Momopi, how do you explain NDE's of those born blind?

[Winston]

Momopi,

Since there is no consciousness out of the body, how do you explain visual perceptions in NDE's of those born blind?

One example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbtoX3Q5OI

More cases:

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/evidence03.html

http://www.seattleiands.org/stories/blind.htm

http://www.nderf.org/nde_attitudes.htm

Also Momopi, how do you explain this shoe on the ledge incident?

http://www.iands.org/nde_index/ndes/key ... ces_3.html

Maria’s Shoe

Kimberly Clark Sharp (1995) was a social worker in Harborview Hospital in Seattle when Maria was brought in unconscious from cardiac arrest. Sharp visited her the following day in a hospital room, at which point Maria described leaving her body and floating above the hospital. Desperate to prove that she had in fact left her body and was not crazy, she described seeing a worn dark blue tennis shoe on the ledge outside a window on the far side of the hospital. Not believing her but wanting to help, Sharp checked the ledge by pressing her face against the sealed windows and found a shoe that perfectly matched the details Maria had related.22

[momopi]

Momopi,
Since there is no consciousness out of the body, how do you explain visual perceptions in NDE's of those born blind?

We've already discussed NDE's. As I've mentioned previously, if you want to perform a clinical trial, there are several surgical procedures today that puts the patient under clinical death conditions, then revive them after the surgery. All you have to do is get some funding, put a team together, and hit up the patients who are due for such surgical procedure and ask them to help.

Prior to the surgery, show the patient the surgery room, where you'd place a table in a corner. Ask the patient to "look at" the table if they're "out of body". Then during the surgery, when the patient is under, you place a painting on that table. Assuming the patient survives the surgery, ask him/her to describe the painting.

If you can get enough positive "hits", you can publish your study with methodology, and have it peer-reviewed by the medical and scientific community. Then others can replicate your study in controlled environment to confirm your findings. Random articles from the Internet claiming that he/she saw a shoe somewhere or had an "out of body experience" is not acceptable evidence. Lots of people claim that they saw big foot and the Loch Nest Monster too.




If you can prove there is "consciousness" after death, the next step would be to develop a method to communicate with the consciousness before it dissipates into nothing. Such technology would be very useful in obtaining a dying declaration that would be of interest to law enforcement, or give the deceased one last time to leave some words for his/her loved ones. This "service" would be worth a pretty penny, and you can look for eccentric, wealthy people to invest in a business venture. Think of all the time you spent on this paranormal stuff, wouldn't it be great to get a return on investment?

Better yet, if you can suck that "consciousness" into a container for preservation, you can simply charge the family members a fee to take it home and look after it like a pet goldfish. It'd be more interesting than an ash urn.



(Kudos for those who get the goldfish reference to image above)

[Winston]

Momopi,
Charles Tart, a famous psychologist and researcher, did what you said. He had a subject during an OBE read a five digit number above her bed in a place one could only see if they were on the ceiling. And it was correct!

Look:

http://www.psychwww.com/asc/obe/missz.html

How do you explain that?

[momopi]

Is Charles Tart's study commensurate?

[Winston]

Is Charles Tart's study commensurate?

What do you mean?

commensurate [kəˈmɛnsərɪt -ʃə-]
adj
1. having the same extent or duration
2. corresponding in degree, amount, or size; proportionate
3. able to be measured by a common standard; commensurable

Why don't you address the issue instead of playing word games?

Yes it was a controlled test. Even if others don't repeat it, still, if it happened once, then it's real.

Tart is a highly intelligent person. I've emailed with him. He has spent his whole life studying this subject. Don't you think he knows a lot MORE about it than you? Why can't you be humble and learn from others who know more than you? Why does pride and closed mindedness prevent you from learning new things?

His credentials:

About the Author
Charles T. Tart, Ph.D., is a core faculty member of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, CA. He is internationally known for his psychological work on the nature of consciousness, particularly on altered states of consciousness, and for his research in scientific parapsychology. He is one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology. Tart's two classic books, Altered States of Consciousness and Transpersonal Psychologies, were instrumental in introducing these areas to modern psychology.

Tart's new book is truly groundbreaking "The End of Materialism". If you are interested in truth and serious research, you should have a look at it.

http://astore.amazon.com/religion-spiri ... 1572246456

Product Description

"With recent public debates on bringing intelligent design into the biology classroom and embryonic stem-cell research, scientists--experts from the hard sciences, like evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience, have joined anthropologists and psychologists in the study of religion, making God an object of scientific inquiry."
--New York Times, "Darwin's God," 4 March 2007.

Modern science has taught us much about the world, but will science ever make spirituality obsolete? Today, the need for spiritual explanations remains strong--some 20 percent of the population describes themselves as "spiritual, but not religious," that is, unaffiliated with a specific church or synagogue but engaged in spiritual seeking. A 2006 survey found that 92 percent of Americans believe in a personal God--that is, a god with a distinct set of character traits.

The classic materialist view is of a universe of separate objects that occasionally and meaninglessly affect each other through material forces. These objects are considered to be dead matter. But are things more linked than we normally imagine? This book presents an elegant argument that the twenty-first century needs a much broader perspective on the nature of reality than traditional science is capable of delivering. In The End of Materialism, Tart presents research that supports the existence of paranormal phenomena and shows readers how science and spirituality can be understood as two interconnected halves of a whole instead of as forces in opposition. The book presents Tart's most intriguing findings in his fifty-year career investigating paranormal phenomena in scientific experiments at prestigious institutions including Stanford University and the University of California, Davis.

This book offers evidence for the existence of telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, and psychic healing, and explains other phenomena such as out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences. This book is ideal for scientifically minded individuals curious about life's spiritual side as well as spiritually inclined people seeking to back up their beliefs with legitimate scientific evidence.

[Winston]

Momopi,
Here's another book you should check out. It's brand new and just released.

http://astore.amazon.com/religion-spiri ... 1594773564

Science and the Near-Death Experience: How Consciousness Survives Death
By Chris Carter

Product Description

The scientific evidence for life after death

• Explains why near-death experiences (NDEs) offer evidence of an afterlife and discredits the psychological and physiological explanations for them

• Challenges materialist arguments against consciousness surviving death

• Examines ancient and modern accounts of NDEs from around the world, including China, India, and many from tribal societies such as the Native American and the Maori

Predating all organized religion, the belief in an afterlife is fundamental to the human experience and dates back at least to the Neanderthals. By the mid-19th century, however, spurred by the progress of science, many people began to question the existence of an afterlife, and the doctrine of materialism--which believes that consciousness is a creation of the brain--began to spread. Now, armed with scientific evidence, Chris Carter challenges materialist arguments against consciousness surviving death and shows how near-death experiences (NDEs) may truly provide a glimpse of an awaiting afterlife.

Using evidence from scientific studies, quantum mechanics, and consciousness research, Carter reveals how consciousness does not depend on the brain and may, in fact, survive the death of our bodies. Examining ancient and modern accounts of NDEs from around the world, including China, India, and tribal societies such as the Native American and the Maori, he explains how NDEs provide evidence of consciousness surviving the death of our bodies. He looks at the many psychological and physiological explanations for NDEs raised by skeptics--such as stress, birth memories, or oxygen starvation--and clearly shows why each of them fails to truly explain the NDE. Exploring the similarities between NDEs and visions experienced during actual death and the intersection of physics and consciousness, Carter uncovers the truth about mind, matter, and life after death.

[momopi]

Is Charles Tart's study commensurate?

What do you mean?
commensurate [kəˈmɛnsərɪt -ʃə-]
adj
1. having the same extent or duration
2. corresponding in degree, amount, or size; proportionate
3. able to be measured by a common standard; commensurable

Reproducibility (differ from repeatability) in Scientific Method refers to the ability of an experiment to be accurately replicated by multiple, independent researchers. If the results are similar (not necessarily exact) to the original experiment, then it's considered commensurate. Once the experiment is commensurate, you repeat the process (repeatability) and measure the success rate, with allowance for standard deviation.

The purpose of these tests is to prevent pathological science, and to make sure that the experiment and its results are actually useful in some way. i.e. if I was somehow able to train an octopus to play poker, but am unable to replicate the results with any other octopus, and nobody else can do it either, then my one and only octopus will never be anything other than a simple, useless curiosity.



If you believe strongly in the results of his experiment, then by all means, gather the resources needed to replicate the experiment! How expensive can it be? A bed, a box, cardboard, some dice, and black marker? All you have to do is get off your butt and actually do something that will produce real, tangible, and useful results. Or, would you prefer to remain "internet virtual warrior"?

[Winston]

Momopi,
A question for you. In this clip, Dr. Jeffrey Long talks about NDErs experiencing 360 degree vision, which is medically inexplicable. How do you explain that? How can one during a hallucination experience 360 degree vision?



Also, how do you explain the NDE's of people blind from birth, as mentioned in the clip above?

[Winston]

If you believe strongly in the results of his experiment, then by all means, gather the resources needed to replicate the experiment! How expensive can it be? A bed, a box, cardboard, some dice, and black marker? All you have to do is get off your butt and actually do something that will produce real, tangible, and useful results. Or, would you prefer to remain "internet virtual warrior"?

I don't believe or disbelieve, but there is some data that does not fit into either hypothesis. How do you explain them?

Dr. Jeffrey Long has studied 1300 cases of NDE for 20 years. He has done the research you refer to. Others such as Dr. Sam Parnia are involved in mega NDE studies called the AWARE Project. I don't think my participation would add anything to what they've already done. Come on now.

The problem is not that I am not doing these experiments. People are. The problem is that many are closed minded and have rigid belief systems resistant to change. That's where the real problem lies.

Listen to Dr. Jeffrey Long summarize his findings after investigating 1300 NDE's here. In it he presents 9 lines of evidence that NDE's prove an afterlife which make a very compelling case. In the third clip, he explains why oxygen deprivation to the brain cannot account for these experiences.







His interview on Skeptiko here:

http://www.skeptiko.com/jeffrey_long_ta ... afterlife/

You can get his book "Evidence of the Afterlife" here:

http://astore.amazon.com/religion-spiri ... 0061452556

Product Description

Evidence of the Afterlife shares the firsthand accounts of people who have died and lived to tell about it. Through their work at the Near Death Experience Research Foundation, radiation oncologist Jeffrey Long and his wife, Jody, have gathered thousands of accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) from all over the world. In addition to sharing the personal narrative of their experiences, visitors to the website are asked to fill out a one hundred–item questionnaire designed to isolate specific elements of the experience and to flag counterfeit accounts.

The website has become the largest NDE research database in the world, containing over 1,600 NDE accounts. The people whose stories are captured in the database span all age groups, races, and religious affiliations and come from all over the world, yet the similarities in their stories are as awe-inspiring as they are revealing. Using this treasure trove of data, Dr. Long explains how medical evidence fails to explain these reports and why there is only one plausible explanation—that people have survived death and traveled to another dimension.

[momopi]

About 1,000 years ago, the Persian physician Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī established early rules of controlled experiment and clinical observation. When tasked to build a hospital in Baghdad, he hung pieces of raw meat throughout the city to find a location where the meat had decomposed the least. Though lacking in modern medical and scientific knowledge, he knew how to employ practical methods to find the most hygienic location to build a hospital in 10th century.

If you went around town and collected NDE stories from anyone who would tell ("I've seen bigfoot!"), that is not the same as hanging the raw meat yourself and observing the effects of decay, you're just walking around town asking people about the meat in their pantry. What's even more insidious is the person only recording/presenting the hearsay that he wants to hear. Or, in best case, only selectively observed a few pantries in person. In the end you've not produced anything of value or usefulness. We have the means to replicate NDE, all we need are doctors & researchers with some balls to to perform the controlled experiment and find some real world application (useful products & services) for the results. If it has no useful application, then it's just mental masturbation.

Also, NDE is not sufficient evidence for a meaningful afterlife. Suppose if you had some consciousness that continued to exist for a short time after death (and did not revive), before dissipating into sh*t, that's not a meaningful afterlife. A meaningful afterlife would be something like coming back as a ghost and having a discussion with your lawyer about your last will, or storing your memory into computer AI or artificial clone. Or, re-introducing electrical activity in the brain postmortem to get a statement (see: Torchwood TV season 1 episode 1 "Everything changes"). Yet, for some odd reason, when it comes to producing something useful, the NDE researchers are all very fuzzy on the subject. Like "it's beyond human understanding!" or some other bullshit. If you thought it was beyond human understanding in the first place, why are you waste my time? If you showed me a way to re-animate the dead into zombies that can follow simple instructions, at least I can turn them into free labor that doesn't need to be paid or fed (unless if they want to eat brains).

Finally, I don't comprehend why people are in a hurry to find out if there's an afterlife. You're going to die sooner or later, take a deep breath, relax, and wait for yourself to croak. Then the mystery of afterlife will be revealed to you. Your grave is a destination that you cannot avoid.