Scientific study into near-death experiences?

[Perfection]

Because dark matter and dark energy don't interact electromagnetically.

 

[DNK]

"Actual experience": I define actuality in terms of subjectivity when talking about experiences. I feel the word "experience" is a subjective term. I didn't mean that to mean that the experience itself was actual in that it was objectively true, although I leave open the possibility that it could be.

It certainly could be purely mental on the chemical issue, although I think chemistry isn't the full story. Again, leaving the door open nothing more.

Really, we agree most of the way on everything but the dualism/philosophical issue. Lets just let it rest at minor differences.

 

[Perfection]

well what would it be if not some chemical/physical process?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Nah, we ain't made of that stuff, they don't interact electromagnetically, so there'd be nothing keeping them tethered to us. They'd drift off from gravity and stuff.

Perhaps they interact in some other way, or have we determined all the forces in the universe already?

How can you say that we are not influenced by dark matter or dark energy? Such a claim is almost as silly as saying that we are not water-based life forms.

In physics and cosmology, dark matter is hypothetical matter that does not interact with the electromagnetic force, but whose presence can be inferred from gravitational effects on visible matter. According to present observations of structures larger than galaxies, as well as Big Bang cosmology, dark matter and dark energy account for the vast majority of the mass in the observable universe. The observed phenomena which imply the presence of dark matter include the rotational speeds of galaxies, orbital velocities of galaxies in clusters, gravitational lensing of background objects by galaxy clusters such as the Bullet cluster, and the temperature distribution of hot gas in galaxies and clusters of galaxies. Dark matter also plays a central role in structure formation and galaxy evolution, and has measurable effects on the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background. All these lines of evidence suggest that galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and the universe as a whole contain far more matter than that which interacts with electromagnetic radiation: the remainder is called the "dark matter component."

The dark matter component has much more mass than the "visible" component of the universe.[1] At present, the density of ordinary baryons and radiation in the universe is estimated to be equivalent to about one hydrogen atom per cubic meter of space. Only about 4% of the total energy density in the universe (as inferred from gravitational effects) can be seen directly. About 22% is thought to be composed of dark matter. The remaining 74% is thought to consist of dark energy, an even stranger component, distributed diffusely in space.[2] Some hard-to-detect baryonic matter makes a contribution to dark matter but constitutes only a small portion.[3][4] Determining the nature of this missing mass is one of the most important problems in modern cosmology and particle physics. It has been noted that the names "dark matter" and "dark energy" serve mainly as expressions of human ignorance, much as the marking of early maps with "terra incognita."[2]

 

[Perfection]

Perhaps they interact in some other way, or have we determined all the forces in the universe already?

Well Bird, you're getting into conspiricy theory mode here. It would take a conpiricy of nature to have something that fairly strongly interacts with the brain (which by all accounts is atomic matter), but is undetected interacting with every other type of atomic matter.

So basicly this would require throwing out a lot of what we know about physics.

Now you might be like, "oh well that's a good thing", but it's not. You don't throw out basic physics just because you have a some difficulty figuring out every facet of the phenomonology of an abnormal mental state.

How can you say that we are not influenced by dark matter or dark energy? Such a claim is almost as silly as saying that we are not water-based life forms.

Not really, I mean sure it has a weak gravitational impact on us (that we don't notice becase it effects the Earth equally), and it indirectly impacts cosmological crap (by allowing galaxies to form and whatnot), but there's no theoretical basis for it interacting with mental processes.

 

[DNK]

well what would it be if not some chemical/physical process?

You said it: physical. I just don't like boiling everything down to chemicals. It seems like an extremely simplistic explanation to an extremely complex mechanism. Not the whole story. I don't like NDEs, OBEs, LDs, etc, being boiled down to a simple chemical trip. There's a major psychological component (expressed physically as non-systemic chemical changes) that I think might dwarf the chemical component. Maybe LDs are part seratonin or melatonin or B-vitamins, but they're mostly plain old neural interactions, imo.

 

[Perfection]

Oh. I'm just using chemistry as shorthand for, chemistry, biochemistry, nueroscience, psychology etc....

If that's your only point then that's fine.

I was thinking you thought there was a snowball's chance in hell that the experiment would actually show something.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Well Bird, you're getting into conspiricy theory mode here. It would take a conpiricy of nature to have something that fairly strongly interacts with the brain (which by all accounts is atomic matter), but is undetected interacting with every other type of atomic matter.

So basicly this would require throwing out a lot of what we know about physics.

Now you might be like, "oh well that's a good thing", but it's not. You don't throw out basic physics just because you have a some difficulty figuring out every facet of the phenomonology of an abnormal mental state.

Not really, I mean sure it has a weak gravitational impact on us (that we don't notice becase it effects the Earth equally), and it indirectly impacts cosmological crap (by allowing galaxies to form and whatnot), but there's no theoretical basis for it interacting with mental processes.

I have no intention of trying derail physics, but what if dark energy and dark matter interact, not at the chemical/atomic level, but at the quark level or in some way we do not have the knowledge to see? It seems to me that you have assumed that the four forces scientists talk about are all that there are. I would agree that they seem to be all that we know about at the moment.

If dark matter and dark energy make up 95% of the universe, do you really think that they would not interact with the last 5% of existence? You said that it is speculated that DE and DM affect things like galaxy formation, but deny that it could affect people?

I cannot imagine that if DE and DM exist, that they would not affect everything that we see as real. I would say that denying such an influence (even if we don't know what it is) is the conspiracy.

 

[DNK]

I do think there's a chance of that, though. Although even then I don't think it necessarily has to be spiritual.

 

[Perfection]

I have no intention of trying derail physics, but what if dark energy and dark matter interact, not at the chemical/atomic level, but at the quark level or in some way we do not have the knowledge to see? It seems to me that you have assumed that the four forces scientists talk about are all that there are. I would agree that they seem to be all that we know about at the moment.

If it's at the quark level only and doesn't effect the chemical/atomic level then it can't possibly interact with nueroscience as we know it.

If dark matter and dark energy make up 95% of the universe, do you really think that they would not interact with the last 5% of existence? You said that it is speculated that DE and DM affect things like galaxy formation, but deny that it could affect people?

I cannot imagine that if DE and DM exist, that they would not affect everything that we see as real. I would say that denying such an influence (even if we don't know what it is) is the conspiracy.

Well the thing they do effect everything we see as real, but they effect it all equally, it doesn't single out your brain to do stuff with, they do the same thing to your toaster as they do to you. And that thing they do is weakly pull you and the rest of the solar system toward the galaxy center and other local galaxies (dark matter), and increases the space between us and distance galaxies.

I do think there's a chance of that, though. Although even then I don't think it necessarily has to be spiritual.

what would it be then?

 

[DNK]

what would it be then?

ESP mixed with hallucination/dreaming. I believe ESP could be argued for in a purely physical sense, although the details of that would be hard to discern now. Something along the lines of "extralogical" circuits possibly. So, a little ESP that's still rooted in the physical mind, although it may touch/understand things outside of that mind, mixed with a lot of mental activity. I don't think it's a ridiculous claim. It may be unproven, may be improbable, but it's not outside of the realm of possibilities yet.

I've noticed a lot of resentment/hatred aimed at the paranormal by mainstream science. I understand much of it stems from the lack of scientific rigour practiced in such circles generally, and a lot of populist rubbish that comes out of it solely for the sake of money or other non-ideal rewards, but I think science also has to be cognizant of the fact that these belief systems exist in the vacuum science has not been able to satisfactorily fill yet.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's not so much that science hasn't been able to fill it, it's that scientists haven't found a way to popularise the findings in a sufficiently simple way for the findings (and theory) to be understood after only a few discussions.

There are thousands of neuroscience research papers published every year, and thousands of psychology research papers published. Condensing that to the point where people get it just doesn't seem possible at our current intelligence level. Heck, look how much trouble people have understanding relativity or the theory of evolution, and those are fairly simplistic macro processes.

 

[Narz]

It's a valid experiment in that it if certain ideas about NDEs are true then they might make the experiment test positive. However, practically noone in the scientific community thinks it is possible, because it's obviously wrong. The experiment is meant to demonstrate it is wrong to people who won't shut up about it, not to seriously expand our scientific understanding.

Because NDE effects have been thoroughly been documented in other circumstances (generally involving drug use) and the proposed explination (some spirit floating outside the body) violates basicly everything we know scientifically about the brain, conciousness etc.

So something that violates what we think we know so far can't possibly be true & therefor it's a waste of time to study it.

You sound pretty damn religious for someone who supposedly values science.

"Few people in the scientific community think it's possible therefore it's 'obviously wrong'"

Thank goodness there have been pioneers who weren't afraid to go against popular belief thruout the ages or we'd still be living in the dark ages!

BTW, plenty of scientists believe in God & God is a hell of a lot more far fetched than non-localized consciousness so there goes you're "hardly any scientists believe" theory.

 

[Perfection]

ESP mixed with hallucination/dreaming. I believe ESP could be argued for in a purely physical sense, although the details of that would be hard to discern now. Something along the lines of "extralogical" circuits possibly. So, a little ESP that's still rooted in the physical mind, although it may touch/understand things outside of that mind, mixed with a lot of mental activity. I don't think it's a ridiculous claim. It may be unproven, may be improbable, but it's not outside of the realm of possibilities yet.

I've noticed a lot of resentment/hatred aimed at the paranormal by mainstream science. I understand much of it stems from the lack of scientific rigour practiced in such circles generally, and a lot of populist rubbish that comes out of it solely for the sake of money or other non-ideal rewards, but I think science also has to be cognizant of the fact that these belief systems exist in the vacuum science has not been able to satisfactorily fill yet.

Not really, it's not that there is such a vacuum in the scientific community, but because it's difficult to put into a couple paragraphs or a few sound bites people aren't aware of this lack of vacuum. ESP has been done to death in research and the results were jack.

So something that violates what we think we know so far can't possibly be true & therefor it's a waste of time to study it.

You sound pretty damn religious for someone who supposedly values science.

"Few people in the scientific community think it's possible therefore it's 'obviously wrong'"

Thank goodness there have been pioneers who weren't afraid to go against popular belief thruout the ages or we'd still be living in the dark ages!

Well, I'm not arguing that testing views unpopular in the scientific community shouldn't be done, that obviously is bad view to take. What I am arguing is that testing of views that obviously go against an extreme amount of what we know without compelling reasons (some people saw some weird stuff when thier brains we're all screwed up isn't one of them) is so unlikely to generate anything scientifically fruitful that we need something other then scientific merit (like PR benefits) for the activity to justify the use of the valuable time of researchers.

BTW, plenty of scientists believe in God & God is a hell of a lot more far fetched than non-localized consciousness so there goes you're "hardly any scientists believe" theory.

Not really, in the community of scientists who know anything significant about brains, non-localized conciouness is fairly rare belief, and the ones who do hold it, hold it in ways incongreuous with such experiments.

 

[Dr.Mindbender]

Not really, in the community of scientists who know anything significant about brains, non-localized conciouness is fairly rare belief, and the ones who do hold it, hold it in ways incongreuous with such experiments.

Are you a member of the community of scientists, or are you just one of those outsiders that like to portray yourself in principle as a member of this community of scientists in hope to bring weight in your argument?

 

[Perfection]

I'm not much of a member (I do product oriented R&D rather then ground breaking pure science stuff), but I do pay attention to science very closely, both professionally as an engineer and personally as a highly interested layman. I do have real knowledge as to how science operates, and what scientific knowledge there is, so I feel justified in sharing my views even though I am not a professional scientist.

I should also note that I've not been dishonest about my position here and have not portrayed myself as a professional scientist.

 

[Dr.Mindbender]

I'm not much of a member (I do product oriented R&D rather then ground breaking pure science stuff), but I do pay attention to science very closely, both professionally as an engineer and personally as a highly interested layman. I do have real knowledge as to how science operates, and what scientific knowledge there is, so I feel justified in sharing my views even though I am not a professional scientist.

I should also note that I've not been dishonest about my position here and have not portrayed myself as a professional scientist.

Very well put. So you do confess that you are not a scientist and that your comments are nothing but a layman perspective on science in general? And, can you tell us in a brief example to us fellow laymen on how does science operate from a layman perspective?

 

[Perfection]

Very well put. So you do confess that you are not a scientist and that your comments are nothing but a layman perspective on science in general?

"Confess" implies I did something wrong, which I didn't do. Also "nothing but a layman perspective" ignores the fact that I am professionally and personally highly interested in what science does despite not being a professional scientist. For example, at my job I have to go through scientific research, decide which of it is good, and incorporate the principles into my project. The way you pan it makes me no different in credibility then a hot dog vender, which is simply not the case!

And, can you tell us in a brief example to us fellow laymans on how does science operate from a layman perspective?

I'm not jumping through hoops for you.

 

[Dr.Mindbender]

"Confess" implies I did something wrong, which I didn't do.

Nah, that is not what I mean as one would disclose one's sins to a priest, but as a admittance of something in a deceptive nature.

Also "nothing but a layman perspective" ignores the fact that I am professionally and personally highly interested in what science does despite not being a professional scientist. For example, at my job I have to go through scientific research, decide which of it is good, and incorporate the principles into my project. The way you pan it makes me no different in credibility then a hot dog vender, which is simply not the case!

Wow, you do scientific research?! What are these research? Hell, how can you buy the time to post 30,000 or so posts and do some rigorous scientific researches at the same time?! You are indeed a marathon man!

I'm not jumping through hoops for you.

Son, I don't think you are capable of jumping well enough to do that.

 

[Perfection]

Nah, that is not what I mean as one would disclose one's sins to a priest, but as a admittance as something in deceptive nature.

I don't think my posts are at all deceptive here, I never stated I was a professional scientist.

Wow, you do scientific research?! What are these research? Hell, how can you buy the time to post 30,000 or so posts and do some rigorous scientific researches at the same time?! You are indeed a marathon man!

I said going through scientific research, not doing scientific research (altough if you count unpublished applied science research for product development as scientific research then I do that as well). I professionally design medical diagnostic equipment; doing so requires considerable research (looking at and evaluatiing published information) into the science behind the physics of the measurement techniques (in the case of my current project ultrasonics), and the science of the phenomena I' m measuring (in this case respiration).

Son, I don't think you are capable of jumping well enough to do that.

Of course not, because as soon as I would've attempted to reply you would've been whining about something I missed which would of course be inevitable for a short description of science. So I decided to just avoid the whole mess.