So if we accept his work is qualified, then we are absolutely placing ourselves on the terrain of religious belief. Am I wrong?
One (call it spiritual) is that consciousness can exist independently of the body.
The other (call it materialistic) is that certain types of brain malfunction manifest themselves as memories of lights, voices and tunnels and/or dissociation from the body.
So of course we have to discuss religion. But it seems to me in any case that any amount of anecdotal evidence (and even clinical tests) could be accommodated by both classes of theories. Is any of this (including the materialistic class as a whole) likely to be falsifiable in a Popperian term? On the other hand, suppose that neurophysiologists start experimenting with non-permanent disruption of brain function to recreate NDEs or OBEs. One could always claim that they are freeing the consciousness to leave the body or that some sort of 'god organ' in the brain is being stimulated. A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
In principle, one could falsify the assumption that consciousness cannot exist outside the brain by finding consciousness outside the brain. If one were to make - say - a golem, it would certainly cause much rethinking of the meaning of consciousness, as would the discovery of a species similar to the Hooloovoo.
W.r.t. the postulate that stimulating NDEs could "free the spirit" - sure, but remember Occam's Razor: How does postulating a spirit leaving the body add predictive power? In the unlikely event that we eventually develop a comprehensive model of neurobiology that can adequately predict certain experiences as a result of certain stimuli... what exactly would invoking spirits add?
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
How do you measure consciousness, what is your definition? Would an advanced enough AI satisfy? A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!
At the end of the day, a Hoovooloo may be a more convincing example.
It's a quite tall order. Then again, spirits are a quite extraordinary claim.
One source of the discussion is the lack of a Formal, testable, and commonly accepted, definition of either "consciousness" or "intelligence."
How does postulating a spirit leaving the body add predictive power?
It doesn't, because it's not meant to. Spirit leaving the body is barely a proto-theory, never mind a falsifiable hypothesis.
At this point we're still collecting observations. If there turn out to be observations which need to be explained, theory building can start at that point.
It would rather anal to pretend there's nothing at all to explain. The stats suggest that around 10% of people who recover from near death have an NDE. The format is usually - but not always - consistent. So there's certainly something happening.
But there's no definitive information about how externalised these experiences are, or what - if anything - they mean.
And 'just knowing' after the experience, no matter how strongly, doesn't - unfortunately - seem a reliable indication of veracity.
Finding evidence of unusual physical perception seems like a good place to start.
A broad class of plausible models of NDEs assign them some property that is, in effect, verifiable; in semi-Popperian terms, the absence of that property is falsifiable.
This class includes all models in which NDEs enable subjects to report a fact about about the physical world that should be unavailable by ordinary means. Examples include NDE models in which reports of seeing the physical world from a position outside the body are are taken at face value.
Given what we know of the shocking unreliability of eye-witness reports, the standard of evidence for rare NDE observations of this sort must be quite high, but there is no reason why the standard could not be met. Further, in many reasonable models, the standard would be met so routinely and decisively that the matter would never have been in question.
In particular, there is a class of models in which NDEs have a teaching purpose, and the teaching is performed by reasonably knowledgeable and competent agents of some sort. By the nature of "teaching", these models naturally lead to the strong expectation that we would have clear, routine, and age-old evidence. Models in which teachers withhold strongly evidential information seem to me to strain credibility. Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.
Thank you for your attention. Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.
But considering the coevolution of biological and social structures, would the reported NDEs really be a malfunction? From a kin-selection perspective, decreasing an individual's fear of death (and perhaps strengthening adherence to social norms) might well be adaptive. Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.
