I’ve wondered about this as well, but I’m doubtful as to what they can really show. For one, everyone who has given testimony about such experiences… is alive. Were they “really” dead? Do we understand the limits of the human body for heart and brain stoppages? If it weren’t unethical, could we do something akin to Flatliners and find out, repeatably, what one experiences when “dead”?
Also, can NDEs make any “predictions” about what kind of afterlife might exist? I’ve certainly heard Christians use these as evidence of an afterlife. I’ve even read a book where I’m assuming the point was to make a case for having met Jesus while dead.
In any case, make the belief pay rent: should Christians see anything different than Muslims, Mormons, or Scientologists? Will culture affect the nationality of the “great crowd of witnesses” seen (is heaven coincidentally populated by a sea of your own ethnicity)? Things like this. If predictions cannot be made… why not resort to a default that we simply don’t understand the brain in conditions of either no activity, activity below our levels of detection, oxygen starvation, or the like?
I’m far more interested in cases where people supposedly saw a basketball on the roof or witnessed a car crash blocks away, but I haven’t found anything tangible on these other than usage in debate by people like Gary Habermas. These kinds of experiences are at least open to falsifiability.
Also, while not an NDE… James Randi had an Out of Body Experience which is extremely interesting to listen to him recall,
In any case, make the belief pay rent: should Christians see anything different than Muslims, Mormons, or Scientologists? Will culture affect the nationality of the “great crowd of witnesses” seen (is heaven coincidentally populated by a sea of your own ethnicity)? Things like this.
This is a good idea.
Also, while not an NDE… James Randi had an Out of Body Experience which is extremely interesting to listen to him recall,
Richard Feynman gave himself one on purpose and described it in Surely You’re Joking. It’s also quite interesting.
Out-of-body experiences are very interesting to me as well. The first response seems to be to ignore them or to assume that they are lying. My response is to cautiously accept that they might be telling the truth, but to wait until we can find out more about what is going on. This could possibly be by using evidence gathered from careful experiments, possibly by using arguments from thought experiments.
I’m far more interested in cases where people supposedly saw a basketball on the roof or witnessed a car crash blocks away, but I haven’t found anything tangible on these other than usage in debate by people like Gary Habermas. These kinds of experiences are at least open to falsifiability.
A very small minority of these claims have been well-documented but they are likely due to simply the sheer number of NDE experiences. There have been attempts to actually measure systematically if people can see objects while in an NDE (primarily seeing if they can look at a random number generated elsewhere) but those have had little success. There’s a chapter on this in Mary Roach’s book “Spook” which discusses also other investigations of evidence of an afterlife. The book does a very good job of showing how the exact border between pseudoscience and science can be hazy.
I’ve wondered about this as well, but I’m doubtful as to what they can really show. For one, everyone who has given testimony about such experiences… is alive. Were they “really” dead? Do we understand the limits of the human body for heart and brain stoppages? If it weren’t unethical, could we do something akin to Flatliners and find out, repeatably, what one experiences when “dead”?
Also, can NDEs make any “predictions” about what kind of afterlife might exist? I’ve certainly heard Christians use these as evidence of an afterlife. I’ve even read a book where I’m assuming the point was to make a case for having met Jesus while dead.
In any case, make the belief pay rent: should Christians see anything different than Muslims, Mormons, or Scientologists? Will culture affect the nationality of the “great crowd of witnesses” seen (is heaven coincidentally populated by a sea of your own ethnicity)? Things like this. If predictions cannot be made… why not resort to a default that we simply don’t understand the brain in conditions of either no activity, activity below our levels of detection, oxygen starvation, or the like?
I’m far more interested in cases where people supposedly saw a basketball on the roof or witnessed a car crash blocks away, but I haven’t found anything tangible on these other than usage in debate by people like Gary Habermas. These kinds of experiences are at least open to falsifiability.
Also, while not an NDE… James Randi had an Out of Body Experience which is extremely interesting to listen to him recall,
This is a good idea.
Richard Feynman gave himself one on purpose and described it in Surely You’re Joking. It’s also quite interesting.
I need to read this! I’m intrigued!
That whole book is great. He’s amazing in the luminosity department.
Out-of-body experiences are very interesting to me as well. The first response seems to be to ignore them or to assume that they are lying. My response is to cautiously accept that they might be telling the truth, but to wait until we can find out more about what is going on. This could possibly be by using evidence gathered from careful experiments, possibly by using arguments from thought experiments.
A very small minority of these claims have been well-documented but they are likely due to simply the sheer number of NDE experiences. There have been attempts to actually measure systematically if people can see objects while in an NDE (primarily seeing if they can look at a random number generated elsewhere) but those have had little success. There’s a chapter on this in Mary Roach’s book “Spook” which discusses also other investigations of evidence of an afterlife. The book does a very good job of showing how the exact border between pseudoscience and science can be hazy.