Post by FilmFlaneur on Sept 12, 2017 10:08:58 GMT
Sept 11, 2017 18:15:21 GMT _ said:
Scott S. Smith
Is There Evidence of Life After Death?
02/21/2017 10:36 am ET
Famous author of 'The Soul of Your Pet: Evidence for the Survival of Animals After Death', available at your latest bookstore. Whether animals have souls is theologically contentious, while souls exist at all remains to be shown to those many who have a purely mechanistic view of consciousness, say. What follows is a brief riposte to the post of Smith's article, ending with less than I might write for fear of taxing the reader.
To listen to skeptics, only the gullible masses believe in an afterlife, desperate to be reunited with loved ones.
Skeptics simply ask for the extraordinary evidence necessary to give support to extraordinary claims.
As we have shown, however, skeptics are so convinced of their intellectual superiority that they are incapable of examining evidence objectively that contradicts their strongly-held viewpoints.
Or, it could just be that they find the evidence offered unconvincing ...
Unlike the cases for ESP and UFOs, however, the evidence for survival after death is by its nature less measurable and more subtle and complicated.
'subtle and complicated' sounds like a set up for some special pleading. But let us allow Mr Smith to go on..
Militant skeptics
This is just using 'militant' as swear word, and is unfortunate.
...would have everyone believe that this is merely anecdotal and easily explained away by the biochemistry of the dying brain, pumped up by morphine and stress, with the particular hallucinations the result of a combination of wishful thinking and religious preconception. But as we shall see, this view ignores some inconvenient facts[my emphasis] ... One way to think about the larger picture of reality that the so-called supernatural presents is like the difference between the world of ordinary objects we interact with daily and the invisible quantum world that underlies everything. It is difficult for our minds to get around the fact that what seems like solid reality is mostly empty space. Skeptics are invited to imagine that the paranormal world is something like the theorized other dimensions of the “multiverse.”
So, is the purported 'paranormal world' another dimension of reality or not?
Death-Bed Visions :
It is not uncommon for people who are about to die to imagine that the heavens open up and relatives appear to welcome them to the other side.
Accompanied presumably by pet Sparky, barking at their side.
In What They Saw at the House of Death: A New Look at Evidence for Life After Death by Karlis Osis, a noted physics professor, and Erlendur Haraldsson, a clinical psychologist.
A book which, it may be observed, Amazon and the internet have never heard of. And what makes a 'noted physic professor' an authority on the afterlife, anyway?
Between them, they had carefully examined 5,000 cases of death-bed visions for nearly two decades starting in 1959. These were culled from observations by 17,000 physicians and nurses. Most were medical personnel in the U.S., but some came in from a separate study about patients in India, to check to what extent cultural and religious beliefs influenced the experiences... summarized the remarkable conclusions ... In some cases, the death-bed visions came to people who did not know they were dying. ... The visions often did not fit with the religious preconceptions of the individuals. Christians saw no evidence of hell; Hindus had no visions that confirmed they would be reborn. ..visions ... are likely common to many cultures.
From which one might draw the conclusion that the visions are caused by something very non-specific indeed, a process common to all.
Schmicker cited a compelling example. In 1919, Horace Traubel, a friend and biographer of the poet Walt Whitman, was dying in Bon Echo, Ontario, Canada. With him was Lt. Col. L. Moore Cosgrave. Cosgrave reported that at 3 a.m., Traubel stared at a point in the room three feet above the bed. “A light haze eventually resolved itself into the form of Whitman…wearing an old tweed jacket, an old felt hat, and had his right hand in his pocket,” which Cosgrave could see. The apparition nodded twice to Traubel, who said, “There is Walt.” As the ghost brushed by him, Cosgrave felt a slight electric shock.
But now Smith has just offered an example which apparently contradicts the just previous findings, being personal and culturally specific!
And again, in Smith's own words:
Near-death Experiences
... the specific details of the experience would be interpreted by the person who was supposedly dead, based on his or her cultural and religious background, the most common stages occurred in this order .... Skeptics are quick to argue that all of these things can be explained by incorrect judgments about clinical death and by the combined effects of a sick brain and the drugs administered at the time.
... the specific details of the experience would be interpreted by the person who was supposedly dead, based on his or her cultural and religious background, the most common stages occurred in this order .... Skeptics are quick to argue that all of these things can be explained by incorrect judgments about clinical death and by the combined effects of a sick brain and the drugs administered at the time.
Which sounds reasonable, especially since Smith has above already mentioned that visions are caused by something very non-specific.
Among the most notable books to take a more systematic scientific approach to anecdotal evidence were by medical doctors Kenneth Ring, in Life at Death, and Michael Sabom, in Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation. Sabom in particular was skeptical. He accepted the critics’ theory that NDEs were hallucinations [my emphasis] due to heightened brain activity ...
This does indeed appear to be a reasonable assertion, especially as we know that the subconscious mind, once delved into or stimulated can bring forth a host of material we thought we had forgotten or were unaware of.
Dr. Eben Alexander’s NDE
The most famous of modern NDEs was recounted in the 2012 bestseller by Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, in Heaven is Real: A Doctor’s Experience with the Afterlife. He went into a seven-day coma after suffering from microbial meningitis in 2008 and had an experience that ran counter to his expectations. He recalled:
"I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences…I sympathized deeply with those who wanted to believe that there was a God and I envied such people the security that those beliefs no doubt provided. But as a scientist, I simply knew better ... there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent."
The most famous of modern NDEs was recounted in the 2012 bestseller by Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, in Heaven is Real: A Doctor’s Experience with the Afterlife. He went into a seven-day coma after suffering from microbial meningitis in 2008 and had an experience that ran counter to his expectations. He recalled:
"I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences…I sympathized deeply with those who wanted to believe that there was a God and I envied such people the security that those beliefs no doubt provided. But as a scientist, I simply knew better ... there is absolutely no way that I could have experienced even a dim and limited consciousness during my time in the coma, much less the hyper-vivid and completely coherent odyssey I underwent."
According to Wiki: "Alexander is the author of the 2012 autobiographical book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife, in which he asserts that his out of body and near-death experience (NDE) while in a meningitis-induced coma in 2008 proves that consciousness is independent of the brain, that death is a transition, and that an eternity of perfect splendor awaits us beyond the grave – complete with angels, clouds, butterflies, and deceased relatives, one of whom included a beautiful girl in peasant dress whom Alexander later identifies as his deceased sister."
If I had to pick an example of a hallucination which was both personal and culturally specific that would be one. More: "Esquire magazine reported that before the publication of Proof of Heaven, Alexander had been terminated or suspended from multiple hospital positions, and had been the subject of several malpractice lawsuits, including at least two involving the alteration of medical records to cover up a medical error.The magazine also found what it claimed were discrepancies with regard to Alexander's version of events in the book. Among the discrepancies, according to an account of the Esquire article in Forbes, was that "Alexander writes that he slipped into the coma as a result of severe bacterial meningitis and had no higher brain activity, while a doctor who cared for him says the coma was medically induced and the patient was conscious, though hallucinating.. " A different side to Alexander, indeed.
These facts do not preclude some rave reviews on Amazon though from the credulous.
A 2001 study reported in the British medical journal The Lancet reported that the NDEs could not be explained by reactions to medications, a lack of oxygen to the brain, or fear of death.
Without a link it is hard to judge what the report says. My bet is that reactions to medications are sometimes very likely to cause hallucination indeed - especially the strong painkillers administered to those thought in extremis.
Perhaps most convincing is that patients are able to report events outside the room where their bodies were. For example, some claimed that their spirits went into the waiting room and heard conversations between family members, which they recalled accurately. Given the skeptics’ position on ESP, this should be impossible.
And yet, other experiments have shown that patients who experience typical 'out of body' experiences, looking down on their near-dead selves, oddly enough do not see items placed deliberately on top shelves out of sight to all but those watching from their perspective.
And so on. And now:
Ghosts : Harry Price’s The Most Haunted House in England: 10 Years’ Investigation of Borley Rectory details the strange happenings.
Today Price's reputation has become tarnished by accusation of some fraud, at least. Of course even if ghosts exist, that does not mean a heaven does or even that they are 'alive', unless we care to redefine 'life' pretty drastically..
Mediums
... In the early 1990s, I was trying to find a legitimate medium ... I could not find many, but there were a few.
The history of mediumship is indeed full of mendacity and fraud. And, as I have observed before messages purported to originate from the afterlife are always disappointing mundane and personal. If I was a mouthpiece for eternity I would want to take advantage of a privileged view to let my earth-bound listeners exactly what God hell and heaven look like - not just reiterate that Granny misses someone or a vague 'don't worry'.
On a personal note, I actually dated a medium once - someone who stood up in church halls and did readings. I found in real life she was just as unable to foresee misfortunes as I was, although she was unfamiliar with 'cold reading' as a method.