Update on the AWARE study 2012

[sbu]

Just learned that Sam Parnia is writing a new book getting published in Febuary 2013. I bet the AWARE study results will be released simultaneously.

[Scott]

Originally Posted by Bernardo

Where has objectivity gone?
Because a conclusion can be construed as good news, it can't be true or be taken seriously?

Why do the facts care whether we, human beings, think the facts are good or bad? If consciousness doesn't die, then it doesn't, whether you think it's good or bad (the other way around also).

If the AWARE study has appropriate protocols, then its results should be taken seriously (not necessarily believed in), whether you think the results are good or bad. This is what good, objective science is all about.

I agree - the results are the results. The design is what determines what can be said and concluded by the data.
If done well, the results should be taken seriously - which also means kept in context. Not getting any hits is just ... not getting any hits. This could be for any number of reasons. Getting hits is a much more interesting result. It would definitely suggest and I would hope encourage an increased follow up. There is no result which would create the situation of total belief. Face it - if out of 10000 subjects they got 8000 hits --- It would make me question the methodology more than 4 hits.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by sbu

Just learned that Sam Parnia is writing a new book getting published in Febuary 2013. I bet the AWARE study results will be released simultaneously.

Perhaps that suggests the results weren't all negative?

[4vektor]

Originally Posted by Interesting Ian

Perhaps that suggests the results weren't all negative?

i was tempted to think the same thing. can't see much interest in buying the book after results are known to be negative. maybe there are no hits but some "interesting" results. resisting the urge to speculate. i'll wait for the results before i read the book.

[Pollux]

Originally Posted by 4vektor

i was tempted to think the same thing. can't see much interest in buying the book after results are known to be negative. maybe there are no hits but some "interesting" results. resisting the urge to speculate. i'll wait for the results before i read the book.

Or maybe its a "lets put this puppy to sleep"-book. A Richard Wiseman-we-have-done-a-study-so-now-no-one-else-should-do-a-study-since-we-got-negative-result kind of a book.

[KeithA]

Originally Posted by Pollux

Or maybe its a "lets put this puppy to sleep"-book. A Richard Wiseman-we-have-done-a-study-so-now-no-one-else-should-do-a-study-since-we-got-negative-result kind of a book.

This Daily Mail article from 31/8/2011 may indicate something else. Sam Parnia is criticizing the Caroline Watt (and others) conclusion:

Other scientists say we should not be so quick to dismiss people's accounts.
Sam Parnia, of the University of Southampton, stressed that being able to trace something back to the brain does not mean it is not real.
Dr Parnia, who is close to completing a three-year study of hospital patients' recollections of their near-death experiences, said: "Every experience, whether near-death or otherwise - such as depression, happiness and love - is mediated by the brain. In fact, many experiences share the same brain regions, and so it is not unusual to be able to reproduce them.
Discovering those areas, or reproducing them, doesn't imply the experience is not real.
We wouldn’t say love, happiness and depression are not real.
Furthermore, many people accurately report "seeing" events taking place at a time when the brain doesn’t function, such as during cardiac arrest.
These cannot be explained by brain changes, since the brain had shut down and "flatlined".
While seeming real to those who experience them, near-death experiences provide a glimpse of what it is like to die for the rest of us."

Is he commenting on the AWARE study here? If so this is a direct contradiction of the Watt et. al paper. New veridical accounts on the horizon?

[KeithA]

Daily Mail article here:

An out-of-body experience is your brain playing tricks on you | Mail Online

[Pollux]

Originally Posted by KeithA

This Daily Mail article from 31/8/2011 may indicate something else. Sam Parnia is criticizing the Caroline Watt (and others) conclusion:

Other scientists say we should not be so quick to dismiss people's accounts.
Sam Parnia, of the University of Southampton, stressed that being able to trace something back to the brain does not mean it is not real.
Dr Parnia, who is close to completing a three-year study of hospital patients' recollections of their near-death experiences, said: "Every experience, whether near-death or otherwise - such as depression, happiness and love - is mediated by the brain. In fact, many experiences share the same brain regions, and so it is not unusual to be able to reproduce them.
Discovering those areas, or reproducing them, doesn't imply the experience is not real.
We wouldn’t say love, happiness and depression are not real.
Furthermore, many people accurately report "seeing" events taking place at a time when the brain doesn’t function, such as during cardiac arrest.
These cannot be explained by brain changes, since the brain had shut down and "flatlined".
While seeming real to those who experience them, near-death experiences provide a glimpse of what it is like to die for the rest of us."

Is he commenting on the AWARE study here? If so this is a direct contradiction of the Watt et. al paper. New veridical accounts on the horizon?

I would be really glad if he stood up and took the fight against the skeptics, and I hope he do so. But he can also fold and try to smooth things over for his further career if he doesn't get solid-take-it-to-the-bank-concrete-bang-skeptics-in-the-head kind of evidence.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally Posted by KeithA

This Daily Mail article from 31/8/2011 may indicate something else. Sam Parnia is criticizing the Caroline Watt (and others) conclusion:

Other scientists say we should not be so quick to dismiss people's accounts.
Sam Parnia, of the University of Southampton, stressed that being able to trace something back to the brain does not mean it is not real.
Dr Parnia, who is close to completing a three-year study of hospital patients' recollections of their near-death experiences, said: "Every experience, whether near-death or otherwise - such as depression, happiness and love - is mediated by the brain. In fact, many experiences share the same brain regions, and so it is not unusual to be able to reproduce them.
Discovering those areas, or reproducing them, doesn't imply the experience is not real.
We wouldn’t say love, happiness and depression are not real.
Furthermore, many people accurately report "seeing" events taking place at a time when the brain doesn’t function, such as during cardiac arrest.
These cannot be explained by brain changes, since the brain had shut down and "flatlined".
While seeming real to those who experience them, near-death experiences provide a glimpse of what it is like to die for the rest of us."

Is he commenting on the AWARE study here? If so this is a direct contradiction of the Watt et. al paper. New veridical accounts on the horizon?

He's just making the point that whatever we seem to experience there will inevitably be some corresponding activity in the brain, whether what is seen represents an external reality, or whether it's wholly a creation of the brain.

So there might be activity in various regions of my brain corresponding to seeing and tasting a banana. But my experiences might be caused by an external banana, or they might not.

So I don't think he's commenting on the AWARE study. That will hopefully shed some light in what we seem to see during a OBE corresponds to some external reality (even if illusionary) or is simply a pathological hallucination.

[KeithA]

I suppose it's wait and see. I find it interesting, being a scientist, he would make such a strong statement on veridical perception (AWARE data or otherwise) directly contradicting Watt and others. I like the idea of a book which surely will be aimed at the public.