More on the NYU meeting chaired by Sam Parnia
Thanks to Werner for posting this link in the last discussion.
Nothing massively new on the research side of things except a little bit more about “COOL II”.
Answers may come from a future Parnia study, focusing on aortic repair patients, some of whom experience a controlled condition that biologically approximates death, with no heartbeat and flat-lined brain activity.
We’ve discussed this a bit already after seeing it referred to on the NYU research page. It is a future study, so don’t expect any results any time before the early to mid 20s (if we’re lucky). In the meantime this is a previously published scientific letter in this area:
Conscious mental activity during a deep hypothermic cardiocirculatory arrest?
The blog article article is quite balanced, with Meyer being a skeptic, but the most interesting sentence from my perspective was this:
P.S. For those wanting more information: Parnia and other death researchers will present at a November 18th New York Academy of Sciences symposium on “What Happens When We Die?” (see here and here)–with a live stream link to come.
I will be checking their site often in the next two weeks, and will let you know on here once the link is advertised. Would be great if a few of us could watch and then discuss afterwards in here. Definitely worth coughing up 30 dollars or so, and taking the afternoon off work.
Of course, it is highly unlikely that he will announce anything specific regarding results from AWARE II, but it will still be good to listen in to their discussions.
AwareofAware 
https://physicsworld.com/a/dark-energy-debate-reignited-by-controversial-analysis-of-supernovae-data/
Dark Energy was immediately accepted even though it was a magic new force and there were near instant Noble Prizes and then this ……AW 1 had more evidence than DE did …my opinion
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I wish Parnia would accept Myers into the aware 2 team, would be a lot more convincing if they get a positive result with a skeptic monitoring them. Problem is a lot of neuroscientists are staunch materialist pseudoskeptics and will likely try to sabotage the study, so the choice of “adversarial collaboration” is very important, need a true skeptic who’s not a meat robot ideology spammer.
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I agree Chad. It would insure that the design and analysis was watertight.
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I’ve done 12 years research into this field but have never heard of the study mentioned in the letter during which the subject J.S had her out of body experience. Are there any links available to details of the study?
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It’s not a study, it.s a letter in a journal. There was a study that was being conducted in Montreal called the COOL study, but the lead investigator relocated somewhere else and the study folded. The link to the letter is in my original post.
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Yep, I’ve never seen the letter by Mario Beauregard, detailing J.S.’s OBE and published in Resuscitation before either…
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Of course Mario Beauregard was one of the key Montreal researchers involved in the COOL study. Think he moved to Texas or somewhere south…having spent many winter days in Montreal, I can empathise with that!
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Hey guys!
Short question: What do you think about Giulio Tononi’s “Integration Information Theory”(IIT)?
What are your thoughts about it?
Greetings,
max:)
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I’ve only read layman’s accounts, but a few simple things i can say are: IIT does not claim to explain consciousness, it’s a nuanced panpsychist theory claiming consciousness is a fundamental property of certain complex systems with a non zero “phi”. It’s like a measuring stick for how conscious a complex system is, i have no idea about the details of how phi is calculated. Some form of panpsychism is absolutely necessary to account for consciousness, materialism by definition is studying the behavior of physical system and science from the very start has limited itself to this materialistic framework. No matter how ingenious and complex a material explanation gets, it will only ever explain more exotic behavior of physical systems, and consciousness is not behavior.
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And be sure to stay for the evening program where we will discuss the science further- I promise- it won’t disappoint!! https://t.co/AaNaCgLSDp
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must be interesting they announce interesting news
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Thanks Werner. I will be signing up for both later. I doubt they will announce anything from the AWARE research study, but it will be worth being a part of it, albeit on line. It is so relevant to this site.
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Dr sam parnia is already pretty sure that he believes that it is possible to have consciousness without a brain
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There is also a lecture online on 19.11
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I think it is the evening meeting on the 18th East Coast time, but shows as the 19th in Europe. I have paid $40 and will try to stay awake for all three streaming events.
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Ok thank you
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As promised, here are the livestream links for the meeting hosted by Dr Sam Parnia next Monday. I will do my best to stay awake for all three sessions and post my thoughts before I pass out.
Livestream 1: 1st session 6pm GMT – https://livestream.com/newyorkacademyofsciences/Resuscitation2019a
Livestream 2: 2nd session 8.50pm GMT
https://livestream.com/newyorkacademyofsciences/Resuscitation2019b
and the evening session starting at midnight GMT:
https://livestream.com/newyorkacademyofsciences/Resuscitation2019c
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Thanks Ben, I’ll be watching closely. Hope we can get some updates the AWARE II study.
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Even if it’s just an update on progress and more definite timelines.
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Some new info regarding AWARE II in this study;
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.140.suppl_2.387
Methods: In an ongoing prospective study (AWARE-II) we piloted methods to administer audiovisual stimuli to test implicit and explicit memories using a tablet computer with images and sounds delivered during on-going CPR.
Results: Among 465 in-hospital CA lasting >5 min, 44 (9%) survived and 21 were interviewed. Of these, 4 (19%) reported explicit memories, including (internal) cognitive processes such as feeling peace, joy, and a perception of seeing relatives, while other memories were suggestive of (external) awareness e.g. hearing people talking, drugs given. One of 19 correctly recalled the audio stimuli given during CPR, but none identified the visual test. In this limited sample, there were no signs of implicit learning. We then compared these to 22 self-reported memories from a registry of CA survivors, Additional themes emerged as follows: 1) a sense of joy and peace (95%), perception of a light (86%), a tunnel (59%), a review and judgment of major life events including a person’s own actions and intentions (54%), and an overall feeling of positive transformation after the event (95%).
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Thanks Samwise. this will be going straight to a main post. Obviously first results from AWARE II. Do you spend all day searching this stuff…I have been in a meeting all day, so this is my first chance to respond! Thanks again
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what do you think of that?
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You are welcome! I have not read your new post yet but there are definately some interesting new facts in the study.
I usually spend a minute or two and chech the first pages of Google for Sam Parnia related news released in the last 24 hours, as my morning routine. Although the topic of consciousness itself does keep my mind busy all day.
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