Nde Q&a

[Lekatt]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

Pam Reynolds did not die, so I don't see how her experience constitutes evidence for consciousness continuing after death.

I'm at 6:00 and still no written documentation ...

She's going toward the light ...

Sorry, nothing here that isn't entirely anecdotal. We have no idea when she had those thoughts nor when she wove them together into the story. We also do not know whether vague thoughts are possible when the brain is flatlined. We don't know how much Pam knew about NDEs prior to the surgery. We do not know what sort of pre-operative information she was given preceding the operation.

Another interesting question: For how long was Pam actually flatlined?

~~ Paul

All your questions would have been answered if you had viewed the video all the way through.

You would have found out she was dead for about an hour.

You would have heard the leading surgeon explain the time line. She was watching the surgeon operate while she was clinically dead. This was verified by the video and all present at the time.

Now the definition of dead according to the AMA is no brain activity, no heart beat, no respiration. Pam had no blood in her head for about an hour. She met those requirements.

There is no requirement of time, or length of dead. People died on the ER tables every day and are brought back to life. Hardly anything new.

It would be a big help if you would read or watch the material.

[Lekatt]

Originally Posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

So you're suggesting that we adopt a definition of death that does not include the fact that the person is permanently dead? If so, would it become ethical to cremate a person who is not permanently dead?

If a person has certain experiences while dying, how can we know that those experiences showed the person what it would be like if he actually died dead?


So you are okay with declaring someone dead who is not permanently dead. That's interesting, but it still doesn't lend any more credence to the claim that NDEs show us what it's like after we die.

~~ Paul

Just to jump in here with some more info.

Many near death experiencers were declared dead by the attending physician and sent to the morgue later to awakening. One awoke three days later when an autopsy was about to begin. Proof? yes the experiencer has all the documentation on his case signed by doctors.

That is why I say the debate is over. Only denial is left to the skeptics,

[FastEddieB]

Pam had no blood in her head for about an hour.

Do not brain cells begin to die within about 3 minutes without oxygen?

Something doesn't sound right here.

And I did not mean to impugn your grammar, which has seemed fine.

But to pick just two examples of poor argument...

1) "Hey, over 90 percent of the people on the planet accept this as true..."

So? Truth is not subject to popularity. There's a name for that fallacy.

2) "That would be a miracle since science has not been able to show any thought let along a specific one."

Science can't explain it? Therefore it must be a miracle. There's a name for that fallacy as well.

You may have some valid points - you must learn to frame them better if you wish to convince others.

[Lekatt]

Originally Posted by FastEddieB

Do not brain cells begin to die within about 3 minutes without oxygen?

Something doesn't sound right here.

And I did not mean to impugn your grammar, which has seemed fine.

But to pick just two examples of poor argument...

1) "Hey, over 90 percent of the people on the planet accept this as true..."

So? Truth is not subject to popularity. There's a name for that fallacy.

2) "That would be a miracle since science has not been able to show any thought let along a specific one."

Science can't explain it? Therefore it must be a miracle. There's a name for that fallacy as well.

You may have some valid points - you must learn to frame them better if you wish to convince others.

I will not frame my writing for the benefit of science doctrine. My college communications teacher explained writing was a form of communication. If others can understand what I write then it is ok. We experiencers are very independent, not devotees of any system or organization.

The surgery was experimental, viewing the video would have answered your question.

[FastEddieB]

Understood.

I will go back and watch the video.

[FastEddieB]

I watched the video.

First off, all the "white light" and speaking with relatives is trivial in my view. Any and all of those could be constructed in her memory after the fact, and to have them consistent with views of heaven and God are unremarkable. The feeling of looking down at your own body is understood to some extent, and I recall reading it can be stimulated by stimulating some region of the brain.

If her reports of conversations and tools were contemporaneous and totally unsolicited, they seem interesting.

But I'd love to hear her actual initial telling of the experience, as told to the first doctor. There's lots of room for "leakage" and cold-reading in a case like that.

Is there a tape or contemporaneous transcription? Or are we counting on her memory and the memories of the doctors?

I know you'll groan when I bring this up, but we also have to remember the law of large numbers.

What I mean is, let's say the odds of her guessing the shape of the tool, the noise and some of the conversation is, collectively, one in 10 million.

I just came up with a figure of over 30 million operations per year in the US alone. So we could expect at least three accounts as remarkable as Pam's per year.

As always, I start from the null hypothesis that there is a natural explanation for the account. While intriguing, I'm not convinced by this particular account.

Sorry.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Lekatt

Now no one has seen a thought, no one. No one has measured a thought or knows whether one thought is similar to another. I don't know and you don't either. Furthermore, the device doesn't read thoughts or interpret thoughts at all.
What they did was match signals (could be anything) to switches that moved a cursor.

But the signals are related to the person's thoughts. And his thought "move left" is obviously similar to his next thought "move left," or the device wouldn't work. Of course no one has seen a thought, because they are not visible.

Here they assume the signals are thoughts, without any evidence at all.

But there is evidence: The subject is thinking "move left" to move the cursor left. What would the signals be, if not evidence of his thoughts?

It seems as if you have some dualistic notion of thought, so I reckon you'll always say that we can never gather physical evidence for them.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Lekatt

All your questions would have been answered if you had viewed the video all the way through.

I did.

You would have found out she was dead for about an hour.

From various timelines that I've found, she was completely flatlined for about half an hour.

You would have heard the leading surgeon explain the time line. She was watching the surgeon operate while she was clinically dead. This was verified by the video and all present at the time.

Not according to timelines I've found. All her visual OBEs occured before she was flatlined.

Now the definition of dead according to the AMA is no brain activity, no heart beat, no respiration. Pam had no blood in her head for about an hour. She met those requirements.

For about half an hour, yes.

There is no requirement of time, or length of dead. People died on the ER tables every day and are brought back to life. Hardly anything new.

People are flatlined every day. I don't think we want to say that they are dead, unless you want some sort of Monty Python-esque harvesting of organs when I'm not dead yet.

It would be a big help if you would read or watch the material.

I did. It would be a big help if we got our information from well-documented sources, rather than a cutesy YouTube video.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by Lekatt

Many near death experiencers were declared dead by the attending physician and sent to the morgue later to awakening. One awoke three days later when an autopsy was about to begin. Proof? yes the experiencer has all the documentation on his case signed by doctors.

That is why I say the debate is over. Only denial is left to the skeptics,

What on earth does premature declaration of death have to do with the afterlife?

Can you point me to the case you mention?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Originally Posted by FastEddieB

Is there a tape or contemporaneous transcription? Or are we counting on her memory and the memories of the doctors?

I believe that Sabom interviewed Reynolds three years after the event.

Regarding brain cell death, I believe it was prevented by lowering her body temperature to 60 degrees.

~~ Paul