Hey, that's my article! Interesting seeing it linked here, as re-posted on that guy's blog. I gave that guy permission to post it on his Website awhile back when he sent me a PM requesting permission on YouTube, after he saw my YouTube Video that I made from an earlier version of the article. He linked to my YouTube & MySpace accounts. My article can also be viewed here...
Eteponge's Blog Quote:
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Originally Posted by occam's chainsaw But the information there is incorrect and fallacious - its just going around in circles talking nonsense about the brain..... |
Got any proof of that? I mean, actual objective evidence which objectively debunks the research findings of multiple medical doctors including Peter Fenwick a respected neuropsychiatrist, Pim Van Lommel a cardiologist, Sam Parnia, Bruce Greyson, Ian Stevenson, Melvin Morse, Michael Sabom, and numerous others, who will tell you the same thing.
“Simultaneous recording of heart rate and brain output show that within 11 seconds of the heart stopping, the brainwaves go flat. Now, if you read the literature on this, some skeptical people claim that in this state there is still brain activity, but, in fact, the data are against this in both animals and humans. The brain is not functioning, and you are not going to get your electrical activity back again until the heart restarts.” (Dr. Peter Fenwick)
Dr. Sam Parnia: “During cardiac arrest brainstem activity is rapidly lost. It should not be able to sustain such lucid processes or allow the formation of lasting memories.”
Pim Van Lommel’s well-known research study published in The Lancet, a leading medical journal, also notes that cerebral activity flatlines within 4 to 20 seconds of cardiac arrest.
Now if you have a little something called OBJECTIVE EVIDENCE that the above is not true, OBJECTIVELY DISPROVING the above medical professional's statements, then you might have some substance behind your statement.
(I have heard some skeptics speculate that "there *might* be something still firing on in there that EEG can't pick up!" But even if that is the case, can you prove that the brain can still produce images in this state, and that you can remember them? Oh, and while you're at it, you'll also need to explain how Veridical Details exist while OBE and in the NDE State that this undetectable limited brain activity somehow "produces". Also, the argument comparing it to anesthesia states is a red herring because they are totally different states. In anesthesia, where someone is under, they have plenty of brain activity going on, their consciousness is simply "in the clutch" so to speak.)
Regardless, that is NOT the core of my argument (as you in error implied), but rather it is just ONE ARGUMENT of MANY (and a rebuttal of a common skeptical argument to the contrary). I go through Skeptic Argument # X and Y and give counter-evidence and counter-data. The core of the evidence is actually in the VERIDICAL DETAILS that highly suggests there is something going on there.
Being able to accurately tell the doctors what they were doing while they were clinically dead, what clothes they wore, what procedures and instruments they used, and any conversations being said, including accurate blow by blow accounts of their own resuscitation from a bird's eye point of view, the whole of which can later be checked and verified to be true.
Often times they also describe what was happening out in the hallway, who was sitting in the waiting room, what was happening on the other side of the building, and conversations being said at these same locations, all while they were clinically dead elsewhere. The events witnessed, heard, and experienced later being verified to be true. Even obscure objects on the roof have been seen and verified.
There are also accounts of experiencers meeting deceased relatives during an NDE that the person did not know was dead, such as a relative or a friend, and finding out that they were in fact deceased after the fact, and learning information from them that they could not have otherwise known.
There are many accounts of children and adult NDErs learning about relatives and siblings who had died before their own birth that they never met or were never told about, etc.
Also, people are blind, including those who have been blind since birth have been able to accurately perceive visual surroundings during their experience. Many people have also been informed of knowledge far beyond their personal capacity. Etc.
And of course, experiments and research conducted to try to verify the accuracy of these encounters.
I know I will probably get hit by Keith Augustine's article in response (as it's truely the skeptic's biggest "trump card" attack), so I'm glad I've already written a portion regarding that perticular article...
Sources such as Keith Augustine's article will prey upon the perceived weakness of certain NDEs, out of their full context, while ignoring alternative explainations and far better and far stronger NDE examples, in an attempt to bring all NDEs down. The "weird" NDEs he presents are without context, and his sources are usually Christian Fundamentalist Anti-NDE Books (Not Kidding), and short excerpts from Books of NDE Researchers, taken out of their full context and presented without the full explaination of the NDE Researchers who are presenting them. His alternative explainations of Veridical NDEs ignore pesky facts and additional and alternative information that he convienently ignored to come to his conclusions.
The bulk of his arguments against specific veridical cases, revolve largely around presenting totally unprovable unverifiable highly speculative "coulda-woulda-shouldas" regarding how they "could have seen/heard those things naturally" while ignoring well presented alternative explainations, the full context of the specific cases, and ignoring all of the known facts and circumstances surrounding the matter at hand that conflict with his hastey conclusions. His arguments often revolve around presenting a totally one-sided view of things, ignoring what the other side has to fully say regarding it, and comes up with his own conclusion without the full data being presented there. There are times where he partially or very briefly and shortly presents what the other side has to say, but certainly not all of it, as much of what he does not present is very damning to his side of the argument.
Michael Prescott has written several articles on the Shoe on the Roof case and Pam Reynolds and the Blind NDEr and a critique of Keith Augustine's article itself on his blog...
Michael Prescott's Blog
Keith Augustine did not present the FULL FACTS & DATA of those cases when he critiqued them, therefore he was attacking a half-truthed strawman without the full story, he left out important information that conflicted with his conclusions, and in the case of Maria's Shoe, used a provably biased-beyond-objectiveness and easily rebuttable piece as his source.
Chris Carter has also written an excellent article criticing Keith Augustine...
Rebuttal to Keith Augustine's attack of "Does Consciousness depend on the Brain?" Chris Carter (SurvivalAfterDeath.org)