|
NDE
Oct 20, 2012 3:38:23 GMT
Post by sankari on Oct 20, 2012 3:38:23 GMT
Alexander, as a neuroscientist is presumably competent to judge from the medical information whether his brain was active during the time his mind was apparently active, and since it apparently wasn't, the question is how does the mind operate when the brain isn't active under normal naturalistic assumptions? We have no evidence that his brain was inactive during the coma. We have no evidence that his alleged experience occurred during the coma.
|
|
|
NDE
Oct 20, 2012 5:13:20 GMT
Post by unkleE on Oct 20, 2012 5:13:20 GMT
We have no evidence that his brain was inactive during the coma. We have no evidence that his alleged experience occurred during the coma. Have you read his account? I haven't, but the newspaper article says this: "In the autumn of 2008, he contracted a very rare bacterial meningitis that he says made his brain “shut down” and put his “higher-order brain functions totally offline”. The soup-like state of Dr Alexander’s brain was, he writes, “documented by CT scans” (although CT scans don’t say anything about the activity of the brain) and “neurological examinations”. Although the neurons of his cortex were “stunned to complete inactivity by the bacteria”, his conscious self journeyed into another world."Then there was this comment: "Dr Peter Fenwick, senior lecturer at King’s College, London, consultant at the Institute of Psychiatry, and president of the British branch of The International Association for Near Death Studies, acknowledges that there are deep problems in interpreting first-person memories of experiences that are supposed to have happened when the brain was out of action. Since the lucky survivor can only tell you about them after the event, how can we be sure that these things were perceived and felt at the time that their brains were messed up, rather than being invented afterwards?"So it sounds to me that there IS INDEED some evidence, but it is not easy to interpret. That is not the same as there being none. Unless any of us have read the book, that is about as much as we can say.
|
|
|
NDE
Oct 20, 2012 14:36:58 GMT
Post by sankari on Oct 20, 2012 14:36:58 GMT
Have you read his account? I have not, but I believe Sam Harris raises some important points: ( Source).
|
|
|
NDE
Oct 20, 2012 23:26:50 GMT
Post by timoneill on Oct 20, 2012 23:26:50 GMT
1. He doesn't come to any conclusions, beyond that there is a phenomenon here that is not yet explained, and which no current explanation (natural or supernatural) seems to fully fit. How do you explain the vision my friend and devout Hindi Shilpi had a few years ago of Lord Krishna? If you have a naturalistic explanation of it which doesn't involve a Hindu deity actually existing and actually appearing to Shilpi when she was worried about her sick baby then you can see why I'm not going to waste my time reading a book about "visions" of a dead Jewish carpenter.
|
|
|
NDE
Oct 20, 2012 23:37:05 GMT
Post by unkleE on Oct 20, 2012 23:37:05 GMT
How do you explain the vision my friend and devout Hindi Shilpi had a few years ago of Lord Krishna? Why should I have an explanation? I am not a researcher. I could imagine many "explanations" but they wouldn't be based on anything evidential. I have no expectation that you would read this book, or any other. But I would hope that you would be careful about the comments you make about a book you haven't read, rather than jump to conclusions based on limited information. I have read it because I found it interesting, and I commented on it so others who want to know about these things are aware of it. As for the Jewish carpenter still being dead, it would sad if information suggesting he may be alive after all was not examined, don't you think?
|
|
|
NDE
Oct 21, 2012 0:02:53 GMT
Post by timoneill on Oct 21, 2012 0:02:53 GMT
How do you explain the vision my friend and devout Hindi Shilpi had a few years ago of Lord Krishna? Why should I have an explanation? I am not a researcher. I could imagine many "explanations" but they wouldn't be based on anything evidential. That's a weak dodge. You and I both know that you don't believe Shilpi actually saw the real Lord Krishna and that her experience has a rational, naturalistic explanation. Which is why I'm not going to bother reading a book that "examines" (however fair-mindedly) exactly the same kind of experience of your Jesus. You and I also both know your double standard when it comes to visions of Jesus rather than imaginary beings you don't happen to believe in is totally irrational. I think you know I've examined it very carefully and found it has about as much foundation as Shilpi's vision of Krishna. But given that you regard the normal, everyday avoidance of traffic accidents proof that a interventionist omniscient and omnipotent deity decided to save your life while letting millions of others die, I'm pretty clear that you are not going to agree with me on that.
|
|
|
NDE
Oct 21, 2012 0:03:35 GMT
Post by unkleE on Oct 21, 2012 0:03:35 GMT
I have not, but I believe Sam Harris raises some important points: I find these sorts of reports interesting, because people on all sides don't react nearly as scientifically and impartially as you'd hope, and I have learned to mistrust most reactions (including Sam's). An example is Andrew Palmer, an evolutionary biologist recognised in the UK in an award some years ago as one of the up-and-coming stars in his field (the evolution of the eye). He was not a christian as far as I could tell, but he wrote a book on the supposed parallels between evolutionary science and Genesis. He didn't question evolution in any way, but he nevertheless got slammed far and wide by the science and atheist communities for his perceived stupidity and temerity. (There is a thread somewhere here about it.) I watched and read all this with some interest, and then some time later I found his book in our local library, so I read it. It was nothing like what all the nasty critics had written. Most of the content was a reasonably simplified explanation of various steps along the evolutionary process, which seemed to my limited understanding to be quite orthodox. But each chapter had a short section where he suggested how Genesis parallelled each step. Some of the parallels were quite reasonable, some were a bit stretched. I don't know that I would have thought the whole thing added up, but the book was readable and interesting, and quite soundly based on evolutionary science. I thought the reaction was a massive over-reaction, and I was confirmed in my wariness of taking too much notice of strong preconceived opinions on either side of such questions. I can't help feeling the same thing is happening here. Some people want what he says to be true, so they read him uncritically. Others want it not to be true so they criticise him unmercifully. Perhaps the critics are correct, but experience suggests I should be sceptical of the sceptics and believers alike. For the record, I as a christian regard NDEs as slight evidence against the truth of christianity but also slight evidence against naturalism. I don't regard any visions or experience he may have had as being evidence of heaven, but I do regard them as perhaps being some evidence in the mind vs brain debate. So I don't have any major bias one way or another. I remain interested in the phenomenon in a fairly general way, but not enough to read much on it. So when someone I trust more than I trust Sam Harris has read it, I may be able to form an opinion, but not really until then.
|
|
mt
Clerk
Posts: 26
|
NDE
Oct 21, 2012 13:33:21 GMT
Post by mt on Oct 21, 2012 13:33:21 GMT
How do you explain the vision my friend and devout Hindi Shilpi had a few years ago of Lord Krishna? Demons! A demon appeared to Shilpi, masquerading as Krishna in order to lead her further astray from God. An elegant and simple explanation that doesn't reject the reality of such visions, while not contradicting the truth of Christianity.
|
|
|
NDE
Oct 21, 2012 18:56:00 GMT
Post by jamierobertson on Oct 21, 2012 18:56:00 GMT
Tim, unkleE doesn't disbelieve the "Hindu spirit explanation" for those NDEs, he simply lacks a belief in Hindu spirits. It's completely different.
|
|
|
NDE
Oct 21, 2012 19:12:28 GMT
Post by sandwiches on Oct 21, 2012 19:12:28 GMT
|
|
|
NDE
Oct 26, 2012 7:36:02 GMT
Post by sankari on Oct 26, 2012 7:36:02 GMT
Harris' response is perfectly reasonable. You can't debate a subjective personal experience, no matter what state the alleged recipient claims to have been in at the time. What is there to debate? Alexander doesn't even have any evidence that the alleged vision occurred at the alleged time. The best he can come up with is this: What the hell?
|
|
|
NDE
Oct 30, 2012 18:57:33 GMT
Post by sandwiches on Oct 30, 2012 18:57:33 GMT
|
|
|
NDE
Oct 30, 2012 20:41:06 GMT
Post by eckadimmock on Oct 30, 2012 20:41:06 GMT
Unless the quantum substances have sinned, in which case they hang around and cause natural disasters.
|
|
|
NDE
Nov 4, 2012 18:04:51 GMT
Post by sandwiches on Nov 4, 2012 18:04:51 GMT
|
|