NDE

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Here is a new case of NDE from CNN.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/26/health/sebastian-junger-blood-donation-wellness/index.html

**************

the experience also caused the affirmed atheist to question what happens after death.

Junger’s experience was terrifying — but it’s also one that’s shared by people across the world and across different cultures.

“I didn’t know specifically I was dying. But I knew I was getting pulled into a black pit that was underneath — which seems like bad news — and I didn’t want to go there,” he said. “And that’s when my dead father appeared over me until I was like, ‘Get out of here, Dad. I want nothing to do with you right now.’ I’m a non-religious skeptic, right? And there was my dead father welcoming me, and I don’t know why.”

The next day, an intensive care unit nurse told Junger he had almost died. The realization was startling, and when she returned his room, “I said, ‘I’m OK, but what you told me has really kind of freaked me out.’”

That nurse suggested that instead of thinking about his brush with death as something frightening, he should “try thinking about it as something sacred.”

It was a suggestion he’s taken to heart. The experience “left me with the thought that I’m going to continue thinking about for the rest of my life,” he said. “I’m not religious, but I understand the idea of something being sacred.”

**************

Cheers.

Sriram

[Maeght]

Hi everyone,

Here is a new case of NDE from CNN.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/26/health/sebastian-junger-blood-donation-wellness/index.html

**************

the experience also caused the affirmed atheist to question what happens after death.

Junger’s experience was terrifying — but it’s also one that’s shared by people across the world and across different cultures.

“I didn’t know specifically I was dying. But I knew I was getting pulled into a black pit that was underneath — which seems like bad news — and I didn’t want to go there,” he said. “And that’s when my dead father appeared over me until I was like, ‘Get out of here, Dad. I want nothing to do with you right now.’ I’m a non-religious skeptic, right? And there was my dead father welcoming me, and I don’t know why.”

The next day, an intensive care unit nurse told Junger he had almost died. The realization was startling, and when she returned his room, “I said, ‘I’m OK, but what you told me has really kind of freaked me out.’”

That nurse suggested that instead of thinking about his brush with death as something frightening, he should “try thinking about it as something sacred.”

It was a suggestion he’s taken to heart. The experience “left me with the thought that I’m going to continue thinking about for the rest of my life,” he said. “I’m not religious, but I understand the idea of something being sacred.”

**************

Cheers.

Sriram

The way the brain works is fascinating.

[torridon]

Thousands of people die every year. 

Some people have a close brush with death, but then recover; and I don't find it surprising that this can be a life changing experience.

No need to read anything supernatural into this.

[Sriram]

The way the brain works is fascinating.

The brain is just a piece of flesh. A dead brain does nothing. You are attributing too much to the brain.

There is something that gives life to the brain and uses it as a platform. Just as a computer by itself does nothing unless it is powered by electricity and used by a human.

[splashscuba]

The brain is just a piece of flesh. A dead brain does nothing. You are attributing too much to the brain.

There is something that gives life to the brain and uses it as a platform. Just as a computer by itself does nothing unless it is powered by electricity and used by a human.

But the human body / brain does indeed use electricity to some degree and computers do lots of things without human intervention. The analogy is, nevertheless, poor. Digital computers have been around for less than a century. Brains hav been around for alot longer.

[torridon]

The brain is just a piece of flesh. A dead brain does nothing. You are attributing too much to the brain.

There is something that gives life to the brain and uses it as a platform. Just as a computer by itself does nothing unless it is powered by electricity and used by a human.

Be sure to give us a nudge if we ever find any evidence for this 'something', then we could take it seriously.  Also you'd need to supply evidence for the 'something' that gives life to the 'something' that gives life to brains.

And so on.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The way the brain works is fascinating.

oh if only YOU had appeared to him and told him that...
Obviously your fascination would have introduced spirituality into the situation....fascinating schmacinating.

That this is the brain at work doesn't begin to touch this person's experience.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Thousands of people die every year. 

Yes, bored to death reading religionethics.

[Enki]

Yes, bored to death reading religionethics.

Rear ends and teeth marks come to mind here.

[Maeght]

oh if only YOU had appeared to him and told him that...
Obviously your fascination would have introduced spirituality into the situation....fascinating schmacinating.

That this is the brain at work doesn't begin to touch this person's experience.

No idea what you are on about there I'm afraid.

[Maeght]

The brain is just a piece of flesh. A dead brain does nothing. You are attributing too much to the brain.

There is something that gives life to the brain and uses it as a platform. Just as a computer by itself does nothing unless it is powered by electricity and used by a human.

We don't know what NDEs are but even you have said in your reply that the brain is involved. I didn't say anything different.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram

Hi everyone,

Here is a new case of NDE from CNN.  etc

You still seem to be lost in the notion that a NEAR death experience tells us something about actually being dead. You may as well assert sex to be a “near childbirth experience” and draw conclusions about childbirth on that basis.

NEAR death experiences involve various physiological processes (oxygen deprivation for example) that have experiential effects. ACTUAL death on the other hand is what you have when all that physiological stuff has stopped.       

If ever you manage to come up with information to indicate that death itself is an experience rather than the absence of experience though, then by all means share it.

[Sriram]

We don't know what NDEs are but even you have said in your reply that the brain is involved. I didn't say anything different.

You are right that we don't know what NDE's are. So I am taking peoples experiences on face value.

[torridon]

You are right that we don't know what NDE's are. So I am taking peoples experiences on face value.

Terribly bad idea, especially when the reporter is in a highly disordered mental state.

[Sriram]

Terribly bad idea, especially when the reporter is in a highly disordered mental state.

Not when the experiences are life changing and consistent across cultures, sex, age etc. Also, real events happening in the hospitals have been seen and reported by NDE patients and corroborated by doctors. Good enough reasons to take them at face value.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

You are right that we don't know what NDE's are. So I am taking peoples experiences on face value.

Actually we sort of do – or least we know that certain activities (the brain incrementally closing down when deprived of oxygen for example) produce predictable results (“the dying of the light” say as process-heavy functions like sight are shut down before life-critical functions). That people who sometimes then map the religious stories with which they happen to be most familiar to these episodes and call them “sacred” is pretty much what you’d expect textbook confirmation bias to look like.

You still have all your work ahead of you though to explain cogently why such pre-death experiences have anything to say about a supposed post death state.       

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Not when the experiences are life changing…

Irrelevant.

…and consistent across cultures, sex, age etc.

They’re not. They’re consistent physiologically as you’d expect, but the explanatory narratives some people reach for vary by culture.   

Also,…

You don’t have an “also” (see above).

…real events happening in the hospitals have been seen and reported by NDE patients and corroborated by doctors. Good enough reasons to take them at face value.

Flat wrong. The “real events” part is fine – the explanatory narratives on the other hand are entirely subjective. How for example would a doctor or nurse know that it was indeed Jesus welcoming the patient with open arms rather than something else?   

[Maeght]

You are right that we don't know what NDE's are. So I am taking peoples experiences on face value.

I accept the person had an experience. Do you accept what people say in other areas of your life or is this a special situation?

[Sriram]

Sriram,


You still have all your work ahead of you though to explain cogently why such pre-death experiences have anything to say about a supposed post death state.     

Actually, there are many instances where doctors have declared the patient as clinically dead while the person was having the NDE. This has been questioned and answered many times by critical care doctors. Never mind the label of 'near' death....

Problem is that you assume that death is final and that no one can possibly come back from the dead (probably an anti religious view). Based on this assumption you conclude that NDE's have to necessarily be pre death and cannot be post death. A circular argument where you assume your conclusion.

[Sriram]

Sriram,


Flat wrong. The “real events” part is fine – the explanatory narratives on the other hand are entirely subjective. How for example would a doctor or nurse know that it was indeed Jesus welcoming the patient with open arms rather than something else?

By real events I mean events happening at the hospital such as surgery, instruments used, conversations etc. these have been corroborated.

Whether the patient thought of the 'Light' as Jesus or someone else is irrelevant. How can anyone else confirm or deny that? It was a 'being of light'...that is it.

[Sriram]

I accept the person had an experience. Do you accept what people say in other areas of your life or is this a special situation?

If people across the world, of varying ages, cultures, education levels and so on relate some experience....I have every reason to believe it and take it at face value.

[jeremyp]

Actually, there are many instances where doctors have declared the patient as clinically dead while the person was having the NDE.

What definition of clinical death are you (and they) using? Traditionally it was the cessation of certain vital functions like the heartbeat. Thanks to modern medicine that definition is somewhat obsolete.

This has been questioned and answered many times by critical care doctors. Never mind the label of 'near' death....

Problem is that you assume that death is final and that no one can possibly come back from the dead (probably an anti religious view). Based on this assumption you conclude that NDE's have to necessarily be pre death and cannot be post death. A circular argument where you assume your conclusion.

Death is final. Nobody has ever come back from being dead.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Actually, there are many instances where doctors have declared the patient as clinically dead while the person was having the NDE. This has been questioned and answered many times by critical care doctors. Never mind the label of 'near' death....

Wrong again. Declaring people “clinically dead” is a popular trope, but all it means is that no signs (or the key signs) of life were be detected during that period. That’s not to say that they weren’t there though. In any case, why then bother with the “N” of “NDEs”? If you really want to claim the people actually were full on dead then why don’t you call them Death Experiences?

Problem is that you assume that death is final and that no one can possibly come back from the dead (probably an anti religious view). Based on this assumption you conclude that NDE's have to necessarily be pre death and cannot be post death. A circular argument where you assume your conclusion.

No, that’s not the problem at all. The problem is that you’re trying to shift the burden of proof – if you want to claim that actually dead people return to life, then you need to provide evidence for the claim. When you can’t do that (and you can’t) just blaming others for not sharing your credulity is bad reasoning.     

[Étienne d'Angleterre]

Actually, there are many instances where doctors have declared the patient as clinically dead while the person was having the NDE.

How could they know that?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

By real events I mean events happening at the hospital such as surgery, instruments used, conversations etc. these have been corroborated.

Yes – “the patient was temporarily blind”, “no heart beat was detected” etc are all real events. “These phenomena tell us about actual post death experience” on the other hand (ie, your claim) hasn’t been corroborated at all. Far from it. 

Whether the patient thought of the 'Light' as Jesus or someone else is irrelevant. How can anyone else confirm or deny that? It was a 'being of light'...that is it.

No it isn’t – the narratives some reach for to explain the NEAR death experiences they have are cultural, and there’s no good reason to think a “being of light” as you put it isn’t just a physiological response to sight closing down.   

As so often, your credulity and poor reasoning are letting you down here.