Of Mice and Men (or rats and humans)
Thank you Jordan for letting me know that the Parnia lab has added a video of the AHA presentation to their YouTube channel. Here is the link below:
First of all, the slides were ever so slightly different from the ones that I posted a couple of weeks ago, but there was nothing fundamentally different in the message. The presentation was very balanced and factual in nature. He is a very good presenter and extremely credible. Key points:
- Around the 5 minute mark he discusses recruitment and details the huge issues they have with getting significant numbers to the interview stage. While this is frustrating for everyone who wishes to get enough data to be able to draw definitive conclusions, we must acknowledge that the Parnia lab are doing their very best to get results.
- At 10.20 he discusses the EEG data, and this is where the title of this post has come from. We have data from EEG in rats suggesting that there is some brain activity, and we have human data from previous case studies and now AWARE II suggesting “spikes” in EEG activity, including some gammar, which he specifically states is “usually associated with consious thought processes, recall of memory and so on…”. It is important to note that the amount of gammar is not presented.
- At 11.35 he makes a very intriguing comment in the discussion on implicit learning. He acknowledges that the sample size was too small and that we need larger studies to get better information on testing the implicit learning aspect, but he said this: “we had one case that worked“. Nothing more. Mmm.
- He spends a considerable amount of time on the fact that most patients when discussing their life review focus on morality and ethics rather than religion. He suggests this is curious and intimates that this is not something easily explained by medical or scientific understanding.
There is very little for the dualist in his presentation, but without exceptionally strong supporting evidence, I would not expect that at a scientific congress like this one. He gives lots of meat to the materialists, more so than we thought. The suggested implication that the EEG spikes are associated with consious processes and memory recall is provocative to us, especially without any specific evidence that links the two seperate observations (they may not even be in the same people). I believe he is giving attendees the opportunity to think what they want of this, and many will go down the rat route and mix dubious association with actual causation. It is unclear from this whether he believes this to be the case, but given his past statements, I suspect not.
As stated previously, in the absence of time stamped EEG data correlating with specific recollections, the EEG data is thought provoking, but does not inform us what is actually happening. I very much hope the paper will have more on this.
But what about the case “that worked”? No further details were provided, and I suspect he is saving that for the final publication. Is he referring to the 1 visual or 2 auditory recollections? Why did it “work”? Watch this space, but suffice to say, once again Parnia is leaving us in a state of expectant limbo!
AwareofAware 
In all these prospective studies, the OBE component is almost always absent. In the retrospective cases typically self-reported at various places around the Internet it’s typically present. This is a major red flag to me. There’s certainly a hype that obfuscates this phenomena.
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The problem is that this phenomena is hard to register due to technical constraints and it not being well understood in general.
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@steen
1. From past hospital cardiac arrest studies we know there is a positive correlation between the strength of the NDE/OBE, and severity of the cardiac arrest.
2. Unfortunately the severity of the cardiac arrest also correlates with
a) the severity of the brain insult,
b)the patients probability of survival, and
c) the speed with which they pass away following resuscitation.
3. Unfortunately in these prospective hospital cardiac arrest studies those with the strongest NDE/OBE’s who are successfully resuscitated die before enrollment and interview.
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While I suspect you are right, we don’t have empirical evidence to support that.
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Van Lommels study showed some correlation between depth of experience, and the length of time the patient was in cardiac arrest.
Lommel’s study also showed that those who had an NDE subsequently died more quickly than those who didn’t have an NDE. At the 2 year follow up 19 of the 62 had died, but as you can see below 13 of the 62 had actually died within just 30 days.
Death within 30 days
13 (21%) who had an NDE
24 (9%) who didn’t have an NDE
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Max, I appreciate your answer but as Ben I also question mark the empirical evidence supporting this (correlation between time in cardiac arrest and NDE). It’s small number you are citing and the frequency of events in the Van Lommels study seems to have gone down in more recent studies. Most people undergoing longer cardiacs arrests emerge in delerium and dies soon after. Of course they are never interviewed.
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@Steen
Some quotes from Van Lommel’s Lancet Study…
“… 62 (18%) patients reported some recollection of the time of clinical death (table 1). Of these patients, 21 (6% of total) had a superficial NDE and 41 (12%) had a core experience. 23 of the core group (7% of total) reported a deep or very deep NDE. Therefore, of 509 resuscitations, 12% resulted in NDE and 8% in core experiences…”
“…Mortality during or shortly after stay in hospital in patients who had an NDE was significantly higher than in patients who did not report an NDE (13/62 patients [21%] vs 24/282 [9%], p=0·008), and this difference was even more marked in patients who reported a deep experience (10/23 [43%] vs 24/282 [9%], p<0·0001)…"
"…We interviewed 248 (74%) patients within 5 days after CPR…"
On that last quote… AWARE I got nowhere near this level of promptitude. Hence if we consider AWARE I's results in the light of Van Lommel's results… the severe delays in enrolling and interviewing patients during the AWARE I study most likely resulted in them losing NDE data, particularly the deeper NDE experiences.
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Van Lommel’s Lancet study reported longer periods of cardiac arrest and unconsciousness for outside of hospital CPR, than for inside of hospital CPR.
– Of the 110 patients successfully resuscitated outside of hospital, 88 (80%) had more than 2 min of circulatory arrest, and 62 (56%) were unconscious for more than 10 min
– Of the 234 patients successfully resuscitated within hospital, 190 (81%) had less than 2 min of circulatory arrest, and 187 (80%) were unconsciousness for less than 5 min.
They also reported… “…deeper experiences in patients who survived CPR outside hospital…”
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I like the Van Lommel study because it was the first to set out to truly capture this in a clinical setting in a methodological manner, however there are aspects to it that show it was the first attempt. Much of it is descriptive in nature,and while intriguing, make it harder to draw clear conclusions.
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Steen, I think you need to look at AWARE I and the Van Lommel for OBEs in controlled environments, then you have numerous reports documented by writers such as Moody et al from HCPs which are more than just random reports from the web.
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There is also Dr. Penny Sartori’s verified OBE that took place during a prospective study in 2008 in Wales.
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Depends on where you read. If you just trawl through NDE cases on somewhere like IANDS you’re going to find a lot of cases missing OBE components. OBEs get talked about a lot more because they’re more remarkable cases, not because they’re more frequent.
One of the big ones Bruce Greyson likes to bring up, if I can remember it correctly, is someone who went into Cardiac arrest and learnt that the nurse who had been attending to her died in a specific way, a long way away, when no one else knew about it. That’s a pretty remarkable case with no OBE component, but isn’t as striking so doesn’t get talked about as much.
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There basically haven’t been enough prospective studies so the numbers are two low – aware 2 has managed to interview about 50 people with cardiac arrest, with about 20% having some kind of experience/NDE.
Whereas retrospective you have a much bigger pool of people to choose from, higher numbers, higher likely to get a case with an OBE.
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Hi Roberta, your point is bang on, but your numbers not, and the real numbers actually exemplify your point further…I think it was only 28 were interviewed. Given that 10-20% of people report NDEs,and of these 25% report OBEs, you would expect 1-2 OBEs reported. 1 visual OBE was reported, but not verified in any way at all.
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Max, surely you can see the overwhelming confirmation bias in your last paragraph? The discrepancies might just as well be explained by issues in the Van Lommel study. Van Lommel claims that the ‘event’ is memorized even after 10 years by the survivors. If so, a small delay before the interview shouldn’t make a difference. I’m more skeptical about the claim that people were interviewed after only 5 days.
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I seriously doubt memory can be considered as an explanation, if they died before being interviewed. I just assume that anyone commenting on this subject, on this blog (awareofaware), knows the history of AWARE I, and the severe backlog of cases, and exceptional delays they encountered enrolling and interviewing survivors.
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@Ben Williams So, apparently AWARE II is still recruiting. But the percentages and data are already being presented in spite of this? I don’t understand.
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Given the plan was to recruit about 1500 patients in total and in the latest abstract they had considerably less than that, it makes sense to continue to enrol. I also wonder if they are holding back some cases for the publication. It is possible that they presented an interim dataset at AHA, and have a larger cohort to include in the paper, with more interesting data to try to get into NEJM, the Lancet or Nature.
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Dear Ben Williams,
When can we expect the final publication of AWARE II results?
Regards, Khushru Bacha
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Welcome Khushru, and Happy Christmas..even if you don’t celebrate it! That i a question we all want to know. Parnia said in Fall 2022, but that has been ad gone so who knows!
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Thank you Ben for your prompt reply and Merry Christmas to you too!!
Regards, Khushru
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@Ben Williams Merry Christmas! Did you ever take a look at Libet-type experiments and the neuroscience of free will? Some materialists argue that the results of those experiments is proof of physicalism, but they are controversial even inside this crowd.
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I had heard that talked about years ago but recently there has been push back.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-a-flawed-experiment-proved-that-free-will-doesnt-exist/
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Should read this as well, local realism is dead and we should rethink about the role consciousness plays in this so-called reality https://iai.tv/articles/quantum-mechanics-makes-no-sense-without-the-mind-auid-2313
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Funny how some interpret the results considering Libet himself explicitly endorsed the reality of free will
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Yes. Lots of materialists in podcasts mention the experiment and the ones that don’t use the philosophical argument of genes and enviroment.
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@Gunther P
Indeed materialists do like citing these experiments on their podcasts/articles despite what the author concluded.
Along with
1) Phineas Gage (did he turn into a zombie or lose all sense of agency? No, so that argument does not work for them). You’d think they’d have a better example after 150 years in any case.
2) Split brain patients having their consciousness split in 2 (despite Roger Sperry explicitly denying this). New research these days confirms that perception is split but not consciousness, which is what we would expect if mind materialism is false. When I asked my neurologist friend what he thought of consciousness being intact in these patients his reply was “that’s obvious”
3) The twins in Canada cojoined at the head and brain where they share perception (one can taste what the other is eating) but if you watch all the interviews you can clearly tell they are two different agents and can’t share thoughts which would more or less falsify materialist theories of neural darwinism and IIT
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Should read this as well, local realism is dead and we should rethink about the role consciousness plays in this so-called reality https://iai.tv/articles/quantum-mechanics-makes-no-sense-without-the-mind-auid-2313
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I’m not a specialist in this subject, the article has a paywall but don’t a lot of physicists claim that the observer effect is independent of consciousness? I even saw a paper in NDE research stating that misinterpretation of quantum mechanics in those studies could “reduce the credibility of valuable research” .
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On the contrary.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/03/12/136684/a-quantum-experiment-suggests-theres-no-such-thing-as-objective-reality/
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https://iai.tv/articles/consciousness-is-irrelevant-to-quantum-mechanics-auid-2187
Thoughts?
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My thoughts are stay away from quantum musings. For now. There are points of view like this from the article and that’s fine but then there’s Nobel prize winner Sir Roger Penrose who thinks consciousness is the collapse of the wave function. There is evidence to support either view. I lean toward Penrose because the experimental they have for quantum activity in the human brain was unexpected but it happened. Both in microtubules and in cerebral fluid. Those unexpected findings are how breakthroughs happen and it wouldn’t be the first time Penrose had wild ideas that turned out to be true.
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I agree but that should work both ways – materialists can no longer say that their philosophical ontology is backed by physics anymore. Maybe new physics will restore realism and determinism but as it stands now that is not the case
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Carlo’s view is not shared by many physicists
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This is a recent experiment potentially witnessing the entanglement effects between the heart and the human brain.
https://bigthink.com/hard-science/brain-consciousness-quantum-entanglement/
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@Ben Williams Honestly, I’m starting to put on a tinfoil hat with the mainstream media coverage of NDE’s/RED’s. While some would say that the media would like to confirm the bias if the “majority” about death not being the end, I notice that supposedly unbiased sources exagerate the findings of studies that replicate (innacurately) aspects of the phenomenon.
A example of this is a article of the BBC, that outright callls those experiences “hallucinations” and mentions the paper about the similarities with DMT experiences and the EEG on the dying brain, as if the latter confirmed what the article tries to present, when even the ones that presented the study about the pacient with epilepsy said it was speculative.
It’s gotten so bad that I see some mentioning the endogenous DMT theory outside of this subject matter.
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The BBC are awful.
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As I said, thanks to media misinterpretation, even outside of discussions related to NDE’s the endogenous DMT theory is thought as a fact. I find this quite concerning.
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What do you think of the argument that am OBE is just synesthesia?
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@yitzgoldberg123 the argument begins dead because in the state where OBE’s happen the five senses should not be working.
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So true; thx.
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Hi Im new and i want to know if anyone has a refutation for this article
Death of a gedanken creature, Journal of Near-Death Studies,
He has like more of this kind of arguments but does anyone knows about hím or knows some kind of refutation for his argument?
Because he saya that a simulation of neuron explain near death expirience
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Nice find. I think the author is correct, in so far as there are repelling->attractive structures within the classical brain network (he labels these food->predator). And that interpreting these input patterns from different perspectives (temporally vs spatially etc) is possible (he says one perspective might look like logic). And that if the network is disrupted it will function in a non-evolved way (becoming inaccurate).
But, I suggest you also have to somehow bind these temporal and spatial patterns together to get an experience. Not only binding them together classically, but also finding a way to bind them (add up) these patterns non-classically, in such a way that this non-classical process can feedback into the classical network, and that this classical network substrate needs plasticity that allows it to evolve.
What he appears to be describing is the classical perspective of a neural network, from within a system that already has experience. He’s not explaining either the classical and non-classical binding required to have not only an experience, but apparently an experience which is also shared with other experients.
It’s necessary for the author to show (non exhaustive list)…
1) how NDE/OBE experients apparently obtain access to information which is not their own (i.e. veridical information)?
2) how information (the NDE/OBE) could be laid down in the model of a disrupted network he proposes, but then recalled later (presumably when the network is no longer disrupted)?
3) why such a network disruption as he proposes for a recalled NDE/OBE often results in long term behavioral changes that tend towards group average behaviour.
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Thalamocortical Algorithms in Space! The Building of Conscious Machines and the Lessons Thereof,” Proceedings of the World Future Society,
Does anyone have an argument against this? because he affirms in this and two other articles that his simulation of neurons explains near-death experiences and I obeyed them, but it is hard for me to see where he draws these conclusions from or if it were true, why has it not had any impact on the subject of where
That is why I would like to ask if anyone has any arguments against what he presents
He has like two more post’s about the topic
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Without criticizing this paper, the researcher here is basically trying to draw a comparison between a computational systems and human cells. He is essentially trying to demonstrate how neuron misfiring at death can account for hallucinatory experiences. (denial of input and output sensors leading to the activation of hidden neuron, where stimulus values in the lesion meets the numeric threshold for the hidden neuron to be activated)
This is a very interesting thought experiment but bare in mind that this paper was published in 1995 and it does not adequately explain what consciousnesses is and we are no closer to it today.
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Another interesting paper, from the same author, once again describing many of the requirements of a classical brain. But it’s not worthwhile discussing these further, as the same problematical issues in the first paper I responded to, are reasserted in this paper.
I will only add that the classical ideas the author believes can explain all experience are just approximations. The author rejects both biological processes (replication and plasticity), as well as QM as playing any role ( point 4. page 422 ), despite the fact we’ve known since the 1920’s that Quantum Mechanics more accurately describes nature, and that it has replaced classical physics.
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Here is an article from SUSAN C. GUNN refuting Stephen L. Thaler’s claim in the article:
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc799413/m1/5/?q=Stephen%20Thaler
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Thanks for that link, following Susan’s article (which I skipped through as I didn’t find it particularly relevant) is Stephens rebuttal to it.
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There was a CA due to ventricular fibrillation in national TV . A football that’s is US football 🏈. A player was hit in chest and then collapsed. It was not the make believe tv version the trolls love. He had immediate care and he is still no conscious. The fact that We have auditory hits closes the case for me. I
Just like the Nimitiz did for UFOs for me.
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I agree. I had never seen someone just drop dead before. It’s jarring. But that there are any reports of any hits from others in the same circumstance is definitely leaning toward a closed case for me as well
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As a fan of the Buffalo Bills (the team the player was from), I watched it too live. It was not even a particularly hard hit, but apparently if you hit the chest at the exact right (or I guess wrong) time, it can trigger a commotio cordis and subsequent cardiac arrest. Kind of like what happened with Chris Pronger of the NHL in St Louis 24 years ago. Pronger survived and continued to play and became a member of the hall of fame, let’s pray that Hamlin will likewise recover. But the point about how sudden the loss of all consciousness in an actual cardiac arrest is much different than how it is portrayed on TV is real.
Let’s also not forget that Parnia is first and foremost a resuscitation specialist. It was something to watch the medical team treat him exactly according to how Parnia detailed it in Erasing Death although they did not put him on ice (I am not sure if we ever came to consensus on that practice).
As a former lifeguard, I would encourage everyone to familiarize themselves with automated external defibrillators (AEDs). They’re found in most public areas these days and CPR alone actually has a very low success rate (below 10%) but AEDs with CPR done early can boost it to closer to 30-50% survival.
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Great advice Nic.
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Yes Nic. He first asked who won. The nurse said he did. But with that team he was dead for just seconds so I didn’t expect much. But it’s not like TV or like the trolls say that sound just cant float into your dead brain. It also explains like Parnia why reports are rare. . I also understand why he avoids media trolls.
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Hello, sorry for exposing my doubts a lot and I know that this blog is not made for this topic, but in the article that I added, it talks about a debate between Dennett and John Searle and I had understood that, to put it in a way, Searle had been, so to speak, the winner. but it says here that searle misunderstood dennett’s point of view.
I would like to know your opinions about the article or information that you know about it
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By the way, I’m not in favor of either of them, I just focused on pointing out why he gave rebuttals to Dennet’s point of view, which seems a bit extreme to me.
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Hi Lusho, it’s too off topic I’m afraid.
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that’s a pity, whatever it was that – I assume – you’ve removed, might have been interesting… those those papers from Stephen Thaler that Lusho mentioned were very interesting and quite relevant. Never come across his ideas before, but I’ve done quite a lot of reading about them since… it was a very obscure find.
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Yes, I know, but I don’t know of another blog to share ideas of this style without being attacked in the process. I don’t know if you could allow it just this time.
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@Lusho As long as you’re open minded, and not an argumentative materialist who doesn’t review both sides of the literature… psiencequest.net generally allows a wider range of topics to be discussed.
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hello me again after reading the article a bit I think I understand a bit and it refers to the fact that we know that a sensation is denotative and supposedly the qualia according to the
Dennet’s point of view are connotative but I have a question here.
are qualia somewhat connotative?
I would like to put the link so that they could see better in detail but I know that it is not so related to the topic.
but I would really like to know your opinion and ask for support since I am not very expert on the subject and I have been following this blog a lot and I know that it is open-minded with people who really see both sides of the arguments and I have been seeing a lot of the subject of nde and conscience but I do not quite understand this point that has me going around.
If you would give me permission, only this time, well, I know you told me no, but I would really like to know a point of view from people who are familiar with this type of topic. And I promise I will not share things like this again, just that I really would like a little. support with this topic only
pd: thanks max for the link but I couldn’t find a specific section for the topic I wanted to present.
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I have approved it, but keeping an eye on things.
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Ah, not so interesting after all. 😦 Unfortunately it’s not possible to understand nature using such broad and inaccurate labels (Qualia etc), which is why philosophers can’t agree amongst themselves what they mean. You certainly can’t think accurately, or usefully about the NDE/OBE using these labels.
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Which is why I originally blocked it as I felt it was pretty pointless…lots of philosophical waffle and little else.
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@Ben Williams I think NDE/RED’s are relevant to the consciousness debate because understanding the mechanisms of it can open the door for other types of research, either in a physicalist or dualist causation.
But for some reason most materialists are afraid of research related to the phenomenon, prefering to formulate theories, declare them as truth, hope the public accepts, and bury the topic.
A example of this is a article made about AWARE I on a scientific journal, yet it was written in a very unprofessional way, almost like a troll, with arrogant gloating about the lack of hits and using the confabulation argument to justify OBE’s.
Many prefer eliminative materialism instead of a “weaker” reductionism, saying that in the future AI will be conscious since humans are also machines with automated response mechanisms, but on a bigger scale and agency being a illusion. They find confort in this idea as a stronger case against mind-body dualism and conveniently promote the current AI craze (That I’m skeptical of for different reasons)
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Aware II update https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkgLBCATUgA&ab_channel=ParniaLabatNYULangoneHealth
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It’s the exact same video as the one above, no?
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Yep
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Something I didn’t notice, when Parnia talks about delusion, false perception of medical events or painful hallucinatory experiences, he precises they occur during the waking-up process. I hope it’s not an assumption and that it’s sure these hallucinations are proven to be related to that precise event and cause by that.
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There is data to support this. It is true that ICU delirium often manifests as misappropriation of the ICU surrounding. For example, my father had ICU delirium AND a near death experience. His ICU delirium took place after the NDE. He describes his ICU delirium as beings with ominous Mickey Mouse heads poking him sticks of fire in his neck. As it turns out, once he was coming out of clinical unconsciousness, his two nurses both had scrubs that had Mickey Mouse faces on them and they had to use his neck for an IV line. A total misappropriation of his surroundings.
HOWEVER, it is true that researchers scoff off distressing NDE’s and I believe more research is needed here.
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Hello, I would like to ask about something since some argue that something called a brain tsunami would explain the nde and how this tsunami affects the spatial area of the brain (I don’t remember the name well) that would explain the obe.
but reading a little the first point for me would be that the cases they studied were people with severe brain injuries so I am not an expert but I think that this could influence the brain tsunami to occur and that is why it occurred in all the patients because they all had some type of brain injury and the issue of the obe I have always thought that this area only generates the sensation of leaving the body, not seeing the body and in the cases that they saw from above, they could only see parts that they could see with their eyes, such as their legs or it was hallucinations and for me they do not resemble the obe experiences that are reported in these cases but the only thing I would like to ask is your opinion that the cerebral tsunami supposedly explains the nde
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Hi Lusho,
“Brain Tsunamis” are a wave of depolarisation that occurs when the brain releases all the electrical energy stored in it. This usually occurs in a period of minutes after a supply of oxygenated blood has stopped. This was once considered irreversible, but is now theoretically deemed to be reversible unless damage has occurred to the neurons either as a result of trauma or due to the extent of depolarisation itself. Given the paucity of EEG data in people who have died and been resuscitated, I don’t think there have been cases yet of people who have had full brain depolarisation as recorded on an EEG and returned to life in a condition to report anything, but correct me if I am wrong. It is possible that Parnia has cases from AWARE II, but I doubt because if he did, and the patient fully recovered, as it would be big news.
From my understanding, unlike EEG which occurs during normal brain activity (which ceases with about 30 seconds of the heart stopping) and is represented by constant “chattering” mini spikes on the different bands of the EEG, depolarisation is represented by single massive spikes on the EEG…as a massive pulse of electricity.
Now, of course people are free to speculate of whether this could produce NDEs, or any form of conscious recollection, but such speculation would be without evidence since these peaks are no consistent with EEG recording from conscious individuals.
However, as you point out, the case for OBEs is entirely different. When people have depolarisations due to epilepsy, they may have what they describe as OBEs, they might see a body part from a strange angle, but it is still one that would be consistent with the line of sight they had. OBEs reported during NDEs are completely different in the way they are described and impossible to have experienced from within the body.
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