Study on Near Death Experiences

[Nofear]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkamgm/people-experience-new-dimensions-of-reality-when-dying-groundbreaking-study-reports

https://nyulangone.org/news/patients-recall-death-experiences-after-cardiac-arrest

Quote

Indeed, people from all different backgrounds and cultures tend to report near-death experiences with similar elements, such as an out-of-body journey back to a comforting place like a childhood home, where the person’s life is reviewed in detail through a moral lens, followed by an intuition to return back to the body. The team suggested that these common experiences, which also include glimpses of new dimensions of reality, are triggered by the brain’s disinhibition during death, which enables episodes of heightened consciousness that are inaccessible to the living.   

“When you looked at the recalled experience of death, and these were actually among a global population, the themes were all consistent,” Parnia said. “Our conclusion is that this is a real experience that emerges only with death. As we transition from life to death, somehow, this experience occurs.” 

Interesting with this particular study is that they also often saw the same kinds of brain activity in individuals who failed to be resuscitated.

[mfbukowski]

Bump.

Somebody's gotta have something to say 🤔

[jcake]

I don't have much to say except that I think it is fascinating how many similarities are reported. I would love to read insights from others.

 

 

 

[Benjamin McGuire]

One of the things about NDEs is that there is also an overlap with those who experience certain types of seizures and other types of brain damage. This suggests that the phenomena might not be as closely related to our religious interpretations as we might think. I have also read material that suggests that there is also a potential bias problem. With a popularized version of what an NDE should be comes a reduced reporting of NDEs that don't conform to that popular expectation.

[Dario_M]

Interesting. I also had made a topic about this subject. The stories are so interesting. And have a lot of simularity's with the Book of Mormon. A lot of simularity's with the church. 

[Nofear]

On 10/4/2023 at 7:48 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

One of the things about NDEs is that there is also an overlap with those who experience certain types of seizures and other types of brain damage. This suggests that the phenomena might not be as closely related to our religious interpretations as we might think. I have also read material that suggests that there is also a potential bias problem. With a popularized version of what an NDE should be comes a reduced reporting of NDEs that don't conform to that popular expectation.

And if you spin an astronaut round and round fast enough, the change in the blood flow to the brain can cause NDE-like tunnels of light and such. Yet, the similarities between the two end about there. The transformative nature of NDE's on a person's character are not replicated by similar phenomena.

Bias in interpreting the events? Sure. I guess. Not even sure what that would mean? The individuals are changing their memory of the experience to accommodate what they are biased to think should happen? Well, gosh. That's true for every experience we have, dead or alive.

I'm very much not in favor of using NDE's to inform my theology. Yet, scientifically, the reality of some non-trivial something of some sort is happening is rather interesting. A very precise statement, I know.

[Benjamin McGuire]

6 minutes ago, Nofear said:

The transformative nature of NDE's on a person's character are not replicated by similar phenomena.

Your comment reveals the bias I was talking about. The reality is that seizures cause personality changes. This is well documented. So to say that a seizure triggered NDE-like experience isn't transformative is not only wrong, it is caused by the bias which I suggested exists - that is, that since it doesn't conform to a certain expectation, it must not be the same thing. One of the challenges in particular that occurs is that when these NDE-like experiences occur (I say NDE-like, because in these other contexts, there isn't a near-death component - just the same sorts of stresses on the brain), they often have the same sorts of content: discussions with family members (living and deceased), the lights, an out of body experience, and so on. And these experiences share another feature with the NDE - the experience is highly memorable - it is realer than many normal memories and experiences - and it lingers for much longer in our awareness. So those experiences can create transformations of a person's character. Let's also not forget the fact that brain damage doesn't just cause NDE-like experiences. Brain damage can lead to extreme changes to a person's character - far greater than any NDE (just ask Oliver Sacks).

24 minutes ago, Nofear said:

Bias in interpreting the events? Sure. I guess. Not even sure what that would mean?

What this means is that if a person has an experience (NDE or NDE-like) and it doesn't match up to their expectations of what an NDE should be, then they don't consider it to be an NDE - and they don't describe it as such. With the popularization of NDEs in our societal experience, this sort of bias grows quickly. Consider an analogue in the descriptions of alien abductions. After the idea becomes firmly planted in our awareness through fictional descriptions, the experiences of alien abduction all begin to show a much higher degree of correlation. Now, I suppose that this could mean that all of them were experiencing the same sort of very real alien abduction. But, I think the likelihood of this is quite low. But the point is that most of our data collection on NDEs that reflect the notion of an NDE that you are defending are voluntary accounts. We know through research that many (if not most) people experience the same sort of brain activity when they pass. But, this doesn't mean that most people are experiencing the same sorts of things. It is comforting to believe that when that person who is dying believes that their family members are with them - that they may really be with them. But, having worked in health care in a context of dying people for most of my professional career, my experience tends to lead me in a different direction. That and the fact that with faulty brains (dementia and so on), I have seen more than a fair share of people who were not dying who believed that they were there with their family members (both living and deceased). And when we get to transformational experiences - I have had several. They remain with me - vividly, decades after the experience. Some of them are constantly reinterpreted in terms of my changing life experience. So we don't need an NDE-like experience to have something like this happen. It is (or at least it was) a popular theme in fiction. A Christmas Carol is a good example. So is Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro. The fact that our brains do these kinds of things independently of an NDE suggests to me that there is at least some naturalistic explanation for NDEs that is generally overlooked by those who want to see it as something else. This reflects the result of the bias that I mentioned. This isn't to say that there can't be something else that happens from time to time. I am sure we can bring all sorts of anecdotal evidence to bear (I even have stories of my mother's passing). But, the science also tells us to be careful about how we understand and interpret these kinds of things - because these experiences don't provide us with the proof or evidence we necessarily want it to be.

45 minutes ago, Nofear said:

I'm very much not in favor of using NDE's to inform my theology. Yet, scientifically, the reality of some non-trivial something of some sort is happening is rather interesting. A very precise statement, I know.

I think we can certainly agree on this point. And there is certainly more to it than Duncan MacDougall's 21 grams. My overall point is merely this - we don't have a sufficient way to experience what others experience when this happens. We have no reason to doubt that they experience something. But atheists and believers can both interpret the same data in very different ways - we should be wary about accepting an interpretation built on largely on biased data as the preferred explanation for the phenomenon.

[Nofear]

One of the points of the OP's article is that the NDE is just basically brain damage hypothesis makes incorrect predictions and must face revision or be discarded. Certainly seizures cause personality changes (a point I shan't contend), albeit usually quite different in nature than NDE personality changes create.

I don't feel any particular compulsion to persuade you of any position. The data is out their for discussion. The dismissal, but, but seizures misses the point of the scientific study.

Edited October 5, 2023 by Nofear

[Nofear]

I was a bit dismissive in my previous post and so I'll try to be a bit more responsive with this one.

Instead of calling these seizures that people have, Near death experiences we can call them Positive Outcome Seizures (POS) so as to distinguish them from almost every other type of seizures. Let's call them Negative Outcome Seizures (NOS).

Some common traits of POS:
increased pro-social behaviors and attitudes, increased memories*, reduced fear of death, reduced anxiety, decreased depressive behaviors**, sense of purpose, sense of self-worth

Some common traits of NOS:
reduced cognitive ability; reduced physiological ability; increased anti-social behaviors, aggression, or sexual dis-inhibition; increased depressive behaviors, increased fear of death; loss of purpose or self worth

While these lists are not universally present in all cases, they are measurably distinct, enough that a mixture of POS and NOS outcomes can be sometimes be seen in the same individual. NOS outcomes are also frequently seen in other scenarios of damage to the brain and a working hypothesis is that NOS do just that -- create damaged areas of the brain. POS outcomes, on the other hand, are rarely seen in other brain damage scenarios that aren't near death and thus it becomes a challenge to distinguish the factors that differentiate a POS scenario from a NOS scenario. Well, there is one clear common thread of POS. The individuals nearly die or die clinically for short periods of time. Brain activity in these nearly-died situations shows up frequently, including individuals who complete the death process (ie are not resuscitated). Again though, since POS and NOS can be sometimes be seen in the same individual, this complicates the discussion.

Marketing or Health Care Idea (The Nehor approved***): given the frequent positive outcomes of POS (hence the name), maybe we can replicate this by inducing death in individuals for short times frames? Could make some real cash. It might be a little fraught ethically since a possible outcome of a failed attempt at inducing a POS is that the client or patient dies--for reals, dies. Though... I suppose we could just put a disclaimer in that outcomes are not guaranteed (e.g. a POS may not occur, but brain activity consistent with a POS may occur even in the event of actual death, so the client got most of what they paid for (just not the resuscitation part)).


* sometimes those increased memories are very hard to explain as a memory (e.g. names of relatives they've never learned about, memories of sensory experience when the body's sensory functions were shut down, etc.)
** some POS do have increased depressive behaviors as sometimes the expectation of what comes after is longed for
*** The Nehor did not actually approve or is otherwise aware of this idea as of the writing of this post

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Nofear said:

Marketing or Health Care Idea (The Nehor approved***): given the frequent positive outcomes of POS (hence the name), maybe we can replicate this by inducing death in individuals for short times frames? Could make some real cash. It might be a little fraught ethically since a possible outcome of a failed attempt at inducing a POS is that the client or patient dies--for reals, dies. Though... I suppose we could just put a disclaimer in that outcomes are not guaranteed (e.g. a POS may not occur, but brain activity consistent with a POS may occur even in the event of actual death, so the client got most of what they paid for (just not the resuscitation part)).


* sometimes those increased memories are very hard to explain as a memory (e.g. names of relatives they've never learned about, memories of sensory experience when the body's sensory functions were shut down, etc.)
** some POS do have increased depressive behaviors as sometimes the expectation of what comes after is longed for
*** The Nehor did not actually approve or is otherwise aware of this idea as of the writing of this post

Inducing death and then restoring life sounds fun. The Nehor approves of all such necromantic practices to commune with the dead or whatever this is about. I didn’t read the whole thing.

[manol]

21 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

One of the challenges in particular that occurs is that when these NDE-like experiences occur (I say NDE-like, because in these other contexts, there isn't a near-death component - just the same sorts of stresses on the brain), they often have the same sorts of content: discussions with family members (living and deceased), the lights, an out of body experience, and so on. And these experiences share another feature with the NDE - the experience is highly memorable - it is realer than many normal memories and experiences - and it lingers for much longer in our awareness. So those experiences can create transformations of a person's character...

The fact that our brains do these kinds of things independently of an NDE suggests to me that there is at least some naturalistic explanation for NDEs that is generally overlooked by those who want to see it as something else... science tells us to be careful about how we understand and interpret these kinds of things - because these experiences don't provide us with the proof or evidence we necessarily want it to be.

By "naturalistic explanation", do you mean that the source and cause of these experiences are either primarily or entirely neurophysiological? 

In your opinion, is there a "naturalistic explanation" for Alma the Younger's NDE-like experience? 

How would you personally differentiate between transformational experiences which have a "naturalistic explanation" (presumably a neurophysiological one) and those which do not? 

Where do you draw, or tend to draw, the line?  Do you think there is, or reasonably could be, a naturalistic explanation for experiences such as Joseph Smith's First Vision?

(My paradigm on the topic is still in flux.  My current tendency is to see neurophysiological markers as "effects" and "the Veil being parted to some extent" as "cause", but acknowledge that's merely an amateur attempt to mix the oil and water of religion and science.  I tend to focus on the "teachings" presented or implied by transformational experiences moreso than on their cause, but do recognize that that the cause may actually matter more than what I "get from" the teachings.)

21 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

And when we get to transformational experiences - I have had several. They remain with me - vividly, decades after the experience.

I am of course curious, but would not expect you to feel comfortable describing something so personal to numerous anonymous participants in an online forum.  However I will venture this question:  What did you learn from them?

Edited October 6, 2023 by manol

[Dario_M]

It must be so weird if you really would experience something like that. I mean. ..how would you feel if you know you where death? 💀

[Kevin Christensen]

There is this on Alma's "nigh unto death" conversion as NDE, with all the characteristic after-effects.

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol2/iss1/2/

And this from Brigham Young:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-brigham-young/chapter-38?lang=eng

Which I believe came about because of this at Winter Quarters:

https://sunstone.org/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/097-86.pdf

Which is all why when Jedediah Grant had temporarily crossed over, and told Heber C. Kimball what he had experienced, the first thing he said was, "Why it was just as Brigham has told us many times."

While I read many different NDE books for my research, the one that challenged and enlightened me the most was Carol Zaleski's Otherworld Journeys, which attempted a cross cultural look at NDEs, comparing modern and medieval accounts.   One interesting thing that comes from NDE research is that the distinctive positive after-effects can be had by just listening to accounts.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

[MiserereNobis]

Let's toss psychedelics into the mix, too, especially DMT: The Spirit Molecule

[Chum]

3 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

Let's toss psychedelics into the mix, too, especially DMT: The Spirit Molecule

I'm in. Haven't read the thread.

[Benjamin McGuire]

On 10/5/2023 at 5:13 PM, Nofear said:

I don't feel any particular compulsion to persuade you of any position. The data is out their for discussion. The dismissal, but, but seizures misses the point of the scientific study.

Well, we will have to agree to disagree. I wonder if we are reading the same research. One facet of the study was to see if the patients experiencing the cardiac arrest were in fact seeing things and hearing things in their physical environment. They used technology to put an image in front of them, and audio technology to speak the names of three fruit. Afterwards, when asked to pick the image from a selection of ten different images, and to pick the fruits that were suggested, the study provided significantly conclusive results:

Quote

For analysis of explicit recall, survivors were asked to recall memories, including audiovisual stimuli during CPR. To test for implicit learning, survivors were asked to randomly select one image (from 10) and randomly state the names of any three fruits they thought were present during CPR ... among 28 survivors, nobody described explicit recall of seeing the independent image on the tablet, nor hearing the auditory stimuli. Regarding implicit learning, nobody identified the displayed visual image (from 10 candidate-images) and 1/28(3.5%) chose the correct three fruits (apple, pear, banana).

The brain was certainly doing something. But it wasn't connected to their environments. This is particularly true for those individuals who believed that they could see the work being done on them as if they were standing there. And since the descriptions are provided weeks after the event, there is a lot of time for the brain to flesh out the experience. What is also interesting to me is that some of the patients experienced very different things - for example, this recorded description:

Quote

I [went to a house where I shouldn’t have been]. [The police] caught me. . . [I was thinking how to explain what I was doing in the house]. Then, I walked into a puddle. . . When I got out of the puddle, I was not wet and I sort of melded into the pavement. . . There was a fisherman singing a sea shanty over me and it was raining.

This sort of thing doesn't fit well with your assessment. There was only the single interview - there was no follow up to see if the person actually changed their lives, or to assess (at least in this study) the way that the experience remained with the individuals, or if the experience changes over time. When the narratives conform quite closely to the patterns of NDEs that have been popularized in the media (and there are quite a few), we have to wonder to what extent that narrative has helped direct or form the understanding of the experience for at least some of these respondents. At any rate, I think that the data does show that there is a lot of brain activity as part of the process of dying. It is activity that we cannot yet evaluate. We can only talk to survivors.

One final comment - the paper suggests that this experience is of "unknown evolutionary benefit." This is probably true, but it is not hard for us to theorize that the moments before death (or in this case near-death) serve an evolutionary purpose in that the vividness in which they are stored may help with later self-preservation.

[Benjamin McGuire]

On 10/6/2023 at 10:04 AM, manol said:

By "naturalistic explanation", do you mean that the source and cause of these experiences are either primarily or entirely neurophysiological? 

Yes.

On 10/6/2023 at 10:04 AM, manol said:

In your opinion, is there a "naturalistic explanation" for Alma the Younger's NDE-like experience?

Two comments for this one. The Book of Mormon does not describe Alma the Younger's experience as an NDE. When we make the decision to compare it to an NDE, we are comparing it to a specific type of NDE, and not to the larger patterns of NDEs and related experiences that we can observe. The second part of this is that the presentation of Alma the Younger's experience is already filtered in the text. It isn't a stand-alone narrative, but one of three narratives that share certain characteristics. Because of this, we can be fairly certain that there is some literary interpretation already going on with the experience as provided - and this doesn't help the argument that this is something like one of our NDEs.

To the extent that I can answer the question, I would say that your question contains an assertion that Alma the Younger's experience was NDE-like. I would disagree. And if I take the text at face value, there was nothing naturalistic about it.

On 10/6/2023 at 10:04 AM, manol said:

How would you personally differentiate between transformational experiences which have a "naturalistic explanation" (presumably a neurophysiological one) and those which do not?

We have a euphamism - the idea of "our life flashing before our eyes." This is a phenomenon that hasn't been heavily studied, but is widely recognized. One thing about it is that it occurs in contexts that aren't NDEs in this sense but are moments of great stress and danger - where they can be combined with consciousness. Most of our best accounts are from people who experience this all in the moments before something bad happens - before they lose consciousness (if they do). These kinds of experiences can also have the same sort of transformational impact. Mormonism more broadly believes that we can experience strong encounters with the Spirit - moments of great clarity and understanding - that shift our perceptions a lot, or cause us to change our behaviors. These sorts of events don't require the experience of an NDE - so aren't we better off suggesting that this facet of an NDE is better understood in the context of this larger category of events? In my last post, I mentioned one of the experiences recorded as an NDE:

Quote

I [went to a house where I shouldn’t have been]. [The police] caught me. . . [I was thinking how to explain what I was doing in the house]. Then, I walked into a puddle. . . When I got out of the puddle, I was not wet and I sort of melded into the pavement. . . There was a fisherman singing a sea shanty over me and it was raining.

How would you categorize this NDE? Is it a neurophysiological one? I would argue that none of these experiences are neurophysiological - at least when we get to the point where they are being described. The research indicates that NDEs all have a neurophysiological component - something that can be observed external to the descriptions by those experiencing them. But that is as far as we can get.

On 10/6/2023 at 10:04 AM, manol said:

Do you think there is, or reasonably could be, a naturalistic explanation for experiences such as Joseph Smith's First Vision?

What does this have to do with it? You don't get clarity by expanding the idea to something entirely beyond the scope of what we are dealing with (which is not the entire vast range of experiences). My comments are that we have a very narrow range of experiences - which don't share much (if anything) with the first vision (or Alma's experience).

On 10/6/2023 at 10:04 AM, manol said:

I am of course curious, but would not expect you to feel comfortable describing something so personal to numerous anonymous participants in an online forum.  However I will venture this question:  What did you learn from them?

What I learn from them, in the most basic sense, is that I am not in a position to deny the fact that others have life altering experiences. If I have trouble understanding why such an experience affected me to the extent that it remains with me decades later, when other significant events have faded, then other will face the same sorts of challenges I face. And because of this, I have come to the personal conclusion that I need to remember that often people have very rational reasons to believe the things that they believe - even if their reasons can not be clearly explained or defended.

[Kevin Christensen]

More on Alma besides my essay.  Mark Wright has written on Alma's experience in a Mesoamerican context.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/nephite-daykeepers-ritual-specialists-in-mesoamerica-and-the-book-of-mormon/ 

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

[mfbukowski]

8 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

More on Alma besides my essay.  Mark Wright has written on Alma's experience in a Mesoamerican context.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/nephite-daykeepers-ritual-specialists-in-mesoamerica-and-the-book-of-mormon/ 

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

I understand he is doing better, he's a blessing for all of us!

Edited October 9, 2023 by mfbukowski

[manol]

@Benjamin McGuire, thanks for explaining your position.

On 10/8/2023 at 12:28 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

The Book of Mormon does not describe Alma the Younger's experience as an NDE. When we make the decision to compare it to an NDE, we are comparing it to a specific type of NDE, and not to the larger patterns of NDEs and related experiences that we can observe.

I understand that Alma the Younger's experience is not described as an NDE. Nor are the experiences of King Lamoni and his wife, nor the experience Paul alludes in his description of being caught up to the third heaven, whether in the body or out he did not know.   Imo Alma the Younger's experience is an "NDE-like" experience, and is similar in pattern to SOME NDE's, such as those of Howard Storm and Kathy McDaniel. 

On 10/8/2023 at 12:28 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

... if I take the [Alma the Younger experience] text at face value, there was nothing naturalistic about it.

Agreed.  Likewise with most NDE and NDE-like accounts as told by the experiencer.  

On 10/8/2023 at 12:28 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

How would you categorize this NDE? Is it a neurophysiological one?

I would want to read it in its entirety before venturing a guess.

On 10/8/2023 at 12:28 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

The research indicates that NDEs all have a neurophysiological component

I'm not aware of research confirming neurological survival markers still being present for more than one hour after clinical death. There have been NDE's reported by people who were clinically dead for much longer than one hour.  For instance, George Rodonaia was dead for three days:

https://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1george_rodonaia_nde.html

 

On 10/7/2023 at 8:15 AM, Kevin Christensen said:

There is this on Alma's "nigh unto death" conversion as NDE, with all the characteristic after-effects.

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol2/iss1/2/

Excellent paper!!

On 10/7/2023 at 8:15 AM, Kevin Christensen said:

One interesting thing that comes from NDE research is that the distinctive positive after-effects can be had by just listening to accounts.

Yes!  Imo near-death experiences are one of the ways in which "God does now reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God."  

Edited October 10, 2023 by manol

[Benjamin McGuire]

1 hour ago, manol said:

I understand that Alma the Younger's experience is not described as an NDE. Nor are the experiences of King Lamoni and his wife, nor the experience Paul alludes in his description of being caught up to the third heaven, whether in the body or out he did not know.   Imo Alma the Younger's experience is an "NDE-like" experience, and is similar in pattern to SOME NDE's, such as those of Howard Storm and Kathy McDaniel. 

It isn't, in my opinion. It has very little in common with these others - except for the narrative content about what happened. This is why I am suggesting that the parallels you see are all about the narrative, and not about the actual experience. You wouldn't find them to be parallel to the one the I mention from the research - because its narrative content doesn't match your expectation. This is why your argument simply doesn't work (particularly within the context of the scientific research that you refer to).

1 hour ago, manol said:

Likewise with most NDE and NDE-like accounts as told by the experiencer.  

This isn't true. With Alma the Younger, the experience is described as a result of the prayers of others, and the angel appears to him before there is a change in his experience. This is something completely different. For Alma the Younger, the appearance of the angel causes all of the rest to happen. For an NDE, it is a physical brain state change that triggers the experience. This is a significant difference.

1 hour ago, manol said:

For instance, George Rodonaia was dead for three days:

Yes, and he spent those three days in a freezer, waiting for the autopsy to confirm that the KGB assassination attempt had been successful. We all know that freezing temperatures helps people come back after significant periods of time. But what you don't have here is what you claim to have here - that is, evidence of an absence of neurological survival markers. You are simply making that assumption because he was locked in a freezer for three days.

But there we go, as I suggested earlier, I doubt that either of us convinces the other of anything.

[manol]

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

With Alma the Younger, the experience is described as a result of the prayers of others, and the angel appears to him before there is a change in his experience. This is something completely different. For Alma the Younger, the appearance of the angel causes all of the rest to happen. For an NDE, it is a physical brain state change that triggers the experience. This is a significant difference.

Yes the cause of Alma's experience was different from the cause of near-death experiences, but the experience itself has imo significant parallels to some near-death experiences, including the after-effects, hence my characterization of it as a "near-death like" experience. 

Note that the pivotal event within the experience was Alma remembering his father's teachings about Jesus Christ and calling out, "O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death."  The content of the event then transitioned from a hellish experience to a heavenly one. 

The pivotal event in Howard Storm's near-death experience, which had a hellish component similar to Alma's experience, was when he started singing "Jesus loves me this I know" which he remember from when he was a child in Sunday School. 

The pivotal event in Kathy McDaniel's near-death experience, which had a hellish component similar to Alma's experience, was when she started singing "Away in a Manger".  

In all three cases, the pivotal event was a rather unsophisticated but deliberate turning to Christ, upon which the event transitioned or began to transition to a heavenly experience in all three cases.

1 hour ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

as I suggested earlier, I doubt that either of us convinces the other of anything.

Yeah, probably not.  I agree with you a fairly high percentage of the time.  Maybe I'm looking for similarities between Alma's experience and NDE's and you're looking for differences, so our different lenses are showing us different scenes. 

Edited October 10, 2023 by manol

[Benjamin McGuire]

2 hours ago, manol said:

but the experience itself has imo significant parallels to some near-death experiences, including the after-effects, hence my characterization of it as a "near-death like" experience.

This is part of my point though - the experience is filtered. We have a legitimate concern over the fact that the experiences seem to reflect a pre-existing expectation as much as a real experience.

What the scientific study showed is that there was brain activity that corresponded to the NDE - and this means that the NDE is Neuro-physical. That doesn't exclude other components to it, but it does create the reality that the physical brain plays a role in constructing the experience. Your emphasis on it being "pivotal" reflects a selection bias. It seems to me that this is the single key criteria that in your mind defines the notion of a NDE. But in my view, this simply cannot be the case (and this isn't reflected in the scientific study).

Edited October 10, 2023 by Benjamin McGuire

[manol]

48 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

What the scientific study showed is that there was brain activity that corresponded to the NDE - and this means that the NDE is Neuro-physical.

My understanding is that the study found neuro-physical markers indicative that the brain could still be revived up to 1 hour after clinical death in revived patient who reported NDEs, AND ALSO in revived patients who did not report NDEs.  Therefore, imo, this does not mean that "the NDE is Neuro-physical"; rather, it means that there were neuro-physical markers present which indicated that the brain was not yet dead, but was in a condition that might be described as short-term hibernation.   Imo that's not causation.

48 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Your emphasis on it being "pivotal" reflects a selection bias. It seems to me that this is the single key criteria that in your mind defines the notion of a NDE. But in my view, this simply cannot be the case (and this isn't reflected in the scientific study).

When I referred to an event within the experience as being "pivotal", what I meant is that the transformation of the experience from hellish to heavenly PIVOTED at that event.  In all three cases, Alma the Younger, Howard Storm, and Kathy McDaniel, the "pivotal event" was the person deliberately turning to Christ in some way.  

I am NOT saying that such an event within an experience "defines the notion of an NDE". 

I would like to understand what you mean by me having a selection bias, if you don't mind explaining it.  Presumably the reason my biases are not obvious to me is that my biases are in the way!

 

Edited October 10, 2023 by manol

[Benjamin McGuire]

3 hours ago, manol said:

My understanding is that the study found neuro-physical markers indicative that the brain could still be revived up to 1 hour after clinical death in revived patient who reported NDEs, AND ALSO in revived patients who did not report NDEs.

See, this may be part of the problem.

What did the study conclude?

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Recent reports of a surge of gamma and other physiological electrical activity (ordinarily seen with lucid consciousness) during and after cardiac standstill and death, led to speculation that biomarker(s) of lucidity at death may exist, which our findings support. Taken together, these studies and ours provide a novel understanding of how lucid experiences in relation to cardiac standstill/death may arise. Ischemic depolarization may initiate brain disinhibition - leading to activation of dormant pathways - observed as transient electrocortical biomarkers of lucidity.

This study points to lucidity as a consequence of brain function at death - measured through electrocortical biomarkers.

The primary researcher for the study (Parnia) has also found the same surge in electrocortical biomarkers in patients with severe dementia, providing them with lucid periods when near death. His research is aimed at showing that surges in the brain can trigger lucidity even in what is considered to be largely nonfunctional brains. This is a neuro-physicial finding. He has a new on-going study related to these findings -

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Finally, the collaborators will examine the EEG measurements to assess whether any electrocortical biomarkers correspond to brain activity before, during, or after a period of PL. Some data suggest these lucid episodes may correlate with surges in electrocortical activity, which could offer mechanistic insights and biological plausibility for PL in severe dementia. “That may be significant because if we could find some structural change, then we might be able to use that as a novel therapeutic target for people who regularly have dementia, or other disorders of consciousness, by trying to activate that circuit and maybe give them more lucidity,” Dr. Parnia says.

A further comment -

3 hours ago, manol said:

When I referred to an event within the experience as being "pivotal", what I meant is that the transformation of the experience from hellish to heavenly PIVOTED at that event.  In all three cases, Alma the Younger, Howard Storm, and Kathy McDaniel, the "pivotal event" was the person deliberately turning to Christ in some way.

But this has nothing to do with the notion of an NDE as defined by this study. And we run into the problem where these accounts aren't particularly trustworthy as accurate accounts of some internal experience. These accounts are presented in specific ways to generate a specific response in their target audience. These are not the sorts of accounts that this study deals with - and to try and say that these accounts that you mention here are typical of the survey results is misleading at best.

3 hours ago, manol said:

I am NOT saying that such an event within an experience "defines the notion of an NDE". 

It sure comes across this way.

The entire basis of this research is about how to further refine our understanding of the way that brains work - it is not about evaluating some sort of mystical NDE as an experience external to the brain. Because of this, this finding in the research is also fascinating:

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Our study reinforces the need to study CA psychological outcomes as part of the broader post-intensive care syndrome. It supports the possibility that PTSD and other negative psychological outcomes after CA may relate to emergence from consciousness. Those with delusional misinterpretations, or pain and distress may be more susceptible. This adds to debates by the AHA regarding sedation during CPR.

  This is a clear suggestion that sedation might be helpful in extended resuscitation efforts to reduce the impact of these experiences. I don't think that the research paper is as friendly to your point of view as you think it is ...

3 hours ago, manol said:

I would like to understand what you mean by me having a selection bias, if you don't mind explaining it.

What I mean by this is that you are focusing in on the things that you believe support your point of view - without looking at the evidence as a whole. And I am not sure you have spent a lot of time with the original research. You mention "but was in a condition that might be described as short-term hibernation." Yet, this idea comes not from the research but from the summary. There is nothing like this in the research paper (which doesn't discuss the idea of hibernation at all). You don't reference a single one of the 6 interviews that came out of the study that were considered transcendental in some way. Instead, you keep referring back to your well known examples - as if this is going to be reflective of what you read in the study. It doesn't work this way.

 This is what I am referring to in terms of selection bias. You want to accept just the evidence that supports your point of view - and you don't want to discuss anything that might conflict with that point of view. The research isn't something to read, it is just supposed to be seen as evidence by its existence.

Edited October 11, 2023 by Benjamin McGuire