Tin Foil Hat or Genuine Press Bias?
I am in the process of working on a review of the literature on evidence against NDEs being a genuine out of body phenomenon. The key piece of evidence relates to reports of brain activity after the heart has stopped. There have been reports in rats up to 30 seconds after death, and also in some human studies, but for now I want to highlight the reality of mainstream media reporting on this topic, and how utterly dishonest it can be.
Further down is a quote from the Independent newspaper in the UK discussing a 2017 publication by a group of Canadians that was discussed briefly in the comments section of my last post (Alan mentioned a Newsweek article that cited the same original piece of research). The background is that four patients on an ICU had life support withdrawn and their brain activity was monitored closely before and after cardiac arrest. One of the patients showed some delta wave EEG activity up to thirty minutes after the heart had stopped supplying oxygenated blood to the brain. (Delta wave NREM sleep is not associated with dreaming or conscious sleep, but rather is the deep sleep when the body is repairing itself). Here is the EEG data showing the anomaly:
It is notable that the signals are extremely low in intensity after “death” (the dashed line), and therefore even if they are real, are extremely unlikely to signify “conscious” neuronal activity of the type that would be required to generate complex NDEs and store the information. However, our delightful media have a different take:
The UK Independent quote:
“But tests showed that the patients’ brain appeared to keep working ”
And
“The doctors don’t know what the purpose of the activity might be, and caution against drawing too many conclusions from such a small sample. But they write that it is difficult to think the activity was the result of a mistake, given that all of the equipment appeared to be working fine.” Link to article
What was actually said in the publication:
“An unexpected finding in the current work was that single bursts of delta wave activity persisted following ECG and ABP cessation for one patient. It is difficult to posit a physiological basis for this EEG activity given that it occurs after a prolonged loss of circulation. These waveform bursts could, therefore, be artefactual in nature, although an artefactual source could not be identified.”
And in the discussion section:
“Finally, we also encountered one case where EEG activity persisted beyond the cessation of ABP. Given that this was only observed in one case and it persisted well beyond the loss of circulation, we speculate that this activity could reflect a nonneuronal artefact.”
Can J Neurol Sci. 2017; 44: 139-145
The inference in the Independent is that this “unexplained” activity invites speculation that the brain is up to something after death, adding credence to the meme that NDEs are a natural phenomenon, however the actual publication suggests it is most likely an artifact. Most people don’t bother reading the original piece of research, so will finish this media article concluding that brain activity occurs long after death, and thereby possibly dismissing NDEs as having natural explanations.
Anyway, as mentioned I am going to do a review of current literature on this topic and provide a summary. I will also be looking to shed more light on the difference between death of brain activity and permanent cellular death. Please feel free to make suggestions for appropriate articles in a comment (Please note, if you are posting a comment for the first time on this blog it will not appear immediately to avoid SPAM, trolling and BOTs. Due to my workload, it may be a day or two before I review it.)
AwareofAware 
Yes there is likely some brain activity left (shortly) after clinical death, but could this be enough to generate lucid thoughts, NDE’s etc?? I don’t know. No one can know for sure yet, I guess.
That is why this study is interesting. If we really have a component that can leave the physical body, then at least some patiënts should see the screens being held above their body in this AWARE 2-study.
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Exactly, this is why Parnia’s study is so important. It settles this question once and for all.
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They were patients in a severe coma. Brain damage, how does it affect the electromagnetic waves, I ask ?? It is not a cardiac arrest in a brain without brain damage.
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Even though they may have had brain damage, they had measurable EEG activity prior to the withdrawal of life support. This activity would have most likely been the basic automatic activities of controlling metabolism etc, and unlikely related to thoughts or dreams, although it is not possible to say for sure. However, that is irrelevant, since what the experiment shows is that brain acitivity does stop in 3 of the 4 patients very shortly after, or even before death (cardiac arrest and the ending of blood circulating), and in the one anomoly, the activity is extremely low, and if real would be too low for the kind of conscious processes required to generate NDEs, or were in fact, as the authors suggest, artefacts.
Unless you use conscious patients, whch would be highly unethical, this kind of experiment is only possible in those who are not living in terms of the conscious aspect of living.
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The fact that there are waves of electrical activity in the EEG does not necessarily imply that there is consciousness. In the dream, there is no awareness of Mor, and there is electrical activity. In general anesthesia consciousness is lost and there is still electrical activity.
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It must be said that in Yoga Nidra (Dream Yoga) a conscious state is achieved even with delta waves. By recording the brain activity of several groups of people, some of them regular Yoga practitioners, while practicing Yoga Nidra by means of an electroencephalograph and a PET scanner that produces a color and two-dimensional image of the brain, it was discovered that habitual practitioners emitted their own brain waves of deep sleep, delta waves, in the final stages of Yoga Nidra. However, they had stayed awake throughout the practice and could remember with Yoga Nidra – conscious sleep with full clarity the questions that had been asked and the events in the laboratory.
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OK, that kind of contradicts what I just wrote in my previous reply, and emphasizes the need for positive results from AWARE II so that there is absolutely no fall back on residual brain activity as an explanation.
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Not a conspiracy …just idiots the media. Parnia long ago dealt with the need to kill more rats. He has a ton of eeg. He has tried to explain the difference between brain activity and death of all cells. ….as to that paper. Lets say ot was a single observation of say a crop circle….would anyone want to jump to a conclusion based on one lone event that in fact likely has a mundane explanation. Glad you are doing this.
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I call it the science of the gaps. Even if there is thinnest rationale for believing a materialistic explanation, they will cling to it with a death grip.
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You are wrong. Science just works with verifiable claims, and scientists have no reason to prefer “materalistic” explanation to “idealistic” or vice versa.
To have another life after death is anyway more desirable for people than just to disappear.
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Sure, let’s just ignore all of clashes with the Church since the Enlightenment and claim that there isn’t an ideological preference for anything that doesn’t reek of it, afterlife included.
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In 2013, the IANDS noticed that a major error. The same is that the researchers at the University of Michigan discount or ignore the total power of the electrical activity in the waking rat (that is, when there is a clear conscience), compared to the greatly reduced power of the electrical activity after cardiac arrest. The total power of the electrical activity in the conscious waking rat is more than 30 times greater than after a cardiac arrest (so to speak, estimatively). In other words, it is a residual brain activity.
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OK…now you are contradicting yourself given what the Yoga experiment showed.
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I remember that in his day in a report Parnía said “Some people who have been resurrected say they have heard and heard events that occurred tens of minutes after their hearts stopped (and before the heart obviously restarted). In the Borjigin experiment the electrical activity of the rats only lasts 30 seconds
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The rat 30 second study was contradicted by the times veridical nde in aware 1 where mister A had conscious awareness that lasted at least 3 minutes during cardiac arrest . That’s 2.5 minutes more then the 30 second brain surge in rats .
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The press is just being its usual self – it does not matter that much what is written, no matter how exaggerated some data is, just as long as its not an outright lie or fabrication, and as long as the article generates a good amount of views. This cuts in both directions. Remember how certain sites declared that “scientists have proof for life after death”, or something along the lines of that, after AWARE was published?
Anyways, I had another question. Does anyone here have a defense of AWARE Is OBE-patient identifying the bald doctor? When was the interview taken in which he declared so? When was the first interview taken? Wasnt it said that the patient identified said doctor one day later? What if he just saw the doctor, made up a false bulb memory, and had a lucky hit with the doctors role? I know this sounds weird, but so do disembodied minds.
To me, the visual aspects (given that they are true) are the most compelling ones, so Id be pretty interested in this. Thanks
Jonas
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I think to us believers, these visual aspects are compelling, and have caused us to become believers, especially within the context of a prospective trial like AWARE I. However, without strong, independently verified, corroberating evidence, such as the tablets, then sceptics will aways be able to shoot these down. They will even try to shoot down positive hits from AWARE II, and propose some route by which investigators, or interviewers could have revealed the images to the experiencers. However, the weight of evidence, and the credibility of the researchers, participants and methodology will hopefully discredit any such accusations…which is why I am glad, in some ways, that Parnia is holding off revealing the results until the study has run its course and been completed thoroughly. By then hopefully there will be a large number of hits, and to fake the results would require the collusion of dozens of people, whose careers and reputations would suffer by being shown to have lied.
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Too add to Eduardo. One thing we know or think we know brain cells communicate electrochemically and that interneuron comminication has stopped. Auditory is just as compelling.its psycholgy on our part to focys on visual because the auditory sysyem needs interrneuron communication as well. And we got that in aware 1.
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Hi again, Ben
The small study referred to above (at least the one I found upon following the links you provided) and the speculation it caused has already been cleared up months ago by the authors. They concluded that nothing whatsoever could be extrapolated from it and that the single patient’s (apparent) brain activity after death was an artefact.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-neurological-sciences/article/div-classtitleelectroencephalographic-recordings-during-withdrawal-of-life-sustaining-therapy-until-30-minutes-after-declaration-of-deathdiv/11F9C14102AECB3D579C7DB879D6BB66
http://blog.journals.cambridge.org/2017/03/17/pilot-study-for-the-determination-of-death-after-cardiac-arrest/
“In one patient, low-frequency, sporadic EEG activity occurred after the heart stopped beating. In the article, the authors state that because this activity occurred long after the loss of circulation, this activity is likely an artefact – that is, it cannot be interpreted or trusted as accurate. EEG monitoring in patients can be subject to false readings due to environmental conditions within the intensive care unit that are not related to the patient’s brain activity. The authors conclude that the recording is a false reading and cannot be assumed to indicate that the brain is still functioning.”
“This study did not and cannot draw conclusions about re-defining death or end-of-life. The authors are enthusiastic about the interest in media that this article has generated and look forward to sharing the results of their new study in the near future.”
So it’s old debunked news basically but I can quite understand why many mischievous (and frankly) desperate sceptics would still attempt to use this. You have to bear in mind… from their perspective anything at all is better than mind/brain separation.
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I omitted to say that the above information on the article was made available to me by NDE researcher Titus Rivas MA MSc.
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Which article?
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The article I’ve posted above and also the one you linked to ….can you not see it, Ben ? The Canadian study of four patients with one supposedly having brain activity many minutes after his heart stopped, was actually all explained as an artefact last year. One of the authors wrote this (below) which I’ve posted above …but I’ll post it again. I can’t understand why you can’t see it ….
In one patient, low-frequency, sporadic EEG activity occurred after the heart stopped beating. In the article, the authors state that because this activity occurred long after the loss of circulation, this activity is likely an artefact – that is, it cannot be interpreted or trusted as accurate. EEG monitoring in patients can be subject to false readings due to environmental conditions within the intensive care unit that are not related to the patient’s brain activity. The authors conclude that the recording is a false reading and cannot be assumed to indicate that the brain is still functioning.”
“This study did not and cannot draw conclusions about re-defining death or end-of-life. The authors are enthusiastic about the interest in media that this article has generated and look forward to sharing the results of their new study in the near future.”
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Yes, I don’t consider it a revelation that there is some semblance of residual electrical activity in a dead / beyond use brain. I seem to remember a very similar paper a good couple of years back. The general journalists are missing the point, in that a real revelation is recalled mental activity when there is no or next to no measurable activity.
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Precisely.
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H, again Ben. I’m wondering if there is a problem with posting. My first (post) is still awaiting moderation. Maybe that’s why nobody seems to have spotted it.
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RE-POSTED
tim on March 8, 2018 at 4:06 pm said:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Hi again, Ben
The small study referred to above (at least the one I found upon following the links you provided) and the speculation it caused has already been cleared up months ago by the authors. They concluded that nothing whatsoever could be extrapolated from it and that the single patient’s (apparent) brain activity after death was an artefact.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-neurological-sciences/article/div-classtitleelectroencephalographic-recordings-during-withdrawal-of-life-sustaining-therapy-until-30-minutes-after-declaration-of-deathdiv/11F9C14102AECB3D579C7DB879D6BB66
http://blog.journals.cambridge.org/2017/03/17/pilot-study-for-the-determination-of-death-after-cardiac-arrest/
“In one patient, low-frequency, sporadic EEG activity occurred after the heart stopped beating. In the article, the authors state that because this activity occurred long after the loss of circulation, this activity is likely an artefact – that is, it cannot be interpreted or trusted as accurate. EEG monitoring in patients can be subject to false readings due to environmental conditions within the intensive care unit that are not related to the patient’s brain activity. The authors conclude that the recording is a false reading and cannot be assumed to indicate that the brain is still functioning.”
“This study did not and cannot draw conclusions about re-defining death or end-of-life. The authors are enthusiastic about the interest in media that this article has generated and look forward to sharing the results of their new study in the near future.”
So it’s old debunked news basically but I can quite understand why many mischievous (and frankly) desperate sceptics would still attempt to use this. You have to bear in mind… from their perspective anything at all is better than mind/brain separation
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Yep, it was indeed waiting to be moderated because it had links. Of course this type of debunking does not get reported in the mainstream press…only the possibility that they have found a materialistic explanation for NDEs.
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Agreed, Ben. Just to clear things up, the Canadian study on the four patients that you referred to in your opening post, are you happy that that is the one I’ve mentioned with regard to the author withdrawing it (the brain activity anomaly after several minutes) as an artefact. What I mean is are we singing from the same hymn sheet here 🙂 ?
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It is the one I saw Tim. Btw. I thought you had lost it when you mentioned a non existant post.What research is this other ADE researcher doing?I really think we can say after death now. I have spoken to those sho had experiences near death those are interesting but different because tge person was near it. These are now after it. Also tgey have killed enough rats too.
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This is the same study, but I don’t think the author withdrew it, he just clarified what he’d said all along, but which the media studiously ignored and then created their own false story out of. As anyone can see, and I state in my original post…there is no story, except that once your heart stops beating, your brain stops functioning, and within a few minutes starts to die if not cooled or provided with oxygenated blood through CPR or mechanical equivalents.
David, I agree, Dr Parnia first coined the term ADE, and it is still appropriate, and any attempt to suggest otherwise goes against all the evidence. However, until we have the irrefutable proof of the AWARE II study, the materialists will remain in a state of complete denial. Even then they will leap upon any quantum mechanical explanation…anything but the possibility that faith groups have been right all along.
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Quantum mechanics doesn’t make sense as an explanation. I can see MWI being altered, but that one posits that universes branch out from events, if that was the case there is no reason why the recently dead would be ‘seeing’ what is happening in the same universe that they just died in. OTOH, consciousness “fields”, of any kind, only circle back to spirit/soul. A rose by any other name…
In the end, I think that a positive result will perhaps move more young people to the “spiritual but not religious” camp and possibility bolster the shamanic/hallucinogenic practices. Faith groups need to counter many other aspects of the negative campaign that has been increasingly leveled against them to see growth, at least in the US (in other places, such as Latin America, they may go back to the Church, but that is because religious tradition is much more ingrained in their respective cultures).
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to Ben: as I see, you’re so opinionated. There aren’t any results yet, but you already know that they will affirm your belief and how ‘materialists’ will respond to it…
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Eric – I agree that people will more likely gravitate towards the New Age/Eastern end of the faith spectrum..they are already way ahead of the Christian establishment in the thinking on NDEs.
Just_man – keep it civil when responding to other people’s comments. As an FYI, my opinions come from my experience of how atheists respond in general to any argument that contradicts their world view.
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Ben – yes, all people (not just atheists) tend to dismiss arguments that contradict with their beliefs, it isn’t something new. And, on the other hand, people also tend to overestimate evidence that confirms their beliefs.
But at present evidence for afterlife in orthodox-catholic-mainstream-protestant view isn’t so solid that the only reason for NDE-nonbelievers not to accept them is their state of mind. Maybe they are just seeking the truth. Really, is it reasonable to argue that we just die and that’s all (worse version), if there is proof of the opposite (best version)?
And when you say ‘christian’, do you consider those christian groups that don’t believe in immediate life after death?
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best=better.
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Ben I think a lot of materialists readily dismiss NDEs for legit reasons, (1) the reductionist approach has been highly successful even in biology (and consciousness is obviously linked to biology), (2) damage to specific parts of the brain will destroy properties of the mind that’s popularly attributed to the soul. I have talked to materialists irl and online, many of them aren’t the (insert profanity) who insult any non materialist. I know the likes of Novella/Dennett/Randi etc, and materialist forum trolls who think they are better than everyone else. But in my experience most materialists aren’t like them at all, it’s just the assholes who come online to insult NDE research so you feel they are all assholes, normal materialists are too busy with their lives to bother with this shit.
I do feel you are quite opinionated as well. I come from a christian background but after extensive reading into NDEs/consciousness and evolution, I firmly believe the bible is a man made construct and there’s no intelligent design (I think Nagel’s teleological evolution is on the right track). I believe idealism is the right way to go and “God” is very impersonal and NOT a separate entity from us, unlike what is expounded to death in traditional christianity.
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Chad and just_man. Points taken. I concede that I may come across as opinionated, and possibly arrogant at times, this may be partly due to the fact that I have repeated these aurguments ad nauseum, and so maybe take less care than I should when discussing these things. My Ph.D. supervisor was an atheist, and one of the best people I have ever met, and he was curious about my beliefs and never rude about them, so I also agree that not all atheists, and quite possibility only a small minority are the shouty nasty kind…but they tend to be the ones that get my attention.
I agree that the current pool of evidence is insufficient to change the mind of the hardened skeptic, but I disagree that the evidence supports the materialist position on this. However, the current stalemate can only be broken by strong empirical evidence one way or the other and that is hopefully where AWARE II will come in
On evolution you are getting near what is actually my biggest area of interest, and the one in which I have the greatest expertise. My Ph.D. was in organic chemistry, and I worked on nucleosides and amino acids, the building blocks of DNA and proteins. Due to my research, I have as strong an understanding of this subject area as anyone else out there, and while I am agnostic on intelligent design, I am certain that the balance of scietific evidence suggests that life could not have come into being by random natural processes, and that there is measurable evidence to support the belief, or theory, that life was initiated by intelligence. After that, i.e. once life gets going, it’s up for grabs, but it is interesting to note that attacks on neo-darwinism are becoming more mainstream within the scientific world, and this trend came to the fore at a meeting of the Royal society last November.
Lots of books have been written on the origins of life, but most are way over the heads of lay people. I am currently in the process of writing one that hopefully makes this subject more accessible to everyone. I will obviously announce it on this blog, and then you will know my real name!
As for Christianity, the Bible etc…that is a whole different argument, and one I wish to keep off this forum until the other issues have been settled – which hopefully will be before the end of my life time!
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This is a bit off point but another aspect I always think supports the mind been a separate entity is that of shared death experiences (SDE), which indicate that no matter the brain state one can still have an transcendental experience or whatever you wish to call it. I think Raymond moody pointed out if shared death experiences are so this indicates that the experiences (both sde and nde) are not the brain got awry.
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Click to access s12264-018-0215-9.pdf
How about Chinese Quantum Brain research …..Buddhism is back under the new emperor as long as its not the dali lamas version
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I must admit, I am somewhat ignorant of the underlying explanations provided by those who attempt to use quantum mechanics to explain the origins of consciousness…I carelessly throw it in there as I know that these arguments exist. However, although having had to solve Shrodinger’s wave equation as part of my undergraduate studies in chemistry, and understand the nature of electrons orbiting a nucleus and get a glimpse of the wave/particle duality idea, in general I have a poor understanding of how quantum mechanics really works. If I have time, I am going to try to address this, but it will take several months of dedicated reading to really start to get a handle on it, and at this stage I am not convinced of the benefits of doing this, even if I had the time.
Ultimately materialist attempts to explain the orgins of the conscious fall short, and until their is a concensus position on this it is not always worth addressing every single new idea, as they are more likely than not to vanish into obscurity with time.
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Ben said > “I must admit, I am somewhat ignorant of the underlying explanations provided by those who attempt to use quantum mechanics to explain the origins of consciousness”
Me too, Ben but as I understand it, no one knows how quantum mechanics might be implicated in the formation of consciousness. There’s no particularly convincing evidence (yet) that it is.. or if there is (evidence), there’s no agreement about it amongst the physicists etc.
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There are not many interpratations that involve or require consciousness. The most famous are interpratations that do are from are Wigner, Bohm an Penrose. Here is a short video from Stuart Hameroff that explains his and Penrose theory, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx0SsffdMBw
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I audited a course on it once because tge math was way above me but I asked questions like the math on the quantum object that went through solid objects. I asked if I saw it right being stupid and all….and the answer is well it works. …….But when you refer to materialism you are referring to an ancient conception od the atom. The quantum atom is not a real object that has an independent existence. Yet somehow we are made up of a bunch of nonreal stuff that seems real. Now the materialists and skeptic crowd downplays this too but…..its not really the case. I am going tomorrow in another link on the sikicon valley Connectome fad. They seem to think they understand memory. It makes cryonics look downright conventional.
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Off topic but thought I had to post this http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5503045/Tech-billionaire-pays-10K-die-brain-uploaded-online.html. I suppose materialism is becoming like religion, he’s just like the islamic suicide bombers (minus the libido).
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Chad found it too. Creepy reminds me of a bad old science fiction movie. We dont understand memory. There seem to be a bunch of things involved but but the more we look those evaporate just like brain scans. There us a new book out on that . There was a review in the NYT. Those turned into the new phrenology
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https://www.closertotruth.com/contributor/frank-tipler/profile
Here is a Christian Physicist for you Ben
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Have you seen this publication ? https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323696815_Meditation-Induced_Near-Death_Experiences_a_3-Year_Longitudinal_Study
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the term “near-death experiences” in my opinion is wrong, they happen in conditions where people are not in danger of life (anesthesia for example), so to speak only of cases of cardiac arrest does not make sense. about this study, it does not surprise me, I write from Italy and the prof enrico facco (expert in nde) through hypnosis has revived a nde in a patience that had experienced
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I have migranes with lots of weird lights and strange visual stuff. My brain looks great but fires too much sometimes. Ots an interesting experience. One I was dizzy and lost some vision and came back with double vision. I thought maybe it was something bad …was it cardiac was i dying….went to doctor nope just migrane brain was firing circulation fine. What does this have to do with an ADE? Not a thing. Their brains and heart on on off.
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This guy…https://www.quora.com/profile/Ian-Sawyer. This guy is an example of the type of cringe I sometimes see on Quora. Never have I seen a more arrogant person in my life until I saw this guy.
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@Jarred Messing
I couldn’t resist taking a quick look at that link. find it hard to believe the guy is even serious to be honest. What a monumental berk he is. Quite depressing really.
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Tell me about it. Extremism is toxic. Both theist and atheist extremism. He appears to fall under the latter. He is always like “Original question”. Everything he says reeks of arrogance. His toxic behavior is the reason why I constantly flag his answers.
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At least people get to post some great stuff in reply to his questions.
https://www.quora.com/Has-anyone-on-Quora-ever-had-a-theophany-with-God-the-Father-as-Jesus-did-That-is-a-direct-experience-meeting-with-God-as-the-Father-in-their-life
I had a “theophany” when I was 19 years old. It was in a dream that was more realistic than any other I have ever had, and in this dream state I met God… and he was exactly the way people describe the Being of Light in NDEs, only I couldn’t see anything. It was the most real and vivid experience of my life…but it was a dream.
Some atheists are just angry truth seekers.
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So what is the purpose of giving this link? Just to feel better about yourself? «God, I thank you that I am not like other people…» 🙂
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I honestly cannot wait until 2020 results come out and people like him get put in their place.
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So much kindness to people with another point of view.:)
Yes, some people (both theists and atheists, both believers and skeptics, both materialists and idealists) may be unpleasant, but why are you acting the same way in return?
And again, you don’t know yet what results will come out in 2020.
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I agree, we should show more grace when it comes to the way we treat people with different points of view…but that is easier said than done when you have been on the end of extreme rudeness and ignorance from numerous atheists, and had decades of Dawkins shoved down your throat.
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If the truth is on your side, it should be quite easy to stay calm. Whatever opponents say or do, it doesn’t affect reality. At the same time, when some person is emotional, it shows that he or she has some doubts on this subject.
And I think (this is also for Jared) that the main purpose of all this activity should be to find the truth (objetive), but not ‘to put some annoying atheists it their place’. 🙂
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Why the smile was put in the beginning of the line, not in the end where I placed it?
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smile=smiley.
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I was just pointing out toxic behavior. Having a point of view or belief is fine but Ian Sawyer’s behavior is toxic acting like he knows everything and treating his beliefs as if they were facts hence why I flagged most of his answers.
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Yes, such behavior can be called ‘toxic’. But why did you mention him here?
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A chance to join the AWARE 2 study team as a Research Data Associate,
http://jobs.nyulangone.org/job/8150607/research-data-associate-per-diem–new-york-ny/
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Wow does anyone else reading between the lines on this. One of the most interesting job announcements I have ever seen.
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I will make a new post out of this as we get about 7000 visits a month on this site, but not everyone reads the comments, and even fewer make them, and I think there are some important points to make from this.
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Indeed, however, the way this person would be present for the C.A., be conducting interviews AND processing the data, opens the study and any positive results to potential accusations of “cheating”. I have said all along to make sure this is watertight, and properly blinded, they needed to have different people doing the interviews and data processing, and neither should be present during the CA. However, given the fact that even cheap researchers would cost a study in excess of $60,000 with all the benefits etc, they may not have the budget for this.
It also suggests that they will indeed be at least another two years before reporting the results. It also makes me wonder now whether or not they had fully verified hits before now…possibly, but without the help of someone dedicated to this task.
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That is very unfortunate. I mentioned in an earlier post that they could use automated cameras to record the entire room (what is possible by law anyway) instead of someone being there with a tablet. It would cost less and cheating would be considerably harder as there would be evidence to verify that the memories were real events that occured when the patient was pronounced dead.
It would also make the detection area for the target much larger (from an Ipad to the entire room), provide evidence for anything that the patient hears rather than just sees and it would rule out the chance that the patient misses or does not pay attnetion to a small target.
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What exactly do you mean by “It also makes me wonder now whether or not they had fully verified hits before now”? Did you think AWARE II had hits, before? Or do you question whether even the first AWARE had a hit of visual awareness (even if not from the tablet)
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Does anyone know how much the study costs?
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https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=mkJRDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA227&dq=sam+parnia&ots=jRgDE64crV&sig=wyk3BlBtmw58iR5dByDyZkhWG2I#v=onepage&q=sam%20parnia&f=false
I dont know how this book link will work but it is the Blackwell Companion to Substance Dualism Brand new.
As to the Job ad There is probably more than one hire ….I bet someone is already at it
Just a guess but as much money as this is It would not surprise me
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So Aware results in 2020 or 2022? Just asking because Ben said another 2 years.
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“We will analyze all the results at the end of the study and wont have any news regarding data and results before the study is completed in 3 years…” — it is tweet from Sam Parnia’s Twitter posted on Nov 10, 2017, the screenshot is here: https://awareofaware.co/2017/11/11/false-alarm/
So probably 2020, but not earlier.
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Exactly, and he confirmed this in an email to me as well. He was very clear that there would be no release of data prior to completion of the study.
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I bet he already has some data but he is waiting to release it all in one package come 2020.
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Has anyone been on the NDERF site before? I was reading a story published recently about a man who died and came back from being shot in the heart with a nail gun. Quite nasty way to die that is.
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I tend to stay away from those sites because it looks like anyone can just submit one. I know at least 2 people that had them and I believe them and I am sure most are but then there are ones that are made into movies and hurt the important legit research like AWARE.
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From fiction Bond shoots a bad guy in the eye with one in Casino Royale.
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Shoots a guy with what?
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