Winner
Diverse in Unity
That's very likely indeed - every scientist would oppose that because it would justify all the pseudo-scientific work done by various individuals and groups and lessen their own credibility.
-
We are currently performing site maintenance, parts of civfanatics are currently offline, but will come back online in the coming days (this includes any time you see the message "account suspended"). For more updates please see here.
Scientific study into near-death experiences?
- Thread starter Winner
- Start date
That's very likely indeed - every scientist would oppose that because it would justify all the pseudo-scientific work done by various individuals and groups and lessen their own credibility.
Masquerouge
Deity
Well I hope that the people doing the study are scientists who know what they are doing, you know?
Plus if it's really dying people, I'm not sure they will be in the mood to cheat or pull a joke?
"aaarrrgh I'm in an incredible amount of pain and about to die, but let's first make sure I screw up that scientific experiment!"
Yeah, it would be opposed because it would be a paradigm-shifting result. Moreso than finding a rabbit fossil in the Cambrian layer or (maybe) Voyager bouncing back towards us.
It's a simple experimental design and really easy to replicate. The science would win out eventually.
They have. Iirc, the results were "inconclusive".
I think the problem with this is that many people that have alleged OBEs have a hard time making out a lot of detail, and claim that the OBE realm acts differently than the physical. It is another version of the physical, perhaps an echo or shadow of the physical, but not actually the physical.
Of course, that might be a lot of theorizing over hallucinations on their part. My point is that if the amateur OBEers have a hard time making out detail, and sometimes themselves confuse a "real" OBE with a lucid dream, then the completely unexperienced would have even less chance to be able to do so, death or no death.
There hasn't been much rigorous study on OBEs and NDEs that I'm aware of. There have been a couple positive experiments, but those have not been replicated. It's difficult to study, since there are very few people that can regularly OBE, it is a very inexact thing as I mentioned, and few scientists are willing to even approach it.
I think it's definitely worth looking into, and we've certainly spent far more money as a society on less important things. The experiment isn't likely to return much in terms of results either way, and I expect it to be likewise "inconclusive". There really isn't much evidence for the objective truth of OBEs, but there is still massively significant subjective reality to them that deserves much further study.
Erik Mesoy
Core Tester / Intern
I'm a believer and I strongly expect a negative result. I'll give you 1:1 odds that the results are negative, 5:1 if the scientists have at least one stage magician or the like on site to protect against cheating, because most scientists are ill prepared to deal with cheating.
If the results are positive and suggest that souls are doing something this silly and mundane, I will believe less. To quote Dostoyevsky...
-The Brothers Karamazov
Hygro
soundcloud.com/hygro/
From article.
"And if no one sees the pictures, it shows these experiences are illusions or false memories. "
No it doesn't. Because if you're floating around and seeing somehow, and you see your body and doctors trying to bring you back, and then you see really compelling spiritual stuff like lights, tunnels, departed loved ones, and holy avatars, you might not be paying attention to the poster in the rafters. Perception is a lot about expectations and focus, and when those two ignore out of place, irrelevant imagery, you might not notice it at all.
"And if no one sees the pictures, it shows these experiences are illusions or false memories. "
No it doesn't. Because if you're floating around and seeing somehow, and you see your body and doctors trying to bring you back, and then you see really compelling spiritual stuff like lights, tunnels, departed loved ones, and holy avatars, you might not be paying attention to the poster in the rafters. Perception is a lot about expectations and focus, and when those two ignore out of place, irrelevant imagery, you might not notice it at all.
How would they cheat?
The scientists put some pictures up of a dog, a cat and a car, so they can only be seen if you're floating around the ceiling.
You then ask the person, did they see any pictures, and if they did, what were they of. If they can't tell you what pictures they saw, then you can assume they're lying or mistaken.
There would have to be help, someone in on it, like a doctor or something. Call me a cynic but I can see it happening just for the buzz it would create.
Masquerouge
Deity
Plus, remember, we're talking about people who are DYING. Not exactly the best time to pull a cheat.
Narz
keeping it real
Awesome. Looking forward to seeing/hearing the results of this study! 
1,500 is a pretty good number also. Wonder when the results will be published. Could be profound.
1,500 is a pretty good number also. Wonder when the results will be published. Could be profound.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
"Yeahhh, sorry, but I was so spaced out by the crazy supernatural experience I just had, that I totally forgot to check out that poster you guys put up. but like.. seriously.. craaaazy trip! lights, departed loved ones.. TUNNELS!"
"Departed loved ones IN tunnels"
...
"Superman was there"
It could be anyone who works in the building or has access to it. I don't know the staff or the layouts of these hospitals and neither do you. Information leaks, and a bunch of people will know what the pictures have on them. All I am saying is, if someone reports seeing the pictures, I would put money on someone cheating before on the idea that someone actually saw the pictures. Both are highly improbable, but assuming a positive comes up, what would you bet on? That's the question--I am reserving the right to be cynical should someone claim to see them. If you want to believe in floating spirits on hearsay evidence, go right ahead. The stakes are high enough, the sample size is big enough, and the ability to cheat exists. Like I said, hoaxes much more elaborate have been pulled off.
Thanks for the compliment though.
And your opinion is fact for hundreds or thousands of other people?
These are my operative assumptions:
1) People pull hoaxes, a lot, and they are often more elaborate than any of a number of possible slip-ups in this experiment.
2) People are not always very wise with these hoaxes and sometimes put themselves in stupid amounts of risk.
Your operative assumption is that should the experiment give a positive, you are going to assume there was no foul play. You are going to trust hundreds of people that you have never met in a high-stakes case of hearsay evidence.
Quite high-stakes. What happens if the experiment is wrong again? Nothing? Yeah, I don't care. Cost? Less than a million? Paltry stakes at best.
I don't make up my mind based on a single experiment, so I don't care anyway. If there are positive results it will be replicated; if there are negative results it will still probably be replicated, as this is a replication itself. The issue isn't going to be decided by one experiment, and the two or three people out there that might consider messing with it A) probably won't die anytime soon and B) will eventually be found out by science anyway.
My operating assumptions are:
1) People really don't pull that many hoaxes when it comes to medical experiments
And, overall, this is the truth. Medical companies might pull their version of "hoaxes" by skewing data and stats, but that's quite a different thing.
I don't make up my mind based on a single experiment, so I don't care anyway. If there are positive results it will be replicated; if there are negative results it will still probably be replicated, as this is a replication itself. The issue isn't going to be decided by one experiment, and the two or three people out there that might consider messing with it A) probably won't die anytime soon and B) will eventually be found out by science anyway.
My operating assumptions are:
1) People really don't pull that many hoaxes when it comes to medical experiments
And, overall, this is the truth. Medical companies might pull their version of "hoaxes" by skewing data and stats, but that's quite a different thing.
This is high-stakes because of the buzz it would create. Look at those examples of the books on "Why the Housing Boom Won't Bust" for example. In the age of information and the internet, people make lots of cash off of quick buzzes. They'll write books and go on TV about the damnedest things, even when they are plain wrong or worse, lying. Before you know it, you have book deals, backed up by the results of this "experiment" should it give a positive. Come on, you really would put it past someone out of a huge group of people to do something like that?
This thread is about this study, and what I said was that this particular study, the way it is set-up, is prone to false positives.
This thread is about this study, and what I said was that this particular study, the way it is set-up, is prone to false positives.
It doesn't have to be a hoax. It can be quite easily be false or imprinted memories.
Similar threads
