On 17 May 2013, at 17:33, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
2013/5/17 Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
On 17 May 2013, at 12:07, Russell Standish wrote:
On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 05:39:50AM -0400, Roger Clough wrote:
Hi Art Funkhouser
The documented fact that people have had "near death"
experiences after death, after electrical activity in the brain
ceases suggests to me at least that the mind does not
need the brain to function.
This is also suggested by "out of the body" experiences
Where's your evidence of this happening? You're not just claiming that
people have been resuscitated from a brain dead state, but that they
are conscious as well. Reliable evidence of this would be big news
indeed!
It is very hard to assess scientifically presence, or absence, of
consciousness, notably of person in highly comatose state.
One reason for this is the Maury Effect ((as I call it in
"conscience et mécanisme") . You have perhaps heard about Maury's
theory of dream. Maury, like Malcolm, pretended that we are
unconscious the whole night, including during "dream episodes". In
fact Maury argued that dreams do not exist, and that a dream is a
construction done at the moment of awakening. This has been rather
properly refuted with the use of lucid dreams and Electro Encephalo-
measurements (Hearne, Laberge, Dement, ...(You can find the
references in the bibliography of "conscience et Mécanism"(*)).
Yet, in dream, the brain, like a talented novelist can create in a
short laps of time an imaginary past, similar to what Maury thought
the entire dream is. In fact it is hard to imagine how a dream can
"begun" without creating a situation and a memory configuration for
that situation. This does not explain all aspect of a NDE, but can
invalidate too quick deduction, especially that the recovering from
coma is a slow process, where the brain get more active in some
incremental way, and during that time a Maury effect would be the
easier explanation for the apparent feeling of having live something
during the time of the comma.
Note that a digital reconstitution can also be seen as some Maury
effect. The reconstitution creates a long-life-past memory.
Other more impressive reports exist, where people, after a coma, can
describe happenings in the room or in the hospital when they were in
the comatose state.
But does it exist such report about person in brain dead state that
somehow awaken/revive from that state ? I don't think that exists.
Jesus perhaps? (well the evidences are poor, 'course).
Well, I don't think that exist. Near death does not mean death. The
notion of "brain dead' is dependent on technology, and some people can
get out state which would have been considered dead sometimes ago, but
of course this means they were not dead, I would say by definition.
But here I was alluding to the physicians describing patient in coma
state, when capable of describing some unusual device used during
their comma. But as I said, this is poor evidences too, and systematic
study of this is difficult. The field is also tarnished by some amount
of wishful thinking, making hard the evaluation of testimony. But NDE
are a very interesting field of study, and statistics confirms some
facts, like the "life-changing" benefits by people pretending having
gone through one.
Best,
Bruno
Regards,
Quentin
This is far more impressive, but unfortunately, although amazingly
many physicians reports such facts, it is hard to assess them, or
repeat them, as it is obvious we can't put a human Guinea Pig in
such state, which are "really" near death, and that would be
unethical to try. For each particular case, loopholes exist in the
account. More case studies are needed, with some progress in
anesthesiology.
Are NDE contradicting "mainstream science"? It seems to me that
"mainstream science", by its current Aristotelianism is already
contradicted itself by ideas like COMP or STRONG-AI.
Does NDE assess the comp platonism? Comp predicts a large range of
"after-life experiences". Comp predicts also what can be memorized
from them, what can be told, and what cannot be memorized at all. It
is here that the salvia reports seem to me very amazing, as it looks
people can memorize more than what comp would allowed, unless our
subst-level appears to be *very* more low than neurons (perhaps).
Well, given that we might be seriously wrong with the mind-matter
connection since Aristotle, we can be sure only of one thing: much
more work has to be done on this subject, and this, if possible, in
a very large open frame of mind, far from religious or anti-
religious prejudices. Use of different narcotics should be
encouraged, but we are a long way from that too. Salvia and DMT seem
to have NDE like effects, and seem to be non toxic, and non
dangerous when done with a minimum amount of responsibility.
Bruno
(*) http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/bxlthesis/
consciencemecanisme.html
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