A new argument pro Near Death Experiences
I have a new argument pro NDE's:
According to current neuroscience many parts of the brain are involved in the experience of the tunnel, the light, the peaceful feeling, the words 'it's not your time yet' etcetera. The verbal cortex, the occipital lobes etc. All must be involved. Chances are low that the sequence of electric activity in the brain of hundreds of people are almost exactly the same in such a way that they have the same sort of experiences. To have an OBE, to see the tunnel, then the light, then the words: 'it's not your time yet' assumes a certain patern of electric activity in the brain. It must be a big coincidence that the dying brains of all these people are functioning so well that they have the same sequence and patern of electric activity. It's also about the ontological status of 'the Light' and 'the Tunnel' when many people have the same experience, independent from each other. |
You do know this is not only explicable as people fill in their own blanks with what they know, NDEs in other cultures match their own cultural expectations.
Phenomenology of Near-death Experiences: A Cross-cultural Perspective Quote:
Quote:
I doubt you'd find, "it's not your time yet" the same across cultures. |
Yes, but 'the light', 'the OBE', the tunnel and the lifereview are very common.
in terms of probability: The probability of that happening (this specific sequence of patterns of electric activity in the brain when different parts are involved) purely by chance is less than one in a billion. (when you count the amount of neurons and the probability of exactly these patterns of electric activity in the brains of hundreds of people). |
I don't think you have a good understanding of the neurobiology of the brain. The tunnel and light are physiological processes. The people one sees and things one hears are from one's memory, like dreaming, but with similar patterns of people's memories.
If you fall asleep with the TV on, you sometimes fit the audio into what you are dreaming. I've found that many times. One strong memory I have from childhood was dreaming I was approaching a barn door with something scratching on the other side of the door. I woke up and my dog was scratching on my bedroom door to come in and sleep on my bed until I got up. People's dreams sometimes work to make sense of stimuli it continues to receive. If you see a tunnel of light, given circumstances that likely caused the event, it makes logical sense people would interpret the light as heaven and dream about things and people they expect to be there. |
Maybe you know more about the brain then me. But different regions must be involved when this NDE is happening. Occipital lobes, verbal cortex, etc.
The brain must fire a specific network of neurons. So, it's a whole sequence of firing networks. The chances are low that it is almost exaclty this sequence of networks. |
Quote:
ETA: Also, let's say that this probability will happen one in a billion -- with seven billion people on the planet, wouldn't this mean that your rare occurrence happened seven times? |
No, I have no 'work', The Norseman. But I studied something about the brain. i know that different parts of the brain must be involved for such complex experiences like NDE's, according to modern neuroscience.
Hundreds of people have the same sequence of combinations of networks firing during an NDE? This is statistically improbable that they all experience an OBE, a tunnel, a light, this peaceful feeling, the words: it's not your time yet etc. This sequence of experiences is a specific sequence of firing networks in the brain. This is statistically improbable that all these people have almost exactly the same sequence of combinated patterns of firing networks in their brains. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
All people sleep at night. Therefore they must have the same kind of dreams. Non sequitur. Quote:
|
Quote:
These things are just how our bodies typically work, or fail to work, in certain situations. |
The only thing I can say from personal experience is that having been there, I saw nothing, heard nothing, and felt nothing.
I was also very glad to eventually open my eyes. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
A good explanation can be: you have no memory of these events. |
Quote:
|
Dreams involve many parts of one's brain: those involved in seeing, hearing, smelling, etc. They seem very much like real experiences to the dreamer.
Are dreams therefore real experiences? |
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
Turingtest, do you think that there are not many different networks of the brain active to produce this sequence of OBE, tunnel-experience, light experience, feelings, understanding words in a meaningful way?
Other argument: these experiences are not chaotic at all, what you expect from an injuried dying brain.A dying brain cannot produce such harmonious experiences full of meaning and very vividly. It's a contradicition. A good working brain can produce these beautiful experiences. But not a dying damaged brain. From a dying brain you expect chaotic hallucinations. |
Quote:
I've had both types of shut downs - immediate and lingering, and I didn't go out of body, or saw angels, or saw a light or heard a heavenly choir - I was out, I woke up. end of story. |
BStrong, why do you ignore the possibility of memory loss? You don't know that.
|
Quote:
Even if you are proposing that somehow, near death, we will glimpse what death itself would be like, you are proposing that a near-death, dying brain would be able to sense all of this as a coherent whole, but would not be able to hallucinate the same thing. Doesn't this strike you as a problem? |
Quote:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Kh...ed=0CCsQ6AEwAw or http://www.csicop.org/si/show/darkne...els_and_light/ From the second link: "Oxygen starvation can cause both tunnel and darkness experiences. The reason for this lies in the structure and functioning of the blood supply of the retina. The macula is the optical center of the retina; it has the greatest blood supply, while the flow of blood to the retina decreases with distance from the macula according to the inverse square law. Yet the oxygen consumption of each part of the retina is much the same, so oxygen starvation will cause failure of peripheral vision before causing total visual failure. Indeed, experiments with oxygen starvation in human volunteers prove this fact. This is why tunnel experiences occur only in NDEs caused by oxygen starvation, while toxins and poisons cause a “pit experience” before causing failure of vision." |
Quote:
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
I recommand you to listen to the testimonies of many NDE'ers on Youtube. It's hard to believe that it can be explained by these biological phenomena. |
Quote:
Someone can tell me that the reason I didn't have what folks are looking for in an NDE because I'm not a believer, but nobody has ever accused me of not having a good memory. My experiences, and really the only thing one can go on here is their individual experience, is that I went out, I came back, that's it. I know other folks that have reported getting the E ticket ride experience when they checked out. I have absolutely no reason to dispute their account and they have no reason to dispute mine. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
Even if your understanding of biology and psychology was right, you're still making the logical mistake of only counting the hits and ignoring the misses. I died. My heart stopped. The whole system was down for a solid minute. I was on an EKG and have the strip to prove it. I did not experience anything. It wasn't even like sleep. It was just nothing. Many people have had the same experience. What percentage of people in near-death states have classic near-death experiences? If you can't answer that, you can't go any further. |
Quote:
Given that we know that the brain will invent things in the visual field out of whole cloth and that it is common to everyone on the planet, why should the commonality of NDE experiences be any surprise at all? |
Quote:
|
What's amazing to me is that everyone I know can read these words in the same specific way. It's almost like, even with all the complexities of the brain in play, there's some underlying shared experience with reading text. As if similar input produces a similar reaction across all my English speaking friends.
Quite the mystery. It is apparent to me that there must be some outside connection, across brains and across the variety of human beings, that allows this similarity in response to emerge. I call it the "unexplained phenomenon of literacy." It's just not possible for all these people to share the same experience. Eerie, really. |
Quote:
When you are unconscious, you cannot report having a NDE. |
Quote:
How can all these pilots subjected to high g-forces have the same experiences when they have passed out? Shouldn't their experience be chaotic and unpredictable? http://www.near-death.com/experiences/triggers06.html Strangely the experiences are quite similar to one another, and oh my, also quite similar to what is reported as NDE! How interesting! I predict you will not be convinced. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
Of course you haven't. Quote:
Quote:
Of course you haven't. |
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
|
Quote:
We already had the conversation as to whether NDEs are the same in different cultures. They are not. And anyway, why would an NDE be expected to show what things are in a DE (Death Experience)? But I guess if one really wants to believe that one's soul goes on after death, then one believes whatever helps. |
The whole thing about NDEs being a glimpse of a afterlife makes no sense. All studies by pro supernatural claimants including kubler-ross and moody have poor methodologies. This anecdote fits with our claptrap so we will record it, this goes against our claptrap so we will ignore it.
I also strongly feel that children who claimNDEs are coached by there parents. I read one child's claim of having met the souls of aborted children-he was six so I don't think he made it up but had it made up by his pro life father. The idea of duelism-that there is a part of you extant from your mind-is one of the oldest ideas in the psychology of humans but actual science(in this case neuroscience) tells us that the brain is a purely physical organ. It should also be noted that accuaratly determining if aNDE took place at the short period of death or just before or after is extremely difficult. The claim that NDEs are common also falls flat when you bear in mind the vast majority of people who are brought back do not have this experience. Any sane appraisal of NDEs must conclude that while there is a small possibility that a interesting neurological process is taking place it is not in any way supernatural. |
This new argument in the OP sounds like another "too cool to just be chemicals and brain" claim. I might argue just as easily that it is not cool enough to be a god related phenomenon. Why not a little more imagination than just the same old "tunnel with a light at the end"? Why not a very elaborate jewel and precious metal encrusted bridge with lasers and flashing strobes or those super bright LED flashlights and a neon sign a thousand feet high flashing "HEAVEN"? Or a bunch of supernovae spelling out "Paradise, turn right". After all, this is the path to the creator of the universe! The tunnel thing sounds like an abandoned subway line for Pete's sake!
A little tunnel with a white light is exactly what I would expect to be the common denominator of oxygen deprivation or GLok if it were purely physiological. For the creator of Man and giver of life, I'd expect a tad more choreography. I'm not sure that conflating NDEs and OBEs is helping the argument either. Do atheists find any interest in the NDE concept, or is this just something that has been co-opted by theists to help them with that "faith" thing, which is not supposed to need evidence? |
All times are GMT -7. The time now is 08:30 PM. |
Powered by vBulletin. Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
© 2015-24, TribeTech AB. All Rights Reserved.