Weblog entry #280 for simonw
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#280
Near Death Experiences - the eyes have it
Posted by simonw on Wed 8 Oct 2008 at 00:44
Heard a story on radio 4 a few weeks back about researchers planning to put pictures in hospital areas where people having NDE experiences might see them if they were looking down from "above".
Now I hate to seem closed minded to the believers, but we have a good working model of how people see things. It is based on optics, and a whole branch of medicine is dedicated to both it and the proper care of the eyes. You can't walk down a high street without seeing practitioners who will help protect or improve your ability to see by fixing your eyes, or applying corrective lenses to your eyes.
Even the Creationists admit eyes are important in the process of seeing things, presumably they believe god created eyes precisely so we could see, so this research would presumably be blasphemous.
People without functioning eyes see things - but we know they aren't "seeing" what is there.
The rest of the research might be based on sound logical thinking, but this part doesn't strike a promising note.
I can't help thinking this isn't a research priority, since for this aspect to be true it would require a whole host of things to be true for which we have no scientific evidence.
On the upside the Horizon Research Foundation didn't spend 5 quid to renew their domain name, so perhaps others feel the same way and fund raising is a tad slow.
http://www.scimednet.org/library/articlesN75+/N76Parnia_nde.htm
He quotes an an anesthesiologist and a mathematician as saying "maybe it is quantum mechanics*"; well they are both outside their disciplines. I suggest he propose testing "seeing without eyes" to a few opticians, and see how it is received.
"There are two born every second" - to misquote someone, probably not Barnum.
*I hold the world view that everything is quantum mechanics, at least till a better theory turns up; so consciousness being operated by quantum mechanical systems is pretty much a given from the physicists perspective. On the other hand information processing previously has always required energy, so I'd be very surprised at significant computation going on in the air. Sure the brain may be sucking up a third of our calories just to warm the blood, but it would be quite an overturning of recent ideas in neurobiology, and would require a rewrite of all the texts on human biology.
Now I hate to seem closed minded to the believers, but we have a good working model of how people see things. It is based on optics, and a whole branch of medicine is dedicated to both it and the proper care of the eyes. You can't walk down a high street without seeing practitioners who will help protect or improve your ability to see by fixing your eyes, or applying corrective lenses to your eyes.
Even the Creationists admit eyes are important in the process of seeing things, presumably they believe god created eyes precisely so we could see, so this research would presumably be blasphemous.
People without functioning eyes see things - but we know they aren't "seeing" what is there.
The rest of the research might be based on sound logical thinking, but this part doesn't strike a promising note.
I can't help thinking this isn't a research priority, since for this aspect to be true it would require a whole host of things to be true for which we have no scientific evidence.
On the upside the Horizon Research Foundation didn't spend 5 quid to renew their domain name, so perhaps others feel the same way and fund raising is a tad slow.
http://www.scimednet.org/library/articlesN75+/N76Parnia_nde.htm
He quotes an an anesthesiologist and a mathematician as saying "maybe it is quantum mechanics*"; well they are both outside their disciplines. I suggest he propose testing "seeing without eyes" to a few opticians, and see how it is received.
"There are two born every second" - to misquote someone, probably not Barnum.
*I hold the world view that everything is quantum mechanics, at least till a better theory turns up; so consciousness being operated by quantum mechanical systems is pretty much a given from the physicists perspective. On the other hand information processing previously has always required energy, so I'd be very surprised at significant computation going on in the air. Sure the brain may be sucking up a third of our calories just to warm the blood, but it would be quite an overturning of recent ideas in neurobiology, and would require a rewrite of all the texts on human biology.
Comments on this Entry
Posted by Utumno (60.248.xx.xx) on Wed 8 Oct 2008 at 07:18
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(...) planning to put pictures in hospital areas where people having NDE experiences might see them if they were looking down from "above".
<--- preposterous New Age BS.
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Posted by Anonymous (94.209.xx.xx) on Thu 9 Oct 2008 at 12:32
Yeah, but not a bad test. The implementation would have to be very carefully done though, since "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof".
I think that last quote is from Carl Sagan. He suggested that NDEs were possibly the brain reliving birth (moving through a tunnel to a light) as it shuts down. I think that was in his book "Brocas Brain".
I think that last quote is from Carl Sagan. He suggested that NDEs were possibly the brain reliving birth (moving through a tunnel to a light) as it shuts down. I think that was in his book "Brocas Brain".
[ Parent | Reply to this comment ]
The point is not if it is a good test or not, but whether it is worth doing at all.
Reliving birth - very funny. The tunnel white out is common, probably due to lack of oxygen to the retina. I've seen something similar when I fainted once, I don't think I was reliving my birth, or passing beyond, I think the nurse had just taken one blood test more than my poorly body could cope with at the time.
Having just read Demon Haunted World, I think Sagan is a tad lacking in critical thinking when he puts forth what he thinks is worth researching in such areas. Great communicator, important figure in skepticism perhaps, but definitely the kind of guy you'd want James Randi next to when observing mysterious events to make sure he wasn't duped.
Reliving birth - very funny. The tunnel white out is common, probably due to lack of oxygen to the retina. I've seen something similar when I fainted once, I don't think I was reliving my birth, or passing beyond, I think the nurse had just taken one blood test more than my poorly body could cope with at the time.
Having just read Demon Haunted World, I think Sagan is a tad lacking in critical thinking when he puts forth what he thinks is worth researching in such areas. Great communicator, important figure in skepticism perhaps, but definitely the kind of guy you'd want James Randi next to when observing mysterious events to make sure he wasn't duped.
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