why denying the existence of The Light and The Tunnel among academia?

[Jim Cross]

@Jim Cross: the more the brain is damaged a certain way (f.e. oxygen deprivation) the more we experience these mystical experiences. Bernardo Kastrup wrote an article where he showed that self transcendence correlated with brain impairment. Oxygen deprivation and "pilots undergoing G-force induced Loss Of Consciousness (G-LOC)—whereby
blood is forced out of the brain, causing hypoxia—report “memorable dreams”
phenomenologically similar to near-death experiences (Whinnery & Whinnery 1990),
which are notoriously self-transcending in character."
https://philpapers.org/archive/KASSCW.pdf

Kastrup says that this is the damage of the dissociation. The dissociation ends if certain parts of the brain are damaged.



So, damage of specific parts of the brain and oxigen deprivation brings us closer to transcendental experiences or Mind at Large according to Kastrup.

Except, as mentioned, many have had this 'self-transcendent' experience with no brain impairment, hypoxia, drugs, etc, so while there can be such correlation in some cases, it is not the case in all cases, which would indicate that this state exists regardless of such correlation. However, why there is a correlation, and sometimes not, as of yet there is no good explanation.

I actually agree with this. There is a wide range of normal mental experience and an equally wide (or wider) range of transcendent and other weird experiences. It is hard to argue that the transcendence from meditation is the result of damage or reduced activity. BK seems to pick and choose examples that fit the paradigm of reduced activity = transcendence. However, there is even doubt about whether the examples of reduced activity really are reduced. Reduction of some measures of brain activity with psychedelics is compensated with increased activity in brain connectivity, some claim. NDEs some also think might be accompanied by spikes of high activity 20-30 seconds before brain shutdown.

[Papanca]

Thank you Jim Cross for being a voice of healthy skepticism in this forum.

I love reading this forum, a lot of insightful comments and conversations, but without people like Jim Cross it often devolves into confirmation bias and circle jerking.

Yeah well, comments suggestive of 'circle jerking' seem more to do with cynicism than skepticism. Out of curiosity, are you then suggesting that a researcher like Dr. Bruce Greyson, in the interview referenced above, did not enter into his decades of investigation with healthy skepticism, and is also engaged in gullible confirmation bias? I think that most of the points being made here are just agreeing with Greyson when he states that scientific academia, with its focus being primarily about what can be measured and quantified in some objective way, as it currently stands, has no definitive explanation for these events. And hence it opens up the possibility that explanations taking into account a counter-materialist premise may just be worth considering, until some definitive scientific explanation comes about, if indeed it ever does.

What i'm suggesting is that, like it's said in that old x-files poster " i want to believe ", many people want to believe, and if you want to believe in something, you'll be more prone to falling into the multiple errors and bias that gave us all the sort of superstitions and false beliefs humanity is famous for.

Where is the evidence of a single case showing veridical NDE ? We don't have any. Such a discovery will shatter all dominant paradigms, advance knowledge in such a stratospheric way, will land its discoverer a nobel prize, infinite acclaims, make him a hero and i'm just scratching the surface, yet we have 0, nada, zitch.

[Soul_of_Shu]

What i'm suggesting is that, like it's said in that old x-files poster " i want to believe ", many people want to believe, and if you want to believe in something, you'll be more prone to falling into the multiple errors and bias that gave us all the sort of superstitions and false beliefs in humanity is famous for.

Where is the evidence of a single case showing veridical NDE ? We don't have any. Such a discovery will shatter all dominant paradigms, advance knowledge in such a stratospheric way, will land its discoverer a nobel prize, infinite acclaims, make him a hero and i'm just scratching the surface, yet we have 0, nada, zitch.

So what, there was once no evidence for quantum entanglement, an idea that was once scoffed at by 'experts' in the field. My own experience of veridical OBEs had nothing to do with wanting to believe, since before that I had no interest in such phenomena. I'm only interested in exploring explanations for it that aren't first starting with the premise that it's impossible, and since there's currently no scientific explanation, we must then only be left with alternate speculative explanations that seek to confirm the bias of that starting premise. If scientific investigation eventually proves it or disproves it, so be it, but until then I keep an open mind, and also consider speculative explanations that are possible under idealism.

[Papanca]

What i'm suggesting is that, like it's said in that old x-files poster " i want to believe ", many people want to believe, and if you want to believe in something, you'll be more prone to falling into the multiple errors and bias that gave us all the sort of superstitions and false beliefs in humanity is famous for.

Where is the evidence of a single case showing veridical NDE ? We don't have any. Such a discovery will shatter all dominant paradigms, advance knowledge in such a stratospheric way, will land its discoverer a nobel prize, infinite acclaims, make him a hero and i'm just scratching the surface, yet we have 0, nada, zitch.

So what, there was once no evidence for quantum entanglement, an idea that was once scoffed at by 'experts' in the field. My own experience of veridical OBEs had nothing to do with wanting to believe, since before that I had no interest in such phenomena. I'm only interested in exploring explanations for it that aren't first starting with the premise that it's impossible, and since there's currently no scientific explanation, we must then only be left with alternate speculative explanations that seek to confirm the bias of that starting premise. If scientific investigation eventually proves it or disproves it, so be it, but until then I keep an open mind, and also consider speculative explanations that are possible under idealism.

The wanting to believe isn't necessarily directed at you, but in general, i notice there is a tendency to rush to comforting beliefs while skeptical consideration is often lacking. Just as concrete example, look at how there is a rush to conclude that all NDE share common aspects like tunnel etc, it's repeated ad nauseam, while a little amount of research shows the contrary as Jim Cross have demonstrated in his comment.

Quantum entaglement doesn't shatter any paradigm, the two are barely comparable, after quantum entaglement was discovered idealism is still a very minority position among phycisits and a minority opinion among philosophers, here i'm not making an authority argument, i'm not saying "Majority believes it, therefore it's true", veridical NDE on the other hand would be so earth-shattering, so revolutionnary a discovery it would make all physicalist and physicalist adjaccent paradigms untenable.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Quantum entaglement doesn't shatter any paradigm, the two are barely comparable, after quantum entaglement was discovered idealism is still a very minority position among phycisits and a minority opinion among philosophers, here i'm not making an authority argument, i'm not saying "Majority believes it, therefore it's true", veridical NDE on the other hand would be so earth-shattering, so revolutionnary a discovery it would make all physicalist and physicalist adjaccent paradigms untenable.

To the contrary, quantum entanglement shatters the paradigm that holds that space and time are fundamental, as per ...Space: The Final Illusion ... If that can be shattered, then why not physicalism?