Spidergoat, your assumption may be true for Michael Raduga's experiments, but certainly not for William Buhlman. Robert Monroe (founder of the Monroe Institute) has started OBE research. In his book he described several successful experiments with friends in order to prove the real out of body state. But these experiments were not made to prove this for the public. Also William Buhlman did not have such intention. NDE is a much better example for objective scientific research. Especially Pim van Lommel has done this and you may watch his talk, which is easier than reading his books:
Yes I agree there is no dualism. The material and the non-material (Mind aspect) are not separate and distinct. Indirectly physicists see subatomic particles continually popping into and out of existence, they appear and disappear. They also see energy pop into existence and disappear again in a vacuum and they call the nothingness of the vacuum as a material nothingness. I don't agree with them. They are not two distinct states but they are also not the same thing. The world is in a sense Mind-made but it is not immaterial. Also OBE happens in "The Mind" (not the personal mind, as for example imagination), which is part of the totality of reality. Fixing your car is also not simply and only in the material aspect. If we acknowledge the other aspect, the non-material one, then we can gain information from the parts that we work with as inspiration in what best to do in fixing something or in deciding if it should be replaced or not.
Yeah... Lommel's book ignores scientific knowledge, including some conclusions from his own research. He further argued that Lommel does not refute neurobiological explanations, gives no scientific basis for his statements and borrows concepts from quantum physics without ground (Quantum mysticism). According to Swaab, Van Lommel deviates from the scientific approach and his book can only be categorized as pseudoscientific.[5] Dutch physician and anesthesiologist G. M. Woerlee wrote a chapter by chapter examination of Lommel's Consciousness Beyond Life. According to Woerlee the book is full of "tendentious and suggestive pseudoscientific nonsense", and the picture of the functioning of the body as proposed by Lommel is not consistent with medical knowledge. Woerlee concluded that the book is a "masterly example of how tendentious and suggestive interpretation of international scientific literature, vague presentation of basic medical facts, together with ignorance of some basic statistical principles leads to incorrect conclusions."
As far as I'm aware, no NDE case has yet been shown to be anything other than completely within the mind of the experiencer.
Given some descriptions of out-of-body experiences with mention a sense of floating above the body on the table, they should place a device on a top shelf in every operating room that displays a random number, timed to change periodically. If the experience were real, a patient might lend credence to his account if he were able to recall the number displayed. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
spitergoat, there were many verified NDE event, where the patient reported things happened outside the room. Openminded people could learn from this, that we have a soul which does not need the body and which may also exist after our physical death. This would change their word view. Unfortunately openminded people are very rare. Most materialists are fundamentalists quite similar to religious fundamentalists.
I tend to agree with the latter part of that statement but I'd still like to see the verification for even a single NDE where the individual knew what happened in another physical location. I hope you will forgive me for simply thinking that an erroneous statement without compelling evidence, not because my mind is closed, but because all such claims of that sort I have ever seen and actually followed up on have turned out not to be verified at all but require me to accept the word of one person who was dead at the time.
BWE1, thanks for your post. I have read this many times. But now I have to search where and to check the verification. I will come back to this question.
BWE1, please check the following two links for something, which would convince you: http://www.near-death.com/science/evidence/people-see-verified-events-while-obe.html http://www.near-death.com/science/research/out-of-body-experiences.html There are certainly much more sources. Please let me know, whether I should continue my search.
if the veracity of any of the stories in the first link checked out, then I'd accept them. As it is, they are just stories. No names, no details to check.
I'm not objecting to the fact of near death experiences, I'm only objecting to the notion that they provide a glimpse into an afterlife.
BWE1 and sidergoat, You are right, these are now just stories, but an overwhelming number! Also Elizabeth Kuebler Ross has devoted her life to collect such witnessed stories. What would you guess is the probability that all these stories were invented just in order to misguide us? Recently Eben Alexander, a former neurosurgeon, has experienced a very astonishing NDE (http://www.ebenalexander.com/). I am aware about the shitstorm, which came over him from skeptics after he published his book. Nevertheless I am sure that something must be true. What about contacting him personally? Perhaps you can meet also some witnesses. If we are convinced that NDE is real, it shows that we have souls which do not need the body. This makes it very likely that these souls will also exist in the afterlife.
I know the experiences are real experiences, but these people never died. They don't prove a soul exists, only that the brain continues to operate under extreme conditions. Dead people don't tell stories. Also, lots of invalid evidence doesn't ever add up to valid evidence.
I've never known of a reliable instance of that. Occams Razor would have us acknowledge a more parsimonious explanation, that they have a memory of being outside the room, and this is the source of their dream.
spidergoat, nobody can force you to believe in souls and afterlife. But I hope, you realise that your arguments are very weak.
Nonsense. Your argument relies on inherently unreliable personal testimony. All the more unreliable as it happens during times of extreme stress and unconsciousness.
