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

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2021 9:17 am
by MaartenV
Even Bernardo doesn't want to talk about The Light' and 'the Tunnel' among academia. It will be laught at and has no place among this academic envoriment. Yet so many people have seen it.
Bernardo talks about 'mind at large', but he doesn't talk about the light for which there are so many eyewitnesses. Why?

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

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2021 11:14 am
by Soul_of_Shu
As far as scientific academia is concerned, if it can't be measured and quantified in some objective way, it's of no concern to them, as they have little or no interest in any metaphysical explications. That such supranormal experiences are common in NDE accounts makes no difference to their method, as that makes it no more measurable, especially if it can't be correlated with brain activity, so they are just filed away as being inexplicable by conventional scientific means. BK, while acknowledging such experiences as having valid metaphysical/spiritual significance, in making the case for idealism, his main objective is to frame idealism in cogent terms that are most compatible with the terms of scientific academia, so as to appeal to their criteria, and at least be considered parsimoniously plausible. So for him there is little to be gained by trying to offer speculative metaphysical explications for such experiences, however interesting that may be to those who crave such musings. In any case, I suspect BK would say that these are still dreamlike phenomenal experiences, however they may be shared within the collective psyche, that are representative of some noumenal realm of ideation, and as such will always resist any attempts to be explicated by any method focused solely on what can be objectively measured and quantified, and so must remain within the purview of metaphysics.

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

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2021 12:11 pm
by Jim Cross
MaartenV wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 9:17 am Even Bernardo doesn't want to talk about The Light' and 'the Tunnel' among academia. It will be laught at and has no place among this academic envoriment. Yet so many people have seen it.
Bernardo talks about 'mind at large', but he doesn't talk about the light for which there are so many eyewitnesses. Why?
Scientists have studied it.

https://www.livescience.com/11010-death ... ation.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... the-brain/

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... xperiences

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

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2021 6:52 pm
by MaartenV
Jim Cross wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 12:11 pm
MaartenV wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 9:17 am Even Bernardo doesn't want to talk about The Light' and 'the Tunnel' among academia. It will be laught at and has no place among this academic envoriment. Yet so many people have seen it.
Bernardo talks about 'mind at large', but he doesn't talk about the light for which there are so many eyewitnesses. Why?
Scientists have studied it.

https://www.livescience.com/11010-death ... ation.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... the-brain/

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... xperiences
If you read the NDE literature, you will see that alle these 'arguments' from scientists are debunked.

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

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2021 8:01 pm
by Jim Cross
MaartenV wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 6:52 pm
Jim Cross wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 12:11 pm
MaartenV wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 9:17 am Even Bernardo doesn't want to talk about The Light' and 'the Tunnel' among academia. It will be laught at and has no place among this academic envoriment. Yet so many people have seen it.
Bernardo talks about 'mind at large', but he doesn't talk about the light for which there are so many eyewitnesses. Why?
Scientists have studied it.

https://www.livescience.com/11010-death ... ation.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... the-brain/

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... xperiences
If you read the NDE literature, you will see that alle these 'arguments' from scientists are debunked.
Oh. So you didn't mean that scientists don't study the phenomenon. You just meant you don't agree with their conclusions that it is simply a reaction to oxygen deprivation in the brain.

The fact that you can create the experience almost on demand by putting person in a centrifuge ought to some insight as to the nature of the phenomena.

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

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2021 8:33 pm
by Eugene I
MaartenV wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 6:52 pm If you read the NDE literature, you will see that alle these 'arguments' from scientists are debunked.
Jim Cross wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 8:01 pm Oh. So you didn't mean that scientists don't study the phenomenon. You just meant you don't agree with their conclusions that it is simply a reaction to oxygen deprivation in the brain.

The fact that you can create the experience almost on demand by putting person in a centrifuge ought to some insight as to the nature of the phenomena.
OK, we have two hypotheses on the table:

1. All NDE-like experiences are produced by oxygen-deprived material brain. Consciousness does not and can not exist and function without material brain.

2. Consciousness can exist independent of the material brain; however, in the human form the experiences that consciousness can have are mostly limited by the framework of the brain functioning. When brain functioning resides (such as in oxygen-deprived or clinical death conditions), consciousness can have wider range of experiences, including the NDE-like experiences.

We also have multiple scientific studies confirming the facts that oxygen deprivation and clinical death may induce NDE-like experiences. Some of those studies contain evidences that the NDE-like experiences were occurring during the absence of detectable brain functioning (zero-line EEG, per Sam Parina papers). However, can such facts fully debunk or fully prove either hypothesis #1 or #2? Of course they can not. In light of these evidences:

- The hypothesis #1 can still be supported by claiming that it is exactly the oxygen deprivation that makes the brain produce the NDE-like experiences.
- The hypothesis #2 can still be supported by claiming that it is exactly the oxygen deprivation (or cessation of brain functioning) that allows consciousness to be released from the limitations of brain functioning and to experience a wider range of experiences (including NDE-like experiences).

However, the evidences from Sam Parina papers regarding reproducible NDE experiences (such as seeing the events in the ER room) during the periods of the absence of detectable brain activity makes it harder to align with the hypothesis #1. The defenders of the hyp. #1 would have to assume that brain-produced consciousness can function in a full capacity and even have functioning senses (vision, hearing) during periods of zero-line EEG. It is still possible that such brain functioning can in principle happen without detectable neural activity, but so far no other evidences (other than the ones from Sam Parina papers) and neuroscientific explanations/models exist to support such claim (at least as far as I know).

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

Posted: Sat Aug 07, 2021 8:37 pm
by Soul_of_Shu
Of course, this experience of an all-pervading, bliss-infused light has been encountered in countless mystical experiences, and recorded ever since such accounts were first put into writing thousands of years ago—albeit, not so much the preceding 'tunnel' experience—whether occurring spontaneously (as in my case), or meditatively induced, which have had nothing to do with NDE events, or oxygen deprivation, or anaesthesia, or pain-killing drugs, or psychedelics, etc. So while this mystical 'light' experience often correlates with NDE events, and hence correlates with various physical conditions associated with those events, there is no reason to conclude that such correlation and conditions must be present in all cases. So once again, conventional science simply has no definitive explanation that can encompass all varieties of such mystical experiences.

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

Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2021 11:35 am
by Jim Cross
As a note, the original post said zero about NDEs. It may have been intended as a reference to NDEs but, in fact, only mentions tunnels and light. That experience can occur in many different circumstances and is clearly caused by a drop in blood flow to the brain. I've had the experience myself when a technician missed a blood vessel or punctured it (not sure which) while I was donating plasma.

What's more the original post said effectively that no one in academics was giving the experience any consideration. That simply isn't true. The basic light/tunnel experience is essentially fainting and, of course, medical science is very concerned with it as potential indicator of disease as well methods of avoiding it happening in patients. The broader NDE experience has also been studied with entire journals devoted to it but, like other paranormal research, it has produced little in the way of definitive conclusions. It has yet to show that the experiences are anything other than brain generated.

Regarding NDE's, this ground has been covered many times and, as has been pointed out, there is no more than anecdotal accounts of veridical experiences while someone appears to be clinically dead. Many of these accounts have no controls and have been contaminated with information provided to the patient either before or after the experience or are heavily subject to cognitive bias in interpretation of accounts that might inadvertently include prompting and cueing the patient. Many of the best accounts are old with most of the people surrounding the account dead so any follow-up is impossible.

Finally, if NDEs are taken somewhat at face value, it is hard to know what to conclude from them. Most people who have near death episode have no recollection of anything. Going by majority rule, we would have to conclude there is nothing to experience after life ends. If we want to look at the experiences of the minority, a half or more have horrible experiences to report.

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

Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2021 12:45 pm
by AshvinP
MaartenV wrote: Sat Aug 07, 2021 9:17 am Even Bernardo doesn't want to talk about The Light' and 'the Tunnel' among academia. It will be laught at and has no place among this academic envoriment. Yet so many people have seen it.
Bernardo talks about 'mind at large', but he doesn't talk about the light for which there are so many eyewitnesses. Why?

I sort of agree with Jim here. These experiences are not useful for deriving metaphysical truth. In general, we must start with our own experience which unfolds in clear waking consciousness. Eventually, NDE sort of anectodes may become helpful in dispelling specific objections to spiritual claims or supporting very specific spiritual claims. But BK is not involved in doing either of those.

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

Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2021 1:42 pm
by Eugene I
Jim Cross wrote: Sun Aug 08, 2021 11:35 am Finally, if NDEs are taken somewhat at face value, it is hard to know what to conclude from them. Most people who have near death episode have no recollection of anything. Going by majority rule, we would have to conclude there is nothing to experience after life ends. If we want to look at the experiences of the minority, a half or more have horrible experiences to report.
Well, first, according to Sam Parina studies, about 20% of people resuscitated after clinical death people report NDE-like experiences, which is not statistically insignificant. Second, a low statistical frequency/probability of occurring is never an argument to dismiss any facts in any scientific study. The probability of producing a Higgs boson in Hadron Collider in a random particle collision is 1 in 10 billion, yet this has no relevance to the experimental proof of its existence as long as the events are reproducible with significant enough statistical value.

Because Higgs boson production in a particle collision is likely to be very rare (1 in 10 billion at the LHC),[m] and many other possible collision events can have similar decay signatures, the data of hundreds of trillions of collisions needs to be analysed and must "show the same picture" before a conclusion about the existence of the Higgs boson can be reached. To conclude that a new particle has been found, particle physicists require that the statistical analysis of two independent particle detectors each indicate that there is lesser than a one-in-a-million chance that the observed decay signatures are due to just background random Standard Model events – i.e., that the observed number of events is more than five standard deviations (sigma) different from that expected if there was no new particle. More collision data allows better confirmation of the physical properties of any new particle observed, and allows physicists to decide whether it is indeed a Higgs boson as described by the Standard Model or some other hypothetical new particle.

In July 2017, CERN confirmed that all measurements still agree with the predictions of the Standard Model, and called the discovered particle simply "the Higgs boson".[1] As of 2019, the Large Hadron Collider has continued to produce findings that confirm the 2013 understanding of the Higgs field and particle.