonstrated that minds can exist outside of brains. Even in these cases you cite, nobody observed any disembodied minds floating around anywhere in the room.
-That when a brain is damaged, the mind is also damaged.
-That the people having these OBEs were merely "near-death" and not actually dead
-That upon closer inspection, many of these stories turn out to be far less extraordinary than first claimed

You also don't seem to understand that an "OBE experience" is just the experience. It isn't confirmation of the whole host of things you seem to believe about them. So saying "OBE experiences are real" just means that someone experienced something that we identify as having the characteristics shared by others having the experience. But you don't seem to realize that nothing is really demonstrated from that. All your work is still ahead of you to demonstrate all of the things you believe about them.

 

[AdamjEdgar]

I just happened to read this the other day. Very interesting ...

"After an elderly patient died suddenly during a routine test, scientists accidentally captured unique data on the activity in his brain at the very end of his life: During the 30 seconds before and after the man's heart stopped, his brain waves were remarkably similar to those seen during dreaming, memory recall and meditation, suggesting that people may actually see their life "flash before their eyes" when they die. ...

...Just before and after the heart stopped working, we saw changes in a specific band of neural oscillations," senior researcher Dr. Ajmal Zemmar, a neurosurgeon at the University of Toronto in Canada at the time of the man's case, said in the statement. These specific types of oscillations are known as gamma waves, added Zemmar, who is now at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

Neural oscillations are classified based on their frequency and amplitude. Gamma waves have a frequency between 30 and 100 hertz, the highest frequency of any oscillations, and are most commonly observed in the brain when people access their memory center, in a region called the hippocampus, during dreams."


First-ever scan of a dying human brain reveals life may actually 'flash before your eyes'

This is interesting, however, of those persons who i cited (Late Aussie businessman Kerry Packer and Greg Page from the Wiggles) who clinically died and came back, how do we reconcile their inability to recall anything during that period of death?

I guess what i am saying is that if there is evidence of brain activity for some, why do others not recall a single thing of the event? That suggests the theory from researching brain activity is not supported in all cases as it doesn't explain why some do not recall a thing. I think that casts significant doubt on the theory.

I suppose the question now becomes, aside from the heart connection issue (ie the pump turns off), how long can the brain function without the body replenishing oxygen? I guess it becomes a bit of a chicken or the egg scenario...the heart may stop because of no brain activity, or it may stop because of a failure within the heart itself. makes it a bit hard to answer the dilemma i suppose...or perhaps it provides the answer?

 

[Brian2]

No, you don't need it, because you've got confirmation bias and arguments from incredulity to base your conclusions on. Sorry but those are not sound foundations for belief, in my opinion.

The reason the rest of us don't believe it, is because all you seem to have are claims and cherry-picked anecdotal stories. No measurements. No demonstrations. No controlled experiments of the sort we use to determine true things from false things in every other arena of life. And not only that, you haven't even demonstrated the connection between "somebody experienced a thing" and "minds leave bodies and float around outside them which means that the specific god I believe in exists as well as some spiritual realm." You've got a lot of work to do to tie the former claim in with the latter.

I did not mention an specific God.
I just used the available evidence and sound reasoning to end up with the conclusion that consciousness has been demonstrated to exist outside physical bodies at certain times.

 

[Brian2]

"Pretty much" dead isn't dead, right? So what we're talking about here is brains doing things that brains can do. I've had many dreams where I felt like I was above my body, but I wasn't near-death. I was just dreaming.

NDE- Near Death Experience
How does a brain do what you are suggesting?

So these people were in a room that the were actually in, and "recorded in their memory" things that happened in the room they were in. This is remarkable because ... ?

They were unconscious, brain anaesthetised, eyes closed.

So, from this, you've concluded that:
-That consciousness is separable from the brain as a "disembodied mind."
-That there is some afterlife in which these disembodied minds live on (as 'spirits'?)
-This afterlife takes place in, and was created by the specific god of the Bible that you worship.
-That having an "OBE experience" is direct evidence for your religious beliefs.
-That a brain is at it's most lucid at the time it is dying.

You can take away all but the first conclusion.

Even though:
-Nobody has ever seen nor demonstrated that minds can exist outside of brains. Even in these cases you cite, nobody observed any disembodied minds floating around anywhere in the room.
-That when a brain is damaged, the mind is also damaged.
-That the people having these OBEs were merely "near-death" and not actually dead
-That upon closer inspection, many of these stories turn out to be far less extraordinary than first claimed

-So you think that someone should be able to see a mind. What would that look like?
So you are saying that these NDE OBEs are useless as evidence that minds can exist outside the body because there is no 'other' evidence that minds can exist outside the body.................... so we'll ignore the OBE experiences as evidence and say the same thing when something else comes up that is evidence of minds outside the body.
-Because we don't know that a disembodied mind is going to function badly when separated from a broken brain, your end statement means nothing.
If anything these OBEs show that the mind when separated from the malfunctioning brain, works fine.
-Yes NDEs mean "Near" Death Experiences.
-Then dismiss the stories that have no basis in fact.

You also don't seem to understand that an "OBE experience" is just the experience. It isn't confirmation of the whole host of things you seem to believe about them. So saying "OBE experiences are real" just means that someone experienced something that we identify as having the characteristics shared by others having the experience. But you don't seem to realize that nothing is really demonstrated from that. All your work is still ahead of you to demonstrate all of the things you believe about them.

Yes it is an experience which many people have and it is a verifiable experience. Yet many people, including yourself, refuse to think that OBEs are possible.
That is the only thing I am concluding really, that OBEs are possible. That the evidence shows that.
You already know the implications of this in relation to minds, spirits etc and it upsets your whole world view, hence the stubborn resistance to seeing the evidence.

 

[rational experiences]

Humans are exact now.

Light is exact now.

Immaculate gas. Sun dust burning fuel ignited earths gas as light. Now.

All those thought upon conditions are now.

Men say I play around with all types of dusts. I can change dusts.

History sun...sun changed once melded fused mass via an atmosphere change into answer the dusts.

No further conversion...it ended.

Men of theist science creationism evolution state from a reaction became the living cell. Claim it dusts as humans bio use minerals.

They live exist. They are self conscious. Biology is first a humans whole body. Your minerals water food input reproduces and replaces a cell. Water inputted too. Your body human a God human replaces forms its cells.

The living cells owned creation within its creator type body the human. Is exact. Not outside.

We live in space protected on earth by its heavens. So unlike earths body mass we don't own an actual space history.

Earths space mass history allowed dusts upon its body mass.

We live inside heavens our biology constantly converting. Ends as dusts by bio conversion future history.

The human always owned two pre adult humans.

The microbe cell ours sperm ovary.

A baby owning cell type to grow a human adult from its body the baby human creator.

Exact.

We survive if we eat drink otherwise we just die.

Changing evolving from sperm ovary we exist inside heavens. We convert into human death. We convert into bio decomposition. We convert eventually by skeleton into dusts.

Exact same as the planet earth. Planet by space history. Humans by heavens history.

Proving to creationist evolutionist your theories are fake.

As origin human parent body living inside same heavens is now living only. Future human are dusts like planet earths mass.

Is why theists were told who died and made you God? As gods earths dusts are now your origin human parents body type too. Your future self.

So if humans take dusts do you recreate the origin two human parents in experiments you claim is a scientists proof? How a human was created?

No you don't.

Gas clear is the sacrificed mass. Told.

Clear gas is hence instant carbon burn. Exact position above only.

Not humans.

Therefore there never was a human thesis why a human exists.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

No, you don't need it, because you've got confirmation bias and arguments from incredulity to base your conclusions on. Sorry but those are not sound foundations for belief, in my opinion.

The reason the rest of us don't believe it, is because all you seem to have are claims and cherry-picked anecdotal stories. No measurements. No demonstrations. No controlled experiments of the sort we use to determine true things from false things in every other arena of life. And not only that, you haven't even demonstrated the connection between "somebody experienced a thing" and "minds leave bodies and float around outside them which means that the specific god I believe in exists as well as some spiritual realm." You've got a lot of work to do to tie the former claim in with the latter.

You have anecdotal evidence of an experience--subjective in itself--and a claim of what that experience is and what it means without anything connecting experience with the claim. There are literally thousands of other possible explanations that people could tie this anecdotal phenomenon too, but don't meaning that without evidence they have eliminated all those possibilities. I have always been curious how they can do that, but not substantiate what they do claim. How come it is that near death experiences aren't communication with future beings using some future technology that seems like magic to us? Or perhaps it is an attempt at communication by aliens or other dimensional beings.

It is more telling that people with one world view interpret it in a relative context to their view and those with another, interpret it in a different context.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

And other people who were there at the time verified the reports that the OBEers gave. That is what verified reports means.

I'm dubious of these corroborations, and that is what is claimed. Independent observers are corroborating what a person is said to observe while out of body. It doesn't verify a particular claimed reason or explanation of the out of body experiences.

I think what you mean by verified is that is that the corroboration verifies what you believe is going on and that is not the case.

It also does not eliminate other explanations for the claimed observations.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Please explain how this is evidence that at the point where the brain is shutting down, that this is when we are having our most lucid moments.
And then please demonstrate that these mental experiences that are the result of the brain shutting down are evidence of supernatural realms and spirits.

Something seems to be going on, but the correct answer to what it is, is "we don't know".

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I give verified reports from people who claim OBEs in their NDEs and say that this shows that their consciousness was outside their bodies in these OBEs. Hence spirit, not material or physical.
Then you want me to give reason for thinking there is something that is not part of nature and not material or physical.
That is weird to my thinking. Then again, you for some reason do not believe that people have claimed OBEs during NDEs and that what they have reported to have seen and/or heard has been verified by the people who were there.
Verified reports like this are always going to be THE evidence for these OBEs and consciousness having been outside the body. I have just been told that reports like this are never going to be evidence. It sounds like it is useless to even investigate these OBE claims if that is the case.
You and others it seems dismiss the evidence for spirits unless there is evidence for spirits.

They are verified in the sense of being valid reports of a rigorous, systematic approach to gathering information, comparing, categorizing and describing what people claim they experienced. They are not signing off on a particular explanation as if they concluded that a popular explanation is fact.

Your choice of the adjective verified applies to the validity of how the study was conducted and not to a particular conclusion being verified.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Read the article. The OBEers describe their resuscitations accurately and those with no NDEs do not. That sounds like a controlled study to me.

The article I read says that they describe their resuscitations "more" accurately than a control group. It doesn't say they describe those events with complete accuracy. That they describe a greater accuracy does not lead to a conclusion of why that greater accuracy exists.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I just hear the reports of the OBEs in the NDEs and realise that the person's mind was released from their anaesthatised and unconscious body, which was not working properly and the minds were working just fine outside the body.
It does take something called belief however, believing the reports, maybe you have no belief to use. But that can't be true, you must belief something, reports given by some people. Do you think it is a matter of needing extraordinary evidence before you will believe what is for you, extraordinary claims.
What is more likely, that a consciousness was floating outside a body or that the person lied?
So they must have lied................maybe they were in collusion with those who verified their reports.
I don't know, give me some reason that you refuse to believe the evidence that has been collected.
Maybe it is just that it goes beyond what your whole life philosophy tells you is true.

I have seen nothing like you describe in the reports I have read. At least nothing in those reports corroborates what you claim is going on.

I read subjective descriptions of a claimed experience with nothing to demonstrate what that experience is or is caused by. Most of what you say here is your personal embellishment about what you want to believer such reports mean.

I couldn't tell you that they don't describe the disembodiment of some previously undemonstrated spirit of humans and perhaps are evidence of an afterlife. But that is the crux. There isn't anything that says that or even knowledge of what a human spirit is to draw any reasonable conclusions other than it is a not uncommon description of an experience some people have when they are under very great stress. We simply do not know what a near death experience is other than the likely result of the biochemical and physiological responses of a dying brain or one incredibly stressed.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The evidence for a consciousness without a brain is in the OBE reports. Showing that consciousness sounds like something else. Do you want photos or something?

I find it all fascinating, but as evidence for an extracranial consciousness, it isn't really all that compelling or telling. You have to eliminate many other possibilities and have more information that is presently absent from these studies to draw that conclusion.

How do I know that a ghost is the blurry spirit of a dead person? Somebody told me that. How did they know? Somebody told them that. That is not really evidence that verifies ghosts and what they are.

 

[Brian2]

I'm dubious of these corroborations, and that is what is claimed. Independent observers are corroborating what a person is said to observe while out of body. It doesn't verify a particular claimed reason or explanation of the out of body experiences.

I think what you mean by verified is that is that the corroboration verifies what you believe is going on and that is not the case.

It also does not eliminate other explanations for the claimed observations.

OK the verifications are of the reports that the OBEers have. I think I have said that all along, and I don't think I have said anything about any claim by the OBEers of an explanation.
So the reports of the OBEers and verified.
Assuming the whole thing is not a lot of OBEers and confirmers lying about things, what are some possible explanations?

 

[Brian2]

I find it all fascinating, but as evidence for an extracranial consciousness, it isn't really all that compelling or telling. You have to eliminate many other possibilities and have more information that is presently absent from these studies to draw that conclusion.

How do I know that a ghost is the blurry spirit of a dead person? Somebody told me that. How did they know? Somebody told them that. That is not really evidence that verifies ghosts and what they are.

I don't know what you are referring to when you mention what a ghost might look like.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

How did science progress before photography or recording machines? I guess people gave their anecdotes of what happened.

They might have done something like write down things. You don't need pictures and recordings to do science and that science wasn't done simply by capturing anecdotes and then declaring them fact. Pasteur and Redi falsified spontaneous generation through experiments without a cameraman and an AV editor. John Snow tracked down the source of cholera in 1850's Soho without benefit of audio and image capture.

 

[Brian2]

I have seen nothing like you describe in the reports I have read. At least nothing in those reports corroborates what you claim is going on.

I read subjective descriptions of a claimed experience with nothing to demonstrate what that experience is or is caused by. Most of what you say here is your personal embellishment about what you want to believer such reports mean.

I couldn't tell you that they don't describe the disembodiment of some previously undemonstrated spirit of humans and perhaps are evidence of an afterlife. But that is the crux. There isn't anything that says that or even knowledge of what a human spirit is to draw any reasonable conclusions other than it is a not uncommon description of an experience some people have when they are under very great stress. We simply do not know what a near death experience is other than the likely result of the biochemical and physiological responses of a dying brain or one incredibly stressed.

You should have read subjective descriptions and then confirmations of those descriptions by others present who were conscious.
I see no reasonable answer to that evidence other than out of body consciousness, whatever that might mean I don't know.
All I need is the evidence to see the obvious conclusion (without eliminating every other possible answer from the "thousands" of possibilities.) The compilers of the reports of course do not come to a conclusion about OBEs being real, that would be a claim that is outside science and would need much more study for science to say that,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, even if it is the obvious answer.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

OK the verifications are of the reports that the OBEers have. I think I have said that all along, and I don't think I have said anything about any claim by the OBEers of an explanation.
So the reports of the OBEers and verified.
Assuming the whole thing is not a lot of OBEers and confirmers lying about things, what are some possible explanations?

That reports of witnesses are carried out by a careful, rigorous and systematic method is not in itself evidence in support of the claims captured in those witness statements. It would be a false association to do so, whether intentionally or accidentally.

With so little information, the possible explanations are limited only by the imagination. What we do know from out study of brains is that minds operate electrochemically through a medium of physical tissue. That perturbations of this chemistry can have distinct, often characteristic responses to perception. LSD effects the same parts of the brain that operate when you rub your eyes and see stars, for instance.

Is it more likely that these experiences have a reasonable explanation in the natural, physical and chemical state of the brain under stress or is it more likely that explanations rest on unverified claims of spirits and undemonstrated functions like extracranial navigation.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You should have read subjective descriptions and then confirmations of those descriptions by others present who were conscious.
I see no reasonable answer to that evidence other than out of body consciousness, whatever that might mean I don't know.
All I need is the evidence to see the obvious conclusion (without eliminating every other possible answer from the "thousands" of possibilities.) The compilers of the reports of course do not come to a conclusion about OBEs being real, that would be a claim that is outside science and would need much more study for science to say that,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, even if it is the obvious answer.

If the conclusion is obvious, then why is it that people that study these things don't see it? Why do neurologists not see it given that they spend more time studying the brain than you or I do.

Calling your desired answer the "obvious" answer is a false association resting squarely on your personal bias and not on any evidence.

I don't know what the answer is. You can certainly tell us what you believe it is. But doing that in public lays you open to challenge if you want to claim what you believe are also the facts. I'm just trying to get that point across.